Madrona rocks! Plus a contest!!

Madrona is in full swing!! Our booth is bustling, and many friends and regular customers have dropped by. We love it when our customers share their Abstract Fiber projects with us!

Please come to come to our booth, show us your project, finished or not! First person to mention the blog and tell us Mona is wearing the Draper shawl wins a prize.

Cables, Twists, and Charts. Oh My!

Progress! New patterns really slow me down. Reading every stitch is slow compared to seeing the pattern form and understanding what comes next. I often think I'll never memorize a pattern and it will be a slog. Usually I'm wrong.

I have trouble visualizing charts sometimes. The Vortex pattern is well written and clearly charted. But I have to look at each cable and twist in the chart, then consult the legend to see what the symbols mean, and then look at my knitting to translate the cabling instructions to cable without a cable needle. (That always feels backwards, but juggling two circs and a cable needle is just beyond me.) Then I check to be sure I've got it right. Sounds pretty awful, right? And yet I keep knitting hoping it will get better. 'Cause it usually, magically, does.

Tonight I turned off the tv, took my glasses off and put on my Steve Jobs audiobook so I could make progress on the sock. And then it happened. Suddenly I could just see how to make the cables match the chart! No legend, except to double check. It all just clicked in my brain and seems so easy.

Update - next evening I did a whole chart repeat!

Madrona is coming!

The entire abstract fiber crew is working fast and furiously to bring you lovely things at Madrona and Stitches. Madrona starts in about 10 days and we're racing the clock. We are making kits for Mary Scott Huff's class, and I am in love with her color choices, just like an exquisite quilt! We are introducing super fine meino fiber in many, many colors.

We also want to ship the first yarn club before the show. That way we can show the first sample and color and maybe sell a few more memberships. In the meantime, we have developed a few more fabulous colors for the club. Membership sure will have it's privileges!!

One of the new lovelies for the shows is O'Keefe. Our newest yarn base is fingering weight merino and silk 80/20. O'Keefe is available in all our colors. I'm making a sock sample now, thanks to Karen I'm cleverly making another sock out of Toe Up! Out of order yes, but it is perfect for this round, smooth yarn. The color is red. Not just any red, this is my own blend, but still it is the same red we've always sold. It's one of my very favorite colors and I've thought we would have some designs in it by now, but, oddly enough, we don't have a single sample in red. It's starting well. The cables are going to pop right out.

Its a little crazy to start a new project so close to the shows, but I just cast off the second sock from the second pattern in Toe Up! I used the bamboo rib pattern and SuperSock in Gaston. Can't wait to wear them!