Sock Yarn and Stitches West

So I went to Stitches West this past Friday, armed with a budget of both cash and card, and was remarkably restrained. Of course, unless one has unlimited income, you'll never feel like you have quite enough money for Stitches. I bought two things of fibre, both 50/50 silk/wool (my weakness), in a delightful brown and honey colour from Lisa Souza, and in Puck's Mischief from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. I also bought:

I love Nature's Palette Yarn, especially in the odd duck colourways. Wouldn't you know, though, I've never knit up any of my skeins?

Socks that Rock in Jasper, in lightweight. I realised, finally getting a chance to see all the sock yarns close up in person (despite the growing crowds and jostling elbows), that I prefer the more subtle, almost solid colours of Socks that Rock-- that and the Watercolour Wave versions. What else did I buy? A bag of Rowan Cashsoft Aran in a silvery grey, from Webs, for a very good price, and an Elizabeth Zimmerman Video. And that's it! but, um...things have been coming to my mailbox...

Socks that Rock lightweight in Pink Granite.

Fleece Artist sock yarn in Moss. I love greens.

All this consumerism, however, has had the effect of making me realise I really should try harder to knit with my stash. Use what I have. I have tons of fibre, tons of yarn. Well, maybe not tons. But the sight of Stitches West, with just so much kind of turned my stomach. Seeing grown women literally diving into bins for yarn on sale. Huge lines at the Yarn Barn booth. I mean, yes, I'm totally a consumer. I love buying yarn and things. But how much of it has become more of a habit more than anything else? I'm not jumping on the whole "knit from your stash" bandwagon, just because one should always leave room. And I have almost no cotton blends for summer. But really, do I need all the stuff I gawk at online? I mean, buying yet two more skeins of Nature's Palette when I haven't even knit what I have? Sheesh!

But let me fuel your consumerist nature: new sock yarn in my Etsyshop. Both in colourway PUNK, but dyed in a new technique.

In both BFL three ply superwash and Quick Sox superwash, respectively.

DOWN AND OUT

That's me. I've either got the flu or food poisoning. I'm leaning towards the latter, although I can't for the life of me figure out what could have caused it. Is there any kind of food poisoning that takes twenty four hours to hit? All I know is the knock-me-down, drag-out food poisoning I got a few years ago from Safeway cookies the day after I came back from Mexico. (oh, the irony of it all.)

If you like pulp fiction, or cool books, go here.

Stitches West

Anybody going to Stitches West? Do say hi if you see me! I've got a tattoo of the word STEEL on the back of my neck, plus assorted handdrawn ones on my arms, so if you see that word, tap me on the shoulder and say hi!

spin, spin...Ow?

Has anyone blown out their knee spinning before? Or sustained any kind of spinning injury? I seem to have injured my right knee in some indefinable way, and the only thing I can think of that could have caused it is spinning on my single treadle Ashford Traditional. I *just* started back at the gym, so it can't be that. It's kind of on the side of my knee, and feels like something's inflamed-- but I can't quite pinpoint it. Any tips? Tricks? Words of advice? Tea and sympathy?

This of course tells me that I NEED a Schacht Matchless Double Treadle. I wish my bank account agreed with me.

CONFESSIONS

I've been holding out on you guys. Yes, I knit. Yes, I dye and spin. but I also paint. and make collages. and draw. So, as an attempt to bring the two worlds together, I'm going to occasionally post about the art stuff I'm working on. I finally set up an Etsy store for my collages, etc., which you can visit here Let me know what you think, okay? I've always loved making collages; I paint, too, and do some sculpture, but I constantly return to collage as a resting place.

My prices are pretty low-- I like being able to make affordable art. And this is the first step of many to try to get out of the inertia that seems to have surrounded my art since graduating from college. I want to make a living from art and fiber. I really do. But in order to do that, I need to get off my butt and actually pursue it. I'm thinking of trying to pursue some illustration; a couple years ago I illustrated a yoga book, which is a good resume thing, but, honestly, I just don't know how to go about it all. any words of wisdom would be great.

Disclosure

Well, since I got the go-ahead from one of the afore mentioned blogs, I'm going to go ahead and say which blogs are which. The accusatory one: Six and a Half Stitches; the accused: Black Dog Knits. If you go through them, I think you will see that there is no plagiarism going on-- just two people with a similar aesthetic! Please read my friend Kate's response on Six and a Half Stitches' post-- she did an excellent job of expressing the way I feel better than I ever could.

Why, oh why do creative people have to feel so competetive? Why can't we just inspire each other to bigger and better things? There's so much ugliness in the world, do we have to bring it into our creative lives?

reference

As much as the little imp inside me would love to disclose the names of the blogs referred to in my last post (especially the accusing one), I am not going to. Sorry! I just feel that since those two blogs have not disclosed the names themselves, then it is not my place to do so. If I came across them, then you can to. But it's not my place to add to the drama. Sorry to take the high moral ground here, but I don't feel I can do any differently.

On another note, how do I html italics into my posts? Any help?

And, next Etsy update will be Saturday, February 24th. There will be probably some mini updates before then, so keep checking back! My Etsy store is at www.pigeonroofstudios.etsy.com.

oh, wow.

Wow. You guys decimated my shop! It's freakin' awesome! It was a ton of work, though, especially since last week was just so damn shitty. I've learned that I need to start preparing for shop updates wayyyy before they happen so I am not frantically reskeining yarn the day of nor sweltering while trying to dry roving and yarn before the heater. (The above yarn is Quest, but is sold out.)

I've also had a few custom orders, which is cool. I'm not quite sure how much I will do this, but I'm playing it all by ear.

While the shop was hit pretty hard, there's still some rovings and sock yarns up, including one of my favourites, GANACHE:

and CARNIVAL Quick Sox:

I'm not gonna get rich, but it's a hell of a lot of fun. Knitting wise, I finished J's scarf, which looks fantastic, but it's currently in Toronto. I will try to get him to strike a dashing pose with it when he gets home. Otherwise, I'm just trying to finish up things still on the needles. Damn it, I WILL have two endpaper mitts!

And on one last topic...hmm. I'm not quite sure how to put this. Basically, one blogger (no, not me!) decided that another blogger was copying her "style" and "language". (my quote marks). Said blogger wrote to other blogger and said that since other blogger was not a "designer" and in fact had a career quite the opposite, she was obviously copying from this other blog. And so on and so forth. Both bloggers have wrote about this. I like both blogs. I actually really like the second blog better than the first, because it's got similar tastes to mine. But! I have to say, I find the arrogance of the first blogger staggering. I've looked at both blogs, and while there is obviously a similar appreciation for like aesthetics, there certainly isn't any copying! Unless a blogger is plagiarized DIRECTLY AND VERBATIM, which this blogger wasn't, how can she put limitations on uses of words? (and I mean SINGLE words. Adverbs. Or adjectives. err. or maybe nouns.) Plus, the sheer assumption that because a creative person does not work in a design related job, they can't have any design sensibilities? Come on, people! The crafting community is a LITERATE community. We read, we absorb anything and everything. And, frankly, it is more than likely that we will have similar aesthetics as someone else. It's arrogant to assume otherwise, and, I have to say, I was struck with the thought when reading the first blogger's complaining that she was obviously deeply, deeply insecure. Otherwise, who really cares? Money isn't being lost-- no one is copying anyone's product and selling it-- two people just like similar angles and details and colours! This whole thing just made me angry-- look, I'm an artist, I am INFLUENCED by other artists all the time. I see other artist's work sometimes that I GET because it is clear we are thinking and visualizing in similar ways. But this only means we are attracted to the same things! We do not live in a vaccum, especially not in todays hyper-information society. Design? we can read and be exposed to it as much as we want via TV, Print, and the Internet.

So what I'm saying is, get over yourself. Stop worrying about your classmate and worry about yourself. Off my soap box now.

growl.

I feel like crap. this whole week has been a vicious cycle of insomnia one night, dreaming like crazy the next night, then sleeping in so hard that I get parking tickets. Then repeat. Last night was an insomnia night. I think I got like maybe an hours sleep? Now let me tell you, I am not one of those people that can get by fine on even seven hours. I need nine, minimum. I don't sleep very well, so I need a lot of time in which to get an actual eight hours of real sleep. This is not helped by the facts that my cats are extremely spoiled, and yes, if they make a lot of noise and start eating paper, mama WILL get out of bed to refill water bowls and give them food. this usually happens at least twice during the night.

Oh yeah. And it's raining.

And I have a scarf, a baby sweater, and hopefully a hat to finish by tomorrow night. This includes blocking and sewing on buttons. However, the baby is not yet born, and the warmness of J. in Toronto this weekend takes priority.

On a more positive note, big ETSY update this weekend! On Saturday! you can find me at www.pigeonroofstudios.etsy.com. I'm too tired to link. There'll be a lot of handdyed sock yarn, both in my usual base and a thicker base yarn (for faster socks! Yay!), some handdyed, handspun yarns, and a bunch of superwash roving, including some in PUNK.

okay, off to go work a little more and then go home to curl up in bed and take a nap. This insomnnia crap is driving me nuts. Plus I am not a big fan of taking sleeping pills, but lately the melatonin I've been taking hasn't been working worth shit.
grrrrr. I'm jealous of my cats for being able to sleep at the drop of a hat.

Dear God

Dear God, if you could see fit to either make money fall out of the sky and into my bank account, or send massive amounts of customers over to my etsy store, so I can pay my rent, my phone bill, my dsl bill, my gas bill, that would be just awesome. Maybe later we can then talk about my massive student loan debt?

Sigh. This time of the month sucks.

Okay, rant over. on a more positive level, I finished a pair of socks! Whee!
Yahaira's awesome stitch pattern, size zero addi turbos, magic loop, two skeins koigu. They fit very well, and feel lovely. Shall we have another look-see?

These socks went surprisingly fast; the stitch pattern required just enough of my attention to keep me enthralled, and koigu is one of my favourite yarns.

Another sock is on the needles, this time with some of my own handdyed sock yarn:

Not only does this stuff dye well, it knits up amazingly soft. It's thinner than koigu, but super super soft. I hate chunky socks; my feet are big enough. In fact, nothing makes me more aware of how large my feet are than when I'm laboriously making my way up the foot. They're size 9 and a half to 10. I am not six feet, people! I am a fairly skinny 5 ft 7! (if I really work at it.) Where did these honkers come from?

Another thing is on the needles is a scarf for J.

He's going to Toronto for a few days for a baby shower, and he wanted a warm scarf. He picked out the yarn (and bought it)--five skeins of Koigu Kersti in a wonderfully drab green. VERY manly. He's got great taste. Reversible one by one rib, with a slipped stitch edge. It's so delightfully squashy.


Love that tubular cast on action.

On another note, there's lots and lots of roving up at etsy, espescially a new colourway that I'm in love with: "Punk".
Now, I am not by any means a punk rocker, but I love how this roving came out pretty, but with an edge.

anyways, happy knitting!