Knitting by Judy @ 7:12 AM

Loopy at work
Loopy at work

Somebody followed me to work yesterday. She may have followed me home from OFFF…

OK, not really. This is the Loopy Ewe needle felting kit from Woolpets. I got this awhile ago from The Loopy Ewe (where it is exclusive), but only a bit ago had time I could devote to this project. It was lots of fun, and it really didn’t take very long.

The kit came with everything I needed except a foam pad. The directions were wonderful! Very detailed with lots of step-by-step photographs.

Loopy is up on my bookshelf at work, now, where she can peek over the cube walls and greet visitors.

The Particulars:

  • Loopy Ewe needle felting kit from Woolpets (available exclusively from The Loopy Ewe
  • Needles: Sharp little needle-felting ones that I, being not very good at this at all, spent a lot of time poking my fingers with. Blood sample, anyone?

On The Road by Judy @ 7:19 PM

When I was off traveling for business a couple of weeks ago, my journey took me to Scottsdale, Arizona (once I managed to make it through airport security). I will spare you, gentle reader, the sad tale of over-booked hotels that left me sleeping on a pull-out sofa the first night. Or not sleeping as it actually turned out. Suffice it to say that the hotel did eventually make it all good by giving me a room that faced northeast and had an unobstructed view of the sunrise.

I was born in the desert (not Arizona, but Idaho), and I love the desert. I love its clean beauty and long vistas and spare colors. I really love the sunrises and sunsets. I loved drinking a cup of coffee on my little balcony and snapping pics while watching the sky: first the false dawn, then a hint of color in the clouds, then glorious color and the sun leaping up over the mountains.

My friend M asked if I’d put a few of the pictures up so she could see them, since it doesn’t seem likely I’ll get around to printing any of them out. So… for M… a sunrise:

(as always, click on the pic to see the slideshow – right and left side of the frame to advance/go back)

P.S. What appears to be a lake or pond is actually the water hazard at the golf course that my room also looked over. I had a nice view of several of the sand traps, too.

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Knitting by Judy @ 8:06 AM

Andes Mints socks
Andes Mints socks

Look, gentle reader! A finished object! Or objects, really, since there is a pair.

These are my Andes Mints socks, made from wonderful, squooshy StitchJones Supersocks.

The traveling-lace pattern is my own, made up on the fly. I’m sure it lives in numerous stitch dictionaries. I had knit a similar pattern in my Victoria Socks, but the lace only twists one way. With the Andes Mints socks, I wanted the lace to twist in opposite directions on each.

I have to say I love knitting with this yarn. The colors are gorgeous and Sharon really nailed the repeat length, at least at this gauge. Although the stripes did change a little over the gussets, the colors never pooled or flashed! Love ’em, love ’em, love ’em. I can’t wait for cold weather so I can wear them.

Well… that last isn’t entirely true. I will love wearing the socks, but will miss the warm weather. Falls here are so lovely, usually.

By the way, if for some reason you have not yet heard of Sock Summit 2009, go over and get signed up for info. People in the know are calling this Woodsock. From the info I have – some of which I am not, unfortunately, at liberty to divulge – I can only say that this may very well be a once-in-a-lifetime, not-to-be-missed opportunity.

And people wonder why I love living in Portland. We have more LYS per capita than any other city this size in North America (I think). And also more microbreweries. And tons of local indie dyers and spinners. And a bunch of vineyards. And an awesome fiber festival (OFFF). And locally made, hand-crafted chocolate. And then Sock Summit comes along. What more could one ask for?

The Particulars:

  • Yarn: StitchJones Supersocks (100% Merino, 100 gm/460yds per skein); one skein of Andes Mints. I had yarn left over. There would be plenty in one skein to do a man-size pair of socks.
  • Needles: A pair of Addi Turbos 24″ circs, 2.0mm
  • My own pattern (may be available soon)

Food |Furry Friends |Knitting by Judy @ 10:36 AM

OFFF-goers enjoying the day
OFFF-goers enjoying the day

Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival is the highlight of my fiber year. Fiber fanatics, fibery animals (really cute ones!), enough vendors to warm a fiberista’s heart, fleece judging, spinning contests, lamb BBQ (yes, I will pet my lamb and eat it, too). What more could you ask for?

The weather was perfect: sunny and upper 70’s (F). There was a hint of crispness in the breeze – just enough to remind us all that this is fall, after all, but not so much to make us forget why Oregonians live for September. (shhhh… it’s our state secret)

You can see that there were many people who agreed with me! On Saturday, there was a big crowd – larger than I ever remember. On Sunday it was a bit quieter, but there were still many people come to enjoy the day and the animals and all of the fibery goodness.

those crazy PDX Knit Bloggers
those crazy PDX Knit Bloggers

The PDX Knit Bloggers represented in style! We set up our tent under a handy tree on the main lawn. Several of us brought spinning wheels – not I, as I am not a spinner. We were prepared to demo and/or help with almost any fiber art that you can imagine. A lot of people stopped by to ask questions, look at the wheels, and find out what we were all about. A couple of us had a few things for sale, and Bobbie’s DH Tool Man brought some of the gorgeous shawl pins he’s been making. (confidential to Tool Man: open an Etsy shop!)

Not being a spinner, I wasn’t asked to demo many things. But I did teach Cindy how to use a nostepinne, and Monica (that’s the famous MonicaPDX) how to do Judy’s Magic Cast-On.

Notorious Sock Knitters represented
Notorious Sock Knitters represented

The Notorious Sock Knitters from the Blue Moon Rockin’ Sock Club were there in force to bring sock knitting to everyone. I sat over in the PDXKB tent and knit the socks currently on my needles, which I will be telling you about in a future blog post (I promise). The NSK look like they were having tons of fun, too.

aLittleRedHen modeling her Condom Amulet Hat
aLittleRedHen modeling her Condom Amulet Hat

aLittleRedHen introduced herself to us. I don’t know if you are familiar with the Condom Amulet pattern an project? It’s been quite popular on Ravelry? (Find it here on Ravelry and on its own site otherwise.) (And if you are not on Ravelry, why aren’t you?)

The goal of the Condom Amulet Project is to encourage knitters to use leftover yarn to knit condom amulets and spread the word that HIV/AIDS and STDs do not have an age boundary and women over 50 are as vulnerable as any other group.

Tina with Henri the barn boy
Tina with Kevin Henri the barn boy

Here is Tina with her new bunny Kevin Henri the barn boy. (When I met him, he was a Kevin, but I understand he is now a Henri. Stay tuned for further developments).

Tina was not the only one to go home with a new friend. Deb brought home four bunnies!

I think I’d like a couple of fuzzy bunnies to use for bed warmers during those cold winter nights. But Moo Cow and Captain Kidd might object.

shearing
shearing

I got to watch sheep shearing. I always find it fascinating how the sheep don’t move and the clippers just whiz everywhere and all of a sudden there’s a naked sheep and a pile of fleece.

fiber on the hoof
fiber on the hoof

Look at all that lovely fiber! I always want to give these guys a big hug, and then run my toes through their fleece.

Rasta fiber
Rasta fiber

Every year I find someone who looks like they’re wearing dreads. Here’s the 2008 rasta-fiber shot.

babies
babies

And here is the obligatory babies that are so cute you could just die from it shot. Awwwww… they were seriously cute.

my favorite baby with his mom
my favorite baby with his mom

This was my favorite baby, though. Look how his ears and nose are all speckled and he has that big white spot on his forehead. Isn’t that just too cute? Jennifer from Tucson (who I believe may be, sadly, blogless) and I were ooo-ing and awww-ing over him, so his mom was nice enough to bring him out and let us pet him. What a sweetie!

alpaca
alpaca

Fuzzy alpacas. I always make #1 Son’s gloves from alpaca — it’s so warm and soft.

llamas
llamas

Isn’t this the most gorgeous llama you’ve ever seen? I can’t believe how white it was. There were some other pretty darn good looking llama there, too. The llamas all shared the second barn, so it took me awhile to find them.

hello there
hello there

Some animals wanted to get up close and personal with visitors. This one was very friendly and curious about me and my camera and just what the heck was I doing, anyway?

I love making new friends.

swag from OFFF
swag from OFFF

When shopping, I looked mostly for items that I can’t get any other way. I was particularly on the lookout for unusual or pretty locally-made nostepinnes, because I’ve decided a girl just can’t have too many. I didn’t want to buy very much yarn, and I mostly restrained myself, except for a few carefully chosen exceptions. The only impulse buys were a sock monkey kit from Blue Moon (yes, I finally caved), and a magnetic tapestry needle holder made from Carob from Crown Mountain Farms, because I can’t pass Klaus’ booth without buying something. I didn’t get a picture of the latter.

My swag:
On the right is the Blue Moon Sock Monkey kit.
Top to bottom on the left: Blue Moon Silkie Socks That Rock in Knitters Without Borders. (Not available on their web site.)
A Blue Moon STR Light Rare Gems. It’s in PI green-and-blue, and threw itself off the rack at me, demanding to be brought home. What was I to do? (Like all Rare Gems, this is available only at shows.)
Tactile Fiber Arts Superwash Merino/Tencel in Golden Olive. I love Brooke & Maia and all their natural dyed, fibery goodness. I could order from their web site, but in person I get to chat and squoosh fiber.
Three nostepinnes: the top one is cherry and purpleheart and was made by Carl Herndon. It’s shorter and narrower than my others and is suitable for laceweight or lighter fingering weight yarns. The other two were made by B J Verts. The middle one is myrtlewood and the bottom one is walnut. Note the carved ring around the base of the walnut handle. What’s this for? I asked, thinking I might learn some new nostepinne secret. The answer: It rattles so everyone knows you’re working. Of course I had to have it, don’t you agree? Because I bought two nostepinnes from B J Vert, I received his cookbook — Buttered-Side Down, A Cookbook For The Emancipated Male as a gift. I don’t really qualify as an emancipated male, but I do like cookbooks. I haven’t made any of the recipes yet, but they look tasty.
Below the nosties are four stone buttons from Jason Jakubos of Rock And Wool. They don’t have an online or Etsy shop yet, but from the number of people I heard ask them to set one up as soon as possible, I’m guessing it won’t be long!

If there’s any chance you can join us next year, please do! Bring your wheel or your sticks and just sit a spell and chat. Or watch the animals. Or shop ’til you drop. It’s all good.

Miscellaneous Musing |On The Road by Judy @ 5:35 PM
tags:

I did a dumb thing this morning. I checked in on line for my flight. That’s not the dumb thing. Usually checking in online is smart. You get to avoid long lines because you have your boarding pass and such. But during the check-in process I was asked Will you be carrying on anything that can cut – ANYTHING?

So I thought for a bit and remembered that my favorite little scissors were in my little sock bag.

Now, according to the rules, they are small enough to be OK. But the website promises dire consequences if I didn’t declare some cutty thing and tried to take it through Security. Things like $1,000,000,000,000 in fines and the rest of my life in jail and confiscation of my firstborn male child and stuff like that. Because lying about cutty things is against the law!

Well… Maybe I exaggerate a tiny bit.

So what would you have done, gentle reader? I debated with myself. But I’m generally a law abiding citizen, so I admitted that I had something that could cut other things, and I planned to bring it on board the plane. I pushed the continue button.

Bells rang and lights flashes and a black helicopter hovered over my house and armed security guards circled the neighborhood and started evacuating my neighbors.

OK… Not really.

But it did give me a boarding pass that said Not valid for security. See a customer service agent.

And that is why I had to abandon the planned blog post about the Portland Knit & Crochet Show and instead speed off to the airport so that I could convince the powers that be that I, and my cute little leopard print scizzors – the one with the bling from The Loopy Ewe on it – was not a threat.

Hopefully I can get it done in the next couple of days, although I am finding blogging on my iPhone to be slow going.

Knitting |Miscellaneous Musing by Judy @ 8:36 PM

Duffy and Audrey at the Fair
Duffy and Audrey at the Fair

Hi, everyone. I know I’ve kind of disappeared for awhile. I think there have been rumors making the rounds. Yeah. It wasn’t anything that fun. Really. I’ve just been really busy with one thing and another and sort of vaguely decided to take a little hiatus to get caught up a little. I’m not caught up, but I’ve missed you. So there.

I haven’t done a lot of knitting. For one thing, we’ve had some hot weather and knitting wool socks in 100+ (F) weather is just not something I’m that fond of doing. I have no air conditioning in my house, and that means that by about the 3rd day it’s the same temperature inside as outside. Not even cotton could cut it for knitting. I didn’t want any more fabric near me than was absolutely necessary.

And I’ve been knitting a few things that, well, I just can’t show you.

And so knitting is stalled. But I will soon show you progress on the poor Andes Mint socks that I started way long ago. And I will soon show you some yarn I acquired (just a bit). But there hasn’t been much knitting to talk about. And #1 Son hasn’t even done anything blog-worthy. It’s the summer doldrums, I guess.

And what better way to fight the summer doldrums than with a State Fair? Or with a little knitting in public? Or…hey… let’s combine those! That’s the ticket, I think.

And so yesterday I went down to Salem to the Oregon State Fair with Duffy to knit in the Northwest Regional Spinners Association booth in the Artisan’s Village. Check out the gorgeous antique wheel that they are raffling off!

moose
moose

Now, it’s true that I don’t spin. But, it turns out, they were happy to have someone along to show what could be done with fiber after it was turned into string. I worked on my socks. And I wound a skein into a ball on a nostepinne, because that might be construed by some to be interesting. And I even got to add a little info by explaining to one visitor that winding the ball in that way helps keep the yarn from being overstretched.

So I guess I sort of earned my keep. Even though mostly I just sat and knit.

Oh… and ate a corn dog. I can’t go to a State Fair and not eat a corn dog. I mean really. One must have priorities, you know.

The NWRSA association booth is right across from the area claimed by a couple of guys who use chain saws to carve logs into really cool stuff. Check out the moose! I have a soft spot in my heart for moose, so I was quite taken with him. There’s no way he can go home with me, though. Even if I had room for him, he’s quite beyond my budget. But I did take a little break to go breath sawdust and look around at all of the cool things.

If you make it down to the State Fair, be sure to go back to the Artisan’s Village and look around – and be sure to stop by the NWRSA booth and say howdy to Audrey and whoever else it there. Duffy and I will be back next Saturday for awhile.

P.S. Check out the Techniques page, where I’ve just added Judy’s Magic Cast-On in German, translated by Arlene of Arlene’s World of Lace.



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Stuff I Gotta Do

Follow The Leader shawl

30%

entrelac wrap

0%

Arabesque shawl

100%

Jubjub Bird Socks

15%

I Mog Di

15%

Peacock Feather Shawl

0%

Honeybee Stole

5%

Irtfa'a Faroese Shawl

0%

Lenore

20%

Fatigues henley sweater

10%

Jade Sapphire Scarf

15%

#1 Son's Blanket

2%

Cotton Bag

1%