Rhinebeck

I was fortunate enough to be able to go to the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck this year. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and cool enough to wear a warm handknit sweater. On the way up, I finally weaved in the remaining yarn ends on my Fairly Easy Fair Isle cardigan. I wore it at Rhinebeck, and it's growing on me, figuratively speaking.

Here's the obligatory Rhinebeck sheep picture:


We watched a few of the sheepdog trials, and some sheep shearing. I got to see some weavers and spinners too. And...I bought some yarn.

Here I am shopping for yarn (behind the lady who's weighing the roving):


You can kind of, almost, see the FEFI cardigan in this picture, though I was wearing a vest over it:


I'll have to post a better picture of the sweater some other time.

And here are some of my purchases:

The yellow skeins at the top will eventually become argyle socks for John (which I plan to do in a knit/purl argyle pattern that I was going to invent but I've since discovered has already been done).

The other two hanks are from Briar Rose Fibers, which I'd heard so much about from Brenda Dayne in Cast On. The red-purple-olive one is 1200 yards of Legend (DK/sport weight merino wool), which I want to make into a short sleeved V-neck sweater to wear over long-sleeved shirts. For the pattern, I'm eyeing the cap sleeve version of Essential Stripe from Knit and Tonic (without the stripes). The blue and green skein is Grandma's Blessing, 400 yards of sport weight superwash merino, and I don't have a plan for it yet but it is lovely!

John ended up spending more at Rhinebeck than I did -- he bought an amazing double-layered 100% alpaca king size blanket for his uncle who just got married, and an alpaca teddybear for his niece. Okay, so really we bought those things together, but I like saying that John spent more at Rhinebeck than I did.

Quick stash roundup

On Sunday John and I took a nice walk over the Brooklyn Bridge and somehow found ourselves at P & S Yarns. I purchased 6 balls of light gray Bernat Satin with which I plan to knit holiday gifts for John's mom, who is allergic to wool. (I'm allowing myself to buy yarn as long as it's for gifts and I don't already have something on hand that will work. I bound off the baby blanket last night, and with two big projects finally off the needles, some space has freed up in my yarn closet.) We also made it over to Brooklyn General for the first time. It was full of amazing things I had only read about, like Morehouse Farm Merino, Lobster Pot Cashmere, and Ozark Handspun, but I managed to restrain myself and not buy anything.

Below are some pictures from my stash that I've been meaning to post. All were purchased many months ago. This should help remind me that I've got lovely yarn on hand, just waiting to be knitted up.


Malabrigo merino wool in burgundy, ordered online from WEBS in February. Described by many as "buttery soft" and I have to agree. There are 215 yards in each skein. I plan to make it into a cozy scarf for myself. In the meantime I just pet it from time to time.


Rowan CashSoft Aran in color "haze" purchased on eBay in March. It was a really good deal that I couldn't pass up. This yarn is soft, warm, and machine washable -- perfect for gifts. I think I still have almost a full ball of the "oat" color left over from previous projects, so that could be good for accents.


Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, bought on sale last winter at Yarn Connection with Branching Out in mind. Any lacy pattern would probably work with this yarn. I only have one skein but it's 190 yards.


Cascade Fixation purchased at The Point in April, intended to become a bikini, which I started swatching for but never got around to knitting this summer. In a pinch it could be turned into stripey socks.

Emily's stripey socks

So I decided to make a pair of socks for Emily to thank her for being in the wedding and for being a wonderful friend in general. Envisioning colorful stripey socks, I purchased these lovely skeins of Charcoal and Rainbow Lorna's Laces sock yarn on eBay. I found this Spun Magazine pattern for Basic Ribbed Socks, which looked nice and simple. This article was also very helpful, especially for pointing me to the twisted German cast-on, which is so easy and stretchy! This was not the first pair of socks I ever started, but it would be the first pair I'd complete. (The Koigu sock is still on the needles, but I plan to rip it out and start over one of these days, probably with a different pattern -- maybe something toe-up with a short row heel.)

Before I started the actual socks, I did a little swatch in the form of the first few rows of a sock. I wanted to make sure my gauge was right (which it wasn't -- I needed to go up a needle size) and figure out what looked best -- single rows alternated, or multiple rows of each skein at a time, or some funky fair isle pattern. It was fun to experiment and spontaneously change whenever I felt like it. In the end I went with alternating single rows of each skein. The fair isle looked kind of neat, but I wasn't sure I'd be able to get the tension right for the floats.

Here's how the socks came out. They aren't identical twins (maybe my gauge changed a little on the second one), but they're pretty close. Best of all, they fit Emily!














Emily's stripey socks
Started: May 11
Finished: May 21
Pattern: Basic Ribbed Socks from Spun Magazine
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, 1 skein Charcoal, 1 skein Rainbow
Needles: US 2 dpns

Fair Isle almost finished

My Fairly Easy Fair Isle is coming along, though the proportions are looking a bit odd. Last night I finished the yoke, which just about completes the knitting for this sweater. All that remains is to add the button/buttonhole bands, sew up seams, weave in ends, and block it into a hopefully wearable shape!

Here's a closeup that shows the colors better:


In other news, I've also been working on the Koigu socks on and off. They're a much more portable project than the FEFI. I'm still on the first sock, but on Wednesday I began the heel flap -- woohoo!

Koigu socks

After the holidays I treated myself to a couple skeins of Koigu Painter's Palette Premium Merino. I've been wanting to try a pair of socks, and I've also been itching to knit with some wild multi-colored guilty pleasure yarn. Ultimately I hope to make fair isle socks, but learning to do socks and fair isle at the same time seemed overly ambitious.

I found a pattern for Koigu socks that looks to be just perfect. The pattern calls for US 2 dpns, but since my stitches are so tight, I'm using US 4's.

All is going well, except for a little oopsie the other day. Somehow I ended up knitting with the work pointed away from me instead of towards me. I didn't notice the hole until I had knitted this way for an inch or so. Fortunately I have gotten fairly adept at inserting the needles below the mistake and frogging back to that point. I haven't figured out how not to make the stitches twisted, but untwisting them isn't that big a deal.

It was a small setback, and I'm already past the point I was at before. These socks are going to be crazy-looking, but I'm comfortable with that.