Free things

Happy Shop Hop weekend! The weather here in the Twin Cities has been perfect for a good meander, drive, picnic - pretty much whatever your heart has desired.

Paperless patterns
Head over to Knitting Daily's website for downloadable bundles of five sock patterns and seven lace patterns. A quick registration (if you haven't already), and you're set. Offer ends soon, I'm assuming, so get 'em while the gettin's good.

Aquatic adoption
Auntie Audi has a friend who is relocating and couldn't take the livestock with her. Audi made a mercy call, and two hours later she and two coolers arrived at my apartment where Kidlet and I opened our door to a school of mollies: two ginormous adults, and about 50 fry of varying ages. All to prevent the untimely flushing of innocent fishies. I. am. such. a. sucker.

Anyone want a fish or five?

Socks gone wild

Knitting socks (sleeves, mittens, whatnot) stepped beyond DPNs with the advent of Magic Loop knitting. Then came the toe-up sock. Then two-at-once on the Loop. This all feels like a natural Darwinian progression to an apex of knitterly knowledge.

Or so you'd think.

Take a look at this article. Kory Stamper knits her socks on DPNs.

At the same time.

Inside. Each. Other.

This blows my mind. I love seeing people thinking outside the box, taking an established technique like double knitting and turning it on its ear. Next thing you know, we'll all be doing it next year...

Knitting is a vital and evolving beast. So cool.

Daily dose of cute, Part II

The LYS is now carrying the Hiya Hiya needle line with DPNs in stainless steel, and circulars in stainless and bamboo. One of the features of this brand (hello, sock knitters!) is the 9" circulars. Yup, nine inches total length in US sizes 0, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, and 3. Even in bamboo.This pair came home with me, partly out of curiousity and partly freakish cuteness. And these aren't the small ones; these are 1.5's.
I haven't tried knitting on them yet, but I forsee some drastic technique changes. Report later.

Old sock

To be accurate, old sock knitting machine. Not quite as icky.

This is sooo going on my wish list... for when Bill or Warren want to spoil me with a trinket.

Happy heel turning!

Learning new tricks

Looky here - Meema made a Magic Cast-On beautiful sock toe on her lovely 40" Harmony needles!

All together now: ooooh, aaaah! And the best part? NO KITCHENER! That makes me seriously happy.

Addendum: The yarn is Lana Grossa Meilenweit Stile (80 wool/20 polyamide).

Busy, busy, busy

We are officially in the throes of Celebrity Weekend Mania. Really, it couldn't get much crazier and exciting. Squee!

Tomorrow evening The Yarnery is hosting Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, a.k.a. The Yarn Harlot, in Saint Paul on her whirlwind book tour. I didn't see her when she came to town last year (scroll to her April 8 blog post), but I understand it was an amazing event. This year there are over 600 pumped-up knitters waiting to soak in every word that tumbles from her Canadian face. Jess, Eric, Scott and I will be providing a musical appetizer to her presentation; more about that tomorrow or Friday. Heh heh heh...

The second Friday each month is Men's Knit Night at Ye Olde Yarnery, under the gentle tutelage of the aforementioned Scott and Eric. In two days our next celebrity visitor will hopefully arrive in town in time to join them: Franklin Habit, another amazing wit and knitter with a penchant for photography. This Chicagoan's blogging makes me LOL ATDT.

Saturday. Ah, Saturday. The Minnesota Knitters' Guild is holding its annual Yarnover at Minnetonka High School in Hopkins. The Yarnery is bringing Franklin to the event to photograph willing subjects for his 1,000 Knitters Project. If you are interested in participating, there is still room on his schedule. Call The Yarnery ASAP to reserve a time - I'm guessing any remaining spots will be filled immediately by walk-ins on Saturday.

All right, knitters. Synchronize your watches. And come Monday, I don't want to hear anyone saying there was nothing to do this weekend.

Hope to see you out and about and proudly knitting in public!

Socks (a knitting post)

I have the urge to knit a pair of socks. Maybe it's because I've been questing after non-irritating sock yarn for my mom, who can't use most wool products. Maybe it's the upcoming knitting celeb visit The Yarnery is hosting - or the gorgeous new sock yarns that arrived in the store last week. Whatever the reason, I've swatched some stash yarns:
two different colorways of BooFly Sock (60 merino/30 bamboo/10 nylon) by Fly Designs. The blue and purple looked much more subtle on the website; in person it's a bit clownish.

Anne (60 merino/25 mohair/15 nylon), by Schaefer Yarn. I love this color, but the yarn really wants to tangle itself, even in a center-pull ball. (Note the book and video in the background...)

Confession about the blue/purple: I was drawn to this colorway because, as a little girl, I was certain that my wedding colors would be light blue and lavender. Every time my mom and I were in a fabric store, I could be found in the special occasion fabrics, holding those two colors of satin together and confirming my "plans". (Our attendants wore sage green.)

A moment of weakness has this big skein of sock yarn (75 wool/25 nylon) coming my way from Etsy artist FatCatKnits. The colorway is called Uptown - isn't it pretty?

In other news, this is the Ravatar of Heatherly Walker, a designer I discovered on Ravelry. It says it all perfectly.

Happy tiny stitches, everyone!

The timelessness of socks

In solidarity with 50 is the new 40 and his much-anticipated return to posting, here is a great historical poem for sock knitters (circa 1885). I haven't worked this pattern, but someday I'd like to make the product of these verses. Enjoy! (Argh - the double-click isn't opening the image, so you'll have to go to this PDF and read it on page four.)