More Chicagoland

So I've been on a tour of Chicagoland yarn stores. I figured since I was coming to the area I might as well call up some of the yarn stores and see if they'd be interested in carrying my patterns. It's not very glamorous. At. All. I called them first, and, well, it was extremely nerve wracking. I'm pretty sure some of the LYS owners thought I was crazy. Which, when you think about it kind of makes sense. I mean, I've basically been dabbling with being a traveling saleswoman, and my product is sock patterns. Tell any non-knitter that, and they will think I am off my rocker. "Socks? Just socks? Um, no thanks, not interested."

I was very happy whenever I went to a store that caters to sock people because I am a sock person, and it just tickles me. Tickles me! One such store was Fringe: A Knitting Salon in Aurora. (Another was Loopy Yarns in the south loop - they were fabulous and I regret not taking pictures there. And Chix With Stix which I posted about yesterday.) From the outside you would never guess just how fabulous the inside is (okay, the great big "YARN" might be an indication):

Because, you see, there are lots of sock knitters at Fringe, including Sarah. Here is a picture of her taking a picture of me taking a picture of her... (You can see it from the other side on her blog.)

She's working on bpm!

And what I never would have expected from walking into Fringe is that there's actually a huge back workspace for... Dream in Color, their own yarn hand painting production facility. Here's a sampling of their yarns:

Look at the beauty of it. I love the depth of their semisolids.

I might have walked away with some of their Smooshy sock yarn. (It's called Smooshy, how could I resist?!) I can't decide which to knit first. My favorite might be the green one - Happy Forest. (Speaking of green, have you seen all the pretty green socks that have been sprouting up everywhere? I LOVE IT!)

Veronica and Nancy (the owners) are very cool. I was surprised to find a little island of yarny coolness / artistry so far out in the suburbs and only a stone's throw from where I grew up. These gals were a riot!

Today I'm recovering from a very late night:

It was beautiful. (Except for all the annoying talking people. Grrrr.) I might have to buy some tickets from scalpers for the sold out show in SF when I get back.

Oh yes, and there's crazy server weirdness still going on. We're working on it.

Traveling

I'm in Illinois, and the weather here is PERFECT. What's even more fun? I stopped by Chix With Stix in Forest Park yesterday and had a blast. They carry the full line of Cookie A patterns and are hosting a trunk show this week, so if you're in the area please stop on by! Here are some legs and socks being set up:

Renee and Kelly go at it with the legs (heeheehee!):

And I couldn't resist taking a picture of the shop dog now could I? Awwww.

I've also updated the retailer list on my website as well as posted Errata and more news.

Fiber galore!

Last Saturday, Cookie and I headed over to the Fiber Fiend studio, where Margit was kind enough to let us play around with some dyes on the variety of undyed fibers I had. I told Cookie that she could come along and dye some and I would spin it for her. She ended up dyeing about half of my fiber, so now she may have some choices to make!

On to the pictures!

Hmmm ... where to start? How about with some Shelridge Farm wool that Cookie got for me when she visited them last Fall:

I dyed that one last.

Next up, some Louet Superwash Wool that Cookie dyed last:

I had a hard time getting the depth of the color on that one. The greens are deep and rich and emerald-y. I think that one is my favorite.

Since we're talking superwash wool, how about another 4 oz? This next one was the first one I dyed:

That one runs a close second, I'd say.

Alright, again, since we're on the superwash, here's 4 oz. of superwash merino:

I had a hard time getting the darkness of this color as well. Cookie dyed this one and then gave up on it in the middle, and I added the orange.

Cookie gave up on that last one in the middle and I gave up on the next one, so we swapped:

When I was done with it, it looked like a watermelon, but I think Cookie saved it for me. It's merino/silk (30% silk), so you can see the nice shiny bits, which I think totally make it lovely.

And there was one more merino/silk:

You all know how hard red is to photograph, right? Trust me, this one is really gorgeous. Deep, rich reds, with lots of different saturations. Cookie dyed this but she said I should spin something for myself with it because it'll be a nice color for me -- we'll see what happens.

All in all, I'd say it was a very successful dye day. Thanks, Margit!

On (Spinning) Monogamy

As you may recall (or not), I gave Cookie the gift of handspun yarn for Christmas, though due to circumstances somewhat beyond my control, that yarn was ... not quite ready at Christmas. But then she went and told me I could take my time with it; she's in no hurry, she's got lots of yarn, etc. etc. Then something was mentioned about wanting a sweater's worth of yarn perhaps. So I ended up with a plan to spin three Sheep 2 Shoe* kits in Lucy. Let's just say that that project became hard to remain monogamous to, as it is a somewhat long term project. Ok, maybe it wouldn't be that long term of a project if I just finished it, but as much as I love these colors and this fiber, I needed to break things up. So that's when I decided that for every one of these

I finished, I would get to do a new project. And after plying a full bobbin, I would get to do a new project. So, as you can see, I finished another bobbin last night (4 out of 9!), and immediately dove in to a new project:

This is BFL from Spunky Eclectic in the "Confused" colorway. BFL has a much longer staple length than the merino that I was getting rather used to, so it's been fun to play with it for a change of pace.

Well.

On Thursday, after some "gentle nudging" from Cookie and perhaps under the influence of some pain meds, I figured out a new way to get around my self-imposed monogamy rules:

Drop spindle.

Suddenly I'm seeing how people end up with many wheels/spindles.

*People often comment about the Sheep 2 Shoe kit: "Where can I get one?" or "I wish I could get one of those!". I have gotten Sheep 2 Shoe kits mostly from Purlescence, an LYS (they had some in, last I checked, in several colorways), but also at The Fold when I was visiting Chicagoland. You can also contact Blue Moon directly if you're interested as far as I know. Hope that helps.

Distracted

I've been a bit distracted lately.

Sock pattern: Thelonious
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Lightweight in Jail House Rock
Port: Warre's 1963 Vintage Port

Last night I went to dinner with some fellow port drinkers (there were some knitters amongst them) and drank the port. It was HEAVENLY. If I could drink that all day long, I might never knit again. There's something about drinking wine that was bottled before you were born. It's a piece of faraway tradition, not unlike knitting, shared with friends. And it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Have charger, will blog

"Cleaning" the apartment yielded no camera charger, so I finally broke down and went and bought one today. Once I had it in my head that I was buying it, ordering online was going to take too long (and not save money anyway). Note: "Cleaning" because it really involved pushing stuff around looking for the camera charger and trying to place blame on DH, who never ever uses the camera. Now I can charge my camera on the go, though, as the new one came with a car adapter. We'll see if that is ever useful.

Anyway, moving along, new charger means pictures! For the blog! Woot!

As I mentioned, I finished spinning up the Lisa Souza South Pacific Merino/Silk and plyed it together. I was really unimpressed with it on the niddy-noddy, but once I pulled it off and saw the hank, I was very happy. A soak and dry later, and I'm even happier with it. See what you think:

The silk shininess may be a bit stronger in the pics than in real life. More shots:

So, to recap: The fiber is from Lisa Souza (purchased at Stitches West 2007) in the South Pacific colorway, in a 50/50 merino/silk blend. It is about 20 wpi -- a light fingering. It weighs 105 g and is about 490 yards.

There has been some debate around these parts whether merino/silk is a good blend for socks. Pro: Strong, from silk! Con: Perhaps not as stretchy, from silk. What say you all?

Randomness

I really have no idea where the charger for my camera is. So I figured this would be a good time to get Cookie to help me get some pictures with her (much nicer) camera. I had never gotten the shots of the Rooster Rock knee-highs I wanted, so we got a couple of good ones:

As you may recall, these are knee-highs knit from my handspun. The fiber is superwash merino from a Blue Moon Fiber Arts Sheep 2 Shoe kit in Rooster Rock.

Here's a shot of the back so you can see the increases:

The socks aren't the vastly different lengths they appear to be in this picture, I think it's the way I'm standing.

While we were outside getting pictures, my Lisa Souza singles climbed up a tree:

And now those singles are yarn, but I can't take pictures -- no camera charger. Maybe it's time to clean the apartment.