SOAR 2008 part 1

Pic heavy post ahead to show you the wonders of this year's SOAR.

There was much celebrating to see each other.

That is Abby, Judith & Maggie

Abby, Shelia & Jennifer


Steph, Juno (C)


Rachel with her friend Angelina

And more joy to meet new people I have know online.

Maia who spreads joy in her wake


And Jim


Lots of newbies that seem to fit right in:

Cosette who helped fiberguy in spinning class

Dana & Meghan, Ravelry friends showing off class samples. Oh and Pat with her camera behind.

And people that warmed my heart

Steve & Connie of Spindlewood


Carol & Pete & the wonderful Marcy showing off a strange spindle.


Two of my especially treasured friends, Jeannine & Denny. Here Jeannine is showing her amazing bands that she wove for this year's fashion show. Perhaps someday she will show them all to the world as they are astonishing. Marilyn M. said Jeannine is always the wedding dress of the fashion show. She always goes last and gives us all a jaw dropper.

OK, there is much more to come.

Knitting all over the map

My new SNB group met on Tuesday and I started this sock. Finished Thursday. Boy are these fast and fun. Just a bit of left over dyed Top of the Lamb sport singles which will be hidden under the haze of the mohair after the first washing.


Fiberguy went too and worked on his sock. He has turned the corner and done with his decreases. He is fascinated and thrilled with the magic of heel turning. Ah, what a wise man.


My favorite IV nurse is leaving and I am thrilled for him and bummed for me. He was sure to be the most gentle of them all. So, I am thanking him the best way I can, with my needles. He gets a Marsan Watchcap. I added a stitches to make it 96 around since a lot of people mentioned it being a bit small. What do you give someone that never has to stick you more than once?


And lastly, I have been spinning the same old, same old. My light green blend of superwash merino. Do you think I will end up with two or ten sweater's worth of this stuff? I have 2 pounds spun of the dark green alone and it is only one of many colors. I was thinking a raglan tshirt in stranded knitting. Just how big do I think I am??? I did really get into the blending part and still have two partial mixes to go. It is fun, mindless spinning, a bit finer than DK, 3 ply, maybe a light sportweight. The socks of the same ilk have been into the washer and dryer a hundred times or so and still sweet. All the time I was carding, I kept thinking of my old Starmore yarns and the magical blends of so many colors.

What was I thinking?

Complete denial. It will fit. Really. My heel is this pointy.


Thank goodness somebody's sock is going well. Fiberguy's blasting through his first pair of socks. He did the whole foot portion in one go. Afterthought heels are coming along well. Decreases, both left and right are all in line. I made a pair of socks out of the same yarn for him and frankly, it took longer. He is driven.

My birthday shawl has begun. The yarn is yummy baby alpaca and it was soothing during recent treatments. Nothing like 4 tries with an IV to make you grab your shawl. [Special note to Denny - I couldn't have done this last treatment without YOUR wonderful shawl. Thanks for wrapping me in love.] I think I will do the old fashioned all garter and not add lace. Sometimes garter is great.

Meanwhile, I had a ravelry thread going on what can you do with one ounce of really fine stuff? My answer for this one skein was the old feather and fan. I have only 1/2 oz but it was 290 yds. So that makes 9280 ypp, right? It was a lovely sample given to me by Rita Buchanan ages ago. Silk, cashmere, merino in Rose Quartz form Lambspun. Don't they have nice processing? It took two partial evenings to spin and will be much longer to knit. But the longer it gets, the more I want to keep it instead of my original idea of giving it away. Does that make me greedy? It is so soft and shiny and lovely and simple. And yes, my ballwinder for this project is electrical conduit. I cut a gazillion of these for a class I was teaching and they are so handy to have around. I prefer a pipe cutter instead of a saw since my edges remain nice and clean. Cheap smooth tools and soft shiny yarn. Can you tell I am having fun?

Any other suggestions for only an oz of fine stuff, usually laceweight or finer are gladly considered. I wind up with a lot of single oz skeins and am getting tired of multicolored lace shawls. I wish we could search on Ravelry by weight of finished item.

Birthday knitting and dye question

This year I am giving myself a birthday gift. A Pie Are Square shawl from Knitting Around by Elizabeth Zimmermann. And since I am Always Cold, I am doing it in Moss Heather Alpaca Cloud from Knitpicks. And for that extra luxury and warmth, I am double stranding it. Even though my birthday is only weeks away, I will be knitting it for a long time and in my favorite color. Just the joy of that soft yarn running through my hands for some time to come is a great gift indeed. I feel so spoiled.

In addition, since there are always multiple projects going on here, we have some Steeler socks for a little extra support for the Black and Gold. I am woefully low in Steeler footwear, but alas, these are for fiberguy. Two mosaics with some strange bits between in a handspun sockweight superwash Merino from the Black Lamb. Very thick. My own Steeler socks come next and I am spinning the gold right now.

My current socks are green and just noodling around with a travelling rib. We dyed this last spring.

And last, for all you dyers out there, a conundrum. I have this color, which I don’t like.

It is DK weight, cabled wool yarn. I would love to hear from anyone, or everyone, about how to overdye this. I mean, what color to use. I know I can go navy, or black. But any other colors you suggest could really help me. I have a couple of pounds of it for a sweater and I just don’t think I can live through the experience in a color I hate, even with a yarn I love. I favor greens but this has a serious teal going on. Anyone ever overdye this color before? As it is winter and I dye outside, I really don’t want to be out there freezing doing dye sampling, so I am trying to save some steps and ask for help. For once.

SOAR - The Painted Skein with Janel Laidman

I just loved my workshop class with Janel. I had read the cover article on striping and understood the words but didn't have a feeling for the project going into the class. I knew I did like to play with color and there would be great fibers. But this class hit me like a brick. Wow, did I have fun. And now when I read the article, it really makes more sense to me. The essence of the class was that you can control your own striping withing your yarn by selection from painted roving. In our first sample we spun a roving and plied it as a single unit (A). In the second section (B) we tore the roving in half then spun and plied it so my example goes yellow to red, red to yellow (C). I won't go through the whole class, but you can see from the samples that we were really getting some serious and interesting striping. And face it, any class where you can come out saying 'Undulating Palindrome Fractal Stripe' just adds to your geek level, doesn't it?

Needless to say, our class ran to the market to gather up all the linear and palindrome striped rovings we could find and I will bet there is a lot of dyeing going on around the country this weekend.

I am sorry to say that I don't have a good photo, but we were lucky in class to have the scholarship recipient Emily Goodling. Keep your eyes on this one, I tell you. She was 15 and spun circles around us all and wore the most amazing items, all hand crafted. She was sweet and modest and I am delighted to see such talent at SOAR - great choice by the scholarship committee on that one.

Alden & Stephenie, Shetland and MS3

Have you ever used one of these?

Knitting Belt and needles, also called whisk, whisker and other names I have forgotten.

I like mine but could use it more. The long needles are harder to find than the belt. I see from other sites that there is a controversy about how many needles to use. I like 4, three to hold the sweater and one to knit around. The comments on other sites are heated, so I will leave that search to you all. But I do invite comments – how many needles do you use? In a dream world, I would find those nice, slightly bendy 18” steel needles that are not rusted. But Inox is also nice.

And as long as we are in Shetland knitting land, I have to mention this amazing photo tour of Purlwise’s trip to the land of wool. Her blog is splendid and this photo tour just can’t be beat.

Oh, and one last visit on today's Shetland tour.

It is the damn MS3 that has me blogging slowly these days. I just started a week ago and am so far behind. I blasted through clues one and two and am on three now, but quite shy about admitting to being two clues behind – well three today. Liking it though. Most of my spinning is lace weight when I am not paying attention or spinning for pure joy. Perhaps this is just the push I needed to return to lace. I really would hate to show a photo of the bins (yes, multiple bins) of laceweight. I swear that I could knit a shawl that could cover the house easily. It is a small house, but still…

I am using the steel sheet from my local lumber supply chain, along with super magnets and flat magnet strips as row holders. That way, not cat tail or clumsy human can disrupt pattern continuity. The yarn returns to a cage (dvd spindle) when not in use and stays nice and clean.


Meanwhile, for those who have expressed interest, I am putting the final touches on the socks with all the popular techniques built in. Henceforth called Bandwagon socks, for joining all those bandwagons on my favorite sites. They should be up very soon – just waiting for a sunny day to take the final photos.

Still recovering after last weekend’s workshop. Alden Amos and Stephenie Gaustad doing fiber prep. Extensive, wonderful, exhaustive and exhausting. Just wanted to sit at the feet of the masters and soak it all in. Ooh and we got to play with all those fancy tools. [Ropemaking, combing, wheels, ooh what fun!]