Expo Treasures ~

I found a few great treasures at the Sew Expo. From Roberta's store, Fibers Etc, I found this beautiful rayon metallic yarn to make my mum a clapotis scarf. There was a lovely sample there, and I think I can attempt the clapotis again!

The next treasure is merino & silk fiber from Carolina Homespun. I was so glad that they were at the Sew Expo - it was their first year, plus Morgaine taught a beginning drop spindle class (that I took!) to 4 different classes. I hope they come again next year! I fell in love with these pastel shades mixed in the creamy white... I can't wait to see how this spins!

I also found some merino & silk fiber from Vogue wholesale.

this is the same fiber that I've seen from Webs. I can't wait to spin this!

Knitting Squared ~

At the Sew Expo this weekend, I took a class with one of my favorite Sew Expo teachers from Fiber Ect yarn store in Tacoma. In years past we learned this and this...

Roberta taught us Knitting Squared, diagonal knitting, and it was a lot of fun. I've tried this before and have no trouble with the first square, but adding the second square never made sense to me....

so it was great to have a teacher and time to practice! Hurrah!!!

Casting off old friends ~

This is the second time I've finished this scarf, as the first time it was too short. As a horizontal scarf, it is difficult to gauge how long it will be when complete. I wore it once, and it felt like a weird collar bone cover, so I ripped it out and started again. It was the project from the 2008 Sewing Expo class with Roberta, on unique yarn ~ some out of soy, milk, crab shells, corn, bamboo and all those great experimental yarns that are fun to try.

Roberta gave us each a sampler to knit a horizontal scarf, and I had a lot of fun trying all the yarns.....

Since the weather was so beautiful today, the cat & I sat outside and I finished this scarf....

See how excited she is that I'm casting off?

Horizontal high jinx ~

This is the second time I'm knitting this Horizontal scarf pattern. The first time it was too short and looked like a collar that had fallen off its sweater....so, in an unusual move, I ripped it back and cast on twice as many stitches... and off I go again in a horizontal high jinx. These yarns, and the scarf, are from a class my sister & I took two years ago with Roberta at the Sewing Expo. She was teaching us about all the interesting & creative knitting fibers now available, and gave us samples of each one to practice with in this scarf. Examples of yarn ingredients include corn, milk, soy, metals, crab shells, wood pulp, and some other "hard to believe it can be made into yarn" materials. It was a great class, and a great way to try out these different fibers.

Although, I really should be done knitting this by now!!!!

Yarn Yoga ~

We have a great group of women that get together once a month for knitting. We call it Yarn Yoga since we seem to untangle a lot of yarn each time, and our contortions typically look like a great yoga class. Often the untangling covers an entire living room, with groups of us in each corner trying to untangle our knots so we can continue to wind the yarn.... very fun, indeed. Today we didn't have any tangled yarn to "yoga" with, so we just enjoyed each other's stories and had a lot of laughs. The highlights included an acrylic trunk show from Turkey (including the purple wrap in the first picture), and lots of great knitting. One of the questions we pondered was, since we (in the USA) get a lot of great yarn from Turkey, why is it hard to find good yarn in Turkey when you are visiting there? Why is all their yarn-for-sale acrylic? Also, why aren't there local yarn and spinning stores in Scotland, as they have a million sheep there... what happens to all that great wool? (if you know the answers to these mysteries, please let me know)

Picture #1: The Turkish Wrap, and Sawyer's sock

Picture #2: Really, these are the beginnings of toe up socks... not a bathing suit top....

Picture #3: A beautiful scarf out of many types of yarn, from a class at Sewing Expo from Roberta

Picture #4: Crocheting hot pads from stash & scrap yarn

Picture #5: a sleeve to a great jacket that was knit partially in Scotland and partially in Washington D.C.

Picture #6: an alpaca Mobieus...turning out beautiful, and able to come home on the plane from Turkey

All these projects (and the women knitting them) are so inspiring! We played with yarn for hours!

Birthday Gratification ~

I had forgotten that some scarves knit up fast, and do not have that "never ending" in the middle when you think you just can't continue.... this one is lacey and easy, and finished with such instant gratification that I believe I will start another one very soon! This one is Miski by Mirasol 100% llama that I bought at the Sewing Expo, at Roberta's Fiber etc., plus some deep green "flags" that H really likes. She picked the creamy Miski too ~ she is fabulous at picking out color combinations.

Birthday Knitting ~

My oldest daughter becomes even older this week, as her birthday is on Wednesday. I'm not sure where the time goes, yes ~ such a cliche, but still the years have gone by so fast it seems. We have a lot of fun together (I think) and have a lot of laughs as well. I noticed that she has been wearing my silk scarf that I dyed at the Sewing Expo (taught by Roberta), plus she wore my knitted silk scarf to school this past week....interesting turn of events to have her wearing my creations. I asked if she would like me to knit her a scarf of her own for her birthday, and I showed her some yarn that I thought she would like... she liked it, but found another one in my stash that she liked better (I'm glad I asked for her opinion!) and I cast on.... Gosh, casting on is such a magical feeling, I really needed to cast on a new project this week!!! Ahhhh, like a breath of fresh air!!!

Results are here ~

Well, if you are following along, remember that my sister and I learned to dye silk yarn and a silk scarf with natural dyes at the Sewing Expo at the end of February. We were supposed to let the silk seep with the colors, and then wash out after a week of seeping. Well, the silk has been hanging in our laundry room for over a week now, and is ready to take pictures. The colors were not as vibrant as I had hoped, but still rather pretty. I asked rockin13 she felt inspired to take pictures of my silk... and she took up the challenge, and was inspired by... shoes?

I love this! "Shoes and Silk"

Also this picture: "Flamingo's Silk Feathers"

Dyeing Silk ~

One of the classes we took at the Sewing Expo was dyeing with natural dyes. The teacher was Roberta from Fiber Etc and she is an amazing woman. She weaves, dyes, knits, spins and has an amazing fiber shop in Tacoma. Since there is no website for her store, here is the information:
Fibers Etc (253) 572-1859
705 Court C, #301, Tacoma, WA 98402

We took a class from her last year on knitting with unusual yarns, and she had samples of yarns out of metal, corn, soy, crab shells, milk, jade, paper and some other materials that were very creative and fun to experiment with. This year we learned to dye with natural extracts from bugs (cochineal), plants and trees. She gave us a skein of silk, a white silk scarf and a silk ribbon to practice with, and we had a blast! These pictures were taken after I "set" my colors in our microwave and now they are curing in the laundry room for a week or so before I can wash out the color. They look pretty yucky now, but I wanted a "before" picture for you.... (yuk, eh?)