Over Abundance

I started the Hemlock Ring Blanket, as done by Jared at b r o o k l y n t w e e d out of some burgundy Cascade Eco+

It’s preeetty. I like the whole idea a lot, I just need to stop talking when I’m doing the pattern because terrible things happen when I try to be social and do lace.

I will show you the finished product, when it is done. Speaking of FO’s, the Baltic Sea Sweater (Of Doomity Doomy Doom…Doom.) is Almost Done. It’s lingering in that “I need to frog about 2 inches and re do them before completing the thing. But, meh, I don’t feel like frogging today…” stage where everytime I think about sitting down with it I go “Eh, but why?” A very dear customer provided me with an extra skein so that I could finish it, and I am grateful.
Saturday the PDX Ravelry group showed up just in time to begin their Sock Yarn Shop Hop. It was…amazing. I love how people you’ve never met face-to-face seem like old friends by the time you manage to organize a meet up.

They were great fun. Kathy, my cohort in crime, showed up and I was most pleased to see her. She and I have yet to really combine forces to take Portland by storm.

And Now…Some Bloggers Blogging Me Blogging Them! (sounds like an ABBA song or something.)

There was also a wonderful finished projects from Carol. She made a lovely cardigan out of Cascade Nikki.

Carol helps bring a little panache to our shop, as you can see.

Sunday was a much different day. Hannah, Stevanie and her brood, and I all roadtripped down to the state fair in order to compete in the Fastest Fingers competition. On the way, Stevanie’s daughter Elizabeth let us know that she was okay and rocking out loud.

And we met the Millstream Knitting Guild, where they showed off their handiwork.

And then it was competing time. Stevanie, Heather, Hannah, Stev’s youngest son, Zachary, and I all competed..

The biggest surprise for me was winning 3rd, with 144 stitches in 3 minutes. Hannah says that’s faster than she was last year when she competed. Hannah won first prize with 161 stitches in 3 minutes!

Hannah and I Triumphant!

I’m really tired of working on this post, so I will post the rest of the day and the goings on of this Friday when I get back from the State Fair. We have a booth there this Friday, so come take a peek! We’ll be doing some dyeing, and demonstrating our Mad Skills to everybody. The shop will be closing early at 12:30 so that Brandon can join us for the afternoon. Hope to see you there!

Hey ya’ll, I know this is short notice but if you can make it there will be a sock yarn hop with the Portland Ravelry folks. Here is the schedule.

It’d be a good idea to get a buddy and carpool.

By The Way: Sock Hop is This Saturday, i.e. the 25th of August.

• Abundant Yarn & Dyeworks from 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
• The Yarn Garden from 1:30 - 2:00 pm
• Twisted from 2:15 - 3:00 pm
• Knit/ Purl from 3:15 - 4:00 pm
• The Farmhouse Knit Shop from 4:30 - 5:00 pm

Editted: To Add the date, thanks Barbara!

Melissa blogs over at Days of Tea and Knitting, and is a good friend of mine that I met when the Yarn Harlot came to town. Her knitting is like her personality, fun, beautiful, and comforting.

1. How frequently do you knit from patterns or other¢s designs?

Probably half the time. Many times I start out with a pattern and I can see it’s not going to work for some reason and then I start altering it and it becomes a whole different thing! The kind of thing I knit most from the top of my head would be a quick summer top.

2. What is your preferred gauge for sweaters for you?

Generally I’d say DK to aran weight. I read recently that I should stay away from bulkier knits as I’m a larger woman. The part I never really thought about in all that it the sheer bulk of fabric will weigh more and therefore stretch more and tend to loose shape. If I look back at my earlier “disaster” sweaters, I’d have to say that this was completely the case!

3. When do you find the most time to knit, and why?

I knit whenever I’m not working. For a long time I was working at home or part time but now it’s full time. I knit at lunch and break and then on the bus ride home. When I get home though I tend to spin during the week. My eyes are tired from looking at a computer screen and I enjoy the methodical motion of the spinning wheel. But, by all accounts, I get a lot of knitting done!

So it turns out that it’s impossible to post when somebody’s hogging the ‘net connection. Here’s an interview a day late, sorry everybody!

Chris is one of the intrepid bloggers of PDX who has agreed to appear in our blog hop.

1. How frequently do you knit from patterns or other’s designs?

When I am not designing, I knit from patterns. I find it relaxing to follow instructions, but I rarely leave a pattern alone. I fiddle with the numbers, decreases, increases, short rows, or sub a yarn of a different weight. When I did not fiddle with patterns nothing fit, now they almost always do. I typically use a pattern as a guideline. I guess that is why I prefer Rebecca magazine patterns. I am totally inspired by Elizabeth Zimmerman’s books, one of my newest patterns is inspired by one sentence in her book. Up until now, I have never knit socks from a pattern. I tend to work up the math and create a sock for me or churchable. I find that patternless socks fit better.

2. What is your preferred gauge for sweaters for you?

I prefer a DK weight yarn for sweaters or at most a light worsted. I tend not to be happy with the results of larger gauge sweaters. My fingering weight hemp sweater took me a bit longer than I had hoped but I do love the result and have just bought enough yarn for hemp sweaters for churchable and I.

3. When do you find the most time to knit, and why?

I knit all the time. I always have one to two projects with me at all times, even when I am just going to be driving in the car to pick up someone. Seriously, I actually plan times when I should not knit. When I get in bed at night and when I eat dinner with my husband are knitting off limits times. If I could surf the web and knit I would but I have not learned that trick. When I started knitting, I only did public knitting because when I go back to my dorm room in college I did not have time to knit. So to me anytime is fair game, I do try to be polite at weddings and funerals to not knit during the actual service but before or after is fine by me.

It’s amazing how much more I want to blog just by having an internet connection at the ready all the time.

On to topics that matter! Heather has been dyeing like a madwoman lately. I mean, she is a madwoman but this is like madwoman squared or insanity cubed or maybe square rooted. At any rate, there’s been a ton of production lately and she’s talking about kicking it into a higher gear.

Fear us, for we have a dye-crazed owner and she loves the pretty, pretty colours ya’ll. But seriously? Heather is making the plant dyes do things we didn’t even know they could do. Extreme, vibrant colours that fair shake your hand when you walk in the door and almost offer you a sweet tea they’re so lively. Don’t ask why I equate lively with Southern, I blame Stevanie.

Side Note: Are you interested in making Southern/Lively yarns with plant dyes? Then go to the website and sign up for the dyeing workshop. It’s the same dude what taught Heather and he’s apparently this AMAZING character on top of being an amazing instructor. C’mon, entertainment, yarn, AND pretty colours? You’d have to have a previously scheduled appointment not to come and take this class.

I have been slogging on the Baltic Sea sweater. I’m kind of tired of writing about how it’s still not done yet, so you will probably hear nothing more about it unless it’s an expression of knitterly vexing. Or it’s done. I’m counting more on the vexing bit.

Interview forthcoming later today. I’m a little crazed this early in the morning.

There’s a Yahoo group for PDX Knit Bloggers where I posted to organize a Blog Hop. So for the next week, there will be a post every other day with a fellow PDX Knitter being interviewed by yours truly. Let’s get things started with Duffy!

Duffy and I first met on a mailing list to which we both belong, and shortly thereafter I discovered that she actually comes into Abundant every once in a while. Every time I get a chance to see her, she’s always doing something amazing. You can find Duffy’s blog over at FiberQat on blogspot. This past week, I sent her an e-mail asking some questions that I had wondered about, and also because I’m a nosy brat.

I was particularly excited to ask Duffy this first question, as I know she is like me in that she is hellbent on designing her own things.

Moi: How frequently do you knit from patterns or other’s designs?

Duffy: I did at the beginning but not as often anymore. I usually follow a basic pattern for a garment and alter it for my size. The items I haven’t yet learned how to designed on my own are lace shawls, but I’ll be going that direction eventually.

M: What is your preferred gauge for sweaters for you?

D: I like sweaters that are 4 to 6 stitches per inch in gauge.

M: When do you find the most time to knit, and why?

D: I usually knit on my breaks and during lunch at work. It gives my logical side of my brain a chance to rest and my creative side some attention. Sometimes I knit in the evening during the week and will take time during the weekend, but I definitely have my knitting with me for break time.

Next time, see me develop my interviewing skills by not being so last minute about it all! Until then, see ya’!

Did any of you ever get asked as a kid when you got home from school, “What did you learn today?”

I learned that it’s really hard to blog without regular internet access. And that dinosaurs were really big lizards.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about growing up, and how I feel when I go home every other week to the places I grew up. While I love them, and the people I went to school with, I find myself disconnected from everything. My friends are all a year or more younger than I am in terms of age, but in terms of experience I feel like I’ve gone so far past them. In setting up my life in Portland, I have taken on a whole new set of priorities that they just don’t share. Some of my friends have told me that they love me, but don’t like hanging out with me because I only talk about the same old things all the time and they have no interest in those things.

And then I wondered: Why is is that we can have a running conversation about knitting here on this blog? How about spending a weekend at a knitting camp, thinking about, talking about, looking at, and doing knitting all the time? Why do we never, ever get sick of it? Of course there are enough techniques in the world to keep even the most veteran of knitters on their toes, and new designs, patterns, and fashions are always tickling our sense of creativity, but why is knitting so limitless?

I think that’s the one thing I love about knitting more than anything else about it. The feeling of being able to just go on forever. It’s like the feeling of a long road trip, without the gas expenditure. I don’t know where knitting will pass through, but I know it’s never going to stop.

Edit To Add: Also, if you’re in the Portland Metro Area and on Ravelry, you should know that the PDX knitters are organizing a sock yarn crawl and we’re gonna be one o’ the stops, so if you haven’t been by in a while now might be the time!