Time keeps on turning

First things first, the recipient of August's laceweight yarn giveaway is Knitmish! I've msg'd via Ravelry.

It was fun to see how many other people craft in the evenings or even late at night. Especially the late at night part. *insert long analogy that ties in to The Frisco Kid and the term "londsman" here and then delete it because it's just too complicated* Thanks for playing, everyone!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch I've realized that the Garden State Sheep Breeder's Festival is in less than 5 weeks. I... have a lot to do. This week I'm pulling out all my boxes of undyed stock, retaking an inventory of it and deciding just what I'm going to dye up for the festival this year.

o.o;

Among other things I need to do is aaaaallll my NerdWars knitting, and I've really been letting down my team with regards to housekeeping and cheer leading. And I need to dream up a few simple patterns to give away at my festival booth.

I've also been debating listing finished projects in my old Etsy shop as a sort of shop sample sale, since I'm accruing more pieces than I can display. That's on the back burner but it's been percolating for a while now. Hopefully Etsy will have implemented its multiple shops under one owner changes before I'm ready to do this.

I have managed to do a few things that are long range productive, however. OK, one thing. My concert sock is complete! ... Yes, I know it's just one sock. *looks shifty* I never said I was a sock knitter!


But this sock will be a lovely addition to my festival booth, demonstrating how Three Hares works up and how a colorway like Happy New Year looks. It's 9st/in and I worked it up on 0s. The mill suggests US#2s, but I like my socks, even my display socks to be "bulletproof".

That nifty sock blocker is one of a pair I purchased from SevenYaks. I decided that simply stuffing a sock into the wire of one of my cubes was not conducive to showing off the fabric at all. Now that I have two sample socks, this one and the cabled one in Jackrabbit, I think it's time they graduated to a more polished presentation. I bought the medium size and they're exactly my dimensions as a size 7 wide.

OK, now I have to go back and do some critical NerdWars stuff and work on my listing titles. Etsy is working on its relevancy search and my listing titles are really poorly set up for relevancy as they've described it. Hope everyone's having a good Sunday! I'll leave you with the little Aurora figure I knit up for NerdWars (BSG reference, of course). She's flying high above my work table as a reminder of something or another profound.

BBBrrrr....

First things first, the December giveaway!  I loved the stories, thanks to everyone for sharing them.  My favorite thing about this question was how it made me think.  A good friend of mine came up with it and I thought it was easy at first, but then had to really dig to decide what makes a gift I've given special.

I've plugged the numbers into Random.org and the winner of December's giveaway is cols journey! Your mystery box will be winging its way to you as soon as I get an address. And I will eventually post a picture of the contents here, but not until later. I want it be a surprise!


Meanwhile, I think I should probably do a recap of the Boston Bazaar Bizarre since it and visiting up in Boston ate my brain for weeks.

*singing along tunelessly*

So my brain is full of sentimentality and a slight buzzing noise.  It's the combination of a new cd on repeat and having caught some bug or another that's making the rounds of the household.  But at least I was productive earlier in the week, right?  I need to get the latest batch of Arctic Hare photographed and up in the shop this weekend, and I'm planning to visit the Princeton YWCA Crafters Marketplace tomorrow to see if I should apply for next year. I have a friend who does it every year and says it's great.

Meanwhile, I've been knitting more.

I finished a baby blanket today, although it still needs a wash and block.  Blocking in this case will be throwing it into the dryer because it's a superwash.  The colorways for this were dyed specifically for this project and are Wine Jelly (red burgundy) and Sweet Tooth (blue pink), and it's in March Hare, my worsted weight superwash merino base.  Would you believe that that shade of burgundy took 13 steps?  I don't think anyone will ever realize just by looking at it how complicated it is to get something that looks so much like a semi-solid but isn't. 

This is one of my typical "organic design" blankets in that there's no pattern. I just start with 8st in the middle and change up the knits and purls on whim.  I decided to do Fibonacci stripes and I ran out of the burgundy one row short of finishing the sequence correctly. Still acceptable, I think, and not bad for not planning anything out ahead of time.  36.5in wide, it's got a slight bulging in the middle of the rows due to the increases creating a sort of slip stitch effect but it should block out.   I lived dangerously on this blanket and didn't even alternate skeins of the main color to minimize differences. Luckily in the case of this colorway they're pretty consistent.

Oh, and I bought myself a present last week.  I got myself a nostepinne/nostepinde.  See, I have 2 ball winders, but I like rewinding small partial balls by hand, often while they're still attached to their project.  While I can do it perfectly well without any special tools I decided I wanted something pleasant to hold that's pretty.  So I browsed around Etsy and realized something.  Nostepinnes can be, hm, naughty looking.  I can't be the only one who sees it.  (I'm not am I?)  That led me by devious routes to asking someone who makes adult toys out of wood to make me a nostepinne.  (What do you suppose has more demand? Going by the selection on Etsy, I'd say nostepinnes must sell better!)


It's actually about 2in longer than I had requested.  I like shorter and fatter nostepinnes than most of the ones being sold because I tend to wind too tightly when I use one, which is why I went custom.  But it fits my hand perfectly the way it is, and has a nice girth.  It has a nice balance when it's grasped around the rings. The narrow part of the handle snugs right along the curve of my hand.  And given the length of the handle, the shaft has to match. It's got a very smooth finish, no chance of snagging yarn on this, and came with a storage pouch. So I'm quite pleased with the results.

Actually, this seller does some lovely work and has a perfectly innocent shop (not that the other shop is particularly shocking): Goodys Folkart.  He's thinking of stocking more nostepinnes after the holiday rush on Santas.  Right now the shop is mostly really pretty wooden barrettes. 

The nostepinne was a nice "reward" to myself for another festival under my belt.  Montgomery Made by Hand was  last Saturday. This was very different for me. I've done the Garden State Sheep Breeders festival twice, and I did well my first year and really well this year.  But MMbH was the first mixed craft fair I've ever done.  They had everything, really, and as far as I can tell the only other yarn was the alpaca farm and no hand dyes.  I didn't walk around, though, as I was by myself for most of it. 

More ruminations about the fair after the jump.

Like bubbles in a fish tank

Little thoughts keep rising to the surface. I'm a bit scattered, I've got a festival on Saturday and I'm behind schedule!

*bubble*
If you happen to be in the Montgomery NJ area on November 13th, swing by Montgomery Made by Hand at the high school (1016 Route 601, Skillman, NJ). 10am-3pm, it's a holiday craft fair hosted by the honors society, and there will be 45 vendors in attendance.  Free admission!  Raffles!

*bubble*
One of my yarns was in an Etsy front page Treasury last night. That was a very pleasant bump in views and hearts. Statsy screenshot. I really like the coy little bird print in the top row.

*bubble*
Someone asked a question on the Rav forums yesterday about whether garter stitch or seed stitch uses less yarn.  My gut reaction is to say seed stitch, both from experience and from considering the mechanics of both stitches.  But in a bit of procrastinatory rebellion I also decided to swatch.

Cast on with the backwards loop co, slipped the first stitch of every row, and bound off in pattern. The total number of rows included the co and bo. Each swatch was made with exactly the same length of yarn on the same needles.  Tension differences are sure to influence this, of course.

Now if I can just avoid getting sucked in to figuring out how to adjust for giant holes in one's knitting, like those Swiss cheese holes at the start of the hemlock ring.  For some reason these puzzles are always more interesting to me when I've got a massive pile of other things to do.

*bubble*
In another bit of procrastinatory rebellion, I put together a clip for This Is Handmade.  If you haven't heard about this blog, it collects tedium.  Specifically it collects the tedium of handcrafting (an explanation of the project).  So here is slightly more than 5min of me making stitch markers last night.  It's not a tutorial and it's hard to see exactly what I'm doing, and it's quite dull. But that's kind of the point. YouTube link


*bubble*
And now for something completely different. Some ruminating about cake after the jump.

Pro-crastination

At least I'm a pro. :P

Before I get into the why of all this procrastination, one very exciting thing and one fun thing. First off the exciting thing; my yarn was recommended in the Knitcircus Holiday edition gift guide on page 15.  It looks rather lovely with all those other beautiful yarns, I think.  And if you didn't see it when it came out, two of my colorways were used in a gorgeous sock pattern in the Fall 2010 edition, as well (pgs 70-71 and 90-91). They happen to be two of my favorite colorways, too.

Secondly, the fun thing. There's a gallery of pictures from the festival over at MyCentralJersey.com. Most of the shops I purchased from are pictured in some way, at least the fiber shops. Here's a closer-up of the handspun angora plied with beaded silk which I bought. And the two giant vintage buttons that I adore.  The angora shop was pictured, but the button shop was not.


Anyway, on to the procrastination. :P I'm feeling a little attenuated and blocked. It could be post festival blahs, but I think it's mostly because I want to play with the new fiber and my continued lack of netting means I can't. I went to every shop in the area that might have had it, and none of them did. So now I've ordered some and I'm waiting impatiently for it to arrive. Really, I should have got into the car and made the trek to Fabricland. It would have been a drive, but I would have my netting!

ZOMG

So, yes, it's Wednesday and the GSSB festival has been over for days and I haven't said a peep about it until now because ZOMG I feel a little like a hamster in a ball rolling around with So Much To Do!

First things first, the festival. The festival was wonderful. This was my second year vending at it, and it's bigger, better organized, better advertised, and all around a great weekend for me. I met lots of great people and saw some old friends, bought some incredible fiber for the shop, spent far too much money on treats, and sold twice as much as I did last year. To say I was pleased would be an understatement.

This was the morning of the first day when we were all busting our butts to get set up in time. The weather was gorgeous, brisk and clear and not horribly windy.

Stuff!

I'm a bit swamped right now but I wanted to pop up a post to say that KnittinK and I were accepted to the Boston Bazaar Bizarre in Boston for their Winter Fair.

I'm very excited about this. It's the first festival of its sort that I'll have done, and it's supposed to have great vendors and amazing attendance. This also means I get to go up to Boston and see friends! And, since I poked around with setup today, I realized I can get everything I need into my little car with the gps. So I won't get lost! For me, not getting incurably lost is a requirement for having a good time.

So we will be in Boston on Dec 5th between noon at 7pm at the Cyclorama with much yarn and fibery goodness. If you're in the area, stop by and say 'hello'! :D

Meanwhile, I'm still in the throes of a big update. It's going very slowly as I've proved to be extremely distractable. Also, I took the pictures for these listings over the course of 5 days, so sometimes finding the correct one takes a bit of doing. I realized I had 4 whole colorways (12sk of yarn) that I'd completely neglected to do because I thought I'd already done them *facepalm* So yeah, I'm working on it.

Here are two of my unexpected favorite colorways from July, though. I liked them out of the pot, but they've really grown on me as I've looked at them more and more.


These are Coffee Cup and Asphalt Jungle.

The lighter color on Coffee Cup isn't white. It's actually the palest of pale minty blue. And Asphalt Jungle reminds me of the colors of the movie posters for The Asphalt Jungle. But aside from matching those black and white with splashes of color posters really well, I think it will work up beautifully in a project, with the predominance of the grey.

OK, off back to the Gimp mines. I have something like 43sk of yarn with pictures still to edit. *facepalm* Gimp waits for no one! Or, well it waits, but it doesn't do anything while it's waiting, more's the pity!

Things of thingness

Thinking up catchy subject lines is hard.

Ahem, anyway yesterday I went to the Renegade Craft festival and decided it is not the appropriate venue for me.  It was hot and humid and there was a tornado watch.  Dude, Brooklyn?

No pictures, because it was seriously gross out.  A storm blew through in the late afternoon and washed a bit of the heat away, and by 9pm the whole area was in the embrace of a totally different weather system that dropped the temperature by 15-20°.  That kind of temperature is much more conducive to yarn buying!

I did grab a few pictures while sitting in Manhattan traffic, though.  I like the contrast between the buildings and the clouds. And the reflections off the buildings in the one struck me as really cool.
 

More chatter after the jump.