The Wicked Stitch

Woolfest Whoo Hoo!

 
 

 

Winter Woolfest 2011 was awesome fun!   We had great crowds and a lovely, warm venue in the Columbian Theater (thank you Columbian!).

There were fun and informative classes....

And oodles of lovely yarns and fibers from the vendors!

 
 

Oh, and there was some knitting, spinning and other fibery stuff going on too (...just a little...) ...

 
 

  
 
 
I must thank my volunteer teachers - Laura Mead, Nikol Lohr, Stephanie Powers and Heather Wilkie: my kid table helpers - Grace Beck and Lucy Schermerhorn: my do anything needed helper - Jen Beck: and my right hand lady in the shop - Denise Wyrick!  I am also grateful to all the vendors - Laura's Pygoras, The Thrifty Knitter, Two Windows Dye Company, Kansas Alpaca and Fiber Farms, Alpacas of Wildcat Hollow, Designs by Anna, The Yarn Peddler, Tightly Wound Yarns, Meadow Spirit Alpacas, Teri for The Treasure Goddess, and Parideza Organic Farm!  And last, but oh so not least, Britt Nichols and Poppyfield Gallery/VinVivante Winery for being our enthusiastic host for the two years prior!!

 Don't forget to join us again next year!  Go put Jan. 7th, 2012 on your calendar right now!

  
The Wicked Stitch

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Draft, Spin, Smile - Repeat!

Yesterday was the Spindle Spinning and Spinning as Meditation Workshop with Laura Mead.  

Laura supplied her class with lovely spindles, yummy fibers and an in depth slide show of the history, techniques and zen of spinning.

Everyone seemed to learn quickly with Laura's excellent explanations.  

 
 
 

 
Congratulations to a whole new group of handspinners that have discovered the joy of spinning!  Yay!

 
 
You have the oppoortunity to join some workshop fun next weekend!  We have two half-day workshops offered on Nov. 20th - Knitting Thrummed Slippers and Spinning Self-Striping Yarns.  Come be a part of our fibery fun community!

 

 

So, who needs a new pair of socks?

I have two new sock yarns in the shop for you all to try....

This is a smooshy, handpainted merino from Two Windows Dye Co. of Hutchinson, KS.  The colorways are really scrumptious!

And this is Ditto from Universal Yarns.  This workhorse yarn is really pretty in subdued self-patterning colorways.  This yarn makes socks you could wear anywhere.  I am thinking along the lines of making a Simple Yet Effective Shawl by Cosmicpluto Knits.

Here is one done in Ditto by twocables ...

It is simple yet effective!  I'm all over it!

The quick, brown fox...has jumped my queue!

I'm usually not someone who knits many toys.  I usually have a long queue of mittens, hats, cowls and (my favorite) sweaters to work on.  And I do have a really long list of mittens, hats, cowls and sweaters right now, but.....then I picked up the newest Knit Simple magazine and saw these....

What suckered me in was the fox.  A fox!  So awesome.  I have to have one.  And since bribing my daughter into knitting things for me isn't going so well, I am shoving all those mittens, hats, cowls and sweaters down the line a little bit and I'm diving into...a toy.  A toy for me, yay!

 

I've found the perfect fox colors in Classic Worsted (the shop's got over 26 different colors to choose from by the way!).

And am rather entranced by the owls as well.  But instead of following the designers stripes and fair isle pattern I think I will use the Classic Worsted Tapestry.  It fair isle patterns all on it's own and will make for a super quick project.

And quick is good (remember that long queue...), plus there is a rather impatient, small, but incredibly demanding person waiting for his owl! :) 

For more wonderful pictures of these super cute toys, (the squirrel magically turns into a hedgehog!) check out the designer's blog  Susan B. Anderson .

 

To market, to market, to buy a....what?!

I had an awesome time at the Manhattan Alpaca Market yesterday!  The weather was fantastic, the customers were wonderful and the participants were adorable...

We had lots of colored wools, silks, mohair, washed and raw fleece to compliment all the lovely, Kansas alpaca fibers and yarns available for sale.  Check out these incredible hand-dyed (with Gaywool dyes from The Wicked Stitch!) , hand-spun yarns offered by Robin from Cedar Breaks Farm.

 There was also a great array of other farmmade products including soaps, jams, and pottery.   There was also a good healthy amount of spinning, weaving and knitting going on!

This is Rena from Rivendell Meadows, the organizer of this event.

All the alpacas and fibers worked their magic on my daughter, and she decided to start spinning.  (Needless to say I have been hoping and waiting for this day for years!)  And, of course, she was awesome from the very start.  And, of course, now she wants an alpaca.  She has a lot of allowance to start saving...
 

I am also very excited to have secured these stunning shawl/scarf pins for the shop.  They are handmade at Heartland Farm from recycled Kansas woods.

  

The Cauldron

Welcome back our Cauldron Dyed Yarns, grown, spun and dyed in Kansas!

Our exclusive yarns are now available in three weights - worsted, sport and sock. 

And how do we take these humble, white skeins of soft wool and turn them into the rainbow of colors you see above, you may wonder?  Well, I'm so glad you asked...because I took pictures!

First, I put on my pointy hat and grab my magic witchy wand (I am absolutely serious.).  Next, I haul out the cauldron, better known around here as my ill-fated lobster pot.  Really, I had to start a fiber dyeing career.  What else is a transplanted New Englander supposed to do with her LLBean lobster pot, (with the nifty clam steamer bottom bit), that she insisted she drag across the country with her?  (There must be lobster in Kansas sweetie, people can't really live without lobster rolls! Right?  Right!?!)

Don't you hate it when they try to push off the lid and escape?

 

Then there is a lot of hot water, a very stained wooden spoon, silly face mask, rubber gloves, sweating, a little cursing (okay, sometimes a lot...), eye of newt, toe of frog, and that sort of thing.

 

Then, abracadabra....

 

Doesn't it look lovely even just sitting on my table?  Very color coordinated.  Although it points out the neglectfully wrinkled condition of my tablecloth.  Oh, don't look!   Hmmm,....I wonder how it gets that way...?

 

 
 
DId I just show you a picture of my cat on my table?  Don't look at that either!  She is not allowed on the table, that is awful and disgusting, and we are very firm!  Shoo Purl, off!  Go on, get!  Get down, Baby,...come on sweet little Purly-girl....Mommy loves you Miss puffy-pants....oh well.   Just don't let my mother see.....

 

The Wicked Stitch

 

 

When in doubt, buy wool....

I went on a wool buying trip.  Yes, I am a wool buyer.  So cool, isn't it?  And obviously, with five sheep and an angora goat a home, I just ...do ...not...have...enough...wool.

Here are Nikol and Laura who also just ...don't... have.... enough ...wool.

Mid States Wool is the first step on the road to making commercial yarns and fabrics.  It is literally a warehouse chuck full of fleece in bags...

 
 
 ...fleece in bins...

...and lots of big machinery to move it all around...

There is also a great guy who grades it all by hand and took his time to show us all around.  Then we were set free in this heaven on earth to ...buy...more...wool...

I think I showed remarkable restraint....

Yay!
 

 
 

A little R&B summer Batik

What the Fair Isle? Is it just me or has Kansas totally skipped it's early summer weather?  We went from wearing sweaters (Well, I was wearing sweaters this spring, but I don't take much arm twisting to pop one on.) to hot, steamy, better off nekid weather in a matter of days.  My ancestors must have been from far northern places where humidity is expressed mainly in inches of snowfall.  Because this hair of mine reacts quite violently with crazy, frizzy curls to this weather. (I am not taking a picture.)  So when you stop by the shop, I am the shrubby looking thing behind the desk that really needs to get her roots done. 

So enough about the weather, lets get to the knitting...

I am doing the Frock Camisole (great free pattern by the way) in Cotton Supreme Batik.  I need to start by saying, in general,  I HATE KNITTING COTTON!(There... now I feel better.)  It doesn't stretch in your hands, it's totally unspringy, and it kind of squeaks on your needles.  {shudder}  BUT...this Batik is like butter. 

 Seriously. 

And the colors are gorgeous.  Batik is like the really pretty girl in back in high school, that should have been a stuck-up pig so you could hate her with a good conscience, but actually  she raised money for orphans and walked dogs at the shelter and played piano at nursing homes.  She was even an honor student, so you couldn't even make dumb jokes. 

 Batik even self patterns for gosh sakes... 

 At the risk of sounding like a bad 80's song...I have never (never) knew cotton like this before - What a surprise - Never (never) knew cotton like this before - Opened my eyes!    Yeah, Baby!

Oh, come on...you know the words...