WI Sheep & Wool 2017

Sometimes I can't believe how fast the knitting time has flown. I've been knitting for 16 years, I joined the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup over 9 years ago, and, relevant to this post, I went to my very first Wisconsin Sheep & Wool in 2008.

Like that year, I enjoyed WI Sheep in the company of knitting friends. This year was a contingent of House Cuppers, including IsisOnEarth, xamonster, tangledskeing, mariacrafts, (me), and bandbabe:

I also met up with my awesome research collaborator, hedgieknits, who drove up from Chicago for the day. She wrote about the event on her blog here. Most important, she was my voice of reason this year and kept me from running rampant in the Fiber Optic booth, as I've done in previous years. (Seriously, I was carrying around three different items and she helped me leave the booth empty handed - that's strong magic.)

That's not to say I didn't buy anything. Hedgie introduced me to Ewetopia, where I bought 2 skeins of Kickapoo sock yarn in the most lovely kettled-dyed purple-black. I also picked up a copy of The Complete Surprise, a book about variants of Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Surprise Jacket, which I've been eyeing for a few months now.

All and all, it was another wonderful Sheep & Wool festival. It's been a decade of this festival and I never fail to enjoy it.

WI Sheep & Wool

Its September in Wisconsin, which can only mean it's time for Wisconsin Sheep & Wool! This year's trip was lovely as I again met up with some Ravenclaw friends from the Ravelry Harry Potter House Cup.

Row 1: stacymarie, NoNeinNyet, Piper, MariaCrafts
Row 2: jayannell, CathyCake
Row 3: isisonearth, OneNeedleKnitting, Xamonster
Row 4: BrineyDeep (me), semperfila, bandbabe
[Photo courtesy of CathyCake]

I honestly spent most of the time at the festival hanging out with these ladies and catching up. It's always wonderful to meet in person and I wish we could do it more than annually. At least we have Ravelry for the rest of the time.

Besides hanging out and knitting (or in my case spinning) we saw some of the sheep dog trials, which are always a favorite. We also caught the walk and knit competition which is a walking relay where teams get points for both speed and the number of stitches finished. Very fun.

On the shopping front, let's not talk about the damage I did at the Fiber Optic booth. I am still totally gradient obsessed.  We'll see if I can knit everything up before next year's Sheep and Wool, although I am ready to cast on one large gradient project.

And finally, as is customary, I end my post with a sheep photo. Sheep!

Wisconsin Sheep & Wool

It's that time of the year again--time for another visit to the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool festival! I've been going to the festival on and off for a few years, most recently in 2011. It's always a great time, between the yarn shopping, looking at sheep, and watching sheepdog herding. If you have never seen a dog herding sheep, you are missing out on life (here, let me fix that for you).

Clockwise from front left: IsisonEarth, Erulin9, OneNeedleKnitting, MariaCrafts, HoneySpoon, StacyMarie, Jayannell, PorcupineSnuggles, bandbabe, xamonster

This year's festival was particularly notable for the large meet-up of Ravenclaws from the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup on Ravelry. In addition to seeing my former Madison knitting buddies, there were folks visiting from Illinois, Iowa, and many parts of Wisconsin. It's hard to explain to Muggles just how awesome these people are and how not creepy it is to get together with people I only know from the internet.

Shopping-wise, I exercised a lot of restraint this year and came home with only 2 skeins of yarn: MadTosh Merino Light in Calligraphy. It's probably not the thing to go to a local festival and buy yarn you can find anywhere, but this stuff is gorgeous. And I already have the pattern picked out for it: the Orchid Thief shawl (who wants to guess who that pattern is by?).

I will end my Sheep & Wool post in the customary way: with a photograph of a sheep. This lamb is only a day or two old may just be the cutest thing I have ever seen. Ever.

Yarn Swap 2: What I Made

A few months ago, my college best friend O sent a skein of yarn as part of our second yarn swap. The idea was to knit something for her from her yarn while she did the same for me. I mailed off her finished item a couple of weeks ago and, now that she's received it, I can finally show it off on the blog!

The yarn for this swap, a custom cotton blend from Yarnia, was a bit challenging for me to deal with. This was partly because the yarn was slightly thicker than the DK listed on the label and partly because cotton behaves very differently than wool, which is my standard fiber. Cotton isn't as sleek or elastic as wool, so I don't really like knitting with it. For this yarn, I think I sampled 2 or 3 different patterns before settling on Almond Comfit (surprise, surprise, another Ysolda design).

Even settling on a pattern was difficult because my friend lives in a warm-weather climate. I'm actually thankful I live in Wisconsin because knitting is invaluable for at least half of the year. What do people knit who don't live in cold areas? I made a guess for this swap and settled on something fashionable that doesn't have to be warm. I hope there are opportunities for her to wear it.

Now that her item has been sent off, I can't wait to see what she makes for me! My item from the first swap was lovely and I know the second one will be just as amazing.

Yarn Swap, Round Two

My friend O and I enjoyed our yarn swap so much that we're doing it again! This round, I sent her some of my handspun and she sent me a custom blend yarn from Yarnia in Portland.

The yarn is made up of a number of cotton strands that have been wound together on the cone. It's not like a normal yarn, as there isn't any twist holding these strands together, but it should knit up pretty well. I especially like the colors my friend chose for this yarn; it has some color depth that's hard to capture in this photo. Now that I have the yarn in hand, it's on to planning what to make for my friend!

2012-07-03 Edited to Add:
And here is my friend O's post about the yarn swap, complete with better photos of both yarns.

Joins

It's been a fun week for getting together with knitters, starting in Chicago where I was at a conference for 4 days. My roommate for the trip and fellow conference attendee, Abby, was someone I'd met through Ravelry and messaged several times but never actually met in person. I know this sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it ended up being wonderful and by the end of the trip we were finishing each other's sentences.

The Chicago crew. Image courtesy of Abby, the knitter on the far left. Thanks Abby!

While in Chicago, Abby and I also got together with some members of the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup group from Ravelry. We started a Loopy Yarns (where I convinced Abby to knit her first Ysolda pattern, an Ishbel) and ended up eating Thai food and knitting together. It was wonderful to see everyone and catch up.

The Madison gathering. Image courtesy of Judith.

Once back in Madison, I met up with more knitters from the House Cup. (What can I say? We like get-togethers.) It's amazing how easy it to transition from hanging out with all of these people virtually to spending time together in person. I always enjoy it.

Russian Join in Progress

While at the Madison gathering, someone taught me how to Russian Join (a technique that joins two yarn ends together). How did I not know how to do this before?! You simply weave the yarn ends back into the working yarn, which creates a pair of loops that can be used to connect the two strands. In my opinion, Russian Joining is right up there with spit-splicing in miraculous-knitting-techniques-everyone-should-know and techniques-that-save-you-from-weaving-in-ends. I anticipate using Russian Joins extensively in my future knitting.

Vacation

I spent all of last week driving up the west coast enjoying some vacation time with the husband before he moves to Milwaukee next month. It was great to have some time off together and to see friends who live in San Francisco and Seattle. One of those friends is the one I did the yarn swap with, so I was able to give her the Pogona shawl while I was there. In return, I got a Wingspan shawl made out of my yarn, which I love:

In addition to the Wingspan, I returned from the trip with a lot of great stuff, including this awesome hat I picked up in Berkeley, CA and some sheer polka-dot fabric that will look great as a blouse. Most notably, I returned home with over 1000 photos, a few of which I'm sharing here.

All in all it was a wonderful trip and I was happy to be able to relax and enjoy the scenery for a while. Now that I'm home, things are gearing up for the big move in a couple of weeks so wish me luck tackling my craft stash into boxes!

Baby Play-Book

A few of my knitting friends recently got together to make a baby gift for a mutual friend who is expecting. Our first thought was to make a blanket, as there were 6 of us contributing, but dealing with gauge issues just to give mom another baby blanket seemed like more of a hassle than a blanket was worth. In the end, we settled on creating a soft play-book.

The play book turned out to be a great idea. Everyone made a roughly 8-inch square out of machine-washable yarn of any color using any stitch pattern. The 'pages' were then sewn to a garter stitch 'binding' (with one ridge of garter binding per page) to create the book. And because my friend M could not resist, she added safety eyes and ties to make it look like the 'Monster Book of Monsters' from Harry Potter.

The best part of this project was that the contributed squares were so different. My friend J added pockets to her square and filled them with sea creatures (above). Another friend did an intarsia square. My square was a boring knit-purl design that turned out too big. But in the end, the jumble of colors, sizes, and designs just made this book a better toy.

The mom-to-be loved it. While the baby won't be playing with this book for a little while, I expect that it will amuse someone in the meantime; you're never to old to enjoy a non-lethal copy of 'The Monster Book of Monsters'.

Wisconsin Sheep & Wool 2011

I made the trip to Wisconsin Sheep & Wool again this year (see last year's post on Sheep & Wool). This festival is such a nice mixture of shopping, catching up with friends, and seeing a variety of sheep, that it always makes for a good time. Additionally, I went to the 'Unwind' afterparty, which boasted over a hundred Ravelry members and their friends. All in all, it was a great trip.

A few of the more interesting things I saw this year included dog whistle trials (above) and sheep judging. The dog trials were very entertaining to watch and I was amazed by how well some of the dog/owner pairs work together to herd a group of sheep. The sheep judging was also interesting, though much more sedate. I particularly enjoyed watching the judging of a 'family' category--a ram, a ewe, and their offspring lamb are judged as a group, with preference given to breeding that shows improvement in the younger sheep as compared to its parents. These are the type of events that I wish were at the Wisconsin State Fair.

I did come home with a very small amount of fiber: 4 oz of Tussah silk. I exercised a lot of restraint because I'm saving my money up to buy a Bosworth spindle. I'm really looking forward to trying this new-to-me fiber type on my brand new spindle.

And finally, I'm leaving you with the requisite silly picture of a sheep. This ram was quite a large gentleman (his head was at the level of my waist) and he had the most wonderful set of horns. We saw a lot of sheep at the festival, but this guy was the most impressive.

Fractals and Falling Leaves

I was talking to some friends on Ravelry this week about fractal spinning and my blog post about this technique, when realized that I should update you on how my fractally spun yarn looks knitted up! I ended up giving the first skein in the aforementioned post to my friend Stephanie, who made it into this beautiful shawlette:

Knitted up, you can really see the effect of fractal spinning: the general color progression from yellow to orange to blue overlaid with shorter versions of this color sequence. I love how the shape of her shawl really highlights the color effects.

While Stephanie's handspun shawl is beautiful, I'm totally in love with her autumnal version of this shawl made out of MadelineTosh Tosh Sock. Not only is the color choice perfect for the pattern but you can really see how all of the beautiful leaves fit together into an interesting design.

I'm going to brag about Stephanie a bit and tell you that she designed this shawl, which is called 'Fall of Leaves', and has shared the pattern for free on Ravelry! For someone who recently started writing patterns, she is very talented. Plus, I think it's very generous of her to post the pattern for free since I know she put a lot of time and effort into this design.

I'm lucky to have a knitting friend like Stephanie. I always enjoy our tea-and-knitting dates with our mutual friend C, and I know I'm going to miss her when she moves away from Madison this summer.

All photos in this post are courtesy of my very talented friend Stephanie (eccentrica on Ravelry).

Simple Gifts

It's starting to be that time of the year again, when I think about cheer and gifts and the like. The time of the year when it gets more difficult to talk about my knitting because inevitably it's destined to be given to someone who reads this blog. But today's post is less about all that worry and more about the joy of giving and receiving.


First of all, no post on gifts would be complete without mentioning the beautiful skein of yarn I recently received from my knitting pal DrChopSuey. I'm amazed by her thoughtfulness, especially as she gave me the yarn in the midst of a busy semester and about a week before she eloped! So congrats to her and her now-hubby, and thanks for the lovely skein and introducing me to the Frontier Fiber Mill!


I was able to balance the yarn karma this week by gifting away some of my handspun as part of a swap between the seven-term members of the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup on Ravelry. You know, as much as I am ambivalent about swaps, I really liked spindling up this yarn in my partner's favorite color and putting together a little package of goodies for her. Perhaps I'll think about doing another swap after the holidays are over.


Last up is a little item that is actually intended for holiday gifts: this awesome globe fabric from SpoonFlower. I found this project idea through the Craftzine Blog (which is always an amazing source of crafty ideas and inspiration) and I thought that some of the little people in my family would love to get plush globes for Christmas. Between these and my 'PhD quilt', I have a lot of sewing to look forward to!

Wisconsin Sheep and Wool 2010

It's starting to feel like Fall here in Wisconsin. The cooler weather, football games, and students returning to class all make me eager for sweater season. And for the ultimate knitter's transition from Summer to Fall, nothing beats a visit to the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival.


I went to the festival with my friend Mary Beth, who was my companion at Sheep and Wool two years ago. I tried to get her to bring home a sheep again this year, but she seemed to think that her new roommates were no more amenable to the sheep than her last. Someday, MB, someday.


So no sheep this year, but I did bring home some wool. For some reason I kept picking up bamboo blended roving and ended up bringing two home with me. The one on the left is from Winterhaven Fiber Farm and it's a Merino/Bamboo/Silk blend in the 'Autumn Gold' colorway. The roving on the right is a Merino/Bamboo blend from Creatively Dyed. I also picked up a huge sport-weight skein from Briar Rose Fibers that will probably be knit into a Ysolda design (surprise, surprise).


In addition to wool, I snagged a pair of earrings made out of knitting needles. That's right, those are cut-up knitting needles. I was actually perusing the artist's Etsy store only two weeks ago and fell in love with the above design, so it was fate when I saw them at the festival.


After shopping, I met up with a few members of the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup on Ravelry for dinner (left to right: greenheron, dontpokeme311, jayannell, xamonster, caffeinatedkate, isisonearth, naturallyknitty, me, and bandbabe). Besides a little hiccup with our planned restaurant being closed, it was a lovely evening as House Cup people are always so nice.


And no trip to Sheep & Wool would be complete without seeing a few of sheep. I hope this guy cracks you up as much as he does me!

Knitting Across the Country

Goodness me, it's been a long few weeks. While I've certainly enjoyed traveling, it wasn't always conducive to getting lots of knitting done. So I'm very happy to be home and definitely looking forward to writing up a blog post about my knitting next week. But this week you get to hear about all of the knitters I met on my travels to Ohio and Seattle!


Most of the people I met up with are members of the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup on Ravelry, who suggested meeting up once they found out I would be in their area of the country. That's how I met akasha111182 in Ohio and pertela and rchrispy in Seattle. Even though I had never met any of them in person before, our common love of knitting and our shared experience of being the House Cup made for lots of fun.


The other knitter I got to see in Seattle is actually the fiance of one of my husband's college fraternity brothers. We see each other about once per year when another brother gets married, but in the meantime I keep up with her on her blog. That's the two of us above, having fun in the photobooth at the wedding we attended this past weekend (photo courtesy of 321foto.com). Hopefully, someone else will get married next summer so I can see her in person again!

Mostly, I just want to say thank you for all of my knitting friends for brightening up my travels. With the addition of my local House Cup ladies, doviejay and isisonearth, I truly appreciate being part of a community of knitters who are willing to act as my Seattle tour guide, inform me of the best Ohio yarn shops, or just gab about yarn. Thanks for your generosity, your warmth, and the fun times!

Sadness and Alpacas

It has been a long, tiring weekend here in Wisconsin. The roommate of a good friend of me and my husband passed away very suddenly this past week at the age of 25. Husband and I have spent a lot of time at the hospital and with our friend this weekend, culminating in a memorial service for Mike on Sunday at the Chemistry Department where we all work. The whole thing has been a shock, and I'm sure that any thoughts and prayers directed at Mike's family, friends and coworkers would be greatly appreciated.

I was lucky to get out away from everything for a little while and meet up with some Ravelry friends at the Midwest Alpaca Festival. I mean, how can such cute animals not induce a smile?


I think these alpaca thought that I was weird for taking a photo of them, those silly alpacas.


The friends who went to the festival with me are all from the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup group on Ravelry. I'm still amazed at how my internet friends are slowly transitioning to be real life friends. One of our group was actually demoing that day and gave lessons to my two friends who have never used a spinning wheel before. We all went home with a piece of handspun to show off--mine coming from a few minutes test driving a very nice Lendrum wheel.


While it was great to see the alpacas and learn to spin, the group really went to see the vendors! Since it was an alpaca festival, I scored some beautiful chocolate brown roving from an alpaca named Mojo. I also bought 2 ounces of camel fiber at a great price to see how it spins up, as well as 8 ounces of this wonderfully tweedy red roving. And since I picked up a new drive band (and a spare) at the festival, I am all set to get spinning!

Weaving In The Ends

I am very close to finishing my Vivian Cardigan and will have photos to share of the finished object in a week or two! I was a little worried after I joined the sleeves to the body that this sweater was not going to be finished in time, as my rows were taking 15 minutes each. But luckily, I got together to knit with some friends on Friday evening and made major progress.


Our Friday night knit-together was at our LYS, The Sow's Ear, as part of their bimonthly Late Night Knitting. The shop is the best yarn store in the Madison area due to their selection, friendly service, and tasty cafe offerings. Plus, they have a great rewards program, which I was finally able to take advantage of, having spent so much there on previous visits. My reward of choice was a ball of Filatura Di Crosa Superior cashmere-silk blend, or as I like to call it, crack. I only have 330 yards of this yarn, but it should be enough to make another Ishbel.


But back to the matter at hand: the Vivian Cardigan. I actually finished up all of the knitting over the weekend and it is currently being blocked on my apartment floor. The one major thing I still have to do is sew in the zipper. I bought a 24" zipper at my local JoAnn Fabrics along with this lovely ribbon (below), which I plan to sew over the zipper on the inside of the cardigan. After all of the work I put into this sweater, it really deserves such special little details.


I'm going to talk a little more about the mods I made to the pattern in my subsequent post (mainly making the hood into a collar), but I want to mention the pair of techniques that I learned while working on this sweater. Probably most helpful was learning to cable without a needle. I thought I understood how to do it, but this tutorial really cleared things up for me. The other technique I learned was short rows, with the help of TECHknitter. It turns out that short rows are really not that difficult. I hope you find these tutorials as helpful as I did!

I hope you all have a very happy Thanksgiving!