Stitches West - Sunday

Sunday is last call at the Stitches West Market. Spinnity was the catalyst for these acquisitions--

• A Spinner's Control Card to figure out the diameter needed for a specific ply and to check the consistency of singles and yarn.
  
  
  Spinner's Control Card
  Purlescence Yarns


• A calming color to subdue Cleopatra.
  
  
  Oyster
  Miss Babs


• A charting program for Mac & PC. I'm using Excel now, but this looks like it will make editing easier.
  
  
  Intwined Pattern Studio

Thank you Spinnity, you're always looking out for me and all of these purchases will be useful for years to come. Thank you Stitches West vendors, see you in 2011.

Up next, Bohus Stickning.

Stitches West - Saturday

As expected, Saturday was a busy busy day at the Market.

• I stopped by Purlescence Yarns for my daily ribbon. Kaye buffed me out again! Do I look like an overachiever or what? :)
  
  
  Badge Ribbons from Purlescence
  
  While I was there I had to admire the rack o' Cascade Heritage. Colorwork is in my future.
  
  
  Cascade Heritage in Purlescence Booth
  
  Purlescence Yarns
  Booths #830


• I bought a ball of fiber as big as my head from Carolina Homespun. It's a pound of Superwash BFL that's ready for dyeing.
  
  
  1 lb Superwash BFL
  
  Carolina Homespun
  Booths #721 & 820


• That's all I bought, but that's not all I took home. We went to the Fiber Beat Meet-up where WonderMike recorded stories of how each of us came to knit, spin, crochet, or weave, etc.. We met new people, had some laughs, and there were drawings for prizes. Prizes! I love prizes.
  
  Here's what was in my sheepy swag bag:
  
  
  Fiber Beat Meet-up Swag
  
  
  All About Knitting, Martingale & Company
  
  
  Grafton Fibers Colorway Club - Lucky 13
  
  
  Spunky Eclectic - Beach Day
  
  
  Needles & Measuring Tape
  
  How great is that?? Love the Fiber Beat.

Love Stitches West.

Stitches West - Friday

I'm pretty tired so here are the highlights.

• Miss Babs, 4 oz. Merino / Bamboo / Tussah Silk
  
  
  Miss Babs - Rockwall
  
  Miss Babs Hand-Dyed Yarns and Fibers
  Booths #98 & 99


• Creatively Dyed Yarn, 150 gm. Superwash Merino
  
  
  Creatively Dyed Yarn - Spirit
  
  Creatively Dyed Yarn
  Booths #819 & 918


• I helped out in the Fiber Fiend booth in the afternoon. I was happy to give Margit a break so she could finish her shopping. I talked to the shoppers as they came through and sold a few of these and a box of those. :)
  
  Fiber Fiend
  Booth #940


• It's pretty cool that so many knitters read this blog, but when I blogged about the Louet Gems on sale at Discontinued Brand Name Yarn yesterday, I didn't expect that you'd almost clean them out in a day. When I stopped by in the afternoon they asked, "Did you blog about the Louet?" I said I did and they told me that person after person came in looking for the Louet they read about on the blog. When I left today there was still some red, yellow, and a bit of orange/gold. Good job everyone!
  
  Discontinued Brand Name Yarn
  Booths #627 & 726


• Lisa, Chris and I went to the fashion show with some friends of Chris. There were some nice pieces. Swing, drape, and trapeze were recurring themes. You can image our commentary during the show--code word: "wow". Needless to say, we had a good time.

Tomorrow:

• 3-4PM: Fiber Beat Meet-up in the dining area, around the corner from
  A Verb for Keeping Warm
  Booth #1040


• 6-9PM Bobbin's Nest party
  Bobbin's Nest Studio
  1171 Homestead Rd, Ste 130
  Santa Clara

HKF

It's Hand Knit Friday!

If you're at Stitches West there's a good chance you're wearing hand knits--let's hear it, what do you have on today?

I'm wearing


Threepenny Pullover
Project info on Ravelry


Stitch detail

and


Mars Mission socks
Project info on Ravelry

The enabler has been enabled

Years of enabling others to buy yarn has come full circle. My friends are now turning the tables and steering me towards fiber and yarn that they know I'll like and they're *really* enjoying it when I buy.

Fair enough. It's a win-win. Stitches West 2010 Market Preview:

• Juliet is on display in the Habu Textiles Booth. They have 20/2 linen at the show if you'd like to make this.
  
  
  Pattern: Robin Melanson's Juliet Pullover from IK Summer 2004
  Yarn: 12-1/4oz. 20/2 linen from Habu Textiles, double stranded
  Beads: approx 45gm silver lined 8/0 hex
  Needles: Inox Grey 3.25mm circular
  Approx 2-1/2yds velvet ribbon
  
  Habu Textiles
  Booth #512


• Lisa Souza has beautiful batts and fiber. You need to touch this Cashmere-Merino-Tencel blend to truly appreciate it. (Stop by her booth. She has more.)
  
  
  Lisa Souza Opal
  
  The BFL is pretty amazing. It's one of my favorite fibers to spin and I love these colors.
  
  
  Lisa Souza BFL Wild Things
  
  
  Lisa Souza BFL Olive Tones
  
  Lisa Souza Knitwear and Dyeworks
  Booth #714


• Miss Babs has a beautiful booth with lots of eye candy... like Cleopatra. (Thanks Lisa!)
  
  
  Miss Babs Cleopatra
  
  Miss Babs Hand-Dyed Yarns and Fibers
  Booths #98 & 99


• Discontinued Brand Name Yarn has Louet Gems at a great price. (Thanks Seltsame!)
  
  
  Louet Gems - Ginger
  
  
  Louet Gems - Neptune
  
  Discontinued Brand Name Yarn
  Booths #627 & 726


• Jordana Paige has her bags and patterns available and is giving you an opportunity to win a JP bag. I was carrying my Knitter's Satchel so she videotaped me describing what I like about the bag. I was caught off-guard and I think I was babbling more than talking. I hope I didn't ramble too much. ;)
  
  In return, I received her latest beret pattern, Mila. Nice!
  
  
  Mila designed by Jordana Paige
  
  Jordana Paige
  Booths #622 & 624


• I've never tried selling my handspun, so it was very rewarding to see Beat the Blahs in the KnitWhits booth in the Humanity Handspun display. Hey, I did that (and you can buy it)!
  
  
  Humanity Handspun / KnitWhits
  
  KnitWhits and
  Humanity Handspun
  Booth #96

What a nice evening. Thank you to my friends--I had a good time hanging out with you tonight.

Stitches West... bring it on!

I'm excited. Can you tell??

I'm excited that I'll be around people like me, who speak my language, and who appreciate the care and effort that goes into creating, designing, teaching, and learning about all things stitches. For me, this once a year event that started out as a shopping trip has morphed into a social and learning weekend with just a tad of shopping thrown in. Just a tad.

If you're planning on visiting the Market, visit your LYS for a coupon for $2 off the admission--handing it in is a vote for your shop. If you can't get to a LYS in time or they don't have any left, you can print one out here.

Here are a few things that might not have been on your radar... until now.

• A Finn-ish sock will be on display in the Purlescence booth, probably near the Cascade Heritage yarn.
  
  
  
  Purlescence Yarns
  Booth #830
  
  Its mate will most likely be in Susanna Hansson's Lapland Hand Garments class on Friday.



• The hand-dyed, handspun Beat the Blahs hank will be for sale in the KnitWhits booth with the rest of the Humanity Handspun yarn. Look for it and give it a squeeze, it's very squooshy.
  
  
  Beat the Blahs: hand dyed fiber -> 3-ply handspun
  
  KnitWhits and
  Humanity Handspun
  Booth #96



• Friday afternoon I'll be helping the Fiber Fiend aka Margit in her booth. Stop by and say hello, she has nice hand-dyed yarn and fiber as well as a new crop of patterns for this year.
  
  Fiber Fiend
  Booth #940



• On Saturday, stop by A Verb for Keeping Warm booth to see WonderMike during the Fiber Beat Meet-up.
  
  A Verb for Keeping Warm
  Booth #1040
  Fiber Beat Meet-up from 3-4PM



• Saturday night is the Bobbin's Nest party.
  
  Bobbin's Nest Studio
  1171 Homestead Rd, Ste 130
  Santa Clara

It's Stitches West 2010--let the games begin!

Let's try this again

After finishing the first 2 pieces of the East Meets West bag, I stopped and had a decision to make: continue or change course.

The strap has its moments.


East Meets West - strap

The yellow and green/blue strap is fine by itself.


East Meets West - strap detail

But I didn't make a good choice for the bottom of the bag.


East Meets West - bottom

The tumeric color is supposed to be the dominant figure.


East Meets West - bottom detail

I substituted green for the pink that came in the kit, but it wasn't a great choice because the color value of the green is very close to the tumeric so the figure disappears in the background. The only background color that works with the tumeric is the dark purple heather in the center.

Here's the other issue I saw--


Not feeling it

The strap and the bag don't relate as well as I'd like. To my eye, they look like they could belong to different projects.

What to do? Call in the reinforcements!

I enlisted Spinnity's help in picking colors for a new strap/bottom for the bag. She has a better eye for color than me and has a greater knowledge base for such things.

I brought all the Palette in my stash and we dumped everything on the floor and started pulling colors.


Choosing colors

I must admit, I was overwhelmed. Thankfully Spinnity kept plugging away and came up with some really good combinations. She was definitely the right person for the job.

I learned a few things going through this process--

Checking Color Values
Have you heard of putting your yarn in a copy machine and making a B&W image to check for color values? It's a great way to take color out of the equation and just look at value. We applied technology to the copy machine approach and used my digital camera's B&W mode to get the same affect.

Color interaction
How a color appears depends on the colors it is next to. For example, a blue might look different flanked by greens than it would flanked by purples. I was comparing colors by holding balls of yarn together, but that didn't tell the whole story. Spinnity showed me that wrapping about an inch width of each yarn on a folded piece of paper in the order that they will appear in the piece gives a better representation of the colors with their neighbors.

Here are the color values of the current piece and the new colors for the bottom insert wrapped on paper:


Color Values

See how values of the figure and background of the bottom insert are practically the same except in the center section? That's the dark purple heather background color. No wonder!

Now here it is in living color. The new combination reminded us of Monet's Water Lilies.


Colors

While picking the new colors we considered how close in value the Tidepool Heather in the center of the paper is to the Cyan on each side, but we counted on Cyan's "I will not be ignored" character to punch through.

Colors for the strap were picked in a similar way and now the strap and the bottom relate much better to the front and back of the bag.

The new strap/bottom is on the needles and I'm very happy with the new colors.


Starting again


Much better

Thank you so much Spinnity for helping me with this, I absolutely positively could not have done this without you.

Now I wish we had planned out the colors for the entire bag.

Before its time

This little guy is the first lime of 2010 on our tree. He's so early for the season--the flower bud showed up in December and he's been stubbornly holding on, but I wouldn't be surprised if he fell off before ripening.

Hang in there, you can do it!


First lime of 2010

Humanity Handspun

Have you heard about Humanity Handspun? In their own words,

Humanity Handspun seeks to raise funds to assist in the immediate and ongoing medical & nutritional needs of the people of Haiti and other broad human tragedies.

The way it works is spinners offer their handspun yarn for sale and $5 from each hank sold will be donated to an organization working for Haiti Relief, currently Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the UN World Food Programme. Tina Whitmore of KnitWhits has put this together and she's been spreading the word through channels like Facebook and Ravelry.

Tina has been receiving yarn from spinners in preparation for the first public showing for HH at Stitches West. Among the yarn for sale will be my handspun Beat the Blahs, 290 yds of 3 ply fingering weight yarn.


Beat the Blahs: hand dyed fiber -> 3-ply handspun

If you're going to Stitches West, stop by Tina's booth to see her patterns and kits as well as the Humanity Handspun yarn. If you're interested in selling your handspun through HH, visit the Humanity Handspun web site for more information.

Humanity Handspun & KnitWhits
Stitches West
February 25-28
Booth 96 (facing WEBS along the right wall as you enter the hall)

You can read about the the transformation from blank canvas to cheery 3 ply in this blog post.


Mother MacKenzie's Miracle Dye Mix and Louet Superwash Wool


Applying dye


Bumps


Superwash Merino singles


Beat the Blahs: hand dyed fiber -> 3-ply handspun


Beat the Blahs swatch

HKF

It's Hand Knit Friday! What hand knits do you have on today?

I'm wearing


Sydney
Project details on Ravelry

The sound of one hand clapping

ETA: I found more yarn in the same dye lot, so the second glove is no longer in jeopardy, PLUS I'll be able to fix this first glove and extend the pinky. Thank you Purlescence!

Remember this pattern and yarn from Spinnity?


Beth Brown-Reinsel's Sanquhar Glove pattern
with Elemental Affects Natural Shetland Fingering in Musket & Shaela

I cast on in August 2009 using #000 needles. This is new territory for me, I've never used needles so small. The fabric that the tiny needles and this yarn produced was amazing.


Sanquhar glove
Project details on Ravelry

It's been a project that I've been revisiting ever since, grabbing it to get a few more motif rows in, then setting it down when the tiny needles were too much for my hands to bear, or when too many dpns were not appropriate for the knitting occasion. I used dpns as stitch holders and at one point I probably had 8 dpns sticking out of the project. Call me crazy. It's okay, others have.



I stalled when I had the sinking feeling that I was running out of yarn. Honestly these are too big for my hands, but they're sized by changing needle sizes and #000 were as thin as I was willing to go. So when the balls of yarn were getting smaller and there was still plenty to knit, all I could think of was how much yarn would be left over if I had knit the correct size. Doh.



I'm not opposed to ripping out a project, I've done it before. I considered ripping the whole thing out multiple times, but then what? Knit on #0000's? The fabric is already dense. I couldn't do it, I just couldn't do it. I kept going.

A smart analytical knitter might have weighed the remaining yarn and figured out if there was enough to finish. It would have been a smart thing to do, but then again if I knew for sure I didn't have enough, I would have stopped.

Stopped and bought more yarn.
Stopped and bought more yarn and finished the glove.
Stopped and bought more yarn and finished the glove without the anxiety.

Well, that would have been smart, wouldn't it?

Instead, I kept going not knowing if I'd end up happy with a finished glove or sad with a UFO and a cold pinky.



In the end, I didn't try the glove on to see where to start the decreases for the pinky. I guesstimated when to start decreasing, knit 2 more rnds (to add to the drama), then started the finger tip.

It was close.



Real close.



The pinky is a tad shorter than it needs to be, but it's not uncomfortable.

And my gosh, look how amazing it is!! I'm smitten.

I am still in search of more yarn for the second glove. This was cutting it too close and I have something else I'd like to do to finish this one. I have a lead on another hank of the light gray in the same dye lot, but the dark color is proving to be more of a challenge.

Here are the details in case you have some in your stash--if you're willing to part with a hank (or even a partial hank) it will be put to good use.

Yarn: Elemental Affects Natural Shetland Fingering
Colorway: Shaela
Dye lot: SHA07 (the same dye lot is a "nice to have", but not necessary)
Color family: Black/dark gray