The Lazy Bone's Connected to the...

Tilli Thomas Test Knitting
Originally uploaded by mikewade

Credit Card bone.

Jeeeeeez! I have been so overwhelmed lately with my acquisition madness. I've been stockpiling lots of amazing and sumptuous sock yarns, (Wollmeise, Cider Moon, Jawoll, Knit One to name but a few) in addition to my regular sock club shipments from Blue Moon/Rocking Sock Club and Sundara Petals Collection. I've even begun a flirtation with spinning (more on that at the end of this post). Goddess give me strength.

But I have been a somewhat industrious boy and I have a little FO for this Friday. I recently completed some test knitting for Article Pract. It was a lovely silk and seacell (kelp fiber) blend from Tilli Tomas. The color was a rich ruby red and it was so soft and luxurious. Having said that, the first pattern I chose to illustrate it's loveliness was a disaster. What I didn't count on was how slippery it was. This resulted in areas of centered decreasing that looked lumpy. At least I think that was the problem. You can decide for yourself.

I then frogged the whole thing (unwound it) and used a tried and true pattern, the Feather and Fan (from Barbara Walker's Treasury of Knitted Patterns). As you can see, it was much better suited for the way the silk and kelp want to behave. I'm glad I took the time to start over and give Article Pract something that showcases the fiber and not a knotty mess.

When I brought my finished swatch into AP, I discovered another swatch that was knit up (by Ellery I believe) into this amazing scarf pattern by a local artist named Song. She does the hands-on knitting at AP (every Tues and Fri from 4-6pm), but I've never had the pleasure of meeting her. I hope that I do sometime soon, so that I can tell her how lovely her design work is. There was the one swatch in a Tilli Tomas fingering weight (maybe?) yarn and another in this heavenly Malabrigo lace weight. SCRUMPTIOUS!! Of course, I had to purchase the pattern, and I should be making some scarfey giftiness for friends and family in the near future.

Now, on to the latest and greatest OC behavior. I took a drop spindle class from Deep Color this past Sunday and it was great. I loved the instructor, Claudia, and all the ladies (yes, I was the only guy) were funny and charming. I think they were just shocked that a guy would be interesting in hand spinning. But i explained that I was a knitter and was curious about doing an S to Z thang (as opposed to A to Z, b/c I will NOT be shearing and scouring any time soon).

Sadly, Deep Color will not be offering spinning classes in the future and they will be selling all their fiber and spinning backstock so that Claudia can focus on her art and her classes on felting. I felt honored to have been in the last class and disappointed that I'll need to take my spinning business elsewhere. On a more upbeat note, I discovered that Carolina Homespun is located in San Francisco. Why on earth did I think they were in one of the Carolina's??? Hmmmm. In any case, they have a killer selection of books, videos, fiber and spindles/wheels.

Aus Deutschland Mit Liebe....

Package From Victor!!!
Originally uploaded by mikewade

Guten Tag, Meine Freunde. Okay, that's about all I can do auf Deutsch. In fact, that's probably not correct, but you get the gist, I hope. This is a pic of a swap I did with Victor, a fellow knitter, photographer and blogger who lives in Munich. Victor is a true knitting master having tackled many cool projects (like Jaywalkers) and he has exquisite taste in yarn. He recently got me hooked on Wollemeise and I ended up ordering 5 lovely hanks from Claudia (THE Wollmeise).... but that's a whole separate blog entry... Lots of o.c. behavior to be modelled there.

So, I was cruising around Flickr, looking at other folks projects and yarn when I saw this lovely pink and green wool that Victor had made some socks with and I had to find it. It looked like it was sport weight which means a much quicker knit than fingering weight, so I started searching for it online. Unfortunately, it was German AND the only e-commerce site I could find was written in German and I couldn't tell if they shipped to the US. Enter, my enabler.

Victor generously offered to run down to his LYS and get some for me. I asked for 2 balls each of three different colorways and quicker than I could say "fiberholic", Victor had those puppies in the post bound for America. They arrived wrapped in tissue paper with a stunning green raffia bow topped with a cute Muenchen postcard. Victor is classy like that. Inside were 6 of the most lovely balls of superwash wool that are gonna make some amazing socks.

Now, where to hide them in our crammed apartment????