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April 22, 2008
Good news!
Dear friends, please allow me to share a series of wonderful tidbits with you:
1. Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Grumperina is back in stock!
Also, to answer some of your questions, this colorway will be a permanent fixture in the Lorna's Laces line-up (pinch me!). But remember, you'll need to visit Birds-n-Yarn to stash-ify (stash + satisfy = stash-ify). In addition to Shepherd Sock, you can currently purchase this colorway in Lion and Lamb, Shepherd Worsted, and Shepherd Sport. I'm certain that Linda will be happy to take special orders if you want yet another weight/fiber variety (birdsnyarn at aol dot com).
2. Lisa, a sweet reader, e-mailed me a photo of her completed Grumperina LL SS sock! She graciously allowed me to share the photo with you, because (hello!) look how beautifully the yarn striped!
For the record, Lisa knit the sock over 64 stitches using US 0 needles, at a knitting tension of 9 stitches per inch.
I totally didn't anticipate this beauty, and now I'm super eager to knit up my own skeins! I mailed out the prize skeins yesterday, so I can't wait to see how the yarn behaves on the winners' needles, too ;).
3. Picovoli lovers, rejoice! Jody came to my rescue, formatted the pattern lickety-split, and it now resides at Knotions, her new 'zine! I'm working on having a PDF copy on Ravelry, too, but Knotions is immediately accessible so please help yourselves there for the time being!
4. Odessa lovers, rejoice! The pattern is now available through Ravelry as a PDF! If you don't have access to the Rav, drop me a line and I will send you a copy via e-mail!
5. I know I still have some loose MagKnits ends to tie up - the Corded pattern, plus all the dead links which permeate my webpages. Again, I'm working as fast as I can - feel free to poke around... eventually you might come across a link that actually works ;).
April 09, 2008
Can winners be grumpy?
Dudes. Almost 1000 comments. That's simply nuts!!! It's really a testament to the talent behind Lorna's Laces - they make it just right, every time!
The story behind the Grumperina colorway is as follows: the stripey socks came first. With this specific project in mind, I selected navy, natural, lilac, and blackberry LL Shepherd Sock from my pile of Lorna's Laces leftovers.
The creative mind behind Lorna's Laces, Beth Casey, mentioned that if my chosen colors worked well together, it might be fun to blend them into a special colorway! I was floored and flattered by this suggestion, and of course agreed. Next, Linda was added into the mix, and just a few short weeks later, the yarn was all dyed!
I don't expect this colorway to form stripes when knit up; certainly not the nice, even ones like when knitting a "stacked spiral." The repeats of each color are quite short, enough for just a handful of stitches. But as I mentioned a little while ago Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters
And which pattern will you use? I know there aren't terribly many of you... at the moment the Grumperina colorway is all sold out. But it will be back in stock shortly! E-mail Linda (birdsnyarn at aol dot com) to be placed on the waitlist.
I'm on the waitlist, too, you know. When I saw the number of readers entering a raffle for only two skeins of yarn, it just didn't sit well with me. So I decided to increase the prize - 5 readers will each receive two skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Grumperina! A total of 10 skeins to be given away! The catch? I'm waiting for the yarn to be dyed, so the prizes won't be delivered immediately.
The winners... I know you've been waiting for this!
- Xana!
- Karen! (the one whose yahoo e-mail address contains "2001")
- Jessie B., who promises to live up to the yarn's grumpiness!
- Elisabeth!
- Jennifer! (the one who has a yahoo.ca e-mail address)
Congratulations, ladies! I'll be in touch shortly!
Seeing so many of you inquire about the future of my MagKnits patterns has me beaming and flustered all at once. I'm flattered that you want the patterns in your libraries (awww, shucks!), but the development was abrupt and unannounced, and I find myself scrambling in a panic as I cobble something together for you. I want to help, and to help quickly, but life: it just keeps moving!
Jaywalker is now available as a free pdf download on Ravelry (or drop me a line if you'd like a copy via e-mail). Odessa and the other patterns will follow shortly - also free, also pdf, also on Ravelry or by e-mail. I just don't know exactly when. I was completely caught off guard, and find myself digging through ancient hard drives and yellowing papers to get everything together for you. My apologies.
Posted by Kathy at 09:38 PM | Comments (85)April 06, 2008
A moody medley
And if juggling four balls of yarn isn't your cup of tea, the folks at Lorna's Laces have your number!
What a gorgeous combination of blackberry, navy, natural, and lilac: all the colors I'm using in the stripy spiral socks!
And wouldn't you know it, this new colorway is named after me! Grumperina colorway, hehe!
When Beth at Lorna's Laces first mentioned the idea to me, I was like, really?!? Never in my wildest dreams! At the same time, of all the different yarns out there, I couldn't be happier to see my nickname on a hank of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock. But you knew that.
I really like the moodiness of this colorway. I think it's the perfect medley to have "grumpy" in its name (even though my favorite color is red, and my general grumpiness is always questioned ;)).
And yet another wonderful thing - Grumperina Shepherd Sock is exclusive to my favorite LL supplier, Linda!
Linda, emtnestr on eBay, has recently began to transition to her own store on the web, Birds-n-Yarn, and invites you to check out her new home. With all the Lorna's and the Cherry Tree Hill and the hand-crafted dpns, it's certainly worth a look ;). And of course if you want some of the special colorway, you have to visit.
OR...
You can leave a comment here, and I'll randomly select one lucky reader to receive two skeins of LL Shepherd Sock in the Grumperina colorway!!! Comments have been closed, and the winner will be announced shortly! Thank you for reading!
Posted by Kathy at 08:06 PM | Comments (954)April 04, 2008
Little socklet
I DID a heel flap! I made the flap and heel turn of one color, then just picked up stitches with whichever color was in the right position. It was a little nerve wrecking, but it went OK. I'm cruising down the gussets now... --Diana
Girl, you've got it! Knitting your spiral socks with a flap heel is rather intuitive, and certainly not more complicated than inserting a short row heel. In fact, you'll notice some copy 'n paste action in this post, because the two heels are fundamentally inserted in the same exact way. Let's take a look, step by step.
As before, you will first identify your heel stitches. Next, knit your spiral such that the heel yarn (the yarn with which you'll knit the heel) is on the left side of the heel stitches AND the other yarns, however many you're using, are not in the middle of the heel. You'll be working back and forth over the heel stitches using the heel yarn, and you don't want to trap any of your other working yarns in the process.
Here you see the heel yarn (B for Blackberry) hanging on the left side of the heel stitches. Of the two yarns at that junction, it is the topmost. At the point the photo was taken, I was about to turn my work and purl back, thus starting the heel flap.
Note 1: All the heel stitches are currently blackberry. Depending on the instructions you follow, you can count this as the first row of the heel. Of course, no other yarns are in the way, so I can proceed full steam ahead!
Note 2: As some of you pointed out, this kind of arrangement may necessitate "working out of order" - knitting an extra dpn-length with the heel yarn, for instance, when you typically would have moved on to the next color. Just remember that this "order" is purely arbitrary: as long as you're always using the lowest available strand, you'll be able to recreate the setup with which you're most comfortable in no time at all!
Note 3: Along the same lines, the photograph above captures only one of several entirely equivalent yarn distributions. Would it matter if I knit the Navy to where the Lilac is currently residing? Not in the least bit! As long as (1) no yarns interrupt the heel stitches and (2) you're always using the lowest available strand, you have it right!
A little TV-watching later...
I have knit the heel flap, and heel turn. The Blackberry strand is poised perfectly for picking up stitches along the left gusset, so that's what I'll do!
At the bottom of the gusset I encounter a Navy strand, and it is the lower of the two - oh, noes! Hehe! I have no choice but to drop Blackberry and pick up Navy as I work my way across the next dpn. And then I do the same with Lilac when I reach the next junction.
And so, I've now reached the right gusset! Natural is the lower of the two strands, so I will use it to pick up the right gusset stitches and knit across half of the heel turn.
At the end of this maneuver, here's what I've got:
Friends, are you seeing what I'm seeing?!? Look at it! There's a strand of yarn hanging off each dpn junction! We know what to do with this, right? This is home base, where this whole thing began!
Now we knit round and round, incorporating decreases at the gussets as usual, until we reach the toe. Until then, little socklet, keep on spiraling!
Posted by Kathy at 10:11 AM | Comments (27)April 02, 2008
As you were, comrades!
I thought of another way to illustrate the helical path of stripes: I wound a length of stripy grosgrain ribbon around a roll of paper towels.
Think of your vertical color repeat: if you're using two balls of yarn, it's two stitches high; three balls, three stitches, and so on. If you're playing with grosgrain ribbon, it's the thickness of the ribbon. As you knit your sock, your vertical color repeat wraps around as one entity - the stripes never cross one another, and the edges abut. Where I sliced my ribbon at a shallow angle - that's where you would introduce all the different colors at the onset of the spiral (and remove them at the end of your work). The idea of attaching the yarns at equal intervals would necessitate an even shallower cut, of course.
Question: I really, honestly don't need to twist the yarns?
Answer: Please don't ;). Twisting the yarns will change the order of your stripes. I'd need to cut up my ribbon along its length to demonstrate twisting, and I don't want to do that ;). Just go with the flow, and always pick up the lowest available strand - no twisting and no holes!
Question: How do I make stripes which are more than 1 row thick?
Answer: By attaching several balls of yarn of the same color, one right after the other. The number of balls equals the height of the stripe - 2 stitches high needs 2 balls, 3 stitches high needs 3 balls, and so on.
Question: Are you seriously going to stick a heel in there somewhere?
Answer: It wouldn't be a sock without one!
First, identify your heel stitches. As you know, this is typically half of the total number of stitches. If you're using dpns, some people like to put the heel over needles 1 & 4. Others like the heel over 3 & 4. It really doesn't matter: just decide which ones will belong to the heel.
Next, knit your spiral such that the heel yarn (the yarn with which you'll knit the heel) is on the left side of the heel stitches AND the other yarns, however many you're using, are not. You don't want your other yarns to be in the middle of the heel, either. You'll be working back and forth over the heel stitches using the heel yarn, and you don't want to trap any of your other working yarns in the process.
Here you see the heel yarn (B for Blackberry) hanging on the left side of the heel stitches. At the point the photo was taken, I was about to turn my work and purl back, thus starting my short-row heel. Note: all the heel stitches are currently blackberry - you probably can't see this, I'm going to ask for your trust on this one. Depending on the instructions you follow, you can count this as the first row of the heel. Of course, no other yarns are in the way, so I can proceed full steam ahead!
Fast forward 30 minutes...
What I want you to see is that (wouldn't you know it?!?) the yarns are in exactly the same positions as they were before I started! So, what more is there to say? As you were, comrades! You've successfully inserted a heel, and now you continue knitting as though nothing happened!
Question: How does it work when you get to the end of the tube?
Answer: Same as the beginning! I will abandon each strand in turn, spacing them out evenly over the circumference of the sock. I will tidy up any holes by carefully weaving in my ends. But I'm getting ahead of myself here ;).
Before I go ahead and finish the sock, do you want me to take out the short-row heel and show you how to finesse a flap heel into this colorful contraption? You can do it without breaking any yarns - it just requires a certain set-up so everything flows correctly.
Posted by Kathy at 10:24 AM | Comments (48)
