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My addiction to snagging a little something from indie dyer updates goes on. The newest score, some Troika Worsted from Mama Blue!
Yarn: Troika Worsted, Mama Blue Knitting Goods
Color: Kelp
Dye Lot: —
Amount:1 skein at 185 yds
Purchased at: Mama Blue esty shop
stashed on ravelry here
This yarn looked amazing on the site, but is a million times more beautiful in person. It’s so sproingy feeling and the color is so rich. The yarn feels amazing. All the Troika yarns (it comes in three weights) are Merino/Cashmere/Nylon blends and it feels like pure heaven. This little skein is going to make one very luxurious accessory.
So I went a little crazy during the Sundara LE updates in May. I guess I’m building up my Sundara Sock stash. my rational was that I could use it for some gorgeous shawls or other non-sock items, since my sock yarn stash could last me years. But I got some very pretty yarn and now I can show you.
Yarn: Sundara Yarn, Sock
Color: Garden of Delight
Dye Lot: LE Postings May ’09
Amount:1 skein at 350 yds
Purchased at: Sundara Yarn website
stashed on ravelry here
Yarn: Sundara Yarn, Sock
Color: Gone With the Wind
Dye Lot: LE Postings May ’09
Amount:1 skein at 350 yds
Purchased at: Sundara Yarn website
stashed on ravelry here
Yarn: Sundara Yarn, Sock
Color: Fancy Free
Dye Lot: LE Postings May ’09
Amount:1 skein at 350 yds
Purchased at: Sundara Yarn website
stashed on ravelry here
Not surprisingly the Garden of Delight is my favorite. It’s such a fantastically fresh shade of green. But I love the others too. Sundara’s colors have so much depth to them, it’s hard not to love nearly every shade. Which is good, it make me step outside my color comfort zone and choose things I probably wouldn’t much of the time. Always good to widen one’s horizons.
Also you might have noticed my new banner (also featuring Sundara Sock). I took a week long photoshop class last week and made myself a few options. This is my favorite of all of them. I had a great time in the class. It was a blast to learn some new skills and experiment with what photoshop has to offer.
So much has been happening lately that it seems like forever ago that I finished the GRE & ordered myself a little reward. In fact it was about two months, which how long it takes for Sundara Year in Color offerings to show up after being dyed to order.
Yarn: Sundara Yarn, Fingering Silky Merino
Color: Poppy
Dye Lot: Flowers From my Mother’s Garden, March ’09
Amount:1 skein at 500 yds
Purchased at: Sundara Yarn website
stashed on ravelry here
What better way to reward oneself than by ordering yarn you would normally feel incredibly guilty buying? I’ve been wanting to try the FSM for sometime now, but it’s not normally budget friendly for me to spend $50 on one skein (even if it is a hefty skein). However, when rewarding myself for hard work, I occasionally allow splurges of this nature (to be clear I recognize that this is psychological, if I spend $50 on 2 skeins, I have still spent $50, it just seems like it goes farther and so I feel less guilty). This one is from the Flowers From my Mother’s Garden offering from March 2009. It’s called Poppy, and is a bit lighter than I expected (although the second photo is more true to color), but still seriously pretty. I long ago hatched plans to make a Shetland Triangle with this one. Conveniently, the dyed to order nature of the Year in Color set up delayed this yarn until a week ago, allowing it to function as a reward for my news as well, thus saving me from buying another $50 skein of yarn (although not saving me from picking up a few things with lower price tags from the recent Sundara Limited Edition updates).
I know it’s been awhile since I’ve posted any photos of actual knitting. I promise I have been knitting, just not getting good photos (or actually finishing much). But I swear I will show you some soon!
Maryland Sheep & Wool was a week ago and I can now manage to think about it without shivering. My Mom and I went on Sunday & it poured basically the entire time as I’m sure many of you can attest. I was pretty chilly and my feet were soaked, but I managed to have a good time none the less. And pick up some pretty awesome loot along the way.
Because of the weather I didn’t take many pictures. I did get a group shot of Ysoldawith some of my creepy internet friends, but it didn’t come out too well so I’m withholding it for personal use only. By the way, she was very sweet about us swooping in for a photo and telling her about how much we liked her designs. And she was very tickled that my friend Betsy was wearing her Coraline. I also got to meet Lolly, a co-mod and lovely lady. I could have gotten a picture with her since we were in the main barn, but I failed to think of it since I was mid-gyro. But regardless it was so great to meet her in person.
Since I’m largely without photos of the day, I’ll just show you everything I brought home.
Yarn: Brooks Farm, Riata
Color: 9R
Dye Lot: M13
Amount:3 skeins at 375 yds each
Purchased at: Maryland Sheep & Wool, Brooks Farm Booth
stashed on ravelry here
This was my most awesome acquisition at Sheep & Wool. I took home a sweaters worth of this lovely yarn in a color that is oh so me (in fact I only really bought variations on blue & green yarn that day, not that this is unusual). I have been having so much fun entertaining ideas for what I might make with these lovelies but it will be a while before I get to it.
Yarn: Tess’ Designer Yarns, Cultivated Silk & Wool
Color: —
Dye Lot: —
Amount:1 skein at 200 yds
Purchased at: Maryland Sheep & Wool, Tess’ Designer Yarns Booth
stashed on ravelry here
My main goal for the festival was to stash dk and worsted weight yarn. It’s what I never seem to have in stash when I’m looking to start a project. I didn’t completely stick to this goal, but I did pick a few lovely things that fit that bill, like this super soft and shiny yarn.
Yarn: Tess’ Designer Yarns, Superwash Merino Lace
Color: 871713
Dye Lot: —
Amount: 1 skein at 500 yds
Purchased at: Maryland Sheep & Wool, Tess’ Designer Yarns Booth
stashed on ravelry here
The Tess’ Designer Yarns booth used up the last chunk of my budget on our way out the door. I am pleased to say I did still come out $7 under budget! I picked up this skein with something specific in mind. After getting home, I decided to use something else for that project and now I’m thinking about using the lovely Spring Things pattern with this little skein. I love the super bright green!
Yarn: Tess’ Designer Yarns, Petite Silk
Color: —
Dye Lot: —
Amount:1 skein at 450 yds
Purchased at: Maryland Sheep & Wool, Tess’ Designer Yarns Booth
stashed on ravelry here
My last purchase from the Tess’ booth was this little guy. I just could not say no to blueish-purple lace weight. It’s shimmer lulled me into submission while it’s brilliant color coaxed my hand into picking it up. I was so tempted to buy a second skein to increase my options, but it would have busted through my budget, and I’m proud of myself for sticking to my guns. Besides there really are plenty of shawls one can make with 450 yds, and even more options if you just make shawlette versions of patterns that call for more yardage.
Yarn:Kipparoo Farms, Raggles
Color: —
Dye Lot: —
Amount:1 skein at 165 yds
Purchased at: Maryland Sheep & Wool, Kipparoo Farms Booth
stashed on ravelry here
My Mom has known Annie from Kipparoo Farms long enough now that I consider her a friend of the family. She’s an awesome person and a great dyer (a great shepherd too!). And I saw this little gem. I loved the mix of natural and subtle colors and it fit within my stashing criteria so I let it come home with me. I know I’ll find just the right project for it sometime soon.
Yarn: The Unique Sheep, Tinsel Toes
Color: Mirkwood Gradience Set
Dye Lot: —
Amount: 4 mini skeins totaling 360 yds
Purchased at: Maryland Sheep & Wool, Cloverhill Yarn Shop Booth
stashed on ravelry here
Beyond just my goal to stash heavier yarns, I had a more specific goal not to buy sock yarn. This was the one exception I allowed myself since it was a gradience set that would make up for our mostly unsuccessful attempt at gradient dyeing. Besides I don’t plan on using it for socks anyway.
So those are the beauties I picked up. Not so over the top, but not really restrained either. I really need to try and slow down on the yarn buying for awhile, but something tells me it’s not likely to happen. But as I like to remind myself in these moments there are far worse addictions to have than yarn. So I might just cut myself a break.
So now that you’ve had a chance to absorb all the information about the dyeing process, and I’ve had time to take a few more photos I have some dyeing results to show you. Once again there’s loads of pictures.
Since I talked so much about those sock flats let’s see one of those first…
In my opinion this is the most successful gradient dyed sock flat. It does have one stark shift in the middle, but it also has shading and shifts gradually from dark to light except for that one distinct change. It also is made up of colors I love that are soft, but still have depth of shade.
This flat also has the least “heathering” from spots where the dye didn’t penetrate the stitches. So while the colors shift, it appears nearly solid in each section. I’m really looking forward to knitting this one up and seeing what happens.
You can get a different perspective on the transitions by seeing the yarn wound. The cake on the left transitions from light to dark moving outwards and the cake on right is the opposite, with lightest on the outside and darkest on the inside. I really like looking at these particular cakes. I’ve been doing it at least once a day since I wound them. (By the way, these cakes are courtesy of my new ball winder & swift set, which I adore).
Ok more sock flats later on to some kettle dyed skeins…
Although the gradient dyeing was time consuming and exciting because it was new, the real purpose of dying day was to dye these. Liz went to Vietnam after Christmas and brought back lace weight Vietnamese silk as gifts. My Mother and I were both lucky recipients of these amazing yarny treasures. Instead of splitting our share half & half my Mom generously let me take a bit more so I ended up with 2000 yds of the stuff. My goal was to do two differently colored batches, each of 1000 yards, but as I mentioned before they turned out the same. Above is the batch I’m leaving alone & the other batch I will overdye later (you can see it once it’s done). While it was not at all what I had in mind this yarn is really gorgeous. The color is so vibrant, and combined with the sheen of the silk I find it irresistible. I want to cast one with it right away, but I’m so bogged down in WIPs (more on some of those soon) I must wait for a bit. For reference it is not quite as pink as it looks in the photo, it is a bit closer to beet, which is why I have decided to call this color “Beet Out the Purple”.
The two skeins you see above were also dyed from gifted base yarn. My friend Maureen recently traveled to Peru (if only I got to go some of the places my friends go…) and brought back tons of alpaca. She generously shared some with me including some undyed skeins. The blue was supposed to be navy, and I had hoped for a light and dark pair for some colorwork, but I actually love this shades together and might still use them for some subtle colorwork.
Recently I came up with a new Project (with a capital P). The difference between a Project and a project is that a project is just one thing, and a Project is a series of projects or pieces that have some kind of overarching theme and that fit together in some way. I want to devote a post to this Project, so I’ll wait to tell you about it, but it needed some yarn & this is the yarn I dyed for one part. This merino lace weight was the yarn that was supposed to be red and came out pink. It’s not quite hot pink, although it looks it in the picture, but it is certainly not a red. I have decided to call it “Better off Red”. This is mostly for humors sake, I don’t mean to give this poor yarn a bad wrap. It will still serve its purpose, and I have a feeling it will be appreciated just the same.
Ok back to sock flats…
This is the flat that came out a true half and half. Not what I had in mind. One half is quite dark, and the other is quite light & there’s not much variation in each section. Considering the amount of time that went into trying to make it a gradient this was a bit of a bummer, but I am not the type to be disappointed by new yarn. Ever. It took me a little brainstorming to come up with what I might do to maximize the potential of this somewhat surprising result and I came up with this:
I’m not generally a huge fan of stockinette only socks, but I have been really wanting a pair of striped socks lately (erm, ok I have been really wanting a pair of handknit striped socks lately since I have at least 8 pairs of machine made commercial ones). It occurred to me that if I pulled from the dark end of one ball and the light end of the other I could have a pair of adorably striped tonal socks. I whipped up a little swatch to decide what I truly thought & I love it. So add that to this list of things to start soon.
This flat looked very promising after drying. It was still a bit on the dark side, but it did have a real gradient to it and the color was really lovely. Then I wound it up and saw just how many white spots there were from those pesky stitches. I’m learning to love it for what it is, but it doesn’t have the same depth of color that it showed when in flat form.
So all in all, some lessons learned, some experiments started (but certainly not finished) and some yarn stashed. How could one be sad about those results?
So this is it. I have promised myself that this is the last yarn I will buy before Maryland Sheep & Wool. So that means no yarn for a month. Good thing it’s gorgeous. That will help tide me over.
Yarn: Fiberphile, Alchemy Super Squish Sock
Color: Just Peachy
Dye Lot: 09-0327
Amount: 1 skein at 440 yds
Purchased at: fiberphile etsy shop
stashed on ravelry here
I recently stumbled across fiberphile yarns while perusing ravelry. I was a bit of an instant addict. I only ended up ordering one skein (I don’t have the sort of yarn budget where I can go crazy ordering multiple things at a time just because there’s , an update), but I worked hard to get it. As soon as I encounter fiberphile I added myself to the email list. I missed a few surprise updates and then a scheduled one because of work, but then found out about the reserve system. I hopped onto flickr, reserved this beautiful skein, and didn’t have to worry about the fact that customers were in the store looking for help during the next update. I got myself some beautiful yarn none the less.
Last weekend the boy & I took a little getaway to New York. We had a great time and he humored me with a little trip to School Products. He snapped this while I was browsing around.
There’s not a lot about school products that hasn’t already been written. It’s cropped up in a number of blogs lately. So I’ll limit myself to a few brief thoughts. There was a lot of really lovely yarn, but the bargains weren’t quite as good as I expected. That said, I left with a few things I’m very happy with.
Yarn: School Products, Yak Merino Worsted
Color: —
Dye Lot: —
Amount: 7 ounces at 500 yds
Purchased at: School Products, New York, New York
stashed on ravelry here
For my School Products exclusive purchase I picked the Yak Merino. After feeling the sample knit up in this yarn I was really impressed. Once it’s washed the strands blend together and it softens a great deal. And this color is incredibly unique. It’s still a neutral, but it’s got so much depth to it.
Color: 2200 & 1500
Dye Lot: 64 & 109
Amount: 3 Skein at 175 yds each
Purchased at: School Products, NY
stashed on ravelry here & here
I also picked up this KPM to make a really bright pair of stranded mitten. Maybe it’s the coming Spring, but I’ve been drawn to crazy color combinations.
Ah Sundara. The most coveted of yarns. Or at least close. She certainly has the whole supply and demand thing working to her advantage. Have gorgeous yarn at a relatively limited supply and knitters go crazy. And I am most certainly not immune.
Color: Mint Julep
Dye Lot: –
Amount: 1 Skein at 350 yds
Purchased at: online from Sundara Yarn
stashed on ravelry here
As part of the Crusade Against Winter Gloom, I scored this lovely little sock yarn. And someday soon I will get to know what all the fuss is about. It is super pretty though. So I’m guessing that might have something to do with it.
So by now it’s no secret that I really love yarn. Of course I love knitting, but I also love yarn as an independent entity. Yarn makes me happy, and not just because it will someday be knit. Yarn looks nice, feels nice and often smells nice (oh no I’ve outed myself as a yarn sniffer). So while I’ve been participating in a many months long Stash Down competition with the Enabler’s Anonymous group on ravelry, it’s yet to really affect my yarn buying habits. Mostly it has just made me finish projects faster to offset the yarn I buy. Which is good in a different way than I had in mind when I signed up. So while I have many backed up FOs to show you, let me today, take a minute to show you some of my new pretties instead.
Yarn: Colorful Yarn, Merino Sock
Color: Ocean & Sage
Dye Lot: –
Amount: 2 skeins at 410 yds each
Purchased at: online from Colorful Yarn
stashed on ravelry here & here
It took a bit to sort out some color selection via computer screen issues but Jana of Colorful Yarns was lovely and incredibly helpful while I figured out what I really wanted. In the end I’ve got two colors I really love that I think will blend together in a really interesting way for the Tapestry Cowl I have just begun. Because while there is always more yarn, there are also always more projects.
The start of 2009 has been a bit of a whirlwind. I’ve already, in less than two weeks, been on more flights than I was on in the whole of 2008. And I’ve only slept in my own bed twice. But I’m home now, after my trip to London and a very unexpected (and unfortunately not under the best circumstances) trip to the San Francisco Bay area.
But I know what you really want to hear about (and see!) is my trip to London, and while I’m sure I can’t fit it all in one post, I can at least get started tonight. There was plenty of general tourist type fun (some of which I’m sure to show you later), but of course for me many of the highlights of the trip were my yarn store visits and stolen knitting moments.
My first shop visit was to I Knit London in Waterloo. It was a nice shop with a number of yarn from British breeds which was what I was largely on the lookout for this trip. One of the highlights of the shop was a large sheep sculpture covered in pieces of knitting all from British breed yarn.
My Mom bought some yarn as well as the book written by the shop owner which he graciously signed for her. And I scored some lovely British breed yarn from Garthenor Organic.
Yarn: Garthenor Organic, Pure Wool Organic Hebridean/Manx Blend
Color: —
Dye Lot: —
Amount: 2 skeins at 85 yds each
Purchased at: I Knit London, London UK
stashed on ravelry here
The next day I managed to find a spare moment to work on my angle scarf while waiting for our lunch at The Eagle, a gastropub in Clerkenwell. I even snuck in a few rows between bites, although it wasn’t easy as the food was absolutely heavenly. Apparently The Eagle is usually credited as the first gastropub, and they’ve definitely got the whole arrangement down to a science.
After lunch we took a bit of a walk up to Loop in Islington. The shop was really adorable, and very crowded on a Saturday. But I managed to sneak in a few photos around all the customers.
The shop is definitely a haven for brightly colored luxury yarns. And despite my quest for British breeds and a generally tendency towards neutrals and deeper or more muted colors in recent months I certainly fell in with the trend, picking up two shades of GGH Cumba for a planned color work beret.
Yarn: GGH, Cumba
Color: 008 (green) & 019 (teal)
Dye Lot: 8053141 & 8009091
Amount: 2 balls at 164 yds each
Purchased at: Loop, London UK
stashed on ravelry here & here
On my last full day in London I took a moment to rest at Bea’s of Bloomsbury after a rather long walk. I enjoyed a lovely chocolate cupcake and made a little progress on my Swallowtail Shawl.
Before heading to the airport on my last day I managed to make it to the incredibly unique shop Prick Your Finger in Bethnal Green. Things were a bit messy since the owners had literally just returned from their Christmas holiday, but the shop was beyond cool (and who I am to hold messiness against anyone?). And the ladies were so friendly and helpful, as well as super stylish and creative. I didn’t have a ton of time to look around, but I got a feel for the place and picked up a sweaters worth of a rare Welsh breed called Black Welsh Mountain, and boy is it beautiful.
Yarn: Prick Your Finger, Black Welsh Mountain Aran
Color: —
Dye Lot: —
Amount: 6 skeins at unknown yardage
Purchased at: Prick You Finger, London UK
stashed on ravelry here
That about sums up the knitting devoted bits of my trip. I tried to visit Socktopus on my way to Heathrow, but very sadly it was closed. Hopefully it won’t be another four years before I make it back to London because the shop looked beautiful and I’d really love to check it out.
I’ve got more London fun to share with you when I have another chance to sit down. Hopefully that will be soon!
knitting pretty in dc 