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!

One of the brands of yarn that I just love, mostly for the beauty of it’s colors, is Noro. Some people are not fond of it due to the the VM (vegitable matter) often found in some of the more rustic Noro yarns (Kureyon, for instance), but as a spinner, it really doesn’t faze me to find little sticks and twigs in my yarn – I somewhat appreciate this rustic trait.

At last year’s Madrona Fiber Arts retreat, I discovered a new (at least to me) variety of Noro yarn called Chirimen. In appearance, it’s very similar to Kureyon, but instead of being 100% wool, it’s a mix of cotton (60%), silk (24%) and wool (16%). In weight, it compares to Silk Garden Lite at 11 wpi (wraps per inch) instead of Kureyon’s 9 wpi, so just a little bit lighter weight. I picked up 3 balls in Color 2, a blend of mostly shades of blue with a little tiny bit of brown, and an even smaller bit of green, but at the time, really had no plans for this addition to my stash.

Fast forward a few months and I learned that a friend will have some unexpted and fairly substantial medical bills in the coming month. Sure, she’s got insurance, but a plan that carries pretty high deductables and co-pays, so she’s pretty worried about getting into debt. A bunch of us have decided to find various ways to raise some funds to help her out since added financial stress is the last thing she needs right now. Amoung other things, we’re going to be doing a raffle at a music show another friend’s band is doing next month (as well as donating the band’s take from the door). I have volunteered to contribute some knit scarves – perfect for January in Seattle! I’ve got some stashed away already that just need finishing and blocking, but decided right away to use the Chirimen to make a scarf following HeartString FiberArt’s  Morning Surf Scarf pattern published in the Summer 2008 issue of Spinoff Magazine. I even contacted the designer, Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer, for permission to produce the scarf for fund raising, which she quickly gave me permission to do.

The first scarf, using the Chirimen, is about half finished:

I’m also planning making another one (or a variation of it) with some Noro Silk Garden Lite, Color 2014 that I also have in my stash (and have had for who knows how long!)

And now for a little more Noro love  – a picture of some Kuryan Color 95 from my stash:

I only have 4 balls of this, and I’m seriously considering ordering 16 more so I’ll have enough to do a Lizard Ridge afghan from Knitty. I’ve seen one on Ravelry done in this color, and it’s quite delicious.   And if I order today from Webs, I’ll get gree shipping.  Decisions, decisions…

I’m in the process of knitting a pair of socks, toe up, two at a time on circular needles.  This is the first time I’ve tried this technique – I like it very much as my socks will both be finished at the same time AND they’ll be the same size.  Since this is a “learning” project, I’m just using some inexpensive Red Heart “Heart & Sole” yarn, rather than digging into my stash.  Here’s a picture of the socks taken part way through the project:

Heart & Sole Socks in progress

As you can see, it’s a simple pattern – I’m just doing stockinette stitch for the whole thing until I get to the cuff, where I’ll switch to ribbing for about an inch and a half.  I’m also doing an ‘afterthought heel’ for the first time ever, to keep the striping consistent and create a bullseye effect at the heel.  That’s the last step after everything else is done.

Well, I’m nearing the start of my ribbing, so I decided to count stitches one final time to make sure everything was still on track.  YIKES!  One needle only had 33 stitches on it!  I had fiddled with the stitches at the point where the needles cross a few rows back, so I assumed I must have accidentally slid one stitch over to the other side.  Counted them, and nope, 34 on that needle.  Oh oh – had a dropped a stitch at some point?  I started closely inspecting the socks and found where I had dropped a stitch – way down about 3 or 4 inches up from the toe – yup – about 10 inches back!  Oh dear.  At this point, I had to put the socks away for a few hours and move on for a while:)

Well, came back to them last night and started picking up the dropped stitches with a crochet hook.  Things were going slow, and I was tired so I only did a few rows before retiring.  This morning, I picked up again, and struggled with it for a while, having difficulty due to the small guage.  After contemplating things for a while, I decided to try helping things along by using a #0 needle to lift the previous stitch up and out so I could more easily bring the new one I’d picked up with the crochet hook through without catching part of the new stitch.  WOW.  It worked like a charm and I managed to bring the dropped stitch back up to the top of the sock relatively smoothly and quickly.  The downside is that now I have a sort of ridge where the stitches are tighter in that line and puckering the fabric a bit. I assume (hope) this will all come out in the wash so to speak.  Regardless of whether or not it does though, at least I’ll have a wearable pair of socks that won’t run on me!  Up till now, I’ve only brought up dropped stithes two or three rows, so I’m pretty pleased with myself!

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!

Well, this is certainly an unusual occurance – two posts in as many days!  I just couldn’t resist posting again so soon because I have some pretty exciting news:

I am KNITTER!

I’ll bet you’re wondering why I am announcing this.  Of course she’s a knitter you might say – she’s got a blog (partially) dedicated to knitting and she’s an active member of both Knitter’s Review and Ravelry.   Duh! 

 Yes, these things are all very true.  But you’ll notice that I did not say “I am a knitter” but rather “I am KNITTER” denoting that this is some sort of new name for me.  Nope, didn’t change my name to “KNITTER,” but I did manage to snag the name KNITTER for personalized license plates!  Can you believe it? In this state that’s full of knitters, I am the only one who will have this on my license plates on my beloved Honda Element!  WHOO HOO!  Now that’s something worth celebrating (I am such a geek!)

So this all came about after reading about someone else getting the plates “Knit On” in Arkansas.  This reminded me to do my periodic check to see if any of the names I’d like to have had become available in Washington.  I’ve struggled with this in the past because many of the combinations beginning with “K” are disallowed because they’re reserved for HAM radio operators.  And of course “KNITTER” was never available because someone else had it. 

But alas, yesterday when I checked, it was suddenly available! I shot an excited e-mail off to Mr. VirtualKnitter about it and he responded “grab it fast!”  So, off I trotted to the King County Department of Licensing, where you can apply for personalized plates in person.  I wasn’t sure if things were set up so they could process the application in real time, but I just wanted to make sure I was first in line to get this name reserved.  Turns out they can handle the whole transaction right there, so a few minutes later I was happily the owner of “KNITTER” with my new registration form and temporary paper “plates” – now I just have to wait a few weeks for the real plates to be mailed to me.  The nice man who processed my paperwork suggested that the previous owner either moved out of state or just got tired of paying the extra annual fee for the plates.  Well, whatever the reason, their loss is my gain!

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!

First off, a blog migration update:

Slowly but surely, I’m moving my comments over to my new blog home.  I have to do it manually (see my lightbulb moment in my last post).  Meanwhile, Wordpress has released their upgrade, and I hope to install that soon, so I don’t want to bother moving the rest of the comments since I’ve just done my pre-upgrade backup . Once I get all the comments moved, I’ll shut down the other blog and redirect any traffic over here.  I’m sure happy with my move so far!

And now the knitting:

As far as knitting goes, I’ve been slowly plugging away at my 2nd stranded knitting project.  I’m knitting the small leaf hat from Ruth Sorensen’s packet of hat patterns that she put together for the Madrona Fiber Arts annual retreat.  I didn’t take her class there – instead, I purchased the patterns at Acorn Street, a local resource for Kauni yarn.  My first stranded project was also from this packet – at this time it’s serving as the header for this site.  Unfortunately, as my first ever stranded knitting project, it ended up being too small.  This is due to the fact that my initial gauge swatch and subsequent calculations were based on flat knit un-stranded stockenette.    Unfortunately, my stranded knitting knit in the round, turned out to be much tighter.   Although I’m very happy with the way it looks, it doens’t really fit my head.  I’ll hang onto it as a sample, but unfortunately will not be able to wear it.  See the photo of both below.

I’ve long wanted to learn stranded knitting but only recently felt ready for it.  Sure, I’ve been knitting for 4 years, but due to my hobby ADD, I’m not a very prolific or focused knitter, so have stayed at a level of just beyond beginner.  Now that I’ve attempted it, I’m hooked.  One reason I want to stick with it is the fact that it really is part of my heritage, being of Norwegian (and Viking) descent.   I’ve always admired the Scandinavian knit motifs so it’s really fun to know that I can recreate them myself!  Now I’m off to continue perusing the “Stranded” group gallery at Ravelry…

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!