Some photos and cool links

Beware… this is a long post
First, here is a photo of my stitches haul. it is mostly bulky misti alpaca. while taking this photo i realized that still cannot believe how light and fluffy this alpaca yarn is. usually i think that alpaca is kinda ropey, but this stuff is great. Second, a photo of my self-striped yarn. i knit some of it up to see how it looks. that part that is knit up is 6 different colors and is 2-ply. we learned how to make the color changes in the 2 plies match. the top of the knit swatch is suppsed to be puffy yarn with thin binder, and the puffy yarn changes color. then still on the bobbin you can see a little bit of the stuff that i navajo-plied. apparently almost every spinner knows how to do this, but it was new to me. you basically finger-crochet your
yarn to turn 1-ply into 3-ply. there is a cool video on it here. i wanted to share the resources i used to make my first toe-up sock, since meg asked, and since they were all free! I was directed to these instructions by
b, since she seems to know what she is doing in the sock department. The casting on is from an old article in knitty. i chose the “easy toe” and it went pretty well. the toe was definitely the toughest part. i wouldn’t want to do it on the commuter train or anything like that – requires too much concentration. but once i was past that i was home free! to make the rest of the sock (especially the heel) i relied on wendy’s toe-up sock pattern. my foot was really a lot smaller than
the pattern, but it was easy to size the sock because i just kept trying it on!

Be sure to read la principessa’s ‘Honest yarn store review.’ i feel like everyone has visited at least one store that fits this review….

And finally, cheryl and i were discussing crafts as art, and i was telling her that using the term “craft”
isn’t cool anymore, according to this radio program i heard. The show is invisible ink , and they had an episode entitled “In Defense of Crafts” that has
a lot of cool knitting content. here is a link to show #63 if you have real player, half an hour and want to listen.