HKF

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

I'm wearing Rovaniemi Wristlets--the project from Susanna Hansson's class.


Rovaniemi Wristlets
Project details on Ravelry

Home and gone again

The Finn-ish Socks returned safely from the State Fair and were accompanied by a ribbon.


Finn-ish Sock

Now they're heading out the door again, one to Purlescence Yarns in Sunnyvale, CA and the other to Susanna Hansson for her Lapland Hand Garment class.

Bye, nice seeing you and thanks for stopping by!


Finn-ish sock pattern, $8.00
buy it now

Fair

California State Fair 2010

Yes, it's that time of year again, it's time for the California State Fair. Actually, the fair is early this year so if you're planning on going you'd better get a move on because it ends on Sunday. Having it earlier in the summer is nice because it isn't oppressively hot--plus the unseasonably cool weather made walking around pleasant last weekend.

This year R & I went our own way through the Creative Arts building. I took my time looking at all of the displays taking photos along the way, and he moved through a little faster.

When I got about half way through he came back and I asked, "Did you see it?"

He nodded.

I asked apprehensively, "Will I be mad?"

He said, "No."

Whew. I resumed walking and snapping and resisted the urge to have him lead me to it.

I passed by one item after another and finally saw my entry.


Finn-ish socks on display

It's not near anything too large and spectacular like last year, so I think there's a chance that more people will notice this entry.

Winning 2nd place is an honor but it also begs the question, "What took first place?"


2nd Place, Any Other Knitted Item

Then I noticed that the tag for Finn-ish still had it in the "Any Other Knitted Item" class as opposed to what was written on the judges' sheet, "Knitted Wearing Apparel Adult". So which one was correct? We looked for first place in both classes.

We came across this one not too far away--


Lisa Sheaffer
First Place, Any Other Knitted Item
Floral Felted Tote Bag

Hmmm. Okay.

Now to find the First Place Knitted Wearing Apparel. Both of us searched high and low but we didn't see it. We went back and forth scrutinizing all of the blue tags. After my 4th time around the room I was going to give up. R suggested I speak with the woman at the information counter. She didn't know specifics about the entries but had a diagram of what placed and where they were located. Okay. Direction. Direction is good.

Well, I finally figured out what happened. I had seen this first place entry on each trip around the room--


Betty Fryer
First Place, Any Other Knitted Item
Flower Garden Triangle

Two entries marked as first place for Any Other Knitted Item. My guess is that the Flower Garden Triangle is the First Place Knitted Wearing Apparel.

Either way, mystery solved.

Maybe the judges would have been more impressed if I could have shown them the technique used to make the socks.


Knitting the Rovaniemi way

But I didn't see in the rules how supporting material could be submitted with an entry. Oh well. California's a big state and I am very fortunate to have placed again.

Oh, and did I mention that the pattern for Finn-ish is available? I'm just sayin'.


Finn-ish sock pattern, $8.00
buy it now

I'll blog more about the fair soon.

California State Fair
July 14-Aug 1
Cal Expo Fairgrounds
Sacramento, California

California State Fair results

The California State Fair Creative Arts Fiber Art Show Exhibit results are in:

2nd Place - Knitted Wearing Apparel Adult

Finn-ish

Judge's comments:

Ah - what a nice pair of socks. Very nice. Great pattern. Someone must have happy feet!

Here's the kicker--I entered Finn-ish in the "Any Other Knitted Item" class because that's where I've entered socks in the past. Well, they reclassified Finn-ish to the "Knitted Wearing Apparel Adult" class. So I placed second in the same class as all the adult sweaters and every other adult garment that was entered. Wow!

California State Fair
July 14 - August 1, 2010
Cal Expo
1600 Exposition Blvd.
Sacramento , CA 95815

One iron in the fire

For the first time in many years the California State Fair is moving off its Labor Day schedule and will start in July. That meant the deadlines for the California Creative Arts competition moved up 2 months. I thought I had plenty of time for a couple of entries, but you know how that goes. Before I knew it, it was time to fill out forms and I only had one entry ready.

My one iron in the fire is Finn-ish and judging is tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

Bohus Stickning

Bohus Stickning with Susanna Hansson.

This is one of the best classes I've taken at Stitches West. The story of these women is amazing. It is as inspiring as their work is perfectly beautiful. I like Susanna's style and as usual she is passionate about the subject and shares many exquisite samples.

The class project is a pair of Blue Shimmer Cuffs.


Bohus Stickning Blue Shimmer cuff

This photo is for Lisa who's saying, "Show us your floats!"


Bohus Stickning Blue Shimmer cuff WS

Group photo!


Bohus Stickning Blue Shimmer cuffs

Boba group photo!


Knittin' friends

Here's one more before the Bohus photos--


with Susanna

Now I'm pleased to present the parade of Bohus. All of these pieces are vintage, not re-creations, and they're even more impressive in person. Thank you Susanna.

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!

A new project??

Well, it's not like I haven't been working on projects. But lately the projects on my needles haven't been ones I can talk about and I know how annoying that can be to a blog reader. "Hey, I'm working on this great pattern and I wish I could tell you about it, but I can't. Bye!" Like I said, annoying.

Here's the new project:
Compass Rose,
Sanquhar gloves designed by Beth Brown-Reinsel


Sanquhar glove
Project details on Ravelry

These gloves are sized by varying the gauge--each size starts with 90 sts at the cuff. My hand is between a women's small & medium, and I started the project on 0's because I think I'm a tight knitter. Uh no, not that tight of a knitter, they were way too big. Now I'm knitting on #000's. As you can see I haven't gotten very far--not for lack of trying--but even now I think the cuff could be a wee bit smaller. But I'm not (not not) going down to #0000's. I'll know more when I get past the cuff.

So far I'm loving the pattern and the yarn, and knitting at such a fine gauge results in a wonderful fabric. These are going to be marvelous -- and they're going to keep me busy for a quite a while.

You may remember that I blogged about Compass Rose months ago. The yarn and pattern were given to me by Spinnity--isn't she so very thoughtful? She knows what I like.

Apparently back in January I had a list of things to finish before I was going to cast-on the gloves. I completely forgot about the list until brought up that blog post today. Let's see how I did:

• A pattern and knitting. The pattern is 80% along and the knitting is close to finished. Deadline: Stitches West
  
  >> I think this was Outside In. I was working on the second sock at SW and the photo shoot was at the hotel pool. Done.
  
  
• A new sock pattern and knitting for... not sure where this will be submitted, it depends on when it's finished. This design is going through its final iterations.
  
  >> Finn-ish Socks! At SW, Susanna Hansson suggested that I get the pattern ready to sell at Sock Summit. Done and done.
  
  
• 50/50 Merino Tencel : 2 singles ready for plying.
  
  >> Tactile Fiber Arts Merino Tencel. Done (and beautiful).
  
  
• Stitches West homework. Just a bit of ribbing.
  
  >> The homework and the Skrå-trøje are finished.
  
  
• Sipalu Bag: The reverse st st bit at the top of the bag is flaring out, even after blocking. It needs to be ripped out and re-knit on smaller needles. I'd like to start (maybe even finish) knitting the strap before starting a new project.
  
  >> Sipalu is finished and will be on display at the California State Fair tomorrow through September 7.
  
  
• Aguona Laptop Bag: Needs a zipper, maybe lining, and sewing up in general.
  
  >> Not finished. Not touched since the steek was cut.

Not bad, not bad at all. Of course there were other projects in the last 7+ months that I did work on, but finishing 5 out of 6 on this list feels pretty good.

HKF

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

Last night Jeni asked me about a project I've had in the works for quite a while. That prompted me to dig out the Rovaniemi Wristlets--the project from Susanna Hansson's class at Stitches West for HKF.


Rovaniemi Wristlets
Project details on Ravelry

The project? I'll get back to it after I clear my plate of taxes, editing, and finishing Squirrel!.

HKF

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

Today is a rare occurrence, FO Friday and HKF on Feb 29th. It's like a lunar eclipse. lol

I'm wearing the Rovaniemi Wristlet--the project from Susanna Hansson's class at Stitches West. This is not a lone wristlet, its mate was loaned to a friend for show and tell.


Project details on Ravelry

I know what you would do if you had this in your hands right now. To satisfy your curiosity, here's what the wrong side looks like--24 ends were sewn in last night.


Rovaniemi Wristlet (WS)

Lapland Hand Garments

Rovaniemi Mittens with Susanna Hansson!

It's the one class I took at Stitches West this year and I am so happy I took it with Spinnity. I was wanted to learn something new and challenging, and this was just the ticket.

Susanna and Lene Alva traveled to Finland and were introduced to the techniques of Finnish mittens. Samples of traditional styled mittens and their modified versions are shown in the photo below.


They adapted the techniques and created a class around these mittens knit in a very fine gauge.



Rovaniemi Mitten

We practiced on worsted weight yarn, then we chose three colors for our class project, a wristlet.


The wristlet is worked in a Finnish yarn called Satakieli and needles in our class ranged from 000 to 0 in size. I used 00. (I did mention that the technique was adapted to a finer gauge, right?)

Although there are only 3 colors, there are 11 little balls of yarn to keep track of, not to mention the ball of the background color. Yikes! But one of the coolest techniques I learned was how to manage all that yarn without having a tangled mess. In short, it looked like this:

Yarn management

The project as it is being worked looks like this:

Wristlet in progress

And here is the stitch detail of the wristlet.


I love this technique!

And the next time any of you are in Finland would you mind stopping by the Santa Claus Village and picking up some of these mini-mittens for me?

Mini-Rovaniemi mittens

Thanks!

ETA: Original pattern inspired by the Rovaniemi mittens, Finn-ish Socks.