I Left my Heart in San Francisco

I had a wonderful vacation in San Francisco and got to visit my most favorite yarn store in the world, Artfibers. I went there with my friend Stephanie who started knitting about two years ago. We had a blast!

I was so distracted by all the lovely yarn that I had total camnesia and don't have a single picture of the store. Bad blogger!

I helped Stephanie pick out some yarn for the Broad Street Mittens from Knitty, or, as Stephanie calls them, glittens. Then I got the very talented Kira to help me pick out some Phyz for Sophie from the new Knitty.

Wrapped around Your Finger

Anne posted a quiz that lets you figure out which finger you are. It turns out that I am a pinky! This result makes sense because I'm short. And, it made me happy because for some irrational reason I was really hoping I was a pinky.

You Are a Pinky

You are fiercely independent, and possibly downright weird. A great communicator, you can get along with almost anyone. You are kind and sympathetic. You support all your friends - and love them for who they are. You get along well with: The Ring Finger Stay away from: The Thumb

What Finger Are You?

I will be going on vacation Wednesday, so you probably won't be hearing from me for a while. I leave you with a shot of the chevron sock with yarn dyed with KoolAid to stripe. I'm totally addicted to this sock! (It has grown three inches since I took this picture yesterday.)


E.T.A. My friends will attest to the fact that I AM downright weird!

Manic Monday

So, what do you do when you should work on Memorial Day, but you don't want to because everyone else has a holiday? You do 7 loads of laundry while dyeing self-striping yarn with KoolAid!

Step-by-step directions for KoolAid dyeing:

1. I used Bare Merino Wool Fingering Weight yarn from Knitpicks. First I used the needles I was going to knit my socks to knit one row with the undyed yarn. Then I measured the length of the piece of yarn that it took to knit that row. (My length was 26 inches.)

2. I decided that I wanted to use three colors and have each color span two rows. So, I placed two dining chairs 156 inches apart and wound all the yarn around them while avoiding feline marauders. The yarn then soaked in luke warm water and a glug (yes, that is an exact quantity!) of vinegar.


3. I then mixed up my three colors of KoolAid. The three jars below contain (from left to right): 4 packets Orange plus 1/2 packet Black Cherry, 4 packets Lemon-Lime plus 1/2 packet Black Cherry, 2 packets Black Cherry.


4. These jars were placed in a big pot that I filled up about halfway with water on the stove (next to my treasured Chantal tea kettle). The yarn was marked off in thirds and each third was placed in a jar. The water was brought to a boil and simmered until the yarn soaked up all the dye.


5. After the yarn cooled, it was rinsed and dried on a wooden rack.

Then I placed the yarn around a couple chairs again and got completely dizzy while winding it all into a ball.


I'm liking the way this yarn looks in the chevron pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks.

Razzle Dazzle Rose

The things I bought at the Great Lakes Fiber Show:

1. Beautifully-made cherry shawl pin from Knitting Notions


2. Two gorgeous skeins of Sea Pearl in lovely shades of rose and coral from Briar Rose Fibers that will be used to knit the Casino shawl by Anne of Knitspot, whom I got to meet at the show.

Chris of Briar Rose was incredibly nice and I also bought some lovely hand-made buttons from her.



3. Three 1 oz. balls of Zephyr in Basil from Ursula's Alcove


The zephyr is already being used to knit an Icarus shawl for my mom's birthday, which is at the end of the month.