VIP Fibers: “the first & original company to specialize in hand spinning YOUR pet’s fur into Fur-Ever™️ Yarn.”
Oh. My. God. (Link found in a hilariously titled Ravelry post: “Pet Yarn, creepy or not?” I’m going to have to vote CREEPY there.)
Category: Crafts
Craft projects of mine
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Clearing the decks before vacation…
They’re renovating the office area at the shop, so I worked from home today. At first I was looking forward to it, like, “Woohoo! I get to ‘work’ from ‘home’!” But instead, I found that without the random disruptions of calls from the shopfloor, I was able to slip into a disturbingly productive mindset. Other than two quick breaks (to eat a sandwich and Skype my nephew during his dinner), I worked straight through til after 7:00 without even realizing it. I managed to add 160 new products to the TC website, including loads of new Clover knitting accessories (and Chibis!).
I’m not going away anywhere for vacation. I’m just taking a week off. I haven’t had any days off in nearly a year. Needless to say, I’m REALLY looking forward to it.
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Sock Monkeys at School
Wow! I just found out that a class of sixth graders will be using my sock monkey tutorial this week as part of a unit on, you guessed it, sock monkeys! Neat. Hello, middle-schoolers!
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Knitting a Country
Even if you’re not a knitter, I really recommend this week’s Sticks and String podcast. David’s essay about last week’s apology by the Australian government was one of the best bits of writing I’ve heard about it, and it’s a good explanation of what it was all about (for those from other countries).
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DB Book SCORE!
I’m almost embarrassed to post this, but I just picked up a copy of Debbie Bliss’s The Baby Knits Book at Borders in the city for $3.95. Some, uh, knitting stores sell it for a lot more. Like, $80 more. Ahem. Anyway, all the copies they had on the shelf are now gone (sorry!), but you might get lucky at one of their other locations…
Update! I’ve just been told that they have more stock at the Bondi and Macquarie locations.
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Glib Socks
These are my fifth completed pair for the Southern Summer of Socks, and I think they were the fastest to knit. Less than two weeks from start to finish! I’m still well on track to meet my goal of one pair per month.
This was my first time using the Cascade Fixation. It’s a really weird yarn: 98% cotton, 2% elastic. It’s thick and sproingy and I know a lot of people use it for bathing suits(!). I bought it because the Snook hates wearing wool on his feet, and I figured he might be willing to wear this. All the patterns I could find were either girly or boring though. I mentioned my frustration to Bex, and she remarked that she was working on a simple sock pattern at the moment. She e-mailed me the stitch pattern and it was perfect. (She’s since put the pattern up on Ravelry as a free download.)
For the needle size, I looked at the Flame Wave Socks from Interweave’s Favorite Socks. They use 3.5mm on the foot for a women’s sock, but suggest to use a larger needle to make the sock larger. I was also worried about my tension with knitting with such a sproingy yarn, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to go up to the 4mm.
I used Judy’s Magic Cast On for the toe, and then increased up to 50 stitches. (26 on the instep for the patterning, 24 on the sole in plain stockinette.) I knit both socks at once on two circular needles. I had him try them on constantly so I could work out the length of the foot. This stuff stretches A LOT. I used a basic short row heel, and then I picked up an extra two stitches in each gap when I started the leg again. (There’s still a bit of a hole there, but I’ll live with it.) So that brought me up to 55 stitches in total for the leg. Then I just kept going until I was nearly out of wool, when I switched to a 1×1 rib for the cuff.
Very happy with these! Now we’ll see whether they can stand up to the Abominable Feet of Destruction. (Cross-posted to Ravelry and the Southern Summer of Socks.)
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F*** Cancer
Hooray! Brigita got her care package from me. It takes a lot to get me to cross stitch, you know. The design comes from Subversive Cross Stitch. And how adorable does Miss Violet look? What a cutie!
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Sydney meetup for Damo
In case you didn’t see it over at Ravelry, “Damo” from ACS is going to be in Sydney on Wednesday and I’m organising a little meetup for him. Since the shop won’t be open that night, we’re going to have it at the “Crossroads Bar” at the Swissotel on Market Street from about 5:30ish. If you’d like to meet arguably the most influential guy in Australian knitting right now, let me know and I’ll add you to the list.
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RSS Feeds
I put RSS feeds on the Tapestry Craft website today, so now you can see whenever I upload new products. There are even category-specific feeds, so you can subscribe to just knitting yarns or cross stitch kits or whatever. Huge thanks go out to the Snook, who helped me with some decidedly non-trivial coding issues. He rocks.