What I did on my Summer Vacation

Last week I joined a couple thousand like minded people and knitted for five days straight. It was great. Of course I wasn't really knitting the entire time, what with helping a couple of vendors set up booths, all the running errands, and of course the shopping. The only bad thing about was the same problem I always have, forgetting to take pictures.

After helping Crafting for the Peanutgallery, Stick Chick Knits, and Rainy Days & Wooly Dogs, on Wednesday, everyone was beat and after a quick trip to a vendor party put on by Lantern Moon, we hit the hay early for an early start to the first official day.

That is the pattern I wrote for Rainy Days & Wooly Dogs, The Twisted Goth, using Goth Socks, a fantastic self-striping yarn.

What is better for starting the day right than doughnuts, and when your in Portland, Voodoo Doughnuts is the place to go.

Where the maple bacon doughnut was a must try for me. It was tasty.

Then there was the general tom foolery of friends while we were at the Sock Hop.

There was of course much more to the summit, lots of great teachers, plenty of good friends, and an unbelievable amount of knitted objects parading around. I also managed to get my name in a news article, just search for Scott and I'm there, as well as my face in a news video about the Guinness world record attempt, I'm near the end. If you watch the video, you'll notice they included a shot of every single male knitter in the room.

If there is another Sock Summit, I'd be happy to go again, I had lots of fun. Just a self note for next time, take more pictures!

Plaited Points

Just a quick post to say that Plaited Points is now up on Ravelry as a free download, including my original charts and all errata.

I'll post about Sock Summit next.

On the Blog again

Well, it's been a while, but since I'm not working massive amounts of overtime at work now, I thought it might be time post to my blog.

One of the main things I'm currently working on is writing the pattern for my cabled gauntlets. I'm hoping to have a finalized pattern up on Ravelry in the next week or two.

I've also decided I could really use a nice, warm scarf, so I'm making the Shifting Sands Scarf out of Malabrigo Dos, the color way is Armando.  Kind of a blurry shot, I'll put up a better shot when it's finished and blocked.

Although when I'll get time to finish it is unknown, since it's time to get moving on gift knitting.  I'm going to make a Feather and Fan shawl for my mom, out of this great yarn, it's Flydesigns Blue Face Leicester Lace, in the Black Plum color way.

Not much to post about, but I did say every Thursday, and it's Thursday.  Hmm, perhaps a specific day is not the answer, but more of a weekly thing.  The last thing I want to do is ramble on about nothing in particular just to fill a blog post.  Hmmmmm.   

Well, I do have the baby booties all finished up, and a nice blurry shot to go with it.

I also have this I'm working on, Oh! Canada, though not very diligently, I cast it on earlier this month because the yarn was too tempting, Hand Maiden Silk Cashmere, but I should consider doing some work on it soon, since fall is not too far away here in the Pacific Northwest. 

It's almost August, and time to start thinking about casting on a sweater.  I've got a Pattern, Smokin', and some yarn sitting near me just calling to be used.  I want to finish the Rockin Sock Club sock I'm currently working on before I cast on another project, so it may have to wait for a day or two.

Blog, Write Thyself

Apparently blogs don't write themselves, and the thoughts in my head don't get transferred magically into the computer and onto the internet.  Is someone working on that?  Although that would be my preferred method, I'll have to make do with typing it all out manually.  To that end, I'm going to shoot for an update every week on Thursdays.  

So, I'm currently working on these for a friend, Rowan Maragaret's Silken Slippers, Collinete Jitterbug, Velvet Olive and Velvet Plum colorways. Nearly finished with these, I think they will be appreciated.

 

Also working on finishing up the Rockin Sock Club Cleopatra's Stockings, this is the second sock, ready to start the gusset stitches.

And the last thing I can show today, Francie, with Sundara Yarn's Arabian Nights.

Those are the projects I can currently show, the rest I'm working on now is all secret stuff.

Now, if I can only keep this whole posting up for the next few weeks, then it will just become habit, or at least that's how I think it's supposed to work.  Next project, update my Ravelry projects and stash, regardless of how daunting it seems.

It Came From The Bag

Let me first preface this post with this; I am not a yarn snob, though I play one for my friends.  I truly believe in a knit and let knit philosophy, regardless of the teasing "Friends don't let friends knit acrylic," I give my wife.  

As far as yarn goes, I only have two rules.  

First, never knit acrylic for a baby.  Acrylic is highly flammable, continues to burn after a flame is taken away, and melts for perfect adhesion to flesh.  The chemicals used to treat acrylic to remove these properties are rather nasty, and anything you give a baby goes straight into it's mouth.  There are plenty of other materials that are machine washable, so there are far better choices for baby clothing out there.

Second, knit what will make you happy.  If your going to spend hours knitting a piece of clothing, than you should be happy with the material for your chosen project.  You may need to save up longer for more expensive yarn, but if you'll be happier with the end product, I say buy the pricey stuff.  If wool is too scratchy, or your allergic to it, then find something that feels right for you.

So, a few weeks ago my wife was offered a chance to buy a bag of fiber, she didn't really want it, but there wasn't much chance to think about it, and she bought it anyway.  In the bag was a ball of yellow chenille yarn, it looks like it could have been around since the 70's, and it probably has been.  Because she bought, she is instilled with a determination to use this yarn, and has tried to cast on at least twice.  This is despite the fact that she doesn't like the color, and the yarn is so old and brittle that it continuously breaks while trying to knit with it.

Last night, she finally admitted that it just wasn't working.  It's just too frustrating to try to knit.  It's time to put old yeller down, and this dog won't be missed.

I, Blog.

Or more appropriately I don't Blog.   Now the reason for this is not complete laziness on my part, (although I suppose I must admit to a least a little of that,) nor is it completely procrastination, although in way that's closer to the mark.  I am working on the blog, just not in a fashion that anyone but me can see.  I'm trying to find the program I'd prefer to blog on, as well as make a template for my blog that's unique to me and not just a standard theme from blog software.  However, this is all taking me a while to fiddle with different programs, and I've been telling myself why bother updating the blog when I'm just going to change it soon.  Of course using soon as a marker of time is relative to what one is doing, and it may be another month before I come to a decision on what blog, template, etc to use.  So instead, I'll just update the blog and import when the time comes.

So, here is what I'm currently doing. 

This is my wife's second spinning wheel, which we picked up in Portland for a great price.  She is kindly letting me use it until the wheel that I ordered comes in October.  Now I'm not particularly a spinner, I was quite happy to be just a knitter, and that's what I told everyone at the spinning group that my wife goes to.  I'd happily knit in a corner while everyone else spun, and while it looked fun, I have more than enough on my plate just knitting.  Then I learned about the Journey wheel, as well as some of the cool things that you can spin up that you just can't buy at the store, and I was hooked.  It will never be quite the passion that it is to my wife, but it is a nice diversion from knitting every now and then.

This is just a simple sock I'm working on, one of those projects that is straight and mindless stockinette, when I want to knit but don't want anything too complicated.  Done with Fly designs Nymph Hand painted Yarn.

Here we have a fingerless glove, in a checker board pattern, done with Shibui Knits Ink and Seaweed.

Look, Intarsia Spaghetti.

That's it for now, I've got several other projects I'm working on, but nothing that I can post at the moment.  With any luck, I'll have a newer and better blog up and running in a month or so, but I'll go ahead and try to update at least once a week until then.