Created By Artsygal

Just a quickie as I'm supposed to still be skeining. While I've been watching the skeiner go round and round, I've been mentally going through my fiber stash trying to decide what to spin next. And I remembered this.

I have 4 batts of this.. an amazingly soft angora/wool/silk/alpaca blend I picked up at MDS&W this year. It was destined from the very start to become a 2 ply laceweight. The question is.. how do I take best advantage of the lovely colours within it? You all know me - I'll go to great lengths for the perfect results. And batts that beautiful need to be given the proper attention. My problem is I just can't decide how to approach it! So all you spinners out there reading this - how would YOU spin those batts?

He left me 2 boxes by the front door today. Look what was inside.

15 kilos (or 33 lbs) of my 3 ply merino base yarn. For those of you doing the math, that's 150 skeins worth. Of course, before I can start to dye it, I need to skein it up.

Wheeeee.. round and round it goes! This is what I have fill up.

As you can see, I'm not leaving this room for quite a while! If you haven't heard from me by Sunday, send help (and chocolate!)

Oh.. and stop by SonnyandShear.com if you get a chance. I shipped them a box of yarn recently and it just went online!

This past friday I headed up towards the bay area with a plan. Bright and early on Saturday myself and 3 other knitters got in a car and drove to Santa Rosa where we stood in line in the rain for a little while.

Then we were herded inside where we continued to wait.

While I waited I chatted with blogless Laura who was knitting with the most amazing yarn. When I asked which yarn, she told me it was handspun! Take a look at this sock!

After about a couple of hours total of waiting, the guest of honor finally made an appearance. Who could possibly be so interesting that about 150 or so knitters were willing to wait so patiently for?

The Yarn Harlot of course! I believe that Santa Rosa was the first stop for her latest book tour promoting her collection of essays. She was her usual entertaining, insightful self.

Afterwards, we stood around in line for another hour or so waiting to get our books signed. Everyone got a chance to show off their knits, chat for a moment and take pictures.

Don't you love that tshirt? I aspire to be worthy of one someday! I'm wearing my swallowtail, knit out of some handspun I bought at MDS&W in 2007. Back in May when I went to a talk by the Harlot in Philadelphia (boy does that seem like a lifetime ago!) I wore my Shetland Tea Shawl and she asked me if I'd knit it out of handspun. I hadn't, but it got me wondering why I never use my handspun laceweight. So I pulled out a skein of my spindle spun yarn and cast on for Swallowtail. Saturday was the first time since I finished it that it was cool enough to wear wool, so it seemed appropriate to launch it that day!

Overall a wonderful knitty filled day. Other than the Harlot's talk though, I think one of the best parts of the day was the confused look on the muggles faces as they watched masses of people line up outside the bookstore, knitting away and refusing to budge even when it started raining. We got asked a few times what we were waiting for and got met with some very confused stares when we told them it was for a knitting event.

I've been teasing all of you for a while now with pictures of kinky yarn, and partially knit socks in stripey gradient colours. It's time for the reveal!

Some time ago I posted this image on ravelry in the Artsy Addicts group.

Here's how that little toe turned out!

Nothing too fancy - just a basic toe up sock, knit till I ran out of yarn - quite literally.

From top left, going clockwise -

• How much yarn I had left when I finished these socks. I couldn't have knit a single round more on them!
• Pretty toes - knit using Judy's magic cast on. I love the way these look!
• Calf shaping. Notice how the left and right aren't quite symmetrical? The right side is actually the front of the leg, while the left side is the back. These socks fit like a second skin. I don't know about you, but the front and back of my shapely calves aren't identical, so I don't think that the shaping on them should be either. I'll write an explanation of how I shaped these if anyone is interested.
• Short row heels - I finally figured out how to turn a heel with no holes! I've tried every tutorial I can find, and this heel is a hybridrization of several of them. I won't knit a short row heel any other way now!

Over all, I'm quite happy with these socks. I dyed the yarn up for myself on a whim while I was testing out a new base, and when I posted pictures of them on Ravelry the response was an overwhelming 'Where can I get this yarn NOW!?' Good news - you can now get it in my shop! There aren't many though... I'll be doing just a few skeins of this yarn once in a while, so get yours before they're gone!

Also in the shop today is some new roving. It's been a long time since I dyed any roving and I'd almost forgotten how much I enjoyed it! These are all kettle dyed and the colours go all over the place. It's hard to resist the urge to keep them all for myself!

Yeah.. not fun. Luckily I'm not so blind without them that I can't function without them, though watching TV from across the room gets a bit annoying when I can't always figure out what exactly I'm looking at. And I do have a pair of prescription sunglasses that I've been wearing all the time instead.

So Monday, I took the bus into Visalia (about 30 miles away and the closest decent size town. Why yes, I do live out in the boonies now!) for my first eye exam in years and years. The good news is that my eyesight hasn't changed in about 7 years now. I picked out a new pair of glasses and went for something completly different than what I used to wear. I'm still not sure I love them.. what do you think?

I pick them up on Friday on my way up to the bay area for the weekend. The Yarn Harlot is putting in an appearance there, and I'll be heading there with some local knitters. Should be fun.

Once the glasses were dealt with, I decided to check out the LYS in the area. The last time I was in Visalia a couple of weeks ago on a Sunday and they were closed. An once again this time, they were closed. Next time I'll call first!

On my way back, while waiting for a bus and knitting away, I happened to look up and saw the strangest sign I've ever seen.

Uh.. WTF?! I've never driven a car that gave me my speed down to a fraction of a mile. Have you?

When choosing something to knit my biggest criteria seems not to be the finished item, but rather how interesting it will be to knit. I find myself getting bored easily and so I tend to choose patterns that have some sort of elements that will hold my attention for the entire time it takes to knit them.

Yesterday however I knit this.

A simple square of 25 stitches and 50 rows, in garter. It's a swatch for the Mermaid Jacket which caught my eye the very first time I saw it. The jacket itself has all kinds of interesting shaping and striping going on, but it's knit entirely in garter stitch.

Knitting this swatch reminded me of the last time I was knitting garter stitch squares. Believe it or not, that was back in 1986! I had just moved to London, England and my school actually had a knitting class! Once a week all 14 of us 5th graders headed into the school dining room where we knit squares up to sew together into blankets to donate to a homeless shelter. It was my favorite class of all. Just like knitting groups I've been to as an adult, we'd sit in little groups, chatting as we knitted and helped each other out when weird things happened like suddenly having too many or too few stitches. My grandmother had taught me to knit a couple of years earlier but it was here, with a group of friends that I became a Knitter.

I bought my first knitting book that year, paid for with a bag full of change I'd saved up from my 50 pence a day allowance (which I still have somewhere in a box!) and taught myself to rib, cable and do some very basic lacey patterns. Without anyone to tell me that these techniques were supposed to be difficult, I just jumped right into them, and even did a bit of self designed fair isle! I cast on my first sweater later that year, which I never finished but I've had something or the other on the needles ever since. Sometimes I wonder if without that class I would have become as obsessed a Knitter as I am today, or if I would have been one of those millions of people out there who just sorta knows how to knit and used to do that once upon a time.

Myself and 4 of the girls of my very first knitting group at my 11th birthday party. Don't you just LOVE the big yellow dress that my grandmother dressed me in? Oh man I HATED that dress! I refused to ever wear it again. I wonder if any of those girls still knit?

These have to be my fastest knit ever. I cast on the first sock just after lunch on the Friday of labor day weekend and was done by Sunday night I think. Sock number 2 was cast on a couple of weeks ago, and then got pushed aside until this friday when I started putting some serious time into it. Once the heel was turned and the gusset done, the rest of the foot flew! I was done before lunch time this morning!

I knit 2 repeats of the cuff before turning the heel. Once the gusset was turned I noticed that the spiraling had stopped and I was getting the purple/blues on the top of the foot and the yellow/blue at the bottom. That wouldn't do! Simply decreasing the stockinette foot area of it by 2 stitches got the colours spiraling again. An easy fix for when colours start to pool in a way that I don't like when using a handpainted yarn.

My favorite parts of these socks though, are the very beginning and the very end.

There is something so very satisfying about a pair of perfectly kitchenered toes. Especially since I'm left handed and all the directions out there are written for right handed kitchenering. Talk about awkward. One of these days I need to figure out how to kitchener from left to right using my left hand instead.

The cuffs were done with my favorite cast on - Italian tubular. It uses no waste yarn, and unlike every other cast on I've seen does not pull in at all when done on the same size needle as the pattern calls for. Perfect for a sock cuff as it's nice and stretchy too!

I'm resisting the urge to keep these socks for myself - they fit me so perfectly! But they were knit for my roommate Randy, and she's been watching me work on them from the very beginning.. so I guess it wouldn't be nice to change my mind now would it?

Pattern:Pomatomus Socks by Cookie A.
Source: Knitty.com (the pattern is free!)
Yarn:Artsygal 100% Merino (really, were you expecting anything else?)
Needles:US 2
Started: August 29th 2008
Finished:September 28th 2008

Yup, it happened again - I took pretty pictures of yarn, planned on blogging on Friday, and the day just got away from me. Where does the time go? In my defense though, I was busy dyeing up lots of yarn and roving in preparation for next Friday's shop update. In fact, the pictures I took were of some yarn that are going to be included.

Last week I introduced a new yarn base to my shop - my 3 ply merino that up till now only sock club members have seen. Next week I have some more of that yarn, but in a completly new product! Can you tell what it is?

Here's a little hint Yup, it's finally here! There won't be that many of them though - they're fairly labor intensive to make so I'll be doing them in very small batches here and there. Plus, I'm tempted to keep every single skein of it. Each skein is unique and I want so much to knit it up and see how it turns out! But I'll be good and share... probably.

It's Friday! And since I'm in a blogging mood, that means it's YPF, right? Today I bring you a brand new yarn. It's so new that I just added it to my site this morning as a matter of fact!

Yarn: Artsygal 3Ply Merino in Raspberry Truffles
Fiber: 100% Superwash Merino
Yardage: 470 (!) yarns
Weight: 3.5 oz (100 grams)

Yes, it really is as squishy as it looks. And that yardage is crazy! I knit a pair of socks out of it for myself, deciding to go toe up and keep knitting until I ran out. They sit right below my knees, believe it or not! I love how this yarn soaks up the colours and am having lots of fun dying it up in all sorts of different ways. Want to see a couple more colours?

See even more colours in the shop: http://shop.artsygal.net - there are also lots of new colours in all the other base yarns too! And sock club has some openings too! Lots of them as a matter of fact since I'm expanding the number of memberships each month!

Oh.. and in a totally unrelated to yarn photo...

Precious would like her belly rubbed now please. She's my roommate's cat (who is not allowed anywhere near the rooms that the yarn is in!) who has decided that I'm not dangerous and she no longer has to run away each time I enter the room. Nope.. instead she just plops herself down by my chair and demands a belly rub. And even though I insist I'm not much of a cat person, I find myself scratching that belly for her. Go figure.

A few weeks before my move to California, I was planning out my road trip knitting. I had decided that one of my projects that I took on the road with me was to be something for either Jon or Randy, my friends who were helping me haul all my belongings cross country. I left it up to them to decide who I was going to knit for, and it turns out Randy won. So I pointed her to my stash, err I mean shop to choose a skein that she liked. This is one of the advantages of running a dyeing business - there's always a good selection of yarns for a friend to choose from when you want to knit them something. Armed with yarn and several pages of pattern printouts, I set out on my cross country trip. Here's how far I got.

Yup.. that's a partial cuff, no longer on the needles. I learned an important lesson here - don't just assume that because I always use 2.25 mm needles with this yarn, that I don't need to check the pattern for needle size. Twisted stitches pull in a LOT, and this cuff was entirely too small. Did I have larger needles on me? Of course not.

The sock got frogged in Parachute, Colorado where we were stuck for a couple of hours while waiting for the Uhaul version of AAA. Apparently one of the tires on our trailer was starting to come apart - and we sure as heck weren't going to continue driving cross country that way! At that point in a mission to get Randy to cross over to the dark side, I offered her the yarn and some needles.

Yup.. she's knitting. Notice the completly disgusted look on Jon's face in the background?

Oh yeah.. back to Pomatomus - once I got settled in here, I found larger needles and cast on again. Took them with me when we went up to the bay area over the labor day weekend and managed to knock out a whole sock in about three and a half days! That has to be some sort of record for me. (Don't look too closely at the toes though - that's just a temporary grafting. I haven't found any needles to properly kitchner the toes closed yet. If they don't surface soon, I may have to give in and go buy more.)

Sock number 2 is in the works right now, though it's not going nearly as fast as the first. I'm sure it will be done in time for cooler weather though!