The Virtual Knitter

The annual Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat started yesterday in Tacoma, Washigton.  I’ve attended this fabulous event for the last three year and I’m excited about going again this year.  I’ll be heading down to Tacoma straight from work today, hoping to get there in time to do some shopping at the public market. 

I’m only taking two classes this year – both of them jewelry oriented.  On Saturday, I have an all-day class with Betsy Hershberg on knitting beaded jewelry.  You can see here amazing work here.  And on Sunday, I’m taking a half-day class to learn the basics of kumihimo braiding.  I’ve usually taken some spinning classes, but this year, my wheel’s just going along for the ride (and evening entertainment). 

Look for a full report here later!

I broke down and ordered a Schacht Matchless Anniversary Edition spinning wheel.  The Schacht Spindle Company is making around 100 (possibly up to 150) of a special cherry wood version of their popular Matchless spinning wheel.  “Matchless” is a good name for this wheel, because in it’s class, it really is unmatched – I can’t think of a castle wheel that gets better reviews.  The wheels are set to start shipping in June (rumor has it that they may not ship until July), but they’ll be sold out long before that date, I’m certain.  I ordered mine from Woodland Woolworks in Oregon – one of my favorite spinning equipment suppliers. 

I’ll have up for sale both my existing Schacht Matchless and a HitchHiker wheel (that I bought on a whim).  My Matchless has some minor cat “dings” since Lily left a few tootmarks in the spokes before I realized she liked to chew on wood.  Also, it’s got a very faint green spot on on treadle, where I dropped some green Koolaid when I was dyeing some wool.  Both very minor things though, and otherwise it’s in perfect working order.  A new Double Treadle Matchless now costs over $900 (a little less from the right dealer) and ships for free.  I’ll be trying to sell mine in the greater Seattle area to avoid shipping, although I do still have the original shipping box.  Shipping will still be a hassle and expensive so I’d rather deliver it in pereson.  I expect I’ll ask about $750 for it.  I’ll be asking about $225 for the HitchHiker.  It’s much easier to ship, but I’d still like to sell it locally.  And finally, I’ll have about 8 matching bobbins for the Matchless that I’ll want to sell for about $30 each.  All these things combined, will still not quite pay for the new wheel, with it’s premium price of over $1100, especially once I buy matching accessories for it, but they will come close.

Please leave a comment if you’re interested in buying any of these items.  I won’t want to let the Matchless go until closer to the time I will receive the new one, but the HitchHiker can go any time.

I’m so happy – just yesterday we ditched the DSL and switched to cable modem, and our internet speed has vastly improved!  I recently learned that Qwest would not be installing their new fiber optic network on our street anytime soon, so we broke down and switched to Comcast.  Turns out it’s really not any more exensive, and the speed is, get this, 10-20 times as fast as what we were getting via DSL.  Unfortunately, I don’t think this is going to do anything to help my blogging frequency, but maybe I’ll just enjoy being online so much that it will just a little bit.

My last post was about New Year’s Goals and making this the best year ever.  I never did come back to explain more, but what I was really getting at is that barring any really aweful events, we really do have a lot of control over having that “best” year that I was referring to.  It’s all in how you look at things, what you do with the things that get thrown at you, etc.  So far, there have been a couple of pretty bad things tossed my way this year, but I’m making the best of them.  I’m also continuing to work on other improvements to my life and well-being that hopefully will result in the outcome I’m looking for.  I’ll try to post about this throughout the year in more detail as appropriate.

Now for some fibery goodness.  I went to my third Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat last weekend (it was the event’s 10th anniversary, but only my third).   It was great, as usual.  I took 4 classes this year, and made several passes through the marketplace.  I bought a few skeins of yarn (like I need more yarn!) and bought some wheel accessories and books, but resisted buying much spinning fiber.  I still have fiber I bought last year that’s not been spun yet!  Here’s one example of yummy yarn I purchased though – a ball of yarn that I’m not even sure I can use, it’s so pretty this way:

It’s a ball of Schoppel Wolle Zauberball Sock in the Fuchsienbeet colorway.  According to the image shown on the tag, the socks knit from this will go transition from purple at the top to a firey orange, back to purple toes – one color change per sock.  They look like flames!

Now for the highlights of my classes.  As I have the time over the next few months to explore what I learned, I may write more about some of the techniques:

On Thursday, I took Fat, Fun and Fulled: The Art of Big Yarns from Judith McKenzie McCuin.  I’ve heard more than one person say that they would take a class on how to boil water from Judith – she’s that good of a teacher.  This was a truely enjoyable all-day class.  We learned tips on setting your spinning wheel up for spinning bulkier weight yarn,  what fibers respond best to fulling, the best way to card for fat spinning (for more on this, and Judith’s apparently earth shattering instruction to put the fiber in SIDEWAYS, see the Yarn Harlot’s blog post about it), and how to properly full the yarn so that you can make useable singles.  Here’s sample of some merino/silk that I spun and fulled in the class

On Friday, I had another class with Judith – Just Dying for Socks.  In this class, we got to hand paint some different types of yarn using Judith’s own acid dyes.  I’m actually not real happy with my results so plan on overdying in a week or two to subdue the colors a bit.  I’ll post pictures AFTER the fix!

On Saturday, I had two classes.  In the morning, I got an Initiation to Entrelac Knitting with Joan Schrouder in the morning and Double Up and Around, an introduction to double knitting with Lucy Neatby in the afternoon.  I didn’t have any familiarity with Joan in advance, so didn’t have much in the way of preconceived expectations.  I found the class to be exactly what it was – a good initiation that will get me started on Entrelac knitting on my own.  I think I would have rather had a full day class in this technique though as it’s a bit complicated and fussy to learn.  I was somwhat familiar with Lucy  in all of her technicolor brightness!  However, I had no experience with her as a teacher.  I thought the class was very well done – I must say that Lucy is a really good teacher.  I’m looking forward to experiementing with the double knitting techniques I learned in the class.  I’ll also consider taking more classes from Lucy in the future, or at least investing in some of her instructional DVDs (she has a ton!)  She mentioned that she’s trying to cut back her teaching schedule in order to concentrate more on designing, so we might not see her so often at Madrona in the future. 

Well, it’s been a week, and believe it or not, I haven’t finished unpacking from my Madrona adventures yet, so I best get to work!

Today was an important day for many fiber fanatics in the NW (other areas too) – the much anticipated opening of registration for the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat.  The Madrona retreat is an annual event that takes place in Tacoma, WA each Februrary, where knitters, spinners, crocheters and weavers gather to take classes from internationally renowned teachers.  It also provides an opportunity to shop at a market filled with vendors from all over the west coast and just commune with folks of a like mind – those who love fiber. 

As luck would have it, the registration opened early – I believe by about 2 hours.  I just happened to notice this at 11:30 this morning (it was scheduled to open at 1:00 pm), so I took the opportunity to sign up for several of my first choice classes with no problems.  Meanwhile, there are many people who waited until the announced time and didn’t get into some or all of the classes they wanted.  Based on what I’m seeing on Ravelry and other online communities, some of these folks are pretty disapppointed – some even mad – about this fact.  Let’s put things in perspective though.

Last year, when Madrona registration suffered a Web traffic jam that literally shut down registration moments after it opened, I had to take 2nd or 3rd choice classes.  I did get into one of my first choices, but otherwise settled with other ones.  But you know what?  I got just as much out of those classes as I might have out of my first choices.  In fact, they  stretched me a little bit outside of my comfort zone – that’s a good thing in my opinion.  So maybe not getting into first choice classes offers one an opportunity to expand their skill set by trying something new.  Or maybe it helps narrow down ones choices!   With so many great classes being offered, I had difficulty making my final choices, and actually made some of them last minute while registering.

Anyway, I realize the system isn’t perfect but no matter what form registration takes moving forward, it’s likely not going to please everyone – no matter what.  I say just be calm, put your name on a waiting list if you have to and hope for the best.  Or just go down to the event to shop and hang out with like-minded crafters, and maybe even attend the banquet, a pretty special event in an of itself.  Hopefully I’ll see you there!

In September, I’m doing the Seattle 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk.  I’ll be walking 60 miles over 3 days with approximately 4000 other walkers. In order to participate, I must raise $2200 towards the cause (Susan B. Koman foundation).  At this point, I’m only about 1/3 of the way to my goal.

Anyway, I’m holding a special raffle for my knitting and spinning friends.  Any of you who donate a minimum of $5, between now and my fundraising deadline of October 10th, will be entered to win a “Winner’s Choice” gift basket.  I’m calling it Winner’s Choice because I’ll create a gift basket with a minimum value of $75 for the lucky winner, based on her/his knitting/spinning preferences!  What could be better than that?

Here’s how you enter.  Go to my personal 3-Day Donation page at http://www.the3day.org/goto/knottyknitter and donate $5 or more.  Contact me via PM or e-mail to let me know you’ve entered (make sure I can match you up to your entry by providing me the name or e-mail address you used when making your donation).  You’ll get one entry into the raffle for each $5 donated.  For each $25, you’ll get one extra ticket (so $25 gets you 6 entries, $50 gets you 12, etc.)  When you contact me, let me know if your preference is knitting or spinning, and tell me a little bit about your fiber, color, and project preferences. 

After the donation center closes, in mid-October, I’ll draw a random winner and notify the winner by e-mail so I can get shipping information for you wonderful gift basket!

This is for a great cause. Not only does it raise much needed funds for breast cancer research and detection, but due to the shear size of the event, it raises public awareness of the need and desire of so many walkers to find a cure.  Good Luck!

 It’s been a looooong time – too long, actually – since I’ve posted.  Well, I’m back.  Work and life are both so busy right now that it’s difficult, but maybe I can get some momentum going to keep on top of things.

 So back to the title of this entry.  You might be wondering what “journey” I’m speaking of.  Well, it’s not a trip – it’s a spinning wheel!  Yup – next week my Journey Wheel is scheduled to come out of production and get shipped to me!  For those of you who don’t already know, the Journey Wheel is a super cool portable spinning wheel made by the Bosworths (also makers of fine spindles, and other spinning tools).  I’ve never actually spun on one, but have seen them on a couple of occassions and became instantly intrigued.  And yes, I’m crazy enough about spinning to order one without ever trying it out.  Well, I know that even if I don’t end up loving it, I can sell it for pretty much the full price I paid for it anyway, so what have I got to lose?

 I ordered it back in February, during the Madrona Fiber Arts Festival.  I saw a couple more Journeys in my classes there, and fell more deeply in love. There’s something that really appeals to me about being able to fold it up into a nice tidy little box – looking nothing like a spinning wheel.  Then, when you’re ready to use it, you just pop it open and within seconds practically, voila, you have a fully functions DOUBLE DRIVE spinning wheel!  Yes, the double drive feature is another thing that appeals to me – to date, this is the only truely portable wheel I’ve come across that comes in double drive. 

 Anyway, back to my tale.  I ordered the wheel in February, which placed me in the schedule for the fall production run to be shipped out in October of this year.  Alas, I received a message from Sheila Bosworth last week asking me if I wanted to move up to the Summer run since they’ve had a few people cancel their orders (I fear this might be an effect of the current state of our economy).  I jumped at the chance to take delivery sooner – the downside is, of course, that I have to pay for the wheel all that much sooner.  Oh well - small price to pay for the added enjoyment I’ll get from having it ahead of schedule.  I’ve just learned today that it should be shipped out on July 30th, with a ship time of approximately 6 days.  So, my Journey wheel is about to begin it’s own little journey across the country!  I’m really looking forward to receiving it – I expect to be posting pictures of it here sometime soon!  Keep your fingers crossed that it gets to me safely!

Well, my good intentions of keeping on top of my Blog have fallen by the wayside once again!  Anyway, lots of updates are long overdue, so I’ll attempt to catch up now. 

First of all, I really owe everyone an update on www.virtualknitter.com.  As it stands now, I’ve come to the realization that I just can’t do as much as I had hoped with that site.  In typical Capricorn fashion, I set my ambitions very high!  But I’ve reached a point in my life where I’m wise enough to know that sometimes I have to scale back on what I’d like to do.  Since I’ve taken on some additional commitments that are very important to me, I’ve decided to just let VirtualKnitter.com evolve very slowly.  You might say it’s just incubating right now, and I’m not sure what form it will take upon final birth.  I do know that I am not going to pursue creating the worlds best guide to LYS and fiber arts related stores.  Why?  Well, simply because right after starting to gather info for my directly, I learned of a fantastic one that’s recently been published.  A directory pubplishing company has created a guide specific to LYS and has also created an online version.  I checked it out and found it to be very good, so there’s absoulutely no reason for me to pursue that endeavor.  My sole reason for wanting to do it anyway was because I hadn’t found any guides I liked.  Now that one exists, it just doesn’t make sense for me to try to create one too, especially given my limited resources and time.  I’ll track down the info for that site and post it here shortly.

You might wonder what other commitments are going to be taking up my time.  Well, specifically – WALKING!  I signed up for the Breast Cancer 3-Day walk taking place in September.  I’ll be doing a lot of walking in preparation for the event, when I’ll be walking 60 miles over 3 days to raise money for breast cancer research and detection.  Visit my personal page to learn more (and make a donation, if you’re so inclined.  I haven’t really personalized the page yet, and our team name is still a bit up in the air, but for now, we’re the Glamour Pirates.  My friends Barb and Naomi have signed up with me.  We each need to raise a minimum of $2200 in order to participate.  Having done oen of these before (in 2001), I’m hard pressed to say whether raising the money or training for the event is harder.  They’re both challenges, that’s for sure!  I did my first official “training walk” today – just a little 4-mile jaunt.  However, since I’ve been rather slug-like this winter when it comes to fitness, it was plenty long enough!

And in my fiber life, I’be been spinning away.  I continue to be very active in the Eastside Spinners.  I also took several spinning classes at the Madrona Fiber Arts Festival last weekend.  I ended up spending way too much in the market place – I’ll post some pictures later of the scruptious goodies I bought there.  Right now, I’m spinning a Merino Silk blend from Fleece Artist that I picked up at one booth. 

Well, as usual, I have lots to do, so that’s all for now.  No pictures this time!  I’m breaking in a new computer (a wonderful little Tablet PC) and don’t have everything transfered over yet.  I’ll post more later in the week when I’m feeling a bit more organized.

Hello! Yes, I know – I’m not keeping up with my blogging! I always pledge to do better, but then things get crazy and I wait too long. But I’m back!

Anyway, I mostly wanted to give a little update on the Virtual Knitter .  First of all, I still have to do the drawing for the free ball of yarn – thanks to all of your who gave great suggestions for the content of my site.  I’ll get that drawing done in the next few days and notify the lucky winner. But now for the update…

I’m still a long ways off from coming up with a concrete plan – or a site design for that matter. I had envisioned using this as a vehicle for learning more HTML skills and building the site from scratch. Well, I decided to put that idea aside for the time being in order to start working on some of the content first and worrying about that later.  So I signed up for Go Daddy’s Website Tonight service in order to use a site template that’s pretty customizable yet allows me to publish things much more quickly. At some time in the future I’ll likely transition over to a more homegrown design as that’s much more versatile in the long run, but for now, this allows me to concentrate on other aspect of the site.

Based on suggestions and my own desires, I have decided that one of the fist elements I want to concentrate on is creating a database of LYS and other fiber arts suppliers and resources. The lack of a really good place to go on the net and find geographic lists of LYS has really frustrated me over the years. So, I’ve pieced created a secure online form where LYS owners can submit their information in order to be included. Now I’ve just got to get the word out that it’s there.  It can be accessed by visiting my site at www.VirtualKnitter.com and navigating to the “LYS Database Form” or directly here:  Virtual Knitter LYS Database Submission Form.  Please pass this on to anyone you know who operates either a brick & mortar LYS or an online store. I’d love to get their info as soon as possible. Creating this database will be an ambitious project so don’t expect to see it posted right away.  However, I’ll try to keep people who submit their information updated on the timing as best as I can.

You’ll notice when you visit my site that it’s still the same old ugly header that I threw up there to get started.  I have some concepts in mind for what I want the final design to look like. I feel that rather than make something that’s a little better than what I’ve got now, and then replacing it again when I decide on a final look, that it’s more important to keep things consistent so people recognize that they’re back at the same site until I introduce the real deal. You’ll also notice on the form page, I’ve got a security icon down that the bottom of the page. Since I’m asking people to submit their contact information to me, I went ahead and purchased a security certificate for my site. You can be assured that your data is safely encrypted and I’m the only one able to access it once you submit it to me.

Well, that’s all for now. Please submit your information if you’re a shop owner.  Or if not, please pass the link on to anyone you know who is, and request that they submit their information.  Thanks! 

Never, and I mean NEVER, underestimate the importance of proofreading!  Why do I say this?  Well, I’ve just experienced the results of poor proofreading first hand, but fortunately in a very amusing way.

If you’ve read any of my other posts, you’ll know that I just created a rather ugly placeholder page for my future site, www.VirtualKnitter.com.  I’ve actually already updated the page several times, adding a link back to this blog, updating with some key info about subscribing to my e-mail updates, and adding a meta description for search engines.  It’s that last one – the meta description – where I had a little trouble.

You see, I didn’t proof the meta description.  Instead, I only proofread what actually appears on the live page, using a web browser.  Silly me – should have gone back to the actual code to proofread too.  Imagine my surprise today, when I checked again to see if Google had indexed the page, and saw this:

Do you see the error?  Yup – my site is going to be a “turkey” resource!  For those of you who don’t know, the meta description is what gets listed by the search engines as the description of your site.  And I have a “Turkey” solution – YIKES!  That’s supposed to say “turnkey” if you hadn’t figured it out.  And the change has been made to my code, so as soon as the site page gets crawled again, it should get corrected, but for now, I’m the turkey.  Oh well.  It’s not like a million people are going to be finding the site via Google at this time anyway, but even so, how embarrassing!

Just to let you know, I’m still collecting comments and suggestions on what to include at the Virtual Knitter.  Please visit my earlier entry called “www.VirtualKnitter.com and make a comment to get an entry into the prize drawing for a skein of Noro Kureyon Sock.  I’d love to read your ideas!

Happy Knitting!

Good morning readers!  I just wanted to quickly say thanks to those of you who have offered awesome suggestions  for the Virtual Knitter already and encourage the rest of you to submit your own suggestions.

One thing I forgot to mention is that my e-mail sign up form at the Virtual Knitter uses the “double opt-in” process for extra security, so you’ll be getting a message from me asking you to verify your registration.  When I signed myself up on the form using one of my other e-mail addresses, the verification message went straight into a junk e-mail folder.  So, please check your junk folders too after signing up so that you complete the process.  I’m not going to post the e-mail address that the message will come from, but it will be obvious that it’s from me.

And finally, I just wanted to respond to Panhandle Jane’s comment.  Although I didn’t mention it specifically, you are correct.  I do not have any intention (or time & resources) to create something like Ravelry.  When I stated this would not include forums, I should have gone on to say that my intent is not to create a “community” so much as a resource.  Hope that clarifies things a bit!

Thanks to all who have commented so far! 

Kristi