Happy Thanksgiving from Toronto!

You are The Empress

Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Filed by Julia at 4:33 pm under General
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Please stop in at Lettuce Knit tomorrow night, Wednesday, the 22nd. I will be there at about 6pm to join the legendary Lettuce Knit SnB. I will certainly not be alone! In addition to myself will be a whack of Native Toronto knitters, and also, a box full of Vesper sock yarn. I have been looking forward to this for a very long time. A very long time.

Right now I’m baking cookies with my sister, actually, she’s using her new stand mixer to mix the dough so we can take it to Toronto tomorrow and bake them up there. Nip/Tuck starts in T minus 5 minutes, and I’m drinking a Grey Goose and Pepsi. Somehow that Pepsi part doesn’t seem quite right, but here at Vesper Manor, the pickins are slim for mixers. Anyways, I’m leaving bright and early, so if you’re in the greater Toronto area tomorrow night, I’ll see you at Lettuce Knit!

Filed by Julia at 10:59 pm under Get Your Yarn!!
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So I went to that Handmade Arcade thing last saturday, and it was just how I thought it would be. Except there was way, way, more people than I thought would be there. Like, way, Yo. It was at a place called Construction Junction, which is a non profit place that sells recycled/reclaimed building materials. Very cool. They go around and save usable materials that would otherwise be junked. It’s a big wharehouse type place. The Handmade Arcade part was set up in a separate part of the building, and oh man was there the stuff.

I was kind of expecting to see stuff from hipster type crafters, like screen printed tees, of which there were many, and found object type of jewelry. I also thought I would see hand knit items for sale too,and there was, but I didn’t know if there would be yarn. What can I say, I have a one track mind about yarn. Oh yes, there was yarn.

The first thing I saw when I walked in and turned the corner was a table full of Lamps Lumps, who apparently have no website. ETA: Yes, they do, it’s here. Thanks Lauren! There were also some local handspinners, and I got their card.
Everybody from the Craft Mutiny was there. Including Woolarina, from whom I made my only purchase of the day.

One skein of sock yarn. It would appear I have a built in radar for the stuff. I was really drawn to the colors. She had some other nice things too, but this time of year, it’s all about the budget.

There’s only 200 some odd yards on this skein, so when I do knit it, it’ll definately have contrasting heels and toes. I have some stashed orange koigu that will be perfect. This is one of those times where I’ll pull out the scale and divide the skein into two even halves. This is the beauty of toe up for all you non-believers. Perfectly even usage of yarn, I could get up on my soap box and preach about it all day. I won’t, but I could!

I really want to cast on for these, but once again, I’m sticking to my guns about the whiskey sweater. I cast on for the 2nd sleeve last night, hopefully that won’t take too too long, then, socks!!

Filed by Julia at 6:47 pm under Stash Enhancement
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A Fo. Such a good feeling, let me tell you.

I finished the first one the Saturday night of Rhinebeck, and the second one just last night. I knit the whole second leg while watching the Steelers finally win one on Sunday (yay). I knit the ribbing and wove in the ends last night. The yarn is Hello Yarn sock yarn. The heels and toes and cuffs are louet gems pearl, dyed by me to match the body yarn. Teal was definately the right choice, and knitting contrasting heels and toes is one of my favorite knitting things.
Originally, I was just going to knit the whole sock in the Hello Yarn, but I got the best of myself and dyed up the contrast yarn.
Also, the first toe I knit, the one with just the Hello Yarn, came out too wide when I knit to 64 St, and had some pooling going on. Then I knit the other toe, and only knit to 58 St, and the yarn varigated beautifully, in a mottled stripe. Exactly how I like varigated yarns to varigate.

I also have a ton of yarn left over. Prolly enough to even get a second pair of the same, if shorter, socks. This is usually happens when I use contrasting heel and toe yarn.

Some Specs:

Yarn: Hello Yarn Sock Yarn, in “flurry”.
Adrian’s yarn is absolutely gorgeous. She also has several differant types of sock yarn, and handspun yarns, and kits and all kind of fiber goodies. So go check out her shop, she stocked it today, so there’s lots of yarn!

Needles: Inox US 1′s, my favorite all time sock needles. 29″ circular, knit magic loop style.

Other Stuff: Knit toe up, with the turkish cast on, increase til sock is wide enough, in this case, 58 St. My usual sock recipe, with afterthought heel. I’ve gotten into the habit of putting in a gusset, so there is ease over the top of the ankle, but this time I didn’t. I didn’t want to break up the patterning, so it they are the littlest bit tight on that part, but not enough to bother.

I think I’m going to hold of an another pair of socks until I get somewhere on the whiskey sweater. I haven’t made any progress on it since I last talked about it. So the second sleeve will stand in as my sock. I’ve seriously been dyeing everyday for over the last two weeks, and I am so looking forward to going away for Thanksgiving. I did take yesterday off though. I did some running around early in the day, came home, took a nap, and knit, knit, knit. It was great.

Filed by Julia at 11:53 pm under FO!,Socks!
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Handmade Arcade Tomorrow! I’m excited, I missed it last year, I think it’s like the Renegade Craft fair thing that goes on in the summer. I guess I’m going to find out!

Filed by Julia at 3:49 pm under General
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I sent out an email earlier this afternoon, and thank goodness I’m pretty sure it worked out! No millions of bounced emails in my inbox! But because I said I would I’ll announce it here too.

The next time I update will probably be after Thanksgiving.
Now I have to go save Gladys the Cat from Chuck the Cat. Mwah.

Filed by Julia at 4:36 pm under Get Your Yarn!!
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So very good news today! Vesper Sock Yarn, in the Strange Little Mama colorway, is going to be included in Debbie Stollers Stitch N Bitch 2008 Calendar. Yay yay yay!

From what I know, this calender is going to include lots of yarn from indy dyers, and patterns too. I think’s that’s a very cool thing. I’m very excited. Did you know? I am. I don’t know yet when it’s coming out, but I can’t wait.

I ordered a set of color cards from Beaverslide Dry Goods. I love wool and I love tweediness, and these yarns are incredible. If you have the least bit of interest in their yarns, go get the color cards! They’re less than 10 bucks, free shipping. Amazing I tell you! I’m partial to their fishermans wool, it’s soft and cushy and about Aran weight, and the colors are fantastic.

I’m still working away on my whiskey sweater. Though it’s not going quite as fast now. I’ve been up to my elbows in my dye pots all week long. I have a sleeve and a left front, and I’ve got just a couple of inches on the right front. I’ll show some photos has soon as I have both fronts blocking. The fairisle part of the front is awesome. I knit the first part of it in no time!

Also, I am planning a shop update for tomorrow, Thursday the 9th. It will be late in the afternoon, after 5 sometime. I haven’t tried to send out an email about it yet, so I don’t know if my mailing list is working or not, I really have no idea what happened the last time I used it. Anyways, I’ll post all the info here tomorrow.

Filed by Julia at 6:47 pm under General
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There’s a new addition to my fiber family.

I ordered it through my boss, quite possibly the best boss ever. She let me buy it at cost plus shipping. I saved a crap load of loot on this thing. It’s and Ashford Drum carder, by the way, 36 tpi.
I’ve dug up every bit of handdyed fiber I had laying around here and carded it. I can’t stop, this thing is awsome! I love a good blended batt! I’ve never used a drum carder before, so I did have to figure out how best to blend fibers, and it’s pretty self explainatory. Feed fibers in, crank handle. Although I can say it’s best not to overload it, because it’s crazy hard to get it off the drum!

These are the my first blended batts. I blended some red orange stuff last night, pretty much the second I got it home, and already spun it up. Oh man, no need to pre-draft at all! The fibers just slide right past each other.

You can’t see it, but one of these has some sparklies blended into it. Really, I can’t get enough! I ordered a few pounds of solid colored Merino, and some more sparklies, and even some silk noils, so as soon as that gets here there’ll be no stopping me! Mwah ha ha!
These babies should start becoming a regular item in my shop soon.

I’ve been dyeing all week, so I should hopefully possibly have a shop update in a little over a week. I’m sorry to see October end, it is my favorite month, not that I’m biased or anything. November’s pretty good too, I’m really looking forward to Thanksgiving. I’ll be driving to Michigan, then heading to Toronto, where my family has been having Thanksgiving for 3 years now. So if your in the area, I’m crashing Lettuce Knits knit night. I can’t wait!

Filed by Julia at 10:57 pm under General
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