Simply Socks Yarn Co. Blog

Sleep & Squash

What do those two things have in common?  They are both confounding me at the moment.

For the past several weeks, I haven't been able to get much sleep.  I had a cold, then James had a cold, and you know how well you can sleep when you have a feverish toddler.  And over the summer when Joe isn't working (he's an art teacher) we stay up a bit later and still get up early.  It seems that even though the school year is well underway, our patterns haven't changed back to normal yet, and I'm still only getting 5-6 hours of sleep a night.

Many of you may be thinking, 5-6 hours, that's plenty!  Is it?  I think I'm used to getting around 8 hours, and I am having to have a bit more coffee during the day (though I still only drink a couple cups) and perhaps a caffeinated pop, but I really don't see too much a difference in my life or productivity.  I guess I'm sharing this boring fact-of-my-life because I'm wondering what your experience is.  Are there certain points in your life where you got much less sleep for months/years at a time?  Of course, I know that when you have a baby you definitely get less sleep, but I'm wondering about when life is normal, how much sleep do you personally need?

The other confounding thing is squash, and specifically that I've developed an allergy to it.  Every year in July or August, I make lots of zucchini bread.  I vacuum seal and freeze it, using this recipe, and we then eat it through the winter.  This year, I haven't made any, and that's because every time I touch the shredded zucchini, my hands swell up to the point that I can't bend my fingers.  Today, I picked and cut up a butternut squash to roast, and my hands swelled up!  I've never had this happen with anything other than zucchini before, and we eat butternut squash several times a month.

What do you know about food allergies?  It seems to me to be getting worse, as in progressing from just one type of squash and now to another.  Is this just something that will affect my skin?  Or will I eventually have to stop eating squash as well?  I've never heard of a squash allergy.  I'll likely ask my doctor next time I'm there, but I rarely go to the doctor and thought you all might have some insight.  Your thoughts?

Feel free to tell me that this is totally boring and I should never blog such mundane topics again!

Abstract Fiber

Many of you have already found the new sock yarn I've added to the store- Abstract Fiber's Supersock.  I learned about Susan and her yarn at the Sock Summit, and like I promised you, I'll be introducing you to a select few indie dyers that I discovered.  I really think there were many amazing dyers there, but as I was busy at the SSYC booth, I only had a little bit of time to browse the floor.

Susan is the dyer behind Abstract Fiber, a dyeing operation that she started about two years ago.  Susan recently took the time to answer a few of my questions, and I thought I'd share them here with you.  If you have any other questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments below, and I'll make sure she sees them.

Allison: What's behind the name, Abstract Fiber?

Susan:I love abstract art.  I can't draw well, and have always found abstract art more approachable.  Combine that with a name that alphabetizes near the top of any list, and Abstract Fiber was born.

Allison:  You and I had the same thought when branding our businesses.  Make the name work for you.  The name of my store makes it obvious what I sell.  Something that really stood out to me were the names of your colorways- it seems obvious to me that you are inspired by your home and nature with colorway names like Portland, Sweet Pea and Manzanita.  Am I correct in my assumption?

Susan:  I like scenery- views, car trips through pretty places, private and public gardens.  And sometimes my inspiration is more abstract, wine or harvest colors might be named after towns in the wine country, or the bridge colors often have blue in them because of the water underneath.  One yarn is named after a foggy town on the coast.  The Northwest is a beautiful place with plenty to inspire me- lush greens and dry deserts, mountains, rivers, and the ocean.

Allison:  If you aren't at the dyepots, what can we find you doing?

Susan: I cook Thai food, have two Portuguese Water Dogs, I spin, garden and quilt.  In fact, I learned the basic techniques of my business years ago in a quilting class, and started adapting what I learned from that to yarn.  I think my sense of color that I developed from quilting is part of what sets me apart from other dyers. It developed from quilting and studying what specifically I like about the colors in works of art or nature, resulting in a yarn that doesn't look like anyone else's.  Other hallmarks are minimal pooling and striping, very high quality base yarns, and no knots in the skeins.

Allison:  Quilting is something I'd love to learn, but it seems so precise and I'm afraid I would be easily discouraged by mistakes.  Of course, I think that's the same thought that knitters have when trying socks for the first time.  Little do they realize how addictive it can be.  Do you have a certain go-to sock pattern that is addictive to you?

Susan:  I prefer to knit socks from the toe up and use Lucy Neatby's garter stitch short row heel.  Then I add any pattern I want.  If I'm looking for something easy, I go with a stitch pattern that I can easily remember and probably something with some movement, like a spiral.  I don't like to repeat much, so I'm usually working on something new.

Allison: There we differ.  I often find myself trying out a pattern or yarn, and then realizing how much I adore it, and then use that same yarn or sock pattern again and again.  Susan, thanks for taking the time to share a bit about your life and art.  I hope that you find much inspiration in your life so you can continue to dye your fabulous colors for us!

For those of you who would like to see some of Susan's yarns knit up, please visit her flickr page here.  There are several projects that show how her colors knit up, and I think you'll really like seeing the random distribution of color throughout.

Shown below: Koi Pond, Portland, Laurel Hill, Manzanita

 

Gosh, I'm in luuuuurve

This obsession could overtake my life.  I'm so in love with this shawl that it's going to be hard to give it up for a Christmas gift.  But I'm already considering making the thinner scarf version of it that I've seen on Ravelry.  And that would take just one skein of the Swiss Mountain Sea Sock instead of two skeins.  It's basically just the shawl pattern minus a repeat.

This is the Salt Spray colorway, and the only modification I made to the pattern (which you can get for free by puchasing Swiss Mountain Sea Sock- just reply to your e-mailed receipt) is going down one needle size and using circulars instead of straight needles. I'm considering doing the scarf in cedar. And Fleece Artist (and Hand Maiden) recommend alternating skeins every few rows to avoid a drasitc change in color, but I didn't do it.  I know I probably should have, but I a) am a lazy knitter, and b) figure the color is pale enough that there won't be any noticable difference when I change skeins tonight. (I literally just crossed my fingers....)

Other current obsessions:

Concord Grape Jelly.  OMG, why hadn't someone clued me in before that homemade grape jelly is completely different than store bought?  I mean, I can my own strawberry and cherry jam, and yes they are so much better than store bought, but I just didn't consider grape.  I just never really cared for it much before.  For the past 2 weeks, every evening, I live for having two pieces of white toast slathered with butter and grape jelly.

Fall television.  I love that there is so much new TV on this time of year.  The weather cools down, we open the windows to hear the crickets and I sit with my knitting (and the Stormwater Shawl is perfect for TV knitting b/c it's quite easy... just use a few stitch markers to keep track of things) and enjoy non-child television.  I think it's because I'm forced to tolerate toddler-geared TV during the day that I really enjoy evening television.  I'm loving House, The Office, Castle, Bones and Fringe.  What are your favorites?  What shows do you recommend?

More Solid Colors

I have added several more colors to the Simply Sock Yarn lineup, including the red many of you have been asking for.  Cherry Red is on the blue side of red, thus the name.  I'm considering adding a more "tomato red" as well, which would be on the orange side.  But I just don't know if it's needed. Your thoughts?

There are also more greens and oranges, including a lovely Bittersweet.  I think it might be my favorite color yet.  Oranges don't usually make me swoon, but there's something striking about the deep but bold color, don't you think?  Cherry and Bittersweet are pictured here.

It seems that the first cold of the season arrived at the Van Zandt house over the weekend.  I've been moping around the house with a head cold that's now making its way to my chest, and James spent much of the day on my lap.  I have a feeling he is just starting to get it too.  I feel bad for the little guy, because I felt really rotten all weekend, and I hate to think of him feeling that bad.

Are there certain things you do/did for your kids when they are/were sick?  Little ways of spoiling them that made them feel a little better?  I let James watch 'toons most of the day, which I usually don't do... but that also means that I had to watch them too b/c he doesn't watch TV without being on my lap.  There's only so much Little Einsteins I can take.

Need Solid Sock Yarn?

Well, you don't have to search anymore!  I have available over 40 solid colors of the spankin' new Simply Sock Yarn available for you, and another 20 or so will soon follow.... bringing complete colorcards for purchase so you can make effective color comparisons.  I'm so happy to bring to you SSYC's new sock yarn.  I've had a blast knitting it for the past few months, and it's been a learning process creating a new yarn line over the past year.  I hope you greatly enjoy knitting and wearing this new sock yarn.

With all the things going on in my life, why did I decide to bring a new sock yarn to knitters?  I'm a busy wife, mom and yarn shop owner and knitter.  I definitely have enough on my plate.  But after 4 years of owning a sock yarn shop, I found that it can be somewhat trying to get and keep in stock a wide array of solid colors of sock yarn.  I wanted a steady supply of fingering weight, wool/nylon solid colored sock yarn to offer my knitters, and when I hear "No," I just don't stop there.  Many small dyers and larger yarn companies offer a great selection of solid colors of sock yarn- and I'm going to continue carrying them at SSYC.  But depending on what line it is, the colors aren't exactly what you might want for sports teams, or the fiber might not have any nylon content (which I wanted), or it may not be a true fingering weight yarn, or it may not be available in all colors at all times.  It's a tricky equation to get everything the way I wanted it to be, and I really think I've done it right with Simply Sock Yarn... at least right for me, and I hope right for you.

Each 50 gram/175 yard skein of merino/nylon Simply Sock Yarn is hand dyed in large dye lots.  The perks of this are twofold: each skein is given attention by an artisan's hands, and that the lots are large enough so that you can get many skeins for a garment..... and come back weeks later if you need another few skeins and feasibly get more to match.  And because the skeins are 50 grams (instead of the more prevalent 100 grams skeins), you can buy a several $10 skeins to do intricate colorwork, and not have a huge hank left over.  Each 50 gram skein makes ONE sock.

The question I've received the most so far is, "Are the colors solid or semi-solid?"  That's a great question.  The medium and dark colors are solid and well saturated with color.  They "pop" and are perfect for matching those sports team jerseys, or knitting that bold fairisle pair of socks.  As many of you already know, it's hard to ensure that hand dyed colors are really solid, but I think we've done a really good job of ensuring that the primary and deep tones are well saturated with color.  The medium and light colors are what I would call semi-solid, providing a more dynamic and varied knitted fabric.  This is because as you dilute colorants to produce lighter tones, fiber can absorb the colorants somewhat unevenly in the dyepot, thus the semi-solid colors.  Shown here are two examples of what I'm referring to: Chocolate is deep and dark, and well saturated in color.  Mocha is a lighter version of Chocolate and is thus semi-solid.  Same for Wheatgrass and Wasabi, which are two of my favorites- I'm a sucker for green.

Simply Sock Yarn was designed for use as a sock yarn.  Thus the name, right?  But the superb fiber content and wide color array lends well to using it for garments.  Holli Yeoh test knit this child's' sweater for me using the Mocha and Salmon colors.  She used the Ruby pattern that she designed in her pattern line.  You can read a bit about her experience knitting this sweater on her blog.

I do have to admit that I created this line partially for selfish reasons.  I really wanted a huge array of solid colors to knit, and by creating those colors myself (with the help of my very experienced and talented dyer- I don't dye yarn) I got to fill the Simply Sock Yarn line with all the colors I was looking for.  And in the past few months, I've gotten to expand my horizons as a sock knitter by knitting more intricate sock patterns with this yarn.  While the yarn is lovely, it really makes patterns look wonderful because the solid/semi-solid colors really show stitch patterns well.

I really hope that you enjoy knitting Simply Sock Yarn.  I'm still working on getting a few of the colors just right, so you'll see a few colors missing... a basic red, blue-violets, a couple browns, more greens (again, I'm a sucker for green) and a few others.  But if you have other ideas for colors that you would like to see included, please e-mail me at allison@simplysockyarn.com !  And if you were one of the knitters who participated in the Name that Color contest from the previous post, the winning names were Adobe and Bellini.  Thanks for your help in naming the colors, and I'll be e-mailing the winners shortly.

The socks above were the first ones I knit in Simply Sock Yarn.  I wanted to test the skeins for length and the colors for bleeding.  I knit these socks for my own size 11 feet, using a skein each of Magenta and Natural.  I had plenty of yarn using just one skein of each color, and after many washes and wears, the bold Magenta dye never bled into the Natural (white) yarn.  Though I did notice that over time the socks predictably fuzzed up a bit, and the magenta fuzz made the edges of the color changes look less defined.  If I cared, I could use a razor to get rid of the fuzz and make the color changes more defined, but I'm not that way. I have worn and machine washed these socks at least a dozen times.  I have accidentally machine dried them once too.  Simply Sock Yarn can be machine dried, but I find that with any sock yarn, machine drying really increases the fuzzing of the yarn, making the stitches and pattern less defined.  I also find that turning the socks inside out before machine washing REALLY makes a difference in how much of a fuzzy halo you get on the socks over time.  Machine drying also made the socks temporarily shrink about 10%, but once I put the socks back on my feet, they went right back to their intended size.

I'll likely post this as a free pattern when I have time to write it up. I cast on 64 stitches.  I knit a 2x2 rib all the way to the heel.   As I remember it, the stripes are 7 rows dark, 3 rows light.  Then the heel and the toe are in the dark color, and the foot in the light color.  This way, I used up close to even amounts of each color, and only used one skein of each color for my large size 11 feet.

Want to see more socks knit up in this yarn?  Take a look at previous posts showing my Cerulean and Brick & Salmon socks.

Name that Color!

Can I tell you how excited I am about my new yarn line?!  I'm almost jumping out of my skin with anticipation!  After almost a year of preparation, it's almost time to introduce ths yarn.  I'm just in love with the fiber and color.  And I have one question for you:  Want to help me name a couple colors?  I hope so!  I'm all out of creativity.  I feel like I have no ideas left in me, and that's not great when you have to come up with a word or two that describes something.

The colors in the Simply Sock Yarn line have simple names.  If it looks like red, it's named Red.  And yarn that looks like Blue?  Well, that would be called Blue.  The basic colors have basic names.  But the not-so-basic colors, like the light brick and the pale peach below?  I want your ideas for names that are simple but descriptive.  If you have any ideas, leave them in the comment section below.  If I choose one of your names for the yarn, I'll give you two skeins of your color choice of Simply Sock Yarn.  And if more than one person has the same name idea, I'll gift the prize to the person who comes up with it first.  And yes, if you come up with the winning names for both, then you would get 4 skeins of yarn.

There's really note a time limit on this contest.  I'll leave it open until I have names that I like.  But it's likely that I'll decide by the end of the weekend.

BTW, as an homage to Steel Magnolias, the names Blush and Bashful are already being used.  Isn't that almost too precious?  Man, I love that movie.

Simply Sock Yarn Update

Thank you for the many e-mails you all have sent inquiring about when Simply Sock Yarn will be available!  I have about 50 colors ready to be put ont he website, so I hope to have those available for you in the next week or so.  There are already several skeins stashed on Ravelry from those of you who snagged some at the Sock Summit debut, and there are even a few projects-in-progress!  It's so cool to see people enjoying something that I've worked so long to create.

The sock here I finished knitting while at Sock Summit, but I didn't weave in any of the ends until last night- talk about procrastination.  It's a design from Cookie A's book, Sock Innovation, and the yarn is Simply Sock Yarn in the Cerulean colorway.  I love this vivid blue!  I'm a huge fan of Cookie's designs, but I have kind of *meh* feelings about the finished sock.  There's just something about the design that bugs me.  Perhaps it's the way the lines intertwine in a somewhat unsymmetrical nature.  Do you see what I mean?  What are your thoughts?  The more I knit socks, the more I realize that there are definitely stitch patterns I really prefer, and those are ones of a repeatitive and symmetirical nature.

And on a completely different note- anyone know what this white flowering vine is?  We thought it might be a weed this spring.  But we put up a trellis against the porch and this vine went nuts, grew up 5 feet, and now is trailing along the porch railing.  It didn't flower until last week, but now it's covered in tiny star-shaped white flower that have a slightly sweet smell that attract little bees.  I'm wondering if we should cut it back this fall, or if it should be left the huge size it is after just one season of growth.  What are your thoughts?

Lorna's Laces: Cookie's Deep Dark Secret

Lorna's Laces has released the 6th installment in their popular Color Commentary series, in which a prominent author/knitblogger designs a special colorway.  Cookie A, author of Sock Innovation and known for being a contributor to Knitty magazine, created a Nearly Solid color for Lorna's Laces called Cookie's Deep Dark Secret.  This is the first Nearly Solid color in the Color Commentary series, and it's sure to be a favorite!

Cookie has designed a special pattern for this new colorway, and it's just been published today in the Fall issue of Knitty.  You can find it here.  I'm having a hard time not casting on this new pattern tonight.... but I'm really addicted to the Stormwater Shawl right now, so I think I can resist!

Picture Post

 

My current obsession, a new indie dyer that I'll have in the store in a month or so.  The dyer says that the yarn doesn't pool or stripe, which I like, and it definitely didn't in this sock.  I love this pale buttercream that's dappled with soft apricot and a whisper of pink.  This is the Kai-Mei pattern from Cookie A.'s Sock Innovations- and I recommend checking Interweave's website for errata before starting any of the patterns in the book because there are pages of updates with errors.  Not cool.  But I love the way this sock is consructed and the lace panel that shifts diagonally across the foot.

 

James and I spent much of the day putting puzzles together.

 

Joe's pitchers.  He's started an Etsy store, if anyone is interested in taking a peak at a small selection of his current pieces. He's a superb potter.

 

I've already started my Stormwater Shawl in the new Swiss Mountain Sea Sock that I mentioned in my last post.  Couldn't resist!  E-mail me at allison@simplysockyarn.com for the free pattern with purchase of the yarn.  Highly recommend.

Hand Maiden Swiss Mountain Sea Sock Yarn

Squee!  I have a new yarn for you from Fleece Artist's luxury yarn line, Hand Maiden.... Swiss Mountain Sea Sock!  I've snagged two skeins for myself in the Salt Spray colorway, if that tells you anything about how nice it is.  I rarely snag yarn the first time I have it in stock, because I want you to be able to get the colors you want.  But I have to admit that this time I am being selfish and couldn't resist!

 

When Kathryn (at Fleece Artist) told me about her new yarn a couple months ago, I told her that it sounded wonderful, but I needed to see something that has such a high silk content.  Swiss Mountain Sea Sock is 51% silk (29% superwash merino, 20% Sea Cell) and that's the highest percentage of silk that I've carried in the store- and a high price of $35, but so worth it.  After testing it out, I rushed in an order and I now have 11 colors for you.  Shown below are Hemlock, Topaz and Pansy

 

The first thing that jumped out at me when viewing the skein is the sheen- the high silk content really gives the yarn a lovely shine, and it gives the colors quite a bit of depth.  The two skeins that I snagged are likely going to be knit into a Stormwater Shawl, a pattern I've been eyeing for quite some time now.  And if you send an e-mail to allison@simplysockyarn.com after you place your order for Swiss Mountain Sea Sock, I'll e-mail you the pattern for free.  The pattern calls for two skeins of Sea Silk, but that yarn and the Swiss Mountain Sea Sock have the same yardage and weight, so can be used interchangably in the Stormwater pattern.

The yarn is machine washable, which is perfect for socks, but also for any kind of lace that you think will get a lot of wear.  The fiber content is silk/merino/seacell- so you get the luxurious feel from the silk, the durability and moisture wicking from the wool and seacell (a seaweed fiber also used in the popular Sea Wool), and all of it is made better by being superwash

If you want to knit socks with your skein, I recommend knitting a cable or mock-cable, but one that also has a bit of a rib to it.  The yarn lacks a bit of flexibility, so it would really benefit from a sock pattern that has a bit of elasticity.  But a cable would look lovely because it would create shadows in the sock that would show off well with the fiber.