Westport Yarns Knitting Retreat, Part 2

There are events all day long at Mohonk.  On Saturday there was a Local Flavor Expo.

 I tried Vegan Cookies, Lucky (Organic Chocolate), Keegan Ales (I liked the "Old Capital Ale"), Tuthilltown Spirits ~locally made liquer, goat cream cheese with cinnamon and cranberries (yummy), and best of all, YARN!!  I was so excited that I stopped knitting mid-row to check it out.

The store was White Barn Farm. Paula had many lovely local yarns.  Her table totally got my adrenaline going.  Unexpected yarn shopping?!  Oh, yeah!

 I was torn between these two skeins of yarn from "Jill Draper Makes Stuff".  The skeins were very close, one just had a little more white-space than I liked.  It's a lovely merino yarn with great yardage.

Paula had a kit for thrummed mittens.  I don't know why, I always throught thrummed mittens were scary, like steeking.  Turns out they are fairly straightforward.

It involves poking bits of roving from the inside out of the mitten.  The mittens start out really puffy and as you use them, the action of putting your hands in felts the roving and they are super warm.  I think Laura Ely might teach a class next year.

There were Flowers by Elissa, who had this lovely display of Aneomones.  This photo is for you Mom.

On our way home on Sunday, Lois and I made a slight detour to the White Barn Farm.

 What a lovely shop.  A great mix of local yarn purveyors and some commercial favorites. 

All in all, a great weekend retreat, sure to be repeated!

Juniper Moon Trunk Show

Susan Gibbs, the owner of Juniper Moon Farms, came to Westport Yarns last Thursday night for a Trunk Show.

It was enlightening and entertaining to hear Susan talk of how she left a career as a TV producer to raise sheep. Susan's story is full of warmth, humor, and discovery. It took a lot of courage and stick-to-it-ivness.
She has a farm in Virginia where she raises sheep for "farmstead" yarn and people can own shares in the clip of the sheep.

Her most recent endeavor is the introduction of a commercial line of yarn under the name of her farm. There are 3 yarns: Findley ~ Lace-weight, Chadwick ~ Worsted, and Willa ~ Bulky. Tanis Gray designed the patterns in the 3 books that support the yarns.

We all had the opportunity to try on the different samples from the 3 pattern books, each relating to a different yarn. This is Cozy Brioche Cardigan sweater is from the Willa collection. I love this sweater. It's the perfect comfy sweater. Susan had another sample of this same sweater knit on a smaller needle and it held it's shape better. Apparently this particular sample I'm wearing was worn by several different people at a recent event.

Willa is a mohair/merino blend and was lovely to work with. I knit the Keyhole scarf sample for the store.

The Medallion Scarf is from the Findley (lace collection). The pattern calls for 5 colors. You could of course use 1 color. Bridget and I came up with the idea of 5 of us each buying a color and knitting the medallions in that color and then trading with each other, so in the end you only bought one skein of yarn and still have a 5 color cool scarf. I think it'd be interesting because our color choices will be so different.I also tried on the Three Lace Cardigan (also from the Findley Collection). This is the small and I'm surprised I was able to get it on (and off). It's absolutely lovely.

The other sweater I tried on and want to make was from the Chadwick (worsted yarn collection). It's called the Foldover Sweater. I liked looked with the collar buttoned closed.

All of the designs I tried on fit beautifully and I'm looking forward to knitting up a couple of the patterns this season.

Let's Get This Party Started

Westport Yarns has started a knit along for the Corinne Cardigan published on Knitty.

The pattern calls for dk weight yarn and I chose Rowan Wool Cotton.

When I swatched, I got gauge on a #5 needle. The sweater is knit side to side in garter with short rows. I like all the different picture angles they provided on Knitty.


I used the long tail cast on. You know how you can sometimes end up with either too much or too little yarn? Here's a tip you can use whenever you have 2 skeins of yarn or a center pull skein. You don't have to estimate at all. Make a slip knot using yarn from 2 different skeins (or the inside and outside strands from the same skein). Leave approximately a 4" tail. This slip knot does not count as a stitch. Place the yarn around your left hand for the long tail cast on. You'll be drawing the yarn from the 2 different skeins and therefore won't run out of yarn. When you're done, cut free one of the skeins and carry on with your knitting. Cool, huh?

This is the left front. The markers show where the short rows occur.
I think the construction of the sweater is really interesting.

I made a little chart on a post it not to keep track of the repeats and rows in this section. Garter goes quickly!

Yellow, Seriously?

This weekend at Westport Yarns we had the great pleasure of having Trish from Tanglewood Fiber Creations teach a dyeing class. I worked on Saturday and Danni told me that in the class she learned that you had to add yellow to make color combinations work. Yellow, seriously? I mean yellow is great for flowers, the sun, and other people. I simply do not do yellow. I whined about this to anyone who would listen and/or sympathize. I even peppered Trish with questions about this.

Finally I acquiesced to the fact that the reason I was taking the class was to LEARN and I didn't know the first thing about dyeing yarn. (but, yellow?)

Thankfully Beth bought a tent for the class because it was raining for most of the day. We were quite comfortable under the tent.
Trish gave an excellent talk about the dyeing process and the color wheel with some anecdotal comments about people not wanting to add yellow (gee, I can't imagine who she was referring too ~ other than Jennifer P. and me.)
She dyed a sample skein where we picked out the colors. I jumped right in. Jennifer P. would take off the lids so that Trish would be "surprised". It was really fun and interesting.

Jenny K. made a dye chart with swatches of color for reference.
That was a HUGE help.

I made many scribblings of possible color combinations using the color wheel for guidelines. The color wheel comes with instructions on what colors play well with what. It's very interesting to be a teacher and then be in a position of total newbie.

I posed my quandary to Trish. The colors I wanted to use were purple, teal, blue, and a dash of pink. Trish is very good at what she does. Her classic line is "I'm not the boss of you". She laid out the "rules" of dyeing and if you wanted to fly in the face of that well, she would say, "I'm not the boss of you".

She suggested I start out with those colors and then evaluate it. The other thing she suggested was that I choose (for my experiment) which ever item (silk scarf or yarn) that I was willing to kind of sacrifice to the experiment. My words, not hers.
I chose the scarf. Trish taught us to apply the dye from darkest to lightest color, which I did. After I put my fab four colors on my scarf I totally could see what she meant. It needed something and as much as I hate to admit it, it was yellow. After I added the yellow, could see how it still needed something. There is a divisible into 12 rule and 5 just wasn't going to work. Trish suggested Chestnut. The woman is excellent at what she does. It's like a chef who knows just what ingredient makes the dish.
I didn't swish my scarf around too much because I didn't want it to get over-dyed with the Chestnut. You can see the chestnut on the right side of the scarf.
As a result my scarf has a more ty-dyed look to it versus the other scarves. Still, I learned a lot and that was the point.
For my first pair of skeins of yarn (shibui undyed fingering weight yarn). I chose a triad of colors Alpine blue, emerald green, and pink. It is subtle and lovely.

My second pair of skeins I dyed more tonally because the recipient (and you know who you are), does not go for boldly variegated yarns.
Here's Jenny K checking out the days dyeing. It's amazing how different everyone's colorways are.
I can't express enough what an excellent learning experience this was. Not only did I get to dye my own stuff, I have a new level of respect for hand-dyers. There is so much that goes into this process - no wonder no two dye-lots are alike and colors at the top of the pot will look different than colors at the bottom of the pot.
It was truly a magical day and I look forward to doing it again when Trish comes back in October....

A Yarn Dream Come True

Westport Yarns is hosting a Prism Yarns Trunk Show this week .When it arrived (all 6 boxes), I had the pleasure of unpacking all the yarn. What a labor of love! I've been a fan of Prism yarns for years. All I could think was, "I love what I do".

I was taking notes of yarns/colors I might want to make my own :)


I fell in love with the colorway Peacock.

The perfect combination of my favorite colors: purple and teal.

After setting up the store, I couldn't resist. I bought a half skein of Wild Stuff in Peacock.

I had a skein of Periwinkle Stuff in my stash.

One of the samples Laura Bryant sent was for was the Stuff Ruffled scarf. She had it worked up in two colors, Mink and Woodlands. I thought I would knit my ruffled scarf as a combination of Periwinkle/Peacock. I worked the long-tail cast on using both yarns. The reason I did that was twofold. 1. I wouldn't have to estimate the length of the yarn for the cast on. 2. It would make the cast on represent both colors in the scarf. I'm very happy with the result.

First half done. Sparkly, Very Sparkly.

I also revisited Intentional Patterning with hand painted yarns from the class I took with Laura at Stitches East. I had started this scarf with Merino Mia (colorway is Harvest). It is great fun.

At the Yarn Buffet

So if you went to a yarn buffet, what yarns/fibers would you be drawn to first? Imagine you have approximately 40 choices and the clock is running. Well, Westport Yarns had a Yarn Tasting last Thursday night featuring Cascade Yarns and those were the kind of choices we were faced with.
I made this (very cool) chart and hopefully you can read it. When I made the chart I realized that all but one of the yarns I tried were dk.

It was a great success and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. In answer to my own question, some yarns I tried because other people were enjoying them and other yarns I tried because of the fiber content.

Missing from the Blogosphere

Looking back over the past week, I realized that I haven't been blogging much. I have been knitting/crocheting a lot as well as trying to start the year off right being slightly more organized. Improving my organization is going to be a 2 steps forward, 1 step back process; it's still forward momentum!

In preparation for several upcoming classes...
I love how my Tunisian Entrelac (Koigu) Scarf came out; it reminds me of stained glass. The pattern is by Dina Mor and is available as a Ravelry Download or at Westport Yarns.
My Curlicue Shawl is blocking out nicely. The Crystal Palace Mini Mochi was made for this pattern. The picture doesn't do it justice. I'll post another picture of it for a better view. This class will be March 2, 16, & 30 from 6:30-8:30 pm at Westport Yarns. It'll be on the website soon.
I've begun crocheting a swirl shawl that will be offered March 7, 21, and April 4th, 6:30-8:30pm. I can't believe March classes are coming up. The yarn I'm using is Cascade Venezia a beautiful silk/wool blend. Click here to view information about Westport Yarns Upcoming Yarn Tasting Event with Cascade Yarns.

As far as "personal" knitting...

I finished my Eyelet Cowl that I knit with Tanglewood Fiber Creations Cashmere & Silk. The colorway is Northwest Winter. I think it's kind of cool the way the color split into half purple and half teal.
This little hat was a labor of love. While the family were visiting I worked up this hat for my little friend here. She was totally intrigued by my crochet and when I told her it was going to be her hat, she was very excited. I would put it on her head every few rounds until it was done. First it was a disc, then a Yarmulke, and finally a beret.

With bulky yarn (Cascade 128) and big hook, I was able to finish it in the course of the evening. Her mom clipped her bow to the hat for an adorable adornment. It made me all kinds of happy that she liked it and kept it on!
Finally, I stared Ysolda Teague's Vine Yoke Cardigan, available on the Twist Collective Website.
I saw the sweater on someone at Rhinebeck and have been thinking about it ever since. I'm using Tahki Sedona yarn.

And that, my friends, is why there haven't been any posts lately. I think I'm back on track now.