Color Affection

I've been looking for a shawl pattern for 3 colors of sock yarn. Well, now I have two sets of three colors, and can't decide which one to use.

Selection One:


Tactile Fiber Arts, Wool Candy, Three Irish Girls



Selection Two:


Malabrigo Sock

What's the First Rule of Dyeing?

Wear gloves! But the blue and green didn't seem to leave any color on my hands, why was the purple so bad? It's all gone now.

Used just one packet of each color, so the colors are pretty pale, but I still like the effect. I'm calling the color "heliotrope."

Pretty Little Shawl for Spring

The Mezquita Shawl looks nice in the Wagashi colorway, but it needs a little more blocking. It turned out pretty well. I'd like it to be bigger, but didn't want to use larger needles. Overall, this is a quick knit and fairly easy, too. I might try the pattern again in heavier yarn. I used less than 400 yards of the Wool Candy Marzipan, so there is over 100 yards left over.

Stitches!

My head is spinning from all the color and texture...we were pretty good. Didn't buy everything we wanted to, but just enough to sate the creative beast.

Quick run through the trends: sock yarn and small hand-dyers are still going strong. Also lots of indie pattern designers. It seems like there were more patterns for garments knitted from sock yarn...I guess there's just som many socks you can knit.

I thought (and Lara agreed) that the best and most interesting vendors were in the back of the venue, as usual. I have to do the numbers, but my impression was that there were at least as many vendors as last year. There certainly seemed to be plenty of customer participation! The parking lot was pretty full shortly after 10am. We had to bust through and open up the other half of the lot to ease the traffic.

I hope to return on Sunday to follow up first impressions.

Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders

Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders
by Judith Durant

What a great idea! I have so many sock yarns (61 skeins, the last time I checked) and don't really want to make that many socks. Some of them I bought to make shawls, but even that is a bit excessive. This book has so many great ideas and projects, and best of all, the Barnes & Noble edition I picked up has 5 additional patterns! OK, maybe that's overkill.

I am looking forward to making some wristwarmers, gloves and fingerless mittens as well as scarves and shawls. The baby sweaters are lovely and sock yarns are perfect since they are washable. However, I don't know if I'll be able to part with my yarns, and I don't know of any babies small enough for these sweaters. Doesn't hurt to be prepared!

This book is not on Ravelry...yet.

***** - 5 stars for the projects based on the photos. :-)