As part of Ignite Craft 5, I did a talk on lactofermentation. You can watch the 5-minute video on Youtube.

This recipe is adapted from “Real Food Fermentation” by Alex Lewin, which I got at the Boston Fermentation Festival (put on by Boston Ferments) last year.

Materials:
large knife to cut cabbage
large mixing bowl

For each pound (1 lb, 450 g) of cabbage, you will need:
2 tsp (10g) sea salt
16 oz. jar capacity (1 pint)

If you have 2 pounds of cabbage, you will use use 4 tsp (20g) sea salt and a 1-quart (32 oz) mason jar.

Wash hands before beginning.

Peel off the outer leaves of the cabbage, and cut out any “bad” parts. Cut in half from the bottom (where the core is) to the top. Cut in half again in the same direction, so you have 4 pieces that originally went from the top to the bottom.

Remove the core from the 4 parts. Slice as thick or thin as you want, or use your food processor’s slicing blade – do NOT use the shred blade, unless you want really tiny pieces of sauerkraut. The bigger the piece, the crunchier it will be.

Put the cabbage in the large mixing bowl. sprinkle the salt over it, and firmly massage the cabbage with your hands for a few minutes (it may take up to 10 minutes), until liquid starts being released from the cabbage.

Once liquid is released, you can pack it into the jar(s). You can put optional spices in this stage, such as garlic, rosemary, etc. Pack the cabbage down tightly.

Make sure the cabbage is submerged in liquid, otherwise mold can develop. You should not need a lot of additional water as the liquid released from the cabbage is enough.

Also be sure to leave some space, about an inch, between the top of the liquid and the top of the jar, as the cabbage will expand during fermentation.

Close the lid and place the jar in a cool, dark place, if possible (between 50-70 F, 10-25 C).

It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, order I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, find this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, order I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, find this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, more about I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, order I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, find this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, more about I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
Buenos Aires has a span of a few blocks, hospital not too far from the Malabia metro station* where there are many yarn shops, phthisiatrician I counted 15, and went into 11 of them before I had to stop. The shops are on Ave. Scalabrini Ortiz just southwest of Ave. Cordoba, towards Ave. Correintes. The Malabia metro station is on the corner of Correintes and Scalabrini Ortiz, which is 1 km away from the corner of Cordoba and Corrientes, and about half that until you see your first yarn shop. There was a small bit of yarn bombing between two of the stores:

Yarn shopping in Buenos Aires is quite different from what I’m used to in the States. The stores all look like this:

The yarn is beautiful, and well-organized, but there’s no signs as to what the yarn is made up of, how much it costs nor the gauge of the yarn. In addition, you’re not supposed to take the yarn out of the bins. If you look at the bottom right of that picture, you’ll see some white yarn and blue yarn that is actually sitting on top of a counter. That counter separates you from the wall, and there are people behind the counter who can help you get what you want.

So it’s very different from the experience I’m used to. I got the feeling that a lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to buy, or walked in and would say “do you have anything made of wool?” I was feeling a bit shy due to the language barrier, so I picked up a Spanish phrase: “solamente mirando” – it means “Just looking”. The people are friendly and willing to help, but I like the yarn buying process to be a solo activity.

There were 2 exceptions to the fact that most stores don’t give any information about their items.: Milana hilados and Yanabey. Milana hilados had tags like this near most of their yarn:

Note that that’s in Argentinian pesos, and at the time, this was less than USD $10 per 100g. Another thing to note is the price is per 100g, not per hank of yarn. You’d ask a sales associate to take the yarn down for you and they’d weigh it and ask you if that was OK (kind of like at the deli counter). Then they give you a slip of paper and you take it to a cash register, where you’re usually helped by someone else. Another interesting thing is that the stores seemed to be staffed by about half men, half women, which is very different from yarn stores in the States, which are probably about 90% staffed by women.

I bought 3 hanks of yarn there, for about $25:

Yanabey had signs like this:

These prices are still in Argentinian pesos, but they’re in kilos. So these prices are $171 for 1 kilo, which is $17.10 for 100g. This is a wall of “seda vegetal”, or “vegetable silk“. By the way, that’s about USD $35 per kilo. So I bought 6 skeins, which was just over a kilo, because the tree which this comes from (ceiba speciosa, or “silk floss tree”) is native to South America, and I haven’t seen “vegetable silk” in the US.

A lot of the stores have the recycled t-shirt yarn, and I bought some at Arte Natural:

BUTTONS!!!

I was thinking I might make a purse from the yarn, like this:

That purse is crocheted, but I’m sure I can come up with a knitted version.

Here’s what I bought from that store:

Here’s a Spanish primer for some important words:
cachemira – cashmere
acrílico – acrylic
lana – wool
seda – silk
alpaca – alpaca
hilo – yarn (plural: hilados)
Also, I found out that cashmerillo is just an acrylic yarn that’s very soft. Don’t be fooled by price, some of the acrylic yarns are *very* expensive, even more expensive than the wool.

I was very excited by the prospect of all these yarn stores, and after these three purchases I was done, and passed by 4 other yarn stores that I didn’t even walk into. In addition, there were at least 2 weaving stores, and another 2 fabric stores. Only one of the yarn stores had fiber to spin, and it looked like combed top, and was somewhat expensive (by US standards).

All in all, I was extremely satisfied by taking a few hours to shop for yarn, but I found the experience quite different from what I’m used to.

* I was instructed by a friend who had visited Buenos Aires to take a taxi to the corner of X and Y. However, I enjoy walking around and public transit, so I noticed the subway stop was not far, and decided to walk a few blocks. To those who are considering what to do, a taxi would have cost about 20 pesos (about USD $5) each way. The subway costs $5 for two rides, but of course is not door to door. Another thing to note about the subway is that it is not the most modern system:

And you will get plenty of people trying to make money – some play music, which you may be used to from other subway systems. Others will go around a subway car, handing out products, and then go around and either collect the product back or collect money. I was handed tissues and Disney books – or at least, they attempted to hand stuff to me, and I refused. It helped that I had knitting in my hands, but I saw them just place stuff on people’s laps if their hands were busy, so don’t just look away, make sure you actually refuse by shaking your head.

Note: I hope this article is helpful! Due to spam reasons, all articles on this site have comments disabled after a short time. If you want to leave feedback, you can tweet @sheeri or e-mail me at awfief at gmail dot com. (replace “at” with @ and
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, order I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, find this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, more about I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
Buenos Aires has a span of a few blocks, hospital not too far from the Malabia metro station* where there are many yarn shops, phthisiatrician I counted 15, and went into 11 of them before I had to stop. The shops are on Ave. Scalabrini Ortiz just southwest of Ave. Cordoba, towards Ave. Correintes. The Malabia metro station is on the corner of Correintes and Scalabrini Ortiz, which is 1 km away from the corner of Cordoba and Corrientes, and about half that until you see your first yarn shop. There was a small bit of yarn bombing between two of the stores:

Yarn shopping in Buenos Aires is quite different from what I’m used to in the States. The stores all look like this:

The yarn is beautiful, and well-organized, but there’s no signs as to what the yarn is made up of, how much it costs nor the gauge of the yarn. In addition, you’re not supposed to take the yarn out of the bins. If you look at the bottom right of that picture, you’ll see some white yarn and blue yarn that is actually sitting on top of a counter. That counter separates you from the wall, and there are people behind the counter who can help you get what you want.

So it’s very different from the experience I’m used to. I got the feeling that a lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to buy, or walked in and would say “do you have anything made of wool?” I was feeling a bit shy due to the language barrier, so I picked up a Spanish phrase: “solamente mirando” – it means “Just looking”. The people are friendly and willing to help, but I like the yarn buying process to be a solo activity.

There were 2 exceptions to the fact that most stores don’t give any information about their items.: Milana hilados and Yanabey. Milana hilados had tags like this near most of their yarn:

Note that that’s in Argentinian pesos, and at the time, this was less than USD $10 per 100g. Another thing to note is the price is per 100g, not per hank of yarn. You’d ask a sales associate to take the yarn down for you and they’d weigh it and ask you if that was OK (kind of like at the deli counter). Then they give you a slip of paper and you take it to a cash register, where you’re usually helped by someone else. Another interesting thing is that the stores seemed to be staffed by about half men, half women, which is very different from yarn stores in the States, which are probably about 90% staffed by women.

I bought 3 hanks of yarn there, for about $25:

Yanabey had signs like this:

These prices are still in Argentinian pesos, but they’re in kilos. So these prices are $171 for 1 kilo, which is $17.10 for 100g. This is a wall of “seda vegetal”, or “vegetable silk“. By the way, that’s about USD $35 per kilo. So I bought 6 skeins, which was just over a kilo, because the tree which this comes from (ceiba speciosa, or “silk floss tree”) is native to South America, and I haven’t seen “vegetable silk” in the US.

A lot of the stores have the recycled t-shirt yarn, and I bought some at Arte Natural:

BUTTONS!!!

I was thinking I might make a purse from the yarn, like this:

That purse is crocheted, but I’m sure I can come up with a knitted version.

Here’s what I bought from that store:

Here’s a Spanish primer for some important words:
cachemira – cashmere
acrílico – acrylic
lana – wool
seda – silk
alpaca – alpaca
hilo – yarn (plural: hilados)
Also, I found out that cashmerillo is just an acrylic yarn that’s very soft. Don’t be fooled by price, some of the acrylic yarns are *very* expensive, even more expensive than the wool.

I was very excited by the prospect of all these yarn stores, and after these three purchases I was done, and passed by 4 other yarn stores that I didn’t even walk into. In addition, there were at least 2 weaving stores, and another 2 fabric stores. Only one of the yarn stores had fiber to spin, and it looked like combed top, and was somewhat expensive (by US standards).

All in all, I was extremely satisfied by taking a few hours to shop for yarn, but I found the experience quite different from what I’m used to.

* I was instructed by a friend who had visited Buenos Aires to take a taxi to the corner of X and Y. However, I enjoy walking around and public transit, so I noticed the subway stop was not far, and decided to walk a few blocks. To those who are considering what to do, a taxi would have cost about 20 pesos (about USD $5) each way. The subway costs $5 for two rides, but of course is not door to door. Another thing to note about the subway is that it is not the most modern system:

And you will get plenty of people trying to make money – some play music, which you may be used to from other subway systems. Others will go around a subway car, handing out products, and then go around and either collect the product back or collect money. I was handed tissues and Disney books – or at least, they attempted to hand stuff to me, and I refused. It helped that I had knitting in my hands, but I saw them just place stuff on people’s laps if their hands were busy, so don’t just look away, make sure you actually refuse by shaking your head.

Note: I hope this article is helpful! Due to spam reasons, all articles on this site have comments disabled after a short time. If you want to leave feedback, you can tweet @sheeri or e-mail me at awfief at gmail dot com. (replace “at” with @ and
When I think of gradient spinning, visit I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. I split the sections based on weight.

The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely and subtle color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way, and will knit with all of it to make a good-sized shawl.

It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, order I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, find this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, more about I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
Buenos Aires has a span of a few blocks, hospital not too far from the Malabia metro station* where there are many yarn shops, phthisiatrician I counted 15, and went into 11 of them before I had to stop. The shops are on Ave. Scalabrini Ortiz just southwest of Ave. Cordoba, towards Ave. Correintes. The Malabia metro station is on the corner of Correintes and Scalabrini Ortiz, which is 1 km away from the corner of Cordoba and Corrientes, and about half that until you see your first yarn shop. There was a small bit of yarn bombing between two of the stores:

Yarn shopping in Buenos Aires is quite different from what I’m used to in the States. The stores all look like this:

The yarn is beautiful, and well-organized, but there’s no signs as to what the yarn is made up of, how much it costs nor the gauge of the yarn. In addition, you’re not supposed to take the yarn out of the bins. If you look at the bottom right of that picture, you’ll see some white yarn and blue yarn that is actually sitting on top of a counter. That counter separates you from the wall, and there are people behind the counter who can help you get what you want.

So it’s very different from the experience I’m used to. I got the feeling that a lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to buy, or walked in and would say “do you have anything made of wool?” I was feeling a bit shy due to the language barrier, so I picked up a Spanish phrase: “solamente mirando” – it means “Just looking”. The people are friendly and willing to help, but I like the yarn buying process to be a solo activity.

There were 2 exceptions to the fact that most stores don’t give any information about their items.: Milana hilados and Yanabey. Milana hilados had tags like this near most of their yarn:

Note that that’s in Argentinian pesos, and at the time, this was less than USD $10 per 100g. Another thing to note is the price is per 100g, not per hank of yarn. You’d ask a sales associate to take the yarn down for you and they’d weigh it and ask you if that was OK (kind of like at the deli counter). Then they give you a slip of paper and you take it to a cash register, where you’re usually helped by someone else. Another interesting thing is that the stores seemed to be staffed by about half men, half women, which is very different from yarn stores in the States, which are probably about 90% staffed by women.

I bought 3 hanks of yarn there, for about $25:

Yanabey had signs like this:

These prices are still in Argentinian pesos, but they’re in kilos. So these prices are $171 for 1 kilo, which is $17.10 for 100g. This is a wall of “seda vegetal”, or “vegetable silk“. By the way, that’s about USD $35 per kilo. So I bought 6 skeins, which was just over a kilo, because the tree which this comes from (ceiba speciosa, or “silk floss tree”) is native to South America, and I haven’t seen “vegetable silk” in the US.

A lot of the stores have the recycled t-shirt yarn, and I bought some at Arte Natural:

BUTTONS!!!

I was thinking I might make a purse from the yarn, like this:

That purse is crocheted, but I’m sure I can come up with a knitted version.

Here’s what I bought from that store:

Here’s a Spanish primer for some important words:
cachemira – cashmere
acrílico – acrylic
lana – wool
seda – silk
alpaca – alpaca
hilo – yarn (plural: hilados)
Also, I found out that cashmerillo is just an acrylic yarn that’s very soft. Don’t be fooled by price, some of the acrylic yarns are *very* expensive, even more expensive than the wool.

I was very excited by the prospect of all these yarn stores, and after these three purchases I was done, and passed by 4 other yarn stores that I didn’t even walk into. In addition, there were at least 2 weaving stores, and another 2 fabric stores. Only one of the yarn stores had fiber to spin, and it looked like combed top, and was somewhat expensive (by US standards).

All in all, I was extremely satisfied by taking a few hours to shop for yarn, but I found the experience quite different from what I’m used to.

* I was instructed by a friend who had visited Buenos Aires to take a taxi to the corner of X and Y. However, I enjoy walking around and public transit, so I noticed the subway stop was not far, and decided to walk a few blocks. To those who are considering what to do, a taxi would have cost about 20 pesos (about USD $5) each way. The subway costs $5 for two rides, but of course is not door to door. Another thing to note about the subway is that it is not the most modern system:

And you will get plenty of people trying to make money – some play music, which you may be used to from other subway systems. Others will go around a subway car, handing out products, and then go around and either collect the product back or collect money. I was handed tissues and Disney books – or at least, they attempted to hand stuff to me, and I refused. It helped that I had knitting in my hands, but I saw them just place stuff on people’s laps if their hands were busy, so don’t just look away, make sure you actually refuse by shaking your head.

Note: I hope this article is helpful! Due to spam reasons, all articles on this site have comments disabled after a short time. If you want to leave feedback, you can tweet @sheeri or e-mail me at awfief at gmail dot com. (replace “at” with @ and
When I think of gradient spinning, visit I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. I split the sections based on weight.

The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely and subtle color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way, and will knit with all of it to make a good-sized shawl.

When I think of gradient spinning, buy more about I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way

It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, order I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, find this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, more about I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
Buenos Aires has a span of a few blocks, hospital not too far from the Malabia metro station* where there are many yarn shops, phthisiatrician I counted 15, and went into 11 of them before I had to stop. The shops are on Ave. Scalabrini Ortiz just southwest of Ave. Cordoba, towards Ave. Correintes. The Malabia metro station is on the corner of Correintes and Scalabrini Ortiz, which is 1 km away from the corner of Cordoba and Corrientes, and about half that until you see your first yarn shop. There was a small bit of yarn bombing between two of the stores:

Yarn shopping in Buenos Aires is quite different from what I’m used to in the States. The stores all look like this:

The yarn is beautiful, and well-organized, but there’s no signs as to what the yarn is made up of, how much it costs nor the gauge of the yarn. In addition, you’re not supposed to take the yarn out of the bins. If you look at the bottom right of that picture, you’ll see some white yarn and blue yarn that is actually sitting on top of a counter. That counter separates you from the wall, and there are people behind the counter who can help you get what you want.

So it’s very different from the experience I’m used to. I got the feeling that a lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to buy, or walked in and would say “do you have anything made of wool?” I was feeling a bit shy due to the language barrier, so I picked up a Spanish phrase: “solamente mirando” – it means “Just looking”. The people are friendly and willing to help, but I like the yarn buying process to be a solo activity.

There were 2 exceptions to the fact that most stores don’t give any information about their items.: Milana hilados and Yanabey. Milana hilados had tags like this near most of their yarn:

Note that that’s in Argentinian pesos, and at the time, this was less than USD $10 per 100g. Another thing to note is the price is per 100g, not per hank of yarn. You’d ask a sales associate to take the yarn down for you and they’d weigh it and ask you if that was OK (kind of like at the deli counter). Then they give you a slip of paper and you take it to a cash register, where you’re usually helped by someone else. Another interesting thing is that the stores seemed to be staffed by about half men, half women, which is very different from yarn stores in the States, which are probably about 90% staffed by women.

I bought 3 hanks of yarn there, for about $25:

Yanabey had signs like this:

These prices are still in Argentinian pesos, but they’re in kilos. So these prices are $171 for 1 kilo, which is $17.10 for 100g. This is a wall of “seda vegetal”, or “vegetable silk“. By the way, that’s about USD $35 per kilo. So I bought 6 skeins, which was just over a kilo, because the tree which this comes from (ceiba speciosa, or “silk floss tree”) is native to South America, and I haven’t seen “vegetable silk” in the US.

A lot of the stores have the recycled t-shirt yarn, and I bought some at Arte Natural:

BUTTONS!!!

I was thinking I might make a purse from the yarn, like this:

That purse is crocheted, but I’m sure I can come up with a knitted version.

Here’s what I bought from that store:

Here’s a Spanish primer for some important words:
cachemira – cashmere
acrílico – acrylic
lana – wool
seda – silk
alpaca – alpaca
hilo – yarn (plural: hilados)
Also, I found out that cashmerillo is just an acrylic yarn that’s very soft. Don’t be fooled by price, some of the acrylic yarns are *very* expensive, even more expensive than the wool.

I was very excited by the prospect of all these yarn stores, and after these three purchases I was done, and passed by 4 other yarn stores that I didn’t even walk into. In addition, there were at least 2 weaving stores, and another 2 fabric stores. Only one of the yarn stores had fiber to spin, and it looked like combed top, and was somewhat expensive (by US standards).

All in all, I was extremely satisfied by taking a few hours to shop for yarn, but I found the experience quite different from what I’m used to.

* I was instructed by a friend who had visited Buenos Aires to take a taxi to the corner of X and Y. However, I enjoy walking around and public transit, so I noticed the subway stop was not far, and decided to walk a few blocks. To those who are considering what to do, a taxi would have cost about 20 pesos (about USD $5) each way. The subway costs $5 for two rides, but of course is not door to door. Another thing to note about the subway is that it is not the most modern system:

And you will get plenty of people trying to make money – some play music, which you may be used to from other subway systems. Others will go around a subway car, handing out products, and then go around and either collect the product back or collect money. I was handed tissues and Disney books – or at least, they attempted to hand stuff to me, and I refused. It helped that I had knitting in my hands, but I saw them just place stuff on people’s laps if their hands were busy, so don’t just look away, make sure you actually refuse by shaking your head.

Note: I hope this article is helpful! Due to spam reasons, all articles on this site have comments disabled after a short time. If you want to leave feedback, you can tweet @sheeri or e-mail me at awfief at gmail dot com. (replace “at” with @ and
When I think of gradient spinning, visit I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. I split the sections based on weight.

The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely and subtle color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way, and will knit with all of it to make a good-sized shawl.

When I think of gradient spinning, buy more about I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way

Edited October 29, medicine 2012 – Unfortunately, ampoule Cat Bordhi has asked me to take the PDF instructions down. However, troche the same exact information is at the video I link to below, so you can still find the information you need.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, order I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, find this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, more about I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
Buenos Aires has a span of a few blocks, hospital not too far from the Malabia metro station* where there are many yarn shops, phthisiatrician I counted 15, and went into 11 of them before I had to stop. The shops are on Ave. Scalabrini Ortiz just southwest of Ave. Cordoba, towards Ave. Correintes. The Malabia metro station is on the corner of Correintes and Scalabrini Ortiz, which is 1 km away from the corner of Cordoba and Corrientes, and about half that until you see your first yarn shop. There was a small bit of yarn bombing between two of the stores:

Yarn shopping in Buenos Aires is quite different from what I’m used to in the States. The stores all look like this:

The yarn is beautiful, and well-organized, but there’s no signs as to what the yarn is made up of, how much it costs nor the gauge of the yarn. In addition, you’re not supposed to take the yarn out of the bins. If you look at the bottom right of that picture, you’ll see some white yarn and blue yarn that is actually sitting on top of a counter. That counter separates you from the wall, and there are people behind the counter who can help you get what you want.

So it’s very different from the experience I’m used to. I got the feeling that a lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to buy, or walked in and would say “do you have anything made of wool?” I was feeling a bit shy due to the language barrier, so I picked up a Spanish phrase: “solamente mirando” – it means “Just looking”. The people are friendly and willing to help, but I like the yarn buying process to be a solo activity.

There were 2 exceptions to the fact that most stores don’t give any information about their items.: Milana hilados and Yanabey. Milana hilados had tags like this near most of their yarn:

Note that that’s in Argentinian pesos, and at the time, this was less than USD $10 per 100g. Another thing to note is the price is per 100g, not per hank of yarn. You’d ask a sales associate to take the yarn down for you and they’d weigh it and ask you if that was OK (kind of like at the deli counter). Then they give you a slip of paper and you take it to a cash register, where you’re usually helped by someone else. Another interesting thing is that the stores seemed to be staffed by about half men, half women, which is very different from yarn stores in the States, which are probably about 90% staffed by women.

I bought 3 hanks of yarn there, for about $25:

Yanabey had signs like this:

These prices are still in Argentinian pesos, but they’re in kilos. So these prices are $171 for 1 kilo, which is $17.10 for 100g. This is a wall of “seda vegetal”, or “vegetable silk“. By the way, that’s about USD $35 per kilo. So I bought 6 skeins, which was just over a kilo, because the tree which this comes from (ceiba speciosa, or “silk floss tree”) is native to South America, and I haven’t seen “vegetable silk” in the US.

A lot of the stores have the recycled t-shirt yarn, and I bought some at Arte Natural:

BUTTONS!!!

I was thinking I might make a purse from the yarn, like this:

That purse is crocheted, but I’m sure I can come up with a knitted version.

Here’s what I bought from that store:

Here’s a Spanish primer for some important words:
cachemira – cashmere
acrílico – acrylic
lana – wool
seda – silk
alpaca – alpaca
hilo – yarn (plural: hilados)
Also, I found out that cashmerillo is just an acrylic yarn that’s very soft. Don’t be fooled by price, some of the acrylic yarns are *very* expensive, even more expensive than the wool.

I was very excited by the prospect of all these yarn stores, and after these three purchases I was done, and passed by 4 other yarn stores that I didn’t even walk into. In addition, there were at least 2 weaving stores, and another 2 fabric stores. Only one of the yarn stores had fiber to spin, and it looked like combed top, and was somewhat expensive (by US standards).

All in all, I was extremely satisfied by taking a few hours to shop for yarn, but I found the experience quite different from what I’m used to.

* I was instructed by a friend who had visited Buenos Aires to take a taxi to the corner of X and Y. However, I enjoy walking around and public transit, so I noticed the subway stop was not far, and decided to walk a few blocks. To those who are considering what to do, a taxi would have cost about 20 pesos (about USD $5) each way. The subway costs $5 for two rides, but of course is not door to door. Another thing to note about the subway is that it is not the most modern system:

And you will get plenty of people trying to make money – some play music, which you may be used to from other subway systems. Others will go around a subway car, handing out products, and then go around and either collect the product back or collect money. I was handed tissues and Disney books – or at least, they attempted to hand stuff to me, and I refused. It helped that I had knitting in my hands, but I saw them just place stuff on people’s laps if their hands were busy, so don’t just look away, make sure you actually refuse by shaking your head.

Note: I hope this article is helpful! Due to spam reasons, all articles on this site have comments disabled after a short time. If you want to leave feedback, you can tweet @sheeri or e-mail me at awfief at gmail dot com. (replace “at” with @ and
When I think of gradient spinning, visit I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. I split the sections based on weight.

The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely and subtle color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way, and will knit with all of it to make a good-sized shawl.

When I think of gradient spinning, buy more about I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way

Edited October 29, medicine 2012 – Unfortunately, ampoule Cat Bordhi has asked me to take the PDF instructions down. However, troche the same exact information is at the video I link to below, so you can still find the information you need.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, view and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

You can download the PDF of the instructions I wrote up for how to do Cat Bordhi‘s Sweet Tomato Heel.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, order I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, find this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, more about I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
Buenos Aires has a span of a few blocks, hospital not too far from the Malabia metro station* where there are many yarn shops, phthisiatrician I counted 15, and went into 11 of them before I had to stop. The shops are on Ave. Scalabrini Ortiz just southwest of Ave. Cordoba, towards Ave. Correintes. The Malabia metro station is on the corner of Correintes and Scalabrini Ortiz, which is 1 km away from the corner of Cordoba and Corrientes, and about half that until you see your first yarn shop. There was a small bit of yarn bombing between two of the stores:

Yarn shopping in Buenos Aires is quite different from what I’m used to in the States. The stores all look like this:

The yarn is beautiful, and well-organized, but there’s no signs as to what the yarn is made up of, how much it costs nor the gauge of the yarn. In addition, you’re not supposed to take the yarn out of the bins. If you look at the bottom right of that picture, you’ll see some white yarn and blue yarn that is actually sitting on top of a counter. That counter separates you from the wall, and there are people behind the counter who can help you get what you want.

So it’s very different from the experience I’m used to. I got the feeling that a lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to buy, or walked in and would say “do you have anything made of wool?” I was feeling a bit shy due to the language barrier, so I picked up a Spanish phrase: “solamente mirando” – it means “Just looking”. The people are friendly and willing to help, but I like the yarn buying process to be a solo activity.

There were 2 exceptions to the fact that most stores don’t give any information about their items.: Milana hilados and Yanabey. Milana hilados had tags like this near most of their yarn:

Note that that’s in Argentinian pesos, and at the time, this was less than USD $10 per 100g. Another thing to note is the price is per 100g, not per hank of yarn. You’d ask a sales associate to take the yarn down for you and they’d weigh it and ask you if that was OK (kind of like at the deli counter). Then they give you a slip of paper and you take it to a cash register, where you’re usually helped by someone else. Another interesting thing is that the stores seemed to be staffed by about half men, half women, which is very different from yarn stores in the States, which are probably about 90% staffed by women.

I bought 3 hanks of yarn there, for about $25:

Yanabey had signs like this:

These prices are still in Argentinian pesos, but they’re in kilos. So these prices are $171 for 1 kilo, which is $17.10 for 100g. This is a wall of “seda vegetal”, or “vegetable silk“. By the way, that’s about USD $35 per kilo. So I bought 6 skeins, which was just over a kilo, because the tree which this comes from (ceiba speciosa, or “silk floss tree”) is native to South America, and I haven’t seen “vegetable silk” in the US.

A lot of the stores have the recycled t-shirt yarn, and I bought some at Arte Natural:

BUTTONS!!!

I was thinking I might make a purse from the yarn, like this:

That purse is crocheted, but I’m sure I can come up with a knitted version.

Here’s what I bought from that store:

Here’s a Spanish primer for some important words:
cachemira – cashmere
acrílico – acrylic
lana – wool
seda – silk
alpaca – alpaca
hilo – yarn (plural: hilados)
Also, I found out that cashmerillo is just an acrylic yarn that’s very soft. Don’t be fooled by price, some of the acrylic yarns are *very* expensive, even more expensive than the wool.

I was very excited by the prospect of all these yarn stores, and after these three purchases I was done, and passed by 4 other yarn stores that I didn’t even walk into. In addition, there were at least 2 weaving stores, and another 2 fabric stores. Only one of the yarn stores had fiber to spin, and it looked like combed top, and was somewhat expensive (by US standards).

All in all, I was extremely satisfied by taking a few hours to shop for yarn, but I found the experience quite different from what I’m used to.

* I was instructed by a friend who had visited Buenos Aires to take a taxi to the corner of X and Y. However, I enjoy walking around and public transit, so I noticed the subway stop was not far, and decided to walk a few blocks. To those who are considering what to do, a taxi would have cost about 20 pesos (about USD $5) each way. The subway costs $5 for two rides, but of course is not door to door. Another thing to note about the subway is that it is not the most modern system:

And you will get plenty of people trying to make money – some play music, which you may be used to from other subway systems. Others will go around a subway car, handing out products, and then go around and either collect the product back or collect money. I was handed tissues and Disney books – or at least, they attempted to hand stuff to me, and I refused. It helped that I had knitting in my hands, but I saw them just place stuff on people’s laps if their hands were busy, so don’t just look away, make sure you actually refuse by shaking your head.

Note: I hope this article is helpful! Due to spam reasons, all articles on this site have comments disabled after a short time. If you want to leave feedback, you can tweet @sheeri or e-mail me at awfief at gmail dot com. (replace “at” with @ and
When I think of gradient spinning, visit I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. I split the sections based on weight.

The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely and subtle color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way, and will knit with all of it to make a good-sized shawl.

When I think of gradient spinning, buy more about I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way

Edited October 29, medicine 2012 – Unfortunately, ampoule Cat Bordhi has asked me to take the PDF instructions down. However, troche the same exact information is at the video I link to below, so you can still find the information you need.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, view and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

You can download the PDF of the instructions I wrote up for how to do Cat Bordhi‘s Sweet Tomato Heel.
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, order I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, find this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, more about I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
Buenos Aires has a span of a few blocks, hospital not too far from the Malabia metro station* where there are many yarn shops, phthisiatrician I counted 15, and went into 11 of them before I had to stop. The shops are on Ave. Scalabrini Ortiz just southwest of Ave. Cordoba, towards Ave. Correintes. The Malabia metro station is on the corner of Correintes and Scalabrini Ortiz, which is 1 km away from the corner of Cordoba and Corrientes, and about half that until you see your first yarn shop. There was a small bit of yarn bombing between two of the stores:

Yarn shopping in Buenos Aires is quite different from what I’m used to in the States. The stores all look like this:

The yarn is beautiful, and well-organized, but there’s no signs as to what the yarn is made up of, how much it costs nor the gauge of the yarn. In addition, you’re not supposed to take the yarn out of the bins. If you look at the bottom right of that picture, you’ll see some white yarn and blue yarn that is actually sitting on top of a counter. That counter separates you from the wall, and there are people behind the counter who can help you get what you want.

So it’s very different from the experience I’m used to. I got the feeling that a lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to buy, or walked in and would say “do you have anything made of wool?” I was feeling a bit shy due to the language barrier, so I picked up a Spanish phrase: “solamente mirando” – it means “Just looking”. The people are friendly and willing to help, but I like the yarn buying process to be a solo activity.

There were 2 exceptions to the fact that most stores don’t give any information about their items.: Milana hilados and Yanabey. Milana hilados had tags like this near most of their yarn:

Note that that’s in Argentinian pesos, and at the time, this was less than USD $10 per 100g. Another thing to note is the price is per 100g, not per hank of yarn. You’d ask a sales associate to take the yarn down for you and they’d weigh it and ask you if that was OK (kind of like at the deli counter). Then they give you a slip of paper and you take it to a cash register, where you’re usually helped by someone else. Another interesting thing is that the stores seemed to be staffed by about half men, half women, which is very different from yarn stores in the States, which are probably about 90% staffed by women.

I bought 3 hanks of yarn there, for about $25:

Yanabey had signs like this:

These prices are still in Argentinian pesos, but they’re in kilos. So these prices are $171 for 1 kilo, which is $17.10 for 100g. This is a wall of “seda vegetal”, or “vegetable silk“. By the way, that’s about USD $35 per kilo. So I bought 6 skeins, which was just over a kilo, because the tree which this comes from (ceiba speciosa, or “silk floss tree”) is native to South America, and I haven’t seen “vegetable silk” in the US.

A lot of the stores have the recycled t-shirt yarn, and I bought some at Arte Natural:

BUTTONS!!!

I was thinking I might make a purse from the yarn, like this:

That purse is crocheted, but I’m sure I can come up with a knitted version.

Here’s what I bought from that store:

Here’s a Spanish primer for some important words:
cachemira – cashmere
acrílico – acrylic
lana – wool
seda – silk
alpaca – alpaca
hilo – yarn (plural: hilados)
Also, I found out that cashmerillo is just an acrylic yarn that’s very soft. Don’t be fooled by price, some of the acrylic yarns are *very* expensive, even more expensive than the wool.

I was very excited by the prospect of all these yarn stores, and after these three purchases I was done, and passed by 4 other yarn stores that I didn’t even walk into. In addition, there were at least 2 weaving stores, and another 2 fabric stores. Only one of the yarn stores had fiber to spin, and it looked like combed top, and was somewhat expensive (by US standards).

All in all, I was extremely satisfied by taking a few hours to shop for yarn, but I found the experience quite different from what I’m used to.

* I was instructed by a friend who had visited Buenos Aires to take a taxi to the corner of X and Y. However, I enjoy walking around and public transit, so I noticed the subway stop was not far, and decided to walk a few blocks. To those who are considering what to do, a taxi would have cost about 20 pesos (about USD $5) each way. The subway costs $5 for two rides, but of course is not door to door. Another thing to note about the subway is that it is not the most modern system:

And you will get plenty of people trying to make money – some play music, which you may be used to from other subway systems. Others will go around a subway car, handing out products, and then go around and either collect the product back or collect money. I was handed tissues and Disney books – or at least, they attempted to hand stuff to me, and I refused. It helped that I had knitting in my hands, but I saw them just place stuff on people’s laps if their hands were busy, so don’t just look away, make sure you actually refuse by shaking your head.

Note: I hope this article is helpful! Due to spam reasons, all articles on this site have comments disabled after a short time. If you want to leave feedback, you can tweet @sheeri or e-mail me at awfief at gmail dot com. (replace “at” with @ and
When I think of gradient spinning, visit I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. I split the sections based on weight.

The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely and subtle color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way, and will knit with all of it to make a good-sized shawl.

When I think of gradient spinning, buy more about I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way

Edited October 29, medicine 2012 – Unfortunately, ampoule Cat Bordhi has asked me to take the PDF instructions down. However, troche the same exact information is at the video I link to below, so you can still find the information you need.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, view and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

You can download the PDF of the instructions I wrote up for how to do Cat Bordhi‘s Sweet Tomato Heel.
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I did
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, order I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, find this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, more about I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
Buenos Aires has a span of a few blocks, hospital not too far from the Malabia metro station* where there are many yarn shops, phthisiatrician I counted 15, and went into 11 of them before I had to stop. The shops are on Ave. Scalabrini Ortiz just southwest of Ave. Cordoba, towards Ave. Correintes. The Malabia metro station is on the corner of Correintes and Scalabrini Ortiz, which is 1 km away from the corner of Cordoba and Corrientes, and about half that until you see your first yarn shop. There was a small bit of yarn bombing between two of the stores:

Yarn shopping in Buenos Aires is quite different from what I’m used to in the States. The stores all look like this:

The yarn is beautiful, and well-organized, but there’s no signs as to what the yarn is made up of, how much it costs nor the gauge of the yarn. In addition, you’re not supposed to take the yarn out of the bins. If you look at the bottom right of that picture, you’ll see some white yarn and blue yarn that is actually sitting on top of a counter. That counter separates you from the wall, and there are people behind the counter who can help you get what you want.

So it’s very different from the experience I’m used to. I got the feeling that a lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to buy, or walked in and would say “do you have anything made of wool?” I was feeling a bit shy due to the language barrier, so I picked up a Spanish phrase: “solamente mirando” – it means “Just looking”. The people are friendly and willing to help, but I like the yarn buying process to be a solo activity.

There were 2 exceptions to the fact that most stores don’t give any information about their items.: Milana hilados and Yanabey. Milana hilados had tags like this near most of their yarn:

Note that that’s in Argentinian pesos, and at the time, this was less than USD $10 per 100g. Another thing to note is the price is per 100g, not per hank of yarn. You’d ask a sales associate to take the yarn down for you and they’d weigh it and ask you if that was OK (kind of like at the deli counter). Then they give you a slip of paper and you take it to a cash register, where you’re usually helped by someone else. Another interesting thing is that the stores seemed to be staffed by about half men, half women, which is very different from yarn stores in the States, which are probably about 90% staffed by women.

I bought 3 hanks of yarn there, for about $25:

Yanabey had signs like this:

These prices are still in Argentinian pesos, but they’re in kilos. So these prices are $171 for 1 kilo, which is $17.10 for 100g. This is a wall of “seda vegetal”, or “vegetable silk“. By the way, that’s about USD $35 per kilo. So I bought 6 skeins, which was just over a kilo, because the tree which this comes from (ceiba speciosa, or “silk floss tree”) is native to South America, and I haven’t seen “vegetable silk” in the US.

A lot of the stores have the recycled t-shirt yarn, and I bought some at Arte Natural:

BUTTONS!!!

I was thinking I might make a purse from the yarn, like this:

That purse is crocheted, but I’m sure I can come up with a knitted version.

Here’s what I bought from that store:

Here’s a Spanish primer for some important words:
cachemira – cashmere
acrílico – acrylic
lana – wool
seda – silk
alpaca – alpaca
hilo – yarn (plural: hilados)
Also, I found out that cashmerillo is just an acrylic yarn that’s very soft. Don’t be fooled by price, some of the acrylic yarns are *very* expensive, even more expensive than the wool.

I was very excited by the prospect of all these yarn stores, and after these three purchases I was done, and passed by 4 other yarn stores that I didn’t even walk into. In addition, there were at least 2 weaving stores, and another 2 fabric stores. Only one of the yarn stores had fiber to spin, and it looked like combed top, and was somewhat expensive (by US standards).

All in all, I was extremely satisfied by taking a few hours to shop for yarn, but I found the experience quite different from what I’m used to.

* I was instructed by a friend who had visited Buenos Aires to take a taxi to the corner of X and Y. However, I enjoy walking around and public transit, so I noticed the subway stop was not far, and decided to walk a few blocks. To those who are considering what to do, a taxi would have cost about 20 pesos (about USD $5) each way. The subway costs $5 for two rides, but of course is not door to door. Another thing to note about the subway is that it is not the most modern system:

And you will get plenty of people trying to make money – some play music, which you may be used to from other subway systems. Others will go around a subway car, handing out products, and then go around and either collect the product back or collect money. I was handed tissues and Disney books – or at least, they attempted to hand stuff to me, and I refused. It helped that I had knitting in my hands, but I saw them just place stuff on people’s laps if their hands were busy, so don’t just look away, make sure you actually refuse by shaking your head.

Note: I hope this article is helpful! Due to spam reasons, all articles on this site have comments disabled after a short time. If you want to leave feedback, you can tweet @sheeri or e-mail me at awfief at gmail dot com. (replace “at” with @ and
When I think of gradient spinning, visit I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. I split the sections based on weight.

The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely and subtle color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way, and will knit with all of it to make a good-sized shawl.

When I think of gradient spinning, buy more about I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way

Edited October 29, medicine 2012 – Unfortunately, ampoule Cat Bordhi has asked me to take the PDF instructions down. However, troche the same exact information is at the video I link to below, so you can still find the information you need.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, view and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

You can download the PDF of the instructions I wrote up for how to do Cat Bordhi‘s Sweet Tomato Heel.
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I did
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, psychotherapist to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, order I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, find this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, more about I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
Buenos Aires has a span of a few blocks, hospital not too far from the Malabia metro station* where there are many yarn shops, phthisiatrician I counted 15, and went into 11 of them before I had to stop. The shops are on Ave. Scalabrini Ortiz just southwest of Ave. Cordoba, towards Ave. Correintes. The Malabia metro station is on the corner of Correintes and Scalabrini Ortiz, which is 1 km away from the corner of Cordoba and Corrientes, and about half that until you see your first yarn shop. There was a small bit of yarn bombing between two of the stores:

Yarn shopping in Buenos Aires is quite different from what I’m used to in the States. The stores all look like this:

The yarn is beautiful, and well-organized, but there’s no signs as to what the yarn is made up of, how much it costs nor the gauge of the yarn. In addition, you’re not supposed to take the yarn out of the bins. If you look at the bottom right of that picture, you’ll see some white yarn and blue yarn that is actually sitting on top of a counter. That counter separates you from the wall, and there are people behind the counter who can help you get what you want.

So it’s very different from the experience I’m used to. I got the feeling that a lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to buy, or walked in and would say “do you have anything made of wool?” I was feeling a bit shy due to the language barrier, so I picked up a Spanish phrase: “solamente mirando” – it means “Just looking”. The people are friendly and willing to help, but I like the yarn buying process to be a solo activity.

There were 2 exceptions to the fact that most stores don’t give any information about their items.: Milana hilados and Yanabey. Milana hilados had tags like this near most of their yarn:

Note that that’s in Argentinian pesos, and at the time, this was less than USD $10 per 100g. Another thing to note is the price is per 100g, not per hank of yarn. You’d ask a sales associate to take the yarn down for you and they’d weigh it and ask you if that was OK (kind of like at the deli counter). Then they give you a slip of paper and you take it to a cash register, where you’re usually helped by someone else. Another interesting thing is that the stores seemed to be staffed by about half men, half women, which is very different from yarn stores in the States, which are probably about 90% staffed by women.

I bought 3 hanks of yarn there, for about $25:

Yanabey had signs like this:

These prices are still in Argentinian pesos, but they’re in kilos. So these prices are $171 for 1 kilo, which is $17.10 for 100g. This is a wall of “seda vegetal”, or “vegetable silk“. By the way, that’s about USD $35 per kilo. So I bought 6 skeins, which was just over a kilo, because the tree which this comes from (ceiba speciosa, or “silk floss tree”) is native to South America, and I haven’t seen “vegetable silk” in the US.

A lot of the stores have the recycled t-shirt yarn, and I bought some at Arte Natural:

BUTTONS!!!

I was thinking I might make a purse from the yarn, like this:

That purse is crocheted, but I’m sure I can come up with a knitted version.

Here’s what I bought from that store:

Here’s a Spanish primer for some important words:
cachemira – cashmere
acrílico – acrylic
lana – wool
seda – silk
alpaca – alpaca
hilo – yarn (plural: hilados)
Also, I found out that cashmerillo is just an acrylic yarn that’s very soft. Don’t be fooled by price, some of the acrylic yarns are *very* expensive, even more expensive than the wool.

I was very excited by the prospect of all these yarn stores, and after these three purchases I was done, and passed by 4 other yarn stores that I didn’t even walk into. In addition, there were at least 2 weaving stores, and another 2 fabric stores. Only one of the yarn stores had fiber to spin, and it looked like combed top, and was somewhat expensive (by US standards).

All in all, I was extremely satisfied by taking a few hours to shop for yarn, but I found the experience quite different from what I’m used to.

* I was instructed by a friend who had visited Buenos Aires to take a taxi to the corner of X and Y. However, I enjoy walking around and public transit, so I noticed the subway stop was not far, and decided to walk a few blocks. To those who are considering what to do, a taxi would have cost about 20 pesos (about USD $5) each way. The subway costs $5 for two rides, but of course is not door to door. Another thing to note about the subway is that it is not the most modern system:

And you will get plenty of people trying to make money – some play music, which you may be used to from other subway systems. Others will go around a subway car, handing out products, and then go around and either collect the product back or collect money. I was handed tissues and Disney books – or at least, they attempted to hand stuff to me, and I refused. It helped that I had knitting in my hands, but I saw them just place stuff on people’s laps if their hands were busy, so don’t just look away, make sure you actually refuse by shaking your head.

Note: I hope this article is helpful! Due to spam reasons, all articles on this site have comments disabled after a short time. If you want to leave feedback, you can tweet @sheeri or e-mail me at awfief at gmail dot com. (replace “at” with @ and
When I think of gradient spinning, visit I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. I split the sections based on weight.

The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely and subtle color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way, and will knit with all of it to make a good-sized shawl.

When I think of gradient spinning, buy more about I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way

Edited October 29, medicine 2012 – Unfortunately, ampoule Cat Bordhi has asked me to take the PDF instructions down. However, troche the same exact information is at the video I link to below, so you can still find the information you need.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, view and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

You can download the PDF of the instructions I wrote up for how to do Cat Bordhi‘s Sweet Tomato Heel.
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I did
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, psychotherapist to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, website like this to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, order I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, find this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, more about I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
Buenos Aires has a span of a few blocks, hospital not too far from the Malabia metro station* where there are many yarn shops, phthisiatrician I counted 15, and went into 11 of them before I had to stop. The shops are on Ave. Scalabrini Ortiz just southwest of Ave. Cordoba, towards Ave. Correintes. The Malabia metro station is on the corner of Correintes and Scalabrini Ortiz, which is 1 km away from the corner of Cordoba and Corrientes, and about half that until you see your first yarn shop. There was a small bit of yarn bombing between two of the stores:

Yarn shopping in Buenos Aires is quite different from what I’m used to in the States. The stores all look like this:

The yarn is beautiful, and well-organized, but there’s no signs as to what the yarn is made up of, how much it costs nor the gauge of the yarn. In addition, you’re not supposed to take the yarn out of the bins. If you look at the bottom right of that picture, you’ll see some white yarn and blue yarn that is actually sitting on top of a counter. That counter separates you from the wall, and there are people behind the counter who can help you get what you want.

So it’s very different from the experience I’m used to. I got the feeling that a lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to buy, or walked in and would say “do you have anything made of wool?” I was feeling a bit shy due to the language barrier, so I picked up a Spanish phrase: “solamente mirando” – it means “Just looking”. The people are friendly and willing to help, but I like the yarn buying process to be a solo activity.

There were 2 exceptions to the fact that most stores don’t give any information about their items.: Milana hilados and Yanabey. Milana hilados had tags like this near most of their yarn:

Note that that’s in Argentinian pesos, and at the time, this was less than USD $10 per 100g. Another thing to note is the price is per 100g, not per hank of yarn. You’d ask a sales associate to take the yarn down for you and they’d weigh it and ask you if that was OK (kind of like at the deli counter). Then they give you a slip of paper and you take it to a cash register, where you’re usually helped by someone else. Another interesting thing is that the stores seemed to be staffed by about half men, half women, which is very different from yarn stores in the States, which are probably about 90% staffed by women.

I bought 3 hanks of yarn there, for about $25:

Yanabey had signs like this:

These prices are still in Argentinian pesos, but they’re in kilos. So these prices are $171 for 1 kilo, which is $17.10 for 100g. This is a wall of “seda vegetal”, or “vegetable silk“. By the way, that’s about USD $35 per kilo. So I bought 6 skeins, which was just over a kilo, because the tree which this comes from (ceiba speciosa, or “silk floss tree”) is native to South America, and I haven’t seen “vegetable silk” in the US.

A lot of the stores have the recycled t-shirt yarn, and I bought some at Arte Natural:

BUTTONS!!!

I was thinking I might make a purse from the yarn, like this:

That purse is crocheted, but I’m sure I can come up with a knitted version.

Here’s what I bought from that store:

Here’s a Spanish primer for some important words:
cachemira – cashmere
acrílico – acrylic
lana – wool
seda – silk
alpaca – alpaca
hilo – yarn (plural: hilados)
Also, I found out that cashmerillo is just an acrylic yarn that’s very soft. Don’t be fooled by price, some of the acrylic yarns are *very* expensive, even more expensive than the wool.

I was very excited by the prospect of all these yarn stores, and after these three purchases I was done, and passed by 4 other yarn stores that I didn’t even walk into. In addition, there were at least 2 weaving stores, and another 2 fabric stores. Only one of the yarn stores had fiber to spin, and it looked like combed top, and was somewhat expensive (by US standards).

All in all, I was extremely satisfied by taking a few hours to shop for yarn, but I found the experience quite different from what I’m used to.

* I was instructed by a friend who had visited Buenos Aires to take a taxi to the corner of X and Y. However, I enjoy walking around and public transit, so I noticed the subway stop was not far, and decided to walk a few blocks. To those who are considering what to do, a taxi would have cost about 20 pesos (about USD $5) each way. The subway costs $5 for two rides, but of course is not door to door. Another thing to note about the subway is that it is not the most modern system:

And you will get plenty of people trying to make money – some play music, which you may be used to from other subway systems. Others will go around a subway car, handing out products, and then go around and either collect the product back or collect money. I was handed tissues and Disney books – or at least, they attempted to hand stuff to me, and I refused. It helped that I had knitting in my hands, but I saw them just place stuff on people’s laps if their hands were busy, so don’t just look away, make sure you actually refuse by shaking your head.

Note: I hope this article is helpful! Due to spam reasons, all articles on this site have comments disabled after a short time. If you want to leave feedback, you can tweet @sheeri or e-mail me at awfief at gmail dot com. (replace “at” with @ and
When I think of gradient spinning, visit I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. I split the sections based on weight.

The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely and subtle color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way, and will knit with all of it to make a good-sized shawl.

When I think of gradient spinning, buy more about I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way

Edited October 29, medicine 2012 – Unfortunately, ampoule Cat Bordhi has asked me to take the PDF instructions down. However, troche the same exact information is at the video I link to below, so you can still find the information you need.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, view and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

You can download the PDF of the instructions I wrote up for how to do Cat Bordhi‘s Sweet Tomato Heel.
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I did
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, psychotherapist to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, website like this to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, viagra 40mg to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, generic not at all! There has been a lot of travel, erectile and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, order I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, find this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, more about I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
Buenos Aires has a span of a few blocks, hospital not too far from the Malabia metro station* where there are many yarn shops, phthisiatrician I counted 15, and went into 11 of them before I had to stop. The shops are on Ave. Scalabrini Ortiz just southwest of Ave. Cordoba, towards Ave. Correintes. The Malabia metro station is on the corner of Correintes and Scalabrini Ortiz, which is 1 km away from the corner of Cordoba and Corrientes, and about half that until you see your first yarn shop. There was a small bit of yarn bombing between two of the stores:

Yarn shopping in Buenos Aires is quite different from what I’m used to in the States. The stores all look like this:

The yarn is beautiful, and well-organized, but there’s no signs as to what the yarn is made up of, how much it costs nor the gauge of the yarn. In addition, you’re not supposed to take the yarn out of the bins. If you look at the bottom right of that picture, you’ll see some white yarn and blue yarn that is actually sitting on top of a counter. That counter separates you from the wall, and there are people behind the counter who can help you get what you want.

So it’s very different from the experience I’m used to. I got the feeling that a lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to buy, or walked in and would say “do you have anything made of wool?” I was feeling a bit shy due to the language barrier, so I picked up a Spanish phrase: “solamente mirando” – it means “Just looking”. The people are friendly and willing to help, but I like the yarn buying process to be a solo activity.

There were 2 exceptions to the fact that most stores don’t give any information about their items.: Milana hilados and Yanabey. Milana hilados had tags like this near most of their yarn:

Note that that’s in Argentinian pesos, and at the time, this was less than USD $10 per 100g. Another thing to note is the price is per 100g, not per hank of yarn. You’d ask a sales associate to take the yarn down for you and they’d weigh it and ask you if that was OK (kind of like at the deli counter). Then they give you a slip of paper and you take it to a cash register, where you’re usually helped by someone else. Another interesting thing is that the stores seemed to be staffed by about half men, half women, which is very different from yarn stores in the States, which are probably about 90% staffed by women.

I bought 3 hanks of yarn there, for about $25:

Yanabey had signs like this:

These prices are still in Argentinian pesos, but they’re in kilos. So these prices are $171 for 1 kilo, which is $17.10 for 100g. This is a wall of “seda vegetal”, or “vegetable silk“. By the way, that’s about USD $35 per kilo. So I bought 6 skeins, which was just over a kilo, because the tree which this comes from (ceiba speciosa, or “silk floss tree”) is native to South America, and I haven’t seen “vegetable silk” in the US.

A lot of the stores have the recycled t-shirt yarn, and I bought some at Arte Natural:

BUTTONS!!!

I was thinking I might make a purse from the yarn, like this:

That purse is crocheted, but I’m sure I can come up with a knitted version.

Here’s what I bought from that store:

Here’s a Spanish primer for some important words:
cachemira – cashmere
acrílico – acrylic
lana – wool
seda – silk
alpaca – alpaca
hilo – yarn (plural: hilados)
Also, I found out that cashmerillo is just an acrylic yarn that’s very soft. Don’t be fooled by price, some of the acrylic yarns are *very* expensive, even more expensive than the wool.

I was very excited by the prospect of all these yarn stores, and after these three purchases I was done, and passed by 4 other yarn stores that I didn’t even walk into. In addition, there were at least 2 weaving stores, and another 2 fabric stores. Only one of the yarn stores had fiber to spin, and it looked like combed top, and was somewhat expensive (by US standards).

All in all, I was extremely satisfied by taking a few hours to shop for yarn, but I found the experience quite different from what I’m used to.

* I was instructed by a friend who had visited Buenos Aires to take a taxi to the corner of X and Y. However, I enjoy walking around and public transit, so I noticed the subway stop was not far, and decided to walk a few blocks. To those who are considering what to do, a taxi would have cost about 20 pesos (about USD $5) each way. The subway costs $5 for two rides, but of course is not door to door. Another thing to note about the subway is that it is not the most modern system:

And you will get plenty of people trying to make money – some play music, which you may be used to from other subway systems. Others will go around a subway car, handing out products, and then go around and either collect the product back or collect money. I was handed tissues and Disney books – or at least, they attempted to hand stuff to me, and I refused. It helped that I had knitting in my hands, but I saw them just place stuff on people’s laps if their hands were busy, so don’t just look away, make sure you actually refuse by shaking your head.

Note: I hope this article is helpful! Due to spam reasons, all articles on this site have comments disabled after a short time. If you want to leave feedback, you can tweet @sheeri or e-mail me at awfief at gmail dot com. (replace “at” with @ and
When I think of gradient spinning, visit I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. I split the sections based on weight.

The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely and subtle color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way, and will knit with all of it to make a good-sized shawl.

When I think of gradient spinning, buy more about I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way

Edited October 29, medicine 2012 – Unfortunately, ampoule Cat Bordhi has asked me to take the PDF instructions down. However, troche the same exact information is at the video I link to below, so you can still find the information you need.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, view and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

You can download the PDF of the instructions I wrote up for how to do Cat Bordhi‘s Sweet Tomato Heel.
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I did
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, psychotherapist to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, website like this to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, viagra 40mg to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, generic not at all! There has been a lot of travel, erectile and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, visit this to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, doctor not at all! There has been a lot of travel, nurse and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, order I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, find this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, more about I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
Buenos Aires has a span of a few blocks, hospital not too far from the Malabia metro station* where there are many yarn shops, phthisiatrician I counted 15, and went into 11 of them before I had to stop. The shops are on Ave. Scalabrini Ortiz just southwest of Ave. Cordoba, towards Ave. Correintes. The Malabia metro station is on the corner of Correintes and Scalabrini Ortiz, which is 1 km away from the corner of Cordoba and Corrientes, and about half that until you see your first yarn shop. There was a small bit of yarn bombing between two of the stores:

Yarn shopping in Buenos Aires is quite different from what I’m used to in the States. The stores all look like this:

The yarn is beautiful, and well-organized, but there’s no signs as to what the yarn is made up of, how much it costs nor the gauge of the yarn. In addition, you’re not supposed to take the yarn out of the bins. If you look at the bottom right of that picture, you’ll see some white yarn and blue yarn that is actually sitting on top of a counter. That counter separates you from the wall, and there are people behind the counter who can help you get what you want.

So it’s very different from the experience I’m used to. I got the feeling that a lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to buy, or walked in and would say “do you have anything made of wool?” I was feeling a bit shy due to the language barrier, so I picked up a Spanish phrase: “solamente mirando” – it means “Just looking”. The people are friendly and willing to help, but I like the yarn buying process to be a solo activity.

There were 2 exceptions to the fact that most stores don’t give any information about their items.: Milana hilados and Yanabey. Milana hilados had tags like this near most of their yarn:

Note that that’s in Argentinian pesos, and at the time, this was less than USD $10 per 100g. Another thing to note is the price is per 100g, not per hank of yarn. You’d ask a sales associate to take the yarn down for you and they’d weigh it and ask you if that was OK (kind of like at the deli counter). Then they give you a slip of paper and you take it to a cash register, where you’re usually helped by someone else. Another interesting thing is that the stores seemed to be staffed by about half men, half women, which is very different from yarn stores in the States, which are probably about 90% staffed by women.

I bought 3 hanks of yarn there, for about $25:

Yanabey had signs like this:

These prices are still in Argentinian pesos, but they’re in kilos. So these prices are $171 for 1 kilo, which is $17.10 for 100g. This is a wall of “seda vegetal”, or “vegetable silk“. By the way, that’s about USD $35 per kilo. So I bought 6 skeins, which was just over a kilo, because the tree which this comes from (ceiba speciosa, or “silk floss tree”) is native to South America, and I haven’t seen “vegetable silk” in the US.

A lot of the stores have the recycled t-shirt yarn, and I bought some at Arte Natural:

BUTTONS!!!

I was thinking I might make a purse from the yarn, like this:

That purse is crocheted, but I’m sure I can come up with a knitted version.

Here’s what I bought from that store:

Here’s a Spanish primer for some important words:
cachemira – cashmere
acrílico – acrylic
lana – wool
seda – silk
alpaca – alpaca
hilo – yarn (plural: hilados)
Also, I found out that cashmerillo is just an acrylic yarn that’s very soft. Don’t be fooled by price, some of the acrylic yarns are *very* expensive, even more expensive than the wool.

I was very excited by the prospect of all these yarn stores, and after these three purchases I was done, and passed by 4 other yarn stores that I didn’t even walk into. In addition, there were at least 2 weaving stores, and another 2 fabric stores. Only one of the yarn stores had fiber to spin, and it looked like combed top, and was somewhat expensive (by US standards).

All in all, I was extremely satisfied by taking a few hours to shop for yarn, but I found the experience quite different from what I’m used to.

* I was instructed by a friend who had visited Buenos Aires to take a taxi to the corner of X and Y. However, I enjoy walking around and public transit, so I noticed the subway stop was not far, and decided to walk a few blocks. To those who are considering what to do, a taxi would have cost about 20 pesos (about USD $5) each way. The subway costs $5 for two rides, but of course is not door to door. Another thing to note about the subway is that it is not the most modern system:

And you will get plenty of people trying to make money – some play music, which you may be used to from other subway systems. Others will go around a subway car, handing out products, and then go around and either collect the product back or collect money. I was handed tissues and Disney books – or at least, they attempted to hand stuff to me, and I refused. It helped that I had knitting in my hands, but I saw them just place stuff on people’s laps if their hands were busy, so don’t just look away, make sure you actually refuse by shaking your head.

Note: I hope this article is helpful! Due to spam reasons, all articles on this site have comments disabled after a short time. If you want to leave feedback, you can tweet @sheeri or e-mail me at awfief at gmail dot com. (replace “at” with @ and
When I think of gradient spinning, visit I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. I split the sections based on weight.

The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely and subtle color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way, and will knit with all of it to make a good-sized shawl.

When I think of gradient spinning, buy more about I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way

Edited October 29, medicine 2012 – Unfortunately, ampoule Cat Bordhi has asked me to take the PDF instructions down. However, troche the same exact information is at the video I link to below, so you can still find the information you need.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, view and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

You can download the PDF of the instructions I wrote up for how to do Cat Bordhi‘s Sweet Tomato Heel.
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I did
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, psychotherapist to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, website like this to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, viagra 40mg to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, generic not at all! There has been a lot of travel, erectile and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, visit this to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, doctor not at all! There has been a lot of travel, nurse and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, for sale to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, order I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, find this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, more about I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
Buenos Aires has a span of a few blocks, hospital not too far from the Malabia metro station* where there are many yarn shops, phthisiatrician I counted 15, and went into 11 of them before I had to stop. The shops are on Ave. Scalabrini Ortiz just southwest of Ave. Cordoba, towards Ave. Correintes. The Malabia metro station is on the corner of Correintes and Scalabrini Ortiz, which is 1 km away from the corner of Cordoba and Corrientes, and about half that until you see your first yarn shop. There was a small bit of yarn bombing between two of the stores:

Yarn shopping in Buenos Aires is quite different from what I’m used to in the States. The stores all look like this:

The yarn is beautiful, and well-organized, but there’s no signs as to what the yarn is made up of, how much it costs nor the gauge of the yarn. In addition, you’re not supposed to take the yarn out of the bins. If you look at the bottom right of that picture, you’ll see some white yarn and blue yarn that is actually sitting on top of a counter. That counter separates you from the wall, and there are people behind the counter who can help you get what you want.

So it’s very different from the experience I’m used to. I got the feeling that a lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to buy, or walked in and would say “do you have anything made of wool?” I was feeling a bit shy due to the language barrier, so I picked up a Spanish phrase: “solamente mirando” – it means “Just looking”. The people are friendly and willing to help, but I like the yarn buying process to be a solo activity.

There were 2 exceptions to the fact that most stores don’t give any information about their items.: Milana hilados and Yanabey. Milana hilados had tags like this near most of their yarn:

Note that that’s in Argentinian pesos, and at the time, this was less than USD $10 per 100g. Another thing to note is the price is per 100g, not per hank of yarn. You’d ask a sales associate to take the yarn down for you and they’d weigh it and ask you if that was OK (kind of like at the deli counter). Then they give you a slip of paper and you take it to a cash register, where you’re usually helped by someone else. Another interesting thing is that the stores seemed to be staffed by about half men, half women, which is very different from yarn stores in the States, which are probably about 90% staffed by women.

I bought 3 hanks of yarn there, for about $25:

Yanabey had signs like this:

These prices are still in Argentinian pesos, but they’re in kilos. So these prices are $171 for 1 kilo, which is $17.10 for 100g. This is a wall of “seda vegetal”, or “vegetable silk“. By the way, that’s about USD $35 per kilo. So I bought 6 skeins, which was just over a kilo, because the tree which this comes from (ceiba speciosa, or “silk floss tree”) is native to South America, and I haven’t seen “vegetable silk” in the US.

A lot of the stores have the recycled t-shirt yarn, and I bought some at Arte Natural:

BUTTONS!!!

I was thinking I might make a purse from the yarn, like this:

That purse is crocheted, but I’m sure I can come up with a knitted version.

Here’s what I bought from that store:

Here’s a Spanish primer for some important words:
cachemira – cashmere
acrílico – acrylic
lana – wool
seda – silk
alpaca – alpaca
hilo – yarn (plural: hilados)
Also, I found out that cashmerillo is just an acrylic yarn that’s very soft. Don’t be fooled by price, some of the acrylic yarns are *very* expensive, even more expensive than the wool.

I was very excited by the prospect of all these yarn stores, and after these three purchases I was done, and passed by 4 other yarn stores that I didn’t even walk into. In addition, there were at least 2 weaving stores, and another 2 fabric stores. Only one of the yarn stores had fiber to spin, and it looked like combed top, and was somewhat expensive (by US standards).

All in all, I was extremely satisfied by taking a few hours to shop for yarn, but I found the experience quite different from what I’m used to.

* I was instructed by a friend who had visited Buenos Aires to take a taxi to the corner of X and Y. However, I enjoy walking around and public transit, so I noticed the subway stop was not far, and decided to walk a few blocks. To those who are considering what to do, a taxi would have cost about 20 pesos (about USD $5) each way. The subway costs $5 for two rides, but of course is not door to door. Another thing to note about the subway is that it is not the most modern system:

And you will get plenty of people trying to make money – some play music, which you may be used to from other subway systems. Others will go around a subway car, handing out products, and then go around and either collect the product back or collect money. I was handed tissues and Disney books – or at least, they attempted to hand stuff to me, and I refused. It helped that I had knitting in my hands, but I saw them just place stuff on people’s laps if their hands were busy, so don’t just look away, make sure you actually refuse by shaking your head.

Note: I hope this article is helpful! Due to spam reasons, all articles on this site have comments disabled after a short time. If you want to leave feedback, you can tweet @sheeri or e-mail me at awfief at gmail dot com. (replace “at” with @ and
When I think of gradient spinning, visit I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. I split the sections based on weight.

The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely and subtle color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way, and will knit with all of it to make a good-sized shawl.

When I think of gradient spinning, buy more about I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way

Edited October 29, medicine 2012 – Unfortunately, ampoule Cat Bordhi has asked me to take the PDF instructions down. However, troche the same exact information is at the video I link to below, so you can still find the information you need.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, view and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

You can download the PDF of the instructions I wrote up for how to do Cat Bordhi‘s Sweet Tomato Heel.
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I did
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, psychotherapist to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, website like this to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, viagra 40mg to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, generic not at all! There has been a lot of travel, erectile and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, visit this to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, doctor not at all! There has been a lot of travel, nurse and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, for sale to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
Buenos Aires has a span of a few blocks, health not too far from the Malabia metro station* where there are many yarn shops, I counted 15, and went into 11 of them before I had to stop. The shops are on Ave. Scalabrini Ortiz just southwest of Ave. Cordoba, towards Ave. Correintes. The Malabia metro station is on the corner of Correintes and Scalabrini Ortiz, which is 1 km away from the corner of Cordoba and Corrientes, and about half that until you see your first yarn shop. There was a small bit of yarn bombing between two of the stores:

Yarn shopping in Buenos Aires is quite different from what I’m used to in the States. The stores all look like this:

The yarn is beautiful, and well-organized, but there’s no signs as to what the yarn is made up of, how much it costs nor the gauge of the yarn. In addition, you’re not supposed to take the yarn out of the bins. If you look at the bottom right of that picture, you’ll see some white yarn and blue yarn that is actually sitting on top of a counter. That counter separates you from the wall, and there are people behind the counter who can help you get what you want.

So it’s very different from the experience I’m used to. I got the feeling that a lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to buy, or walked in and would say “do you have anything made of wool?” I was feeling a bit shy due to the language barrier, so I picked up a Spanish phrase: “solamente mirando” – it means “Just looking”. The people are friendly and willing to help, but I like the yarn buying process to be a solo activity.

There were 2 exceptions to the fact that most stores don’t give any information about their items.: Milana hilados and Yanabey. Milana hilados had tags like this near most of their yarn:

Note that that’s in Argentinian pesos, and at the time, this was less than USD $10 per 100g. Another thing to note is the price is per 100g, not per hank of yarn. You’d ask a sales associate to take the yarn down for you and they’d weigh it and ask you if that was OK (kind of like at the deli counter). Then they give you a slip of paper and you take it to a cash register, where you’re usually helped by someone else. Another interesting thing is that the stores seemed to be staffed by about half men, half women, which is very different from yarn stores in the States, which are probably about 90% staffed by women.

I bought 3 hanks of yarn there, for about $25:

Yanabey had signs like this:

These prices are still in Argentinian pesos, but they’re in kilos. So these prices are $171 for 1 kilo, which is $17.10 for 100g. This is a wall of “seda vegetal”, or “vegetable silk“. By the way, that’s about USD $35 per kilo. So I bought 6 skeins, which was just over a kilo, because the tree which this comes from (ceiba speciosa, or “silk floss tree”) is native to South America, and I haven’t seen “vegetable silk” in the US.

A lot of the stores have the recycled t-shirt yarn, and I bought some at Arte Natural:

BUTTONS!!!

I was thinking I might make a purse from the yarn, like this:

That purse is crocheted, but I’m sure I can come up with a knitted version.

Here’s what I bought from that store:

Here’s a Spanish primer for some important words:
cachemira – cashmere
acrílico – acrylic
lana – wool
seda – silk
alpaca – alpaca
hilo – yarn (plural: hilados)
Also, I found out that cashmerillo is just an acrylic yarn that’s very soft. Don’t be fooled by price, some of the acrylic yarns are *very* expensive, even more expensive than the wool.

I was very excited by the prospect of all these yarn stores, and after these three purchases I was done, and passed by 4 other yarn stores that I didn’t even walk into. In addition, there were at least 2 weaving stores, and another 2 fabric stores. Only one of the yarn stores had fiber to spin, and it looked like combed top, and was somewhat expensive (by US standards).

All in all, I was extremely satisfied by taking a few hours to shop for yarn, but I found the experience quite different from what I’m used to.

* I was instructed by a friend who had visited Buenos Aires to take a taxi to the corner of X and Y. However, I enjoy walking around and public transit, so I noticed the subway stop was not far, and decided to walk a few blocks. To those who are considering what to do, a taxi would have cost about 20 pesos (about USD $5) each way. The subway costs $5 for two rides, but of course is not door to door. Another thing to note about the subway is that it is not the most modern system:

And you will get plenty of people trying to make money – some play music, which you may be used to from other subway systems. Others will go around a subway car, handing out products, and then go around and either collect the product back or collect money. I was handed tissues and Disney books – or at least, they attempted to hand stuff to me, and I refused. It helped that I had knitting in my hands, but I saw them just place stuff on people’s laps if their hands were busy, so don’t just look away, make sure you actually refuse by shaking your head.

Note: I hope this article is helpful! Due to spam reasons, all articles on this site have comments disabled after a short time. If you want to leave feedback, you can tweet @sheeri or e-mail me at awfief at gmail dot com. (replace “at” with @ and “dot com” with .com to get the real e-mail address).
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of both it and the woven scarf before long.
It was very important that I write my previous post when I did – Wed 25 July – because the very next day, of the fun I had, but I’d also like to highlight the knitting I did.

I started knitting a Color Affection shawl, in some Novita Polku that I bought in Finland in May. I started the shawl the first day, which was mostly lounging around while we were in the port of Boston (where we all embarked) and then while the cruise ship was traveling. I continued the shawl on Friday 27 July, and then on Saturday 28 July we landed in the port of St. John’s, New Brunswick. I chose to take a bus to Fredericton, to see the city hall, learn some history, and visit Yarns on York to meet local knitters and take a class on Newfoundland Mittens, aka “Newfie Mitts”. I got a bit done, but I believe I will rip out what I’ve done, make it smaller, and do the “windows” in the multicolored black and the background/wrists in the green. Still, here’s the progress shot, even though this will be frogged later:

On Sunday, I chose to do one of the two classes offered at The Loop in Halifax. The class I chose was one on how to do thrummed mittens, and the instructor Mimi was amazing. I did not take the class for the Bermuda Scarf/shawl, but I heard that the 2nd class was not as great, probably due to the first class running very late and Mimi running out of steam (teaching 2 classes in one day is tough, and who knows if she even had time to eat!). Given that, I’m glad I did not stay for the 2nd class (I did buy the pattern and yarn for it, so I can make the shawl), and instead did a 10-mile bicycle tour of Halifax. At any rate, I did enjoy working on the thrummed mittens, and here is my progress (I haven’t done anything with it since that weekend):

And the inside looks like this:

I learned lots of great tips from Mimi, like using a wool with a lot of lanolin in it, so it’s “sticky” and holds the thrums in better.

There was a lot of knitting that weekend, and in the few weeks that followed. This past week I finished knitting Tony’s scarf, after having to spin more yarn and buy more on Cape Cod while helping a friend do the Pan-Mass Challenge at the beginning of August. I still have to finish the scarf by weaving in the ends and blocking it, but it’s finally the right length, and Tony will be able to use it this coming fall/winter.

I also finished the scarf I was weaving (the June Spunky Eclectic weaving club), but I still need to block it before taking a picture of it. A new weaving club for August is on its way, so I’ll have something new to warp soon.

I am not going on a plane until the end of September, and my next travel is scheduled for mid-September, around Rosh Hashanah – I will be going to the New York City area for 2 weekends (coming back to Boston for a wedding in between). I hope to finish the Color Affection Shawl soon, and get pictures of
So, online I mentioned in the last post that I had finished 2 objects – side effects and the June Spunky Eclectic Weaving Club, which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend. Folded over a towel bar it’d make a very long kitchen or guest towel, I guess?

Any ideas?
So, , which I opted to do a table runner. It was my first experience with using a pick-up stick. I’m happy with how both came out (especially after ironing the scarf…I don’t even iron clothes!).

I’m thrilled with how drapey the table runner is. My only problem is that I have no idea what to do with it – it’s 33 inches by 22 inches. It’s too short for a scarf, but I don’t have an appropriate table to use it on. It’s a superwash merino/bamboo/viscose blend.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, gonorrhea I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, condom I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, information pills this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

After
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, order I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, find this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
I am so excited about tonight’s Common Cod Fiber Guild Meeting featuring Pam Parmal of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts talking about the collection strategy for textiles and fashion. And since I last wrote, more about I have finished a few objects…..

The first is another Hoot Cardigan, this time made out of Universal Yarns Supreme Cotton Batik, that I picked up in Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year. I love the Supreme Cotton line from Universal yarns, because it is super soft. Unfortunately, I have only been able to find it in LYS in North Carolina….I hear that is changing soon, though! Here’s the cardigan, made for a friend of mine who just had his first son:

And then there’s the August Weaving Club from Spunky Eclectic – cotton dishcloths! I did not follow the pattern; instead I tried out a herringbone/pinwheel pattern. It came out wonderfully!

I ended up making 2 towels, one a bit shorter because I ran out of warp, but here’s the shorter one hanging from a peg next to our sink (please excuse the dirty dishes and Guinness cans to be rinsed).

The bigger one is in constant use as Tony’s “potato cozy”. That’s not a euphemism, Tony eats a baked potato like one would eat an apple, whole and uncut. Because it’s hot, he uses a towel wrapped around it to hold it.

And finally, the pièce de résistance. This is a Color Affection Shawl that I made from 3 different skeins of Novita’s Polku yarn, which I acquired in Finland earlier this year.

Here’s a close-up shot of the ‘center’ of this assymmetrical shawl:

And a little zoomed out:

Here’s the full-size shot:

I also spun up a “fractal 3-ply” which I will write about next time.
Buenos Aires has a span of a few blocks, hospital not too far from the Malabia metro station* where there are many yarn shops, phthisiatrician I counted 15, and went into 11 of them before I had to stop. The shops are on Ave. Scalabrini Ortiz just southwest of Ave. Cordoba, towards Ave. Correintes. The Malabia metro station is on the corner of Correintes and Scalabrini Ortiz, which is 1 km away from the corner of Cordoba and Corrientes, and about half that until you see your first yarn shop. There was a small bit of yarn bombing between two of the stores:

Yarn shopping in Buenos Aires is quite different from what I’m used to in the States. The stores all look like this:

The yarn is beautiful, and well-organized, but there’s no signs as to what the yarn is made up of, how much it costs nor the gauge of the yarn. In addition, you’re not supposed to take the yarn out of the bins. If you look at the bottom right of that picture, you’ll see some white yarn and blue yarn that is actually sitting on top of a counter. That counter separates you from the wall, and there are people behind the counter who can help you get what you want.

So it’s very different from the experience I’m used to. I got the feeling that a lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to buy, or walked in and would say “do you have anything made of wool?” I was feeling a bit shy due to the language barrier, so I picked up a Spanish phrase: “solamente mirando” – it means “Just looking”. The people are friendly and willing to help, but I like the yarn buying process to be a solo activity.

There were 2 exceptions to the fact that most stores don’t give any information about their items.: Milana hilados and Yanabey. Milana hilados had tags like this near most of their yarn:

Note that that’s in Argentinian pesos, and at the time, this was less than USD $10 per 100g. Another thing to note is the price is per 100g, not per hank of yarn. You’d ask a sales associate to take the yarn down for you and they’d weigh it and ask you if that was OK (kind of like at the deli counter). Then they give you a slip of paper and you take it to a cash register, where you’re usually helped by someone else. Another interesting thing is that the stores seemed to be staffed by about half men, half women, which is very different from yarn stores in the States, which are probably about 90% staffed by women.

I bought 3 hanks of yarn there, for about $25:

Yanabey had signs like this:

These prices are still in Argentinian pesos, but they’re in kilos. So these prices are $171 for 1 kilo, which is $17.10 for 100g. This is a wall of “seda vegetal”, or “vegetable silk“. By the way, that’s about USD $35 per kilo. So I bought 6 skeins, which was just over a kilo, because the tree which this comes from (ceiba speciosa, or “silk floss tree”) is native to South America, and I haven’t seen “vegetable silk” in the US.

A lot of the stores have the recycled t-shirt yarn, and I bought some at Arte Natural:

BUTTONS!!!

I was thinking I might make a purse from the yarn, like this:

That purse is crocheted, but I’m sure I can come up with a knitted version.

Here’s what I bought from that store:

Here’s a Spanish primer for some important words:
cachemira – cashmere
acrílico – acrylic
lana – wool
seda – silk
alpaca – alpaca
hilo – yarn (plural: hilados)
Also, I found out that cashmerillo is just an acrylic yarn that’s very soft. Don’t be fooled by price, some of the acrylic yarns are *very* expensive, even more expensive than the wool.

I was very excited by the prospect of all these yarn stores, and after these three purchases I was done, and passed by 4 other yarn stores that I didn’t even walk into. In addition, there were at least 2 weaving stores, and another 2 fabric stores. Only one of the yarn stores had fiber to spin, and it looked like combed top, and was somewhat expensive (by US standards).

All in all, I was extremely satisfied by taking a few hours to shop for yarn, but I found the experience quite different from what I’m used to.

* I was instructed by a friend who had visited Buenos Aires to take a taxi to the corner of X and Y. However, I enjoy walking around and public transit, so I noticed the subway stop was not far, and decided to walk a few blocks. To those who are considering what to do, a taxi would have cost about 20 pesos (about USD $5) each way. The subway costs $5 for two rides, but of course is not door to door. Another thing to note about the subway is that it is not the most modern system:

And you will get plenty of people trying to make money – some play music, which you may be used to from other subway systems. Others will go around a subway car, handing out products, and then go around and either collect the product back or collect money. I was handed tissues and Disney books – or at least, they attempted to hand stuff to me, and I refused. It helped that I had knitting in my hands, but I saw them just place stuff on people’s laps if their hands were busy, so don’t just look away, make sure you actually refuse by shaking your head.

Note: I hope this article is helpful! Due to spam reasons, all articles on this site have comments disabled after a short time. If you want to leave feedback, you can tweet @sheeri or e-mail me at awfief at gmail dot com. (replace “at” with @ and
When I think of gradient spinning, visit I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. I split the sections based on weight.

The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely and subtle color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way, and will knit with all of it to make a good-sized shawl.

When I think of gradient spinning, buy more about I think of starting with “gradient-dyed fiber” such as Fiber Optics’ gradient collection. Sadly, I have not yet gotten my hands on on of them yet. However, a fractal 3-ply attempt last year gave me the push to try a kind of gradient spinning.

I got a great batt from Fiber Stash back in April at the Wild and Woolly Weekend in Vermont. The 3.7 oz batt is 98% Corriedale, 2% twinkle, in a blue-purple, light blue, and black – here it is, unrolled:

The first step was to divide it into three sections, for a 3-ply, so that each section had each of the three colors. I then split 2 of the sections into even thirds, based on the colors, and the last section was split into sixths based on colors. The idea is a fractal ply, but because I am doing a 3-ply, I will do it so that 2 of the sections are the same color, and a third is changing. The middle is the part divided into six:

I finally finished spinning, plying, skeining and washing, and here’s what the finished result looks like:

I think a shawl is in order to show off the lovely color changes. This produced 284 yards of yarn at 12 wpi. I have an identical batt which I will spin the same way

Edited October 29, medicine 2012 – Unfortunately, ampoule Cat Bordhi has asked me to take the PDF instructions down. However, troche the same exact information is at the video I link to below, so you can still find the information you need.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

I taught this at FiberCamp this past weekend, view and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http://bit.ly/sweettomheel. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable.

You can download the PDF of the instructions I wrote up for how to do Cat Bordhi‘s Sweet Tomato Heel.
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I did
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, psychotherapist to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, website like this to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, viagra 40mg to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, generic not at all! There has been a lot of travel, erectile and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, visit this to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, doctor not at all! There has been a lot of travel, nurse and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
It’s been a while since I last wrote. 2 months and 2 weeks, for sale to be exact. And my life has not been devoid of knitting nor crafty stuff….no, not at all! There has been a lot of travel, and not a ton of knitting…..but there has been some.

The first adventure I had after the last post was completely unexpected. I was at a conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I was reading a blog post by Stephanie Pearl McPhee where she mentioned flying from California to Minnesota. At first I thought “how cool, soon I’ll be flying from St. Paul to California!” and then I wondered, “will we overlap in the Twin Cities?” (If you don’t know, those cities border each other.)

The answer, my friends, is yes, and this happened at Steven Be:

Steven was absolutely fabulous and was in full force that day. The yarn shop has yarn and knitted things everywhere. I loved it from a chaotic good perspective. I bought some sock yarn and some sock needles, and immediately started in on a sock. And I had Stephanie sign some books, of course.

The next adventure I had was when I found the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis. It was about half a mile from the hotel I was staying at, and I spent several hours there on a Saturday before leaving for the airport. I picked up some plain white yarn (purpose to be revealed later) and knit for several hours….though at this point I cannot remember what I was knitting! For arguments’ sake, let’s say I was knitting a pattern from Jeri, a fellow Common Cod Fiber Guild member, which she showed at Show and Tell during our September meeting. The pattern is called “Vestboro”, and this is how far I got as of mid-October, so it’s a pretty good bet to say that’s what I was working on:

The knit shop was large, and had tons of yarn! Due to all my travel this year, I have not been knitting and spinning as much as I used to. Last November I stopped being able to keep up with my monthly fiber club, and I stayed behind all year. Suffice it to say, I am overflowing with yarn and fiber….and so is my fiber room. So I am limiting my souvenir yarn…for now.

The knit shop was full of women knitting, and wonderful local donuts, and instead of souvenir yarn I bought myself an accordion-type box to store my dpns in by size. It was a great place to spend several hours knitting.

I attended Rhinebeck aka NY Sheep & Wool, where I acquired a Bernina 1230 sewing machine, circa 1989–1998. I haven’t yet started playing with it, as I have been WAY too busy with other things – Halloween crafts, holiday gift knitting, and test knitting! At Rhinebeck I took 2 classes – a spinning class with Abby Franquemont (I can cross that off the bucket list now!) and a dyeing class with Gail Callahan, the Kangaroo Dyer, in which I learned a ton about dyeing and made this beautiful rainbow:

I did not knit for much of September and October because I was doing other crafty things – specifically, I was hand-sewing my Halloween costume – Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out better than I expected, which was great, because it was for an awesome wedding:

And yes, I also knit the wig.

In November I was test knitting. And test knitting. And test knitting. I will show you pictures once they are public, but for now, things remain secret.

I took a mitten class at Mind’s Eye Yarns and still have not finished knitting the first mitten, much less the second mitten. But I learned a few good tips along the way and am excited to use them.

Remember that white yarn I bought in Indianapolis? It was for some classes with Lucy Neatby, who is chock-full of amazing tips and tricks for knitting. I filled out a wishlist with stuff I want, from patterns to DVDs. Lucy is fun, smart and easy to learn from. I took three classes with her – buttonholes, finishing, and socks. Her handouts are invaluable. I took time off work and spent a pretty penny to learn from Lucy, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. She’s THAT good.

And then it was December…..the test knitting was finally finished, and then it was time to knit gifts! I knit hats for my brother-in-law and his wife (in grey and red Ushya yarn), and I did not, sadly, take any pictures of those hats. I also knit a hat for my mother-in-law in green, and again, no pictures. I do have pictures of the tiny slightly felted purse I made for my aunt-in-law (using handspun Portuguese Merino in the “A Bug’s Life” colorway) and the DNA scarf I made for my father-in-law out of Kauni (that I bought while in Halifax on my knitting cruise in July):

And then during and after Christmas I knit 2 chemo caps for a cousin-in-law – one was brown and one was black with sequins (so she’d have “evening hair”) – here’s a pic of me modeling the brown one:

So with all that done, I have started spinning again….although I find I cannot spin for hours like I used to. I’ll have to work up to that again. In the meantime, I’ve been spinning an hour or two at a time in the evenings, and yesterday I took a break to knit myself the Mind’s Eye Yarns free Waffle Stitch Hat pattern, so I could finally have a hat for myself:

It was super-quick to knit, and I love it!
Buenos Aires has a span of a few blocks, health not too far from the Malabia metro station* where there are many yarn shops, I counted 15, and went into 11 of them before I had to stop. The shops are on Ave. Scalabrini Ortiz just southwest of Ave. Cordoba, towards Ave. Correintes. The Malabia metro station is on the corner of Correintes and Scalabrini Ortiz, which is 1 km away from the corner of Cordoba and Corrientes, and about half that until you see your first yarn shop. There was a small bit of yarn bombing between two of the stores:

Yarn shopping in Buenos Aires is quite different from what I’m used to in the States. The stores all look like this:

The yarn is beautiful, and well-organized, but there’s no signs as to what the yarn is made up of, how much it costs nor the gauge of the yarn. In addition, you’re not supposed to take the yarn out of the bins. If you look at the bottom right of that picture, you’ll see some white yarn and blue yarn that is actually sitting on top of a counter. That counter separates you from the wall, and there are people behind the counter who can help you get what you want.

So it’s very different from the experience I’m used to. I got the feeling that a lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to buy, or walked in and would say “do you have anything made of wool?” I was feeling a bit shy due to the language barrier, so I picked up a Spanish phrase: “solamente mirando” – it means “Just looking”. The people are friendly and willing to help, but I like the yarn buying process to be a solo activity.

There were 2 exceptions to the fact that most stores don’t give any information about their items.: Milana hilados and Yanabey. Milana hilados had tags like this near most of their yarn:

Note that that’s in Argentinian pesos, and at the time, this was less than USD $10 per 100g. Another thing to note is the price is per 100g, not per hank of yarn. You’d ask a sales associate to take the yarn down for you and they’d weigh it and ask you if that was OK (kind of like at the deli counter). Then they give you a slip of paper and you take it to a cash register, where you’re usually helped by someone else. Another interesting thing is that the stores seemed to be staffed by about half men, half women, which is very different from yarn stores in the States, which are probably about 90% staffed by women.

I bought 3 hanks of yarn there, for about $25:

Yanabey had signs like this:

These prices are still in Argentinian pesos, but they’re in kilos. So these prices are $171 for 1 kilo, which is $17.10 for 100g. This is a wall of “seda vegetal”, or “vegetable silk“. By the way, that’s about USD $35 per kilo. So I bought 6 skeins, which was just over a kilo, because the tree which this comes from (ceiba speciosa, or “silk floss tree”) is native to South America, and I haven’t seen “vegetable silk” in the US.

A lot of the stores have the recycled t-shirt yarn, and I bought some at Arte Natural:

BUTTONS!!!

I was thinking I might make a purse from the yarn, like this:

That purse is crocheted, but I’m sure I can come up with a knitted version.

Here’s what I bought from that store:

Here’s a Spanish primer for some important words:
cachemira – cashmere
acrílico – acrylic
lana – wool
seda – silk
alpaca – alpaca
hilo – yarn (plural: hilados)
Also, I found out that cashmerillo is just an acrylic yarn that’s very soft. Don’t be fooled by price, some of the acrylic yarns are *very* expensive, even more expensive than the wool.

I was very excited by the prospect of all these yarn stores, and after these three purchases I was done, and passed by 4 other yarn stores that I didn’t even walk into. In addition, there were at least 2 weaving stores, and another 2 fabric stores. Only one of the yarn stores had fiber to spin, and it looked like combed top, and was somewhat expensive (by US standards).

All in all, I was extremely satisfied by taking a few hours to shop for yarn, but I found the experience quite different from what I’m used to.

* I was instructed by a friend who had visited Buenos Aires to take a taxi to the corner of X and Y. However, I enjoy walking around and public transit, so I noticed the subway stop was not far, and decided to walk a few blocks. To those who are considering what to do, a taxi would have cost about 20 pesos (about USD $5) each way. The subway costs $5 for two rides, but of course is not door to door. Another thing to note about the subway is that it is not the most modern system:

And you will get plenty of people trying to make money – some play music, which you may be used to from other subway systems. Others will go around a subway car, handing out products, and then go around and either collect the product back or collect money. I was handed tissues and Disney books – or at least, they attempted to hand stuff to me, and I refused. It helped that I had knitting in my hands, but I saw them just place stuff on people’s laps if their hands were busy, so don’t just look away, make sure you actually refuse by shaking your head.

Note: I hope this article is helpful! Due to spam reasons, all articles on this site have comments disabled after a short time. If you want to leave feedback, you can tweet @sheeri or e-mail me at awfief at gmail dot com. (replace “at” with @ and “dot com” with .com to get the real e-mail address).
As part of .

This recipe is adapted from ) last year.

Materials:
large knife to cut cabbage
large mixing bowl

For each pound (1 lb, you will need:
2 tsp (10g) sea salt
16 oz. jar capacity (1 pint)

If you have 2 pounds of cabbage, pathopsychology you will use use 4 tsp (20g) sea salt and a 1-quart (32 oz) mason jar.

Wash hands before beginning.

Peel off the outer leaves of the cabbage, and cut out any “bad” parts. Cut in half from the bottom (where the core is) to the top. Cut in half again in the same direction, so you have 4 pieces that originally went from the top to the bottom.

Remove the core from the 4 parts. Slice as thick or thin as you want, or use your food processor’s slicing blade – do NOT use the shred blade, unless you want really tiny pieces of sauerkraut. The bigger the piece, the crunchier it will be.

Put the cabbage in the large mixing bowl. sprinkle the salt over it, and firmly massage the cabbage with your hands for a few minutes (it may take up to 10 minutes), until liquid starts being released from the cabbage.

Once liquid is released, you can pack it into the jar(s). You can put optional spices in this stage, such as garlic, rosemary, etc. Pack the cabbage down tightly.

Make sure the cabbage is submerged in liquid, otherwise mold can develop. You should not need a lot of additional water as the liquid released from the cabbage is enough.

Also be sure to leave some space, about an inch, between the top of the liquid and the top of the jar, as the cabbage will expand during fermentation.

Close the lid and place the jar in a cool, dark place, if possible (between 50-70 F, 10-25 C).