Peace Fleece | Through The Yarny Curtain

TKGA 2015: The Cherries on Top

I went to TKGA primarily for education, but I signed up for every event I possibly could. Since I was traveling all the way across the country to attend this Conference, I might as well do All The Things! These extra events were the Market Preview, The Breakfast of Brilliance, and The Yarn Tasting. I realize that the title of this blog sounds like it is the last post in this series on TKGA. It is not. These extra events took place on Thursday and Friday. I’m publishing this post today since I’m writing in roughly chronological order. I did attend two classes on Saturday and I will post about them tomorrow.

But before I get to those events, I have to share this license plate, which Heather and I spotted in the hotel parking lot when we were on our way back from lunch on Thursday:

I particularly love how the setting sun looks like a ball of yarn!

The Market Preview

The market did not open to the public until Friday, but anyone attending the conference got to go into the market from 7 to 9 pm on Thursday. When we arrived 20 minutes before the doors opened, the line reached all the way across the lobby!

We’re waiting for those double doors in the distance to open.

The line grew quickly, snaking around the lobby. By the time the doors opened, the back of the line was nearly to the market doors.

First view of the market.

I headed straight to RedFish Dyeworks. I had not heard of these local dyers before, but during the Finishing Course on Thursday, Arenda showed us several Fair Isle sweaters she’d knit with their yarn and raved about their color sense. I bought a package of twelve 50g / 450 yard skeins of 20/2 silk for weaving:

I also bought 4 ounces of 50% silk / 50% baby camel roving. The roving is incredibly soft thanks to the baby camel fiber and has the sheen of silk. I can’t wait to spin it!

Newton’s Yarn Country booth was next door to RedFish Dyeworks. Their booth was standing room only!

They sell weaving yarns at excellent prices. I looked through the booth, but didn’t buy anything. Most of their yarns were cotton or tencel and I already have many cones of those fibers for weaving.

The Yarnover Truck was in the house. Like literally in the house, on the market floor.

Four Purls, a LYS in Lakeland, FL, has a yarn truck, which I’ve seen at various events (e.g. Orlando Distaff Day 2015), but it’s always parked outside. I love the name “Yarnover Truck.” I want to call them and ask them bring that yarn over. Too bad I live on the opposite side of the country. The inside of the truck is lovely, with built-in cubbies full of yarn:

I didn’t buy anything from them during the market preview, but I came back later to pick up some yarn for a baby blanket that I’m making for a friend.

Another booth carried Jelly Yarn.

Remember those jelly shoes every little girl had back in the late 70s and early 80s? This yarn feels just like those shoes. And some of the colors glow in the dark:

I resisted the temptation to buy some during the market preview because what would I actually do with it? While it’s tempting to think that I might knit myself jelly shoes (or slippers, perhaps) I’m certain they’d be too fragile to wear outside during a Florida summer. I was unable to resist its siren call for the entire Conference however. Three skeins came home with me (in Ravenclaw colors, of course).

Unique Market Features

The TKGA / CGOA Market had two unique features: The Brilliance Bar and a Yarn Winding Station.

During posted Office Hours, at least two Master Hand Knitter Committee Members manned the Brilliance Bar. Attendees could make an appointment to ask knitting-related questions. Whether you wanted a little info on the Master Hand Knitter program or you needed help trouble-shooting a current project, this was the place to go! I didn’t personally make an appointment — almost every class I took was taught by a Committee Member, so I had many opportunities to ask questions during the Conference. I’d love to hear comments from people who did visit the Brilliance Bar or people who worked it. What kind of help did you get? What was the craziest problem anyone brought to the Bar?

OMG. Every fiber event should have one of these. I realize it might not be practical for a large event like Maryland Sheep and Wool, but why haven’t I seen this at the smaller events I’ve attended? I could knit my new yarns NOW. I don’t have to wait to get home to my swift and ball winder!

CGOA Member Design Competition

Each year, CGOA (Crochet Guild of America) runs a Member Design Competition. Entrants must submit their work by July 1. Pieces are on display at the Conference Market and prizes are announced at the Saturday night banquet. “Entries must be original designs that have not been previously entered in this competition, previously published in any print or electronic media, or otherwise publicly available before the date of competition (our judges need to have never seen this work before). Entries do not have to be new or recently crocheted, as long as they are your own designs.” (from the Eligibility Guidelines, available on the members-only section of CGOA’s website). This year, crocheters could enter pieces in 7 categories: Fashion, Accessories, Home Decor and Afghans, Thread Crochet, Young Designer (25 years old or younger), and First-Time Entrant / Non-Professional (no designs previously published in any form). CGOA judges awarded prizes in each category. Anyone attending the Market could vote for one piece for the Attendee Favorite. Here’s a few of my favorites:

I though this afghan was knitted, but it is Tunisian Crochet.

I sent my newly engaged friend Stacy a picture of this and suggested she crochet it for her wedding gown. She’s a talented crocheter, but I don’t think she’s convinced that this would be the right thing for her!

My favorite pieces were all by the same person: fiber artist Kayt Ross. Her website (www.vivaciousart.com) is down, but she does have a Facebook page.

This crocheted cat suit probably looks unwearable:

But someone has actually worn it and looked amazing in it. I found this picture on Pinterest; it was pinned from the artist’s website.

Ross’s entry in the Afghan category was only partially visible under the other afghans. I love the color combination and the freeform shape.

Her piece Danikil Depression won Third Place in the Artistic Expression category. This one was so huge that it was difficult to get good pictures. Here’s a couple of angles.

Her piece Cobblestones won Second Place in the Artistic Expression category.

Finally, the piece that I considered the showstopper: “Emily Rose”. I voted for this one for People’s Choice. I don’t know if it won in that category or not, but it did win First Place in the First Time Entrant category and the overall Grand Prize. Yes, this really is crochet. I leaned in as close as I could get to the piece without touching it and even that close it was difficult to see the stitches. It’s beautiful work.

The list of all the winners, except People’s Choice, is on MarlyBird’s website. She was at the show and did book signings. I believe she was also one of the Design Competition Judges.

The Breakfast of Brilliance

The Breakfast of Brilliance started at 7:30 am Friday.

At this event, anyone who finished Master Knitter Level 3 (the final level) since the last Knit & Crochet Show received a pin from current Committee Chair Suzanne Bryan. A total of 13 people finished level 3 in the last year, but only 7 were able to come to San Diego. I asked Arenda if this was the most people to finish level 3 in one year. She didn’t know off the top of her head, but there’s no doubt that Master Knitters are an elite group. (While working on this blog post I ran across a page on TKGA’s website with pictures of each pinning ceremony since 2007. In 2007, 24 people received pins. In 2008 and 2010, 17 graduates received them.) In the 30 years of TKGA’s existence, only 300 people have completed Level 3. TKGA has the complete list of graduates on their website. Congratulations to all the new graduates!

Level 3 requires knitters to design two projects: a hat and a sweater. One must be Aran (that’s one color, with lots of cables, bobbles, and texture) and the other must be Fair Isle (that’s color work). The knitter can decide if he or she wants to make an Aran hat and Fair Isle sweater or vice versa. During breakfast, we had a fashion show of the new graduates’ final pieces. Some graduates modeled their own pieces. Master Hand Knitter Committee members modeled the rest. Each piece was beautiful! I didn’t get everyone’s names to match with the pieces and I didn’t get good pictures of all the pieces. These are the best pictures and information that I got during the event!

I particularly loved the double-helix look of the cables on this sweater and the seed stitch in the center of the cables. Seed stitch with cables is my new obsession.

Graduate (and new Committee Member) Carla Pera modeling her own hat.

Committee Member Joyce Jones modeling Carla Pera’s Sweater. I loved the vine detail at the neckline and the way the way the narrow cables emphasize the waist.

This graduate is modeling her own hat and sweater. She was the only one in the Fashion show to choose a Fair Isle Sweater and Aran Hat.

At the end of the Breakfast, we had a drawing for door prizes. Emma won a bag full of yarn. It was like Mary Poppins magical bag but full of yarn instead of mirrors or hat stands.

I’m not exaggerating — the bag held a wall of yarn!

The Yarn Tasting

The most important thing I have to say about the Yarn Tasting is THANK YOU to Arenda Holladay, Suzanne Bryan, Binka Schwan, and Charles Gandy. One hundred tickets were available for the Yarn Tasting and the event sold out. Each attendee left the event with 40 mini center pull balls of yarn. Arenda, Suzanne, Binka, and Charles hand wound those mini balls. That’s 4,000 mini balls. Arenda makes it sound easy; she’s even got a video on YouTube demonstrating how to wind them. I don’t care how easy they are to wind; it’s got to take a long time to wind 4,000 mini balls. Thank you all!

Here’s links to the sponsors’ websites: A Hundred Ravens, Anzula, Baah, Berroco, Blue Moon Fiber Arts, Brooklyn Tweed, Classic Elite, Elemental Affects, Green Mountain Spinnery, Holst Garn, Imperial Yarn, LB Collection, Lion Brand, Madelinetosh, Miss Babs, Mrs. Crosby Loves to Play, North Light Fibers, Oink Pigments, Peace Fleece, RedFish Dyeworks, Skacel, Shibui, Stonehenge Fiber Mill, Swans Island, Tenacious Fibers (blog and Etsy), and Universal Yarns.

The Yarn Tasting was spectacular. There’s just no other word for it. I’ve never been to an event like this one and had only the vaguest idea what it would be like. We got to the ballroom 15 minutes before the doors opened, so of course there was a line.

When the doors opened, we all filed into the room. Committee members handed each attendee a goodie bag:

We used the goodie bags to collect our mini yarn balls during the event. When we got the bag, it only had 8 yarn balls in it.

The bag itself is part of our gift — it is moth-proof 4 mil plastic! In addition to the 8 yarn balls, each bag held coupons from several sponsors, a 16″ bamboo Chiao Goo needle in either US size 2 or US size 2.5, and 3 magazines.

As you may have guessed from the “Fiber Fiesta” on the event sign, the Yarn Tasting had a Mexican theme, which was carried throughout the night. Seven or eight varieties of yarn were scattered around the table. There was one mini ball / person of each variety.

The yarns from the table.

Somebody had to do it. Photo by Heather Weber.

Heather and I at the Yarn Tasting. Photo by Emma Anderson.

The placemats listed every yarn we got to sample. Each person got one mini ball of each variety of yarn listed here!

We got 8 mini balls in our bag and 7 or 8 on the table. The remaining samples were set up as a buffet.

Hey — I just realized this is as close as we get to a picture of Emma, Jo, Heather, and I together; we’re reflected in the mirror behind the buffet! Emma in the blue shirt, me to her right snapping the picture, Jo to my right, and Heather to her right.

We walked through the buffet, collecting one of each variety displayed.

The buffet sections were labeled by courses, just like they would be if we were getting food. A swatch of each yarn in that category decorated the tables. I believe Arenda knit all the swatches.

The Appetizer Yarns from the Buffet.

A mix of Comida and Dessert Yarns from the buffet.

Dessert Yarns from the buffet.

After we got our yarn from the buffet, Charles Gandy MCed a fashion show, featuring objects knit from sponsor yarns.

I did not get pattern names, model names, or knitter names for any of these projects — I was lucky just to get pictures! I only have pictures of a small fraction of the beautiful knitwear in this fashion show.

The baby sweater and the model’s cardigan are both part of the fashion show.

I submitted two items for the fashion show, but failed to take pictures of the models! The first was the Sand Tracks Scarf, knit with Swans Island yarn. The second was a Quinn Cabled Bag. In 2013 I knit 9 of these bags, each in a different color of Peace Fleece. I finished 8 of them and gave them as Christmas gifts. The 9th was mine. The knitting has been finished for more than 18 months, but it’s been sitting in my UFO pile, waiting for me to sew in the lining. Since I said I would submit it for the fashion show, I had to get that lining sewn in. I finally finished it during lunch on the day of the Fashion Show!

After the Fashion Show, anyone who submitted objects went to the ballroom next door to pick up their knitting. Everything looked beautiful, folded up in a row on tables!

As if everything we’d gotten already wasn’t enough, we each got a bag with 5 or 6 skeins of yarn as we left the Yarn Tasting, all donated by sponsors. Each person’s bag was a little different. Arenda suggested we head out to the lobby for a “Halloween candy swap” if we wanted to find enough skeins for large projects!

Like I said — a spectacular event!

Bonus: A Visit to Green Mountain Spinnery

Back in May, I went to Burlington, Vermont to attend my cousin’s college graduation. I drove from Burlington down to Northampton, MA to go to WEBS and meet up with some Ravelry friends, then on to Hartford, Connecticut to spend a couple of days visiting my sister. During my trip, I visited a total of 12 yarn shops! I keep threatening to write blog posts about the trip, but haven’t done it yet. One of the places I visited was Green Mountain Spinnery. Since they were one of the Yarn Tasting Sponsors, I thought I’d slip that visit into this post.

Green Mountain Spinnery is a co-op. Most of the people who work there are part owners of the company, and it is run on democratic principles. When I planned to visit the shop, I didn’t realize that it was a tiny retail space in the mill! As soon as I parked, I knew this wasn’t an ordinary yarn shop. This sorting table is right beside the parking area. Yes, that’s a pile of discarded wool, full of tags or debris.

There’s another big pile of discarded wool out back.

Over there by the pallets. It kinda looks like hay from this distance, but that’s all wool.

The entrance to the retail space:

Inside the retail space:

It was late in the day when I got there, and the mill was not operating. I did get a quick peek inside.

Woven Doctor Who Scarf

I finished the Doctor Who Scarf while I was in Vermont last week, and presented it to my cousin as a graduation gift. He loved it! Here’s all the info about the scarf.

Official Stats

Draft: Plain Weave
Loom: 15″ Cricket Rigid Heddle Loom
Reed: 8
Warp Stats
- Yarn: 369 yards llama yarn, gifted to me by Stacy, produced at a local-to-her farm
- Loom waste: 42 yards
- Total Warp Ends: 96
- Ends Per Inch (EPI): 8
- Warp Length: 16 feet (no, that’s not a typo!)
Weft Stats
- Yarn:
  - 52 yards Berroco Vintage, colorway 5180 (purple)
  - 63 yards llama yarn (camel)
  - 24 yards Peace Fleece worsted in Sheplova Mushroom (bronze)
  - 36 yards Peace Fleece worsted in Khrushchev Corn (yellow)
  - 70 yards Peace Fleece worsted in Sakhalin Salmon (rust)
  - 69 yards Lion Brand Amazing in Olympia (gray)
  - 44 yards Peace Fleece worsted in Shaba (?) (green)
- Picks Per Inch (PPI): 7-8
- Width in the Reed: 12″
Dimensions Before Finishing: 164″ x 11.5″ (not including fringe)
Finished Dimensions: 153″ x 10.5″ (not including fringe)
Made for: My cousin Cooper, as a college graduation present
Ravelry Project Page

About This Project

My cousin loves Doctor Who (and many other things geeky), so I decided to make him a Doctor Who scarf as a graduation present. If you aren’t familiar with this particular bit of geekery, Doctor Who is a science fiction television show produced by the BBC. It’s been around since 1963, though it was off the air between 1989 and 2005 (If you’d like an overview of the show, check out the Wikipedia entry). The title character is a time traveling alien who regenerates rather than dying. So far, 13 different actors have portrayed the Doctor (I’m counting John Hurt as the War Doctor, for those of you yelling that it’s only 12).

Each iteration of the Doctor has a different personality and costuming. The Fourth Doctor, portrayed by actor Tom Baker, wore a very long multi-colored scarf. According to legend, the scarf came about because a costume designer picked up some wool and handed it over to a knitter, asking her to knit a scarf. She used up all the wool she was given, creating a very long scarf. While this wasn’t the original intention of the costume designer, he liked it and the BBC went ahead with it. Over the various seasons that Tom Baker was on the show, different versions of the scarf were created, including a stunt scarf. Many people — including me — have knit replicas of that scarf, and there’s a website recounting the various iterations of the scarf and options for knitting it yourself.

I knit this scarf for my husband back in 2010. I’d rather poke my eyes out with my knitting needles than knit this much garter stitch again.

Since I didn’t want to knit that much garter stitch again, I decided to try weaving the scarf instead. I looked on Ravelry and found woven Dr. Who scarves by the following Ravelers: Jason, Serenova, Littleredmitten, jeen, jeen again, jeen a third time, jeen a fourth time to use up the leftovers from the first three, quiltnknitgirl, rosalynk, and MountainAsh. Only Jeen has detailed project information. Some of the others included the yarn and yardage used, but no detailed project notes. Therefore, I used the knitting patterns at Doctor Who Scarf and created a spreadsheet to figure out the weaving.

When making a Doctor Who scarf, you can decide to be true to the literal representation of the scarf, the spirit of the scarf, or both. A literal representation of the scarf means picking a season, getting yarn that is as close as possible to the colors used in the scarf in that season, and knitting stripes that are exactly the width of the ones on the scarf. The spirit of the scarf is going with what you have on hand and making something unexpected.

I knew I wasn’t going for a straight literal representation of the scarf because that would mean knitting it. I also wanted to use as much stash yarn as possible, rather than buying yarn. I tried to get as close as possible to the colors in the scarf as my stash would allow, but I wasn’t going to stress about minor color variations (I ended up buying purple yarn because I had nothing in my stash that was close, but everything else came from stash). On the other hand, I did want to pick a season and replicate the color order and stripe lengths of that season’s scarf. The Doctor Who Scarf website has a side-by-side comparison of the scarves for seasons 12 to 14, with the total length, stripe length, and total width of the scarf marked. I decided to go with a season 12 scarf because it is the longest of all of them.

Unlike knitting, weaving shrinks when taking off the loom and wet finished. In order to adjust for this, I added 20% to the length of each stripe, hoping that by doing so, I would get close to the correct stripe size after finishing. The scarf only shrunk by a total of 11″, which is about 7% of the pre-finishing length, so I probably could have added only 10% to the length when weaving. Unfortunately, I forgot to measure the length of stripes after finishing, so I don’t have the data to do an actual comparison. Since I used 3 different brands of yarn in the weft, I assume the different yarns shrank at different rates, but don’t know for sure.

This is the first project in which I did calculations to determine the yardage I needed for weft. I used a spreadsheet formula to add the length of all stripes of each color. I then multiplied that length by 88 (8 picks per inch * 11 inches wide in the finished scarf) and divided by 36 to get an estimated yardage for each color. This calculation was not particularly accurate.

	Total Weft Length	Estimated Weft Yardage	Actual Weft Yardage
Purple	18.30	44.73	52
Camel	32.40	79.20	63
Bronze	19.20	46.93	23
Mustard	13.80	33.73	36
Rust	22.50	55.00	70
Grey	23.70	57.93	69
Greenish Brown	24.90	60.87	44
	154.80	378.40	357

There’s a number of possible reasons my initial calculations were inaccurate. One is that I did not accurately measure the length of each color as I wove. Or perhaps I missed weaving a stripe in one color. I don’t think this is the case — I had a 4×6 card with a list of stripes and I crossed them off as I wove — but it’s possible.

I wasn’t always getting 8 picks per inch as I wove, partly due to tension challenges (more on that in a minute) and partly because of the different types of yarn. Since I used stash yarns, and some of the yarns were partial balls, I may not have had an accurate weight for the partial skeins before I started the project. I didn’t weigh each one; I relied on the weight listed in Ravelry, assuming that I had accurately listed information on my earlier projects.

The Trouble with Tassels

In the television show, the tassels are made from one strand of each of the seven colors in the scarf. When weaving, the fringe is usually the warp, and the warp for this project is only one color. I considered a number of options for finishing the scarf. I could:

Dye individual strands of fringe to match the stripes
Cut off the fringe, sew a hem, make tassels, and sew them to the edge of the scarf
Needlefelt 1″ or so on each end, rather than hemming, then sew the tassels to the needlefelted edge
Leave the warp as the fringe, leaning towards the spirit of the scarf not an accurate representation

I planned to sew a hem, but I ended up leaving the warp as fringe because I ran out of time — the scarf took nearly 15 hours to dry and by the time it was dry I had to pack it. I don’t think needlefelting would have worked on this project, because I don’t think the llama yarn I used for warp would felt. I tried wet-felting a join between two skeins and it didn’t work.

Warped Warp

As soon as I started tying on the warp, I knew that this warp was going to be problematic. This yarn was very stretchy. The long warp meant that the warp was sagging between the loom and the warping peg, resulting in different lengths for each strand of warp.

Then disaster struck — I had one more strand of yarn to bring through the heddle when the warping peg hopped onto the floor. My entire warp was on the floor, and the loop at the end was in disarray. Rather than rewarping the entire project, I gathered up the end, shook the warp to even it out as much as possible, then wound it onto the loom. I stopped regularly to yank the warp and shake out any tangles. When the warp was mostly wound on, I cut above the loop so that the warp would be even. Since I had to cut so much off to even up the end, my warp was a little too short for my planned project. I had to skip the last two stripes.

The llama yarn wasn’t the best warp. It was strong, but it was very stretchy and hairy. The stretchiness, combined with the long length of this warp, led to variations in tension as I wove. The hairiness of the warp meant that it shed as I moved the heddle back and forth, leaving debris all over my floor and table.

Learning Experiences

This was the first project I wove using a boat shuttle. I have the 9″ Mini Schacht Shuttle (The Woolery, affiliate link), which I received as a Christmas gift. I wanted that shuttle specifically for this project. Seven colors, and long stretches of a single color make it impossible to carry yarn up the selvedge. The price of the boat shuttle plus a couple dozen 4″ bobbins (The Woolery, affiliate link) is a bit more than buying extra stick shuttles, but the boat shuttle is more flexible.

It took me a little while to get used to the boat shuttle. I discovered that it worked better when the tension was higher. When the tension was too loose, the boat shuttle tended to slip between the warp strands and fall to the floor. I also learned that the boat shuttle worked better when I threw it right side up. The bobbin does not sit directly in the middle of the shuttle; it is a bit closer to the top than the bottom. If I put the shuttle through with the top side down, the wider parts of the bobbin tended to catch on the warp strands. The shuttle has “Schacht” printed on the side of it. It is right side up when that printing is right side up.

This is the first project I’ve done where I cut the yarn for color changes rather than carrying colors up the selvedge. Therefore, it is the first project where I had to manage ends. On other projects, I carried the ends along the bottom of the work. I started doing that with this project and ran into a problem. As I wound, the cloth beam caught the ends and pulled them vertically. If you look carefully at the purple stripe in the foreground of the picture on the deck, you can see some wonkiness to the selvedge. This is the result of the end getting caught in the cloth beam and pulling. After I figure out what was happening, I brought my ends to the top of the work and cut them short before winding them around the cloth beam.

This project was just about the maximum size the 15″ Cricket loom can handle. By the time I finished, the cloth beam was full. I might have been able to get one more turn of the cloth beam — just enough to finish those extra two stripes — but it would have been close. The yarns I used for this project were heavy worsted weight. Thinner yarns would make a thinner cloth, so theoretically the loom should be able to handle a longer warp if I used fingering- or lace-weight yarn.

Conclusion

Weaving a Doctor Who Scarf is a lot more fun than knitting one. I tied on the warp on Saturday and cut the finished project off the loom on Wednesday. The project took something like 16 hours of hands on time, including the extra time it took to fix the warp after the warping peg abandoned its duties. While I don’t want to knit a Doctor Who Scarf ever again, I wouldn’t hesitate to weave one!

Cooper opening the scarf while my mother (l) and cousin (Cooper’s sister) (r) watch.

Umbridge Pretty in Pink Kitty Pi

During the last week of August, while Chris and I were in New Jersey, I boarded Pepper at the vet. This was traumatic for me; she’s 18 years old and never been boarded before. I’ve always had someone come to my house to feed and water the cats while we were away. But her health was fragile, and she was taking 6 medications a day which was a lot to ask of friends or family. So I boarded her. I sent her with the USA Kitty Pi that I made a few months ago. It never occurred to me that they might wash it, so I left no washing instructions. They washed and dried it which meant, of course, that it shrunk. It was now too small for Pepper!

Baltic Blue Quinn Bag

Against my better judgment, I stayed up until 11:00 pm Wednesday night, finishing up this Quinn Bag, even though I had to be up at 5:30 am so I could be out the door at 6:15 am to pick up my mother and head to the airport to attend my sister’s medical school graduation. I wanted to finish the project before I left because I was going to see the recipient. Technically, I could have brought it with me and finished it before she left on Saturday, but once I got started, I just kept going until I was done.