Sparks Flyin'

One big show, and another very big show coming in just over two weeks, on top of weekly farmers' market.

The very big show is making me ancy because it will be my first time at that show. Getting ready for first time venues is tortuous because I have no idea whatsoever what inventory I need to have on hand. So I always try to shoot high - better to have left overs than run out!

And this is at the time when the flock receives grain feeding twice a day to supplement waning fall pastures. (The pastures aren't actually waning very much in quantity yet, but the nutritional value is reduced in the fall.)

So sparks really ARE flying off the sock machine this week between morning and afternoon chores.

Pairs of Lorna's Shepherd Sock bracket several pairs of Fortissima Colori on the machine this morning.

On the coffee table: too many Lorna's, Opal, & home grown Wool/Tencel socks wait to have their toes kitchenered closed while I watch TV at night. (Wednesday night choir practices throw me behind!)

Out in the wool shack, a batch of Opal, Patons Stretch, DGB Confetti, Noro, and home grown dry on stretchers in the dye room.

Batches of Lorna's, Opal, & Wool/Tencel off the drying racks, waiting for tails to be clipped, pairs tagged, and sorted into storage bins. (Sitting on top of skeined one ply wool/nylon waiting for the dye pot.)

The Score
Socks Knit so far this week (between Monday morning and Friday noon): 70.
Toes left to be kitchenered. Less than 70, but lots ;o(

I may soon be able to answer the lingering question - is it possible to wear a sock machine out....

Patons Stretch Socks

I finally knit up the samples of Patons Stretch Socks I got from E a few months ago. Here are the first three pairs:

Colour #31013 Taffy

Colour #31040 Licorice

Colour #31135 Mineral

Patons Stretch Socks
41% Cotton 39% Wool 13% Nylon 7% Elastic
219 m/50 g

All three pair are sized Medium, knit on the Legare 400, 54 needle cylinder.
I used exactly the same tension settings as for a Lorna's binge I finished just before knitting the Patons. AND I used EXACTLY the same pattern.

I also blocked these socks on the same blockers as the Lorna's.

You can see what a difference the elastic makes.

One other difference:
1 pair Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, size Medium = 70g
1 pair Patons Stretch Socks, same size and pattern = 54 g

Haunted Socks
With Halloween almost upon us, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to be visited by a haunted sock.

Maybe not so much haunted as CURSED. Maybe its the combination of halloween orange and the red/yellow fires of hell.

This sock put up one #!^$&^&&%!# of a fight.

The sock was actually knit without problems. And then I started to knit its mate. Somehow I dropped two stitches and they ran all the way down through my connecting scrap yarn and on through the short rows of the toe of this evil sock.

I'll be jiggered if I'd let this sock get the better of me. John the Maverick isn't the only underdog with some fight left in him ;o)

Go Team Go

Had enough of my red and gold Team Socks?

Me too....

More Bob Socks

Here is the finished pair of Regia Galaxy #1580 "Bob Socks" I made for my blog demo last week - knitting Low Pressure Socks.

You can see the top edge rolls over, but doesn't roll down.

This is also a good illustration of how the number of stitches per row can dramatically change the presentation of a self patterning yarn. (The leg is 72 needles mock ribbed down to 54, while the foot is all 72 needles.)

Here are a few more pair I of Bob Socks I knit:

This pair is Regia Color series, colour # 5033. (This series is several years old, and the yarn is pulled from my stash.)

And this pair is Lana Grossa Mielenweit Scala, colour # 6534, also added to my stash a few years ago.

It's interesting to me that the colour patterning in the second two pair of socks doesn't change as much as in the top pair when I switch from mock rib to stockinette.

The above 3 pair are all size M+, and all knit on the Verdun 47, 72 needle cylinder.

Opal Hundertwasser
Since I was digging through the stash anyway, here is something else I pulled out. This time I knit 'regular' socks rather than the Low Pressure Bob Socks I'd been working on.

These are colour # 897, Silver Spiral, from the Hundertwasser collection.

I knit these two pairs of socks from two 100 g balls that each started at the same point in the pattern.

The top pair is Size Medium+. I knit one sock from each ball, so that I would still be at a same point in pattern for the next pair.

The bottom pair is Size XL.

Both pair were knit on the Verdun 47, 72 needle cylinder. For the XL pair I loosened my tension 1/4 turn compared to the Medium +.

Bob Socks

Bob Socks are named after a man (o.k. his name is Bob) who regularly shops at the farmers' market. He had surgery in years past that required grafting doner skin off the calf of one leg. He's had a great sensitivity in that leg ever since and had difficulty finding socks that he is able to wear.

A few years ago he lamented that he had been sentenced to a life of baggy black socks.

Together we experimented to develop a sock pattern that would put some colour back into his life.

Bob wears a 7.5 - 8 men's shoe size (my Medium +) but has very slender legs (not my Medium + size!).

Here's what we ended up with:

First step was to eliminate the hem top of my 'usual' pattern. Even though the mock rib has no purls, the doubling of the knitted fabric is enough to leave marks on his legs.

To set up, I'm using the Verdun 47, 72 needle cylinder in a mock rib setting with every 4th needle removed.

In the first photo I've knit two rows at a reduced tension. Notice that my leading tail of sock yarn is still inside the cylinder (vs knit into the second rows of knitting as I normally do).

Then, is an 'almost' mini-hem top, but looser, I hang the stitches from Row 1 onto the stitches of Row 2. I started at 3 o'clock and had thus far worked my way counter clockwise to 12 o'clock.

I work my way around the cylinder, hanging all the stitches from Row 1 onto Row 2. Just before knitting Row 3, I lay my leading tail under the first stitches so that the tail will knit in as I proceed with Row 3 (this saves weaving the tail in later.)

Once the tail is knit in, I increase my tension to my 'Bob Setting' which is 1/4 turn looser than normal for sock yarn.

I knit 90 rows for the leg, still in the mock rib.

(Every 4th needle removed from 72 needles leaves 54 needles in work - so the leg is comparable to my size Medium knit on the 54 cylinder, but a little looser).

The mock rib leg, at Bob's tension setting, will hold the sock up.

For the pre-heel - I replace all the missing needles. Now, if I simply continued knitting I would have holes where the missing needles were replaced. To eliminate these holes I take the bar (purl) of the stitch preceding each empty needle and place it on that empty needle, before knitting further.

Once all the replaced needles have stitches on them I knit 15 rows. This will put stockinette knitting below the ankle, but leave the mock rib knitting above the ankle.

After that - I knit the heel, foot and toe as for a normal Medium + foot.

The top of the sock will roll a little. It's the trade off for no purls and no hem top. But the roll is confined to the top few rows - it doesn't roll down the leg - and there is no binding on the leg.

Now, a few years later, several other people are wearing 'Bob Socks' too.

The yarn in this pair of socks is Regia Galaxy colour #1580. 75% wool 25% nylon, 420m/100g.

These are a few more of the variations I'm working with my Red and Gold 1 ply sock yarn (70% my wool, 30% nylon).

The top pair is Size Large and the bottom pair is Size XL. Both knit on the Verdun 47, 72 cylinder.

Probably (hopefully) one more day knitting these two colours and I should be done the 12 x 100 g skeins.

And for a little break between red and gold... another pair of Qiviut Socks: 70% Qiviut 20% Wool 10% Nylon. This pair is Size Large, knit on the Verdun 47, 72 needle cylinder.

This little guy was waiting for me this morning when I went to the wool shack to start knitting. He was stuck (I think) between the screen and the window.

DS took the air conditioner out of this window a week ago, and I put the screen on the window the same day. So it seems the bat must have been there for a whole week.It was very cold last night, and the bat was in a stupor when I found him.

I put him (him for sure) on a mitt and set him on the freezer in the garage to try and warm him up.When I went back a few hours later he was gone off the mitt and I can see him up in the rafters.

Bats eat zillions and zillions of insects so I'm very glad to have them around. (Since I have zillions and zillions of insects bugs on the farm!)

The Tara Festival of Crafts is over for another year. It was a profitable show, the final of three weekend shows in a row.

One of the wonderful things about this show - the local grade 8 class and their teachers are on hand to help unload your vehicle on set up day, and they are there to load you back up when the show is over. This gets vendors in and out lickity split. I wish other shows did that too! Those of us whose knees, backs, and hips have bid adieu to their glory days really appreciate their help.

There are a few things, on the other hand, that I found troubling this year. There was a jewelry vendor beside me who didn't seem to have a lot of action on day one. On day two she had bright neon coloured signs all around her booth, "Everything 1/2 price!"

And just a little further down the line was a knitting vendor with a big sign, "All Proceeds from Knitting Donated to the United Way".

This kind of thing is absolutely verboten at most juried shows as it puts other vendors, who have paid for their space, at a distinct disadvantage and pressures them unfairly to drop their prices or give their money away.

I'm sure other jewelry vendors, trying to make a living, suffered as a result. (I might have suffered too had the charity knitting been any... well..., never mind . )

Really. It's one of the things that separates a Craft Show and a Rummage Sale.

Hopefully the organizers will tend to this detail that detracts from the quality of an otherwise excellent show.

Thursday Odds and Sods

This is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, colour Alsan, in Size Medium, knit on the Legare 400, 54 needle cylinder. I was on a Lorna's binge, again, but I'm only showing you one pair as I've shown the other colours in the recent past.

Something New

This is my own 1 ply, soft spun, 70/30 purebred lamb/nylon, fingering weight. It is a single ply version of what is usually doubled up to make my 2 ply sport yarn.

It doesn't knit at half the weight....more like 2/3 and I presume that to be due to the light twist.

I dyed 6 skeins each of this yarn in Prochem's washfast acid dye (primary) Red and in their Gold.

On its own, the Gold looks to my eye to have a wee tinge of green. (cheap gold?)but put against another colour I don't see it. (Maybe I'd see it against green.)

I'm doing a craft show - Fair November - in Guelph ON in November and the show is held at the University. Red and Gold are the university colours so I decided I'd make up some 'team colour socks' for the occasion.

The pair in the photo is size Large, knit on the Verdun 47, 72 needle cylinder.

Back to the Drawing Board

This is a skein of my new Super Bulky 6 strand Unspun yarn, 100% wool, 100 yds/8 oz.

I dyed the skein alone in my 20 gallon pot. The strings I used to tie the skein were 16" long. Clearly not long enough! Adding water to this yarn is like releasing that spray insulation in a can - it expands to a zillion times its original size!

My larger ball winder, that can make 1 lb balls of worsted weight yarn, could barely handle 4 oz (half of the skein.)

Worse, I had a little bit of felting happen with the unspun strands. My sheep - Columbia - are a LOW FELTING breed (which is why knit goods can go in the wash untreated).

But there is a difference between LOW Felting and NO Felting and the unspun will not want to be dyed in the pot.

To be fair to the yarn, the felting was minimal and I probably could have teased it apart if I possessed a little more patience.

So its back to the drawing board (since I'm not expecting an increase in patience any time soon) to figure out how to dye this yarn more effectively.

Frankly Scarlett...
I do give a damn, and so I'm off to Tara tomorrow for the Tara Festival of Crafts which runs Friday and Saturday.

And the Weenie....
he lost.

Sea Silk

I knit two scarves with Sea Silk - hand painted by Hand Maiden: 70% silk 30% seacell; 600m/150grams.

This is another of those fibres that is heavenly soft.

The colours are spectacular, unlike my photos of the colours. I can't reproduce the sheen of the silk, which is particularly sensational in this first scarf - the colours have a serious crown jewels thing going on!

I knit the scarves on the Legare 400 with the 100 needle cylinder, set at a 9:1 mock ribbing and with a tension loose enough to give me a wide scarf without going lacy on the stitches.

It took the full 600m of each generous skein to deliver a 60" scarf.

I haven't washed/blocked the scarves yet. I want first to figure out how to block them so they don't downsize.

The colours of the second scarf are quite close to Lorna's Laces Mixed Berries, and I have enough scraps in Shepherd Sport weight to make a fringe if it needs a length boost after washing.

But I have nothing remotely close to the colours of the first scarf, so I really need to block the beast carefully!

What the Difference....
between a Prick and a Weenie?

I'm not sure either, but when I wake up tomorrow morning, one of them will be my Prime Minister.

Fall Colours

Jesse's a little bashful today and didn't really want to sit still for a photo op.

I wanted him to show you our Japanese Anemone. These are a great (and easy) plant I got in trade for some Peonies a few years ago. These are one of those shove-a-clump-in-the-ground-and-walk-away plants.

This particular spot gets the late afternoon sun, but is in shade most of the day, and get very little water being situated under the eaves.

What I really like about this plant - it spreads easily, but not insanely, and it blooms in the fall. The flowers will last until they are buried in the snow.

Not that I'm expecting snow anytime soon.

The fall colours are well underway.

Some of the maples are in serious colour!

But there is a lot of colour yet to happen.

The colours are late this year. Usually they peak the week before Thanksgiving (Canadian). Yet here we are at Thanksgiving weekend and many species have yet to turn.

Knitting?
Not much to speak of - I've got a few scarves on the sock machine, waiting to come of and have their edges finished.

This weekend we are part of the Escarpment Studio Tour, so I've been fussing about mowing the lawn and generally trying to make the homestead look presentable.

The dye pot has been going pretty much all week though!

Here's today's batch:

This is my own 2 ply Mule Spun worsted weight, 100% wool, dyed Chocolate Brown.

I vat dyed this batch. I wanted as close to a solid colour as I can get, so I set the limit at 6 skeins.

I've very pleased with the colour and (I think) it is richer than it appears in the photo.

It was a strange dye experience - at first the yarn turned a pale mauve, and then a medium mauve, and then a dark mauve. Only after simmering for over an hour did the chocolate thing happen.

So.... I'm guessing this brown will go well with mauve!

Happy Thanksgiving to all.....

A Windy Day

Or, at least, a winding day.

I have done no knitting this week!

Truth be told, I needed to wind some yarn on the ball winder to prepare for knitting as I had none at the ready.

In my 'To Be Wound' basket there was quite a load and I ended up spending more than a day emptying that basket.

Most of the yarn is my own wool from assorted recent dye batches, but I also decided to wind up some Hand Maiden Seacell, Qiviut, Kroy and DGB Confetti in preparation for the next knitting attack.

And since I was in a winding mood, I prepared two dozen 100 g skeins, wound off the cones, of my own 70/30 wool/nylon 1 ply woolen spun sock yarn for the dye pot.

And speaking of the dye pot:

This is a batch of my own 2 ply Mule Spun (worsted weight) 100% wool that I've dyed in variegated shades of chestnut, olive, and plum.

The yarn is sharing the dry rack with a batch of my own grey pure wool sport socks and blue wool/nylon duro-sport socks.

Hats Off

Here is some more experimenting with the 100 needle cylinder on my Legare 400.

The three hats are all Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, colour Jeans.

The pattern used is exactly the same in each of the three hats - same number or rows 9:1 mock rib hem, and the same number of rows stockinette for the hat body.

The only difference is the tension setting, which I changed approximately 1/2 turn between hats.

It was interesting (well, to me at least) to see not only the change in size of the hats, but how the colours in the yarn changed their behaviour.

I like the colour patterning on the left most hat best.

Here is another set of three done with Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock colour Flamingo.

This time, for the last hat on the right, I didn't do a mock rib hem, but a stockinette hem and body (all 100 needles in work) and with the tension wide open to see what is the biggest hat I can make with this weight of yarn. I also used 10 fewer rows in the body of the hat when I saw the gauge the was happening.

The size of that hat, in my humble estimation, would be a small/mid size ladies, or older juvenile.

I like the colour patterning in the middle hat best.

This past weekend was the Apple Harvest Craft Show. It is one of the bigger shows and is the beast on which I cut my craft-show-teeth many moons ago.

The weatherman blessed us with cool sunny weather, the latter being good for attendance, and the former being good for wool sales.

I was ably assisted in the booth by DD (and 7/9th of her baby) and by my two oldest GK's.

We set a new record of sales so returned to our homes happy, albeit exhausted!

It was nice to meet some of my blog readers from Canada and the US - thanks for dropping by!

Today I rest.

Tomorrow, I knit....

Getting To Know You

Getting to know all about you.

And by you I mean the 100 needle cylinder for my Legare 400.

I've had this cylinder for well over a year but only took it for a very short test drive once.

This week I'm getting to know it.

The cylinder is a new manufacture by Jaquie Grant, NZAK manufacturer from New Zealand. It is aluminum so very light weight compared to original cylinders.

I've got the cylinder set up in a 9:1 mock rib format, which is to say that every tenth needle is removed from the cylinder, leaving 90 in work.

For my initial play therapy, I decided to knit some scarves (simple straight tubes) and explore the tension settings with different weight of yarn.

My setting is 4/4 of a turn looser on the tension knob than my standard setting for 4 ply sock yarn on the 54 needle cylinder.

The first scarf is a grey heather 100% cashmere, 2/14 NM.

One ply is grey and the other is white/off white.

(I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how the NM system of yarn gauge works. But I think the first number is the number of plys and the second number is higher as the yarn is thinner.)

The scarf was knit 600 rows which was 60 inches long. After washing it is 54. I haven't figured out how to block these properly yet.

The scarf weights 98 grams.

My second scarf:

This scarf is aslo 100% cashmere, but this time 3/28 NM (which is finer than 2/14). The colour is Aubergine.

Also knit at 600 rows or 60 inches, it also settled to 54 inches unblocked after washing.

The Aubergine scarf weighs 73 grams.

And third:

This scarf is 65% superfine merino 35% angora. At 2/28M it is even finer than the Aubergine cashmere.

I intended to knit this one 600 rows as the other two, but (at the same tension setting) I checked midway and found I was getting 7 rows to the inch instead of 10, so I quit at 420 rows.

Like the other two scarves, it was 60 inches going into the washing machine and 54 inches unblocked on the dry rack.

The merino/angora scarf weighs 35 grams.

35 grams!

(How many times does 35 grams divide into 40 lbs?)

Finishing the Scarves

For my opening edge, I did a micro hem top. So, I knit three rows and then hung the stitches of row one onto the needles of row three.

For the closing edge I used the same hand stitch (name unknown to me) as for my arm warmers and fingerless gloves: running the finishing tail with a darning needle through the last stitch that was knit, and then ahead two, back one, all the way around and weave in the end. I sew from the wrong side of the work.

I may or may not add fringes to some or all of the scarves.

Or, more correctly, dw may or may not add fringes to some or all of the scarves.