Christmas Eve in Santa Fe

I had the most wonderful vacation involving green tea, DH doing all the cooking, and reading many books on my Kindle. My one fiber-related Christmas gift was a beautiful Nordstrom cashmere scarf in my favorite color. It is actually a men's scarf but I like my scarves really long. (In case you're wondering what on earth I'm reading about mashed potato protests, it is The Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky.) 

I started the pretty Cross-Country Ski Hat from Norwegian Handknits but even using the same weight yarn and a smaller size needle, my gauge was way off. I could have easily omitted one 26 st pattern repeat and still have had a pretty large hat. The Ravelry pattern page also states there is a chart error so if I attempt another project from the book I'll check the pattern errata first.

Here are some Christmas Eve photos from Santa Fe.

Drops Karisma Yarn

I bought myself some Drops Karisma superwash yarn at Nordic Mart to make the Drops Socks we're doing a KAL for on Ravelry's Stranded Forum. The price was definitely right - I'll let you know what I think of it once I start knitting the socks.

Bubbles was caught in the act of opening a present too early! She really does love to rip stuff up and could probably find full-time employment as a document shredder.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Snow Day

The snow is here, just in time for Christmas. I love Boston in the snow!

Ishbel Ma Belle

Ishbel ( which I nicknamed Ishbel Ma Belle)is finished and ready to become my mother's Christmas present. I had so much fun wih this project. Spinning was a delight the Merino roving, and knitting Ysolda's wonderfully feminine pattern proved to be equally pleasurable.



I am of course fond of the rich orange color. I dyed the roving using chemical dyes in a dyepot, which gave me quite a bit of color uniformity, but at the same time preserved gentle variations.



I can hardly wait to give it to my Mom! I'll let you know what she says...

No Heat, No Colorways!

This is not my week!First I planted a wood working tool in my hand. And now my furnace stopped working during a real cold snap in New England! The repair could be done tomorrow if the part arrives on time, or Monday.
So basically, I will not have any new colorways this weekend.
But on a happy note, my hand is healing, and I was able to spin a little...

Handspun Eye Candy

A new post, a new handspun. I actually spun this yarn a couple weeks ago. It is a merino silk blend spun in light worsted singles.
I hand-dyed it in a lovely tealy green.
It will become a beret as soon as my hand recovers from a wood working injury...

Finally Finished!

The beautiful bunny Christmas stocking Kate knit and donated has been auctioned off by the NM House Rabbit Society. It was won by a woman who purchased a raffle ticket after seeing the stocking at the Weems Art Fest.

Kate has more talents than just knitting. Her podcast story, Miss Eiderdown's Stocking, was inspired by the bunny stocking and was professionally produced with music. It tells the story of a yarn store employee, Miss Eiderdown, who knits this extravagant stocking and all the adventures (including a love story and a thief) that occur. You can listen to the podcast for free at the Knitpicks Web Site:

Miss Eiderdown's Stocking Parts 1 and 2

This is the Selbu Modern Hat (free pattern PDF HERE) knit on size 1 needles using Elann's unfortunately now unavailable Peruvian Alpaca Fina. It took forever but once I realized I have the perfect person to give it to and I'm seeing her this weekend, I finally bit the bullet. I blocked it over a dinner plate. As you can see you can wear it above  like a beret or as seen below. I have a very large head and it does fit me in the manner seen below but more snugly.

Grace Kelly Collection

Grace Kelly is my inspiration this week's collection.



The colors were utterly feminine, glamorous, seductive... I love them.
I hope you will enjoy them as much as I do.

I almost forgot! I have a special little gift for you. All orders $50 dollars and over will receive a lovely handmade drop spindle with 2 oz of hand-dyed fiber. I have been loving spinning so much that I thought this would make a great gift for you!

More Handspinning

Ishbel is finished and is being blocked. In the mean time I spun some more yarn. I spun wensleydale for the first time. The staples were soooo long! I first spun a multicolored roving in firy tones (you know how much I like bold colors!) The result: soft fingering weight singles.



I then chose a contrasting roving, a practically solid lavender. When I placed them together, I instantly fell in love, and though it was way too late, I spun all the lavender I knew I would need.



It was a good thing it was so late when I finished, because that forced me to let my singles sit overnight before being plyed.



I love the result! The lavender brings some calm to the fire. I can't wait to knit it! I am thinking really hard about a good project.

Dale of Norway Sirdal sleeve cuffs

Today I need to answer some questions I received in the comments. Ruthie is working on finishing another knitter's Dale of Norway Sirdal sweater and asked in the comments to see my sleeve cuffs. Here's my Sirdal from years ago knit in Nature Spun sport weight and yes, it is starting  to pill.

I honestly don't know if I did the sleeve cuffs the right way - I vaguely remember the pattern being confusing. You gotta love those gorgeous braids and buttons though - the buttons are the actual Sirdal buttons designed to be used for this particular design. If anyone does have any questions about knitting a Dale of Norway sweater, I highly recommend the wonderful Dale of Norway group on Ravelry. You can also search for the Sirdal Sweater on Ravelry to find more photos. I don't have time to look through them all but I suspect if you click on each sweater you can find more sleeve cuff photos.

Also, Carissa found my glove knitting booklet on Ravelry and asked if it was a guide for beginners who need to learn the basics on how to knit gloves. I've had this question before and while I think it can be helpful for new glove knitters, it is more helpful for those who understand the glove construction process. It doesn't show the basic process for new glove knitters though; unfortunately I don't know of anywhere online that shows a step-by-step photo or video tutorial on how to divide the stitches for the fingers. One of these days I'll get around to doing that for the blog.

In the meantime, here is the single most valuable diagram from the glove knitting booklet. It is a diagram of how the stitches are divided when knitting gloves; each circle is a finger. The thumb is shown as the largest circle at the bottom left. After the thumb has been deal with (by using either a gusset or peasant thumb), in this diagram there are 48 stitches in a large tube when you get to the fingers. The numbers in blue show how many stitches you take from the front and back of the tube for each finger and the numbers in pink show the stitches that are either cast on or picked up . The numbers inside the circles show the total number of stitches for each finger from 20 for the index finger to 16 for the little finger.

Doing a glove diagram like this can really speed you up when you're knitting someone else's glove pattern and is especially valuable when you're converting a mitten pattern to gloves or designing your own glove pattern.

I hope this helps Carissa - I'd say the best thing to do is to just cast on. Most good glove patterns explain how you go from the large tube for the hand to the tiny tubes for the fingers so if you just follow the pattern you'll have success. I also highly recommend the Glove Knitters group on Ravelry for any technique questions.

Frida Kahlo

This week, my color inspirations came from Frida Kahlo. I love her opinionated pictures, with her bright dresses, jewls, flowers. This week's colorways are passionate, deeply saturated. And this week, I have yarns and rovings to offer!



Enjoy the Frida Kahlo Collection !

Updates

Here's the view today here. Brrrrrr.  I don't know if you noticed but I'm taking down the blurbs about a percentage of the profits from my booklets and patterns going to nonprofit rabbit rescue. I will still donate but I can't estimate how much any longer so I thought I'd stop advertising that fact. I donated $1000 to the House Rabbit Society in each of 2007 and 2008 but it will only be $600 for 2009.

Recently Lulu announced they were taking an extra $1.50 from each pattern PDF. Plus I need to upgrade to the CreateSpace Pro Plan so my technique booklets can finally be sold wholesale. As of January 1st, 2010 I'm going to raise all my individual pattern prices by $1.00 on Lulu, Ravelry, and Patternfish. This only affects the .PDF version of the patterns and not the print versions. The price on the multi-pattern and technique booklets will remain the same. I'll let you know when the stranded color knitting and glove knitting booklets are available wholesale for retailers.

We just started three new KALs on Ravelry's Stranded Forum using free Drops patterns - a pair of knee socks, a pair of socks in 3 colors, and a pair of Nordic mittens. Come join us - these KALs are especially great for knitters new to working with 2 colors per row because there are lots of people there to help you with any question you might have. All the KALs last through the end of January and use DK weight yarn so there should be plenty of time to finish a project.

HOLIDAY KNITTING LINKS

Knitting gingerbread houses for charity

Knitting your own tinsel

Gift tags for knitters you can print out

Fiber Trends cute felt birdhouse ornaments

Judy's Colors stranded Christmas Stocking Kits with some new styles this year

Free pattern for Cat and Dog Holiday Ornaments

Holiday Knitting

I have always knit gifts for the holidays, but never like this year. I really want this Christmas to be meaningful, and I want the gifts to be true gifts. See when you knit something for someone, you think of the person so much. You chose the yarns for them, you pick a pattern for them, or you design one with them in mind, and with every stitch you think of them. I think my friends and family know that and truly appreciate the gifts.
I have been knitting so much over the last few weeks, and this is a gift for me too!
So far I have 4 berets, 3 hats, 3 scarves, a pillow, 1 pair of socks, a toy rabbit, a neck warmer.



My handspun egg is turning into Ysolda Teague's Ishbel shawl...for Mom...

Handspun Goodness

It has been a while since I posted anything related to spinning. Actually, I had not taken the time to spin in a long time. And as always, I fell in love all over again as soon as the fibers started gently sliding through my hands...

I spun 4 oz of merino roving on my sweet little Louet Victoria. I spun fingering weight singles using a short draw.



Now all I have left to do is to find a project for it...

Peruvian Pure Alpaca Fina

The Tijeras Mitten pattern is now available HERE on Patternfish (I'm working on uploading all of my single patterns there) and HERE on Lulu.

I received an email from Elann that they are discontinuing the Peruvian Pure Alpaca Fina due to lack of sales. I'm bummed because I have lots of colors and now I can't design any more projects with it. (HERE are the Arctic Spring Mittens I designed with this pretty yarn.) In fact I'm using the Alpaca Fina right now for the Selbu Modern hat seen below. We extended the Selbu Modern KAL on Ravelry's Stranded forum through the end of December so if  you still want to get involved, go HERE.

Fortunately Elann's thicker Peruvian Pure Alpaca is still in production. I've chosen these colors to make a hat for DH. He requested a pointy hat with ear flaps but I'm not sure that is what I'll do.

The next KAL for Ravelry's Stranded Forum will be an accessory using the massive Drops free pattern archive. Go HERE to vote for which pattern - the Drops KAL will begin Dec 1 and run through the end of January.

The Sale in On!

I am done uplaoding all the skeins and rovings into the sale pages on the website. Each skein and each roving is unique, as these were my creative study pieces. I hope you will enjoy the 30% off Thanksgiving Sale.

Thanksgiving Sale 11/27/09-11/30/09

There will be a sale at SockPixie from 11/27 to 11/30. My creative study skeins and rovings will be on sale at 30% off! The skein or the roving you see in the picture will be the one you get.
Have a great Thanksgiving and Enjoy the sale .

A new Forum

As you know, I have been working on the website for Sockpixie. I am trying to regroup everything into one convenient spot for me, like e-mail and of course community pages. I am really happy to announce that there is now a forum on the SockPixie website where you can share your thoughts about knitting, and yarns and of course where you can meet other SockPixie knitters. The link is on the menu bar. I hope you will enjoy our new community.
I am now off to consolidate my e-mail. Have a great Monday.

This week!

The new colorways are up, and I love them. I am also so happy about the look of the website. The new colorways are deeply saturated solids in merino, cashmere, and Alpaca...




This collection does not have a name, but rather was inspired by a tam I designed.
I am offering the pattern as a free pattern with the purchase of any 2 skeins of yarn. The tam in the picture will include 2 versions one for a true sock weight, and one for a slighter thicker yarn like my IncaSock which was used to knit the tam.



Have a great Thanksgiving week!

Tijeras Mittens

These soft and warm mittens are knit from four new colors of Vermont O~Wool which is a lovely organic merino yarn. The pattern is currently available HERE on Ravelry and it will be up on Patternfish and in my Lulu store soon. I thought the color patterns reminded me of cut-outs so I named them Tijeras which means scissors in Spanish.

The mittens are knit from cuff to tip and feature a peasant thumb and a ribbed cuff. Because O~Wool Classic 2-ply is so thick and springy, consider using a sport weight yarn if you're going to substitute. The pattern is 56 sts around. I included separate charts for each hand to keep the row join on the outside of the mitten.

MATERIALS:

One (1.75 oz/50 g) skein O~Wool Classic 2 ply organic merino wool yarn (198 yards) in each of four colors: Plum (Color A), Evergreen (Color B), Lilac (Color C), and Mulberry (Color D)

A set of 4 or 5 size 3/3.00 mm dpns or 2 size 3/3.00 mm circs or size needed to get gauge

SIZE: Women’s Small. Width - 8“/20 cm, Length from cuff to tip - 11”/28 cm


GAUGE: 14 sts = 2"/5 cm, 20 rows = 2"/5 cm To save time, take time to check gauge.

Inside Out Sweater

I will have a finished mitten design to show you this weekend when DH is available to take photographs. I used Vermont O~Wool's Classic-2 ply which is an organic merino wool. Every time I knit with merino I get so thrilled with the softness and elasticity that I declare I will only knit with merino wool from here on out. Of course I make the same ridiculous pronouncements whenever I knit with cashmere as well!

To my knitter's eye there was something weird about this sweater when I first saw it in the Territory Ahead catalog. On second viewing I realized half of it is inside out so the floats are on the front. What do you think? They call it a mixed-knit sweater and the upper sleeves are lower torso are inside out.

Here's a view of storm clouds approaching the Sandia Mountains. This is actually the other side of the Sandia Mountains that you usually see in my photos and was taken in Bernalillo, NM. They call my side of the mountains the green side so I guess this is the dry side of the mountains. Some say the mountains are named Sandia (watermelon in Spanish) because of the gorgeous rosy color they turn in a sunset but I've also heard that the early Native American settlers actually grew watermelon.

Today's Color Knitting Links:

Check out Mary Ann's gorgeous Polar Bear Chullo pattern in the winter Twist Collective. If I wasn't still laboring to finish another fine gauge hat (Selbu Modern) I'd cast on for this one immediately. Mary Ann also is offering yarn kits for the pattern HERE. Also in Twist Collective is the Frost Tapestry pattern - you get the pattern for the hat, mittens, and neckwarmer that calls for Elann's Peruvian Pure Alpaca.

Mitten knitter extraordinaire Ann (pinneguri on Ravelry) offers some beautiful free colorwork patterns - I just love her Latvian mitten pattern.

Here's another tutorial on How To Catch Floats in Fair Isle Knitting.

Bea Ellis Knitwear is having a 20% off sale on Dale of Norway's Baby Ull yarn. Would you believe that I've never knit with it? I even have some in my stash. I'm going to pick out some colors to design a pair of colorwork gloves.

Here's an apron useful for color knitters to help keep track of all the balls of yarn while you're knitting. I like that they mention it helps you avoid tripping over a strand of yarn when you get up to answer the door. Been there, done that a million times!

For those of you who love traditional Fair Isle knitting in naturally-colored wool, check out the always-amazing Ron Schweitzer. It looks like his newest collection is called Shetland Lighthouses.

Dale of Norway now sells directly to the public. Check out their close-out pattern and book shop to grab all the booklets before they disappear forever.

I just found these gorgeous hats on the Virtual Yarns web site. It sounds like you get enough Hebridean 2-ply yarn in 10 colors and the patterns from Ms. Starmore to make all three hats for around $60 US. HERE's a larger view. Breathtaking!!

Minty Collection

Mints and candy canes were my whimsical inspiration this week. The skeins I created reflect the cheerful spirit of the holiday season. I am offering this week's colorways in 3 great yars, Merino sock, Silky Toes, an new 50% Merino, 50% Silk fingering weight yarn, and a Pixie Lace, my Merino/Silk blend lace.And this week, each skein comes with its handmade companion stitch marker.
I hope you will enjoy the Minty Collection.

Off thiw weekend and back on Nov. 15

SockPixie is away this weekend, and will be back with a candy-cane collection on November 15.
Have a great weekend!

Stranded Knitting from Sundance Catalog

Has anyone else noticed more stranded knitted items in holiday catalogs this year? A while back when it suddenly became difficult to find stranded knitting patterns I wrote to an editor of a print knitting magazine and she emailed back that they weren't including as much stranded patterns because colorwork wasn't as popular on the runways and in the stores. Dare I hope that the increase in stranded patterns in catalogs means color knitting will finally become popular again???

The following photos are from the current Sundance Catalog, the cover of which is shown below.

I adore this last sweater/coat! If only I lived in a colder climate!

Flamenco!

This week my inspiration came from Spain, and from Flamenco. I love the grace, strength and passion of that dance, and the wonderful dresses worn by the dancers. The colors seem to be an integral part of the visual pleasure of the dance. I created bold colorways, with strong contrasts, and of course called the collection the Flamenco Collection.

I hope you will enjoy my version of Flamenco!

DH Wearing Too Many Handknits

Here's DH wearing a variety of my handknits for his Halloween office party. He said he was an Olympic snowboarder?!?!

He's wearing the Dale of Norway SLC sweater, the Dale Lake Louise headband I just finished around his neck, some Nordic mittens I made from an out-of-print Japanese book about Scandinavian knitting, cross-country ski socks I improvised using storebought handspun and patterns from an  Elizabeth Zimmermann book, and finally a helmet hat that is at least 10 years old using my own handspun from Peace Fleece wool. I think that hat pattern was in an old issue of Knitter's. The hat is his favorite and he really likes it for sitting around a fire on backpacking trips with the guys.

I still adore the Salt Lake City Olympic sweater - it really was my favorite knit of all time.

Unfortunately not a single one of these patterns is still in print. I just found out the Dale Commemorative Collection booklet with the Whistler sweater (and the headband he's wearing around his neck) and the Japanese booklet of Nordic patterns are no longer available. However I did find this interesting Japanese booklet of stranded hats. I think by adding in shipping it would be almost $30 here so I'm probably going to pass.

Lake Louise Headband/Happy Halloween!

Lulu is having a sitewide sale through November 2, 2009 - 20% off everything including the knitting booklets or patterns at my store in print or as .PDF downloads. The coupon code is FALLBACK.

Dale of Norway's Lake Louise Headband

I've  had success previously substituting Nature Spun Sport for Heilo in Dale of Norway  patterns by going up one needle size. Unfortunately this equation does not work with Elann's Peruvian Highland Sport. Previously I tried it with the Dale Whistler sweater and my row gauge was way off. I tried it again with this Lake Louise headband (in the same pattern booklet as the Whistler pattern). (Remember that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again but expecting different results!)

The headband turned out quite wide but it is for DH so it will work. It is also pretty stiff with two layers so it can be used as neck protection as well worn like a neck gaiter. He couldn't come up with a Halloween costume for his office party so he decided to wear all his Dale of Norway stuff and be an Olympic skiier. I'd given away all the Dale hats I'd made previously so I made this one in a jiffy. I'll try to get a photo of him wearing everything at once.

Bubbles doesn't get any Halloween candy so she's celebrating by eating lettuce instead. I had to rush to take this photo before she started in on the pumpkins.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

New Source for Glove Needles

In yesterday's link list I forgot one of my favorite new discoveries, 4" long glove needles for sale from Spin Blessing. They are the KA Classic Bamboo and they come in sizes 0 to size 5 which should take care of most glove knitting needs.

This is the view from my front door today. I plan to knit non-stop and watch chick flicks. The only way this day can get any better is if Colin Firth or George Clooney shows up to make a fire in the wood stove and bring me a mug of hot chocolate.

Links, Charity Hats & O-Wool

Today's Color Links:

Paton's blog is just starting a stranded tam KAL. The free pattern uses 5 colors of Paton's Classic Wool and size 7 dpns. I'd join if I hadn't just finished a tam.

In my continuing quest for more worsted weight stranded patterns I queued the free pattern for the Vineland Mittens which uses 2 colors of worsted weight yarn.

I just found out Lucy Neatby has a blog, Happy Stitches.

The lovely and prolific Spillyjane has several new stranded mitten and sock patterns for sale as well as the free Quo Vadis mittens that use 6 colors of worsted weight yarn from your stash.

I've seen the incredible stranded Mirror, Mirror socks before from Janel Laidman's most recent sock book but now you can buy her patterns separately.



Denise sent me these beautiful hats to be sold in our next pet rabbit rescue garage sale. She even went to the trouble of including labels on how to care for the hats. Aren't they lovely? Her workmanship is impeccable and I know these will be popular at the sale. Thanks so much Denise!




Check out the four new colors of O~Wool Classic 2-ply yarn from Vermont Organic Fiber Company. I especially love the lilac at the bottom. Marin from O~Wool sent me these and I'm going to design a Latvian-style mitten with a pointy tip, peasant thumb, and braids by the end of November.

House Tours

Yesterday we went to a few subdivisions near our house to look at some beautiful homes. The parade of homes showcases local builders and designers and it is always quite popular. I thought this fireplace was quite spectacular - I believe the builder said it was onyx? It appeared to be floating in space.




One of the cool things about the area where I live is that from some vantage points you can see 6 mountain ranges (Sandia, Manzano, Jemez, Sangre de Cristo and the smaller Ortiz and San Pedro Mountains). From this house I could see 5 of the 6 and I kept fantasizing about sitting outside in this covered patio and knitting.



This was the sparkliest powder room I'd ever seen with all the glass tiles and glass sink and mirrors on the wall, the counter, and even the faucet.




I wonder if wallpaper is coming back in style? All the homes I saw had spectacular views. I could see myself sitting here as well knitting away for hours.

If you want to see some of the kitchens from these houses, go to my other blog Cooking in Color.