Happy Birthday Ghandi

It’s Ghandi’s birthday. He believed that every person should spin thread for 30 minutes a day. He felt peaceful structured work would promote peace in the world. 
Why he thinks spinning cotton is peaceful is a bit perplexing though. I find I say LOTS of bad words when I try it.

Back to School

School started up again yesterday, and in its honor I created a free pattern. This Eraser knits up quickly and can be tossed in the wash when it needs cleaning. Make one for your favorite student or teacher.

Pattern available for download on Ravelry and below.

MATERIALS
Sugar n Cream [100% Cotton; 200 yds/184 m per 113g skein]
1 ball (Far less than that really. I used leftovers from another project)
NOTIONS
US 7/4.5 mm
Sponge approximately 3” by 4” by 1/2”. Cut in half to make 2 pieces 3”x2”.
SIZE
width: 2”
height: 3”
Depth: 1”
GAUGE
20 sts = 4″ in stst
PATTERN
Cast on 6 stitches.
Work back and forth in stockinette for 2 inches—knit the right side rows and purl on the wrong side rows. Then along one long edge, pick up and knit 8 stitches, continuing around pick up and knit 6 stitches and then pick up and knit 8 stitches along the opposite long edge. Work in the round as follows:
k6, p8, k6 p8
Knit
Repeat these 2 rounds until the piece measures 3 inches long.
Slip the cut sponge into the pocket you’ve made. Then working back and forth on the 6 stitches on a short side—
sl1, k4 k2tog (the k2tog will use one stitch from the adjacent long side). Turn and
Sl, p4, p2tog (the p2tog will use one stitch from the adjacent long side).
Turn work and repeat these two rows 7 more times, or until all the stitches from the long sides are used up and only the 6 stitches on each of the short sides remain. Using one stitch from one of the short sides, and 2 from the other, work in i-cord for 5 inches (k3, slide the stitches to the other end of your DPN and k3 again). Then starting with the 3 stitches from your i-cord and using Kitchener stitch graft the two short sides together.

© Le Ton Beau Designs 2009–All rights reserved worldwide For private, non-commercial use only.

Good Habits

Guess who finally came to the Pacific Northwest? Franklin Habit!

That’s me with him. He actually recognized the name Le Ton Beau. (Not that I got excited by that or anything.) It seems Dolores made it out here too, but she was at an Ashram in Oregon.
He came to Renaissance Yarns in Kent. Renaissance Yarns is a fantastic yarn store. Nancy, the owner, is always wonderfully welcoming and she’s a great supporter of local artists. She had several yarns this time that I’d never heard of before. That’s quite a feat by the way. I’m not saying I’ve used or even touched all that’s out there, but it’s rare for me to find something foreign in a store. If you’re anywhere near Kent, Washington, it’s worth the trip.
The staff went all out to welcome this knitting celebrity. There were gifts…

And custom cupcakes…

Franklin was as friendly and funny as he is on his blog. He signed many books and read then “Knittin’ with a Whip” to us. His voice was pitch perfect. I’d love to have an audio book version to listen to as I knit.

All in all it was a lovely evening.
Thanks for coming Franklin! Be sure to come back soon.

What I’ve Been Up To Lately

1) I finished Anathem by Neal Stephenson. I highly recommend it. He mentions evolutes, and icosahedrons (favorite toys from college) and keeps talking about people discussing math and philosophy in cloisters. I want to live in that book.
2) I made a new pattern. It just needs a little last bit of polish and some glamour shots before getting out into the world, but the testers have blessed it and I’m wearing mine right now. Here’s some pictures to tease you before the real thing gets out there.

And my favorite bit about those two things? I named the pattern Cloister before I even started the book. I love coincidences like that.

Sock Summit

Yes, Sock Summit was over a week ago but my internet connection has been less than regular recently, hence the lateness. Lack of connectivity didn’t preclude me from traveling down to Portland to catch up with friends and fondle some yarn.
I stayed with friends I’ve had for over half my life. A mind blowing concept. Maybe not so much when you’re 10 and you’ve known your best friend from kindergarten, but when these are people you met in college…I’ll let you do the math. It was a lovely surprise to see this hanging in their guest room.

Why? Because I made and gave it to them way back when.
So how did I repay them? By teaching their progeny to spin. Just what every parent needs, a child with a brand new fiber addiction. I couldn’t help it. He kept talking about how he wanted to spin yarn, and I realized I had fiber and spindles with me and…

Don’t you love how he holds it with his feet? I only had fiber suitable for supported spindling and taught him that, but I could tell he’d be doing much better with drop spindle. His mom is a crafty type. I hadn’t been gone for a day when I got word that she’d made him a drop spindle and he’d made his own skein of yarn.
But you’re not here to find out what I did with my friends you want pictures of all the yarny goodness at sock summit. Ummm….I forgot my camera that day. You’ll forgive me? Let’s see if I can come up with some of the thousand words that would replace it.
First of all it was huge. Absolutely ginormous. More yarn than you can shake a couple of pointy sticks at. So much yarn I couldn’t even look at it all. At some point all my brain could do was say “Oh look, yarn”. At which point I take a deep breath and refocus. The really lovely thing was that so much of the yarn was from small independent producers. It was worth stopping and focusing and really looking at it. This was the stuff you wouldn’t find in every LYS and certainly not what you’d find in a large chain store. This was all unique. Needless to say I spent more than I intended. See

I promise it’s almost all for upcoming patterns, so it’s perfectly justified.
Almost… I found this little lovely and couldn’t resist.

In addition to having a weakness for yarn and knitting I also have a slight problem with vintage goodies, especially vintage plastic. This yarn holder is vintage tortoiseshell plastic with an Art Deco motif carved in the top to let the yarn pass through.

I simply couldn’t resist.

Girliest camping ever

Ok…technically it’s the second girliest camping. One of our campers told us about a trip she did that involved formal gowns and a porcelain bathtub while camping.  Even so, this is how I like to get away.

1)        Get your knitting group together

This is a few of us from the Capitol Hill Knitters of Dooom. I’ve mentioned them before.

2)       Find a lovely farm for camping.  

This is Rodstol Farm, our host for the weekend.  It’s a wonderful place with great events throughout the year. You should check them out when you’re in the area.

3)       Make sure there’s plumbing in the area.

 

4)       Let someone else do the cooking

Cynthia made simple, gorgeous, incredibly delicious meals with an emphasis on local ingredients.

5)       Knit

 

6)       Spin

7)       Dye yarn over the campfire

8)       Go home.

Ok, I didn’t like that last one so much. I could have stayed there forever.

Checklist

• Yarn
• Needles
• Spindles
• Roving
• Dyepots
• Dye
• Champagne
• Air mattress
• Sleeping bag

Isn’t that what everyone takes camping? Full report next week. Enjoy your weekend!

For Your Consideration.

For those of you in the knitting and yarn world, it’s no secret that Sock Summit is coming up in a little over a week. For those of you not in the knitting and yarn world, why yes, we can spend an entire weekend talking about just socks.  Why do you ask?  (And if you give us any trouble about it, not only will you not get any handknit socks, we just might poke you with our pointy sticks to boot.)

In conjunction with the upcoming Summit, Ravlery is hosting a Dye for Glory contest, wherein dyers submit yarns they’ve created specifically for socks.  In light of that I’d like to mention two lovely, independent dye houses. 

The first is Actual Size Creations located here in Seattle and makes super yummy yarns.  I’ve got a pair in her sock yarn on the needles right now.  Her eye for color is outstanding. You will find her yarns in the Kettled, Mosaic, and Painted categories.

The other is Frog Creek Fibers just outside of Portland Oregon.  They’re a three woman team working together to make lovely colorways.  You can find them in the Dipped category.

They both make absolutlely lovely colorways in delicious squooshy yarns. August 1st is your last chance to vote. Go give these ladies the recognition they deserve!

There are perks

When your friends know you have an obession with sticks and string they start to help you out. Thankfully that help tends to come in the form of “Here, I thought you could do something with this” rather than “Seriously? You need more yarn?”

This week one of my more interesting gifts arrived.  My friend Celeste has lived in more places in this world than I can track. From her travels she acquired this.

Two skeins of sheep colored (grey sheep that is) worsted weight yarn.  The first comes from Colorado. Here’s the details.

And here’s the details on the other.

That’s right, it’s from Botswana. Botswana!  You’ve got some of that in your stash–right?

I love that neither one has yardage or needle or gauge information on them. It’s like they’re saying “It’s yarn, you know what to do”.  Without any preconceived ideas about what it should be I can think about what it could be. So now I’m waiting for the yarn to talk to me and tell me what it wants to be. Celeste and I think it’s probably a wrap of some sort.  I’m just waiting to see what the details might be.

Waiting is the hardest part.

It’s no secret that many designers create for themselves first.  I’m no exception. I love making items that I can use and wear in my own life but there’s a drawback.  Since I use my creations as the models for the patterns, I have to keep them fresh and pristine until the pattern is released.  After all it simply wouldn’t do to find I needed one more picture but have the item show that I’d been loving it for a bit.

My latest pattern has been waiting in the wings for quite some time. First I had to wait to hear back from Knitty.com where I originally sent it for publication.  This issue was chock full of other lovely designs ideal for the winter gifting season. This meant that Slip Into Summer was available for me to offer to you myself—after carefully editing and testing it of course!  Waiting has been hard, but I finally get to use it as my every day purse. And yes, I do love it.

So without further ado, here’s Slip Into Summer.

The pattern calls for Sugar ‘n’ Cream. This makes a sturdy, easy knock around bag,. Nothing fussy or precious. Ideal for the beach or park when you take your knitting out into the sunshine.  You can purchase the pattern here  or at Etsy.

Enjoy the sunshine!