I’ve long toyed with the notion of trying to make time for a little light blogging now and again. But I’m well aware that not many people read here, these days most of my online interaction is via the Vintage Purls group on Ravelry. So I shan’t make any promises of renewed blogging efforts (though you never know). Ravelry is by far the best online resource for knitters around, it’s a fabulous community and I feel very comfortable participating there so that’s where I think my efforts will stay in the meantime.

- Morag

Winter Sock Club has finished (the last instalment went out earlier this month), three new sock patterns, three special colourways and lots of goodies to find. It’s still good fun and I’ll be doing it all again in Summer (January). The lineup:

From left to right: Mandorla, Nightingale and Taimi.

I managed to squeeze knitting camp into the start of this month too. I love camp, it’s so relaxing and this year we looked at bead knitting. Yarn + sparkly things = awesome. My project (a toddler’s cardigan with beaded yoke) has been halted because I’m short 12 beads in the current colour. I’m sure I managed to spill at least 12 beads into my work box and on the floor so I’m trying to find them. I could concede that I need to buy another string but I’m not quite there yet.

With sock club over it’s time to clean up and deal with the things that get neglected whilst that’s in play. Mostly it’s boring paper work and trying to get more dying for the site done. I know I have an office under all this paper and yarn somewhere. I’ve got a sign now, in case I loose my way en route to the front room:

A good friend grabbed it from a building scheduled for demolition for me.

In other news: I’m now a proud Majacraft dealer. I’ve got demo wheels coming and I’ll put details on my website when they are here and I’m ready to serve Dunedin spinners.

But today, at last, I can see the hills again:

That’s the view from my office – sucks doesn’t it. : )

Normally we have a pretty low rainfall (lower than Wellington and Auckland) and I’m hoping all the water we’ve had in the last wee while is it for the winter. Everything is thoroughly soggy.

Such weather does not motivate me to dye – my dye room is in our outside laundry. I like this fact on many, many fronts – it keeps the mess away from the house, I can keep my pots set up all the time and everything is within convenient grasp. Problem is that the laundry is a simple brick structure with a tin roof and a concrete floor (all built in about 1925), there is no insulation, the power to it can’t support my pots and a form of heating, so I’ve get to freeze if it’s cold out. That’s life of course and you can always lean against a simmering dye pot for a little warmth.

Sock club was all sold out the day after it opened, and I’m busy working on all the little bits and pieces that go into that, I’ve kept the numbers at 45 again since I’m not sure I can cope with too many more when it’s just me to dye and reskein everything.

I have a million knitting ideas whirling through my head but at the moment my master is sock club knitting. Mr K’s Model T is still not done, though I think I’ve worked out a way to get the neckline and armpit depth he likes without guessing – the jersey as it stands is knit up to the armpits (body and two sleeves in the round). I’m going to knit the rest from the top and then graft them together. It’s a plan and I’ll make it happen (one day). My poor niece (who has just turned one) has little proof that Aunty M knits but if she could only see what I dream of making her.

The patterns from the sock club last winter will be released soon too (staring with Toasty), you’ll be able to buy them electronically on Ravelry and if you’d like a paper copy you can buy one of those on my site. I’ve been cleaning the patterns up and getting them ready for electronic release, I’m so tempted to tweak things, but I know I should really resist. It’s hard to be fully satisfied with a pattern in hindsight – I often think that this might be a little nicer like that, but if I let myself change little bits of the design before you know it it would be a totally different sock!

Sign up for the Winter 2009 Sock Club (that’s winter in NZ if you’re from the Northern hemisphere) starts on Monday at 9am.

January saw the debut of a Summer Sock Club, which meant three new exclusive club colours and three new patterns to design. In order (January – March), Blue Sky Baby, Theodora and Daphne (all links to Ravelry entries):

No rest for the wicked (that would be me) when sock club was done though, it was full steam ahead for preparation for the Creative Fibre Festival in Timaru.

I’ve only been a member of my local Creative Fibre group for about 16 months and I’ve never been to a festival. I would have liked to have participated in all the wonderful lectures and activities but I knew I simply could not be a trader and enjoy the festival’s educational offerings. I had a ball though, the trade hall was bright and warm and it was so nice to meet hundreds of like minded people. I would not have survived the weekend without help from some good friends; Ngaire from Little Radiator and KB. A special thanks to Jenni for the much needed foot rub at the end of day one (Jenni is studying massage and is always on the look out for keen volunteers to practice on – everyone should have a friend like this).

A new wheel might have followed me home from Timaru. It wasn’t an impulse buy, I had told myself long before I went that if I did alright I’d bring home a Majacraft Little Gem. So, on day two I popped over to the Majacraft stand (it really didn’t help that they were just across the way and I had line of sight to all their lovely wheels all the time), and arranged to take one home. I just love “her”, the double treadle makes for much more comfortable use for me and I’ve been spinning all sort of little bits and pieces when I can to “work her in”. Is it wrong that I now think a Suzie Pro would make a nice companion wheel to Gem? It’s ridiculous, I’m so greedy.

Looking ahead I’m preparing for the Winter Sock Club that starts in June (look out for sign up info next month is you are interested).

My scanner has also been dead (really dead, not a peep, not a single glowing light) for a good number of weeks – it was still under warranty and I took it in to the appropriate place but it needed multiple trips up country before it was repaired. A frustrating exercise but it is back home and just yesterday I got it back up and running (the fifth time I installed the driver I realised that for some reason after the installation process had run, it then deleted the driver files! A monumentally silly error in the program that I managed to circumvent).

The sock club is all over (as of last month), it was great fun but much work and it lead to my regular stock production suffering. Since then I’ve been focused on dyeing for a wholesale client and rebuilding my own stock.  I will do more sock clubs, the next is scheduled for early next year, but I’ll make sure to broadcast the details well in advance of opening sign up this time and I’ll also have more places – hopefully that will mean fewer interested people will miss out. 

I enjoyed designing the socks for the sock club a lot. All were toe up and all had different toe and heel constructions:

I’m enjoying knitting things other than socks though at present and have returned to Mr K’s Model T. It’s still black and terribly boring but it makes nice autopilot knitting and I’m determined to press on and get it finished. The body and one sleeve are done to the armholes and I’ve cast on the second sleeve. I’m excited at the prospect of joining all three bits up and working the top – I haven’t committed to a particular shaping for the top yet (though I’m leaning toward raglan) and the prospect of there being a mildly creative decision up ahead is motivating me through to that point.

Right, the dye pots beckon so I must away. Bye, bye for now.

And I’m busy working on the second and third installments.

I became an auntie! She was a wee bit early (6 weeks) but she’s done very well and was able to leave hospital for home yesterday (she was born on the 22nd of May). Introducing Anya:

My knitterly self is delighted to have a wee thing to make outfits for but I felt terribly unprepared when she arrived so early and so little. I’m also busy with work knitting so I’m not being the prolific knitter aunt I want to be. Stella helped out by making the worlds cutest booties:

Mr K has been traveling the world for work which leaves me lonely at home and with the entire fur mob to care for by myself. They take advantage of his absence and my weaker state to do special things like sleep on the bed with me at night, which I have yet to learn simply leads to poor sleep for me and is no substitute for Mr K at all. He’s off again this week, to the States this time so I’m arranging some School House Press books to come home with him since we have only limited access to Elizabeth Zimmermann publications in New Zealand.

Keeping up with yarn dyeing and the like has seen my ability to prepare new vintage patterns for the site impeded – there are plenty more to go up but they are time consuming to scan and then clean up into a readable state. More will come though, just bear with me.

My “punishment” for attending such a lovely weekend is a rotten cold that has stolen my ability to think properly. The person I suspect gave it to me shall remain nameless but I will link to her blog since sometimes I’m nasty like that.

I got the Sock Club registration up last night and this morning half the slots were gone already! If you are interested be in quick, numbers are limited. It’s great to know that other NZ knitters share my interests and I’m going to work really hard to provide a really great club for them.

I’ve dyed up some z-twist yarn in anticipation (apparently z-twist yarn is the thing to have for twined knitting). I got a mystery cone from the back table at Milton so I don’t know what it is exactly but $4.90 for 490g is not something I can turn down easily. It’s washed up nicely and took the dye well so I think it’s mostly wool.

Mr K gets to stay at home and shift eight metres of firewood into storage (probably in said rain). I know I should feel kind of bad about this but secretly I am delighted; I detest moving wood under the house – I normally come out with a mild case of concussion from belting my head on too-low beams. Another reason I love Mr K – moves copious amounts of wood every winter without a word of complaint. 

When I get back from knitting fun away I will open registrations for my first Sock Club. I’ve always looked at American knitters’ blogs with envy as they discuss sock clubs. So I’m doing one for NZ knitters – why should we miss out on the fun? The Vintage Purls Winter-Warm Up Sock Club will run for three months over winter and see it’s participants delivered a parcel of knitting goodness during each of our coldest months. I’m terribly excited and hope at least a few people will want to play along.

Last Friday here was ANZAC day and a NZ Ravelry member “introduced” us to her extraordinary great grandmother, if you are a Ravelry member it’s worth checking out.

For many years my day job had been teaching at the local university but at the end of last year I decided to throw caution to the wind and give it all up to follow a more creative life. I love fibre, I love to knit and spin, and I was growing increasingly frustrated at what I saw as some major holes in knitting supplies in New Zealand. One thing lead to another and I can finally debut my store.

At present I have on offer Knit Pick knitting needles and hand-dyed yarn. I do plan to expand my range but I’m also a small business and I’m learning so I’m going to take things slowly initially.

My main yarn focus at present is sock yarn since I’ve always felt there to be a bit of a gap in that market locally. I have an amazingly soft yarn for the job; machine washable merino and a good dollop of nylon to make sure they wear well. I hand dye it all and I love it!

Rest assured that I still love vintage patterns, that there is plenty more to come in the free pattern section and I will not be changing that aspect of the site. I know it’s been a long time since I’ve put new patterns up and I will get onto some new things very soon. I’ve been very surprised by just how many people visit my little corner of the web and I have received some amazing feedback from visitors regarding my little collection of patterns. It’s really nice to know that other people get a kick out of the patterns I can provide.