Too Much Yarn

Oops! Missed Pair #5!

What?!?!  I didn't post about pair #5 that was finished last week?  What was I thinking?  This is the Feb/March Solid Socks Mystery Sock in Bugga:  Pink Dragonfly.

The leg was a bit tedious to knit as I couldn't memorize it.  And I'm still not so sure I like the pointy part on the foot.  But it was easy to knit (the foot) and it's a comfortable pair or socks, and I love the color (and the yarn, too!).

Next up, one of these 2 pairs of socks (of course, you know which one I finished first! - if you read the other post from today!)

And then, there was U2

Yes, blog readers!  There is a U2!  Here are U1 & U2:

Love the picot edge that was influenced by Gail of We Heart Yarn.  Her post today features the exact sock (Monkey in Lavender Truffle) that made me want to knit U1 & U2!!

That's pair #6 for August!  I'm now working on pair #7.  I have to finish it by tomorrow!  There are 2 people who have finished 9 pairs of socks.  But I have to knock off 3 others who have finished 7 pairs.  To be in the grand prize drawing, one had to finish MORE than I have.  I am going to the MN State Fair today.  Not sure how much knitting I'll be able to do.  If it doesn't rain, I may be able to knit while listening to Steely Dan in concert.

August Pair #4

I finished the Port Ludlow socks a week ago, but haven't gotten around to post them to show you.  Here they are:

I used Socks That Rock Lightweight in Brick.  Interestingly, 3 of the 4 pairs I've finished so far were in Socks That Rock Lightweight.  One using Hazel Knits.  On Pair #5, I'm knitting with Bugga on the Feb  Mystery Socks from the Solid Socks Group.

Colorway is Pink Dragonfly.  At this point, I'm working on the gusset.  I'm also working on pair #6 - Monkey in Hazel Knits Juicy Loosey.  I hope to finish both pairs by this weekend.  Do you think it's doable?  And I have next week off!  Unfortunately, Aug 31 is on Wed!!

Here are some other items I would like to share with you.  I got to spend some time with Kendra from Tokyo.  We went to a couple of yarn shops but we were good!  We did not get any sock yarn!  We each bought a skein of Malabrigo Rasta for a hat:

Closeup of mine (I can't remember the name of mine)

I placed an order from The Loopy Ewe.   I wanted to make a shawl with 2 colors, but coudln't decide on which blue.  So I picked Mourning Dove, but unfortunately, it wasn't as nice as Wellwater, which I only ordered 1 skein!  So I'm going to try to order that from Happy Knits, where I visited during Sock Summit in Portland.  These are the two colors I want to use - Cove and Wellwater - both are sport weight from Madelinetosh.

The shawl is Romi's new pattern, Kleio - it's being testknitted at the moment.  I wanted to use the blue for the lace panel...

Then, I'm concerned with the drape of using sport weight yarn, so maybe I should use Hazel Knits Artisan and decided on these colors:

I can't help it. I'm a brown rut!

Well, the greenish yarn is the August Sock Club yarn from Hazel Knits.  The shipment consists of:

The red would be perfect for Sept Solid Socks' month!

Sanguine Gryphon sent these to me (yes, I did pay for them):

Two skeins of Bugga in Painted Damsel and one in Black Witch Moth:

and Loopy Ewe also sent this from Fiberphile:

While browsing Ravelry, I saw someone with one of those African  baskets (remember, I bought one from the Shepard's Harvest?) ... well, now I have two. I was just BROWSING and then, before I know it, I had to have this blue basket!  Well, it can hold yarn!

And finally, I received some goodies (totally free!) in the mail!  This is a project bag from Dorie in Washington.  We met at Sock Summit!  Dorie is Sweetbeej on Ravelry.

Then, these books (which I DO NOT OWN!) from Christy.  She did some investigative work and knew that I didn't own these and I like shawls.  YAY!  Christy's Mom, whom I met 2 years ago decided she's giving up knitting to concentrate on needlework.  So Christy "inherited" a bunch of knitting supplies - yarn, needles, books!  I'm the lucky recipient of these:

THANK YOU to Dorie and Christy!  (Christy is ChristyH on Ravelry!)

Back to knitting sock pair #5!

Boucle Yarn Studio, Fargo, North Dakota

I dropped off my son at North Dakota State University at Fargo.  I figured he's going to be there for 6 years, I might as well get to know the city he's living in better by checking out the quality of the yarn shops.  There are 2 yarn stores in Fargo, but today, I only went to one so I'll have something to look forward to next time!  This store is gorgeous.  It's located in historic downtown Fargo. 

Across the street is the Fargo Theatre

As I walked into the store, this greeted me:

Closeup of the Casbah bowl (it was so pretty that I decided I best not take any home with me.  I was very tempted with one of the raspberrish skeins, but I put it back)

The rest just shows how beautiful and fun this shop is.  I sure would like to come back.  This is the sock yarn area. 

Yarns are sorted by fiber weight.  As you walk deeper into the store, the yarn gets bulkier - although the lace and luxury section was deep inside.  Enjoy!

and finally, the view from the back of the store:

I bought some stitchmarkers (like I need more!), a shawl pin, and just this Prism Saki yarn (still a little yarn burnout from Sock Summit!)

I drove about 1/2 mile and encountered this fella

I stopped to take a photo and ordered an iced Latte for my 3-hour drive home.  North Dakota State University's mascot is a Bison.  I did not knit and drive.

Boucle Yarn Studio has a new online shopping website.  You should check it out!

 

Another Pair of Socks!

I finished my 3rd pair of socks on Friday.  This was started a year go.  It was a Rockin' Sock Club pattern called, Slip Jig, by Carrie Sullivan (irishgirlieknits).  BTW Carrie, I was with a Ravelry friend and we were at a yarn shop and we were looking at some Three Irish Girls yarn and she said, this is Carrie's yarn.  I said, you mean "Sharon's yarn".  Then, I realize she's joking; she knew it was not Carrie's yarn, but it's fun to say that.  I mean, I would love it if there is an indie dyer out there with a brand "Mapleweave"... I can say it's my yarn!  Anyway, here's Slip Jig in Dilly Dilly (STR Lightweight).  I called this project Dilly Jiggy.

I really like the side of the foot:

Next up:  Port Ludlow Socks that I started when I went to San Diego in March:

I started the second sock on Friday night and to be honest with you, I'm working on the toe now!

Did I mention that when I was getting yarn from Becoming Art at Sock Summit, I found red spots on the skein of Driftwood?  I returned it and I just received another freshly-dyed skein.  I love it.  I think this is going to be a shawl!

Also, the Cookie A sock club yarn arrived last week.  This yarn is quite thick - it may even be sportweight.  I'm going to use another yarn for the pattern, which I will knit for the September SKA KAL. I'll be using Bugga in Beyer's Jewel Scarab!  This is the yarn for the August shipment:

This month, I'm expecting the Hazel Knits August shipment and a special Woolgirl shipment featuring an Anne Hanson pattern.  It may not be socks, though.  Off to finish my fourth pair of socks this month.  There are 5 ladies who have finished more socks than I have, so I have to get cracking!

 

Last Words on Sock Summit

So, here is the last post I promised on Sock Summit.  What else have I not told you or shown you? More yarn, of course!  So here's the Hazel Knits stash...   First, there is this "Just Add Needles" Kit - it came with the exclusive Jam Session color.  I believe this kit is now available at the Hazel Knits website.  The bag is made by Dancing Sheep and the pattern is by Melissa Goodale.

The photo is a bit dark, but this is a more color of the yarn:

This was the final Hazel Knits haul:

The Posy and Indigo (new colors) are "Rogue", but Wendee said she ran out of labels or used the wrong labels, so they're pretty much close to the "real thing".  Underneath the pile is Hoppy Blonde, which I didn't think I would like, but it leaped into my arms.

and my favorite, favorite, favorite color is Arroyo:

So so, that's it!  The other items I also bought were stitchmarkers and shawl pins:

and project bags (finally found a Monkey fabric I like for the Monnkey socks that I knit)

The polka dots bag has 2 gromets for colorwork so the colors won't get tangled up.  Pretty smart, huh?

And here are my regrets of Sock Summit:

1.  Not having the guts to go up to Tina Newton to say "Thank You" and have a picture taken with her.

2. Not having enough time - next time, I'm arriving on Tuesday (I arrived on Wed this time, SS starts on Thursday), and leaving on Monday (I left on Sunday, SS ends on Sunday evening).

3. Not spending more time with more Ravelrers at the event.

4.  Not participating in Flash Mob.

5.  Spend more time at Marketplace, more time in every booth, but not spending more money!

6. Make more efforts to swap stitchmarkers.  Give stitchmarkers as gifts to teachers and organizers.

I think I will just leave it with that!    These are the stitchmarkers I swapped for.  I still had 30 left...

That was lots of fun!  I'll defnitely do that again!

 

Finished!

No... I'm not finished telling you about Sock Summit, but I'm taking just a teeny break to tell you about a couple of finished projects.  I took this photo on Friday morning to indicate the start of my next project:

Sunday morning, I was finishing the toes.  I just love this pair.  I can't wait to wear it.  In fact, I may be making more of this pattern with variegated yarn. It's basically a ribbed socks so it's stretchy.  This the pattern, Sock Fork Socks by Linda Welch, who also designed the famous Spring Forward socks from Knitty.  The yarn is Socks That Rock Lightweight in Spy Say Guacamolay.

And the next project is the Slip Jig pattern from the Rockin' Sock Club March 2010 shipment.  I finished the first sock in August and here I am, a year later: (I substitued the club yarn as I had already used it for the other pattern)

I finished my Simmer Dim a couple of weeks ago.  I gave it to my Mom the day before I left for Sock Summit.  My Mom DID NOT GO TO SOCK SUMMIT with me.  That was U1 referring to me as Mom.

And now, I know where I got my grin from:

 

Sock Summit: Around Portland & Yarn (and a finished pair of socks!)

So I've shown you photos of places we ate, and yarn shops... these 2 places were not quite knitting-related.  I've heard about Button Emporium and really, a whole shop on buttons?  Luckily, not only do they have buttons, but they also have ribbons.  The proper shop name is Button Emporium and Ribbonery.  This is the store...  I just have photos because really, I know nothing about buttons or ribbons!

I couldn't walk out of there without any purchases so I bought these ribbons..

Next, we went to Saturday Market:

There's food, crafts, live music.  Fun place to go when you don't have 20 lbs of yarn you're carrying with you.  There's no cars here.. just the light rail that goes through this area:

Here we crossed the street to the riverbank.  On the right side in a fenced-in area was BeerFest.

And remember, I was still with Robin and her Mom, Diane... Robin offered to rub my back, carry my yarn, but no baby!  No one touches my yarn!  Just kidding.  It wasn't that bad...  Here, Diane is posing with a musician... no one famous that we know of.

Then, we headed back to the Convention Center and that's when the Flash Mob was happening, while I added 5 more lbs to my stash from Marketplace. (I'm really exaggerating.. although I have to tell you this story... remember I put my carry on inside my duffle when I went to Portland?  OK, on my way back, I took the carryon out and filled it with my purchases.  When I left Minneapolis, the Duffle (with carryon inside) weighed 37 lbs. When I checked in the bag at Portland, it weighed 56 lbs without the carryon.  WTH?  Is it the altitude?  So I proactively told the agent that I should take something out.  He said, "That would be appreciated so I won't have to charge you".  So I took out one of the compressed yarn bags.  Put my bag back on the scale.  It said 52 lbs.  I looked at him, but he proceeded to put a tag on my bag.  OK... goody free 2 lbs!  Next, he told me I have to bring the bag all the way to the end of the counter.  Before I did that, I stuffed the compressed bag back in.  OK - free 6 lbs!)  The bag made it safely to Minneapolis. In addition, it was a full flight so they asked if anyone wanted to check in their carry on for free... I did.  It had 4 bottles of beer that I bought for my husband in there so they can take care of that!)

OK - today, I'll show you my Plucky Knitter stash.  I've never been able to get them online!  There are 2 kinds of MCN fingering from PK. One is their 80/10/10 MCN.  I got 2 skeins of that:  Here's what one looks like:

Then, there is the Primo MCN, which is their own special base in 75/25/10 MCN.  That is more tightly twisted and may even be too thin for me??

Well, there were lots of colors and I keep getting attracted to the same colors!  I bought a bunch of "One hit wonder" which was specially priced in a bin. 

This was the final haul:

Also, from Knit Purl, I bought a shawl pin (made in Portland, OR), a skein of Casbah (Vintage colorway), and two 2010 Sock Club kits (one came with an extra skein of yarn from Shibui that I can add to my blankie pile, and the other came with a Chocolate flavored chapstick).  The Entrelac pattern was designed by Stephanie Van Der Linden and the lace was designed by Nancy Bush.

The yarn that came with one kit was Casbah.  The other is Koigu:

And so, I have one last post about Sock Summit and I can say I'm finally recovered from the trip.  I'm now going to get ready to go see a movie by myself.  It features two hot guys:  Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman in "The Change Up". 

 STOP!  I haven't shown you my finished socks!  These were started in May and I made these for my husband.  He really likes it, but I'm going to weave in the ends (yes, Christy, I'm going to do that!) and wrap it up for Christmas - unless he asks for them before Christmas!

Pattern is Sign of 4 by Anne Hanson.  Yarn is Hazel Knits Piquant (discontinued) in colorway Sassafras.

Sock Summit - Classes & Yarn

I registered for 3 classes and a lecture.  My first class on Thursday was with Janel Laidman, "Heel Constructions for Toe-Up Socks".  Awesome class.  While I prefer to knit top-down socks, I always want to know different ways to do things.  This was the class that I had homework for.  I had to knit 3 "socks" as in tubes of 48 stitches. For two of them, I had to knit gussets for them so I'll end up with 40 stitches on one needle and 24 on the other.  In class, we would knit heels for these "socks".  We learned 3 different heels. I'm too lazy to dig up the notes, but one was a short row with a gusset, one was a hybrid heel - very small... and this one, I don't remember the name, but I understand it is the heel in the Atlantis Sock by Janel.  I've not knitted any socks with this heel:

You basically knit a rectangular flap that will be where your ball of your sole is.  So the sides would look like this:

Needless to say, I haven't finished all my fake heels or I would have a photo to show you.

On Thursday afternoon, I took a class from Chrissy Gardiner on designing socks using handdyed yarn.  We listened to a mini lecture on ways to prevent pooling with variegated yarn.  And the best way to prevent that is to swatch, swatch, swatch! The swatch will give you an idea of what you can do - e.g. add in additional stitches or remove stitches, change needle size, etc if you don't like the pooling.  Certain patterns also help with variegated  yarn e.g. slipped stitches and purl stitches.  This is one of the socks that was in the CSK club. Chrissy had samples of many socks and students also brought in samples of what work and what didn't work for the pattern/yarn combination.

I, personally was hoping to learn more about color repetitions on the hank of yarn and what kind of patterns would work with the yarn.  Speaking of yarn... time to show off some yarn..

The first booth I stopped at was at Sanguine Gryphon.  There was a line and I spent 1/2 hour standing in line! I could have gone to other booths to grab other googies! I understand that Gryphon had trouble with the credit card machine so that held up the line.  I picked up a couple skeins of Bugga on the first night - both are not the usual colors available.  The next day, I saw a baby sweater kit using some expensive yarn and decided I can just use SG Traveller.  Baby is my cousin's son.  He was born last December and I don't have the sweater started yet!  I'm making size 12 - 18 months!!  Anyway, this is the final stash from the Sanguine Gryphon booth:

The 2 greens are for the sweater and it required some contrasting color so that's where the variegated blue is.. Then, the rest are Bugga:  Blue Morpho, Dragonfly Tatoo, noname, and Satin Green Forrester.

I now have a big balance in paypal because I haven't used the funds to pay for what I spent yet, but since the last I showed you what I destashed, here are more that I haven't shown you:

Bugga:  Very Quiet Cricket:

Bugga: Strawberry Crab

Bugga:  Robberfly (2 skeins)

Bugga: Cowkiller

OK - back to Sock Summit... on Saturday night, I attended Stephanie's lecture on "Your Brain on Knitting". It was interesting, but I was so pooped!  I had a sore back from carrying 20 lbs of yarn with me that I bought on Saturday morning and then, I carried them to Dim Sum, and walked all over downtown Portland.  So, I dozed off a bit.  I was sitting on the 3rd or 4th row.  I think Stephanie saw me!  I tried to knit, but I was making mistakes - you know how that is when you're so tired and you try to knit "one more row".  I saw a photo of me on a blog, so I snagged the photo.  Luckily, I was not asleep when the photo was taken! (photo snagged from TT820)

I did not participate in the Flash Mob as most of you have seen the You-Tube video by now.  I was shoppiong at Marketplace.  The place was quiet and there were no lines (and yes, my back was still hurting then).  And the Knit Purl lady was so nice to let me leave my bags under her table while I walked around...  But here's the Flash Mob Video that I was NOT in!

 

And so.. what do I have left to tell you?  Aargh!! Cookie's class!  A whole day of Cookie - she said she will do another year of Sock Club; she's having a lot of fun with that.  I didn't have any photos of Cookie teaching other than her holding my Monkey sock and doughnut I got her from Voodoo Doughnuts.  In class, we learned to go off the chart with traveling stitches.  I chose to knit the Theolenius socks but substituing the lace panel.  I'm not sure if I will continue with that. I need to knit it as is first... 

If you haven't heard, I'm hosting a KAL for finishing socks in progress.  I'm donating 2 skeins of yarn for drawings.  One drawing is for the people who finish more socks that I do, the other one is for anyone who finishes socks in August.  So, I have to finish a few pairs this month.  And I just spent 1.5 hours updating this blog!  I could have fnished the toe of the sock I'm finishing!  I won't be back until I finish a pair of socks!

Sock Summit - Food & Yarn

Jeez... you guys really just want to see the yarn haul.  Well, I have to make you suffer through what I want to tell you first.  And then, I'll scatter in some yarn photos... You have seen the 2 bags of compressed yarn.  There were also other sock kits that I'd forgotten to take photos. In total, there may have been 40 skeins, but quite a few will end up being gifts.

Today, I want to tell you some of the things we ate.  Some things, I don't remember the name..  Every morning, I had a breakfast buffet at the Courtyard by Marriot.  It was a good breakfast which allows me to get some fresh fruits and yogurt (and eggs and bacon and pastries!).  For lunch, I ate once at a restaurant at the Convention Center, and two days at Burgerville (they have pretty good burgers and very good shakes).  It was always crowded there, but the line moved along.

This was the day we met with the Janel Laidman and Cookie A Sock Club members.  After lunch, we took a group photo.  The ring is something from Stargate, which both Tina and Stephanie are fans of.

OK.. gotta keep the interest going, so here goes your first yarn p0rn photo.  This is the stash from Three Irish Girls.  It's sad that I had to travel to Portland to see Sharon as she has moved to Duluth, MN.  She will be at my local yarn store, Amazing Threads this Fall - I think September... or maybe October.  These colors are all one of a kind.  All three are in Glenhaven Cashmerino.

On Friday night, I met with the Sanguine Gryphon group. I had a ticket to Sock Hop, but didn't make it back on time to join the party.  I was the only one with the ticket so I didn't pressure them to get me back to the convention Center.  But we enjoyed an almost perfect evening.  The food was great at the Thai restaurant, Pok Pok.  The restaurant is really a house...

It was very crowded and popular.  We had a reservation and we sat upstairs.  Here were the daily specials:

I can't remember what we ordered, but here are some photos.  Rosiekitty and I split 4 items:

Across the street from Pok Pok were some food carts.  This is a popular thing... Different types of food are being served from these trucks.

There was the chicken and dumpling in a cone:

The gentleman has already started eating his chicken and dumpling cone, but I explained that I'm a tourist and he let me take a photo of it.  Then, there was this Pie Spot:

They served mini pies like this cherry one:

and I brought these Chocolate Hazelnut and Marionberry Pies back home:

OK - time for more yarn photos... this group is from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. They are all Socks That Rock Lightweight:

Colors are Sophie, Rare Gem, and Hot Sox.  OK... more food...

On Saturday, we went to Dim Sum.  There were a lot more food that I took photos of, but at one point, these were what we had on the table:

On Saturday night, Courtney, my new Portland-local friend, took us to another area with food carts on Hawthorne.  They had very good pizza and crepes.  I ended up with PB & J Fries, but it was not as good as the pizza that Courtney ordered or the Crepe that Denise ordered:

And good news... I'm out of food photos.  But I do have more yarn photos...  Here's Winter's Lament (80/10/10 MCN from Becoming Art)

There was another skein that I bought, but it had red spots that I found later that afternoon, so I returned it and the dyer will send me another skein in a couple of weeks.  And this is the single skein of Stricken Smitten - I don't remember the base, but it is not an MCN.

 

Stay tuned... I have more yarn photos!