Yarn, wonderful yarn!

Today's lovely submissions for the group sweater come from Chris at ChrisKnits and Minnie. First, Chris:

This was spin on a MajaCraft Rosie with her friend's help, and I can attest that it is quite fabulous. Amazing shades of grey...yum.

This green and white ball is by Minnie from Omaha, NE - a Merino blend, partially Kool-Aid dyed with (lots) of Kool-Aid. Thank you both! As I suspected, the various colors are starting to come together nicely...the sweater should be colorful and absolutely irreplaceable! Much as I say I don't like color...well, I'm lying. I like it, I'm just picky. When there are a few more balls of yarn in the collection box, I will put them into my mother's giant wooden bowl for a group portrait. I think you'll all be quite surprised at how well they blend.

I sorted through my stash this weekend, mostly to find things that need to go to a new home (they're going with me to s-n-b tonight), but also to organize before my next big yarn order. I'm down to one bookcase shelf stuffed full!

What does an ASJ look like?

I'm planning on making the Elizabeth Zimmermann Adult Surprise Jacket with the group yarn... if you've never seen one in progress, Lisa has a picture!

Yarn from Down Under!

(and we're not talking sheep bellies here). Behold the fabulous wool and silk blend by Gayle:

Thanks, Gayle! I love it! It will bring some sweetness and light to the darker colors, no doubt to good effect. And now, check out the TNNA Great Wall of Yarn. No, I'm not kidding, that's what it's called (see the inset for proof). That's Amy from Knitty, mesmerized by the pinks... (I'm being kind, per her request, and not posting the REALLY pink photo of her with fabulous new pink Filofax and pink Knitty buttons...

I know I promised a roundup of TNNA goodness, but Amy's is rather thorough. Some additions: met the lovely Stephanie, a designer with Lion Brand, and her friends from Vogue. Everyone at Interweave is just as cool as you'd think. (Has anyone noticed they seem to either own or be distributing ReadyMade these days? check out the addresses on their respective mastheads!) Joan the "Yarn Goddess" from Cascade truly is goddessy, and absolutely hilarious to boot. Susan from Crystal Palace Yarns is funny and sweet and enthusiastic (like all good yarnistas). I am IN LOVE with some of the new Brown Sheep colors and plan to use them in my books - in particular the Kiwi green. Ooooh, is it great. I'm a sucker for a good rich green. I met the producer of The Art of Knitting DVD, of which I have a review copy (review coming soon!) - in brief: any knitting DVD with Buddhist monks in it is fine by me. The soy silk ladies are insanely great, and I may help them redesign their website...all the better to show off that gorgeous fiber. (I gave Amy a tiny ball of it that I'd spun... take note, wool allergy people - bored with cotton? Soy silk and the new corn / bamboo fibers rock!)

Cameras were forbidden on the show floor or I'd have more for you...

I took presents along (hey, who doesn't like presents?), so select people are now enjoying my latest batch of vegan lipbalms (ginger-peach and red currant seemed to go fast - funny, I thought chai would be first out the door).

Katherine Hepburn's unknit yarn

Up for auction: Katherine Hepburn's unknit yarn. Too bad they think it'll go for $400-600, how cool would that be to have in a sweater?

Speaking of cool, I'll have my TNNA roundup later, and pictures of new yarn which just arrived from Australia for my sweater (thanks, Gayle!) - much fun was had with Knitty goddess Amy...

Some time ago, my knitting teacher / fiber enabler Lucy at Mind's Eye Yarns gave me this roving she'd dyed that went all felt-y on her. I tried to spin it then, but it was just too tough. A long timeout in my stash made it rethink its ways and loosen up. The only parallel I can think of is boiled meat - if you cook it too long, it gets really tough, but if you keep on cooking it, eventually the protein fibers relax and it just falls apart. Same with this roving. I suppose it makes sense; after all, wool is protein fiber, too! So I pulled it apart into smaller strands to spin it last night. Here's the result:

It's gorgeous. I'm going to put some of it into the group sweater, for sure. And now, a photo of my Hopi red dye amaranth (the tall reddish purple stuff in the middle, it's surrounded by purple ruffled coleus and chartreuse sweet potato vines). Can you imagine how great the dye will be?

Coming up soon near Cleveland: the Lake Metroparks LFP Fiberfest. I'll be there taking some classes and getting my yarn fix.

Day Two: yarn continues to arrive

Today's contribution to the group sweater project comes from Melissa at Loose Ends Knits, in the great state of Maine - one of my very favorite places. She's north of my usual haunts, but I know the area somewhat, and it's beautiful.

The green/gold/pink ball in this photo was dyed in her crockpot. (Wait - why didn't I think of that?! Here's my dishwasher roving dye technique, as pitched to HGTV for their new craft series...)

She spun this ball in the grease, and it smells gorgeously sheepy. I find natural fleece smell quite appealing - my first fleece ever, which you may remember as the Secret Project, appearing here at Knitty - was from Maine. It's almost exactly this color, and still smells like Eddie, the Romney it came from, to this day (2 years later).

Thank you, Melissa! I love them all!

By the way, in the event I gather up an overage of yarn, I will also knit a sweater for the illustrator of the book. If there's extras, I'll do a charity afghan or the like, and we can auction them off together. On my new store website, we're implementing regular auctions and other means of raising extra money for charity. Heifer's my personal favorite but there will be others as well.

And the first yarn is from...

Johanna in Sweden! Here's a picture of the gorgeous blue and grey handspun she sent, and a link to her site (in Swedish, but lots of pictures!). Thanks, Johanna!

I've created this logo for the sweater project: you can take it for your site if you like, just link back to my related entry by means of explanation.

TNNA Needle Arts Show in Columbus

This weekend I am off to Columbus for the National Needle Arts Association summer show, in hopes of grabbing a coffee with Amy of Knitty fame, and seeing all the new fall yarn. With that number of vendors, though, I suspect I'll be in yarn coma by the end of the day.

Amy has a new website, by the way, related to the book she has coming out soon... get on her mailing list because Amy rocks!

I also have a new book-related knitting website, but it's not ready for its debut quite yet.

This weekend, whilst recovering from my severe workload and more, I watched a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes (my dear one just got season 6 on DVD) and started a cardigan with my fall 2003 eBay Noro score. Feeling much better now, let me tell you, and that Noro is working up beautifully. Photos soon...

I have an idea...

(this is a phrase that either makes my boyfriend preemptively say "no!", or run in the opposite direction...he knows better)

For the author photo on my books, I want to be wearing handknit (of course!) -- something colorful / happy, and I'd like to take a piece of each and every one of you with me into that photo, because you all inspire me to do what I do. So, here's my idea: for all you spinner-knitters out there, and all stashaholics... send me a little bit of yarn that you've made, or something handspun from your stash. (No handspun? What about a chunk of The Coolest Yarn You Ever Found? I've got one of my particular favorites sitting on my head a few entries down)

I'm going to knit them all into a Zimmermann Adult Surprise sweater to wear for the photos, and anywhere I go to promote the books.

What will you get in return? Ah, I've thought of that, too! When the yarn comes in, I'm going to take individual photos of each, and code them with your info. Next, I'll have a big, cool poster printed with all the yarn photos, and a picture of the finished product. Then, I'll send one to you with a present. (If enough calendula flowers grow in my garden this year, maybe I'll make a big batch of knitter's calendula hand salve, or bath salts, or more vegan lipbalms... at any rate, some sort of very cool reward will be yours).

Send some handspun yarn to me, preferably animal fiber (wool, alpaca, llama, etc), or a blend. Singles or plied, it doesn't matter. I tend to like dark and dark-bright colors (madder, moss green, charcoal grey, ochre, denim blue, greyish purple), but that doesn't matter, either. You don't have to send a ton; even a few yards is good. (Time to clean out those bobbins, spinners!)

Mail it, with any information you want to give about the fiber (is it from your pet sheep Dorothy? did you buy in on vacation in Maine? is it the last little bit you have left from a skein you got at Rhinebeck?), and your name/address to me at:

Shannon Okey
PO Box 112312
Cleveland, OH 44111

I can also post photos of the yarn here on the blog as it comes in ... Yay! This could be so much fun. I can't wait to see all the little bits of yarn come together.

Weaving in the Kalevala

In Rune VIII of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic poem, hero Wainamoinen happens upon the Maiden of the Rainbow weaving and wants her to be his queen. When he arrives, she is...

Weaving webs of golden texture,
Interlacing threads of silver;
Weaving with a golden shuttle,
With a weaving-comb of silver;
Merrily flies the golden shuttle,
From the maiden's nimble fingers,
Briskly swings the lathe in weaving,
Swiftly flies the comb of silver,
From the sky-born maiden's fingers,
Weaving webs of wondrous beauty.

He tells her she should come with him and be his queen, but she's not falling for it. She'd asked a thrush the day before whether she'd be better off as a single girl or as a wife...

"Thus the song-bird gave me answer,
Sang the thrush this information:
'Bright and warm are days of summer,
Warmer still is maiden-freedom;
Cold as iron in the winter,
Thus the lives of married women;
Maidens living with their mothers
Are like ripe and ruddy berries;
Married women, far too many,
Are like dogs enchained in kennel,
Rarely do they ask for favors,
Not to wives are favors given.'"

The hero gets a little annoyed that she's taking advice from birds, so she decides to give him a challenge instead...

But the Maid or Beauty answered,
Answered thus the great magician:
I will go with that one only
That will make me ship or shallop,
From the splinters of my spindle,
From the fragments of my distaff...

Spake the skilful Wainamoinen,
These the words the hero uttered:
"There is no one in the Northland,
No one under vault of heaven,
Who like me can build a vessel,
From the fragments of the distaff,
From the splinters of the spindle."

Uh-huh, sure, Wainamoinen. And he tries and tries and tries...

There are plenty of fiber-related stories woven throughout epic poems and mythology. In the Odyssey, Penelope unravels her weaving each night, and weaves all day, telling her suitors she'll select one of them when she's done with the piece on her loom. Arachne was a vain spinner who took on Athena, the patron goddess of textile arts, in a contest - only to end up a shriveled spider. The list goes on and on...

There's a book I'm looking for called At The Humming of the Wheel: A Collection of Textilely-Correct Fairy Tales - does anyone have a copy or know where I could get one?

Art is good...

Knitting and textile art is better! Hildur Bjarnadóttir is awesome. She's an Icelander (like you couldn't tell from the name?) living in Portland, with quite the textile art background.

No heat furnace Lopi sweaters here... she even did a cross-stitch album cover for a band! If nothing else, you need to check out (on the art page) these two pieces:

"Fairy Puke" (velvet pile embroidery on canvas - see photo at right) and
"Untitled (Drawing)", a knit piece.

Oh, I love textiles!

Knitting book news!

In the immortal words of one Mr. Ice-T: "bust the cap on the Moet"!

Yours truly has a book deal. A knitting book deal, no less. No details yet, but the contracts are on their way, and I really have to give a giant, supersized shout-out to Kathy Cano Murillo for making the introduction that made it happen. Now, everyone go buy her books! And thanks to all of you, for being there, for interacting with me on the site and for being your fabulous selves!

Meet the Cleveland stitch and bitch gang! (photo by Bruce Torzewski) Ok, perhaps "gang" isn't quite accurate. Capsule may have that Clockwork Orange milk bar look, but we refrained from the old ultra-violence. No smashing the mojito glasses to menace bar patrons, nor did we gouge out anyone's eyes with a spare pair of circs.

Why photos? They're being sent off to Debbie Stoller for her new book Stitch and Bitch Nation.

In other news: big announcement expected later today, keep your fingers crossed for me! And no, I'm not going to be America's Next Domestic Icon!

Photo day at knitblog HQ!

While taking photos for some projects today, my significant other (art genius that he is) shot cool pictures of my hand-dyed, hand-spun, hand-knit hat. Yes, the hat made from this yarn (which, in turn, was made from this roving). Here's the right side:

...and the wrong side, which I think is more fun, actually. I didn't weave in the ends all the way so they'd stick up like pseudo-dreadlocks.

I have yarn on the brain, constantly...

The best thing about knitting / DIY is...

...the people you meet. I am so looking forward to Knitty Gritty, a new show on the DIY network featuring none other than Ruby Goes Retro's Vickie! You can check out some fabulous behind the scenes footage here. I'll be in Michigan on my best friend's new plot of land when the show debuts 2 July (planting pawpaws, lavender, and more) but you know my VCR will be set! Isn't that an great photo of Vickie, by the way?

You're all going to tune in, right? RIGHT? Good.

The next two weeks are critical:

My store goes live, alongside our very first national ad, in Venus. I'm photographing store items on a near constant basis (believe me, if you could wear out a copy of Photoshop, mine would look like acidwash jeans right now).

I'll be selling at Ladyfest Ohio's craft and zine fair Monday the 31st (stop by if you're in Columbus!).

I'm looking at real estate suitable for an artists' cooperative gallery / retail / performance space here in Cleveland, and at organizing the co-op board that would run it.

I continue to work on books, related projects & more, writing-wise...

What? Sleep? What's that? You do what?

You close your eyes and just... stay in bed for a while? Is it like a power nap? Oh. It's longer? Who would have thought of such a thing?

Ok, I guess I'll give it a try. Good night!

Still life with dog-yarn

And I thought my dog was cute covered in yarn! I was searching for dyebath info on Hopi black dye sunflowers and this is what I found (I'm also planting Hopi red dye amaranth, if anyone has data on those - ask and ye shall receive).

From my inbox...

"The world is a better place because there is a dark coterie of blogging knitters."

So quoth a correspondent who happened upon the knitblog after reading something I wrote about Lenore elsewhere.

True, that.

Patternistas wanted!

Projects and life intervene, right in the middle of my move. I'm looking for original, simple, funky, fun patterns that would be interesting to tweens and teens for a potential book. Think "beginner with a twist". I can't broadcast the details here, but if you may be interested, let me know by clicking here to email me. Thanks!

Knitter's Geek Code

The spring issue of Knitty is out, and it's got a hilarious article on the Knitter's Geek Code, inspired by the various techie-style geek codes of the internet. Without further ado, here's mine:

And here's the pattern I would love to get to before the end of the summer, along with her Kyoto design from an issue ago or so.

Surprisingly, we don't have as many knitters on board with my new shop as I would like, so if you're a knitting diva who wants to make money cleaning out your stash, please get in touch! The shop will be opening in mid-May or so, after I have moved home to Ohio permanently, and just wait til you see some of the cool things we've got...

Getting that ready to open, moving 11 hours away and more has taken up ALL of my time recently, so apologies for my low posting volume. It's the same on all my sites, believe me.

Could I BE any prouder?

Amy, the editrix, founder and all-around lovely person behind Knitty, to which yours truly has been known to contribute now and again, has a book coming out! Knit Wit: 30 Easy and Hip Projects. I am rubbing my hands together with glee, waiting to see what my fellow Knitty-ers have contributed.

Have I mentioned lately that I cannot wait for spring? I'm moving home and will have a garden again -- hurray! I ordered my 2004 seeds yesterday, among them Hopi red dye amaranth and Hopi black dye sunflowers. My goal is a garden with 95% "useful" plants, whether edible, used for dye / fragrance / medicinal purposes, or just to improve the miserable Ohio clay soil. There are a few here and there that don't fit the criteria (my black tulips, the chartreuse coleus I'm planting under the Black Magic colocasia, the cannas), but most do, and as many as possible are organic or heirloom plants. I can't wait to try dyeing wool with the sunflowers! Plus, once again I'll have organic calendula to make medicinal salve.

(Boyfriend dearest calls me "Hippie Longstocking" when I am in this mode...hey, what do you expect from someone who took both Medicinal Plants of Ohio and Biointensive Agriculture to fill her college science requirements?)

This summer will be full of knitting, thrift store hunting with my mom, weaving on my new loom, writing, gardening and riding my gorgeous Swedish bike around town. (I rode it yesterday while it was still warm, but we dropped about 40 degrees overnight, and now it's snowing. Sigh. The bike is made to take Scandinavian temperature extremes, I am not).

The long-promised Debbie Stoller pics

There are more photos stored at this link, if you want to check them out.

Here's one of my latest yarns.

It's spun from the roving I dyed a few months ago. (Large photo of that roving available here). So far, I've made a hat from it. The yarn is a very tightly spun single, what I've heard called an "energized single" (although that always makes me laugh, because I envision a highly-motivated Type A person browsing the online personals in search of The Perfect Someone when I read it).

Here is an interesting example of what those kinds of singles will do when knit with circular needles on a small scale. The stitches twist and turn, looking like some kind of fancy schmancy stitch, but it's really just yarn squirminess. You have to keep a little more tension on the yarn when you knit with extra-twisty stuff like mine, but it's worth it for the cool effect.

Golden fleece?

A so-called "golden fleece" is produced Down Under...

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Two Australian sheep farmers have produced the world's finest wool, a mere 11.9 microns thick or about one-fifth the diameter of human hair, with a bale of the super fine wool now under armed guard inside a bank vault. The bale of wool is valued at more than A$1 million ($752,000) and when sold in coming weeks is probably destined for a fashion house in Paris, Milan, New York or Tokyo.

To grow the world's finest wool, the Goodrich brothers built a luxurious shed dubbed the "Wooldorf Astoria" for the prized sheep on their Warroo Station property in northern New South Wales state.

Somehow I suspect you wouldn't want to have afternoon tea in the Wooldorf Astoria...stick with the original.