I have a serious case of MD S$W Envy. I wish I could go to Maryland Sheep & Wool but instead have to amuse myself hearing about everyone else's experiences and purchases. Today I've been reading stories on blogs about the big event which just makes me more jealous. One of these years I hope to go; my best friend lives nearby so I even have a place to stay.



DH always says Maryland would be too big but he just hates crowds. At Taos Wool Festival I try to have a plan. I have a set budget then try to pre-determine what I'll buy. I also leave myself some leeway with the budget in case I find something I can't live without. That is how I ended up with my favorite Tracy Eicheim spindle one year. Last year I knew in advance I wanted a Bosworth spindle along with a copy of the Twisted Sisters Sock book. I always buy a t-shirt also. Two more weeks until the Fiber Arts Fiesta here. Robin & Russ from Oregon had a booth last time with hundreds of fiber books. I'm hoping to find some roving or top to buy. Here's some roving from my latest dye experiments.







I ordered another mitten kit from Nordic Fiber Arts today - this time I am going to do the Vinternatt. I chose blue and yellow Istra - I like Istra more than the Strikkegarn which lent an unusual puffiness to the finished mitten. NFA also has a mail-order catalog with kits for a lot more items like sweaters and hats and socks that aren't on their web site.

I have two finished items to report, both of which gave me problems with seaming. St. Enda is a finished item. Both DH and I plan to fight over who gets it. He didn't like the color but was surprised to see it looked good on him. I can wear it over regular clothes like a coat. I tried several seams when I sewed the saddle shoulders to the front and back pieces. Finally I decided on the slip stitch crochet seam (which saved my butt on the vest). I also wish I'd used this seam to sew the shoulders to the body of the sweater. I used the garter stitch seam for the sides of the sweater which looked fine. The more I know about all the different seams, the more picky I'm getting about them. I'll have pictures in a week or two.



My second FO is the Telemark headband from Bea Ellis Knitwear. I did it in Peer Gynt (which reminds me a lot of Dale Heilo - both are very nice yarns) with a cotton lining. I did the whole thing on size three needles rather than sizing up because my gauge was a bit looser than the pattern gauge. Plus I like a tighter headband. The pattern has you seaming the inner cotton lining right near the center. This means that any seam is going to be easily felt over your ears. I first tried the woven shoulder seam from Nancie Wiseman's finishing book which looks seamless (also called the Fake Kitchener stitch from Montse Stanley) but alas it did not feel seamless. Finally I ended up ripping out both cast off ends and just kitchenering the whole thing together. Kitchenering 120 stitches on slippery cotton yarn - Do I know how to have fun or what?







This is a stripe dyed yarn - it was originally some laceweight natural yarn from Blackberry Ridge Farm. I really like the way it turned out and may do a simple lace scarf.

St. Enda is almost done as I'm finishing up the collar. I am surprised that St. Enda is my first Alice Starmore sweater. It certainly will not be my last. In 1996 I took an Aran Knitting class with Alice through my former LYS in Durango, Colorado. I paid what I thought then was the princely sum of $100 and showed up at a local hotel bright and early. I was the youngest person in the class and the two women sitting at my left were discussing how you know when to admit your husband to a nursing home. The woman at my right didn't really know how to knit at all and I had to explain to her what reverse stockinette stitch was.



I wish I could remember what Alice was wearing - it was a creamy white Aran sweater but I couldn't figure out which one of her designs it was. A lot of the students in the class were wearing their own AS sweaters. In the Hebrides had just come out and there was a huge muscular bald guy in her entourage (he looked a lot like Mr. Clean) who was knitting Erisort in the purple Scottish Heather shown in the book. I went over and watched him and mumbled something to him about all the bobbles in the sweater/coat and he said he had actually counted them all. The number was in the hundreds.



Alice first talked about the history of Aran knitting and then focused on knitting using a chart. At that time I couldn't knit with a chart so it was very helpful. She had us all knit a cabled swatch using a chart. When she walked by me I expressed my embarassment at the way I hold my needles. (I knit holding the right hand needle like a pencil - I think this is sometimes called the French method of knitting) Alice replied that it didn't matter at all because I was a fast knitter with that particular method. How cool is that? To have Alice Starmore herself tell you your knitting style is okay. One of the students asked her if she knits the sweaters in her books and she stated that it was mainly done by test knitters. She knits up the swatches and does the design configurations but usually others knit the actual sweaters.



I still have the notes from the classs. She talked for quite a long time about washing and caring for Aran sweaters and even mentioned woolly boards. I know I asked her about cast-ons. I noticed that all the sweaters in the book used the long-tail cast on so the cast-on edge and the patterns always start on the right side row. The result is that the bottom hem of the sweaters and sleeves was the reverse side of the long-tail cast which didn't look that great to me. In St. Enda I changed the cast-on side (i.e., I started the pattern on the wrong side of the work instead of the right side as specified in the patterns) so the hem bottoms would look better.



There was an accompanying trunk show and I got to touch all the sweaters from In the Hebrides. Erisort and Malin most impressed me. Then Alice signed my copy of In the Hebrides (which probably makes it worth 10,000 dollars now) and I went off on my merry way wishing I too could live on an island and knit all day long. But Bosco the cat and Snickerdoodle the lop would miss me probably.