This n That

Here are some skeins of Mulberry Sock, fresh from the dye room. My own 75% Wool 25% Nylon fingering weight. This batch was vat dyed using Prochem's washfast acid dye, colour Mulberry.

Double Whammy

This batch began life as hand painted Pears N Berries (from last week). I did several batches of that hand paint, then switched to vat dyeing and did a batch of Island Blue.

The Island Blue dye bath wasn't completely exhausted, so I threw in a batch of the Pears N Berries to see what would happen.

Now I know, and so do you!

More Gryffindor

This is another variation of Harry Potter Gryffindor team colour socks, in Cranberry and Toffee....my own 75/25 Wool/Nylon fingering weight yarn, knit to size Medium with the 54 needle cylinder on the Legare 400.

A Real Treat

We had a major treat at my church this past week-end in the form of violinist Emily Aquin, formerly of our parish and currently of Dallas, Texas.

I was riveted during all three services. Riveted. What a pure, beautiful and magnificent sound! It is so easy to make a violin look difficult and sound awful, and so hard to make it sound perfect and look easy.

I don't know that I ever knew what an angel sounds like, but I'm pretty sure I do now.

When Nancy met Jenny

I don't know if Nancy Bush and Jenny Deters have met in person. But they have met on my bookshelf.

More recently, they left the bookshelf and visited the work table beside my Verdun 47 sock machine, with the 72 needle cylinder fired up and ready to go.

Welsh Country Stockings
by Nancy Bush

And, as adapted by the Soxophone Player:

I'm pretty chuffed with this effort.

I combined skills I learned from Jenny's book with my own modifications of Nancy's pattern to suit my sock machine.

The yarn is my own 70/30 Wool/Nylon woollen spun singles in natural and in a pale value of Charcoal Grey (being as I was out of Mouse Grey, which is the colour I wanted). I used a low enough value of the grey dye as to allow a gentle variegation including allowing the natural to peek through here and there.

If you're a regular visitor to my blog then you know I don't hand knit. So what I'm really pleased about is that I was able to take a hand knitting pattern and translate it into Sock Machine-speak.

Pears N Berries

Here is a pair of Size Medium socks knit with my Pears N Berries hand paint 75/25 Wool/Nylon, on the 54 cylinder Legare 400.

I do my hand paints in batches of 6, which is actually two batches of three. Even though I use the same colours on both groups of three skeins, they are always a little different. In this case, I would say there are more Pears than Berries.

But in this batch,

there's definitely more Berries than Pears!

And here is a combo pair using Golden Pear as the main colour, and leftover Pears N Berries for the heel, toe, and a wee accent stripe tucked under the hem top.

And at the dye pot

Another member of the new colour scheme is Island Blue (which you should be able to see in the Pears N Berries). I've fiddled some with the picture - its really a deep turquoise in the lower values, turning almost to navy in the higher values.

As with the other colours in this theme, I am using my own 75/25 Wool/Nylon fingering weight.

The Early Bird

I am fortunate to live in an area that is teaming with artistic talent. Studio tours, art shows and craft shows abound.

The Walters Falls Group of Artists has an annual show in the community centre of the tiny village of Walters Falls - just a few minutes from the farm. I've been visiting this show for the past four years. I usually go Saturday afternoon once I've returned home from the farmer's market, had a brief rest and unpacked the truck.

However my friend Aesop, who also attends, taught me the lesson of 'The Early Bird Gets the Worm'. Even though I never left empty handed, I was always scooped on a beautiful piece by someone who got there before me.

This year, DW and I were there Friday night before the doors opened, along with a few dozen other like minded folks.

As we entered I heard the horrible sound of, "Hi,what are you doing here?" directed to DW, along with her response of, "How nice to see you," yadda yadda yadda.

Long story short....I got scooped again! I did manage to grab 2 out of three I eyed, but a beautiful painting of a handspinner's small flock of coloured sheep in a barnyard was not to be mine ;o(

All this within ten minutes of the doors opening!

Oh well, it was still a great show, and by going Friday night we were able to partake of the complimentary wine, cheese, and goodies.

I'm already planning my strategy for next year. A roll of tape is involved ;o)

Meanwhile,

This is my batch of Golden Pear I dyed last week, now dried and re-skeined. This is my own 75/25 Wool/Nylon fingering weight yarn.

The Golden Pear is part of a new colour theme I'm trying out. Here it is as a handpaint with the other colours in the theme:

The other colours in the theme with the Golden Pear: Island Blue (almost a turquoise/navy/royal blue blend), Mouse Grey, Mulberry, and Clay.

I haven't knit with either of these yet....hopefully this week.

Dye Dye Dye

This week I've not knit any socks ;o(

It's taking a long time to unpack from a show as big as Summerfolk, and all my gear is in the dye room, so instead of knitting I've been able to get some work done at the dye pot while I unpack, sort, and clean.

The yarn on the dry rack is a new colour for me this yearn - Golden Pear. It's one of 5 colours in a new theme I'm working on. The dye is, as usual, Prochem's Washfast Acid Dye, and the yarn is my own fingering weight 75/25 Wool/Nylon.

I was feeling impatient about the new colour combinations, so I skipped ahead from dyeing the individual batches in the pot to hand painted some skeins with the 5 colours to see how they fit with one another.

Maybe you can guess what the other colours are.

OK, this colour is NOT one of them.

I had some end-of-cone skeins of lower yardage than my standard (400 feet) so I tied them up and threw them in a pot of Bright Orange.

To knit Halloween Socks, don't ya' know.

I'm almost finished with the unpacking. Now I have to pack up for the farmers' market tomorrow....

Summerfolk 2009

Summerfolk Music and Craft Festival has come and gone for another year.

It was VERY HOT this year. And even though my spot backed onto the bay, there was precious little breeze and no relief.

Better than rain, I suppose, which threatened or delivered on just about every other day in the entire summer!

This steam engine is actually a corn and potato cooker. Cool! They fired up the burner with wood and when steam starts to roll they divert it to a cooking container where they do up corn in the husk and new potatoes. And every once in a while the engineer chef would give a toot on the whistle.

Given the VERY HOT weather, working that contraption for three days must have been a real b*gger!

This group was set up on the hill across from me. (My spot is barely visible on the bottom right corner - I'm taking the shot from behind). They do story telling in the wigwam (that was VERY HOT) and drum making/chanting out front.

A few other shots from the Artisan Village:

And here is my humble spot:

The part I hate about all shows is the tear down at the end. Summerfolk goes to 9 p.m. on Sunday night, so tear down is in the dark. And dust. And did I mention it was VERY HOT!

It was well past the witching hour when I finally dragged my sorry butt outta there and I have absolutely no recollection of driving home to the farm.

But I'm here, so I must have done ok....

Why Do Today

What you can put off til tomorrow!

That's been my reluctant motto, despite decades of trying to reform!

I had a few weeks of unexpected company, which was fabulous, but I'd put off getting ready for Summerfolk Folk Music and Craft Festival since it was 'weeks way'.

So I've been in overdrive this past week....I can't put it off til tomorrow. It opens tomorrow!

Here is some of the fruit of my labour:

This is Gryffindor Knee Socks in celebration of the latest HP movie. The yarn is my own 75/25 wool/nylon, pot dyed with Prochem's Cranberry and Toffee. My Knee Sock recipe has been working very well and they now knit up without much of a struggle.

And by 'without much' I mean, except for hanging the hem after 80 rows without pulling the entire outfit off the needles. When pulling up this much work from within the cylinder it's worth the extra effort to hang a few weights on the upper rows to keep them from jumping off.

These are knit on the 72 needle cylinder on my Verdun 47, starting at a tension 8/4 looser than my normal setting for this weight of yarn. I tighten the tension 2/4 after the hem is hung, and then thrice more (egad, did I just say thrice!), once after each pair of stripes.

Because this is a size Medium pair, I reduce the number of stitches at the pre-heel and pick them up again just before the toe.

And here is a few Cat in the Hat pairs. The top pair is size Medium, exact same pattern as the Gryffindors. And the bottom pair is a size Medium +. The only difference is that I don't reduce the number of stitches around in the pre-heel and foot, and I add 6 rows to the length of the foot (3 rows in each of the colour bands).

Unsocks

This is a pair of mid length fingerless gloves. The yarn is a first timer for me - Fly Dye BFL, hand painted by Pat Fly. This yarn was a gift from Moe and I was very happy to receive it... I'd been wondering what all the flap about BFL this and BFL that was all about.

The yarn is called a sport weight with 390 yards for 4.5 oz, but really, it feels closer to a fingering weight... maybe comparable to the 'real' 4 ply yarns (similar weight to Kroy). The twist is very tight, giving a good strength to this 100% superwash wool yarn.

This yarn has a very nice feel to it and the generous twist doesn't make it stiff to knit with or to feel. I backed my tension off a quarter turn and it was perfect!

(Note to self: fire up the fork lift and get more BFL ;o) )

Here are some 'regular length' fingerless gloves, knit with my own hand paint Sun Baked Earth, and Slate Blue, both 75/25 wool nylon fingering weight.

And here are three pair of Over the Elbow fingerless gloves, knit with Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport (comparable to a 6 ply). The colours, from the left: Mixed Berries, Jungle Stripe, and Rainbow.

The thumb and gusset work on the fingerless gloves has become much less of a challenge. Like most things on the sock machine, its all about balanced tension and finding that perfect spot to hang your weights.

And while they knit up in about the same time as a pair of socks, it does take me quite a lot longer to seam the thumb and finish the edges. (And on the bright side, it makes kitchenering seem a breeze!)

And the dye room

is now a loading dock. Bins are packed, tent checked over, everything ready to load in the truck.

It's supposed to be HOT for all three days of the festival....not my favourite thing, either for personal comfort or for selling wool.

But I'll dust off my 'ice boxes to Eskimos' routine, and away I go.....