Aftermath

I had such a good time at yarn crawl this year! Thanks so much to Tina (owner of Black Sheep at Orenco) for allowing me to set up a trunk show at her shop! I had a blast, sold my yarn and met lots of new knitters.  

After the Thursday / Friday trunk show, my mother-in-law, husband and I hit the other 14 shops that were part of this years Rose City Yarn Crawl. I wasn't planning on buying much (because let's face it- I have enough yarn to knit with for quite a while) but still got some goodies:

Overall it was a great weekend and I'm already looking forward to Yarn Crawl 2016. :)

Almost Yarn Crawl Time!

It's March, and that can only mean that it's almost time for the Rose City Yarn Crawl here in Portland! This is the 3rd year that I will have lived in Portland for the yarn crawl and I look forward to it every year. I had a good time at my first crawl in 2013 and had a fun time last year, too. 

This year the crawl is extra special for 2 reasons: 

1) My mother-in-law is coming down from Alaska and will be doing the crawl with me! (And probably my poor husband who will end up being dragged along. He's generally ok with this as long as we stop at some good places for food.). She is a knitter too and every year I mention that she should come. This year she is and I can't wait! 

2) I will be having a trunk show at Black Sheep! I am so excited and a little nervous. I have never done anything like this before. I will be selling my Lilliput Yarn on Thursday and Friday (March 5th and 6th) from 10-6. If you're local I'd love if you come by and say "Hi"! 

I've been working on knitting up some of my yarn so that I have samples to show at my table. The first thing is the super popular Sockhead Hat by Kelly McClure knit in the "Barking up a Tree" colorway. 

I really like how it turned out, but there was what seemed to be some never-ending stockinette stitch involved. 

I also made a sock in my "Lady" colorway. No pattern used, just a toe-up sock with a short row heel. I try to make all of my yarn in a way that it won't pool and it turned out well in this case. It really drives me crazy when I get pooling in socks so I do all that I can to avoid that from happening in my own yarns. 

Lastly, I finished up the Rose City mystery shawl aka the Washington Park Shawl by Debbi Stone. This was my first year doing the mystery shawl that they release as part of the yarn crawl and I really enjoyed it. 

The light color is Cascade Heritage Sock in the "Limestone" colorway and the blue is Lilliput Yarn in the "Salty Dog" colorway. I almost did the shawl out of two colors of my own yarn but thought that might be too busy and went with a neutral instead. 

Now that those projects are done I have spent most of the weekend re-skeining and labeling yarn in anticipation of the yarn crawl. It's been a lot of work, and I think I may have tired out my little helpers. 

More Treats

A few posts ago I wrote about my self-striping yarn called "Trick or Treats." I've been knitting up some socks to see how the color stripes turn out. I really like the final result: 

Sample sock

This is my own pattern. I started on the toe using Judy's magic cast on and increased until I had 64 stitches (this is the typical number of stitches that I cast on with size 1 needles to fit my foot). I kept knitting until I got the the heel. I decided to use an afterthought heel at this point so that the striping sequence wouldn't be disrupted. 

When I got to the middle of the orange stripe I knit in a piece of scrap yarn on half of the stitches (32 in this case) and then just continued knitting as usual. Once I cast off the top of the sock I went back to finish up the heel. 

I went back to the scrap yarn that I had knit in and took it out while picking up stitches as I went. Then I figured out where the halfway point was in one of the orange strands of yarn and started knitting in much the same way that I would make a toe in a cuff-down sock. I decreased down to 32 stitches then used the kitchener stitch to close the end. 

Picking up stitches to start the heel. 

Once I finished this sock I weighed the remaining yarn and determined that if I used a different ball of yarn for the toe and heel then I could get a 2nd and 3rd sock out of the same ball of yarn. For this pair I used Emily O'Grady's Vanilla Bean Striped Sock recipe. 

Vanilla Bean Sock Recipe

I love how this one turned out and I'm about halfway through making the next one. I'm also dyeing up some more of this colorway as I type this to re-stock my shop. Keep an eye out for it soon!