Will work for yarn

The Golden Fleece shop in Santa Cruz had a grand re-opening celebrating it's new ownership and invited Handwerks, the yarn company I do design work for, to do a trunk show.  I came along to help.  The day was soggy for the first weekend in June and we were wondering if anyone would show up.  Boy were we surprised.  The place was rockin'.  A constant stream of people, some coming just for us!  Well Laura -- and her yarn. I ended up with 2 skeins of silky wool in a new color Hummingbird, payment for 3 hours of "work".  We were so busy I barely had time to shop but I met a fabulous designer, one of the Bellsisters, and bought her pattern which I started in the same weekend.  Meet Joyette in-progress:

again in Handwerks silky wool, I swear it's fast becoming my favorite, color Sonoran Sunset.

I sold 3 of my own patterns as well.  And you know what the shop has?  A computer dedicated to downloading and printing patterns!  We had a great time.

  

Yarn Shop Hop

Last weekend I participated in the Peninsula to Pier Yarn Shop Hop, details here. This year they had daily raffles at each shop, goodies donated from various sponsors, and on Sunday, I won the one from Bobbin's Nest! 

There were 12 shops participating out of 15 in the area. Friday a group of us started our hop at Nine Rubies where a weaving class was taking place. We split up and half of us hit Uncommon Threads where I got the last skein of Handwerks 100% cashmere then met the others down in Morgan Hill at Continental Stitch where I got the cutest scarf kit.

Everyone we met along the way was nice and we oohed and ahhed at the raffle baskets. One person in our group won the basket at Continental Threads. We had dinner and picked up cupcakes in Morgan Hill, and ended the evening knitting with good friends and good wine. Three shops down and 9 to go.
The next morning we all got up and headed down to Carmel to Knitting by the Sea. It's been awhile since any of us had been there and we were all wishing we could stay for the day. But singled minded we had our breakfast and went straight, ooh a Coach outlet, to Knitting by the Sea where I succumbed to the cute project bag and some funky sock yarn. From there our GPS took us to a brand new yarn store on Foam St in Monterey. The Twisted Stitch was just getting their bearings but the shop was moderately stocked with some nice yarns, including some yummy laceweight merino from Pagewood Farms. A quick snack break and some carpool rearranging and we were off to Knitting by the Sea in Aptos. I fell down hard there what with the Misti Alpaca attacking me, recovered we split up again and went to Chic's with Sticks where I got tripped up by the Australian mohair. We all met up again at Swift Stitch who has Habu! Who could resist Habu? One final stop at Yarndogs before we called it quits and that was 9 shops with 3 more to go on Sunday.
Just the local shops now, 1-2-3, it was The Knitting Room, Bobbin's Nest and finally Green Planet where the two of us turned in our passports and celebrated our victory at Orchard Valley. Below is a sampling of handpainted goodies that didn't get past me. You can see all the spoils here.

Stitches West 2011

I found my other Stitches West posts from previous years and tagged them all "stitches" so they're easier to find. Stitches coincides with my Winter Longaberger order so as a tradition I've set my class samples with new baskets. This years Stitches experience for me was very different from previous years. It's my 15th convention. The first one I attended I had been knitting all of 3 months. I haven't missed one since and I've taken classes every year. I try to review the classes before registration opens and usually signup the first day. This year I missed the first day of registration which meant alot of the "good" classes were filled. Knitting and Stitches have been gaining popularity over the years so you snooze, you lose. There were still too many choices and with 14 Stitches under my belt not much that interested me. All my favorite teachers were booked or not coming (Madrona, another knitting convention was being held the same weekend up in Seattle), and most classes covered things I'd already done. Frustrated I gave up. About a month before I checked to see if there were any classes still open and found there were, plus they added some. So, reluctantly I signed up. I really wasn't expecting that much. My first class "Morphing Cables" was taught by Fiona Ellis -- love her stuff, have both her books. I came in sat down, got all my things out, knit the 4x3 purl/knit rib and waited. She talked about cables crossing and cables travelling then she said, "using the 4 right and left crossing/travelling stitches knit something from your swatch". I froze. I was utterly paralyzed. Um, where's the chart? She kept talking, "think about where your paths are and where you want them to go". She also put a graph up depicting the angle of acceleration of travelling/crossing stitches. I'm not good at this -- I can follow directions, charts, I know how to fix a missed crossed cable. But I couldn't just go. I wasn't the only one. Lots of us were just plain stuck. So she gave us permission to screw around, just play, see what happens and well, it was slow at first, but this is what happened: 

Cable swatch with Sweethearts basket. Not bad, eh? I first went in, then out with a few twists here and there and something emerged! Not perfect, but it made me think. So many possibilities. I was inspired, hey, I was getting excited. The last couple years I was busy with conventions, Stitches 2010 and CNCH 2010 were back to back and I managed booths at both of them, plus a spinning contest. For Stitches I coordinate the "Learn to Spin" booth where we teach spinning on drop spindles made with repurposed CD's, a grommet and a wooden dowl. Have I taught you to spin? Add to that coordinating the "Spinning Wheel Corral" at CNCH and their "Return to Sender" spinning contest. Plus my first year at pattern writing (with deadlines!) Well, let's just say I didn't knit much. So by the time Stitches came round again, I was altogether unenthused. My second class was with Myra Wood, "More Creative Lace Knitting". I'd never heard of her, didn't know about her book and how it sold out w/in 4 months of it's first printing and was now out of print. She talked about lace basics, pairing yo's and decreases, that when designing place your yarn-overs first then figure out which decrease will work better, and what happens when you separate the yo from it's decrease (think feather and fan). She talked about shawls, and the shapes that make them up and how to fill in spaces so you get a continuous field of lace. Here's what I knit: 

Lace swatch with mini rose basket. I know, boring. Then she brought out her samples. Wow. And I'm not talking intricate gossamer lace wow. Or complicated lace doilies turned shawl size wow. All of her stuff was knitted in simple lace patterns but in variegated yarn. It was beautifully unexpected. One of the pieces was Citron (from Knitty) where she filled the stockinette with random lace patterns she got from a chart generator. Unbelievable. I left the class thinking, 1) I gotta get that book and 2) I have to knit citron in rainbow. 

Check it out, I found the book at Newtons and look at what was already in my stash? Serendipity. I'll have to tell you the story of how I found that book and my last class in my next post.

SSE: Stitches Stash Enhancement

This weekend was Stitches West 2011. For the uninitiated it's a convention for knitters. We take up nearly the entire convention center in Santa Clara. Just to let you know how big this is here's last year's numbers: 2250+ registrants, 150+ vendors and just over 11,000 shoppers. And you can bet it was bigger this year -- definitely more vendors.

I took 3 classes this year which will be the subject of my next post. For now, you'll have to be content with my yarn parade, or stuff I couldn't pass up in the market.

First up:

My kit from Continental Stitch. It's going to be a Cardi...someday.

This is a bargain bag of 50/50 Louisa Harding grace multi merino silk.

Here we have a gradient set of laceweight superwash merino from Tess Designer Yarns.

Alpaca laceweight from Ellen's 1/2 pint -- part of a scarf kit.

And last but by no means least, I got 2 things from Sincere Sheep. Above is some yummy 80/20 merino silk laceweight. And below is 4 sample skeins of merino/bamboo/nylon. All handpainted with plant dyes.

And that's it!

More Patterns

Another free sock available at Handwerks, this one is Zig Zag Zug. It's suitable for all fingering weight sock yarns and is shown here in Handwerks Classic Sock colorway Sonoran Sunset.

That's Elsa, my dog-rug.


And now the pattern for Grand Canyon Socks is available for sale. Shown here in the original colors dyed especially for club members, you can use any two contrasting colors, again in fingering weight sock yarn.

All my patterns (and others as well) can be downloaded here