Sewing and Visit to CA

I don't have much to post here as I don't have the pics off the camera yet. I'm in CA visiting my loved ones and having a blast. I was able to celebrate my nephew's first birthday on Memorial Day and my mom's is coming up this weekend. So, lots to do.

While here in southern CA, I visited a sewing shop with my mom. Okay, let's be realistic, I visited several sewing shops, but this one is of noteworthy attention. Why? Well, they have great support for Pfaff sewing machines and they have some awesome deals, which my mom took advantage of. It's a bit far for her to travel, but when you're talking a couple of thousand dollars, it's worth the distance, plus the great support.

I sat in on one of the classes my mom took for her Pfaff 2170, the top of the line Pfaff sewing machine. It does everything almost. I even learned things that I can apply to my Pfaff 2134, the next machine down. Apparently they are coming out with another machine next year. These things are unreal in terms of what they can do. The store is Pollard's Sew Creative, in Glendora, CA. They are mainly a sewing machine store, selling Viking and Pfaff, as well as the software packages that are produced by these companies. They even have some computer basic courses to help their customers' out. I was impressed.

My Dye-O-Rama pal received her sock yarn and is pleased with it. I had Beth at Beth Blogs! who has a store SocksThatFit.

Hmm, that's it for me for now. We, my husband and I, may be moving our weblogs over to a new domain in the future, so look for it.

Happy fibering!

Vacation and Leftover Pics

For the next 2 weeks I am off to visit some loved ones. I will get to celebrate my nephew's first birthday and my mom's 60th birthdays! Whee, what fun. I may not get a chance to post as I will be at my parent's house, so I have some pictures to tide everyone over. Who knows, maybe Robin will post during this period of time! She did recently say she'd like to try to do it, and now that Blogger allows image uploading, this may be easier for her to do. Oh yeah, and my husband and I are contemplating purchasing our own domain, something we have been talking about every once in a while for a couple of years or so.

Alright, what photos do I have to share? Nope, none of my mystery shawl along 3 shawl. Oh yeah, MSA4 starts June 1st, I believe. I'm not signing up for this one as I don't like circular shawls too much. Not to mention I still have to finish my MSA3 shawl!

So, the first photo is of my anklet socks that I finished a weekend or so ago for myself.

I have tiny feet (size 5, but I also fit in kids shoes sometimes), so knitting socks is fast for me. Well, these should have been a fast knit. But remember, I was trying several toe up patterns and not liking any of the heels I tried. For some reason the sock pinched, no matter the heel method used. So, I switched to cuff down. In order to get a really nice stretchy cuff, I like to cast-on with two needles held together, then pull one needle out and begin my cuff. So far, I haven't had a problem creating a nice stretchy edge this way.

What tickles me about these socks is that the colors match! This is my homespun yarn and the socks were knit from two different skeins. Each skein was spun up separatley, so I was excited to see how well the colors matched. This meant I spun up similarly weight yarns and I drafted them about the same. Kind of a really cool test of my skills. I got this idea from a friend in my guild. I have been having problems matching weights, so I thought this would be a good test for myself.

Here's how I dyed the fiber. I weighed out 4 oz of merino superwash roving, split the roving into 1 oz lengths. I made up 4 or 5 bottles of dyes, all in denimy blues (initially for my mom's socks which she loves). After soaking the wool (usually while making up the bottles of dye), I laid two 1 oz strips of roving next to each other on a sheet of plastic wrap (Saran really is one of the better wraps to use; it sticks really well). I dyed these two pieces of roving the same, making sure the bands of dye were the same length for each roving strip. I wrapped the first two roving pieces up in one plastic wrap sheet and put it in my steamer to heat for 30 minutes.

For the second set of two 1 oz roving strips, I used the same dye bottles, but I varied the lengths of color from the first set, also making sure the lengths of each color were the same for each strip. After 30 minutes in the steamer, the fiber was placed in the sink to cool, then rinsed and hung to dry. I tried vary hard to not pull the roving during the dyeing process or the rinsing process. I wanted all the drafting to occur during the spinning, not my preparation process.

After dyeing, I had four strips of one colorway, two sets of roving with identical bands of color. I separated out the identical pairs of roving and paired them with the non-matching roving. I then rolled the non-matching strips of roving into a ball, making sure each ball was rolled the same way in terms of color order. I now had two balls of 2 oz of roving. Each ball was drafted and spun separately, then the singles from a ball of fiber were plied back onto itself, making a single skein of sock yarn for a single sock, thus two skeins for a pair of socks.

What I learned or may change in the future:

1. I liked this method, but I would like shorter bands of color. I normally split my rainbow-colored roving into about 16 strips, but I didn't do that for this method as I wanted my skeins to look as similar as possible. So, shorter bands of color, 1-2 inches maximum. My color bands were about 3-5 inches.
2. I spun the yarn really lofty and soft, but for socks the yarn will wear fast, so next time I spin tighter and maybe worsted instead of semi-worsted.
3. I only need about 3 oz of sock yarn for me. I made my mom socks plus the anklets, so she only needs about 3 oz too.
   

The other picture is of my dyepal's sock yarn. It's being sent tomorrow, so hopefully she will like it. It's more red than in this photo. I like the colorway so much that I am planning on dyeing a skein up for myself in these colors. The yarn is Henry's Attic "Kona Fingering Weight" which is now available. I didn't like it before I dyed the yarn, and it shrank during the dyeing process. However, I love the way the yarn feels now; it's so lofty and lovely feeling. I do worry about the yarn shrinking more though! My plan next time is to wash the yarn in hot water before measuring the length of yarn, then dye the fiber.


Okay, that's it for me! Happy fibering!

Yarn, Spouses, and Dyeing

No pictures in this post, just some humor. My husband D and I went to visit Robin and her husband P as well as take a look at a rental property. While down there, Robin let me use her umbrella swift to wind off some 400 yards of fingering weight yarn (Kona, superwash, fingering weight) for a dyeing project. Pictures of that yarn to come, after it drys.

I wound about 140 yards when I came to an end! That was suprising as the skein is over 1000 yards to begin with. What the f. . . , I thought. I looked at Robin in stunned surprise, and I'm sure it was a dumbfounded look. She suggested tying the strand to the next strand, but since the yarn is for someone else, I decided to just skein it and start over. Sigh, yup over.

Now, our spouses have gotten into the habit of joking about our fiber projects. I think this is the way they keep sane while Robin and I discuss our crafts. Anyways, her spouse pipes up and suggests that I "duct tape it together!" Alas, although we laughed quite a bit over this, duct tape DOES NOT solve all problems! I can just see the owner of the yarn looking at the piece of duct tape and wondering "what the bleep was that woman thinking!"

Okay, that's my giggle for the weekend. Pictures of my dye job later this week. It's lovely and I'm planning on making me some yarn with the same colors!

Happy fibering!

Dye-O-Rama Questions

Robin and I are participating in Dye-O-Rama swap. We have answers to the Dye-O-Meme-a-Rama. Yes, Robin even answered the questions. She is on break right now, but starts a summer term next Monday.

Robin's sock yarn answers:

1. Your favorite colors? blues and greens, but the only color I don't like is bubble gum pink! (Annette's comment on Robin's colors -- Robin gravitates towards beautiful rusts and sandy colors as well as lovely plum colors. She's bought several fibers in these colorways.)
   
2. Preferred yarn weight (Fingering, Sport, DK, maybe even Worsted)? fingering weight
3. Do you prefer solid or multicolored yarn? I love multicolored yarns
4. If your buddy is able to do so, would you like a variegated, self-striping, or self-patterning yarn? variegated yarn, I've had enough of the self striping stuff!
5. Would you be interested in a wool blend sock yarn (nylon, tencel, silk, acrylic, alpaca, etc.)? I wouldn't mind blends, I do prefer superwash but if you've already got the yarn, don't worry about it.
6. Imagine the perfect colorway. What would you name it? Flower Gardens (I've been gardening a lot lately!)
   
7. What was the biggest appeal to you for joining this dye-along? Getting to know people and to have an excuse to buy and dye yarn!

Robin's general yarn/fiber questions:

1. Have you dyed yarn/fiber before? Yes
2. If so, what’s your favorite dye and method? Acid dyes
3. Do you spin? Yes
4. Have you knit socks before? Yes
5. Do you use sock yarn for just socks or in other patterns too? For socks
6. What are some of your favorite yarns? Cherry Tree Hill

Annette’s sock yarn answers:

1. Your favorite colors? Blues, greens, purples, reds, nothing pastel, love deep colors and bright colors.
2. Preferred yarn weight (Fingering, Sport, DK, maybe even Worsted)? Fingering, sport or DK – all of these are nice for socks. I tend to avoid Worsted though unless I want thick socks.
3. Do you prefer solid or multicolored yarn? Multicolored yarn.
4. If your buddy is able to do so, would you like a variegated, self-striping, or self-patterning yarn? Any of the above, also tone-on-tone is nice too.
5. Would you be interested in a wool blend sock yarn (nylon, tencel, silk, acrylic, alpaca, etc.)? I wouldn’t have a problem with blend yarn, but like Robin, use what you have – with one caveat, I prefer soft not scratchy yarn. Fiber snob? Who Me?
   
6. Imagine the perfect colorway. What would you name it? Blue Lagoon.
7. What was the biggest appeal to you for joining this dye-along? Learn more about dyeing, enjoy swapping things, meet new people, and get to dye yarn in colorways I may not normally choose to dye.

Annette's general yarn/fiber questions:

1. Have you dyed yarn/fiber before? Yes
2. If so, what’s your favorite dye and method? Commercial acid dyes but also like Wilton Icing dyes. I love rainbow dyeing. For some reason I like mixing things up when it comes to colors.
   
3. Do you spin? Yes
4. Have you knit socks before? Yes
5. Do you use sock yarn for just socks or in other patterns too? Other patterns too, but mainly socks.
6. What are some of your favorite yarns? Socks That Rock, Koigu, Regia, Knitpicks, but I really don’t’ have a strong favorite though.
7. Favorite patterns? Oh too many!
8. Favorite kind of needles (brand, materials, straights or circs, etc)? Addi Turbos are my favorite brand, but Innox isn’t so bad either; circulars all the way!

Annette's nothing to do with knitting/yarn/fiber in any way but seemed kinda fun:

1. What’s your favorite animal? Snow Leopard
2. Do you have pets? What are their species? Yes, 3 cats.
3. If you were a color what color would you be? Green blue (old Crayola crayon color)
4. What is your most inspiring image, flower, or object in nature? A field of wildflowers (Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve -- thinking of the CA poppy fields with lupine mixed in, gorgeous hills covered in orange flowers)

Well, that's it for us. Happy fibering and dyeing!

My Sockpal Received Her Socks!

Yeah, my sockpal received her socks. Chloe of The Hundredth Monkey was my sockpal. Go check them out on her feet. And check out the socks she made her sockpal. They are too cool. I love the heel design.

Just a short note. Happy fibering!

Sockpal Socks -- Wowsers!

I've been reading about everyone's sockpal socks and what do you think came in the mail today? A package full of goodies and socks from my sockpal, Kimbellina. Too cool!


What did Kim send? Well, she sent me my own sockpal socks, of course. Check these out below. They are lovely and fit wonderfully. And, um, they are still on my feet, so I guess that is a good sign. What my picture doesn't show is the lovely lace at the top of the cuff. Her website has some more pattern details. I didn't manage to get quite a good picture of the socks as she did. On her blog, she mentions the pattern is Friday Harbor from Knitting on the Road, worked up in Koigu KPPPM, color P117.


Oooh, and the goodies, well, she sent me some yummy (I mean that personally since two of them went in my belly not long after the package was opened) Fran's Caramel Truffle Imperiales made with dark chocolate. I'm such a sucker for dark chocolate. I was good, I even let my hubby have one. Yeah, one. Honest, I offered more! He didn't want any more. He knows me well. The little gold bar is Fran's Almond Gold Bar. No, I didn't open that one yet. I'm working on the truffles right now. Geesh, one chocolate goodie at a time. The green bar is Trader Joe's Milk Chocolate with Hazelnut bar. Yummy! What's Trader Joe's? It's a specialty store and has lots of goodies and good wine. There are stores over on the east coast, but not as many as on the west coast, so I got a little touch of my home coast in the mail. Thank you Kimbellina! The can? What's in the can, you ask? I think this is indicative of Seattle -- salmon! More specifically Pike Place Fish, Smoked Sockeye Salmon. My husband's eyeing that can as are the cats. Well, okay the cats don't know tuna from salmon, but hubby is planning on sharing with them. I'm sure our tiny cat will let us know she wants salmon every time we open a can.


I love the socks, but what's got me excited about several socks I've seen, including mine (I think) are the 3-needle bind offs I've been seeing. I've been wondering how good a seam this type of bind off makes on cuff-down socks. Does the wearer feel the seam? Not much if my socks are anything to go by. This might be my next bind off on socks. We'll see.
That's it for me.

Happy fibering!

Sockpal's Goodies

Okay, here are the things off to my sockpal: the socks of course, a postcard of where I am currently residing -- NC, near to Duke University, some handmade stitch markers (see closeup of the beads below), and some Regia Stretch Crazy Color in color 115, a very bright mix of lime green, bright pink, orange, and blue.


The closeup of the stitch markers. I love the colors in these beads.


That's it for me. I hope to be doing some dyeing in the future with the Dye-O-Rama, but I'm waiting on color choices and yarn.

Happy fibering!

Quick Update

I'm around and I have sockpal socks and goodies to send out this week. I had to go house hunting yesterday, so I've been a bit busy. I'll try to take a photo today and post tonight, but no promises.

Happy fibering!