Dublin, Ireland

I finally got all of our photos together from our trip:



I hope you enjoy looking through them! We had a great trip! We hope to go back again someday! (If you click on the slide show it will take you to the album with captions for each photo)

OFFF & Valencia

Ok, I am going to get caught up a little at a time. First off, here is the booth at Oregon Flock & Fiber:

As you can see it is packed with lots of yarn and goodies. It was loads of fun, as usual. Only Sunday it poured down rain on us, which is a first for this show. Still it was lots of fun to see everyone and hang out with Donna and Chrissy of Gardiner Yarn Works.

The Thursday before OFFF I finished the Valencia Sweater! Perfect timing since setup was on Friday. This is the front as modeled by Maud. It turned out a little big on me. I probably should have stuck with the smaller size, since the ribbing gives it lots of room. I might just need to knit another one of these to find out! Maud is also sporting the Farmers Market Bag also by Gardiner Yarn Works. A perfect accent to the sweater in my opinion.

The back of the Valencia sweater has another twisting cable pattern, which is much easier than it looks. You can see it puckers a little at the top of the cable. That's because I didn't have enough time to block it before the show. Now that I have washed it that part lays flat. I really loved knitting this sweater. I love that it is all in one piece, including the cap sleeves. The pattern is well written and a joy to knit!

As a reminder, the $10 or less yarn sale extravaganza is still going on in the shop! This includes many favorites including Silky Sock yarn, Twist, Wool Singles, and more! It's perfect for the holidays, which are right around the corner. Make sure you check it out!

Big Fall Sale!

So while I was traveling I thought a lot about my shop. I have decided to have a big clearance sale. I really want to try out some new yarns and fibers, but that means clearing out some other yarn. 

So, I thought it would be awesome to have a huge sale, with big discounts! Select Yarn for $10 or less! Patterns for $1. Plus more stuff! You can check it out on the Sale Page of the Shop!

Also, don't forget if you purchase 4 or more items you get free shipping in the US and Canada! 5 or more items for free shipping everywhere else. This includes sale items and patterns. Enjoy!

Home!

I'm home! Just to let you guys all know. I'll write more shortly. Just a quick post to say I am back and as soon as I get caught up on some things I'll try posting about what I have been up to!

Oregon Flock & Fiber

Just a little note to say that they moved the food vendors this year off to the side of the lawn. So if you are looking for me I still have a booth on the lawn, only in a slightly different spot. My booth is next to Gardiner Yarn Works, which is next to the picnic tables.

The booth is all setup and I'm super excited to see everyone tomorrow!

Fabric Dyer's Dictionary

I just got a new book and I'm really excited about it:

 

It is Fabric Dyer's Dictionary. What I love about it is it puts together pretty much every combination of color for dyeing fabric. True it is for dyeing cotton and other plant fibers, but I still can see a use for it as a jumping off point for dyeing wool. At the very least it is totally inspirational. I can tell the author put a lot of work into this book. She gives recipes for how much dye to use to dye a quarter of a yard up to a full yard of fabric. Recipes which she has tried out herself! When I was in college taking surface design classes this would have been a life-saver. As it is, I have it now and can't wait to put it to good use!

For those of you using a reader you probably haven't noticed I changed the layout a bit! Just a bit of a spruce up to make things look a little more stream-lined. I now can use a bunch of blogger widgets, which also makes me super happy!

Also remember this is your last weekend to order from the shop before Oregon Flock and Fiber! For local people, I will see you at OFFF!

Hood River Top-Down Mitts

I have been thinking for some time that it would be really cool if there was a pattern for mitts which went top-down. No more wasted bits of yarn and what a super awesome way to use up every bit of that super special yarn, like malabrigo or something with cashmere. Mmm... After all you can just keep knitting until you reach then end of your yarn or the desired length.


So around Christmas I designed these mitts and sent off the pattern to Gardiner Yarn Works. They were in too late for the January release, so they were put off for a later release. After designing a pattern it has to be reformatted, tech edited, test knit, and then sample knit. These are my original prototypes. The light blue is Malabrigo, which I need to finish up for myself. The black is out of Cascade 220 Superwash and was a pair for a husband of a friend for Christmas. I intentionally made the pattern so it would fit pretty much everyone. The ribbing makes it pretty stretchy! I love how snuggly and warm these mitts are!


Recently I finished these up for the son of a friend of ours. They will be tucked safely away for Christmas. They are a smaller size than the pattern as written, but if there is enough requests then I'll create a child version as well. Wouldn't they be cute for baby X? I think so.

I should also mention that the shorter version is made for a 50 gram ball of worsted weight yarn (about 110 yards) and the opera glove length is made for a 100 gram ball of worsted weight yarn (about 250 yards). Of course you can make them as short or as long as you like! You can find the pattern for sale here in the shop or on Ravelry!

Also available: Plus! Sizes for Sea Breeze and Valencia!

Dice Bag!

I took a tiny break from my Valencia Sweater to knit up a quick gift for a friend's birthday. Since her party was last night, I can now share it with you:


It's a Call of Cthulhu dice bag (Rav link). It was definitely a big hit with my gaming friend. I also got some big hints from some of my other friends that they wouldn't mind being the owner of a similar bag. We'll see...maybe Christmas =). Anyway, the pattern is a free one, which you can find here! I did modify it a little bit. The gauge for the project was a bit tighter than I knit so I knit the body of it on US6s, but I thought that would be too tight for the colorwork so I knit that part on US8s. I would have possibly used US7s, but for some odd reason I don't own any. The yarn was from my stash. I used Nashua Superwash in Olive and Cascade 220 Superwash in Black. I think it worked out perfectly. The only other thing I changed was the top and bottom colorwork border. I had the green go every other stitch instead of every 4th, because I wanted it to end evenly. One of those personal preferences. I'm sure you will see what I mean if you knit the pattern yourself. Overall a very fun and quick gift to knit for one of the gamers in my life. =)

Pansy Patch Revisited

Ok, I have a little backstory to the yarn I am presenting today. A couple of years ago I had somebody order yarn in colors I wouldn't have personally put together. However, figuring that the customer knew what they wanted I went ahead and dyed up the order. Upon receiving the order the customer then returned all of it because they didn't like it, which made me very sad. Thankfully I was able to put most of it in the sale bin and clear it all out. The last bit of it was this lovely Pansy Patch on Alpaca Lace:

The colorway is happy and springy and the yarn is simply wonderful, being 100% alpaca. However, the 2 together are simply awful. No amount of discounting made this yarn appealing. So I was looking at it and I thought what it really needs is to be overdyed. I wonder what would happen if I overdyed it with blue? I figured I had nothing to lose, and at the very worst I could overdye it all black if it came out awful. Here are the results:


Now that is more like it! These colors fit much better with the yarn and would look lovely knit into a lace shawl. There are 3 skeins, which I have kept at the sale price, as a limited edition colorway. They are available here! If they haven't sold I'll have them at Oregon Flock & Fiber.

Speaking of which, between Oregon Flock & Fiber and our trip to Ireland I am going to be pretty busy. So any order made between September 23rd and October 17th will be shipped out October 18th. There is plenty of time between here and there to get your orders in. The shop is pretty well stocked and I'm adding more everyday!

Valencia Progress

I am almost to the sleeves on my Valencia! I am so proud! I love this sweater!


This is the front. I decided not to do the waist shaping, since it is so heavily ribbed. I really want to make sure it fits and this way it definitely will!


This is the cable up the back. I also love that since the yarn is my handpainted superwash worsted each ball is a tiny bit different. So the first one was very purple and the second one has a bit more blue in it. I like that it looks on purpose as it shifts in color.

I can't wait to get it all done and then try it on. I might even get a photo up here with me wearing it, instead of Maud. We'll see, I make no promises.