This year, we’re actually making two separate trips up to the campsite. We’re leaving for War tonight, will set up our tent tomorrow, and unfortunately have to come home on Sunday so that we can work for three more days before our vacation actually begins. But then, we’re off for a long relaxing trip into the Middle Ages!

I haven’t even decided what knitting I’m bringing yet. On one hand, I could crank out baby knits for my friends who are expecting. On the other, I could finish my Time Traveler socks, which is sort of fitting for a time-traveling vacation. Maybe I’ll bring both and alternate? Maybe I’ll begin a new project?

Not only are we excited about going on vacation, but we’re excited about a new addition to our family. No, we’re not going to have a baby – at least, not a human baby. We’re adopting two little kittens! Here is a video I got of them playing at their foster-mom’s house the other day. She is going to keep them for us until we get back.

We are going to adopt the first two kittens in the video, the small black one and the first gray-and-white one. They will be about three months old when we bring them home. We have potential names picked out for them already, but I want to make sure the kittens and their names go together. Once we’re sure of their names, I’ll let you all know!

Please forgive me if there’s less knitting and spinning in the next few months than usual. I’m going to have to confine my yarn to quarters to keep it from investigative paws and claws.

But, in spinning news, I won a prize in the Tour de Fleece in the Natural Yarns category for the Jacob roving! Granted, it was a prize picked by random number generator, but still – I won a prize! I never win anything and so this came as a massive surprise. I had a choice of prizes, so I picked a BFL/silk blend from Susan’s Spinning Bunny, in the “Sherbert and Ernie” colourway. Of all the available options, this seemed most unlike what I’d buy for myself, so I chose it under the theory that if I never expand my colour preferences then I’ll never know what I might like.

So if he’s got a work space and a craft space, I’d like one too – for fairness, of course. The back room in the basement is almost exactly perfect for what I’m thinking of, too. It’s our laundry room, and our storage closet for our SCA gear is there. There’s an inset space in which we’d like to put a second freezer for food storage, but for the most part the room is going completely unused.

There’s already water to the room for the laundry, so it shouldn’t be too hard to split off the line and install a slop sink. Drainage might be a little more complicated, but I bet it could be done. With a sink, I could wash fleece and mix dyes, though I’d still have to bring dyed fibre or yarn upstairs to simmer on the stove. Hrrm, unless I got a little propane-powered burner. That’s a possibility, and would keep dyes out of our food-prep kitchen.

I’d like to run a workbench down the entire back wall of the room, attaching it into the wall so that it wouldn’t wobble. It wouldn’t be too high, because I’m shortish. There I would be able to keep my drum carder and sewing machine. I’ve even been thinking about getting a wool picker, perhaps bench-style rather than the torture-chamber-esque cradle picker style. I don’t think I could support myself on a fibre-y business income, but I bet I could make some reasonable pocket change selling carded batts and handspun yarn on Etsy.

Underneath the workbench, I would have shelves and drawers for storage space, except at the end I’d leave a bit of an overhang so that I’d have a place to sit and use the sewing machine. I don’t sew very often, but I’m drawn to the idea more and more – if only I had a good workspace! The first things I’d sew would be quilted covers for the carder, picker, and sewing machine, to keep them safe and dust-free.

The room itself needs some work. The laundry closet is in desperate need of new doors, and the walls could use a coat of paint. I’d install good lighting in the ceiling and scissor-arm lights along the walls, so that I’d always have enough light – that room has but one small window and doesn’t get much sun. Then I’d hang inspirational artwork everywhere!

What would your perfect crafting space look like?

In the video, Mrs. Hiller says that “there is a loss of understanding of the value of things, of the meaning of things,” when we don’t engage in the activity of creation, and I couldn’t agree more. When I spin – especially with the drop spindle – I think about the generations of spinners before me. I think about how the sails on ships were all woven from threads spun on a simple drop spindle. How much more does a piece of fabric mean when you’ve put in the long hours to spin the yarn and then to weave or knit or crochet it into something functional? How much less does it mean when you can just go buy it at the store?

Everything she says in the brief video rings true for me, but this particular quote really resonated: [Spinning]… is an activity that brings us closer to the cosmos; at the same time, we create something that is useful & beautiful.

What do you think?

I’m pleased that the solid red matches the red in the variegated colourway so well, and I’m curious to try knitting with this yarn. I generally don’t like cotton yarn, but it’s so good for babies’ sensitive skin. This yarn, Cascade Fixation, has 1.7% elastic in it. Will that help mitigate the harshness of knitting with cotton yarn, or will the elastic only make it even harder to knit up?

There’s really not much to blog about the project yet, since the yarn is still neatly wound up just as it came from the store. It will soon become a little hat and a pair of booties, but first I want to finish the Timey-Wimey socks. The baby isn’t due until late December, so I’m not hurried at all.

In non-knitting news (there’s such a thing?) I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I live on top of a mountain, and I thought it might be nice to share the view from my window. It was just luck that I had my camera on the table with me, since it’s usually nowhere in sight. But I’d just taken the pictures of the yarn and still had the camera out. When I saw the deer drinking from my fishpond, I grabbed the opportunity to shoot this quick video. Hope you like it! :)

Disappointingly, many of the patterns seem to be one-size-fits-anyone-but-Pirate, so I expect that I’ll have to make some adjustments to get a proper fit. Extending the length of a sock foot is easy enough, but what does she mean by “fits a size 7 foot”? Is she referring to length or width there? Swatching will almost certainly be a necessity for most, if not all, of the stitch patterns. I’m not a fan of the “just go up a needle size” theory of enlarging socks, but I can figure out where stitches can be added to or subtracted from a pattern to make it slightly larger or smaller, and I’m not afraid of tinkering with a pattern to get it to fit well, whether the adjustments need to be in length or width. Hooray for intrepid knitting!

There are other patterns in the book that I’d like to knit as well, but I think the Evening Stockings will come first. (After I’ve worked through some of the patterns that I’ve already queued up, I mean.) I’ve been really into the idea of kneesocks lately, even though I know they will take forever to knit, and there are several patterns in this book that fit the bill.

The book includes a variety of heels and toes, with detailed instructions on how to make them. This will definitely come in handy when I’m designing more of my own sock patterns! I think the only other sock book that is missing from my shelf (for now) is Cookie A.’s Sock Innovation. I’m not as into the patterns in Cookie’s book, but its real value is in the wealth of information about designing socks.

In actual knitting news, the Timey-Wimey sock is coming along. Although the Felici yarn doesn’t travel well at all, I’ve brought it with me today to keep me occupied during the farewell lunch that we’re having for a co-worker. We’re a fairly large group, and whenever we go out to lunch together it seems to take forever to get everyone drinks, take orders, and bring out the food. My co-workers might look at me funny for knitting while we wait, but I’m glad to have something to do with my hands that doesn’t involve eating large quantities of breadsticks!

There are some things I’m already wondering about – should I have made the heel flap longer on the larger size, or is that the kind of thing that knitters will adjust based on the sock’s recipient? Did I describe what I meant clearly enough? Are there any horrible mistakes or typos? I’m sure it will be just fine, and if it’s not, then surely the first few people to knit the pattern won’t hesitate to let me know if I’ve made an error.

My reward for publishing, with some poking from my sister the Ninja, was to cast on for a new pair of Jaywalkers with the Felici Time Traveler yarn. First, I figured out that if I wanted the socks to match, I’d lose the least amount of yarn by starting with the red stripe. Then I cast on and worked on the cuff while we watched Saturday Night Live. I knit while we watched the F1 race in Monaco, I knit while Pirate-Husband watched the Mazda MX-5 race at Virginia International Raceway, and I knit (and drank beer) while he played Assassin’s Creed 2. I haven’t had a whole day to just sit around and knit in a long time. It was lovely.

I like the Felici yarn, but I’m not yet sure if I love it. It is soft and it smells nice, but it feels just slightly thinner than what I think of as ‘standard’ sock yarn like Regia, Lang, or Lana Grossa. So far I’ve had minimal trouble with it being splitty, even in working the double decreases. The real test will be how well the finished socks wear, but they’re going so fast that it won’t be too long before I find out. (The socks are further along than this now, but it got too dark to take good pictures.)

After I knit the same pattern in a slightly smaller size for myself, they were given a new name – “Sibling Socks” – and I am pleased to be able to share the pattern in both sizes! The ribbing means these would be great gift socks even if you don’t know your recipient’s exact width, since it will stretch to accommodate his or her foot.

SIZE: M [L] (blue colorway #71 shown in size L, brown colorway #90 in size M)

FINISHED MEASUREMENTS: To fit a foot that’s 8.25 [9.5] inches around at widest point.

YARN: Trekking XXL [75% wool, 25% nylon; 100g/459 yards] or any other light fingering weight yarn to get gauge. I needed 1.25 balls of Trekking to knit the larger size, because they’d been requested with longer legs. You could probably get away with only one ball if you make the leg shorter or if you have smaller feet. I made the leg shorter on the smaller size, and had plenty of yarn left over.

GAUGE: 45 sts/42 rounds = 4″ in stockinette stitch

AND ALSO: five US 0/2mm double-point needles and a stitch marker.

Sibling Socks pattern – pdf format

Sibling Socks page on Ravelry.com

Important Copyright Information:

The Sibling Sock Knitting Pattern by Knitting Pirate is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. You may make copies for your own personal use, but you may not sell copies of the pattern. You may sell the socks you make provided that credit is given to the Knitting Pirate for the design. If you have any questions about what you can or can’t do with this pattern, please feel free to contact the Knitting Pirate.

I plan to make a simple ribbed sock, 64 stitches around, since my 64-stitch socks fit her just fine. The only measurement I need to get is the length of her foot, and then I’m good to go – as soon as I finish some other projects! (Psst, Mom, can you measure your foot for me please?)

It is becoming more difficult by the day to refrain from casting on for a new project! I’m doing my best to hold out but I don’t know how long I can manage…

When I told Pirate-Husband about this yarn, he quipped, “If you knit the socks for me, then you could be The Time Traveler’s Wife.” *groan* Awful.

This is what I bought:

On the left, eight ounces of Ashland Bay merino in “Lapis”. I know this is really standard commercial top, but it’s also quite nice to spin with, and I liked the colour. On the right, 4 ounces of a 50-50 merino/tencel blend from Bonkers Handmade Originals. I’ve never spun with tencel before, but the colours really shine and I couldn’t resist it.

Two four ounce packages of a merino-tussah-bamboo blend from Bullen’s Wullens. Bamboo is another new-to-me fibre. I was only going to get one package, but they were offering a deal for purchasing two, so…

On the left, a six ounce sampler of Jacob roving from Firefly Farm, another new-to-me fibre. I bought this with the thought that I’d spin each one separately and make some colourwork mittens or a hat. Or both, depending on how much yarn I get out of it. On the right, something I’ve been wanting to try for a while – roving that will spin into a tweedy yarn. It’s Corriedale from a sheep named Lilly, dyed with indigo and iron by Handspun by Stefania, with multicolour silk noil carded in to make the tweeds.

Lastly, eight ounces of merino pencil roving from Pucker Brush Farm. I really liked the colours, and I’ve never spun anything from pencil roving before. I think I’m going to like it! At this point, my backpack was stuffed full and I was (amazingly!) still under the budget I’d set for myself, so I stopped buying stuff. I’m sure if I kept looking, I would have found something else that I loved, but I resisted. We all headed back to Josh’s house to sort and crow over our loot, and so I could teach Jen and Sam to use their new spindles. That’s when Josh reminded me that he’d been holding onto a metric ton of roving from his former housemate, and offered to give some of it to me…

Four giant balls of mystery wool roving, averaging 420 grams each. It was processed some years ago by Frankenmuth Woolen Mill. Much of it was marked ‘unwashed’ or ‘rewash’, but there is very little vegetable matter in it. It feels like it has some lanolin, but a lot less than I think completely unwashed wool would have. If I had known that I’d be getting over 3.5 pounds of naturally-coloured roving, I might not have bought that Jacob sampler to do colourwork! I was also given 470g of alpaca blanket, two in brown and one in white. It’s unwashed as well, with some vegetable matter but not much, and it’s a lot higher quality than the second cuts I had at home to play/practice with. And all of that was only about a quarter of what was there! Sam and Jen each took another quarter, and we saved some for Janis.

It was a lot of fun teaching Sam and Jen to spin. They both picked up the basics of park-and-draft very quickly, and pretty soon Efrain was making a drop spindle from a CD and a chopstick so that he could try as well. Sam offered to buy my Ashford Traditional, Patience, from me – but I’m still not sure I want to sell her! I go back and forth about it. I love how she looks but I don’t spin on her since I got Grace, the Kromski Sonata. On the first hand, I have some emotional attachment to Patience since she was a birthday present. On the other, wouldn’t it be better if someone was making yarn with her?

There’s one love that we all share: yarn. Blog about a particular yarn you have used in the past or own in your stash, or perhaps one that you covet from afar. If it is a yarn you have used you could show the project that you used it for, perhaps writing a mini ‘review’. Perhaps, instead, you pine for the feel of the almost mythical qiviut? You could explore and research the raw material and manufacturing process if you were feeling investigative.

I’m a sucker for sock yarn.

There, I said it. You heard me. I can’t resist the stuff. It’s the first and last thing I look at in a yarn store, and of all the yarns there, sock yarn is the most likely to come home with me. Why? Why NOT! It’s not too expensive, and unlike yarn for a larger project like a sweater or a blanket or a bag, I don’t need to have a pattern in mind when I buy it. I just need to get 100g and I know that I’ll have enough to make a pair of socks. (Unless they’re for Pirate-Husband; then I need 150g. He has wide feet.) Sock yarn is the best souvenir from visiting yarn stores in faraway places, too.

My latest favourite sock yarn has been Cascade Heritage. This is one of their “Paints” colourways, but it is available in solids as well. The feel of this yarn was a pleasant surprise. It’s soft and smooth, I had no trouble with it being splitty, and it knit up into a wonderfully squooshy sock with only minimal pooling. The only socks I’ve knit from this yarn as yet were given away as a gift, so I’m not sure how well it washes and wears yet. Reviews that I’ve read say “very well” and that it can even go through the dryer without anything terrible happening to it – no felting, no pilling, no nothing but getting softer.

I have another skein for myself, in this reds and blues colourway, but I’m not yet sure what pattern I’m going to use when I knit it up. Something simple? Something a little more complex? Not only that, but I’ve got my eye on yet another skein in medium blues to knit a pair of socks for Mom, who surprised me with a request for handknit socks. Those will probably be top down and 3×1 ribbing, for the best fit possible. Maybe I’ll knit the pair for myself that way, as well.

I have enough sock yarn in my stash for 20 pairs.. and at approximately three months for me to knit a pair (I’m slow!), that’s about five years’ worth of sock knitting. Is that going to stop me from buying or spinning more? No way! Like I said… I’m a sucker for sock yarn.

Bring the fortune and life of a past finished project up to the present. Document the current state and use of an object you have knitted or crocheted, whether it is the hat your sister wears to school almost every day, or a pair of socks you wore until they were full of holes. Or maybe that jumper that your did just didn’t like that much…

I think for this one I’m going to have to go with the Fleep-Top Mittens, my absolute favourite knitted object(s) ever. Every winter, I go to visit my sworn-sister, the Knitting Ninja, in Ottawa for Winterlude, and we go to a stew cook-off. Well, one year it was more cold than usual, and I couldn’t eat my stew with heavy winter gloves on, so I took them off. What a mistake! I didn’t get warm again for hours, and I swore to myself that I’d knit a pair of fingerless gloves with mitten tops before the next Winterlude.

I used Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed, and a combination of the Gnomittens and Cigar patterns (both Ravelry links) to get the sizing right. They were finished in a month, and they were absolutely perfect for Canada in February. My hands stayed warm, even though it snowed into my stew. It’s possible that my hands only stayed warm because I had those little air-activated heatpacks in my pockets… and this led to near-disaster for my Fleeps. On the drive up to Canada, I’d stopped at a restaurant which offered Andes Chocolate Mints in a little bowl by the door. I took two and ate one, and put the other in my pocket for later. Then I forgot about it. Well, when you put chocolate and wool and heatpack together in a pocket, you end up with chocolate in your wool…

Fortunately, with some hot water, Eucalan, and very careful cleansing, the chocolate washed out and the Fleeps didn’t felt at all. And the next year, I went to Canada with no chocolate and no heatpacks, and was happily surprised that the Fleeps kept my hands warm enough even in -5C/23F weather. The Fleeps are so beloved that I bought the yarn to make another pair for myself and a pair for my sworn-brother Michael, who keeps eyeing mine with some envy. I just have to finish them before next year’s Winterlude.

Where do you like to indulge in your craft? Is your favourite arm chair your little knitting cubby area, or do you prefer to ‘knit in public’? Do you like to crochet in the great outdoors, perhaps, or knit in the bath, or at the pub?

Wherever I can!

No, seriously – I do most of my knitting and spinning in front of my laptop, at the table in my little room upstairs. There’s almost always a knitting project within reach, and I’ve put my spinning wheel just to the right of my chair, so I only have to turn a little bit to use it. There’s a Very Bright Light clipped to the underside of the loft-bed that is almost as good as the sun as far as providing light for working, though it doesn’t give the greatest light for taking pictures.

Knitting while watching television doesn’t work too well for me, because I find it difficult to pay attention to both at the same time. But I can easily knit while I’m holding a conversation… unless it’s the Stitch ‘n Bitch, and then I do much more talking than knitting! (Either that, or I knit and make mistakes. I can’t bring anything more complicated than a stockinette sock to the meetups. It’s sad, but even ribbing doesn’t go well while I’m trying to talk to a dozen people at once.)

I do love to knit in public. Waiting at the gate for an airplane, on a train, at the pub, or wherever I find myself with a little bit of free time. The reactions I get from random people who notice what I’m doing are just great. Most of them have been quite pleasant, though every so often I get a person who has no idea why I’d want to play with pointy things and tangly stuff. There was only one time when I felt completely awkward about it. I was at the airport waiting to board, knitting a sock, wondering if anyone would ask me what I was doing… when I noticed that the man sitting next to me had had both his legs off just below the knees. I was glad he didn’t ask, but I’d sort of decided to say that it was an armwarmer – I wasn’t even up to the heel yet – just to keep myself from enthusing about how great handknit socks are.

My absolute favourite knitting-in-public experience has got to be World-Wide Knit In Public Day in 2007. I was in Ottawa with two of my sworn-siblings, and the three of us found seats on the patio at the Highlander Pub. We all drank beer and ate haggis and worked on our socks together in the summer sun, and it was glorious.

Is there a skill related to your hobby that you hope to learn one day? maybe you’re a crocheter who’d also like to knit? Maybe you’d like to learn to knit continental, knit backwards, try cables or attempt stranded colourwork.

Oh, goodness, there are so many things I’d like to learn.

For starters, I’d like to learn to crochet. It seems like a good complimentary skill to go with knitting – I could do crocheted edges, or crochet separate pieces together. And there are also some crochet projects that really appeal to me on their own, like the Prairie Star afghan I mentioned a few posts ago. Crocheted clothing doesn’t appeal to me as much, honestly, but things like amigurumi (cute little crocheted toys) are near-irresistible, though I have no idea what I’d do with them once they were made up. And I’ve been told that crochet is a lot faster than knitting, so it would be perfect for things like dishcloths and swiffer covers. I bought a set of crochet hooks with the gift card that my parents gave me for my birthday last year, but so far I’ve only used them to pick up dropped knit stitches. There’s a copy of The Happy Hooker on my bookshelf; I just need to set aside some time to sit down with it and absorb the information.

I’ve already tried stranded colourwork with the (still unfinished) Napramach bag, but I’d certainly like to get better at it. Which means learning how to knit better in the English style, so that I can hold the different strands of yarn in each hand, instead of having to struggle with all of them in my left hand. I’d like to learn how to better handle the multiple strands, how to manage the dominant colour, and how to keep the tension even. And I’d really like to knit some colourwork gloves, even if I don’t go with the traditional black and white. I have a copy of Selbuvotter and every so often I take it off the shelf and sigh longingly at it. I just picked up a copy of The Essential Guide to Color Knitting Techniques as well. It was delivered yesterday and I’m looking forward to learning from it.

I’d like to improve my spinning skills, too. I would like a better understanding of how to make yarn, the different types of wool and their uses, spinning techniques. I have a drum carder and I’m not afraid to use it. I want to make lovely blended batts and experiment with different styles of yarn. I want to try spinning a cabled yarn, and sturdy but soft singles, and I want to learn to navajo-ply without getting tangled up. I’d love to try dyeing yarns and fibres. Maybe one day I will be able to go to Yarn School and really throw myself into it for a long weekend.

Write about a knitter whose work (whether because of project choice, photography, styling, scale of projects, stash, etc) you enjoy. If they have an enjoyable blog, you might find it a good opportunity to send a smile their way.

I’m not sure this is going to be a surprise to anyone who knows us, but I’m going to say Janis. She’s encouragement and inspiration, and every time we get together I find that I become newly enthused about this hobby that I already love. And she knits SO FAST. Just look at all of this! (Ravelry projects page.)

What I am sure of is this: I may have wanted to knit, but seeing the beautiful projects that came from her needles really motivated me to pick up the skills fast. We learned to spin at the same time, I helped get her a wheel and she helped talk me into buying mine, we challenged each other to handspun socks (because what good is handspun yarn if you never knit it up?), yarn shopping just isn’t the same without her, I can’t go into a yarn shop without thinking “those colours would be perfect for Janis,” and if she’s not blushing now then I don’t know what will do it!

So… thanks, Janis. :)

Blog about a pattern or project which you aspire to. Whether it happens to be because the skills needed are ones which you have not yet acquired, or just because it seems like a huge undertaking of time and dedication, most people feel they still have something to aspire to in their craft. If you don’t feel like you have any left of the mountain of learning yet to climb, say so!

For a dedication of skills that I’ve not yet acquired: I would like to knit a sweater for myself. I have dreams of knitting a Bohus sweater and then I have nightmares of it not fitting me well. I have a store-bought cabled cardigan that I wear to work sometimes, because my office is cold, but it is old and pilling and not very warm, so I’d like to knit its replacement. I already have the itchy Irish yarn to knit a sweater for Pirate-Husband. I’d like to knit a more casual sweater for myself, something like the Ribby Cardi. Or Eris (the website is currently down, so this is a link to the pattern page on Ravelry.)

And then there’s the colourwork. I am drawn to patterns like the Autumn Rose Pullover, the Charlesfield St. Socks, the Garden Gate socks, and – though it’s not stranded colourwork, it’s still a play with colours – Alice’s Illusion Socks, with the Cheshire Cat that appears and disappears as you change your viewing angle. Some other things that have caught my eye are the Elephants in Stripes and the Swirly Gig Earflap Hat, which I aspire to knit up before next year’s trip to Winterlude.

A dedication of time: I would love to knit (or learn to crochet) a blanket. Not just any blanket, though. One that is big enough for a queen-sized bed. One that I could snuggle up under and be ridiculously warm. (Pirate-Husband says I can fold it in half and keep it just on my side of the bed. He’s already ridiculously warm.) I love the Prairie Star afghan, or Lizard Ridge, or the ones that are blocks of cable samples stitched together, or one of the wonderfully geeky Woolly Thoughts afghans. I suppose a project of this size would also be a dedication of money, because if I’m going to be knitting on a project for that long, you can bet that it’s going to be made of wool and not acrylic.

I also have fibre goals: I’ve already made a pair of handspun socks, but what about spinning enough yarn to knit a sweater? Mastering the long-draw, spinning finely and evenly enough to make a cabled sock yarn, blending fibres on the drum carder, learning to dye… growing a dyer’s garden… it just never ends. There’s always more that I want to try.

The idea that I might not “have any left of the mountain of learning yet to climb” makes me laugh. I don’t think I will ever reach the point where there’s nothing left to learn. But that’s okay, I like it that way!

How and when did you begin knitting/crocheting? was it a skill passed down through generations of your family, or something you learned from Knitting For Dummies? What or who made you pick up the needles/hook for the first time? Was it the celebrity knitting ‘trend’ or your great aunt Hilda?

I learned to knit when I was about eight from my mom, who had learned from her college friend Jan. (Mom, I trust you’ll correct me if I’m remembering the story wrong… and perhaps you can help jog my memory a little bit.) Confusingly, Jan knit ‘lefty’ from the right needle to the left. So Mom, mirroring her movements, learned to knit Continental, and that’s how she taught me. The only thing I remember knitting was a very small blanket for one of my brother’s stuffed animals. It was made of acrylic yarn in shades of baby pastels, and it had a few yarnover holes where they didn’t belong. I also remember that I couldn’t quite master the cast-on, and had to be reminded over and over again how to bind off.

That was it for me and knitting for years.

At some point around 2001 or 2002, I decided that I wanted to learn to knit. I bought two skeins of acrylic yarn in brownish and blueish, and a booklet entitled “I Can’t Believe I’m Knitting!” I didn’t get very far.

And then at the end of 2004, I found the yarn in the back of my crafts shelf and the urge to knit came back with a vengeance. I got a copy of “Stitch ‘n Bitch” and was very persistent until I managed to make some stitches. I’ve been at it pretty much non-stop ever since! The very first project I made was this basketweave scarf from the brownish and blueish acrylic yarn, shown here in its infancy. This is unfortunately the only picture I have of it. I sent it off to my grandma for her birthday present that year, and as far as I know, she’s worn and enjoyed it every winter since.

And then there was the spinning. The first time I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, Janis and I stood in one of the tents admiring all the pretty yarn and fibre. I commented to her that the fibre was not at all dangerous to my wallet, because I didn’t know how to spin, and she agreed with me. Beautiful, not dangerous. Nope. Well, another woman overheard us and said, “If you have ten minutes, I can teach you to spin.” We both went home with some Romney roving and drop spindles… and now, a few years later, I’ve got three spindles and two wheels. I admit that I’m really not into the spindling so much as I am the wheel-spinning. There’s something about sitting at a wheel, slowly and steadily treadling away, that I find to be relaxing and meditative. (Two of six bobbins of the Corriedale are done now; I hope I have some time to spin this week!)

April 26th through May 2nd has been declared to be Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. It looked like fun, so I signed up to take part. Along with a number of other fiber artists, I will be posting about set topics for a week. It will be interesting to see how each of the participants explains our take on the subjects.

Eskimimi, who’s organizing the event, says, “A couple of weeks ago I thought it would be a good idea to try and organise a week of blogging for knitters and crocheters, where individual bloggers could all simultaneously post about the same topics over the course of seven days, so that for one week readers might be able to read from blog to blog and enjoy a community of bloggers all talking about elements of their craft in their own unique way.”

Eskimimi’s posted about Knitting and Crochet Blog Week here, if you’d like to know more about it. The topics for the week are also listed in that post – but hidden in drop-downs, just in case you like surprises.

Despite not remembering when it is, I’m pretty excited about MDSW. Like last year, I plan to buy mostly fibre – the hand-dyed stuff that I love to touch before deciding to buy. I’m going to help a friend look for her first drop spindle and some fibre so I can teach her to spin. I’m *not* going to buy anything that hasn’t already been washed. I haven’t gotten around to carding any of the solid-coloured stuff that I bought last year, so I don’t think I need more of those. I meant to bring the carder out over the weekend, but it didn’t quite work out. I *am* going to buy a braid of fibre in colours that I don’t usually go for, and something in a semi-solid, and maybe a sort of fibre that I haven’t yet tried – perhaps a blend that will spin into a tweedy yarn.

If I see the perfect sock yarn for my mom, I’ll pick it up; otherwise I’m going to have to order from WEBS as my local yarn store doesn’t have the colourway and wasn’t very forthcoming about their ability to order it in for me. I was a little disappointed at the hedging about ordering, and the implication that I’d have to buy a full bag of the yarn when all I need is one skein. (But ordering from WEBS is dangerous! I never want to get just one thing; I always want to get up to a $60 order so that I can have the 20% discount!)

Apparently, the “Night” colourway was discontinued two years ago, but after some serious web-searching, I finally found two skeins for a great price at the Red Bird Knits moving sale. What a deal! Of course I bought them right away, before anyone else could. I will have to size my pattern notes up to fit his larger hands, but that shouldn’t be too difficult at all, and I’m sort of looking forward to the challenge of it.

In looking around the web, it seems as if the yarn isn’t actually being discontinued, just no longer shipped to America and Canada. There are plenty of colourways listed on Jo Sharp’s site and no mention that it’s going out of production. Does anyone have anything further about this?