Fiber Fool

You may have noticed the handsome cat in my FO picture on Tuesday. That is my new nephew, Rembrandt aka Remy aka Mr. Pissy Pants. My sister got him about a week or so before I arrived to stay in her guest room. Remy is a cat with two personalities - a purring cuddle bug, and a vampiric devil. Witness…

The bottle brings out the monster!

In reality Remy is a nice cat. My presence just seemed to wind him up. It must be the smell of someone who is allergic or something. He did bite my neck one day while he was cuddling with me and loved to randomly attack my feet. Next time I go home, there will be room made in the luggage for hefty slippers! He also loved to play a game of trying to get into my room whenever I went into and out of it. It was quite the game for me to get my hands washed before bed and get into the room without having to pick him up on my way into the room. All in all, even with bites and foot attacks my extra cat allergy meds the doctor wisely prescribed seemed to help. Plus, he did have a soft mouth and claw and rarely actually broke my skin (a very good thing as my allergies are the worst when my skin is broken by the cat).

Although, my favorite side of Remy is the cute side that just oozes freely when he is fast asleep….

In reference to the number one item I learned on this latest trip back to MN I provide photos above and below as evidence. Above is what I knit on the airport shuttle from the Harmony Transit center to the Frontier stop at DIA. I took the photo just as I arrived at the gate. The toe is sitting on one of those U shaped neck pillows. I found that to be really helpful to my knitting. I sat it on my lap with the bottom of the U towards me and the ends point out along my thighs. I could then rest my wrists on those and drop the knitting down in the opening of the U. It kept me from tensing my shoulders and forced me to remain relaxed in the shoulder and neck area, thus allowing me to knit for longer periods of time.

This next photo is where I was at shortly before they started boarding. It may be hard to tell, but there is a good inch or inch and a half more foot knit after the toe. My intention was to photograph the sock at significant points in either the sock construction or the travel and watch it progress. However, once I landed in MN I was just focused on getting to see my family and the camera got sorely neglected. I can tell you sock number one was completed while watching Akeelah and the Bee after a few days off from knitting. Then number two was cast-on and a large portion of the foot knit while watching Closer (wouldn’t recommend that one, BTW); it was finished while watching Juno.

Pattern: Variation on Master Upstream Sock (rav) from New Pathways for Sock Knitters I
Designer: Cat Bordhi
Yarn: 2 balls Zitron Life Style, 1862
Needles: 2.75 mm (US 2)
Gauge: ~7.5 sts and 9 rows per inch
Size: 60 sts or ~8-inch Finished Circumference, Foot Length of ~10 inches
Changes: While I used the same gusset placement as Bordhi’s Upstream construction I used the standard gusset rate of two stitches every other round rather than the two every three the original pattern called for. I incorporated this change in the math to determine when to start the gusset. I also increased 3 wing sts on each side for “J.” It was just a random guess as I didn’t bring the book or even a cheat sheet with me for calculating that number. With this gauge I could have gotten away with no “J” I think as my “flap” stops at about 1/4 inch above my ankle bone.

Notes: In reference to number 4 of the previous post, I forgot to restock my usual traveling sock knitting pouch and was on the road without a tape measure and Chibis etc. When I realized this during the shuttle ride to DIA I texted DH to send me the dimensions of my cell phone so I could use that to eyeball my gauge. It worked quite well because my Razr is very nearly 2 x 4 inches, so very convenient for taking gauge measures. The hardest part was that the phone has some softened corners. But this allowed me to continue knitting and I was lucky that I still had dental floss in the bag so could use that for stitch markers.

Due to the gauge estimating though the socks are just a tad larger than I would normally want. In fact, they fit my mom quite well and I would have left them with her if the colors would have worked for her and the care of the socks were easier. If I were to knit another pair of socks with this gauge I would start the gusset at 5.25-5.5 inches rather than 6 and I’d likely use 56 sts rather than 60. Had I used ribbing in the gusset area the 60 st sock would fit a tad better. But since this was my first stockinette sock I didn’t know to figure in a greater negative ease than I normally do with my patterned socks.

I did have issue with the yarn. I’m so torn. I love the way it striped and there are a couple other colorways of this yarn I’d love to knit with. However, I ran into a lot of snags in the yarn. One was even bad enough that I had to cut it out. I’ve seen my share of snags in yarns that contain the “sticky” cellulose or engineered fibers like silk, bamboo, corn, etc. but I’ve never seen that problem with pure merino yarns. It is also a relatively spendy yarn, costing about $22-24 dollars for a pair of socks with a somewhat short leg so I’m kind of disappointed in the yarn quality. The company is that of Trekking and I’ve never had any troubles with that yarn. Amanda didn’t mention such troubeles with her two pairs of socks from this yarn either (though she did have a knot in one of four). My first ball also had a knot about 5-7 yds from the end of the ball which of course interrupted the striping pattern. Thankfully it happened on sock one, so I knit sock two from the opposite end of its ball so that the socks were truly fraternal mates instead of nearly identical. It even appears that the second ball, even without the knot in the first sock wouldn’t have matched. While my family would swear about my analness I don’t require my socks to match. However, with self-striping sock yarn I was looking forward to the challenge of getting them to match and didn’t have the opportunity to do so in this situation. I’m unsure if I’d give into my desire to knit with 1860 and 1861. We’ll see I guess. The fabric it creates certainly makes a comfy and warm sock.

1. Stockinette socks are significantly faster to knit than patterned ones - even ribbed.
2. Yarn that yields a firm fabric at 7.5 sts/in still makes a decent weight pair of socks that are not too thick for most of my shoes.
3. If I need to get a lot of knitting done in short order I should travel. More specifically - ride the airport shuttle and fly places.
4. Knitters are resourceful people who don’t let the lack of certain tools stand in their way of making progress.
5. No matter where you are there is likely another knitter or a relative of a knitter within viewing distance.
6. Do not start a conversation with another knitter unless you have at the very least 20 minutes to spare.
7. 60 stitch socks RAWK!
8. Knots in self-patterning yarn SUCKS!
9. The sheen of bamboo content in yarn is irresistible.
10. Always pack additional sizes of knitting needles.

I’m home safe and sound. But, as always happens when gone, the work piles up. I’ll be back soon with more tails of my adventures in Minnesota.

Any guesses where I went on Thursday?

No cheating by looking at the Flickr tags!

Anyone? Anyone?

In pulling together the photos for yesterday’s post it occurred to me that I never fessed up about the fiber stuff I brought home from my trip to Minnesota last month. I guess it’s about time to reveal that, huh?

It was a long time ago, but our original plans to yarn crawl on Saturday, December 1st wasn’t looking good due to weather reports, so Chris kindly left work early and we made a couple stops on Friday afternoon before the knitting gathering that evening. The first stop was Needlework Unlimited.

I think I mentioned it before, but there were way too many employees milling about and breathing down your neck. It made it very hard to actually shop there. I came home with some supremely soft yarn. It is Buckingham from Bristol Yarn Gallery and is distributed by Plymouth. It was *very* economical for it’s content of 80% Baby Alpaca and 20% Silk. Each skein is 218 yards so I could in theory get a scarf-sized flower basket shawl or something out of two skeins. Anyway I suspect some form of lacy scarf. I’m kind of overbooked in knitting for the time being so it isn’t likely to happen this season so I reserve the right to change my mind :-)

Our second and last stop on Friday was The Fiber Studio. It is a pretty new shop and they cater to fiber and mixed media artists more than knitters. There was a large selection of Ashland Bay rovings packaged in many different weights. There were also some gorgeously color polwarth rovings that I couldn’t pass up. That one up at the top of the post is one of those. It is called City Lights and has no other indicator of brand besides the store. I’m unsure if they dye their own or are an exclusive reseller for a local dyer or what. A quick Google search did not turn up any other similarly named polwarth rovings from elsewhere. It did turn up someone else who has spun and knit it up already though. You can see there are other colors hidden deep inside my ball of polwarth!

What I appreciated most was the fleeces and partial fleeces available from regional producers. There was CVM, BFL, alpaca and who knows what else (it’s been too long). Some was processed, some was washed, some was raw. But there was a fair bit packaged into smaller lots than you tend to see fleece available in. It is a great opportunity for someone to try processing their own fleece an see if they like it before investing in a whole fleece. Since I was traveling I couldn’t really imbibe much. However, two bags of kid mohair (a total of 4 oz) came home with me. A friend was likely to be getting some mini combs soon so I thought I should have something to try the combs out on :-)

On Saturday we met up with my cousin Andrea at the Sheepy Yarn Shoppe up in White Bear Lake after a slow drive on a snow and ice covered Interstate from Chris’ place. It was a nice shop. It wasn’t over crowded and despite it being dark and heavy outside, it was bright inside and they have a nice selection of yarns. I came home with a bag (no pics of that, sorry - if we could catalog our knitting bags on Ravelry there may have been a photo though, LOL!) and some luxury sock yarn. I hadn’t seen it before in any of the shops around here so I have to get a skein to try. It’s Classic Elite’s Alpaca Sox. Usually I don’t think alpaca and socks are a good match, but there is a significant portion of merino and nylon in there as well. We’ll see how it does once I get around to knitting some socks with it. Although, it also sounds like a decadent pair of gloves too, doesn’t it??? Hmmm….

That’s it! I was pretty disciplined I think.