Brrr

It's pretty chilly around here, as I know it is in many places. We leave the big roll-up door in the warehouse open while we're here, and the breeze was such yesterday that if someone opened the front door, the doors in the shipping area would be blown open. Is that a venturi effect? Your basic wind tunnel through the whole place. brrrr! It's sunny and gorgeous out with blue skies, which are pretty unusual during winter, but nippy. A good time to be knitting.

We're frantically working on info for the website, which we hope to have go live in a couple more weeks. If only we could clone ourselves and get a lot more done!

We should be working on the spring knitting catalog, but it's sitting on the back burner for the website. It's that cloning thing, and that irritating mere 8 hours a day for work (well - 8 hours for everybody else around here! I try not to add up my hours, it gets frightening). All things in time, right?

Just last week I noticed that it's no longer pitch dark at 5 pm. And this weekend I noticed the daffodils starting to poke through the ground. Spring is coming, spring is coming! Such a tease...

First toe up sock

I'm pretty new to knitting socks, and trying to round out my learning by trying various different techniques. I've done a few pair cuff down, so it was time to try toe-up. Seems perfect for those sock yarns that you buy 2 of to make a pair, like Panda Wool and Panda Cotton and Panda Silk and Lorna's Laces and ..... well, you get the idea. You take a ball of yarn, start at the toe and knit until done. Perfect! (like those old cook books "bake at medium heat until done").

I turned to Wendy's generic toe up pattern (thank you Wendy!!) with feather and fan for the top, and used the undyed panda bamboo/wool yarn we've got that I dyed a while back using Procion dyes. (I needed to do an experiment - do you dye a yarn thats bamboo and wool (plant and protein) using a dye for plant or for protein (Landscapes)? The answer is they both work great!)

And a close up of the feather and fan:

I'm pretty pleased with them! Well, "it" and a half, I'm up to the heal on the 2nd one. I think I like the heal flaps and gussets type socks better, but looking at all my store boughts of course, that's not what they use! I never considered the making of socks before, other than the difference between regular socks and those icky tube socks. THAT would be a quick knit, but yuck!

Somewhere out there in cyber land I saw something about toe up with gussets, so I may have to hunt that up. But no hurry, there are too many on the needles now. There's just no end to the inspiration and experimentation. Gotta love it!

On a side note, if anyone tried calling yesterday morning and were perplexed by no answer, it was because we couldn't get in! The ~one month old lock mechanism on the door decided to fall apart and keep us all locked out while Charlie feverishly tried to get it to cooperate. He was successful (thank you Charlie!), but no thanks to Schlage and the lousy lock they made. HEH. So, new knob, new lock, new keys and away we go. It's always something!

Happy weekend!

Diane

Another bag completed

Here is another of the bags we all worked on together. This one Paula made using Lamb's Pride Bulky. It's designed to carry a laptop. Much more stylish than a boring brief case sort of thing, don't you think? You could make one to match all your outfits.

The strap is sewn on after the felting, and she didn't enjoy that part, but otherwise loved the project.

I'm thinking I'll need to make one for me now. I made the beaded number as a store sample to show what the beads look like in action. It was my first fulled project, and it was more fun than I'd imagined. Narrowing it down is the hard part. Oh, and maybe finishing up a few others that are nagging at me... Hate it when projects nag. So unbecoming. I'm knitting as fast as I can! Thursdays are my big knit night - Ugly Betty and Gray's Anatomy! I didn't watch any TV whatsoever for something like 15 years, and now suddenly I'm addicted. It's good for the knitting though. Too bad October Road is on so late, it's past my bedtime. My alarm goes off at 5 am, so a program that starts at 10 pm is too late. See - addicted. Not just one show! What is the world coming to?

Diane

Delinquent

Where did December go? Has anybody seen it? whooooosh! And the same goes for 2007. How can this be the last day of the year?

What will you remember for 2007? I've got entirely too many not good memories for this year, and yet I wouldn't say it was a bad year. Just seems like the things that stand out are all bad. Weird. So let's see, let's come up with some stand out positive things! Black Sheep Gathering and OFFF were really fun! Getting together one night a week after work with the gang here to knit has been a lot of fun, and I sure hope we'll pick that up again soon. Making progress on the future website (but there is so much left to do, worry worry worry).

I have a couple pics of finished bags - somehow I'm missing a couple of them too though. Anyway, here are 3 of them:

The top one is Lamb's Pride, the middle one is a mixture of yarns including Boku, Lite Lopi and others - with the ring around the "planet" being needle-felted, and the bottom one is Galway, with beaded fringe (see page 60 of the fall knitting catalog) . These are such fun to knit, and fast! The possibilities are endless, of course, with so many great yarns that full so well and color combinations. There are a couple of ladies that make a lot of bags and it's fun to see the yarns they pick out, and their finished products. Wonder if they'd let me take pictures to share? hmmm...

Meanwhile, while I'm on this felting/fulling mission, I started some slippers for my sweetie -

One done - but not yet thrown in the washer. Isn't it huge?? His feet, of course, are not so big. The magic of shrinkage... I'm using a lovely dark green heather Galway, think it's going to be great! I already picked out 3 colors for my pair... Goes fast since it's double stranded on fat needles. Not like socks on toothpicks, much as I love them.

Any fibery resolutions for the year? I'm taking some classes at Madrona in February and can't wait!! Didn't manage to catch all the classes I'd hoped, but am thrilled that I got some of them. I suppose a good resolution for me would be to actually spend some time at my loom and get a warp started. I have 2 warps hanging dejectedly partially on the loom - some 8/2 cotton for dish towels, and some chenille for a shadow weave throw. They've been there WAY too long, and they're both nearly warped... but not quite, and there's the catch. So, here's to getting to WEAVE them both in 2008!

Well, back to work. Please have a happy and safe new year!

Diane

Phones are back on!

After 2 days of very eerie silence, the phones are back, what a relief. Thank you for your concern and well wishes and your patience! I think most people that tried to call either got an "all circuits are busy" or a rapid busy signal, but there must have been some that got a ringing phone that was never picked up because a couple people called to say they'd been trying to call us for days and why the heck weren't we answering the phones? SORRY! We answered it every time it rang, but they were all local calls. The mysteries of technology. Glad we get to take it all for granted most of the time. We sure notice it when it's gone!

And spring is in the air because our wonderful yarn reps are starting to come around showing the latest yarns for spring, and the new colors and patterns in our favorite current yarns. I really love meeting with the reps and seeing this stuff. But I also really hate it because, like you, I can't get everything I would love to get, and it can be pretty tough choosing. Have to hope I choose right and I don't end up with lots of yarn that doesn't move. That gets painful too.

Tim is working away on the new spinning & weaving catalog, which should be going to the printer in the next few weeks. There's some new fun stuff in there to see too! This catalog changes a lot less than the 2 knitting catalogs, but we are adding 8 pages to it this year, so there must be some new stuff, right? Heh heh, just you wait! :)

And maybe you saw on the home page that we're doing a whole new website... THIS is going to be really exciting! It will be much easier to navigate, it'll have bigger pictures of all the yarns, it'll HAVE all the yarns and the fibers and everything else we carry. We're really excited about it. Course we're also working like mad people to get it all in there, there is soooo much to do. Sometimes I get all worked up & filled with anxiety about it, then I have to tell myself to
b r e a t h e and take it one day at a time. We're all working as hard as we can, and we'll get done what we get done. The message on not one, but TWO recent Dove chocolates said "Don't think about it so much". Oh, okay. They're probably right. Chocolate wisdom.

Enjoy the day!
Diane

Phones are out...

AAUUURRGGG! Due to the storms and excessive rain and flooding (was that an Ark I saw in your back yard??) our phones aren't working. Or rather, they work sporadically - like when I call in to the repair line and they test it, it comes in fine. But if I call from my cell phone? Nope. If someone in town here calls the 800 number it won't work - but the local number does work FOR HER - but it doesn't work from my cell phone either. And we can't call out long distance, but local calls out do work. Does this make sense?? I hope it does for somebody.

It's very bizarre to have the phones not ringing. Not to mention what it does for business. Our email is working though! So please, send us emails! info@woolworks.com works just fine, or directly to anybody...

Sigh.

The good news is that we're all safe, and mostly dry.

We're a bunch of bag ladies

About a month or so ago most of us decided we'd like to make some felted bags (or more accurately, "fulled" bags, since we're knitting them and then washing them to shrinky-dink them). We even decided we'd knit together after work one evening, which worked out really well. I so love knitting with friends! We get to admire each other's work, solve problems, offer advice, encouragement and a little friendly competition ("you're not finished yet are you?").

Here are some in progress pics:

We're using a variety of yarns (Lamb's Pride, Galway, Boku, Lopi), and a variety of patterns. It's great watching them take shape!

I hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving. I have so much to be thankful for, I try to pause each day and give thanks for the many many blessings in my life. It's nice to have a day dedicated to giving thanks.

Diane