Finished with a bit of lacy trim:

Vine Lace
Barbara G. Walker’s “A Treasury of Knitting Patterns”

And delivered:

Happy Birthday!
socks in Koigu KPPPM color 105d &
Planet Earth Fibers silk and bead trim

Also finished:

plain ol’ socks in Trekking XXL color 104

I love the color transitions of Trekking XXL!

And a new thing started on the way to the mountains for mushroom hunting:

DH posing my knitting in the Cascades off I-90

Apparently it is the time of year for baby animals.

Baby horses with their moms

Baby deer with their mom

On into the mountains…

We found:

mushrooms

Mom says:
“Don’t eat anything bigger than your head.”
(bolete mushroom)

strange flowers

these were growing in gravel with no leaves at all

fabulous views

This was actually a little scary it drops off pretty dramatically. When I lost my balance and grabbed the rock a chunk came off in my hand “AAAAH!”, I felt like I was in a comedy.

We brought home a few morels and boletes

and then had grilled steaks and morels in cream for dinner, yumm!

continued:

IK Embossed Leaves in Koigu KPPPM 105D

Planet Earth Fibers beaded silk in color Rouge

Now I need to figure out how to add the beaded silk…
lacy trim?
embroidery?
leaves?

On my first attempt the colors were pooling so that one side of the sock was red and the other side was green:

Pooling red side

Pooling green side

I modified the pattern, removing the first stitch of the leaf chart for a total of four stitches per round. Just enough to make the colors swirl in a nice spiral:

A Late Birthday Present:

After overloading the birthday girl with pattern links, and an unfortunate reference to “Jemima Puddle-Duck Syndrome“, I decided it would be best to just take her to Knit Purl and see what happened; I don’t think you can walk in there without finding something perfect.

Rowan Cracksilk Haze color 627
We both love this color! We’re calling it ‘Vine Maple’.

That is not the name Rowan gave it. They usually come up with picturesque romantic color names, but color 627 is named “Blood”.
First of all:
Ew.
Second:
It’s NOT blood colored. Maybe the color of the icky styrofoam tray liner under a pound of ground beef.
Again:
Ew.

So I renamed it Vine Maple. Oooooo-priiitteeeee.

Later, we decided we should go back and get that perfect coordinating yarn that we had waffled on for socks IF Knit Purl was still Open.
We got there and it was Closed.
D’OH!
But I tried the door and it was unlocked! We ran in and straight to the Wall of Koigu and grabbed the yarn and then tried to act like we’d been there all along.
Sandy Kay heard voices and came up to investigate, she was nice as could be, especially considering they were supposed to be Closed. Then we sent her to go find more yarn because I decided I needed to have a pair of the same socks! We were laughing ourselves silly the whole time and Sandy was a great sport about it.
Thanks Sandy!

Koigu KPPPM P105D

…and then, at the counter they were tempting us with these irresistible little hanks of silk and beads, perfect for trimming a sock:

Planet Earth Fibers in color Rouge

Finished:

Fiber Trends Estonian Garden S-2009 by Evelyn A. Clark

And started:

Koigu KPPPM color 105D socks

My Catherine Lowe Headgear IV kit arrived!

The yarn is gorgeous…I am a little intimidated by the 23 page pattern instuction book.

At the opposite extreme, DH asked if I could knit a hat for him this week – I used leftover yarn from a pair of socks and no pattern.
I finished the hat as the UW Huskies clinched the Conference Championship, much better than the season the socks had.

quick hat, Blue Moon STR lightweight in colorway Husky

My classes at Madrona 2009:
Sally Melville‘s Making the Most of Your Yarn Collection
Catherine Lowe’s Foundations of Couture Knitting
Sally Melville‘s Knit to Flatter and Fit

I looove Sally Melville.  She is The Best Knitting Teacher I’ve ever had.
I have taken other stash busting classes that didn’t inspire me, lots of ideas for things I would never knit or be caught dead in. Five minutes into Sally’s class I knew it was going to be different.

She taught us how to look at our stash, how to organize our stash, how to arrange the yarn so we can look for the potential projects, how to find inspiration in things we see to create garments that DON’T look like “I made this out of leftover yarn while I was on meds recovering from surgery”.
I left class excited with ideas and things to do.

Later I met people from adjacent classrooms on both sides of us who said they could hear us laughing and knew we were having a good time. Sally is a great teacher, charming, and makes us laugh.

Catherine Lowe. I didn’t know quite what I was getting into.
Wow.
Catherine’s class was GREAT. She is very generous with her knowledge. I took the class out of curiousity about the ‘Couture’ and to maybe pick up some useful tips.

There were several times during class when I thought she must not sleep, or she must be an alien, or she is actually 150 years old, she operates on a different level.
She teaches techniques and shares information, then leaves it up to us to choose how far to go with it.
I definitely got some ideas that I will use and information about yarn that will inform my choices. I believe I will produce better knitting with what I learned.

Catherine is also super nice and encouraged everyone to come to her booth in the Market with any questions. I went the next day and she spent quite a bit of time analyzing my knitting technique and we figured out why I twist the yarn as I knit and how to stop it without sacrificing speed. I have been trying to figure this out for years!

Catherine Lowe designs are not like anything I have ever seen before. I guess that must be the ‘Couture’ thing. Her patterns are designed to the finest detail, the finishing is extraordinary. I am going to start saving my nickels and dimes…and fives and tens so I can treat myself to one of her sweater kits. For now, I bought a hat kit and I am super excited about it!

Back to Sally Melville for Knit to Flatter and Fit. Fantastic class. I kept thinking, “OOOh, I get it!”.

The Market.
A dangerous place for a body on a budget.
I have gotten better at ‘using my self-control’.
A couple of hanks of Blue Moon STR Mill Ends (di$counted) in colorway 
Space Dust.
Sally Melville’s Style, so I don’t have to rely entirely on my notes. And yeah, I will be buying her new book as soon as it comes out in March.
Catherine Lowe’s The Ravell’d Sleeve  journal and Headgear IV hat kit.

Every time I looked in the Blue Moon booth my eyes would zoom in on the STR in Bella Coola and my pal knit1frog2 would say, “yeah, those are your colors” or “you have to get that”, but I held off, I’m on a budget.
When I wasn’t looking, knit1frog2 went back to the Market and dug through the entire booth to find The Last Hank of lightweight STR in Bella Coola and she gave it to me.  Happy!

Homework is more fun when the materials arrive in a cool package in the mail:

Catherine Lowe Merino 5 and Homework Swatch Instruction Booklet

custom packaged for Madrona 2009

Swatches knit for
Catherine Lowe’s “Foundations Of Couture Knitting”

I hope they behave better after blocking

AND
I had my Unpleasant Photo Session over the weekend for
Sally Melville’s “Knit To Flatter And Fit”:
1. Dress in close-fit lingerie.
2. Standing straight, with arms slightly away from your side, have someone take a straight-on photo of you.

 ye-NO. I won’t be posting those pictures

Fortunately, we are using an outline traced from the photo, NOT the actual photo!

When I first saw TREKKING (XXL) Color 100, I was smitten.
I started knitting and loved the socks

So much.
You know.
In that way that makes you go temporarily insane and back to the store to buy the rest of it that they have in stock.

Yes, those are all Color 100 and all the same dye lot!

…and then I had to buy shoes to show them off!

I don’t know what I am going to do with all that yarn,
I don’t need eight pair of the same socks
…not that any two socks will be the same, much less any two or eight pair!

Snowbound.

(has not  moved since last Wednesday)

Going a little stir crazy. 
Thank goodness for knitting! 

Done in time for xmas:

Judy’s Colors stocking  St. Nick (kit)

I replaced the (pattern) loop with a round spiral braid and tassels.

Finally! I started these last summer as a back-up easy travel knitting project while on vacation in Canada.
Knitting these socks got off to a slow start, didn’t have much enthusiasm, it kinda  sucked to be a Husky this year.

Worst Team in the PAC-10

Blue Moon Socks That Rock Lightweight in colorway Husky
(specially dyed for us sad University of Washington Huskies)
150g (1.2 hanks) for men’s shoe size 10-11, 8 stitches/inch on size 0

DH was glad these socks were not done in time to be cursed as The Unlucky Socks.
Knit at the low end of the recommended 8-10 stitches per inch and they are hard (stiff), I canNOT imagine knitting this yarn at 10 stitches per inch. DH says the socks feel hard, as do the STR heavyweight socks I knit for for hiking.
For the hiking socks, he says they feel hard but thinks that might provide more protection for his feet.

Blue Moon STR Heavyweight, colorway Midsummer’s Night
146 g (1 hank was plenty) for men’s shoe size 10-11, 
5.6 st/in on size 3 and 6 st/in on size 2 (for heels, toes, soles)