Book Signing Party for Karida Collin's "Pints and Purls"

After some afternoon knitting, Blogless Debbie and I went to a book signing party for Karida Collins and Libby Bruce's new book Pints and Purls yesterday at A Tangled Skein. The party was fun and food good, and the crowd and staff welcoming as usual.

I didn't meet Libby, but Karida was there with books and yarn.

Cici and Chelette were there too.

I didn't get a photo, but Cici has a very serious SLR camera I now covet. Just when I've become accustomed to taking photos with my slim touch screen phone. It's a Samsung Omnia and its camera has 5 megapixels that takes photos almost as good as my Canon PowerShot digital.

Isn't this a good idea? Just sell your yarn out of the shipping boxes when you have overstock!

I couldn't resist some roving and yarn.

Karida's dyes and sells her yarn and roving under the name Neighborhood Fiber Co.

Penthouse Silk Lace, 100 percent silk, 1100 yds.

Merino Silk Roving, 80 percent merino, 20 percent silk, 4 oz.

I couldn't resist the turquoise and brown in this roving from Sheep Spin.

4oz. 100 percent merino wool

I don't know how the Sheep Spin will spin. In my very limited experience, Corriedale has been the easiest for me to spin consistently and evenly. The Sheep Spin doesn't pre-draft easily, i.e. it has more resistance than other roving I've spun. Is that actually the benefit of pre-drafting? So that I don't have to pull too hard while I'm spinning? It doesn't have much sheen, so I'm curious about how it will look knit up. Priscilla plies some of her yarn with Habu stainless steel; learning that has sparked my imagination! So if this looks too dull after spinning, I can ply it with something that will pick it up a bit. (My apologies to more experienced spinners out there - I haven't learned the lingo yet.) Anyway, color drove my purchasing choices as usual.

Must remember to ask Anne, my spinning teacher, how to measure how many yards I've spun and plied.

Blogless Debbie

YPF: Malabrigo

Malabrigo! I never understood what the fuss was until I saw this skein at A Tangled Skein, a LYS in Hyattsville, Maryland. I know it pills but it's worth it, many think.

I saw it at Knit Night at A Tangled Skein. What a lovely place! The yarn displays are placed in such a way as to create four knitting spaces. I've attended twice with Deb. The staff and other knitters are so nice and welcoming.

Deb and A Tangled Skein Owner

YPF: Watershed

70 percent Merino/30percent Seacell

Hand dyed by Karida, owner of the Neighborhood Fiber Co.

A portion of the sale of each skein goes to the Anacostia Watershed Society, a non-profit that works to clean up the Anacostia River.

I bought it at a party last night that Knit Happens hosted for Karida. As you can see they sold tons of the yarn, and it's no wonder. It's soft and the colors are luscious!

Philadelphia and Loop

Warning: Long post. Loop and Yarn at bottom.

A couple of weeks ago, some work colleagues and I took the train from Washington to spend the day with one of our program partners, the International Visitors Council of Philadelphia. I thought I would take note of any yarn shops I saw there, with the idea of visiting them later. We were met at the train station by Ben Franklin, Council President Nancy Gilboy, and Senior Program Officer Ron D'Alonzo, Senior Program Officer,

then taken on a tour of Philly. We toured Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed.

We also toured the new National Constitution Center, an interactive history museum of the American Constitution. There's a cool room of life size statues of the Constitutional Convention Delegates situated through out as if they were discussing the issues at hand.

The room is open for visitors to walk among the delegates and pose for pix.

Finally we went to see the Liberty Bell.

Independence Hall seen through the window.

We went back to the Council's offices for meetings, when Nancy saw my Habu Kusha Shawl on needles sticking out of my tote. Turns out she knows the owner of Loop! Nancy is one of those persons that Malcolm Gladwell describes in The Tipping Point as a "connector." With no hesitation at all she pulled out her Treo, made a couple of calls to find out if the owner was there, the store's hours and address, and the next thing I knew I was in a cab on my way there! That the shop was scheduled to close in 25 minutes did not deter her. Thank you, Nancy!

Loop is beautiful little shop with yarn from inexpensive to tres chere displayed in bookshelves on both side walls from front to back. It's all white, light woods, and bright, which really shows off the yarn to full advantage. The yarn is neatly shelved, and arranged so that when you are standing away from the shelves all you see is end balls of color, no ball bands. There two inviting sofas facing each other with a coffee table in the middle of the store with the latest knitting magazines and yarn.

Love the little wall installations!

The very friendly and helpful Kathy and Laurie greeted me.

We had a nice chat about yarn and patterns in the few minutes I was there, and I bought some Koigu and some DB Cashmerino to play with.

I hope to go back soon.

I made back to the reception held in our honor at the Marriot.

Thanks Nancy, Ron, and IVC staff for our informative and enjoyable day in Philadelphia, and thanks to Kathy and Laurie for your warm help at Loop!

WIP Wednesday: Merlot Vine Socks

Socktoberfest means it's time for another pair of socks for me. Haven't made many this year. This one is Yarn4Socks' October offering, Merlot Vine, designed by Anne Hanson, author of the Knitspot blog. The nice thing about this sock "club" is that one doesn't need to subscribe. I just bought this single kit. I fell in love with the yarn when I saw it on Anne's site several months ago. The colorway is "Arial," 100 percent superwash merino, fingering weight from Twisted Fiber Arts.

I love knitting with this yarn. It's the tiniest bit splitty, but I can easily live with it. More importantly, the dye completely saturated the base yarn, so there are none of those white spots or pale areas one finds in some other skeins. The pattern is lovely too, though a bit obscured by the yarn.

This is the first time I've done a short row toe that begins with a provisional cast on. I used a splitty waste yarn on the first sock - a mistake. A very irritating mistake. I kept picking up the yarn through the bump instead of under and it was impossible to unravel the waste yarn. Curses! The green yarn in the background is my "Seattle yarn." I'll blog about it later. I was on the plane back home when I started the second sock. All I had was this "Seattle yarn" to use as waste yarn and no crochet hook. First I tried to do a turkish cast on for the required 34 stitches and discovered quickly that it doesn't work. I used a seaming needle with a crooked tip in place of the crochet hook to make the crochet chain from the "Seattle yarn," and once I got the hang of it, it worked well.

It's hard to see the crochet chain in these pix because the waste yarn and working yarn are similar color.

I've had lots of left over yarn from other socks, so in an attempt to avoid this, I put the first sock on waste yarn without cutting the working yarn after the required number of leg repeats and cast on the second sock from the center pull. I can add more leg repeats with whatever remaining yarn there is.

Barbara flattered me enormously by nominating me a Rockin' Girl Blogger. Thanks Barbara! I haven't rocked much this spring and summer because I've traveled almost every month since May, mostly for work. I haven't kept up with your blogs or mine, or anything else it seems. I haven't kept up with knitting either. I have a gizillion almost finished pieces that, frankly, I just don't feel like working on. I've been to Lansing, Michigan, including a quick trip to Detroit; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Tucson, Arizona; San Francisco; twice to El Paso, Texas and Las Cruces, New Mexico; and twice to Seattle, Washington, and managed to visit yarn shops almost everywhere. I bought "souvenirs," of course. I wrote about Woven Arts, Unravel and Artfibers. I've also visited Loop in Philly, and So Much Yarn in Seattle, City Knits in Detroit - I will write about those later. They are beautiful shops with lovely, friendly staff. I should also write about El Paso's little yarn/shop cleaners, but it needs to be seen to be believed and I don't have pix. I guess it doesn't really look funny, but it's a strange concept.

My laptop crashed before my trip to Seattle last week, so that didn't help! I turned the dang thing on one morning and the screen stayed black. I totally panicked! I hate to admit it but a good portion of my life is online: I telecommute one day week, pay bills, read newspapers, shop, read and send e-mail, I take it with me on all my trips, and there's my online knitting life too, of course. I just sat and stared at the black screen for about 5 minutes before I summoned the presence of mind to call Dell. They are going to replace the motherboard, and I've borrowed a laptop from work in the meantime. They say that I won't lose any data, and I pray this is true. I swear I'll throw a fit if I have to reload my music and postcasts on iTunes. I don't throw fits. I usually roll with most things, but just the thought of it...I'm going to start looking for those hacks that allow one to transfer data from an iPod back to a computer. I hear they work. I'll give the laptop another 18 months after the motherboard replacement, then it will probably be time for a new one. It's only 3 years old. Don't any of these machines last longer than that?

Yarn Pr0n Friday: Artfibers Golden Siam and Rosetta

I stumbled upon Artfibers online years ago and was reminded of it by Sturdygirl's, then Cara's posts about it recently. Coincidentally, I had a San Francisco business trip planned, so I was pretty determined to get there. Fortunately, it was close to my hotel. You probably know that Artfibers has yarn developed especially for them and that they allow knitters to knit swatches that they are free to take with them. I didn't take any pix - I only had about an hour, so I knit up the smallest swatches in history as quickly as I could.

You can view more photos and details on my Flickr site. ETA: Pix of my swatches appear on page 2.

I just happened to find a review of the Artfibers in Knitter's Review last night that I concur with and it includes pix. I would only add that one of the shop's designers, Kira, was there and she was very helpful and knowledgeable. She showed me around the shop including the "tasting bar," where I could sit and knit swatches. They supply straight and circular needles and crochet hooks for customers to use. Kira left me alone to knit, checking up on me periodically to see if I had questions or to make suggestions. I bought Golden Siam, 100 percent Golden Tussah silk, to make a sweater,

and Rosetta, 100 percent cotton tape, to make a skirt in linen stitch.

For $2 Kira plugged my measurements and yarn gauge into a computer knitting application and created a skirt pattern for me. I hope it doesn't become "buttsprung," as my mother would say. Kira has some pretty cool designs on Artfiber's site, and on her own site, Kira K Designs.

If you make it to San Francisco, I highly recommend that you visit this unusual yarn shop. I hope I'll have a chance to visit it again along with the other shops in the city.

San Francisco, China Town

Woven Art Yarn and Fiber Art Gallery in East Lansing (Long Post)

I'd like to post a correction: Nancy McRay's Woven Art Yarn and Fiber Art Gallery is in East Lansing, Michigan. You can get the address, driving directions and phone number on her site. She has a blog too where she shows her hand dyed yarn and other creations. Here's a shot of her back room where knitting, weaving, spinning, and other fiber arts are taught.

and here's a couple of extra Habu shots from her shop just for me:


WIP
I did work on an Adrienne Vittadini sleeveless turtleneck while I was in Texas. I cast on with an Addi Turbo Lace circular I bought a few months ago. I love the sharp points and I think it will be excellent to use with laceweight yarn.
But the surface of the metal part was designed to avoid having slick yarn slip off so there was a little too much drag for the Adrienne Vittadini Miranda cotton yarn I'm using. I had expected that the Addi Turbo Lace circs would displace the regular Turbos, but there's still room for them in my needle collection. I switched to the regular ones after finishing the ribbing and I rapidly got this:
I decided to kitchener the shoulder seams rather than sew them and I really like the result. It's not invisible, but I expect that it will smooth out when it's blocked.

I bought these Japanese knitting pins at Nancy's and love them too. They're about 2.5 inches long and made entirely of wood.

I thought they were a frivolous purchase at the time, but they've turned out to be enormously useful. I used them to pin the side seams of the turtleneck to made sure they were the same length.

I've also started the Twinkle Marilyn jacket over the weekend. What a quick knit it is! I still have to finish the back. I wonder though if it's going to fit. I might have to ask Olga to model it when I'm done. Or frog and re-knit it in a larger size. There's dieting too, but I'm not going there...

Ravelry
I'm sure you all know about Ravelry. It's still in beta, but there's a link on the site to request a tester's invitation. It's cool place to organize your knitting and crochet projects: project notes and photos; needle and stash inventory; a "queue" section to record future projects with site linking capability (really cool!); linkage to your blog if you have one; discussion forums; links to KALs; interaction with other knitters, even e-mail. It's going to bring me to a new level of knitting obsession. It's hard enough to get stuff done around the house! Seriously, Jess and her husband Casey are great to do this. Here's my Ravelry page. There's not a lot on it yet, but I'll be adding stuff regularly. Now someone needs to make a Ravelry button.