Our booth at the Townsend Fiber Fest.  For Stitches, take this and imagine it HUGE.  *grin*

See us at Stitches South

Visit KSD this weekend, April 22nd -25th, at the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta, GA, for Stitches South, in booth 232.

Mercedes will be there with heaps of yarn in your favorite KSD colorways, and lots of bright new colors, too!  The booth will be stocked with beautiful projects to fire up your imagination and set your needles in motion.

Win $50 Gift Certificate!

Stop by our booth (232) this weekend to enter to win a $50 Gift Certificate to the KSD online shop!

See you in Atlanta!

I’ve been dyeing up yarn all day to be sure we have plenty of goodies to bring to Atlanta for Stitches South next week. I’m so excited!  I kept piling up fresh yarns until I ran out of room on the cooling racks, and dyed up plenty of skeins of new colorways.

Now on to washing, drying, and reskeining. Whew!  I think for now, it’s beer o’ clock.

Quick note, the KSD website is down temporarily (I hope!). I’m
researching the bug and will try to sort it out tonight.

Fixed it! (Obviously, because you can read this now, instead of seeing a pesky error message. Yeah! *fist pump*)

Valencia semi-solid, shown on Seacell Merino Fine

I’ve just posted our bright new colorways for spring,  and the shop has been updated with new arrivals.

This week, get FREE shipping on all orders to the US and Canada, use coupon code 0J2A1AMRO0PJ at checkout.  Code expired 4/9/10.

Ruthie semi-solid, shown on Merino Fine

I couldn’t wait to begin knitting with some of these beauties, so I just cast on for a re-vamp of one of my old scarf patterns, the Petal Edge Scarf (it will be available at the KSD booth at Stitches South later this month) in Mai, an over-the-top super-saturated red-orange that I am completely besotted with.

Mai semi-solid, shown on Merino Fine

First, these sweet, tiny crocheted hearts from Kristen TenDyke; these puffy little hearts made me smile.  Pattern Here.

Julie Kundhi has these flat crocheted hearts, which would make excellent gift embellishment, or glue a pin back on for a quick brooch.

And for a non-knitting, non-crochet, but all yarn-love option, try these wrapped yarn hearts from Woolywotnots.  Wouldn’t they be great on a small scale glued to cardstock for a sweet crafty valentine?

So last week when I posted about traditional knitting gone modern, I had no idea where it would end up. I swatched a bit and played around, and had a really unexpected, funny, and useful idea!

You may look at the swatch above and think, “sock”.  So did I.  But then I thought about this-

That would be a pint glass from my regular Friday afternoon hangout, The Bottletree.  It’s one of those deals where you buy the glass for $10 and get happy hour prices on beer forever and ever.  Which is, in my opinion, totally awesome.  But I have to make sure I can get the glass from point A to point B without breaking it.  And I’m clumsy.  And I like to knit odd cozies.  And sooooo….

This is going to be fun!  I’m probably going to rip back and start over with doubled yarn, and probably switch up the color selection a bit (those two browns are melding).  I think I’ll do a reversible “cuff” for the top to tuck in to protect the rim of the glass (stealing this idea from my friend Kristin, who crocheted a cozy for her pint glass a couple weeks back) , that way I can fold it over and out of the way for drinking.

This video shows a variation of the two-yarns-in-the-left-hand I use when I do stranded knitting, using the adjacent fingers to tuck the unused color back and out of the way while working.  I don’t tension my yarn much, so I just lay both yarns over my index finger, separated my my 2nd knuckle.

Another great resource for fair isle knitting are the great folks at Philosopher’s Wool, when I was first learning this video helped a lot (you can tell it’s been up for a while, because they warn it’s “not for dial-up connections”).  Ann Bourgeois uses a two-handed method that really clicks with a lot of knitters.  If you get a chance, check out the companion book, Fair Isle Sweaters Simplified, for more great tips and techniques.

I’ve had traditional knitting on the brain this week; project ideas that revolve around updated versions of fair isle stranded knitting, richly cabled texture patterns, and modern silhouettes in gansey patterns.  A natural fit to bring these type of patterns a modern look is to use a classic but modern yarn, like a hand dyed semisolid.  Texture patterns can still “pop” with a subtler handpaint, and fair isle patterns gain a richer palette.

Currently, I’m knitting a rich cable pattern with Eco DK, a mid-weight three-ply yarn.  This pattern has non-stop cable twists on each right side row, so I’ve been using the “cabling without a needle” technique.  Having a smoothly plied yarn makes life sooo much easier while doing this, as single ply yarns and loosely plied yarns tend to collapse and separate without the structure of the needle holding them up.  I have a tutorial in the works for this technique, because it’s a lifesaver!

I just packed up a little gift box for a Valentine’s day swap on Ravelry, with this little nugget of a birdie inside (I’m pretty sure my swap partner doesn’t read this, and that it should be delivered by now, but if you’re reading, doll: SPOILER ALERT!!).

It measures about 2″ high, with little striped pipe cleaner chicken legs.  I modified a little bird pattern from one of my Japanese amigurumi books (isbn# 4-309-26670-3, bought from the fab Saucylouise) with scraps of Luxe Merino Fine in Peabody on a size C hook.  I love that little tail nubbin!

Now it’s time to gear up to work on some new patterns that have been clunking around in my noggin.  Fun ideas that I just can’t stop thinking about, so they must begin!  So knitters that may have been feeling neglected in this crochet lovefest, stay tuned over the next few weeks.   At least two new knitting patterns are on the way, including the full version (headband, cowl, mitts-So excited!) of the Snakehandler pattern featured back in autumn and a SWEET new embellished cardi!

Tara over at Blonde Chicken Boutique got sucked in a couple of weeks back (check her post on granny squares for some great links), which got me thinking about it again, which got the ball rolling on my current sock yarn scrap granny project.

Now Amy over at The Hook and I has a great post up about granny squares, including some basic charting and construction options, and a book in the works by she and Julie Holetz on granny square projects. Can’t wait to see that!

And my pile of granny squares just keeps on growin’.  I have a glut of sock yarn, so they may go on forever!  There are worse things, to be sure.  It feels like a guess the beans in the jar game, how many squares are in a basket of sock yarn scraps?

Want to start your own granny square project?  Start with this great tutorial over at the Purl Bee.

A delicate blend of supple silk and soft linen, this yarn takes the dyes with subtle, beautiful shading. Try it in your next lace project, or knit it doubled for a soft spring garment.

Details: 65% silk 35% linen

725 yards per 4oz skein

Heavy lace/light fingering weight

Hand wash in cold water, dry flat.

Merino Silk Worsted

A buttery-soft, next to the skin touchable merino silk blend with great yardage! Try this puffy, lofty single ply worsted weight that is great for accessories. Knits and crochets beautifully.

Details: 60% merino wool 40% silk

240 yards per 4 oz skein

Worsted weight
4-5 stitches per inch on US 7-9 needles

Hand wash in cold water, dry flat.

and not exactly new, but uncommon, Silver Spoon

Try this gorgeous, subtle glittering yarn in your next lace or sock project! A sumptuous blend of soft superwash merino, silk, nylon for strength, and 2% real sterling silver fiber.

Details: 63% superwash merino wool 20% silk
15% nylon 2% real sterling silver fibers

410 yards per 100g skein

Fingering/sock weight
Needles: US 0-3

Hand wash or machine wash gentle in cold water, dry flat.

That, friends, is the beginning of a cute amigurumi groundhog!  Using June Gilbank’s Groundhog pattern and KSD’s Merino Fine held doubled, I’m making this as part of the Groundhogalong that started from some joking around on twitter.  Turns out there are quite a few crafters that are just as crazy about the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day.

Want to join us?  There’s now a ravelry group, a flickr group, and a cute badge!  Just grab a hook and complete your groundhog by Feb 2nd.  In Casa de Clark, we have a screening of Groundhog Day every year, so I’ll be camped out on the sofa with my g’hog and husband.

Progress has paused while I hunt through my super-disorganized stash for a bag of polyfill stuffing and some appropriate buttons for eyes.  And I’m naming my g’hog Desmond.  You can’t name yours Ned Ryerson, Kim already called dibs!