The Yarnarian Recomends a Neat Knitting Blog, and Gets Tagged with a Meme!

Whew! That was a long title.

Lookee here: http://beautifulknitting.wordpress.com/


This is Mountain Mom's blog, and it's knitty! Just take a look at how she lines up her colors to make really striping hats. Is this neat or what?

And, you have to check out her sock that was one of the killer socks on Sock Madness 2:



http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/godmothers-sock

You have to admit that this is one beautiful sock!

No affiliation, of course. I just like to see a beautiful sock get it's due.

Speaking of neato blogs, have you looked at Carolyn's blog lately? After the neat meme, that I now need to do and pass on (oh, shake in your boots, ye bloggers!), go look at her weaving and her house and way down, her little bottle bags.

OK, the meme. First time I've been tagged and I feel as if I'm behind the reference desk again.

The intro, which I swiped from Carolyn's blog:

“The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.”

1. What was I doing 10 years ago? Working as Head of Adult Services in a wonderful NJ library. Manning the reference desk, managing a small group of people in the circulation department (the BEST staff anyone could have), yelling at the useless middle school kids who descended upon us after school, etc.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today? Laundry, visit DD in Riverdale, wind up some Penny sock yarn for dyeing, start second sock for my latest sock, watch Msterpiece Theater.

3. Snacks I enjoy: Potato chips (the bottom of the food pyramid), Jacques Torres chocolate, bananas, watermelon, popcorn, hot and iced tea.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: Give chunks of serious money to our kids and siblings, donate scholarships to college to various high schools in middle class, as well as poor areas, give to synagogue, buy a bigger house with a studio, hire a chauffeur and personal chef.

5. Places I have lived: Bridgeport, CT, Stamford, CT, East Orange, NJ, Maplewood, NJ, and Morris County, NJ.

6. Jobs I have had: Librarian, school librarian, librarian. And now I dye yarn and design patterns.

7. Bloggers I am tagging who you will enjoy getting to know better: Hee hee! Told you bloggers to beware!:

5 people who I hope are good sports:

Knitti Vritti

Holly

Jen

Dianne

Margene

Hey, even if they don't do the meme, check out their blogs. All most worthy of reading!

I Love New York sock club is the second entry down.

Holly - You're a trooper. You can blame Carolyn for this, and she can blame the person who sent it to her. Me, I'm just an innocent bystander.

Diana - I mixed your name up with a dear friend's spelling. Sorry about that. I'll change it on my blog listing also. I do enjoy your blog vry much.

The Yarnarian knits again!

I'm into serious knitting groove again. I have been plodding along, and all of a sudden, I want to knit, knit, knit!

So, here are some pics of a sock I finished a couple of days ago. Now I have to do the second one.





If you want all the info on the upcoming sock club (and you do want it, no?), read the previous blog entry.

Christine - Yup, it's hot off the needles. Now I have to knit the second sock. I did this neat short row heel on it that I learned from Sock Wizard 2. The little fake cable goes right down to the bottom of the heel. It's going to be worn with clogs, so doesn't need that heel back reinforcement. The yarn is a merino/bamboo/nylon combo and so gorgeous to work with and feel. Like silk but way cheaper. I'm in love with this yarn.

Carolyn - you're not in a weaving mode, are you?

Chris - Isn't that pic a hoot? I don't remember where I borrowed it from, but I giggle at it all the time. Thanks for liking my sock.

Carolyn - You bad thing, the Meme waits for tomorrow, It takes a lot of thought. snort!

Ria - I know it's hard. I do have some nice freebies on Ravelry. You could always download those.

K V - I have been so busy that the blogging has kind of taken last place. I missed doing it, so now I hope I'm back on track. Gloves!!! You are amazing. All those digits!

Brand New PennyRose Sock Club!

Ta da! I'd like to announce a brand-new, hot-off-the-presses sock club:

I Love New York Sock Club

1. 3 months: mid Sept, Oct, Nov.

2. Cost: $85 includes shipping, Paypal accepted and preferred.

a. US - $85
b. Canada - $85, first class international
c. Europe - $85 without pattern included. Pattern would be sent out in PDF format. We’ll work out the cost for each person individually here.

3. Includes a different sock yarn each month, an original pattern, and a bit of swag. Nothing too exciting on swag because I’m not a swag person, and I’d rather put my efforts into the patterns and dyeing.

4. The pattern will be made available for sale to the general public the month after each shipment.

5. Think New York-themed songs, e.g. Autumn in New York; New York, New York, a Wonderful Town; Silver Bells; East Side West Side; Forty-Second Street; Broadway Baby; Chelsea Morning; Lullaby of Broadway; etc.

6. You tell me the one color you hate, and I won’t use it. I’ll dye up each skein individually, avoiding that color.

For more information or to sign up, contact me on Ravelry (I'm ruth there) or send me an email: fritzl234 AT yahoo DOT com
the last letter of fritzl is an "l" not a number one.

If you want to see my kind of dyeing, check out my "sold" items on Etsy.

Some Yarnarians left their cameras home.

So there are no pretty Hershey gardens pictures or butterfly garden pictures. I'm so sorry I didn't take the camera; the gllardens are lovely, what with the roses blooming, and the kids garden is simply enchanting.

This is a lovely place, if pricey, but good value for the lots of money. If you like amusement parks, then Hershey Park is great fun. We didn't have the time to go to Zoo America, but next time we will. Good restaurants, wonderful service (which you would expect for the price), cheerful employees.

Today, after Hubbo's mtg, we did the gardens, and then drove a short distance to Hummelville, a very pretty town with a charming downtown. Found a charming yarn shop, Yarn Love, which is new and full of yarnie goodness. Had lunch at the Warwick Hotel: wow! I'm still full, 3 hours later.

We'll come back to this place again.

That's it; I'm going to knit. Just thought I'd post from Hershey for you.

Coming Up: New yarn club! Keep your eyes and needles ready, or something like that.

The Yarnarian Has Post Partum Blues! And knows just what to do about it!

I'm almost finished with the Mystery Shawl dyeing, and all the craziness that went with getting messages in 3 different places, and now it's kind of quiet here. So I have the perfect solution:

Heigh Ho, heigh ho, it's off to Hershey we go! Yes indeed, when the going gets quiet, the Hubbo and Hubbette go on his business trip to Hershey, PA. He has morning and evening meetings, so I have lots of time to knit and read and plan new colorways. The last time I was at Hershey was at least 25 years ago. I remember liking it. Anyhow, what's not to like with reading and knitting, huh?

I'm working slowly on my pokey shawl. No new pics, because there's not much change; just the lace part getting longer.

Speaking of shawls, I have to dye up my yarn for MS 9. Renee has promised a faroe shawl, and those are my favorite shaped shawls. They actually stay on your shoulder and don't bunch up at the neck.

Thoughts on sock patterns and such: I've been releasing a lot of patterns, and I'm finding that people favorite them or queue them, but are not buying. I think I'm throwing too many new ones into the hopper, so I've decided to retrench a bit. My problem is that I like designing them. What's a person to do?

I had some thoughts about doing a "Sock Pattern Palooza" whatever that means, but haven't the foggiest idea on how to do this. Kind of like issuing a group of patterns at once. Any ideas would be helpful.

In the meantime, my summer goal is to try different heel patterns other than the usual reinforced heel and heel turn. I've started with a lovely short-row heel that I learned from Sock Wizard (the latest edition). And the other goal is to figure out how to design toe-up socks with nice heels. I can do this for myself, but I'd like to figure out how to do it in a standard way so that I could design socks like this.

We saw the Benster yesterday. He is so funny and cute! I love 2 1/2 year olds.

That's it for tonight. Gotta go to sleep because certain useless Hubbo people are insisting that we leave by 7:45 AM. I am not happy about that and have told him so. His response was: So? Bad, bad Hubbo. I've threatened to paint his toe nails with lots of different nail polishes while he's sleeping.

Good night! Dream of soft, lovely yarn and pretty socks and shawls.

Holly - We are checking out some yarn shop someplace near here, but not the Mannings. Went there a couple of years ago and got that out of my system.

Nestra - Any ideas on how i could do this? Any ideas would be appreciated.

Fountian Socks are here! Finally!

Ta da! I finally wrote it up and published it. It's not such a difficult sock; it's just that I had so much going on that I didn't have the time to write it up. But here it is, ready for you on Ravelry!

Bev - Thanks. It's a neat sock to knit.

Guess what?

After a lace yarn hiatus, the Yarnarian is back to dyeing sock yarn. She loves to dye sock yarn, and the skeins seem so skinny after the humongous Kona skeins. Yep, she's still dyeing Kona for Mystery Shawl 9 (so don't panic, my shawl knitters), but the initial craziness is calming down, and she's back to sock yarn.

AND, a delicious new yarn called Bambi: 70% superwash merino, 20% bamboo, and 10% nylon. 115 grams and approx 460 yards. I know, it's a dopey name, but all the other good bamboo names were taken. So Bambi it is. It's soft and silky, a teeny bit slippery so you might want bamboo or wooden needles. I did fine on my normal needles but went down a size to 2.25mm just to tighten it up a bit.

Bamboo doesn't take acid dyes, so that component of the yarn isn't dyed and that results in a soft glowing yarn. Nope, it doesn't look as if you have white spots. It feels a bit like silk, but is much, much cheaper. And you can throw it into the washer.

Here's what it looks like. Photographs can't do it justice. Click on the first picture to get a really good idea of it.




Speaking of washing machines, please hand wash indie-dyed sock yarn for the first time you wash your socks, especially if the yarn is red or has lots of green. For some reason, excess red and green want to come off in the wash. Yes, we rinse and rinse and rinse, but the excess dye is still there. No, it's not bright red or green, but a faint tinge in the water. So just to be sure, the first time you wash your socks, do it by hand.

Sharon - that ethereal look is due to the bamboo not taking the color. Neat, huh?

Ruthie - It is indeed the palest tones of violet and lilac. The pic doewn't do it justice. But then, it never does.

Yarns and Odds

I have to show you the cutest clock. We bought this at Spectrum, a wonderful shop full of unique jewelry, boxes, ties, clocks, you name it. All designed and hand made by various artists. What you can't see is the cute little bird in the circle of the clock!





Knitting news: What I'm working on. 1. my Kona shawl. I can't get the color correct, but you can see the pattern. 2. Fountain socks. I'm almost at the heel of the second sock.







Did You Know: that you can get my sock patterns on Ravelry? It's quite tidy; as soon as you either download the freebies or buy the paid ones, you'll get the pattern. You don't have to wait for me to send the pdf to you. I love it, AND Ravelry benefits from it! My current available sock patterns are over on the right side of the blog. You can click and get to Ravelry. If you're not on the wonderful Ravelry, you can email me, and we'll make arrangments.

Did You Know: that there is a forum on Ravelry called Pennyroses! Dear Sockpuppet manages it, bless her. We could use more action there. So join up and talk about anything.

Did You Know: that I'm going to start taking sign-ups for the fall PennyRose Sock Club? Stay tuned for more info.

Anonymous - Fountain Socks is almost ready to be published! I just need to take some decent pictures, have Hubbo turn it into a pdf file, and then list it on Ravelry. If ou want the pattern and are not on Ravelry, email me (email is up on right of blog), and I'll make arrangements with you.

The Yarnarian Gets Baggy!

I've been buried in a mound of dyeing for a week now, and I've missed blogging.

But today I have a treat for you. OK, it's not a treat, just pics of some of my little and bigger project bags. I seem to be collecting them, which is a new obsession.

So here they are. My little bag that I bought at a flea market on the Cape:



Another Cape bag that I bought at Cuffy's. 2 for the price of one. The other one is blue and green.



My Piddleloop bag:



My adorable new bag from Quiltville. Is this not the cutest Hipster bag going?




A Vera Bradley knock off that Hubbo found at a garage sale on the Cape:



And the oddest bag of all, also found at that flea market. I can't describe this thing except that I think it's supposed to be some sort of saddle bag? But it has a shoulder strap, so not a saddle bag but something really unusual. It was 5 bucks, and I couldn't leave it there.







Emily - Thanks!

KV - A soggy saggy baggy bag lady. That's moi.

Darcie - Not quite a closet, but I just discovered that I have 6 socks to knit the second one of. I thought I had 5, but then found yet another bag, and there was a lone little sockie.

Where Did The Yarnarian Go?

Off to dyeing land. I dye, therefore I live!

Yesterday I ordered yet another 25 skeins of Kona. This is called learning by experience. Who knew that these yarns would go? Renee warned me, but I simply couldn't imagine it. Renee, if you're reading this, next time I'll listen to you!

I'd like to do something like this again: dye yarns for a Mystery Shawl. But here's what I would do differently. 1. Order tons of yarn and not go on a vacation in the middle of the dyeing season. 2. No custom orders; what you see is what you get. 3. Dye up lots and lots and lots. And when you think you've dyed enough, dye up some more. 4. Start a special yahoo account just to funnel messages into it.

Some neat things I've learned: 1. I love to dye certain colors over and over. Right now I'm into jades and seafoams and azures, and colors like that. 2. Mailing international orders is more work, but the gratification is there. Imagine my yarn in Europe or Australia! Cool, huh? 3. Get thee to the gym. Yeah I lose dyeing time, but it's such an incredible change, and my brain goes elsewhere. 4. Make sure to knit and read for relaxation.

It's an enlightening experience, and I would do it again, especially now that I've learned how I want to do it.

Sock Yarn Lovers: I didn't forget you; you're just temporarily on the back burner. But I'm thinking about you and have some new ideas of colorways. Yeah, that seafoam stuff is going to appear. I can't help it. I'm wild about dyeing it.

Allison - Oh, I hear you! Why we all fight exercise is so silly, and yet we all do it.