Apple pie for today's meal!

Long Time....Finally Home

October has been a whirlwind month, and I've been on the road every weekend. I am finally home until Jan, 2011, and am loving it. October was San Diego, Rhinebeck, a wedding in Vermont, and then Stitches East. I just got back nfrom Dayton OH. So let's back up to San Diego.

The North Coast Knitting Guild is a lovely guild with many members. It was nice and warm there, which was a plus, and I stayed with a buddy of mine, Linda Walters, who I met on my Norway/Austria knitting trip many years ago. We had such fun together talking, breathing, and almost eating knitting! She took me to a wonderful quilt shop, but alas, we got there 10 minutes before closing time. I went racing through the shop, loving everything I saw, but unable to make a decision about what to buy in such a short amount of time. Frustration!!

Rhinebeck....what is there to say.......sheep and wool festivals are the best fun around. Even though I taught for 4 days and hardly got a chance to shop, it was heaven just knowing that right outside my classroom there were 100's of vendors with beautiful things that I wanted to purchase. I did get a chance to buy some beautiful alpaca, 2 bowls with rabbits on them, a Golding spindle (love at first sight because I already have one that I love), and some Coopworth roving to spin on it. My students were so much fun, and were such lovely people. For 4 days I was surrounded by people who loved animals and fiber as much as I did.

My friend Donna's daughter had a lovely wedding in Vermont, which we attended. Because we were not going to be home until late at night I asked a friend to come into the house and put the birds in their cages and feed our bunny. The bunny was no problem, and she finally was able to use human wit over bird wit to get the birds into their cages. But we forgot to tell her is that the parrot is an escape artist. When we walked into the house, there he was, sitting on the back of a kitchen chair! He's able to lift up the little door by his food dish and scoot out.

Stitches East.......another fantastic show where I was surrounded by knit-lovers and gorgeous products in the market. To top all of this fun, the very next weekend was a fiber festival in Massachusetts. We stopped at the booth of Knitting Out Loud, and here is a picture of us.

http://outloudaudiobooks.blogspot.com/2010/11/fiber-festival-of-new-england-2010.html

Here is a picture of me and my favorite fiber-producing animals at the New England Fiber Festival.

I just got back from the Dayton Knitting Guild. What a great time I had with these guild members. Every single one had a fabulous sense of humor, and it seems like we probably laughed more than we knit. We had potluck lunches for both days of classes, but the greatest thing this guild did was break out a box of chocolates every day when people seemed to be fading. After a delicious chocolate (or 2!), we were all ready to get back to work. The guild sent me home with a 1.5 lb box of these chocolates. Oh my!!! I miss all of them already.

The Sock Blank

This title strikes me as sort of funny, as socks are anything but BLANK!! But for those of you who are new to this, a sock blank is a machine-knit piece of fabric about 12" wide and about 18" long. It is knit using two strands of sock yarn. You can dye this blank in any way you like, then ravel it out and knit with it. Some people suggest knitting straight from the blank and doing 2 socks at the same time. I know that the crinkles in the yarn would drive me nuts, so I raveled it out while it was still wet from dyeing and let it dry on my skein winder.

The first step is to soak the blank in water for at least 1 hour, but I always just loose track of the time, and I sometimes remember it the next day. Not to worry; it's always fine. I decided I wanted the socks to come out with lightning zigzags, so experimented with dyeing vertical stripes up the blank. Here is a picture of it partially painted with the stripes. and then raveled and drying on the skein winder.

When the yarn was knit up, alas, I did not get lightning zigzags, but I did love the the look of it.

Tomorrow is another day, another experiment. Today was busy doing secretarial work; I had to book a plane ticket and submit proposals to various places. I did get some time to work on my double knitting. I am teaching a class on this at Stitches East in Hartford Oct 28-31. It is a fascinating topic and very fun to do.

self-striping sock yarn

The other day I decided to dye a 20 yd skein of sock yarn to make self-striping yarn. It was great fun. Here are the pictures to prove it, and the socks came out pretty nice. Of course, it's alot easier to just buy the yarn! I decided to try the two socks on two circulars. It was tough going at first, then I got used to it. By the time I finished the gussets (the bottom side of the toes are shown in this picture), I had had it. I put them on my beloved double pointed needles to finish them off one at a time. These socks are, of course, knit using the Strick-ly Socks method...that is, the toes and heels are knit flat. Everything is started at the base of the toes.

Here's the finished sock. There are diagonal ribs on the cuff, which are hard to see because the bright stripes sort of obscure them.

Stay tuned for my experiment with dyeing a sock blank.

Coventry Farmer's Market

Today was one of those beautiful and rare days that happen in September. Just when you think summer is over, you get a treat. The temperature was summer-like, but of course the light is totally different, and by 5 PM, it has already cooled off. To me, these days are better than summer.

Once a year, the Farmer's Market of Coventry holds its Fiber Day. Besides the usual summer food produce booths, there are booths of yarn, fiber, animals, and special demonstrations and presentations. It is held at the Nathan Hale Homestead in Coventry. Nathan Hale is probably the most famous Connecticut resident. He gave up his life in 1776 when he was tried and hung as a spy. His famous last words, "I regret I have but one life to give for my country" are familiar to every American.

Ken and I set out from our home in Mansfield, 11 miles away, on our bikes. We arrived just as the market was opening. The very first stop was to see some adorable angora rabbits. Poor little guys were pretty hot already, but their considerate owner draped some cloth over their cage to give them some shade. Next were the beautiful and long-necked alpaca babies who refused to look at my camera. As always, you can smell the kettle corn wherever you happen to be. I was lured into a booth that sold both alpaca yarn and roving. I deliberated over the roving for the entire time, then decided that I already have lots of it at home. We bought some corn and tomatoes and headed home on our bikes.

These guys refused to look at me!

Can you smell it?
English tea treats and authentic Colonial garb.

Can you imagine this sock display?

I've been busy doing things that are not really related to my actual work, and when this happens, I know exactly why I am doing it. It's procrastination in the highest form. I decided I needed to dye some self-striping sock yarn. Why? I have no clue, but I had to do it. Now that's it's all dyed, I have to knit the socks from it. I am going to try the Strick-ly Socks method but do two at a time on two circulars. I have never been a real fan of this method, as I love my double points. The idea is there, so I have to do it. I have tons of other work to do, but these side-tracks happen to me every now and then, and I guess it's just my mind saying, "take a break." So I do.

Strick-ly Socks is now up at Amazon, and I gotten a few nice reviews. I've got to get to work on Strick-ly Shawls. There are some really beautiful ones I am working on, and lots more in my head. Here's hoping for another gorgeous summer day tomorrow!

Wool in Broadway

I have finally had some time to look over all the pictures from England, and I have located a particular one that I wanted to post. While in the beautiful village of Broadway we literally walked right into a yarn shop. Actually, in England, if you want yarn, you must call it wool. So we literally walked right into a WOOL shop. The owner, Pat, was lovely in every way, and I came out of the store with 6 skeins of Debbie Bliss Rialto 4-ply merino wool in a beautiful hue of coral. I talked with Pat about what's hot in knitting in the UK, and while socks are knit there, they are not the huge hit that they are here in the states. Here is a picture of the two of us in the shop.

Pat's shop is perfect in every way....a great selection of quality yarn, friendly advise, and she even had needlepoint for sale. Are you getting the drift of this needlepoint thing with me? I am in love with needlepoint!!! I love the finished product, and I love doing it. It's the perfect way to calm down while enjoying colors and wool.

Tomorrow I am flying off to Chicago for Stitches Midwest, which is always a good time. I will be teaching Knitting Backwards, Thumbing the Purl, Tradition!, Kumihimo, and The Ripple Effect.

I am hoping to score a few of the Signature circular needles which are just out.

For Stitches East, which will be in Hartford, CT on Oct 28-31, I will be teaching a new class called Double Dare. It is double knitting with double colors using two hands.

I will be teaching at Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival on Oct 14-17. I LOVE sheep and wool festivals, because not only is there yarn there, but also all things dealing with yarn....rovings, fleeces, spinning wheels and spindles, etc. It's an amazing array of color and texture.

Home Sweet Home?

I'm home. I'm not necessarily happy about it, but all good things must come to an end. If it weren't for everyday life, a vacation would be meaningless. We had three glorious weeks of vacation; now we are faced with the sometimes mundane things in life, like getting your own meals! Also, here in CT it is hot and humid, totally unlike England. It is hard to get used to that humidity again. OK, I'm done with complaining.

I am excited about the new things connected with my work. One of the great things to look forward to is the brand new VogueKnittingLive, which will be in NYC on Jan 21-23. It is a huge and impressive line-up of teachers, classes, and market, and is in mid-town Manhattan. I am off to Chicago on Wed for Stitches Midwest, which is always a great venue. Then in October there is Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival to look forward to. And of course, there are always those new designs lurking in my head that are just begging to be tried out with needles and yarn.

Back to the vacation.....when the Queen Mary pulled into NY harbor at 5 AM, the entire ship was up and out on deck to see the view. It was impressive to see Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty all lit up in the pre-dawn hours of the morning. People were even drinking champagne at that hour. Here are a few more pictures of England and our trip, and I promise, this is the last of it!!

Chocolate covered strawberries and champagne awaited us in our cabin onboard the ship.

Hiking through the Cotswolds always took you straight through sheep meadows. Here's my little sheep friends who seem to have the idyllic life.

This is the architecture of a typical Cotswold town. Most of the buildings were built out of the local limestone, which has turned a honey-color as it aged.

I promise I will not speak of my vacation again. It is time to buckle down to work and stop mooning over how delicious it was to NOT work!!