Ordering Wollmeise

The Colour Wheel according to Wollmeise
Originally uploaded by elemmaciltur

EDIT: Order now closed.

Thinking about trying Wollmeise sock yarn? Know me? Live in/near the Twin Cities? (It's easier to post than to send out an email to y'all.)

Thanks to Elemmaciltur for the gorgeous photo (seen at right). Make sure to visit his blog. He's quite the Wollmeise enabler.

A few of us are ordering together-- and we have space for a few more orders. (She ships in sets of 5 skeins). I've never seen the yarn in person, but I've been following online discussions/posts since last January-- and have talked to many who absolutely love the yarn.

It comes in 150g hanks- 575 yds, G.O.R.G.E.O.U.S. colors, superwash merino sock yarn.

The price per skein is great-- email me at honeyninja@gmail.com by Friday morning if you're interested. THis post will dissapear when our order cart is full!

Many socks knit with Wollmeise can be seen here. (Try translate page tool) It comes with a warning-- Look at your own peril. If you order, you will become addicted to this yarn! How funny.

Claudia's site is the actual Wollmeise home. All available colorways can be seen here-- except for the new ones. (Click on her blog to see them, available on the "Wollmeise" side.)

Sock Drawer of Shame

Welcome to my living room. Innocuous -- perhaps even a bit dull, until you know that every bit of storage is full of, you guessed it- yarn! Bag on the door- socks. Basket- random skeins/projects. The "Yarnoire" is packed. In the bottom right-hand drawer I've kept a secret up until last week when Renee stopped in for a visit.
Yes, it's the Sock Drawer of Shame. Akin to The Island of Misfit Toys, this is where my sock projects take a well-deserved time out. As you can see, the drawer is more than 1/2 full of unfinished projects. Here is the very bad toe-up Jaywalker mentioned yesterday-- on KP #0 dpns, I see. Love the Azure Malachite colorway.
I'm allowing myself to 'play around' with toe-up heel flap possibilities for a week, and then I must return to the Lizard Ridge and Sockapalooza 4 projects until they're absolutely, 100% complete.

Toe-up, Hell flap

Last night I blocked the final six Lizard Ridge squares, washed the Lotus Blossom Tank, and thought about toe-up socks with (hellish) heel flap snafus.

Toe-ups with Heel Flaps

• About six months ago I tried to knit a pair of toe-up Jaywalkers in this absolutely gorgeous colorway from STR- Azure Malachite. (You know, purchased back when Socks that Rock colorways were actually named after rocks!) They knit up fabulously-- the gusset was perfect, but I couldn't figure out how to turn the heel correctly with a flap. I opted for a short-row post-gusset heel using just 40% of the stitches. It fit well, but the leg number of stiches was astonishing-- and the jaywalker chevron pattern was completly hosed. I'll post a picture of it tomorrow.
• Too bad I didn’t refer to Natalia Knit’s Jaywalker Toe-up pattern. (She was using Judy Gibson’s “Your Putting Me On” worsted weight sock pattern as a template.) Elemmaclitur’s photo at Flickr lead me to Natalia's pattern.
• Widdershins , I think, holds another solution to where I went wrong. (Widdershins has a different heel turn than Judy Gibson's original pattern.)
• I'm also planning to try Schurch's solution in Sensational Knitted Socks. Her toe-up, heel flap on the bottom sock might just do the trick. At any rate, it's time to deal with the problem and find a solution.

Here's a sample of further test knits. The Caterpillar socks are back with a little gusset action. They pool similar to the Opal company's pair at 80 to 84 stitches. Certainly this is not the average knitter's number of stitches on a US 0 to 2 needle! I just couldn't resist casting on with the Posh sock yarn-- a gift from a friend-- to try toe-ups with flaps. Junior high eye shadow, no? It's Lucia-- 70% Merino and 30% Cashmere. Man, does it feel great to knit up!

Weekend Party

Over the weekend we held a party to honor little feet that continue to get bigger and bigger. It was a beautiful day, and a fun event.

The wandering boys were hysterical. They ran the toddler 5000 and fought the balloons just like Paco fights with the vacuum cleaner for the duration of the afternoon.

....take four

Back at it-- here's the fourth Sockapalooza 4 attempt, and I'm finally sticking to it. (I couldn't decide on a pattern-- and the third attempt was too small.)

I started over with a larger stitch count this time-- and it's going to work. The top is a little different (again), I used an eye-of-the-partridge heel (a complete waste in this yarn! bumps everywhere, why bother!), and it's a bit shorter than the first iterations.Alas, I think they'll make cute summer socks.

Singer Sees St. Paul

Approximately 1oo-ish knitters piled into the regular Minnesota Knitter's Guild meeting room last night. (Other meetings I've attending maybe, Maybe have 50 attendees.)



Amy Singer certainly brought a larger crowd to discuss non-wool knitting.



We laughed along as we all recognized Franklin's work: "It can happen to anyone. 'It itches.' " (Used with permission, I believe.)

Amy proposed categorization of fibers into families. I grew up watching one of these families below during after-school re-runs, so laughter ensued...Amy talked about wool lust... all the items that folks allergic to wool can't use. (Noro! Anything by Elizabeth Zimmerman or Meg Swanson!) Oh, the travesty.
...and then she offered techical solutions, like silk!
The presentation was great, and certainly delved into fiber technical talk that we usually don't think about. As a dyer, I was particularly interested in the chart that described how well color is absorbed by different fibers.


I can't not show these great sleeves to you! Tiffany crocheted Mrs. Weasley sleeves from Charmed Knits. What fantastic color! (what's up with the weird shoulder bumps, though?)

Knitintensity forgot her camera, so this one's for you!

TC Event / Ravelry

Twin City Knitters: Amy R. Singer (of Knitty.com fame) is coming to town tomorrow (6/19/07). She's speaking for free at the Minnesota Knitter's Guild meeting at 7pm. Her latest book No Sheep for you! will be on sale at 75% of cost-- and she'll sign every copy. See you there!

You've probably heard it all before-- but I'll throw it out there in case you read very few blogs. Go to Ravelry. Get on the wait-list. Knitters, it's worth your time! You'll love it! You know how you spend hours googling for a new favorite yarn/pattern/errata/color options/issues, etc., etc.??? It's all in one database. Oh, for cool. Best feature? Searching for 'ugh's!

The wait is worth it. I've been on for a few weeks-- it's great.
(my name: cashmeredreams)


Coming up this week: Finally- a contest winner!, dyed yarn for friends & for sale, a large finished object, and why the blog was quiet for an entire week.

WW Sock KIP Day

Glorious weather, wonderful view. Someone (thankfully) beat me to the roll-call punch, so click away to find out who showed up at Lake Harriet for TCknit's WW KIP location from the links above.

So, what was everyone knitting? (Left to right, all photos)

1. Socks with FREE Panda Cotton Yarn. Lucky Woman.
2. Elphin Bride in black mercerized cotton.

3. Socks - Meilenweight Cotton
4. Socks - Panda Cotton
5. Socks - ? You were knitting socks, right?
6. Dropped Stitch Tank. beautiful!

"Umm, honey... are you knitting with your imaginary yarn!?!?!"
7. Ohh look! More socks! Nancy's Traveler's socks from Knitting on the Road were quite impressive.

8. Kristi was knitting gloves. Gloves, with lots and lots of wool!!! Many would not touch the warm stuff when it's this beautiful outside.

9. Our final knitter: mittens. Wooly, warm mittens.

We're going to meet up again this August at the Irish Fair. Become a member of TCknit at Yahoo groups to find out more.

Troika

1. Twin Cities: C'mon out and join the TCknitters tomorrow for a brown bag lunch just east of the rose garden at Lake Harriet from 11 to 2. It's a good time, although bring a blanket or chair. As Marge can attest to, wee biting beasts were out last year. (Chiggers, folks. Chiggers. two words: fingernail polish.)

2. Earlier in the week I went here:

(MN Bonsai Society's Annual Auction) and met her. Knitters are everywhere! I was trying to look at a few trees during the silent aution-- and she spotted the raupe socks in my basket. Actually, the event became much more interesting once we started talking (in hushed voices) during the regular action. We were yelled at only once by the auctioneer... :)

I bought two trees on the silent (cheap) auction-- a Quince and an Olive tree. I had a Chinese Quince years ago for about five years. It's a lovely wee flowering tree that must be kept indoors during the winter. (In Minnesota, at least.) When I left for six months to live in N. Africa, my keeper slowwwwwly killed it. So, I thought I'd give Bonsai another go. I'll show you tree pics next week.

3. Remember the summer goals? I've been working on the write-up for this:

I just figured out the last component yesterday!

Have a great weekend.

Raupe!

A few weeks ago I swapped yarn with Odie over at Knit Bleu. She starting knitting a pair of crazy catepillar socks-- and just didn't like them. In my stash, I had a STR- G Rocks skein that was knit from & neglected-- so we swapped partially knit-from skeins.

Now, I don't think these are the most gorgeous socks in the world. Ok, ok... perhaps they're not even 'pretty'. But they're interesting. When I see them, I think SPRING! They make me Happy, o.k. Happy.

Another view at work. That's right-- I'm *that* co-worker. You know, the one with knitting at her desk. Never leave home without it!

Yarn is from Opal's Rainforest 2 collection: Raupe. [translation: catepillar] --not necessarily a sock yarn for the masses.

Sad Puppy

Paco was fine as long as he felt icky. By Thursday he started feeling better--but schlepped around the house and looked like this:Clearly he missed Toby. We went for a visit on Saturday & Sunday.
Happiness Ensued

Knitting content will return tomorrow. Promise!