Thursday, August 30, 2007

SEPTEMBER 15TH TRUNK SHOW -- LA PETITE KNITTERIE
No, I didn't fall off the face of the earth but my weekly blog plan fell flat on its face. I am alive and well, working diligently (in the scorching heat) to get ready for the trunk show I am having at La Petite Knitterie on Saturday, September 15th (10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.) I will have lots of new yarns available that day, including: soft winter colors of French angora, a 50-50 silk/merino lt. worsted yarn, silks, superfine alpaca (both tweedy and variegated) and new fall colors of sock yarn as well as LPK's Handpaints colors. Here's just a sampling. You can click on the pictures to enlarge.



Time permitting, I'll also have some new handspun yarns and an array of spinning fibers. In the meantime, LPK's online store -- which is offering my handpainted sock yarn -- continues to garner new customers every week. http://lapetiteknitterie.com/
BABY HAT PATTERN
After many requests, I finally finished the pattern for a little baby hat I recently designed. Here's a picture of it knit up with some of my hand-dyed silk. The hat with the ribbon was knit with cashmere/silk from Argosy yarns. This pattern is easy to knit and takes about 135 yards, knit up on US #4 or #5 needles. It's available through LPK and Kat will be offering it in the online store.


HANDSPUN CARDI
Ever since Amy Pryor -- our friend and designer extraordinaire at LPK -- brought in the pattern for a little cardigan she knit with some of her very first handspun yarns, I have been itching to knit that sweater. (Another reason I fell down on the blogging front.) Here's my rendition of the pattern:



The yarns include my handspun yarn -- blueface leicester and 50-50 baby camel/silk -- as well as some of Lynne Vogel's ltd. edition handspun yarns. The angora edging is my own handpainted French angora. I love this sweater!! and it fits beautifully. The pattern is available at La Petite Knitterie.

"A SOCK FOR ALL SEASONS" Sock Club and new book
Very good news about The Yarn Tree's sock club. Linda sent out the first installment of the sock club this month and positive responses abound. Seems like everyone who recevied their first kit is excited. In it was a beautiful skein of Cheryl Schaefer's "Anne" sock yarn. Friend, Jillian, posted pics on her August 26th blog entry: http://sknitty.typepad.com/sknitty Linda now has a waiting list for the 2008 club, opening for sign-up in early December. Linda has done a tremendous job of putting this club together and always goes out of her way to do things extra special. On an added note, Linda's book -- "The yarn lover's guide to Hand Dyeing" will be out mid-November. You go, girl!
VEST CENTRAL
In a conversation with Lynne Vogel the other day, I mentioned that my friends, Margie and Karen, were talking about using their handspun yarns to knit the "Rectangle Vest" in the new Twisted Sisters Knit Sweater Book (at p. 75). Of course, each of these vests will be unique and we talked about how cool it would be to see the way different knitters interpreted the pattern. Well, next thing you know, Lynne set up a new blog just for that purpose. This is more or less a mini-challenge and is open to all knitters. For more info, go to Lynne's blog: http://handspuncentral.blogspot.com

So, I'll get back to my dyepots, but I'll be posting again very soon. (Well, at least I'm going to try.)