Sock Summit October 21, 2009

Finally!

I’ve been trying to find a nice way to describe sock summit for us, as vendors. The long and short of it is that it wasn’t all it was hyped for the vendors, and we came back with not only a net loss, but a loss in business because we had to push our lead time for our winders out so far. We stood on concrete floors for 4 days (Thursday to unpack, then Thursday night for students, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday).

We weren’t the only unhappy vendors there, and everyone (who wasn’t involved) who I’ve told about our experience has said things like “Oh, but you got exposure”… except we haven’t made a single sale since Sock Summit based on our going there.

It was a fun show, and we enjoyed going and exhibiting. We got to meet people we knew online (like I tried to get Amy from Knitty to buy some cotton, and we met Creative from Creatively Dyed, and I got to meet Syne Mitchell from Weavezine), and got to meet new people who are involved in yarn (like Mama Llama, as she was our next-door-neighbor), but all in all, it wasn’t worth us driving to Portland.

I understand all the students got loads of excitement and learning from it, but there just wasn’t enough time for them to shop (and to get to the far aisle of vendors near the sock museum where we were), and there were too many vendors for the numbers of students.

That said, we’d probably do it again, given the chance. Especially since some of our products are specifically marketed to indy dyers, specifically our winders and heavy duty swifts. If everyone had done just a little better, we’d have come home with more orders for winders, I’m sure of it.

One of the wholesale vendors said he usually sells completely out of his undyed yarn at the end of a show, because other vendors come up to him and buy the rest of a box of yarn to dye and re-sell. And he just didn’t this show. Even vendors he knew looked forward to shows like this said “maybe next time” and “I wish I could.”

SSO9 – The Booth August 7, 2009

After taking Wednesday off to drive around and enjoy Oregon, we started getting ready for Sock Summit in earnest. We got to the convention center around 9:30 for our 10am timeslot, but they let us in anyway, and we started getting everything set up. It seemed like every time I thought I had everything done for one set of shelves that we’d find another box with more yarn in it. It took us 3 hours to set up, finally finishing around 12:30, when we decided to take lunch and a nap before the Student Preview at 4. When the students were finally let in, they cheered and swarmed everywhere.

This is what our booth (#1212) looks like all set up and full of yarn.

To Portland! August 4, 2009

We got into Portland around 1pm today, and checked into the RV park. The drive from the other side of Oregon was pretty, but adjusting to the 6000′ drop in altitude, the huge boost in humidity, and the 1 hour time difference between Pacific and Mountain has me exhausted. Tomorrow, we have the whole day free, and Thursday we have our move-in time slot and the early bird preview Marketplace to look forward to.

Made it to Oregon! August 3, 2009

August 3

We left this morning at quarter to 8, and stopped at Shoshone Falls in Idaho (photos will be posted once I have the time to sit and think about how to develop them). We took photos and moved on, traveling until almost 9pm, where we stopped at the KOA in Pendleton, Oregon. Tomorrow will be our shortest travel day, hopefully getting us to Portland when the sun’s still up.

Wednesday is our ‘don’t have plans for this’ day … at least so far. We’ll see once we get there, I guess.

Going to Sock Summit… August 2, 2009

It’s been rather quiet around here because it’s festival season, and we’re on our way to Sock Summit in Portland, Oregon. We’ve been preparing for probably the better part of 2 months, and it’s been hectic.

August 1

Packing day. We filled the car with 16 totes full of yarn and fiber, 9 fiber kits, the dog and cat carriers, and the dog and cats. We stayed at the Garden of the Gods campground, so that we could get an early start to Portland.

August 2

Day 1 of the trip to Sock Summit. Ben took some time before we left to install new marker lights on the trailer, and hook the trailer brakes back up (he had removed the brake wires when he flipped the axle on the trailer). We left Colorado Springs with one last check of things we needed to bring, and headed north on I-25. We met our friend Dave for lunch and made it into Wyoming around 4-ish. Wyoming was mostly uphill, which is not the nicest thing for gas mileage, but we made it to Lyman by just past sundown and checked into the KOA there. The cats were pleased to get out of their carriers, and the dog and I took a nice walk around the “kampground” while Ben set up the trailer for the night. Wyoming was as lovely as ever, with its buttes and interesting rock formations, and construction over what seemed like 1/4 of the trip on I-80.

“No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting” by Anne L. Macdonald May 1, 2009

As a kid, I wasn’t much interested in History … at least, not in the way it was presented in the history classes I took. All the battles and names and dates with no way to relate them to human beings. I don’t have a head for that kind of history. I love the stories of history, and I remember having a teacher in High School who would tell stories (even though I don’t remember his name).

Those stories of history stuck with me much better than the dry name/date/battle lectures. When Ben & I went to the library earlier this week, I picked out some audiobooks, as they’re a way to get some imagination into our day, and I picked out “No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting” by Anne L. Macdonald. Not only is it full of the stories that I’ve always liked about history, but it’s the history of knitting, which is fascinating in its own right. We take for granted so much, even as knitters. Like patterns with gauge measurements, schematics, and even photographs. In the discussion about having to protect one’s clothing and furniture from one’s hair pomade, there comes this bit:

A “French Pattern,” however, called for the knitter to shape the crown and then “when your cap is large enough round . . . knit until the cap is three-fourths of a yard long: make the end like the beginning.” Lacking a clarifying sketch, one’s imagination soars in ruminating on an object with a cap at each end to double the wear. For the imaginative, old pattern books supply the stuff of conjecture, such as a “save-all bag . . . so called because it may be made with odds and ends of netting silk, or all of one color, at pleasure [which can be worked] until the bag is long enough. The bag looks well with a clasp, and a tassel at the bottom.” It must be taken on faith.

or this bit on knitting for the confederate soldiers:

Young girls who had never learned to knit stockings because advances in the textile industry had improved “store-bought” ones gamely grasped the fundamentals under their elders’ tutelage. One student remembered her mentor: “With what delight, after days of toil, she would triumphantly hold up for examination the rude, ill-shapen garment for evaluation . . . [my] ’soldier’s sock.’ Many a merry laugh has been provoked as the grotesque thing was submitted for critical examination.”

Show me a knitter who can’t commiserate with that though, of being so proud of the misshapen thing that they spent so much time on that they want to show it off to their teacher, and getting giggles at the scarf shaped like brazil, or the blanket that’s twice as big on one end as the other.

I’m only up to chapter 7, but if you’re looking for something that ties american history up with a slipknot to start casting on and knitting, I’d recommend this book in a second. It’s made me ask a couple of times why we never heard things like the fact that George Washington refused a salary during the Revolutionary War, but insisted that Martha Washington be paid for her trips back and forth to the front (knitting and doing handwork all the while to clothe the troops)? Why didn’t we hear about the wives and girlfriends who marched along behind the troops as support?

I blame Kirsten March 10, 2009

Kirsten talked about not being able to find a button large enough for one of her vintage patterns, and I figured that I could turn one. This was Saturday afternoon that she said that, and I dreamed all Saturday night about turning buttons. I woke up Sunday morning, thinking I had actually done so, all night long.

Today, I finally decided to turn the buttons, and found some scrap wood that we had used for gluing up laminated drop spindles. I cut it into smaller pieces, and … voila. Prototype buttons. I think I need to figure out a way to make the holes more evenly spaced, but other than that, I think they turned out well, and they’re addictive. Like potato chips.

Knit it Forward! March 2, 2009

I was chosen by Knitknacks to be part of her Knit it Forward meme… I don’t generally like memes, but I think this one will be awesome.

Here are the rules:

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make.
- What I create will be just for you.
- It’ll be done in the next 12 months.
- You have no clue what it’s going to be.
- I reserve the right to do something unusual.

The catch? You have to put this in your blog as well.

I make interesting things; you’ve seen them on my rav projects page, or on the blog. Come on and comment!

Party Socks and Knitty Surprises February 3, 2009

On January 10, my knit group did this “Party Socks” swap, where you bring in a 100g ball of yarn, and leave with 100g of sock yarn.  While a fun idea, everyone has since agreed that next time we’ll do a themed swap, where the yarn you get looks like… something.

Here’s the artistic shot:

And hold onto your breakfast, because here’s the full shot, on the sock blockers, with the last color turned down because they’re too tall for the sock blockers.

Mine are the first finished pair of socks. Lyn made an awesome bag out of her yarn, a couple people are knitting their socks, and some haven’t even started, not figuring what they want to do with the ends yet. I did the ‘weave in as you go’ method, with one russian join in the heel section. 3 weeks of knitting, and they’re done. More info on my rav page for this project. I’m thinking as a teaching tool, as a ‘this is how much yarn one needs to make socks of this height’, it wasn’t such a bad project. I just got stuck in some of the colors for longer than I thought necessary.

After finishing the party socks, the Knitty Surprises were posted. There was a coat, a funky hat, and a heart. I think I might knit the funky hat at some point, but I thought the heart was really kinda cute. So yesterday, I sat down and knit one.

I kinda messed up the first ‘valve’ — it’s supposed to be taller by 4 rows, but if you didn’t know that the pattern was supposed to be a little taller, you’d never see it. Back view (or is it front?) on its own rav page. I had a hard time naming it. “Ya gotta have heart”? “I left my heart in San Francisco”? I settled on “Why I Aorta”. It makes me giggle. The red and orange is handspun that’s been sitting around for a while, and the red is Cascade 220 Heathers. I stuffed it with some of the ‘beginnner roving’, carded & pin-drafted mystery wool.

The kind of weird thing about the heart is that I got row gauge without even really trying. I didn’t measure my stitch gauge, but there are several parts where you’re supposed to knit for X inches, and I based that on the number of rows in the given row gauge. When I measured, I was spot on. I thought it was rather strange, given that the yarn requested was sock weight on 1’s, and I was using worsted on 3’s, but it wasn’t until almost the end of the project that I figured that out, so I was somewhat pleased and a little weirded out.

I’m currently knitting a hat with the leftovers, but I don’t have a link for that yet. It’s a surprise.

Calf Shaping for Toe-Up socks January 27, 2009

Calf Shaping. There, I said it. It sounds like a dirty phrase, but it’s not. It’s a way to make your socks fit better, and not slouch and bag around your ankles because you can’t get them properly on your leg further than the 3″ above the ankle. I’ve got legs, you see. Legs with calves that don’t go straight up and down. I found that when knitting a full 100 grams of sock yarn, first the stitches stretch to go around my calf, and then they decide not to go around them at all. I thought, since I’m knitting these for me, why not custom-shape my socks? So I started thinking about it, and now I can tell you’re thinking about it, too.

The first thing to think about when you’re thinking about making socks that are tall enough to need calf shaping (which, considering how varied bodies are, this could mean anything from anklets to knee-highs) is the pattern. Is there anywhere in the patterning that would allow you to add in stitches without ruining the carefully set-up patterning? If you’re knitting stockinette or ribbed socks, the answer is “SURE! Put increases anywhere!” If you’re knitting from a pattern, it’s a little harder to tell.

The easy way to figure out if you can use x pattern and do calf shaping is to look for columns of knits and/or purls. For example, the Primavera socks pattern has an 11-stitch repeat where columns of knits sit next to columns of purls. The Wyvern socks have ribbing on the back. The Nutkin socks are stacked knits and purls in nice, neat columns, too. Even the Boyfriend Socks are a good candidate for calf shaping because there are places to hide your increases that won’t affect the patterning of the sock.

The second thing to think about is where exactly you’re going to hide extra stitches. Adding purl stitches to a rib, or to a background that already has lots of purls is a good idea, because it keeps the ribs straight looking (even if they are actually veering). If you’ve got a stockinette background or just a plain stockinette sock, you can (pretty easily) just add more stockinette stitches without too much fuss. I like to put my increases on the back of my sock, just because that’s where my calf is. Because of knitting’s forgiving stretchyness, you could easily put your increases all around the sock, but they’ll look funnier when they’re not on legs if you do.

The third thing to think about is which increases to use to add stitches. Here are a few of my favorite ways to add stitches:

• KFB: adding a purl stitch between ribs, just knit in the front and the back of the last knit stitch of a rib.
• M1(L): the normal make one is a Make 1 Left. I use this on the left half of the sock by lifting the strand between the stitches, putting my left needle in from front to back, and knitting in the back of that ’stitch’.
• M1R: Used as a mirror to the normal M1 (M1L), add stitches on the right half of the sock by lifting the strand between the stitches, put your left needle through from back to front, and knit in the front of the ’stitch’.
• M1P (L or R): Make one purl — instead of knitting into the front or back of the strand you pick up to make a stitch (to lean the correct way), purl it instead.

Now for the hard part. The math. No, wait, don’t leave! We’re taking baby steps here! Since we’re knitting socks toe-up, the easiest way to figure this out is to TRY ON THE SOCK. Take your measuring tape and measure the circumference of your leg where your sock is. Write that down somewhere.

Now, take a marking device –a pen works fairly well, but if you can get away with making a non-ink mark on your leg, you can try a pencil or the tines of a fork or something — and, using a measuring tape, measure one inch (or some useful measurement for metric people) above where your sock hits currently and make a mark. Connect your marks with the measuring tape. Measure this part of your leg and write that down somewhere, too.

Here’s the really hard math. Subtract your at-sock-currently number from your 1-inch-above number. Multiply that number by your 1″ stitch gauge. That’s how many stitches (approximately) that you need to add to make your socks fit the next 1 inch of leg. Your husband/wife/significant other/knit group/cat/dog/hamster may look at you funny for having marks on your leg, but this is the easy way to measure.

So let’s say you need to increase 12 stitches in the next 1″ of sock. You know (because you’re good and measure these things like I don’t) that you have a row gauge of 6 rows per inch. You have a couple of different ways to tackle this increasing. You can increase 2 stitches every row, 4 stiches every other row, 6 stitches every third row, or 12 stitches in one row.

If you increase ALL of the stitches in one row, you run the risk of the sock bagging there, because your leg isn’t big enough to fill in that part of the sock. You may also have a more noticeable line where your sock magically becomes bigger all of a sudden. I like to try to match the increase rate to the pattern. If you have a 2-row pattern, increasing on the plain-stitch row (or the plainer-stitch row) will let you see where these increases go without messing up your very careful patterning.

I also like to make my increases symmetrical, so if I increase 1 at the beginning of a row, I also increase at the end of the row. Or if I increase after the first rib, I increase before the last rib (if I have ribbing). Since I knit my socks 2 at once on magic loop, this is fairly easy to remember. If you’re knitting one at a time, WRITE DOWN what you do for one sock and put it in a safe place so you can reproduce it for your second sock. If you do 2 socks on 2 pairs of dpn’s, you can do one increase row and the plain row or rows, then pick up the 2nd set of dpn’s and do the same thing, making slower progress, but progress that will make sure that both of your socks turn out the same.

With a LITTLE math, and a few weird marks on your legs, you can get your socks as tall as you like, and you can get those tall socks onto your legs.