Created By Artsygal

Here in Philadelphia, last sunday was an important day for knitters. The Yarn Harlot was speaking at the Philadelphia Book Festival. I've had the good fortune to meet and briefly chat with Stephanie at the NYC Knit Out a couple of years ago, but this was my first opportunity to see her speak. So hoping that the rain would hold out, I hopped on the bus and headed from my quiet suburban part of Philadelphia in towards the city. Normally I drive everywhere - but parking in the city is not only scarce but also expensive, so public transit it was for me.

Once I was settled into my seat on the bus, I pulled out my knitting of course. A few stops later a lady gets on the bus, sits down besides me and asks if that is knitting, and if I'm making a sweater. Never one to pass up an opportunity to educate a muggle on the joys of knitting we started chatting as I tried to convince her it was perfectly normal to knit socks.

She was very amused by the fact that I was going to go listen to a woman who wrote books about knitting humor as she'd never heard of the genre - so amused that she decided that instead of going to the flea market, she'd tag along with me to hear this lady speak! (Hi Dot!)

Once at the book festival, we each bought a copy of the Harlot's new book (yep.. even the muggle bought one - and she hadn't even heard the Harlot speak yet!) and settled down in the audience. Dot was very amused by the fact that there were so many of us knitting away, able to hold conversations and look around while fingers, needles, and yarn were flying in every direction - and that none of us thought this the slightest bit unusual!

Stephanie's speech of course was fantastic. We all laughed,applauded and cheered. At one point myself and the lady in front of me considered raising our knitting in the air and waving it back and forth the way people normally do so with lighters. We also learned a lot about ourselves as knitters. Things like the fact that as knitters, we are better able to deal with stressful situations because we have an activity that in its repetitiveness helps us calm down and focus better. Seriously.. there was a study in Cambridge University about this. All about this study was well and good until the conclusion even. And this conclusion, our Yarn Harlot couldn't even read with a straight face.

She tried.. many times. And after several moments of giggling, spluttering, and pure speechlessness.. she finally read the words. 'It is impractical for people to carry around emergency knitting at all times' I'm sure you can imagine the reaction from all of us at THAT! I know I personally had in my purse TWO knitting projects as well as a drop spindle and a handful of fluff. Impractical, my ass!

Afterwards of course was the book signing. As I walked towards the back of the line that was forming, I was so engrossed in conversation with someone that I barely even noticed when someone said something along the lines of 'Hey.. that's a really great shawl' .. until it registered in my little pea brain that the someone was talking to ME as I was wearng my Shetland Tea Shawl! I turn back to see who said that.. and realize I'd just walked past the Harlot herself, and it was her who said that! Yes.. I admit, I squee'd a little!

Once we reached the front of the line, we chatted for a moment as I told her about randomly picking a non-knitting stranger off the bus to bring with me. And she had me do the full twirl around so she could admire my shawl properly. I'm sure I stammered some sort of thanks or something.. I'm not completely sure. I know that I didn't have the presence of mind to pull out my camera for a picture.. despite having removed it from my purse while we were waiting in line and shoving it into a pocket just for that purpose! I do have a witness though.. LisaDknitsinPA who as soon as she heard the comments laughed and said 'yep.. that was her who said that. You have me as a witness that it really happened!'

After that excitement, I wandered outside to look around the rest of the book festival.. only to have it start raining on me. Atleast the really heavy stuff held off long enough for me to hop on the train headed towards home.

Oh.. I did get a photo of myself in said shawl though. I've seen several posts around blogland and on ravelry asking just how you wear a lace shawl anyways, and since I just recently figured out how to wear mine, I thought I'd share a photo.

I just fold the top 1/3 or so of it over, drape it over my shoulders and use something to pin it together. In this case, it was a spare DPN I had on me! I really should get myself some shawl pins!

I meant to post for YPF last week. Took the photos, uploaded them, and ended up getting side tracked. Go figure. So.. this week, I bring you YPMonday. Deal with it.

This is some handspun I made several months ago. It was the October selection from the Hello Yarn fiber club I believe the fiber is Romney.

I know I normally like to spin fine weight yarns, but romney fiber is a little coarser than the merinos and BFLs I spin with most frequently. Sampling it as a laceweight just didn't give me a yarn I liked. Nor did I think it suitable for a sock weight yarn, as it isn't superwash. I realized that since I got my minstrel, my bulky wheel really wasn't seeing any use any more. So that's where I went. A few hours of blissful spinning later, I had this.

It's about 7 or so WPI, and the squishiness rating is through the roof! I wasn't so sure about this colourway when I saw the roving because lets face it, I'm just not a pink sort of person. But once I started plying and the colours came together, it took on a life of its own. Now, I think it's just perfect. I haven't a clue what I'd make with it, but I'm thinking this may be one of those yarns I just keep around to pet and squish.

After all.. would you be able to resist this?

It's been a while since I did a Yarn Pr0n Friday.. but one of my most recent handspuns.. well it is a YPF worthy skein, even if I say so myself! It started off as a batt created by the ever so talented Steph of Loop on etsy.com. When I saw the Chocolate Liqueur bamboo batts, I just knew they had to be mine.

Once they arrived, I couldn't start spinning quickly enough! It's the first time I've spun bamboo, and I was absolutely in love with how soft and silk it is. And.. with how FINE I could spin it so very easily. So I started spinning..

and spinning.. and spinning some more. And realized that I may just have 3 oz of batts, but I was getting an aweful lot of yardage out of this! Once the first half was spun up on one bobbin, I decided to play with the colours a little. After all.. that IS what I do, right? For the second bobbin, I separated the colours, and spun them sequentially.. first the gold, then the red, followed by the brown. Since the first half had been spun randomly, there were bits of all three colours spread haphazardly all throughout the entire bobbin. So this should give me a yarn that shifts through the colours.

(See the red and gold walls of my apartment in the background? Amazingly well coordinated with the yarn, no?)

End result - approximately 960 yards of fine laceweight out of 3 oz. That works out to 5120 yards per lb. A little bit more than Zephyr. I think I could use this for any pattern that calls for Zephyr.

Unless something else comes along, I think I'll use this to make a laceweight clapotis. Simple and classic and perfect to showcase the actual yarn. And just right for a summer wrap too.

I spent much of the last week and a half feeling utterly miserable with that plague that's been making the rounds. This also means I spent much of that time hopped up on all sorts of cough meds and sinus meds, and god only knows what else. You'd think that with that, I'd know better than to attempt to skein yarn. Especially using an electric skeiner that moves pretty damn fast. But no, I *HAD* to get some skeining done.

Which means this weekend, I spend a good amount of time dealing with this mess.

(The colours of the yarn have been disguised since this is a sock club skein)

Looks like fun doesn't it? That's as far as I got after about an hour. I'm sure there are many more hours to go before it will be done. It's hard not to shove it all in a bag and shove it all under the couch where it can be forgotten until some day far in the future it surfaces due to furniture being moved around. But.. it's such a lovely colourway that I really do want to knit it up!

Send courage!

I need another hobby like I need another hole in my head. Of course, isn't that what I said when I started spinning? And look where that landed me!

But.. here's what I made last night while watching TV.

Coasters. I pulled out a few scraps of fabric, cut them into strips and went to town. I ended up with 3, and top stitched them all in different ways. Here's the one I like best.

And this image just makes me smile. I love my macro.

All of this was done on my brand new Euro Pro I do 50 million stitches so neener neener hah! sewing machine. Really. This thing even does lettering. I came across it on clearance at Target, and next thing I know I'm loading it up and taking it home. I'll say this much - it makes sewing buttonholes SO much easier than my old machine. I never really figured it out on that one!

The coasters aren't the only thing I made. Here's a tote bag I made the weekend I got the machine. Five hours to draft out a pattern, cut fabric, open sewing machine box and figure out what how it works, and sew. Lets hope the next one goes faster because I absolutely LOVE it and plan on making several more. Plastic bags, take that! This is so much easier to carry and holds SO much more than a flimsy grocery store bag. If I recall rightly, in that photo the bag is holding a BIG jar of mayo, 2 bottles of applejuice, a box of bread mix, and a couple of odds and ends.

Oh.. and head on over to the shop. There's new yarn in there!

Yes.. yes.. I know. It's been months and months and months since I last posted. And there has been knitting, and spinning and dyeing galore in that time. I'll catch up on all that later. Maybe. But for today I need to share something.

A little over a year ago I posted this picture:

My first outgoing shipment of hand dyed yarn ever. Today I had another first.

There's this box:

Now who could possibly be buying THAT much yarn at once? 4 skeins each of 7 different colours? Why.. it must be someone who wants to sell them, right?

SQUEEEEEEEEE!! Yes.. coming soon, my yarns will be available on the Yarn4socks.com website! They had contacted me right after my very first batch of sock yarns I had listed, asking if I were open for wholesale. At that time I wasn't, but when the time arrived they were right there ready to place an order! I am so excited about this! I can't wait to see my yarns listed on their site!

Those of you who were with my at Maryland Sheep & Wool saw first hand that it was love at first sight for me and my brand new Golding dropspindle . I absolutely love using it and haven't gone back to my Schacht Hi-Lo spindle that I learned on since.

I've known for a while now that it was only a matter of time before I bought another spindle. This time I wanted one of the more decorative ones from Tom Golding's vintage collection. SO last week I finally settled on one and called to place my order.

Here's what came in the mail yesterday...

Isn't it a beauty? The whorl is made of a Nepalese mandala, which while not exactly the same as Indian designs has its similarities. So being Indian (as in from India, not Native American) I just had to have it. And there was a bit of a suprise when I got it. Most decorative spindles have their designs only on the top of the whorl while the bottom is bare. But look here!

Even the underside is decorated!

So far I've just tested out a little bit of merino on it and it spins beautifully. It is a little heavier than my other spindle, coming in at .90 oz.. so it will be great for spinning about a sock yarn weight on it I think. Whether I actually am crazy enough to attempt to spin a full 4 oz of sock yarn on a spindle with a whorl just 1.75 inches across remains to be seen though. Stranger things have happened!

In OTHER news... have you seen this yet?

Yup. I now dye roving too. Come and get it! I did something I never do this time around. I kept something I dyed for myself before sticking it in the shop. But that's fodder for another post right?

Like many MANY others at midnight on Friday, I was camped out at Barnes & Noble, waiting for my copy of Harry Potter. Wearing of course my 'made at the very last minute' Molly Weasley sleeves. By last minute.. uh.. I mean I finished the last row.. slipped them on, and ran out the door to the bookstore.

Anyway.. while waiting I needed something to do. So after a little bit of knitting, I decided to pull out my Golding spindle and some of the oh so lovely cashmere/tussah silk blend I bought a little while ago.

Look at it... luscious, no?

Come a little closer..

Here's how much I got done..

Not too shabby considering I didn't even leave home until just after 11 pm, and I was out of there by 1 am. Of course we need a pic of me spinning too..

As for the book? read it in a little less than 7 hours flat. I did fall asleep face first in the book around 2 am, so I put it aside then and started back up again after a few hours of sleep. Overall.. it ends satisfactorily. I won't go on any more than that because there are still so many people out there who haven't read it yet.

Most of the time I like spinning really fine yarns. But in an attempt to master the long draw, I have been spinning a little thicker. I started with the bobbin full of yarn spun from my Lime & Violet batt, and then progressed to some BFL I kettled dyed.

I started spinning from one end of the roving - and discovered that most of the colourful bits were at one end, while the other end was more muted colours. SO I spun from the muted end.. predrafting ever so slightly just to open the fibers up a bit and then attempting a long draw. My technique isn't perfect yet - I still get some too thin bits, and some slubby bits, but overall I think I achieved a pretty decent yarn. Since I was aiming for a really soft squishy yarn, I gave it just a slight bit of twist, just enough to hold the fibers together.

Here it is in a skein:

In a pile so you can see the colours that got buried in the skein while twisting it up:

And the required close-up. This IS a yarn pron friday post after all!

I haven't come up with a name for the yarn yet - but it reminds me of a bowl of melted banana split, with the browns and pinks and creams all swirled up together in one bit puddle.

Fiber: BFL Roving kettled dyed by me!
Weight 3.2 oz
Yardage: 210 yards

So I'm a geek. I actually really liked all my science classes in school. Mr Thackeray, my 8th grade science teacher would be proud.

How did you do?