What are you doing tomorrow night? Didn’t get enough at the Stitches Marketplace and need more yarn to fondle? Well, come on by  Bobbin’s Nest Studio for their annual Stitches West Party!

It’s going to be a festival of independent fiber artists, from 6-9 pm.

I’m so honored and excited to be in such amazingly creative company — Wool Candy, Hazel Knits, and Pigeonroof Studios will have yarn coming out of your years, alongside Girl On the Rocks’ “accoutrements”.  Jeni Chase and Jordana Paige will have fantastic new designs. And (so exciting) Jordana’s using a brand new base of mine –Biscotti Merino Sportweight, debuting at BNS Saturday night! Read more about it here.

Hope to see you there!

Why don’t I distract you instead with some pretty new limited edition yarn!

For Valentine’s Day, this is Sweetie. A sweet, sunset blend of oranges and reds. Like those umbrella-cocktails that make you giddy on the beach.

In Souffle Fingering:

Souffle Lace:

Lollipop BFL:

Macaron Merino/Cashmere/Nylon:

In my Etsy Shop.

This weekend, I’m having a sale in the Shop! Everything is 10% off from Friday 11/27 through Monday, 11/30. I’m going to be taking a few days off — so any orders placed during the sale will ship on Monday and Tuesday. I’ll refund the 10% discount to Paypal.

There’s a little bit of everything for everyone, including a rare spotting of Treacle BFL Sport. I had a very limited amount of this base yarn, and I can’t get anymore — so don’t miss it!

There’s also a new color, in Meringue (though I have 2 skeins of Souffle Lace drying right now and will try to get them up this weekend). This is Swamp Monster.

I ultra-mega love this color. It reminds me of muppets. Which always make me smile.

This color is a rare, limited release. Occasionally, I’ll screw up the formula for another colorway, I’ll throw it at some yarn and see what happens. I was really pleased with this! I call it Quince:

It’s a cranberry/apricot/quince jam color, sweet and happy and berry-bright. There are four skeins. Only 4. Ever. Two of them are will be in my shop, and two of them are going to Woolgirl in the next week or so.

The huz, mother in law, dog and I are heading up to my mom’s house for a turkey feast today. I hope everyone has somewhere warm to be, with lots of food, friends and family!

Go over to Woolgirl and get your Gingerbread Man kit, complete with a skein of my Meringue Merino Sock yarn in a very special colorway! Details here!

We’re leaving tomorrow for a fantastic (we hope) vacation in London. I lived there when I was in college for a few months and absolutely loved it, so I can’t wait to go back.

I’ve talked myself down from 5 pairs of shoes to 3. But all 5 knitting projects are coming with me.

My Pas de Valse (that’s a Ravelry link) only needs sleeves, and I’m bringing a single-serving of Soak and some blocking pins and some optimism that I’ll finish it on the plane, or soon thereafter and get to wear it around town. (Cross your fingers that it fits!)

I’m knitting a hat like this one, a sweet, leaf-lace, chunky tweed cap to keep the cold out and the rain off.

I’d also like to crochet the Modest Cloche from Stitch Diva. See, this project totally shouldn’t even count toward my project total because it’s not even KNITTING. Right?

And then there’s the scarf I’m working on… no pics, and it’s a pattern I’m sort of making up as I go.

And then Clapotis, out of Malabrigo sock in “Persia.” I bought one scrumptious skein at Sock Summit from the Yarn Garden, and it’s just too nice to turn into socks. Normally I’m of the opinion that hand knitted socks are made to be worn out, but I want this yarn closer to my face, and for it to be there for a long, long time. I’m packing this one in the suitcase, along with some size 6 Denise plastic needles, because I’ve read horror stories of the British airport people wresting knitting from panic-stricken hands of knitters about to fly many, many hours in a steel tube with nothing else to do but go stir-crazy. I do not want this to happen. So I’m hoping they’ll think the plastic tips are toothbrushes or pencils or something. We’ll see.

The shop will be closed until 11/16, when I get back. I’ll be re-opening with some fanfare and a mini-pre-holiday sale!

Talk to you all soon!

It’s all good though. It’s all in preparation for a wonderful event next Thursday.

It’s the Bobbin’s Nest 2nd Anniversary/Wool Candy Release party!

If you’re even SLIGHTLY local, please come by the Bobbin’s Nest next Thursday, the very first and one and only brick and mortar yarn shop carrying Wool Candy yarns. There will be cake and champagne and lots of yarn to play with! See you October 8, from 6-8pm at Bobbin’s Nest, 1171 Homestead Road, Suite 130, here in Santa Clara.

This is Souffle Fingering weight. It’s the same composition as my Souffle Lace: 70% Baby Alpaca, 20% Silk, 10% Cashmere, but in a lofty, loose 2-ply fingering weight. Each 3.5 oz/ 100g skein has 400 yards/ 366m.

Souffle Fingering in "Ferrous"

This stuff is, in a word, delicious. It’s my new favorite yarn of all time. No joke.

I’m knitting an Aeolian Shawl out of it (in Brassica, pics later) and it’s like knitting with clouds of butter. Or marshmallows. Or kittens and puppies. Or (insert your favorite soft fluffy thing here).

The alpaca gives it an incredible, soft halo. The silk gives it sturdiness and lovely shine. The cashmere does what cashmere does best — makes it unbelievably soft and luxurious.

I’m offering it in seven completely new colorways. I’ve been super into semi-solids lately. These are all dimensional semi-solids, layered like all of my colors, non-pooling like all of my colors.

I have 2 of each color in the shop, except for Brassica — I kept one of those for myself.

400 yards will make a small shawl, a little shrug, or a long scarf.

This is fingering weight — about 8-10 stitches/inch on a size 0-2, but I wouldn’t recommend it for socks, except possibly the softest, coziest bed socks ever. None of these fibers has much “memory”, so your socks would sag pretty quick, but they’ll be comfy when they do it! I’m knitting my shawl on size 6s, to give it drape, and it’s perfect. The alpaca-halo fills in the stitches wonderfully.

I hope you like Souffle Fingering as much as I do! And if you don’t? That’s okay — more for me!

in a week. Seven days. I cast on on a Friday, and cast-off the following Friday. Blocked it on Saturday, for a surprise bridal shower on Sunday.

My fingers were on fire. FIAH, people! I don’t know how I did it.

The story behind this shawl is that my friend Liz is marrying Sam on October 10th. She’s a wonderful knitter, and a very big supporter of Wool Candy, as well as an all around sweetheart. She’s knitting shawls for her bridesmaids, and it was getting a bit close for her comfort, so I offered to knit her bridal shawl for her. I did the same for Beth, when she got married last September. I made this Hanami shawl, and she looked so pretty in it, even though it was too hot that day to wear it much!

Liz picked the yarn, the beads and the pattern, and I set my little fingers and needles to work. There was no requirement that the shawl be finished in a week… but I was on a roll, so I went for it.

As all triangle shawls worked from the shoulders to the point, the first part of this went incredibly fast. Those rows are super short! By the time I got to the edging, it was getting really intense. Hundreds of stitches. Nupps and beads in the same row. The edging has FOUR CHARTS that you work simultaneously (luckily 3 of them are very easy — mostly stockinette). Now, I’m a fearless knitter. I’ll knit anything, once. It’s just knitting - nothing to be scared of. But man. Row 43? Took me an hour and forty minutes. INTENSE. Okay, fine. It was a totally fun challenge, and no one said I had to insanely knit a shawl in a week. Except me.

I just cast on another Aeolian, with a new yarn of mine. Souffle Fingering, which has the same fiber composition as Souffle lace — Alpaca, Silk and Cashmere –  in “Brassica,” a new colorway. With the perfect matching beads.

The Stats:

Pattern: Aeolian Shawl, from Knitty, Spring 2009 (Ravelry)

Yarn: The delicious, scrumptious, fantabulously fabulous Shimmering Silk Lace, from A Verb for Keeping Warm, in the color “Glinda”

Needles: My trusty Knitpicks Options size 5/3.75mm with a 32″ cable.

Gauge and finished size: Who knows? It’s slightly larger than shawlette sized. It wraps around Liz, anyway.

Pattern notes: I knit 6 Yucca charts, the final Agave chart, and the edging as written. Included nupps and size 8/0 purple glass beads. The very last edging row has a size 6/0 beads, because I was almost out of size 8/0s. It turned out to be a nice feature.

No matter where in the world you are, fall is prime knitting season, and to celebrate its approach, Wool Candy is having a Labor Day Sale!

Everything in my shop is 10% off through Monday, September 7th. Don’t miss out!

The sale applies to everything that’s in stock (so, no custom orders — sorry.) and doesn’t apply to shipping. There’s lots and lots of yarn and spinning fiber to choose from, people!

Also, I’m sorry about the blog downtime a couple of days ago… my webhost was on vacation in Europe when the servers went down and didn’t know about. I’m glad she’s back up, though.

The full complement of fibers can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/11847654@N06/sets/72157622159563382/

There’s Superfine Merino Top in Wagashi:

Superwash 80/20 Merino/Bamboo Top in Downtown Dusk (with a side of beer):

Downtown Dusk is fun for me, because I took all of the colors I used in my Dye for Glory skeins and put them on this scrumptious, shiny bamboo-merino top. This is dyed in loooooooong lengths of color. If you spin them in order, splitting the top down the middle, say, you can get a sort of Noro-like gradient. Tee hee (below) is dyed in the same way.

Superwash 80/20 Merino/Bamboo Top in Orange Blossom Honey:

Superwash Merino Top in “Tee Hee”:

Enjoy!