Brain Cramp

Yes, I’m being a rotten blogger again.

Great Basin Fiber Arts Fair went great for Las and me.  We met alot of people, actually sold out of things and had a lot of people squee over our yarn.  A LYS is actually working with us to carry our Cashmere Sock yarn.  Not all the kinks are ironed out so I will save the announcement for who it is when all the details are final.

As soon as I get through my Environmental Stats is done, I’ll finish editing Episode 5 of the podcast and put up a real post.  But Stats makes me head hurt big time.  I did get all the items back up in Etsy.  I’ll update with new items tomorrow evening.

Crash and Burn

I’m getting enough to realize that if I try to go out and try to live like I’m still 16 that there is going to be a price to pay when I get home.  No, not being grounded, though I wish I could get off that easy.  Just my body reminding me I’m not 16 anymore.  Not even close.  28+ hours on a bus and my back screams at me in language that would make a marine drill sergeant blush.  My ability to live on 5 hours or less a night and still tear it up has gone completely down the tubes.  My body will catch up on sleep with or without my consent.  And unfortunately, if I push it too long and hard (and probably stupid), I will come down sick 9 times out of 10.

The trip was worth every minute of it.  I will do almost anything for a chance to get to go back to Washington.  I love the tree covered mountains, the endless days of drizzle and the cool climate.  What I don’t like is all the people who decided to invade my state.  I know, I know, I left years ago but no matter where go or how long I have been away, I will always consider Western Washington my home.  I just need to figure out how to get back home for good one day.

I didn’t knit much while we were in Washington; I spend nearly the entire time starting out the bus window taking it all in, hoping for a rare glimpse of my beloved Mount Rainier.  Most people don’t realize you can only see it 1 day out of 3.  Alas, I was in luck, as Mount Rainier, though haze dominated the entire eastern skyline.  It was all I could do to not make the bus drive up to Mount Rainier National Park.  I miss Washington so bad

It didn’t help that we got a late start home Saturday and didn’t get back into town because the bus driver destroyed 2 windows on the brand new bus (I don’t envy him explaining this one to our boss) because of a corner of a hotel awning and we, the passengers, spent 2 hours helping to fix the problem so we could get home.  Sunday wasn’t too bad other than I really did not want to get out of bed.  I love my bed, it is sent straight from heaven, and hotel beds just flat out suck.  I always sleep like crap in hotels.

Today, I tried really hard to get out of bed to go to work but everything in me just felt crappy.  Not sick sort of crappy but crappy enough that I had no energy.  So I took a day off from work, slept in for a while than edited the podcast for a while.  I have even knitted today.  That’s how crappy I’ve felt.  I’ve certainly thought about knitting, fondled yarn, played with different colors for  a Charlotte’s web, tweaked the Victorian Rose Socks pattern.  So does thinking about knitting and yarn count?

Off and Running

Here I go again; another crazy, mad dash road trip over a long weekend.  At least this time someone else is doing the driving.  No, instead of drinking large amounts of caffeine to stay awake for some of the most boring stretches of road in North America, I get to let 2 professional drivers do all the driving so I can spend the 12-13 hours knitting, playing cards, or snoozing.  Hopefully this will keep me from crawling into work on Monday drop dead exhausted like I normally am from these crazy road trips.

Where am I going this time?  Myself and 20 other people got selected by our company to visit the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.  They throw us on a bus this morning, we drive the 830  miles to Washington, spend the night, tour the shipyard, get some time to sightsee, pile back on the bus, spend the night in Yakima, and than come home.  The disgusting thing is I won’t have any time to see a single yarn shop.  Not a one.  And I will be this close to Churchmore Yarns.

Nope, I will instead have to be content with my current projects on my needles, remember I have a fairly decent stash at home and be happy with it.  I will happily knit the mate to this sock:

The yet unnamed sock

The first sock came off the needles fairly quickly and with all this knitting time, I hope her mate is not far behind.  This time, the yarn does an excellent job of complementing the pattern.  No distracting pooling here this time.  The only problem is I don’t know what to call the sock.  The lace pattern is called Falling Leaves, but if you go over to Ravelry, there is a whole host of sock patterns called Falling Leaves.  No, it is not the same stitch pattern.  But knowing there are that many sock patterns called Falling Leaves, I want to find a better name than Falling Leaves Socks.

So while, I am making a mad dash.  Propose a name for these lovely socks in the comments suggestions.  The name Las and I like best will win a skein of some of our Sassy Sheep Cashmere sock yarn.  Yes, we will ship international for this one.  You have until Sunday at 6pm MST to post.

I am off and running now.

Now Available

With the help of some top-notch test knitters, the Victorian Rose Socks are now available.  You can purchase them via my pattern store on Ravelry.

After the really bad pooling incident on the Anasazi Socks, I’ve completed them but set them aside until I can find a better yarn to show off the pattern.

In their place, I’m working on another new sock pattern, at the moment unnamed out of Great Adirondack Silky Sock yarn in Balsam.  A great yarn with more subtle variation that does not distract from the pattern.  The first sock is nearly done, hopeful will be off the needles before my whirlwind trip to Washington on Thursday. (I really have to quit taking suicide road trips this year.)  If I have it done before I leave, I’ll post pictures and I’m open to name suggestions.

In Between

I’m between computers at the moment.  I sold my iMac desktop this weekend and working on cleaning up my Apple MacBook laptop to sell as soon as I can order the new MacBook.

Why am I am upgrading?  One, I don’t need two computers, I use my laptop for everything.  However, my laptop is one of the older plastic case MacBooks which probably won’t hold up to being my one and only computer.  It all ready has a very small chip at the corner of the casing from before I inherited it from hubby.  There are some things I had to do on the iMac because the Macbook wasn’t quite up to dealing with great big files.  Gwen (as the laptop is called, not to be confused with Las’ cat Gwenny), does not lot dealing with lots of picture files.  Which happens more than I care to admit since the stash keeps growing and growing and growing.  (Did I mention Audrey was really happy these days?)  But I love when the office is 5000 degrees, I can just haul my laptop to the living room and curl up in my favorite spot in the loveseat.  (Screw ergonomics!)

Hopefully, this weekend, I can order the replacement for Brevelyn and Gwen. (Did I mention we name everything around here?)  But in the mean time, I’m sorting through files and backing everything up.  Oh my heavens, I didn’t realize I had so many pictures of yarn!   And boy, am I a podcast addict!  (That is not a hint that they can’t keep making them.  I need a fix!)

Oh speaking of podcasts, Las and I got Episode 3: The Silk Road up.  Sorry for the delay, ftp settings screwed around with me this weekend.

Even with all this computer tech crap.  I actually do have some knitting to show for myself.

The Amethyst Wrap by Chrissy Gardiner in Handmaiden Sea Silk Nova Scotia

Half-way done and in one of my favorite yarns, Handmaiden Sea Silk.  I will find any excuse under the sun to knit with Sea Silk.  If I thought it would hold up for socks, I knit it into socks.  But alas, socks are hard on a yarn.

After taking forever with the Victorian Rose Socks, I not only cast on another socks pattern of my own designs; the Anasazi Socks, but got the first one done in a record 3 1/2 days and halfway done with the second one (gotta love all-day training sessions where you can hide in the back and knit all day!).

However, it has to go down as having one of the weirdest pooling patterns I have ever had.  You can’t see the pattern at all.  I’m thinking I’m going to have to knit this up in another yarn if I want to try to market this sock.  And to add insult to injury I have horrible problems saying the name.  (Listen to Episode 3 if you want to hear how bad).

A Rose is a Rose is a Rose

Thank you all for your kind comments and suggestions.  Between you and my hubby’s support, I’m getting over being a pouting like brat.  Not easy, but life goes on.

There is a silver lining to every cloud.  Since I was avoiding the internet, I used the time I normally waste cruising Ravelry, blogs and yarn shops to finish my first sock design.

May I present to you The Victorian Rose Socks?

Knit from the cuff-down using a rose trellis lace with nips to give the appearance of rose blooms that change to vine lace across the leg.  The socks shown are knit out of Dream in Color Starry on size 1.5 US (2.50mm) needles in Size L.  Better pictures are forthcoming as soon as I can round up Las for a photo shoot since I knit them for her since I wasn’t sure there would be enough yarn for my size 12.  Size L socks left plenty of yarn leftover, 25 grams out of a 113 gram skein so someone should be able to get a pair out of a 3.5 oz skein easily.

As this is my first design, I’m looking for a few test knitters to knit the pattern to ensure there is no errors and the pattern makes sense.  If you are interested in testing knitting, please leave me a comment in the comment section and I will get back to you.  Once I get this design test knitted, I will be putting it up for sale on Ravelry to help pay for The Sassy Sheep bandwidth.

A Pity Party For Me, Myself and I

This is a little pity party for myself.  If you don’t like dealing with such things (and I won’t blame you in the slightest), please don’t read.  But this mess has been brewing for a while.

Today I was supposed to be flying to Portland, OR for Sock Summit.  But thanks to the Horrible Server Crash of 2009, I got into one class only: Podcasting 101 (ironic, no?).  One class was not enough to justify the money of the hotel, the flight, food and all the yarn I would have spent.

As most people have pointed out, Sock Summit is far more than classes.  That is very, very true.  But even the non-class events were sold out.  Getting to go to spend my entire time in the marketplace would have been like Cinderella being invited to Prince Charming’s castle but not being invited to the ball and having to stay in the courtyard hoping to catch sight of the prince.

Anyway, me five days in the marketplace?  My husband and all the credit cards would be in the corner whimpering.  It’s probably for the better I didn’t go.  Money’s tight for us right now (who isn’t tight on money these days), though I’m sure my hubby would have somehow made it work if I had gone.  Work has exploded right in my face and I can’t walk away from it at the moment.

I know I’m not the only who got shafted by the server crash.  A lot of people were hurt and upset.  Not everyone in the world is going to be there.  But it sure does feel like I’m the only one who won’t be at the party.  I’ve told myself to get over it countless times and I thought I was over being a sulking brat about it but hearing everyone at Black Sheep saying they got into classes with so-and-so and got into the Sock Hop and the Welcome Reception and all the notes from the podcast listeners saying, “See you at Sock Summit,” was a slap in the face.

So forgive me if you don’t see me on the net for the next couple of days.  All the thousands of blogs, the countless pictures of people with sock knitting rock stars and the podcasts live is a little bit more than I can handle at the moment.  I’ll be in the corner having a little pity party for me, myself, and I.  I’ll be over it in a couple of days.

Finally Some Knitting

After many excuses, delays, etc, etc., there is not only knitting but finished projects to show to prove that I do still exist and still do knit.

Yes, after all the talking, the Vivian Cardigan does really exist.

Vivian is done, does really exist and I do love her.  I decided not to knit the hood because I’m just not a hoodie sort of girl.  The pattern is far, far easier than it looks once I got past setting up on the first row.  I was a little worried about running out of yarn but found out later than my row gauge was off.  Got stitch gauge just fine but some how my row gauge was off and it ended up being plenty long enough for my 6 foot frame without adding any additional length.

Las modeling the Mystic Star Shawl.

After Las saved me when I ran out of yarn (I had an extra 50 yards above what the pattern called for), I was finally able to finish the Mystic Star shawl by Knit & Knag.  It’s lovely, beautiful and just have exudes a Victorian charm that I just love.  You almost can’t tell that the new skein of yarn had gold metallic thread when the first two had silver metallic thread.  Just to warn you Blue Heron Rayon Metallic yarn bleeds like a pig when you soak.  Scared the life completely out of me!

Knitting on my current projects is very, very slow.  While I’ve always just made up my own sock patterns by flipping open a stitch dictionary and going to town, I’m now taking the time to actually write down my sock pattern.  It’s been a slow process.  The first sock took me three weeks to knit alone because I made the heel flap way, way too long.

First Victorian Rose Sock

It may not look really great on the sock blocker; the pattern opens up when properly worn.  I love the color of Dream in Color Starry Las picked out for the design.  The subtle sparkle adds to the sock without distracting.  I’m most of the way done with the leg of the second sock.  I’ll be looking for a test knitter in the next few weeks.  My plans is to put the sock pattern up for sale on Ravelry to help pay The Sassy Sheep’s bandwidth.

Speaking of The Sassy Sheep, Episode 2, Frolicking in Naughtiness (or all about cashmere) is up on The Sassy Sheep website.   On top of that, Las and I got one more shop update done in our etsy store. We probably won’t be having anymore updates until after the Great Basin Fiber Arts Fair the second week of September.

Been a Very Busy Girl

Yes, I’m the world’s worst blogger.  Period.  Normally, I don’t have any really good reasons, just an anthill of lazy excuses.  This time, I actually have a few legitimate reasons why I have not been posting.  Las and I launched (I built it) the website for The Sassy Sheep business.  That actually was pretty easy.  You gotta love Macs.  They make it easy and still treat you like you have brain cells.

On top of website building, Las and I have also been doing a ton more dyeing, to the point we have nearly doubled our dyed inventory in preparation for the Great Basin Fiber Arts Fair September 12 & 13 in South Jordan, Utah.  We’ve listed most of last weekend’s items up and will be listing this weekend’s items in the next few days.

As if that wasn’t enough, Las and I recorded our first podcast on top of everything else.  You can find it either on iTune or listen directly via The Sassy Sheep website.   Give it a listen and you can either leave comments here or at The Sassy Sheep.

Now, I’m going to go spend some time with my knitting.  I’ve not had a chance to spend anytime with it and I’m almost done with my new sock design.

What Black Sheep is Really About

As Las has alluded to, yes there was a lot of yarn buying.  But as anyone knows who has ever gone to a fiber fair, Black Sheep was and is more than just yarn.

Black Sheep is about:

Classes.  I had a great class with the knitting technique junkie J.C. Briar.  Where I finally sucked up my courage and knitted my first toe-up sock.  A baby toe-up sock, but a toe-up sock nonetheless.  It’s going to take me a bit to get use to how you do toe-up structure.  I can do cuff-down sock structure in my sleep.

The Fleece Sale:  I never realized people stand in line for hours so they can have a shooting chance of buying the champion fleece for them to spin.   I was killing time Saturday afternoon while Las was in class when they announced the beginning of the Fleece Sale.   When I got there, over a hundred people were standing in line.  A very nice lady came out the doors to explain the rules.  No fighting over fleeces.  Anybody fighting over fleeces would not be eligble to buy that fleece. 

These people may look like they are standing around but actually there's a pretty heated discussion over a fleece here.

The contests for knitting, spinning, and weaving. 

The Best of Show.

This amazing shawl was spun, designed and knitted out of cashmere silk by Paula Shull.  Too bad Las and I can’t enter as a team; her spinning, my knitting.  We might have a chance in a hundred years.

Anyway, Las all ready showed pictures of the amazing animals and some of the demos.  They are what Black Sheep is really all about.

Okay, you happy?  Here’s all the yarn I bought. Actually that’s a lie as I bought some on the way home but that doesn’t count.