Recently in Yarn Category

This weekend was a serious reminder that fall is not only coming, it's here and planning to stay for a while.  Saturday was a lovely sunny day, but it was also definitely sweater weather as I made my way over to Yarn Con.  Chicago may not be close to Maryland or Rhinebeck, but for those of us who haven't been able to make it to the eastern side of the country for a full on fiber festival, Yarn Con was a pleasant surprise. There were a remarkable number of indie dyers and spinners to go along with all of those who also made wooly goods and knitting notions. 

It seems to me like the best part of these festivals, big and small, is the opportunity to meet the people who make the lovely goods that make the crafting experience so much more pleasurable.  I have made several purchases from Emily Parson's Sophie's Toes and have had a couple email conversations with her as well, and try to keep up with her blog, but had never met her in person before the weekend. 

Emily was truly delightful to meet and talk to, and I hope I'll get the chance to see her at more local Chicago craft events.  My only regret was that I didn't get to talk to her at all about her quilting!  I was ever so pleasantly surprised that, in spite of my late arrival time (everything co-ordinates around a certain someone's nap these days) she still had both some Magic Balls and some "Candy Corn" colored sock yarn.  I've been stalking the Magic Balls on her Etsy shop, but I have had a hard time getting to that party on time too, so I never was able to get one in my hot little hands.  But I had better luck at Yarn Con and got this lovely "Calico Cat" Magic Ball.

For those of you who, like myself, didn't know what a Magic Ball was until recently, it's a skein of Yarn that Emily creates by joining lengths of yarn from a variety of different colorways.  It's a bit like a hand dyed version of Noro in a lovely soft sock weight merino.   Emily has a fun scarf pattern that she uses as a model, but she also showed me a Baby Surprise Jacket that was absolutely adorable.    I think mine has a scarfy destiny...

I love to take closeups of hand-dyed yarn because you can really see the details and appreciate what makes a yarn special this way.  In this case, the lovely speckles of orange and yellow that take this yarn from being just another Halloween themed colorway to something that is quite artful as well as being fun. 

Emily also has something else that sets her apart where her dyeing is concerned: she makes a remarkable number of really delicious and still man-friendly colorways. My husband has recently corrected me to say that it's not that he doesn't like color in his life, it's just that he doesn't really like too many colors and he doesn't really want his socks to be bright.  I could have brought home a whole basket full of colorways that I think he would have been okay with  (and that doesn't mean that there wasn't plenty of brilliant color at Emily's booth!)  

Last night I got so busy with an old project that I forgot to actually blog.  It's been a little while since I got really lost in my knitting, so I let myself go with the stitches and actually let myself dream of having a new fall sweater. 

Looking over my other projects, I can say they are all progressing.  I have finished the body of the skirt for Ms. Z's Zebra Striper jumper.  My Kusha Kusha scarf is increasing in size slowly.  My walking is resulting in the better part of a toe for my walking socks.  And I have another, more detailed sock project that I'm very happy with -- the first sock is almost finished.  I'll blog about it when I the first sock is complete.

Thus, I am left to talk about something that I have been indulging in a little more this summer than I did last summer: buying sock yarn.


One day a couple of weeks ago, Ms. Z and I were out for a walk and I popped into Nina's (one of two stores that I can consider my LYS) to see if I could find any books with good baby garments.  While I was there, I was pleasantly surprised to find that she is now carrying Dream in Color yarns.  After picking up some Smooshy, I was completely able to understand why so many people are raving about this sock yarn.  I let Ms. Z help me pick out a couple of colors to take home for inspiration.  The blue is Some Summer Sky and the red is Ruby River.  I think it's very likely that one of these skeins will become a pair of Francie socks once I finish up the patterned socks I'm working on. I've been in a bit of a sock knitting rut lately, and I think those socks look like something that would get me to think a little bit along with being fun to knit.  And since Z helped me pick them out, if there are any left overs, she's going to get some socks, too.  Baby Dragon socks, anyone?

I have to show off this next skein because I don't think I've ever worked harder or clicked faster to purchase sock yarn.  I swear, getting this stuff is harder than getting tickets to a Hannah Montana concert.  It's Sundara Yarns Sock yarn in the Lilac colorway.  After getting hands on with some while visiting Claudia I got bitten by the need for some of this yarn.  The lilac wouldn't have been my first choice if I could have picked anything, but as it turns out, it's still a pretty nice colorway.

This skein was enough to convince me that I would like to have a little more in my stash.  However, I just don't have the time any more to arm wrestle several hundred other virtual knitters for the chance to whip out my PayPal account for a share of the goods when this stuff gets posted. So, I decided to take the plunge and splurge on being a part of the last half of her Seasons yarn club.  I'm looking forward to a couple more skeins of sock yarn as well as a couple of different weights of the silky merino.

While I know I am not knitting very quickly right now, I am really feeling inspired by my knitting lately and I am enjoying surrounding myself with new colors and textures that make me want to pick up my needles in any free moment that I have.  

I am beginning to think that when you have a child, something happens with your personal space-time continuum and everything just speeds up.  Someone of you physics type scientists out there must have done some studies of the localized effects of childbearing on parental quantum physics.  If you have, please send me a link to that manuscript.  This must be the case, or otherwise how could Thursday (and my post) have gotten past me without much notice on my part?

The Phil'Onde top is almost finished, but probably not exciting to look at until it is modeled by a small person, so today I am going to show off some yummy yarn I got not too long ago (well, a month a go, but given my space-time warping problems, it doesn't seem like too long ago to me!).



The fact of the matter is, I don't buy much commercially produced yarn without a specific purpose in mind -- I have too much of this yarn in my stash right now that I am not sure what I am going to do with, so I've been avoiding places like Elan and Webs unless I have a project in mind.  But I still indulge in special, one-of-kind, made by individual people kinds of yarns from time to time.  This yarn is Sophie's Toes, the Layers of Color collection.  The blue yarn (totally destined for me!) is the Cerulean colorway.  The dark yarn is burgundy over green and is going into my "man acceptable yarn stash" -- and it's decidedly more lovely than my camera was able to render it on the day that I took the picture (what looks vaguely grey in the picture is really much more green in person; the yarn reminds me of end of fall colors).

What made this yarn even more fun and more special, was the response of a certain someone to it. Emily (who actually lives not too far away in the greater Chicagoland area and is an amazing quilter as well as dyer of yarn) sent along some nice words about Z on the invoice, so I had to give Z the opportunity to enjoy Emily's handiwork.  You see,  Ms. Z's given name is the Polish version of "Sophia" and the nickname we use for her is the Polish version of "Sophie".

She made a beeline for that yarn.  And then thoroughly inspected the label.

Ah yes, nothing like getting them hooked on the good stuff, early.   And she already likes to watch me knit.  After I finish a few other projects on my list, I might have to get her some of her  own .  Emily has some beautiful stuff in her shop right now.  I think the "Love" colorway would make an absolutely adorable baby sweater!

A Small Dark Collection of Socks that Rock (Mediumweight)

It's always nice to get out to the Fold when Toni has had a recent delivery of yarn from Blue Moon. Way back when my Dad and Mom were visiting a few weekends ago was one such occasion. And so I bought myself some treats:

1) Obsidian
2) Stormy Weather
3) In the Navy
4) Lagoon
5) Puck's Mischief

The first three are for a gentleman that I live with who is very specific about his sock color requirements. I actually bought the Obsidian (the mostly black yarn) as a bit of bribery for encouraging In the Navy use, even though I have sworn to him up and down that I will never knit him a pair of black socks. Fortunately for me, the Obsidian has a good deal of depth that isn't immediately apparent. With the right little bit of detail, I think it will make a nice pair of socks, and won't be totally evil to knit with.

The Lagoon and Puck's Mischief are both for me -- or at least won't be used for Man Socks. I've been thinking about turning one of them into a pair of "Here There Be Dragons" socks because it would be kind of fun to have a pair fo those for myself. But who knows? Sock yarn that ends up in my stash always seems to change its final destination at least once...

A long time ago -- almost 4 years ago! -- Emma and I established our own little yarn swap. There are no particular rules or requirements or time frames, the idea is just to put together a box full of goodies that we think the other person would enjoy. On Christmas Eve I received a treasure box from across the ocean. Sometimes, it's like Emma can read my mind. This box was a beautiful sampler of hand-dyed UK sock yarns. How could I not love that?

A Treasure Box of Hand-dyed UK Sock Yarns

A box like this is really too good not to share, especially since I know that there are a lot of sock yarn junkies out there just like me who are always looking for wonderful new sources to feed their addictions with. So, starting with the peachy colored yarn at the top center and working my way clockwise...

• Blue Faced Leicester sock wool in peachy-pinks, purples and a bit of red from The Natural Dye Studio. This lovely yarn has been hand dyed with dyes from natural sources. I'm not 100% sure, but I think the colorway might be "Burnt Ruby". No matter what it is, it's a beautiful two ply yarn. And the two skeins are definitely enough for a pair of socks.
• Lucia Sock Yarn from Posh Yarn, colorway unknown (maybe Evening Star?)-- the colors are very similar to the BFL, though. This yarn is 30% cashmere and 70% merino. Yum! I can tell you right now, I'm not sharing this stuff! It's just about as soft as you might imagine it would be.
• Fyberspates Sock Yarn in Heather Mist. This yarn is a 15% nylon 85% wool blend, but you would hardly guess there was any nylon component given how soft it is. Given the way this yarn is dyed, it will definitely have lovely purple and grey stripes. Very fun!
• Peace of Beauty Sock Yarn in Mountain Fruit. This yarn is 100% merino superwash and is 100% absolutely luscious. Of all the yarns in the box, I've probably fondled these two skeins the most. I can't quite explain what draws me so far in with this yarn. The color is extraordinary, it has the quality of being both rich and faded. The presentation is beautiful. The hand is very nice.
• Colinette Jitterbug Sock Yarn in Bright Charcoal. This is also a 100% merino superwash yarn and it was a treat to see because just the day before I got the box I had read about the yarn and was wondering where the best place to find some would be. I guess it surprises me that it took Colinette so long to get into dyeing sock yarn. And this stuff doesn't disappoint. I have a sneaking suspicion that Emma snuck this one in to help me on my quest for man-friendly sock yarn. This colorway is definitely boy compatible. But who knows if I will actually share?
• Curious Yarns Sock Yarn in Igloo. (Unfortunately, their website seems to be down right now). This is a 4-ply 25% nylon 75% wool yarn with some of my favorite faded blue and aqua colors. It's very soft (once again, softer than you'd expect from a yarn with nylon content) and the dying is lovely. Very evokative of early spring mornings.

Tucked under the Jitterbug is a lovely little keychain "sock blocker" with instructions to make a mini sock to put over the blocker. What a fun thing! Certainly beats the metal ring I've been using for a while. That will definitely be a fun little project for a gloomy Chicago winter weekend.

I hope it goes without saying that there's not one thing in this box that I don't absolutely love. And, believe it or not, most of these colors are completely under-represented in my sock yarn stash. This box was a fantastic introduction to a collection of hand-dyers that I had no idea were out there. The world is clearly full of beautiful hand-dyed sock yarns!

A Small Business with an Incredible View

Those of you who guessed that I was going to get a chance to visit Mountain Colors were completely correct. After wrapping up my business trip I headed over to Corvallis to see where a good deal of hand-dyed magic is made. Leslie, one of the owners of Mountain Colors invited me to stop by when I first mentioned I was going to be in the Bitterroot Valley on business sometime back. It was a real treat to get to meet Leslie and to get to see how their dyeing operation worked.

Unfortunately (at least from the point of view of getting to see a lot of the dyeing process in action) I got there a bit late in the afternoon when they were beginning to wrap up dyeing operations for the day. Leslie took the time to give me a short tour that started in the dyeing room. This room is filled with plastic containers and soaking yarn heat baths and dye bottles filled with rich colors and the air is filled with the smell of vinegar -- exactily what a dyeing room should be like. When I got there, they were dyeing mostly rich deep solid green.

Once the yarn is dyed and rinsed, it moves out to dry.

Drying Pheasant

This is just one of several racks full of drying yarn. What you see drying here is (I think) Bearfoot in the colorway "Pheasant" -- which I used once, long ago, in a pair of socks for my friend, Judy.

Once the yarn is dry, it is given to people who skein it up in the put-up weights that Mountain Colors wholesales. Then it moves to the packing room -- a room full of boxes with yarn store names on them. When a box is complete, it gets introduced to the UPS man who takes it on its trip across the US to its final destination.

Mountain Colors has an incredible array of yarns. All of their stock yarns have been carefully selected for good "hand" when you knit with them, and some of them have been created especially for Mountain Colors. Leslie told me that their "Wooly Feathers" eyelash yarn was designed when they found a yarn made of chicken feathers that they liked -- they worked with a mill to create a mohair/nylon blend that had the look of that yarn. The resulting Wooly Feathers is a really unique eyelash style yarn that really does evoke feathery thoughts. Twizzle is another interesting yarn. It's a 4 ply where one of the plys is a silk ply that takes up the dye differently, creating interesting color contrasts in the yarn.

Not all the yarn ends up being shipped out, however. At the shop in Corvallis you can find mill ends and left over skeins from store orders that you can take home with you. The extra skeins are sorted by color and it's a great deal of fun to see how one colorway can look very different when used with different fibers. But perhaps the best image is just getting to see so many of their beautiful colorways in one place.

A Wall of Color

This photo represents one of 4 walls of bins. There are an incredible number of colorways and solids. Leslie told me that they usually retire three colorways every year and introduce 5 new ones. Almost all of their colorways are based off of 5 (I hope I am remembering that number correctly) stock dye colors. It's always amazing to me what a skilled dyer can do by understanding how to manipulate the depth of shade and how to combine colors.

I wasn't really planning on buying anything when I went out there -- as anyone who has been in my yarn room knows, I have a fairly robust stash. But I fell in love with one of their newer yarns -- 3 Ply Wool, which is a 100% targhee wool yarn. If you remember my Sigil sweater, it was made out of Sweetgrass Targhee (also a Montana product, by the way). As a result of that sweater, I have a very soft wooly place in my heart for targhee yarn. It is soft and lofty and warm and is good for outerwear and closer to the skin garments. When I found the box of 3-ply Wool mill ends, I found myself putting together my own rainbow to remind me of Montana.

Wooly Montana Rainbow

That, my friends, is 40 ounces (just under 3 lbs) of hand-dyed aran weight targhee yarn. Just as soft as can be, and destined, I think, for a small afghan made up of random log cabin squares. I pretty much cleaned them out of the 3-ply wool mill ends, so you might want to wait a little while if you were hoping to find some of your own on a trip to Corvallis.

A big thanks to Leslie for being a very kind host and spending time with me today. I had a lovely visit, and definitely plan to get back next time I'm in Montana.

About a month ago, at the same time Stitches Midwest was going on, Nina's had a a very fun trunk show: Habu Textiles. Nina's is the only place in Chicago that I know of that carries Habu yarns, and even she only keeps a small selection on hand, so I was pretty excited about getting the chance to see more of the fibers up close and personal and to have a chance to see how one might use a stainless steel and silk blend or paper yarn in a garment. The trunk show featured most of the garments that you can see as kits on the Habu website. And there's really nothing like having the chance to get up close and personal with a unique fiber/fabric combination.

As you might suspect, most of the garments are relatively simple in texture and design since the yarns themselves are so unique. Instead, most of them have an interesting twist on the shaping that shows off the yarn to its best advantage. Habu yarns are a very tactile experience. There were many pieces that I was drawn to but would never wear. But there were also a few that really seemed clever and as if they might fit in my wardrobe. Combine that with a 20% discount on all kits that night, and it's no stretch to understand why a little shopping was done.

Do You Habu? I do! I do!

With the stylistic guidance of the divine Ms. B I ended up with two kits. The olive green and navy blue cones on the left are 100% GIMA cotton tape yarn for Kit 76, the GIMA Cotton Cardigan. This is one of those garments that doesn't look like much in the picture on the website, but that I really liked when I put on. The combination of the two colors of yarn held together with the very open basketweave stitch creates a lot of depth. It will be nice over a turtle neck in the winter or something with shorter sleeves in the spring. Clearly, it's more of a decorator piece than something that will provide actual warmth. But a girl needs a little decoration every now and again.

The second set of cones are for the Kushu Kushu scarf. The grey cone is a blend of stainless steel and silk, while the black cone is a 100% merino. Both of these fibers are exceedingly fine, and for most of the scarf they are worked together. The unique aspect of this scarf is that the area with the merino is meant to be felted to give the scarf extra texture. But what really sold me on this scarf? The stainless steel does these crazy wild shaping things. And it stays put. So very very cool. Once again, not practical, just decoration. But a most excellent decoration, I think.

One thing that you might want to know if you are interested in these kits, is that the patterns are in English, but the instructions are definitely Japanese in style. The Jacket pattern is almost entirely schematics, as is the scarf pattern. The scarf patterns have instructions similar to the French instructions I've worked with in Phildar patterns that tell you how to perform any shaping. Also, at least for the cardigan, there is only one size provided. So if you want it to be bigger or smaller you would need to get out your calculator and make the necessary up- or down-scaling. I've heard that this one size per garment is very typical of Japanese knitting patterns. The knitter is expected to know how to manipulate the sizing to get what they want, given all the structural information.

The cardigan will probably be the next project up in my rotation for myself. It's colors have a lovely, if somber, fall quality to them and except for the texture, it is a simple garment to construct. And I think two cones of cotton could travel very well on vacation if it didn't get finished before the vacation got started!

P.S. The needles in the foreground are the Lantern Moon rosewood circulars that I found at Nina's when I picked up my cardigan kit. They don't have the sharpest points on them, but they are wonderfully smooth, have very nice joins and a flexible cable that doesn't require steaming. Kind of pricey, these needles are, but I very much like knitting with them, and can definitely see myself gradually adding a few more sizes (this is an US 8 on 29") in the future.

Some days I just can't wait to come home and find out what might be waiting on the back porch. Today was one of those days. You see, a very kind blog reader, Gwen (sadly blogless) has shifted her focus from knitting to quilting. And in order to make way for more fabric stash (which I can completely understand, since my mother's passion for fiber tends more towards fabric than yarn) she decided that she wanted to send some of her yarn stash out into the world to see what it might become. It turns out that I am very fortunate, because Gwen, who has read my blog for a while, thought some of her lovely stash would find its future with me.

I love surprises, and while I knew the box was coming, I had no idea what might be inside. After getting all my stuff inside the house, I grabbed the box and my scissors and took it all up to my favorite place to be in the early evening: my upstairs balcony. I love the light and the breeze and the odd view I have of the Sears Tower. I spend most evenings out there when the weather is tolerable. And tonight I had a mystery box to explore.

A Beautiful Box Full of Color

After opening the box, I got bathed in more color and texture. I just had to spread it out so that I could take it all in and do some serious yarn petting. I've seen Malabrigo before, but I'd never picked it up and realized how soft it was. And here were two skeins in a beautiful blue/green colorway. Ditto for the beautiful rich purple Karabella Aurora 8. With 4 balls, I can imagine a lovely special occasion scarf (I've read that Aurora 8, while lovely, does what most merino does, and pills a bit when it gets used a lot). And then there's the sage colored Classic Elite Premier and Attitude -- pima cotton and tencel and pima cotton and silk blends, respectively. Both are soft buttery yarns that remind me that I don't usually give cotton blends enough of a chance when I knit.

On the flashier side (in the center of the picture) are 3 skeins of one of my all time favorite yarns, Lorna's Laces Lion and Lamb. The colorway, Watercolor, is suble shades of some of my favorite colors and just calls out to be in a special project. And it's hard to miss the Colinette Prism in "Jamboree". I'd love to try spinning a yarn like that myself -- if ever I could convince my fingers to make a bigger diameter, fluffier single.

Just too much good stuff to list!

Lately, I've been feeling kind of uninspired about knitting, but this bountiful box of color has really got my brain whirring away... What could be the best use of 10 skeins of beautiful chocolate brown Jo Sharp wool? Is it cool enough to start on a pair of socks for myself in Mountain Colors Bearfoot? Is the pima/tencel blend a good substitute for the pima cotton yarn called for in Annie Modesitt's crochet cardigan pattern from the last Interweave Crochet? I just want to bury myself in my fiber room and start thinking about all the possibilities.

Thank you so much, Gwen. I am still overwhelmed in the best possible way by this treasure chest from your stash. I promise to give your yarn a very good home. Every time I knit with it, I will remember your generosity and that there is so much good energy and so many good people in the fiber/fabric/crafting community. And someday, I will brighten someone else's doorstep with a special gift in your honor.

Edited 8/19/2006 -- I'm turning off the comments for this post because it seems like the spammers have found something to love about it. Must be that spammers like gift yarn as well!