Long quiet week

Still trying to recover from Sock Summit. Getting to spend all that time with all those knitters! All those fiber fumes from the marketplace. Can anyone truly recover from that experience?

Monday night we headed over to the airport to pick up Judy, Brandon's mom from her trip visiting back east. I didn't have to drive so made sure to grab yarn, needles and a pattern. Someone forgot to check on flight status so we had 2 hours to entertain ourselves at the airport. Saw a few shops, checked with Trtlgrl to find out if she wanted a cute turtle packback we saw in one store. The little turtle actually detached from the backpack and was the softest chenille. Then wandered through Powell's for a bit. Decided that the wait deserved a Jamba Juice so crossed the concourse for those and found a table. I was fully prepared to entertain myself with knitting but suggested that Brandon go get one of the travel Cribbage games I had seen in Powell's. Off he went for it and we played for the next hour and a half. We now have it in the car for future trips.

I got a couple of inches knitted and then realized after getting home that I had gotten my right side and wrong sides mixed up so had to frog that work and start over. Sigh. I blame it on the yarn. Simple Yet Effective Shawl, even an idiot can mess it up. ;-)

The correct view!

Since someone hadn't gotten the broken part on his car fixed while he was driving his mom's car, that meant that my car for was used for the week. Sigh. So no Wednesday spinning, but did get to go to Haggen's. We are a happy noisy bunch, especially when getting to ogle others Sock Summit purchases. Some really nice yarns found their way into new stashes.

I finished up my second Hydrangea sock to find that Sock Summit knitting and lack of sleep impacted my socks. I have two different heel flaps. I could have sworn I was reading the pattern while knitting them but clearly two different flaps. Then again if anyone is that close and says anything, I'm doing what Lucy says - kick them in the face. That Lucy she is a riot! Judy assures me that if I were to knit them at the same time this wouldn't be a problem - she's right of course. LOL


With these socks done, I have hopes of casting on the Orion socks soon.

Saturday I picked up Angela and we headed downtown to go the monthly Portland Spinnerati meeting. Luckily I must have planned for bad traffic because at one point I was thinking we were going to be 20 minutes early and we ended up arriving just a few minutes late. Tammy made mention of reading about the closure of one of the lanes and redirecting of traffic but didn't remember about it until in the middle of the backed up traffic. ;-)

Michele was lured into the darkside as Sandy Kay (Knit/Purl) called it, by Leila's Turkish drop spindle, she saw it at the Ravelry Meetup and the next day went and bought one of her own. It was the magic of creating a center pull ball that got her and then after feeling and seeing yarn appear under her fingers I think we have her well and truly hooked. ;-)
Depending upon how much spinning happens we may have to get her setup with a shoebox lazy kate for the plying step before the next meeting or at OFFF.

We had a larger group than normal with several new people there. I'm terrible about names so don't have any to share. A few photos though:




After Spinnerati, Angela and I put the wheels back in the car and made the trek the few blocks over to Knit/Purl. I needed to get the pattern from Sandy Kay that I'm going to do a store sample out of the Habu Raw Silk she gave me at Sock Summit. She also let us take home a sample of Happiest Girl Dyeworks that they had been giving out in the booth. I brought home a pretty red one called Gypsy Petticoats:
I think a little wrist warmer should use it up nicely.

One lady in Knit/Purl asked about Sock Summit. She didn't come because she doesn't knit socks. After a stunned moment I mentioned the 150 booths in the marketplace but couldn't possibly depress her by the demos she also missed out. I just left her with hopefully there would be another one here in two years. She still seemed surprised by that thought. Why?

Sock Summit Wrap-up

I finished up the test knit for Kathleen. I'm going to write up suggestions for the pattern, so I'm not sure when it will be available. It's a pretty scarf or shawlette depending upon the size needle you use. The shawlette isn't going to give you a lot of depth, but does cover the shoulders nicely.

Sara after being sick with multiple ear infections was able to dye up the superwash merino I had given her for my spinning handpainted socks class. I'd given her some color suggestions and let her have fun:

I think she did a fantastic job and look forward to spinning these up and seeing them as sock yarns to be used.

I picked up some really nice Shetland top from Klaus at Crown Mountain Farms that is softer than the sample I had spun up from Tactile. He also has Finn available and I'll definitely order some for him to bring down to OFFF as well as some of his own Shetland (natural colors other than the white I got). He also had a few ounces of Guanaco and I couldn't resist buying one ounce to go with the one ounce Gail had given me in payment for a massage. (I can spin more to ply together this way and get more yarn to hopefully make into a lace shawl.)



From my classes I learned how to pre-darn and darn socks. Ideally of course you would knit your socks so they don't have wear. Merike likes using a wool-mohair combination for sock knitting and this was also repeated by Judith. These seemed to be heavier socks though. Merike darns from the front. You basically do a mattress stitch up the vertical and then use those as your warp and then weave across the horizontally made stitches. Pick up any loops that are still live along the way. Lots of common sense involved here.



From Janel's spinning handpainted socks class I learned about how to look at rovings and decide if they'll spin up the way you'd like them to. All can of course be used, you'll just get different effects and knowing is half the battle! (what's the reference from?) She also showed us how to spin a finer yarn and that we need to overspin for socks. I actually got it a little overspun where she had to keep telling others to spin more. ;-)

My spinning card:



Part of the color learning involved how to make it striping. Janel shared some predominantly green merino/silk and predominantly blue merino/silk rovings and I took a small handful of each and then divided them up per her instructions and spun green-green; blue-blue and green-blue (two ply yarn). and then plied them. I did just a straight ply, no chaining or navajo plying. These were my results:



I was a teacher's aide for Anne Hanson and her lace knitting class. Someone in class had found highligher tape in the marketplace and I made sure some came home with me. I also stopped into the Briar Rose booth to buy a copy of Anne's Marie Antoinette sock after seeing a student's start of the sock.

I was also an aide for Lucy Neatby. Love her accent and wish I could have been there in the morning, but was busy spinning instead. Lisa (ljcoz), I had met on Wednesday while working the Registration desk and gave her directions on how to get to Powell's and Knit/Purl, is from Australia. Australian and Welsh accents all in the same room, and then throw in spotting Sandi Wiseheart. (Bobbie said that she had fun talking with Sandi in one of Judith's spinning classes too.) Lisa showed me (Rachel, Sara and Carissa too!) the cool way that Lucy taught how to do a ssk in the morning portion, at the Ravelry Meetup. I then remembered it while I was doing the toe portion of my sock during the Luminary Panel. Thanks Lisa for sharing! Lucy also has some innovative ways of doing bind-offs and I'm grateful to both teachers in sharing their class notes with me too.

My Hydrangea sock using Classic Elite's Summer Sox: