Local yarn stores

Since I went to work last Thursday I didn't feel like braving opening day at the Sock Summit marketplace. Instead I wandered down to Powell's and picked up a copy of Franklin Habit's book. Then enjoyed a Rose Garden bubble tea at the Tea Zone before catching the bus to Yarnia. The shop was open extended hours for Sock Summit, and they also had snacks. It was fun to hang out and chat in the warm weather. I also picked up a rayon/cotton blend from the bargain basket, and thanks to the Supportland card, I have a $10 credit next time I go to Yarnia! Lots of yarn and other crafty stores participate in Supportland, so definitely worth picking up a card if you're local!

Then on Friday I started off the morning with the Curvy-Grrl Knee Socks & Legwarmers lecture at Sock Summit. It was nice to have someone else figure out a basic formula for making legwarmers fit! After the lecture I went to work (again, had to make some money for the rest of the weekend!) After work I headed down to Urban Fiber Arts, since I knew she had a few trunk shows going on in the shop instead of having a booth at Sock Summit. I picked up one of the special Sock Summit pins and a skein of Stitchjones yarn in XV (her special Sock Summit colorway). Then headed home since I knew I was going to have a long day volunteering on Saturday...

More on sock summit later. Also need to take pictures of the new additions to the stash ;)

Sock Summit

Sock Summit seems like a good reason to try blogging again! I didn't register for any classes, but I am volunteering again this year. Headed to the Oregon Convention Center after work this afternoon to help at the loading dock. Ended up having dinner at Burgerville with a knitter from Pennsylvania (didn't manage to get her name, but we had a nice chat :) Helped out for a few hours, making sure vendors had carts and found their booths. And got a sneak peek at some lovely yarn! Love all the vibrant colors, and looking forward to get some self-striping yarn.

Going to work tomorrow, since I need to make some money if I want to buy anything at the marketplace ;)

Sock Summit Stash

Still learning the best way to upload pictures to the blog, so hopefully this will work! There are also more pictures in my Flickr Photostream

First is the green fiber I got from Spinner's Candy on the last day of Sock Summit (she had a buy 2 get 1 free special, so I also have a blue braid and a grey one). The wool feels spongey which is kinda fun, and I like how it looks spun up.


Also a couple of skeins of sock yarn I got from CraftsMeow. I think this was my first purchase at Sock Summit. I had admired both of the colorways in the Dye for Glory contest on ravelry, so they had to come home with me ;) Hoping to make some witchy socks for Samhain.

Sock Summit

Sock Summit was fabulous... I made some new friends, visited with other friends I hadn't seen in awhile, bought too much yarn and fiber, learned some new techniques, and even got to help some new sock knitters turn a heel :)
Also procrastinated writing my last paper for summer term, which is why this update is so short.

Spinning...

Last weekend I (finally) decided to take a drop spindle class. I had been wanting to learn how to spin, there was still space in the class at Knitting Bee, and I needed somewhere air-conditioned to spend the afternoon... so it worked out well ;)

Seemed like a lot of things to learn in a two hour class, and I felt like I was just starting to get a feel for what the fiber and spindle feel like. Then I had school all last week, and there wasn't really any time to practice.

Today I pulled out one of the fiber samples I had gotten in the Phat Fiber box, and decided to try spinning to see what I remembered. Now I think I'm hooked ;) I think I've learned that playing with the fiber too much just leads to over-spinning, and it didn't seem to take much to turn the fiber into yarn. And I was using a fabulous organic wool sample from Extreme Spinning, so it was probably easier to spin than the roving we used in class last week.

So now I'm looking at what other samples I want to spin! I also have some nice Abstract Fiber samples I got during the yarn crawl last winter...

Also thinking about knitting another sock so I can have a pair to wear to Sock Summit next weekend! Finished the other one a couple of weeks ago, and haven't gotten motivated to knit the other one. But I would like to have a pair of socks to wear to Sock Summit, and the only other socks I've knit are house socks which will be too warm to wear!
I didn't actually get tickets for any events or classes, but am looking forward to checking out the marketplace and sock museum. A little scared about the number of crazy sock knitters that will be descending on Portland in the next few days though... I will also be volunteering at the Marketplace on Friday and assisting in a beginning sock knitting class on Saturday :) Should be lots of fun knitting and spinning adventures now that summer school is over!