Tag Archives: Knitting

Bazaar Recap

Posted on May 7, 2012 by | Comments Off on Bazaar Recap

The bazaar this weekend was a lot of fun. I love a good excuse to hang out in a room full of people working on fibery pursuits. There was a lot of knitting (I was mostly working on a sock, because I am sooo exciting that way), spinning, weaving, and needle felting. I needle felted for the first time! I was very proud of my flat square of wool. I will have to get some more direction on how to make something other than a rectangle from Anna the next time she offers classes.

I have been making subtle changes to my set up every week.

This time I hung my hand dyed tops on my drying rack, which gave me room to spread the worsted weight yarn out a bit.

The best seller of the weekend was definitely the sock yarn.

My sock yarn shelf is starting to look just a little bit sad. It doesn’t help that I am out of vinegar and have consistently forgotten to purchase any when out for the past week–and therefore I can’t dye. As soon as a gallon of vinegar makes it home with me there will be more sock yarn.

I made a really great score from the BlushingEwe booth.

Tarnish on the left, Fireflower on the right. I had in mind to find something at the bazaar that I could weave a fun scarf for myself out of, and these two lovely ladies just fit the bill. I love how elegant and understated tarnish is, and how loud and saturated fireflower is. They are about the same percentages of wool, silk, and firestar, and I can’t help but feel I am going to have a very luxurious woven scarf when I finish.


Here they are pulled into roving and ready to spin. I like to pull it out so I still get all of the layers ate one time for the color and texture variation, but so that it is still in an orderly strip. I find spinning directly from batt form a little difficult.

I seem to be on a bit of a neck warmer kick. First the Ebbtide, then all the luxurious woven scarf planning, and of course, the Daybreak I started a few days ago.


I am a little less than half way through the striped section for the largest size. It’s very easy and fun to knit–and I love how retro looking my colors are turning out.

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The Festival Culminates

Posted on May 7, 2012 by | Comments Off on The Festival Culminates
Day Two at the festival continued the amazing journey into the very center of the fiber world.  In fact, after all the preparation, travel, set up and immersion in this world, we begin to feel like we've been transported to the Planet of the Sheep People.  And we LIKE it.


Julie's spinning here with her Sheep to Shawl team, the Black Sheep.  Their gorgeous shawl was woven with a Jacob sheep warp and a Hog Island sheep weft.  Rare breeds rock.  Their team didn't end up winning, but their shawl brought a lovely auction price.


Between forays into the shopping crowds and the eye-popping vendor wares, Emma took little naps and spinning breaks.  She spindle-spun some excellent Jacob roving, way above her experience level.  Was it the Golding spindle?  Is it her amazing spinning pedigree?  Or is she just an incredible kid?  Answer: #3.


We met Eric, who was rockin' the kilt thing, and was also drop spindling in his hand knit slouch hat.  Dude, go for the gold.


Angie took me up on the challenge of envisioning a fair isle project with the four shades of alpaca yarn I toted from Texas.  I sure hope I get to see the finished project.


On the last day, there's always a little urgency to sweep the fairgrounds to see every vendor in every booth, barn, tent and cranny.  I was freshly aware of how difficult it must be for fiber and yarn vendors to compete - the colors and put ups get more exciting and more beautiful, in order to get the customers' attention and stand out from the crowd.  Just wow. 


The critters know how to get our attention, by being just so irresistible and cute and stuff.  The goats were goaty and sweet...


The angora bunny babies wiggled their noses, and their way into our hearts...


And little week-old lambs... well, good luck passing those by without stopping.


But today was the last day.  And our sweet little Jacob Sheep Conservancy booth (which did really well, by the way, thanks) had to come down, again.


Nineteen minutes after the 5 o'clock bell, the booth was packed up, and my pals were on their varied ways home. 


Where else can you follow a van like this down the road and out onto the highway?  These are our people.

Now Emma and I get one last night of vacation, and then we head back home ourselves.  Our real life is pretty sweet, but this trip to Sheepville has been a treat, again.  Thank you, Maryland!

When we get back to Texas, Emma will take some of the amazing video and photos that we've kept under wraps, and put together a wonderful montage of the weekend, before the freshness is off of the experience.  Stay tuned.

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Spring Bazaar

Posted on May 2, 2012 by | Comments Off on Spring Bazaar

A few of you locals might be interested to know that instead of being at the farmers market this weekend, I will attending the spring fiber arts!

I, the Potwin Fiber Artisans and I will be at Potwin Presbyterian Church in Topeka. We are on the First Friday Art Walk Friday from 5-9 pm. On Saturday, we will be open from 9am to 5pm. The coolest part is that we will be offering mini-classes, from knitting to spinning to weaving.

Come join us. It will be a blast!

Other notables:
Alpacas at Orchard Hill will be there (ie, the finest alpaca in Kansas)
Blushing Ewe will be there as well with her gorgeous batts. (I usually can’t resist buying one myself.)
The Industrious Knit’n Spin who has been working her tail off, so make sure you give her some love when you see her.

My mission, to find yarn and / or fiber for my first unsupervised weaving project.

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Connecticut Sheep and Wool

Posted on April 29, 2012 by | Comments Off on Connecticut Sheep and Wool

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I drove down with a friend and we spent a delightful day with her mom, wandering the festival. We watched a rav friend clip her German angora bunny, Hoppin’ Fresh, who was incredibly well behaved and enormously fluffy. I met another fellow raveler (Hi Knitnknot!) and came home with all sorts of lovely goodies. I was gifted the beautiful purple and blue roving (angora/cormo, I think) and the gorgeous purple angora and I brought a soap and lotion bar as a gift and would have brought more if I’d known I’d see more friends. I’ll have to pack extras in the future, just in case.

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In the Works Wed–Wait! What?

Posted on April 26, 2012 by | Comments Off on In the Works Wed–Wait! What?

This is what happens when I try to do a regular, weekly segment here on the blog. I plan and plan (in my head where all the most reliable planning is done dontcha know) about what I want to include in the “In the Works Wednesday” post; what project to talk about and how cool and interesting and squishy they have been.

This morning before work, I was making a to-do list for the open time I had later on in the day. As I write “photograph new yarn for etsy” I think, “I could go ahead and photograph all my projects on the needles, because Wednesday is coming up pretty quick and I have so much free time on Thursdays–Gah! It’s Thursday!” Thursday, you know, the day after Wednesday.

I am not sure how I missed Wednesday, even though I did all of my other normal Wednesday things (except blog!)

Here I am a day late, hoping you enjoy this post just as much as you might have yesterday when the alliteration still made it a cool day to post it. I can’t even think of any cool Thursday alliteration, so before I start feeling down on my brain power, because clearly I haven’t been overwhelmed by rejoining the workforce or anything, let us move on to woolier subjects.


I started knitting Brock’s birthday socks. You will be able to tell I have been running on low bandwidth when you check out the rest of my projects–they haven’t made much progress, but in a week with very little knitting time I have managed to knit most of a large, gentleman’s sock. I excel at stockinette in the round.

The pattern is just a plain top-down sock with a heal flap, pretty much the only sock pattern I ever use because I don’t need a pattern to knit it anymore. (Locals, this is the sock I will teach when I finally get around to scheduling some more knitting classes. Stay tuned.) The yarn is “French Roast” from Swift Fiber Studio in 75/25 BFL/Nylon.

Isn’t it gorgeous?

Next up I have a tangle of a super secret surprise project that may or may not be a pattern in the making that is currently kicking my butt.

Can you tell what it is yet?

The yarn is Pteranodon Worsted in Cretaceous Grape. There is still one skein left in the shop if the color catches your fancy.

Then, I have the lace weight cardigan. And I swear I have been knitting on it. I have actually added two whole inches to the length!

Not that you can really tell.

How are your projects going?

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In My Crafty World, Sun April 22nd

Posted on April 22, 2012 by | Comments Off on In My Crafty World, Sun April 22nd

It has been three weeks since my last update. I have been busy, but not hugely busy in a crafty sense. April is a busy month for me, and as in years past I went to my industry’s annual big conference in California. It’s a week of running around, speaking at workshops, learning, and meeting people. Suffice it to say, I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much crafting, but took a few projects with me anyway.

On the plane, I was able to finish a “baseball jersey-style” baby sweater for my coworker, who had a baby girl March 12th. It was mailed off last week.

So then I set to work on finishing the Color Me Pretty sweater for my niece. I got the body done, but had to switch to smaller needles for the sleeves…I did not have the smaller needles on me….I have since cast on a sleeve with a smaller needle. The picture is accurate, and yes, it looks like a giant sweater/dress with teeny arms. After I finish one sleeve I may have to size it up, because I have a feeling I may need to rip out the sleeve….or maybe it will look better once the sleeve is off the needle?

After I’d finished both of those, I still had some time on the plane, so I worked more on Tony’s Crooked Little Scarf, which is now almost 16 inches long:

I did not bring *any* spinning paraphernalia with me to the conference and have not had a ton of time to spin since coming back. However, I did spin a bit before I left, and have made a *bit* more progress with my fiber stashdown.

I spun up a small amount – 38 yards – of unknown fiber, probably shetland. I then dyed it apricot – who knew pink + green = apricot? Not me, but I sure was happily surprised that it worked!

And I spun up half of the 3.5 ounces of “Clown Parts”, the April 2012 batt from the Happy Hooves Batt Club from Enhcanted Knoll Farm. The batt is mostly Portuguese wool, with silk, silk noil and bamboo. I love this colorway more and more every day! This is 1.75 ounce, and I got 66 yards, spun woolen/long draw and then chain plied.

I think I will maybe make a Go Diagonal scarf on big needles, or something similar, to let the yarn speak for itself.

I do not remember posting about this – I had 1 oz of super-soft angora rabbit from The Yarn Marm, which I spun and gradient-dyed a vibrant purple:

I gradient-dyed it by making a very loose ball and dyeing the ball. I think it worked well, though 1 oz was not enough to get me used to spinning angora! It’s a very fuzzy spin, I spun it long draw/woolen, and then 2-plied it. 75 yards, 1 oz, 7 wpi.

I also ordered some llama yearling from The Yarn Marm when I ordered the rabbit. However, I did not read the listing properly, which stated there was dust and VM (vegetable matter) and I should have deduced that it meant it was raw. So after a while of attempting to spin it raw (there is no “grease” so that was not an issue), I finally bought hand-carders, and started carding the rest of the llama. I probably have spun half in the raw, then I started carding the rest. About halfway through the carding, with dust and VM getting everywhere (but I still had to stop and pick out VM) I started to wonder if washing first would help.

So last night I washed the rest of the llama yearling, that wasn’t already spun or carded. It’s currently drying, and after that I will card the rest of it. I’ll see if it’s easier to get more of the VM out now – very little came out during washing, but a LOT of dirt did come out, so that’s good.

This week I received my first shipment of the Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, and I have started to make the scarf that comes with the kit. This is my third weaving project on my rigid heddle loom, and I like how it’s coming out:

I would love to take a weaving class and learn more about how to do patterns with sticks, so I can make a houndstooth scarf for Tony. But maybe I should finish his other scarf, first….

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In The Works Wednesday

Posted on April 18, 2012 by | Comments Off on In The Works Wednesday


On Sunday, I cast on Starling out of oviraptor yarn. I was looking for a project that would stick to my needles. One that would take awhile to finish, be mostly mindless, but still be engaging to work on. Then Cecily Glowik MacDonald posted Starling to her blog last week and I knew what that project would be. I cast on in white for two reason. First, I couldn’t decide what color to use. Second, once I purchased the pattern, I didn’t want to wait the couple of days it takes to dye and dry two skeins of lace weight yarn. I figure, if I don’t like a white cardigan, I can always dye it fire engine red or something later. I am really enjoying knitting with this yarn. It’s making a lovely fabric. I got gauge with my first swatch, which, when washed, bloomed beautifully. I can’t wait to get a little more heft onto this fabric. Of course, after three days of admittedly light knitting, I only have about four inches of fabric.

The knitting has been light because I have been warping and weaving on my second rigid heddle loom project.


I started weaving this last night in class. We’re learning how to use pick up sticks and pattern sticks. My brain is still wrapping around the whys and wherefors, but it’s coming along. I didn’t want to stop when class was over last night, and this is the first thing I will be coming back to when all my work for the day is done, which admittedly might be kind of late…

What are you working on?

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An Interview

Posted on April 15, 2012 by | Comments Off on An Interview

Something really cool just happened. A lovely blogger named Lindacee interviewed me about Tiny Dino Studios for her blog!

You can find the interview here. Go and find out a bunch of stuff you never wanted to know about me and check out the Lindacee blog as well. It’s really cute.

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Treasure bagged?

Posted on April 7, 2012 by | Comments Off on Treasure bagged?

153 Swallowtail Shawl 159 162 163

It’s not Blackbeard’s loot but I did come home with a few nice things. I found some great sock knitting books and some new-to-me sock yarn. I found some nice stationery, a lovely new fountain pen (Cross Townsend Chrome), as well as a fabulous hand thrown teapot. I made some great progress on my Swallowtail shawl. I may have even picked up a postcard or two. The full set of photos from our North Carolina trip is here.

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Mondays Are For Photography

Posted on April 2, 2012 by | Comments Off on Mondays Are For Photography

It has become my Monday morning routine to photograph all the yarns dyed and / or spun in the previous week and post everything to etsy. Every Monday I am astonished at how much work I did over the previous week. Sometimes I forget how much I get done because dyeing and spinning yarn doesn’t really seem like all that much work. I remember all the work on the computer I do (which is a lot) rather than the actually production aspect, so when I pile up the yarn for the photo shoot, I am always satisfied with the stack.


You can’t quite see everything in that photo, but the sock yarn on top is my favorite. I called it dino hide and that as much of the color makes me giggle with joy.

I worry during the week about having enough inventory for the farmers market, but then I look at my apartment overflowing with yarn and fiber, and I get over it. Frankly, I need to get some of this stuff out of here.

Some of the other photos I took this morning:

Handspun local Lincoln yarn


carrot juice sock yarn


ember worsted yarn

And a bonus FO:

Yesterday afternoon I finished Ebbtide. (Raveled here)

This pattern was the most recent Knit-A-Long hosted by the Knit Knit Cafe Podcast. It was actually my first KAL, but was announced right as I was giving in to a shawl-knitting fever. As soon as I saw the pattern, I knew which yarn it had be made out of, and I cast on that same day. The shawl is knit out of my Protoceratops Yarn, which is my absolute favorite. There was just enough yardage to make the larger shawl size (I did bind off one row early.)

I will have Ebbtide on display (not for sale) at my farmers market booth this summer, so if you live in the area, you can stop by and see it in person so that I might enable you further.

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