The Yarnarian has an anniversary coming up.

My blogiversary is coming up in 8 days and I want to celebrate. So if I can figure out this Random number widget, I'm going to have a contest. Books, ma deahs, books! Knitting Books. Books I bought, looked through and you know that as much as I love owning them, I am never going to make anything from them. All in perfect, right from Amazon condition. Now to figure out a contest. That's the hard part. And then deciding which books I'm going to destash.

Stay tuned to this station and I'll figure it all out.

Just thought I'd tell you all.

Swatched and started a new sweater. Whoo hoo. And a new Multnomah scarf, only I'll do a different lace at the bottom. Out of my new MCN yarn. I love this stuff; it's the softest yarn I sell. At the moment. Who knows what will appear in the future.

itsJUSTme-wendy - I have some very nice ones that I looked at a few times and then put aside. You know, however, that the minute I give them away, I'll want them back.

Jen - Who would believe it?

Scrabblequeen - Well of course you do. We're knitters and crocheters and weavers and spinners.

The Yarnarian Actually Finishes Her Gansey!!!

I hope you are impressed! I finally finished the fake gansey I started last December. It was not difficult to knit at all; I just kept getting sidetracked by other projects.

It's modeled on a traditional Eriskay gansey, but I've done those types of ganseys before, and didn't really want to do an underarm gusset or a shoulder strap. So the bottom of the sweater is in true gansey patterns, but the bodice uses Japanese patterns. The pic at the top of this post is pretty accurate in the color of the garment, and shows off the patterns pretty well. I need to get some pics of me modeling the thing, but the Hubbo takes terrible pics, and me taking a pic of me is an iffy affair.




Maybe the sweater mojo is coming back. I hope so; I could use some new sweaters; most of mine are 15-20 years old. Good wool never dies, and the sweaters are basic shapes so they don't really go out of style, but it is nice to have something new and pretty.

Yarn news: What's left (all 3 skeins) of my Monday dyeing moment are going to be listed now on Etsy. I like showing the yarns here first; they don't get lost in the wilds of indie dyer-dom on Etsy.

http://fritzl.etsy.com

Dyeing thoughts: I've noticed a desire for yarns with pinks lately. So for you pink lovers, I'm going to concentrate on that color. Naturally, there will be others too. One does not live buy dyeing pink alone. Har har, bad pun. This week's yarn will be something other than MCN. Maybe Bambi, or even better, Rachel yarn. The one with the lovely twist to it. I like this yarn very much. The stitch definition in it is wonderful. Now to convince you all to give it a try. Sigh. Maybe I'll do a Dragon Jewel or two in it as well as the pinks.

Mommie news: We had a wonderful time scarfing down the little cakes I bought for her. I bet she didn't eat supper either. We consumed enough calories for an entire day. So my sister called her last night to wish her happy birthday, and her first response after the thank-you was: Have you heard from Ruth lately? I think she forgot about the cake and visit. I spend a lot of my time with her reminding her of stuff she's forgotten. I do it in a very gentle way and always with love. "Hey, MOM, remember when Linda talked to you yesterday..." This way I can bring her up to date without making her feel bad.

itsJUSTme-wendy - Pinks and tans are a great combination! I'm glad you like my gansey.

KV - nakniswemodo would surely kill me. Still, it's a great idea. I started the gansey with that in mind. Hah!

The Yarnarian has more yarn and talks about Jause.

Holey Moley, you practically cleared me out! Here's what's left: Nisian, Sigurd, and Undine.





I have 3 new Alexa yarns to show you. Yes, I know. You want MCN, but woman does not live by MCN alone. You need other skinny yarns, too.

Alexa Yarn: 80/20 SW merino/nylon, 4 oz, approx 420 yards. Very soft and strong. Makes great socks and scarves. $20 + shipping

Ella, Morning Mist, and Vert





If you want today, let me know. Otherwise it all goes to Etsy.

fritzL234 AT yahoo DOT com

And now I'm going to relax and think about Monday's dye session. One of my customers asked if I do team colors. I did a couple of skeins once, but that was it. I'll do a custom for her. Are any of you interested? These would be straight dye jobs, no fancy schmancy mixing of colors.

Tea news: Scrabblequeen asked me to post the teas I bought at Teavana, so here they are: Almond Biscotti (black tea), Raspberry Riot Lemon Mate (mate), Pear Luna (white tea), Sweet Oolong Revolution (oolong), and 2 Rooibos teas - Zingiber Ginger Coconut and Tahitian Limeade. Oh, and I also bought Sweet Spice something or other, which is a white tea.

Do you think I bought enough tea? I buy sweet smelling teas from Teavana; I save the serious, real teas for Harney and Upton. But I do like these "play" teas very much. It's a nice change from the assams, and keemuns and others. I'm a serious tea drinker; if I could live on just tea and homemade bread, I'd be a happy camper.

Recently I've also gone back to coffee. We bought the Tassimo coffee maker, and that revived my coffee fix. So I bought some beans, ground a bit of them up, and I have a cuppa daily. I grew up having "Milch Kaffee". The family would assemble at my grandparents' every Saturday afternoon for Jause (Austrian coffee/tea and food), and as a kid, I'd get milk coffee - a small cup of coffee with a lot of milk. Today we'd call it a latte, but then we called it Milch Kaffee. So I had it hot, milky and sweet, and I still like it that way. And once in a while I'd get it mit Schlag. Whipped cream! Those Austrians know a thing or two about coffee.

We'd have all sorts of goodies with the coffee: rolls with Liptauer cheese, Hungarian desserts (the Austrians originally came from Hungary), good eats. People don't do this any more, and it's a great pity. Now we go to the malls, which is no substitute. The whole family would descend upon my grands, and friends would show up too. All these folks were refugees from some German-speaking country or other, and I'd hear all sorts of accents. I didn't know it then, but there was German from Berlin, Switzerland (those that got out of Austria), and the normal Viennese dialect with a bit of a Hungarian accent. And everyone would talk at once, and everyone knew exactly what the other conversations were about, and would chime in whenever they wanted to. It was language chaos, and I loved it.

And the political discussions would fly; my grandfather was a passionate political person, and there would occasionally be a table pounding, and much finger shaking, and then my uncle would speak. The entire table would become quiet because this man never spoke, so when he opened his mouth, it was as if pearls of wisdom were about to fall. He was a very handsome man, my uncle. Looked like Barry Goldwater. And did pearls of wisdom actually come forth? No, but he was such a quiet man, that everyone took his words for the ultimate truth.

He was about 6 feet, and my aunt was 4'9", and they made the cutest couple. We called her Tante Grete, and he was called Onkel Longie (because he was tall in my shorty family). All those times are gone, alas, but I have very fond memories of them.

Knitting news: I finished it. The gansey is done!!!! Just needs a nice wet blocking and I can then show you a picture. I think I like it. It's kind of fitted, which I don't wear much. No intake on the sides, just it wants to mold itself like a fitted sweater. And now I'm playing with my new Brooks Farm yarn.

Ella is grabbed.

Undine and Vert are grabbed! You are amazing people! I could dye just for you all and be a happy camper!

itsJUSTme-wendy - Take a look at the Etsy shop; I have a bunch of pretty lighter color yarns there. And I just listed the Hannah yarn from last week. I needed to hold onto it for a custom order, but now that's done, and I have enough yarn to sink a battleship, so I'm selling it. Geez, that's a long answer!

Henya - nah, we didn't drink black coffee. Austria is the land of Schlagobers. whipped cream. You would be amazed at the arguments going on while drinking milk and coffee.

Denise Vitola - Did your family all talk at the same time like mine did? I always thought that everyone's family worked like that. I was stunned to eat dinner at a friend's house where only one person spoke at a time.

The Yarnarian Dyes for You, Again!

I went a little crazy in yesterday's dye session. Lots of Dragon Jewels in Karen Cashmere, plus 3 in Alexa, which will be listed tomorrow.

Here's the word: If you want to buy a skein, email me and I'll invoice you. Just about all of these are one of a kind; they cannot be duplicated. The complexity of the dyeing is such that they are unique. Cost of each Karen Cashmere skein is $25 + shipping.

fritzL234 AT yahoo DOT com

I have so many skeins, that I'm going to list these in 2 days. Otherwise both you and I will go blurry from all the colors.

Karen Cashmere: 80/10/10 SW merino/cashmere/nylon. 100 gm, approx 430 yards.

Karen Cashmere - Two pics apiece so that you can get a good idea of the complexity of these yarns:

Kent




Loki




Mimir




Nisian




Olwen




Peredur




Quinn




Regna




Sigurd




Tristan




Undine




Mimir is grabbed.

Olwen is grabbed.
Loki and Regna are grabbed!

Kent is grabbed.

Quinn is spoken for.

Peredur is grabbed.

Tristan is spoken for.

DragonYady - It's all yours. You ken have Kent.

The Yarnarian and Tomorrow

I'm dyeing today. New yarns tomorrow, I hope.

News? Not too much. I have about 5 inches left on the never-ending gansey. Started a new baby sweater, but I have barely an inch done, so you can't see anything worthwhile. Went to Teavana and bought new teas. Ya wanna see pics of tea? That's desperation, my friends.

I watched a good chunk of the baseball game last night, and was there for the last two innings. Wow, and double wow! Did you all see Johnny Damon and ARod? Sorry, Phillies fans, I can't help it. I'm from the NYC area, so I have to root for the Yankees. The only time I didn't root for them was in the earliest days of the Mets, when they needed all the love they could get.

Saw the Mommie yesterday. Lazy Elsie was still in bed and not about to get up for anyone. She's going to be 95 on Wed. and my sister and I will have a tiny lunch for her next weekend.

Miss P is finally through with her fever and now has a regular cold, The Principessa is very reluctantly taking meds for her never-ending cough, and all the rest of the munchkins are fine.

Gotta go and dye.

The Yarnarian Brings You Dragon Jewels.

You've been most patient, so here they are: My latest, greatest yarns. (I know, they are all my latest greatest yarns, but this one really really is the lgy.)

Yarn: Karen Cashmere! 80/10/10 Superwash merino/cashmere/nylon. Approx 430 yards. $25/skein. Yes, the cashmere makes an enormous difference. The yarn is beyond buttery. Sock yarn, scarf yarn, baby yarn. That soft, that delicious, and I finally can carry it. I know it's superwash, but I would hand wash this; it's that gorgeous.

Colorways: Dragon Jewels! Dragons hoard all sorts of stunning jeweled items, and if I were a dragon, I'd hoard these yarns. Short color changes, blending into each other, but every now and then, giving a bit of sparkle. Overdyed to blend, but not all of the yarn was overdyed. And now you know. I wish I could show you these live; the pictures cannot do them justice.

Inspiration: Those wonderful little triangular scarves with much of the work done in garter stitch. Here's where variegated yarns shine; garter stitch blends the color work so well.

The Multnomah scarf blocked so that you can see what I mean about garter stitch and colorways:



So, the Yarnarian Dragon, aka PennyRose Yarns, presents Dragon Jewels! (2 pics apiece so that you can get an idea of the colors)

Avery:




Beryl:




Chase:




Dante:




Edda:




Faldor:




Gudrun:




Hannah:




Ildiko:




Jenna:




Yes, 2 of the yarns are pastels. We are talking baby dragons and their baby hoard. And an orange sneaked in when I wasn't looking. Dragons like orange. They told me so.

You want? email me at fritzL234 AT yahoo DOT com.

By the way, if you like these kinds of yarn, but don't see colorways you like, let me know and I'll work with you. I just loved playing with this method and want to do it again and again.

Ildiko and Dante are sharked!
Faldor is grabbed.

Hanna is mine. Hey, I dyed it, I want it. Also I need to hold onto it so that I can attempt to duplicate it. Oh, woe is me. giggle.

Scrabblequeen - Avery is yours.

The Yarnarian Has More Vacation Tidbits.

Ah, Stitches East! What can I tell you? For the first time in many, many years, I took classes, all with Merike Saarniit, the most wonderful expert on Estonian stitches going. I learned fiendishly difficult stitches (yup, they were), elongated stitches, and nupps and bobbles and such. I need to do a sampler again, not the one in class, but one in a quiet time and place where I can concentrate on the methods. Some of these are the most convoluted stitches going. I felt like a pretzel turned inside out with my knitting on my feet and my hands waving in the air and totally confused. BUT, I'm not confused any more. Some of these stitches are mind-bending; you have to put away what you know and let the good stuff in. Great for keeping the brain alive.

When I finished the 2 classes I took on Friday, I told the Hubbo: "Leave me alone. Don't talk to me. Don't ask me questions. Don't expect me to make decisions." Did he listen? Nope. The poor guy was on his own in the wilds of Hartford and vicinity and just wanted to chat, and I kept glaring at him. That's how tired my little brain was.

Merike Saarniit is wonderful! What a teacher! What a woman! And she's kind and patient. If you ever have a chance to take a class with her, go and do it.

So, purchases at SE: a skein of sock yarn (stop laughing) from my friend, Dianne, of Creatively Dyed. She with the 16 different versions of green in one skein. I didn't buy that one, but something equally as pretty. Dianne does evil things with yarn; I swear she has wicked ideas when she gets those dyepots heated up.

Then a bit of odd and end yarn called me. Nothing special, just pretty commercially dyed yarn. For what? Who knows, but I liked it so I bought it. And that was that. No books, no tools, no anything else.

My take on both Rhinebeck and Stitches East: This are just my personal feelings here, so feel free to disagree, which you are going to do anyhow. I think that there were less vendors at each event. Now it could be that venues had the vendors spread out differently; I don't know. But I did have the feeling that there were fewer at each show.

I find that Stitches has tons and tons of beautiful commercially-dyed yarn as well as a nice amount of indie dyed yarn; I thought that Rhinebeck is the place to go for many more indie dyers. If I had to choose only one venue to attend, I would pick Rhinebeck, just for the variety of yarns available. There were some folks who were represented in both places, Dianne for one, Skaska and a few others also. Webs and The Fold each had lots of STR yarn.

Stitches is physically far more comfortable than Rhinebeck: well it's all indoors, so you don't worry about the annual freeze-off at Rhinebeck. Rhinebeck has animals, lots of the critters, each one looking cuter and/or sillier than the next. And for the carnivores, Rhinebeck has lamb burgers, stew, and any form of lambie-pie it can sell. Food at Stitches was typical convention fare: boring, forgettable, and that's that. Rhinebeck is a foodie experience. OK, not gourmet, but there are lots of choices. Rhinebeck is family-friendly. Yes, you have to pay for them to enter the fairgrounds, but there are lots of kid acivities, the guys manage to survive all that pretty yarny stuff (well mine did). Stitches is a convention.

Classes? I've never taken any at Rhinebeck and don't plan to. This is a shop/lamb food event for us. Stitches had some nifty classes, and you know that I was in Estonian heaven here.

Cost? It all depends on whether you stay over or commute.

My final take: I can do Stitches every couple of years, unless there is a class that calls to me. Rhinebeck is an every year event for me. I just like the ambiance, and the crazy knitters all bundled up and carrying bags and bags of yarn, and the woolly sheep and goats and llamas and alpacas, and the food. So what was wrong with Rhinebeck this year? Someone is now running events on a professional basis at the show, and the famous bathroom lady was not there. That's it. Everything else was quite Rhinebeck-ish.

I'm sooooo yarned out! OK, at least for the next week or two.

Knitting News: Look what actually might get finished! Yep, the gansey I started last December. It's taken me long enough.



Dyeing News: You remember this pic from yesterday?



Everybody and his/her uncle and aunt are knitting these little triangles and I've been bitten by the bug too. I've done a couple of these and in so doing, realized that either they should be worked in almost solids, or if worked in garter stitch, the color repeats should be small and kind of mush into each other.

I did a lot of yarn peeping on vacation and figured out that people are truly into darker colors of yarn. It's killing the Pastel Queen here, but even I want more autumanal and wintery colors. So with that in mind, plus this desire to make many more of these adorable little triangular shawls, I dyed up yarn with just those deep shades and short color repeats just now. The yarn is cooling off and waiting for me to rinse, etc., so no pics, but tomorrow all will be revealed. Well, I did do 2 pastels and one orangy thing because I couldn't help it, but the rest are these deep jewel shades underdyed, overdyed, and everything else in between. Took me forever to dye them too. Not quick jobs, not with this particular method. I like the way they look, and I think they will knit up beautifully.

Oh, and did I mention that the yarn is my new Merino/Cashmere/Nylon sock yarn? The one that feels so soft and lovely? The good news is that it is lovely; the bad news is that it costs me more than the other sock yarns. So, it'll sell for $25/skein, which is still affordable. Name of the new yarn? Karen (one more family female to go, and then we move onto middle names)

Karen Yarn: 80/10/10 SW merino/cashmere/nylon. approx 430 yards. Price: $25.

Picture at the top of the blog? Our fake fire in our actual fireplace. It was chilly and the odd fake fire looked so nice.

Ria - I'm with you here. Rhinebeck of course, SE occasionally. Of course tell me that next year and I'll have to go to both. I'm weak. My secret: I would love to vend at Rhinebeck. Not big enough, don't know the powers-that-be, and do I want to do that kind of prep at this stage of the game. But still, wouldn't it be neat?