Stitches West 2014

This year at Stitches was awesome. I got to see friends, make new ones, and have a good old time. I also took a class with Carson Demers called Swatchbuckling, which was about better knitting ergonomics through swatching (I highly recommend this class. Seriously. I learned how to knit better in a morning.)
I went to Stitches all four days, but for whatever reason, only took two pictures. And by two, I mean that I took one and was in one. So here is the one picture I took. Behold, it is a Celestarium in the wild. This one is by Ashley and was inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night. Go stare at it on ravelry. One picture has a Tardis in it, which makes it x1000 cooler.

The second photo is of Sarah and I at her booth. Cephalopod hosted the Southern Skies all weekend, since it is made of their yarn, Skinny Bugga! in Charaxes Tiridate. I was quite pleased to see that there was always someone closely inspecting it whenever I passed by.

And now for the damage report. This year I'm a little embarrassed to admit to what I bought. Have you guys seen that pin that says, "I'm on the road to recovery... Just kidding, I'm on the road to a yarn shop." That's how I feel. So here it is, in all it's glory. There is one braid and one skein missing from the picture because they were bought and already gifted to some friends at Stitches.


Day 1 was Thursday. I went in a bit early to drop off samples. And even though it's a market preview and only open for 3 hours, I'm pretty good a buying yarn and fiber.
1. This is a braid of Greenwood Fiberworks Sock Roving in the color way Cider House. I've wanted this ever since seeing Falling Stitches' socks out of it. Of course I got it right as the market closed, so I left it at the both. Guess who has two thumbs and was freaked out when they got home and the braid wasn't in her backpack: this girl.
2. Here's a skein of Dragonfly fibers' Dragon Sock in Mushroom Hunter. I saw it appear on Pan's Needles and I desired it. I might even do the same pattern. It looks so pretty that way.
3. And then there was Canon Hand Dyes. I have been waiting to see her yarn again after she was at KnitLab. I don't care that I haven't finished knitting my other skeins... I had to have more. From left to right is a William base heel/toe, a Charles base in Intermission, a William base in See How I'm Bewitch'd, the next three are Charles base in Cheshire Cat (second variation), I Know We Shall Have A Reveling Tonight, A Rose By Any Other Name..., and in Lewis base, Something's Rotten In The State Of Denmark.

Day 2, I had my author signing, which might have kept me from going really nuts.
1. Here is Spincycle's Dyed In The Wool in the color End of Summer. So lovely.
2. Is Miss Babs' 2ply Yummy in the colors (left to right) Rain Forest, Prince Charming, Coffee Break, and Biker Chick. Rain Forest and Prince Charming are going to become a Drogue for my Mum. Coffee Break was bought because I saw it on HeyPorkChop's instagram page and have no self control. Here is her blogpost about them. I've also been looking for the prefect Halloween yarn. I've looked for so long I don't even know what I'm looking for anymore. But Biker Chick seemed like it might fit the bill.
3. I didn't buy this, Mum did. It's a Tardis tin with little Dr. Who themed stitch markers from Slipped Stitch Studios. They let me change out one of the markers so I wouldn't have a weeping angel. They are too scary for me.
4. Tyler and I went to RedFish Dyeworks together. This might have been a miscalculation on my part. I only wanted one braid but left with 2. (Or three, but one was gifted) There aren't color ways on them, but the orange one is 50/50 Camel/Silk and the bluer one is 50/50 Merino/Silk.
5. I got black and white Koigu because I wasn't happy with how my Cascade was matching up with my Knitch yarn. Koigu matches the Knitch much better.

Day 3 was the day I had my class, so I was only in the marketplace for less than half the time it was open. Krista and I also waited in the crazy Knitmore Girls line so we could give them our Halos of Hope hats.
1. I passed this braid the day before but came back for it. It's Wonderland Dyeworks 75%BFL/ 25% Tussah Silk in Red Riding Hood. Go buy a braid from their easy store. Their fibers just shimmer. You'll thank me later.
2. I got a little silly gift for my Mum at A Needle Runs Through It. It's a triangle bag with Hedgehogs on it.
3. Every time I passed Cephalopod's booth, there was one less skein of Skinny Bugga! in Strawberry Crab. Then there were two left and I couldn't take it anymore. (I got David to buy the last one.)
4.Went back to Dragonfly Fibers. This is a skein of one of their newest base, Damsel, in Spanish Moss. I don't know what it will become, but it will become some sort of design.
5. Then I realized that one of my missions during Stitches was to get some lace weight. I have two skeins in my stash, one is alpaca (too fuzzy for swatching) and one is possibly a cobweb weight. That's it. Anyways, would you believe that I still haven't bought Anzula despite having touched it every time I'm at Green Planet? Well, now I have some Touch My Lace in the Grace color way. Also, Sabrina, the dyer/owner is awesome.
6. As part of the "I have no lace" cure, I also got a skein of Mithril from Verdant Gryphon so I can swatch up an idea. I should have bought a skein on Thursday. It was slim pickings by Saturday. At least they had some of the Forest Clearing still there!

Day 4 I went in 15 minutes before the market closed on purpose. I had to pick up my samples and needed to avoid being tempted. The plan worked. 

So, all in all, I had a great time. (My wallet didn't, but I did.) Now I'll need to be disciplined.... until next Stitches.... or whenever.

Mothra Ate My Wool

I had been going through my wool box looking for a certain color when I saw evidence of a moth invasion. Needless to say, I felt like a big old idiot for not putting all my wool into ziplock bags like I should have. For those of you not in the know, I thought I'd let you know what you should do if you find moths eating your fiber. First off, you should have all your fiber in air-tight containers. I did not, so I'm paying the price.

How do you know you have an invasion? Well, the first sign is seeing moths. The moth itself doesn't eat fiber. But their larva do. If you see moths around, be extra vigilant. You can tell you actually have a problem when you find larva poo. It looks like little grains of sand.

The fiber will have chunks missing. The larva just bites right into the fiber. There will be a bunch of poo around missing chunks as well.

You may even find a live larva. They are pretty gross.

Put all your fiber in the "infected" bag into quarantine. Even if the fiber appears to be untouched, if it was next to mothy fiber, bag it up. Then put it all in the freezer for 2-3 days. The temperature will kill off all the larva and moths. Conversely, if you have a rather hot garage during the summer, the fiber could be left there for a few days. Extreme heat will also kill off any unwanted pests.

While I was able to salvage a bunch of my fiber, I did lose a bag to moths. It was just filled with little larva poo and every few inches of the roving had a chunk missing. I learned that moth larva have good taste. They ate the angora-wool blend.

Tidy Mind, Tidy Stitches - 2KCBWDAY3

How do you keep your yarn wrangling organised? It seems like an easy to answer question at first, but in fact organisation exists on many levels. Maybe you are truly not organised at all, in which case I am personally daring you to try and photograph your stash in whatever locations you can find the individual skeins. However, if you are organised, blog about an aspect of that organisation process, whether that be a particularly neat and tidy knitting bag, a decorative display of your crochet hooks, your organised stash or your project and stash pages on Ravelry.

I have heard stories of people having entire rooms, or even having to rent storage lockers for their stash. I'm quite proud to say that my stash fits into my bedroom just fine. I have a bookcase dedicated to yarn. The striped bin has unused skeins, the grey bin has used skeins, and the bottom suitcase holds all the yarn I bought when I last went to New Zealand.

Right next to my bed is an active project basket. It holds skeins that will be used in the near future.

Right above the basket is my workspace. It is a bit messy, but it holds projects that are actively being knit.

Next to the desk is the bookcase of colored fiber and all of my handspun. Not shown is all the natural colored fiber in my closet. And under my bed is a suitcase dedicated to finished projects. Everything is organized and easy to find.

On a separate subject, you can now Follow my blog with bloglovin.

Over The Moon

What an eventful month February has been! I released three patterns, went to Stitches West, started making a business and marketing plan. I also turned a year older and this year my brother actually got me a birthday present before I got his (his birthday is two months after mine). Thanks dude! You got me exactly what I wanted. I suspect that the birthday wishlist post, several facebook messages with links attached, and nagging may have helped.

He got me two moonrover mystery batts. You can never go wrong with moonrover. Her work and color choices are always lovely. She has stores on etsy and bigcartel. There is also a moonrover group on ravelry.

Burning Lamb

The Yolo Wool Mill's annual mill in was on October 30th. I got up nice and early to help the vendors out.

We had animals on display. This pair of alpacas was brought by one of the vendor's mum. They are around a year old. Not quite full grown.

Jane gave tours. (I set up the machine though)

Spinners (I think from El Dorado County) did a sheep to shawl demonstration for us. This involved carding the fiber, spinning it, and weaving in one go.

There were shearing demonstrations

Everyone wanted to know if the sheep was cold. The answer, not really. I've heard that sheep start to develop a fat layer within an hour of being shorn. But she still got to go to the barn in the evening.

We had a bunch of vendors. The Meridian Jacobs booth brought Jacobs Sheep.

The Crawdads came out to play around noon.

The vendors were very happy with all the help I provided. Especially Twisted Sunshine and Faerie Mountain Fiber. Twisted Sunshine gave me the little green roving for free. Hurray! The braids came from Twisted Sunshine and the batts came from Faerie Mountain Fibers. Crafts A Go-Go also gave me an ounce of mildly matted Angora for free. I have a project that will be just perfect for it.

After all the visitors left, we waited for it to get dark. Then a couple of us went out and burned the lamb effigy.

Fiber Gifts and Ladybug Food

I have gotten much better at using a spinning wheel. Another thank-you to Kate. I spun up Koi, which was last seen in this post.

I have come into lots of fiber recently. A very lovely lady, Gayle S., who picked up her fiber order from the Mill on Friday gifted me some roving after I mentioned that I was pretty new to spinning. She let me pick out the color. I chose Springtime. It looked like an oil slick to me. It looks grey, but it has subtle shades of pink, yellow, and green in it. I spun it all the same day she gave it to me.

On Thursday I asked Jane about what happens to the big bags of waste fiber we have. The fiber is still in good condidtion, but it is too short to use in the machines. She said I could, "Help myself." I didn't need to be told twice. We had three big bags of fiber. I spent two hours (during which the roving frame was working fine) sorting through the bags to pick out the nicest fiber. I plan on sorting it by how soft it is, then spinning the colors up randomly.

My Lemon Verbena has come back for a second year in a row. I am always convinced that the dead-looking stick is never coming back, but it seems to like living. I spotted some aphids on it, so Justin helped me find a ladybug. Note that in the picture, the ladybug is shoving an aphid into its mouth. Go ladybug!

Scooter has been parked on the couch with me over the weekend. I caught some sort of cold. Who catches a cold in May? As long as I have my his favorite orange blanket nearby, he stays. Unless, of course, if there is something more interesting going on in the house. Then he jumps on my tummy and runs off barking. What a devoted little guy.

There's A New Puppy In Town

The puppy hat has officially been finished. It was "begging" for a picture.

Here's another angle because you are all "itching" for more.

All puns aside, today has been a pretty bad allergy day. But as soon as this lovely package arrived, all was fine in the world. It is called Brew and it is by Becoming Art. Mmmmm... fiber.

This one is called Koi and it is by Black Trillium.

Of course I haven't been buying fiber willy-nilly. I plan on spinning it all. After buying the better drop spindle as seen in this post, I was able to spin a much more consistent yarn. This one is the color way Rich by Becoming Art.