knit•er•a•cy |'nitərəsē, 'nitrə-|

I've spent the last two days helping out KnitWitches at KnitNation. It was a lot of fun, but very tiring, especially since I started the weekend with some kind of horrible stomach bug that didn't completely go away until sometime last evening.

If you've ever seen KnitWitches yarn at a show or perhaps at I Knit London, you know that it lives up to its name: "Seriously Gorgeous". Eirwen, the talented dyer and creates amazing colourways in luxury yarn that so many UK knitters, myself included, just lust after. It was loads of fun to watch her enjoying the pleasure people got from looking at and touching her work. She's not only an amazing dyer, she's a delightful person, and I enjoyed every minute I spent with her. Her husband, Richard, is also lovely. I'm not sure, but I may have earned the name "snood-chucker", which is probably right up there with "chicken-chaser" in the world of great titles. ;-)

There were loads of knitting luminaries to be seen, but as I was working (and couldn't have afforded any of the classes anyway), I didn't meet any of them. I did catch a glimpse of Beth Brown-Reinsel at the after party, as well as Cookie A, but I didn't meet anybody else. I did score a copy of Janel Laidman's first book The Enchanted Sole, which she apparently was on hand to sign, but ih. Honestly, the classes were so expensive that nobody I know could have afforded any of them, but there were a whole lot of knitters there spending a whole lot of money, so somebody must have been able to. It's too bad: I've been wanting to take BBR's Gansey Workshop for years. That's the only class that really appealed to me: most everything else was stuff I've done before. It didn't really matter; I got to see a lot of friends, and I really enjoyed working with KnitWitches. Besides, I already got to meet my Knitting Idol, and it was just as fabulous as I hoped it'd be.

Both days were busy, in waves. Wollmeise was definitely the rock star of the show; Eirwen said that on Thursday night's pre-show sale, the doors opened and the thundering footsteps down to the Woolmeise booth just made everybody laugh. Wollmeise is hard to get outside of Munich: while they have an online store, they post new wool every week, one a week, and they sell out in less than 24 hours. So, yeah. If you go to the store near Munich, you can get it, but otherwise you have to hope you know someone who's going to Munich (well, Pfaffenhofen) and doesn't mind stopping by Wollmeise for you.

Juno had some lovely things, as did Artisan, Old Maiden Aunt, Skein Queen, EasyKnits, and of course KnitWitches (but you know I'm biased!). Because the KnitWitches booth was just across from Loop, I got to talk to the Loop Ladies, and since the Knitting and Crochet Guild stand was just a little further on, I got to talk to and hang out with the lovely Vanessa, Jan, Yvonne, Penny, Roz, and Various Other People I Can't Remember Right Now.

Good things about the show: Cosy atmosphere, friendly people, mostly good organisation and communication, extremely helpful and ever-present crew. Good mixture of ages, though the event definitely skewed younger and hipper with loads of Ravellers and their youthful enthusiasm everywhere.

Room for improvement: Marketplace seemed cramped from the vendor point of view: even six more inches would have made folk much more comfortable. Shops seemed stacked, and the very smallest stall size was barely big enough for two people and a table. Location in general was not fabulous: hard to find, expensive neighbourhood that probably made accommodation difficult for out-of-towners, we were sharing the space with ICL students and staff, not to mention other events going on throughout the weekend, such poor acoustics in the after party that you had to shout to hear yourself and hearing others was impossible. Classes were £10 more expensive for 3 hours than the I Knit Weekender classes (I admit I may be feeling sour grapes here because I was interested in several and would never have been able to afford them-- I couldn't have afforded to go if I hadn't been working for KnitWitches, so that gives you an idea of exactly how poor I am).

Friday, I was on the stall most of the day, with a half hour break for lunch and little walks around the marketplace to stretch. It was a little annoying not to have a badge, as I kept getting stopped at the door and having to explain who I was again, but nothing's perfect. Marketplace was open 'til 8, but Eirwen let me go around 6. Of course, I spent the rest of the evening hanging out with the ladies at K&C Guild, and then filceolaire brought me doughnuts! He and I had dinner out, then he went off to do night inspections, and I went home to fall into bed.

Saturday, I was on the stall most of the day, with a half hour break for lunch and little walks around the marketplace to stretch. mokatiki came by, and we had a wander. She bought yarn. She helped Eirwen buy yarn. She didn't buy that much yarn. Honest. After the marketplace closed at 6, we had an hour's worth of teardown, and then Vanessa, Penny, Mary, and I went to Paper Tiger for Chinese buffet (£4.99, yay! long walk, boo!), then back to ICL for the Ravelry Party (which, unlike the Ravelry Talk, we didn't have to pay £10 to get into). We met Meg, whose Ravelry name has the word Smurf in it, and I finally actually got a Ravelry badge. I'm not all that active on Ravelry, but hey. There were lovely raffle prizes, which we didn't win, and some knitting luminaries, who didn't know us well enough to realise that we were much more entertaining than all the people we did know. We left a little after 10, having drunk our fill (a Diet Coke each!), and then we had to work to find the exit to the venue and walk back to South Kensington to catch buses home. I made a poor decision and caught a very slow, tiny bus that said it went to Elephant and Castle. I got off the bus at St. Giles Circus and caught a 188 to Canada Water, so I could get a closer bus home.

Here is a photograph of all the yarn I got, and an explanation of how I paid for very little of it. :D

Here's the yarn I scored at KnitNation. Top Left: Wollmeise Laceweight, in colourway Kornblume. 300g, 1,722 yards. 100% merino superwash. Payment for a lace class to be taught to S. Top Middle: KnitWitches Seriously Gorgeous Cash-anova Supersock, in colourway Woodland. 300g, appx 1,200 metres. Merino/Cashmere/Nylon. Payment from KnitWitches. Top Right: Wollmeise Twin, in colourway Förster's Glück, 100g, 311m. Superwash merino. For a sock for J. Top Righter Right: Wollmeise Twin, in colourway Feldmauschen, 100g, 310m. Superwash merino. For a sock for J. Smack-Dab in the Middle: Tilli Thomas Rock Star, in colourway Stony Mist, 100g, 150 yards. Silk with glass beads. Yarn-seller's gift to a friend who didn't care for the colourway. Below the smack-dab in the Middle: Wollmeise Lace, in colourway Golden Pear. 300g, 1,717 yards. 100% superwash wool. For my Dryad, payment for another lace class, as it turns out. Bottom: KnitWitches Seriously Gorgeous Laceweight Silk, in colourway Lapis Night. 300g, 1,800m. 100% silk. Payment from KnitWitches.

Stripey Toe-Up Socks! Completed today around lunchtime. :) These were a lot of fun to knit and part of my 'knit mindless stuff in MA classes' plan.

Matching Stripes and Peasant Heel When I realised how lovely and even the striping pattern was on this great Trekking wool, I chose to put in a peasant heel (aka an afterthought heel) so as not to interrupt the stripe pattern. The socks were knitted straight up in a tube, and a marker was placed at the point where the heel would be inserted later.

Stripey Toe-Up Socks -- they're just so pretty! I used a crochet cast-off to make these socks nice and elastic at the cuff.

Stripey Toe-Up Socks, some technical points When I said these were mindlessly easy, I meant it! They were knitted on 68 stitches, on a 2.75mm circular needle. I used a 50% cast-on for the toe and added the heel marker at 2" shy of total foot length. After that, it was just a matter of knitting up to the top and gauging where the orange piece of the toe had begun on the first sock. I misjudged by a few rows, but I think they match pretty well, anyway. I started the ribbing one stripe before the orange started again, then did two rounds of orange plus the crochet cast-off. The heels were knitted by carefully removing the marking wool and placing stitches individually onto the sock needle, then knitting a short-row cup for the heel.

Ravelry Project Page

So, you know. I got yarn. I didn't pay for all of it, and what I did pay for was cheap, cheap, cheap.

( Eight photographs below the cut tag )


MCA Direct
The Knitting Goddess

I completed these last night and wove the ends in this morning.

( Three photos beneath cut tag )

I picked up this lovely wool on Wednesday at I Knit London, and now I'm thinking I may get a second ball of it if they still have it on Saturday.

Zauberball translates to 'magic ball', and I think that even in the ball it live up to its name. It's just alive with possibilities, isn't it? The wool comes in an astounding array of colours, not all of them this bright, I promise!


( Photos and pattern photo links below cut tag )

As if I didn't already have enough to do, I thought, "Hey, I'll design a pair of lace socks that will work well with self-patterning jaquard sock wool! Yeah! Let's do that!" Well, they've at least given me a chance to experiment a bit more with the square DPNs, which I still like.

( Three photographs, plus technical notes, beneath cut tag. Pattern to follow. )

Back in November, I posted a review of Kollage's "Square" circular needles. I hated them, because the cable is sticky like Gumby, even though the advertising is accurate in that the cable is definitely flexible. In fact, it's too flexible-- but you can read my review above if you're interested in knowing more about them.

On Saturday, I taught a beginning sock class at IKL, and we put everybody on 2.75mm DPNs. I think it's confusing, especially for relatively inexperienced knitters, if teacher is using a totally different method, so I borrowed a pair of the square circulars to knit this sock.

And you know what? I like them. For somebody who magic loops just about everything, that's a pretty big admission for me. They are comfortable in the hands, slick, and fast. If anything could make me go back to DPNs, at least for some projects, it's Square Double Point Needles. Of course, they're still very expensive (£8! for a single set of 5 needles at IKL), so I'm doubtful I'll be stocking up any time soon, but I really like them. Down sides are that just like other DPNs, it's easy to lose one, and at this price, yow. Plus, as they're metal, they won't fulfil my usual reason for having any DPNs at all, which is airplane knitting.

I'm beginning to think that using Brittany DPNs for so long may have coloured my judgment about DPNs in general. Perhaps if I'd tried some metal ones earlier, I would like them a little better in general, although I do have a set of Addi DPNs that I don't like at all. mithranstar has some cool electric purple aluminium DPNs that I'd like to check out, if only because they are PRUPLE. :) But the Kollage ones are a lovely brass colour, and they do make with the happy metallic clicky-clicky, so perhaps I can be satisfied with a few pairs of these. Because of the hefty price tag, I've committed to keeping the plastic shop cases around and storing them in those, in the needle case. Because losing one would be annoying, but losing two would be a disaster. :-/

Mm, this is a fun project.

( Three photos below cut tag )

I took some photographs when I was home for lunch, so you could see how this is going.

( Three photos below cut tag )

...Yeah.

( One photo behind cut tag, with geeking (not much!). )

Ravelry Project Page for this garment.

I did get in a little time for knitting today.

( Two photos below cut tag )

Well, not terribly much progress I'm afraid. Despite the fact that last week was half-term for some people, I had to work a 60-hour week and prepare for four hours' worth of teaching on Saturday. There wasn't much time to work on this project, but what time I spent (a wee bit on Wednesday night at I Knit London and a couple of hours Sunday night at home) got me firmly into the second iteration of the spiral pattern. The Kauni colour change occurred so subtly that I didn't even notice it until I held the knitting up and saw that hey, it did change colour round about there! I am about six rounds into the 28-round offset, so you can just see the edges of the new spirals peeking through above the completed spiral (which looks fabulous, if I do say so myself!) This is a really exciting project, and I wish I had more time to work on it. Maybe this week.

( One photograph below cut tag )

It arrived today! Believe it or not, there is enough here to make a cardigan. I will probably use it to make this vest for filceolaire. Just imagine it all in shades of blue and grey. I may swap out the 3d box pattern on the bottom, because I don't like it. But we shall see.

( Photos below cut tag )

Before I head off to bed, I just want to show you how the sock looks with the next tier of diamonds knitted. The 2mm needles are a bit small for the Cherry Tree Hill wool, but because entrelac makes a very stretchy fabric, I wanted it as dense as I could get it. The knitting itself is slow going, because even though 10 stitches per diamond doesn't sound like many, consider that I'm knitting nine 10x10 diamonds across every tier. That's 900 stitches per tier, not counting stitch pickups, which are time-consuming using very small needles and a yarn just slightly too heavy for the needles. This is one of the many times I wish Addi made lace needles in the 2mm size: the pointy tips would make the stitch pickups much easier!

( Three photos below cut tag, and yes, one is inside out. )

It didn't even occur to me when I suggested to bardling that I knit these socks for her that the name of the pattern sort of goes with her own name. So, bardling, please forgive all the plays on words, and concentrate on the progress of your socks! ;)

( Three photos and notes below the cut tag )

Manos Silk Blend is truly an amazing yarn. Not only is it a dream to knit with, it goes a long way. So far, I've made half-finger gloves, two hairkeepers, and now this teddy bear jumper, from about a skein and a half of the stuff. It lent itself beautifully to this top-down yoke jumper, which is constructed very much like the top-down raglan from a couple of days ago. Fewer photographs than usual, because it knit up very quickly and I was busy hanging out with pola_bear, who stayed the night with us last night.

( Three photos beneath cut tag )

In this entry, I presented photos of the first teddy bear jumper, just a plain shirt to get me used to designing and constructing in miniature. While I will teach that plain shape in the teddy bear jumper class, I wanted to add some more traditional jumpers, plus a simple top-down raglan, to illustrate different shapes and help students learn all the skills required to construct them. Below the cut tag are photos and construction notes on a traditional gansey, sized for a bear with an 11" chest. You can find a written pattern for this exact jumper (you'll have to come to class to learn how to design one for your bear and get the chart for the front and back design!) at its Ravelry project page. For comparison, you can check out the plain shirt jumper at its Ravelry project page. You'll have to be a member of Ravelry to see the complete patterns, or if you're really keen but not interested in Ravelry (and if you're a knitter, why wouldn't you be interested in Ravelry?!), I could be persuaded to email you the pattern and notes.

( Photos and construction notes beneath the cut tag. )

Most of what I'm knitting right now is Christmas presents, so I'll probably post a bunch of pictures and project notes both here and to Ravelry after the holidays. But a few nights ago, I wanted something to knit that wasn't earmarked as a present for anybody, something easy, something that, to be honest, was not a sock! I have three pairs of socks in progress right now and just don't feel like working on socks at the moment. So I found the neon green and black naturespun I'd originally begun knitting the Stitch 'n Bitch Alien Illusion Scarf in. (Link is to the knitting blog of someone I don't know, through a Google images search.) I hated the pattern and it was driving me crazy, even though it would have looked cool in the end, so on Wednesday I ripped it out and started a simple garter stitch entrelac scarf. I don't know who it's for, but it's fun and satisfying to knit.

I'm seriously thinking of turning this scarf into a project class at iKnit London. Do you think intermediate-level knitting students would want to learn entrelac by knitting this very simple scarf? Although the stitch pickups are visible, it's reversible since it's in garter stitch. I suppose I could offer one in garter stitch and one in stocking stitch, for people who really want that classic look.

I'm trying to decide who needs this scarf....

Anyway, photo below cut tag.
( Green and black entrelac scarf )

OK. Now I've talked before about what's different when you compare living in the UK to living in the US, and sometimes I've learned things (like where to get decent hot dogs) and sometimes life just bes that way and you have to lump it (note my semiannual importing of American feminine products, for example).

Would you believe that they don't regularly sell apple cider vinegar in the grocery store in the UK? The only product listing on the Tesco website is for a pricey salad vinegar. Everything else is malt vinegar or white wine vinegar.

Here's where I can get apple cider vinegar in the UK.

I can get it from Higher Nature, which looks to be a pricey health food website. For £6.95. For 300ML. Dude. I'm used to paying like $1 for a gallon of the stuff....

I can get it from Ostler's Cider Mill, and I can get it in 5- or 10-litre boxes (like wine in a box. Remember wine in a box? We're playing all the hits here on WIAB....). It's £24.95 for 5 litres and £36.91 for 10 litres (tempting, but where would I put it?).

Or....

I can get it from Wells Poultry Housing and Accessories (at chicken-house.co.uk, no less!) where it's £3.99 a litre and £12.95 for five.

Right. Here I go, shopping at chickenhouse.co.uk, unless anybody else has a better suggestion.

And, as an aside -- stevieannnie, what the *ahem* do you use apple cider vinegar for wrt chickens? From the chickenhouse.co.uk web site: Apple Cider Vinegar 5 Litres
A total Natural Organic, anti-bacterial, anti-coccidial anthelmintic and tonic beneficial effects for all livestock and poultry. Increases egg supply,improves feathering and improves flavour and tenderness of meat birds. Seriously? you feed chickens vinegar to make them more tender?

ETA: OK, OK, I have been shown the error of my ways once again! It is possible to buy cider vinegar in the UK at a grocery store for a decent price -- just not the way I was looking for it, on the Tesco website apparently tailored to my postcode. But. I am leaving this post up. For the chickens.

*grin*