Tag: carolinafiberfest

A New Vest and Carolina Fiber Fest

My newest knitting pattern for a vest

I am home from Carolina Fiber Fest and I have finished knitting my new vest pattern.

New Vest

I am quite happy with how the new vest turned out. My favorite feature is the decreases in the V-neck. It grew a couple inches in length. I knit the body to 14″ and after blocking it is closer to 16″. I am fine with the extra length.

My newest knitting pattern for a vest
My newest knitting pattern for a vest
My newest knitting pattern for a vest
My newest knitting pattern for a vest

I was a bit annoyed that the size I knit used 305g of yarn. I had to begin a 4th skein when knitting the edgings. If the body was a few inches shorter, it probably would have used under 300g.

I have not gotten started on writing up the pattern. I have good notes to work from so I should only take a couple weeks to get it all tidied up. This should be easy to modify to suit the knitter’s preferences too. I’ll let you know when I have it ready to go.

Carolina Fiber Fest

The main reason I have this vest finished is due to some extra down time while I was in Raleigh for the Carolina Fiber Fest. Because of the nasty storms last weekend, I decided it would be safer to stay an extra day. The storms were to the west of NC on Saturday, so we were fine for the festival. Sunday was the day I should have been driving home but the storms were still headed right towards me. I would rather ride out the weather in the hotel than out on the road with a trailer. It got windy and stormy and there was a tornado watch for part of the day and night, but it was a bit less scary than what went on with those storms on Friday and Saturday.

Monday the weather was chilly and still rainy in NC, but the windy, scary stuff was over. I opted to take the alternate route through Virginia instead of the pass through Asheville. It was only 10 miles longer and Google predicted it was a bit faster.

The festival went great as usual. It was nice to have so much less traffic at the fairgrounds. There was a quilt show going on somewhere but it wasn’t an issue. I filmed a short booth walk through video for something different.

This week

I am catching up on a few things this week since I am home this weekend. I will be back out on the road Thursday. I will be headed to Ann Arbor for the Spring Fiber Expo. It’s at the Washtenaw Farm Council Grounds. I expect it will be chilly but it’s a fun smaller festival. If you are in the area, pop in a say hello! The market hours are Saturday 9-5 and Sunday 10-4.

See you again soon! Thank you for reading!

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One thing done

I am finished with the scarf I was knitting for my son. It’s all blocked and ready to pass on to him when I get a chance.

I am back at the afghan and will show you some more progress on that next time.

I am busy this week setting up my “booth” for the Carolina Fiber Festival Virtual event. It’s happening on March 12-14 and I will be online from 9 to 6 all three days. I’ll post a link to my booth page when it’s ready.

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Still Plugging Along

Wow, it’s March? How did that happen? Not that I am complaining mind you? The days are getting longer and it’s almost spring. Anyone who knows me, knows I am not a friend of winter. It has been a gray and wet winter here in Nashville, but at least no frozen stuff to speak of, so that’s good.

I have progressed to the inner border on my fingering weight re-knit of my Honeydew Lace Square pattern. I am halfway through that and making edits to the charts to update that pattern when I am finished. I just added the third skein so I may be able to complete the whole thing with only four skeins. That is what I hope for anyway.

The festival season will be starting back up for me in just 10 more days. I have three shows lined up for the second half of March. I will be at the Carolina Fiber Fest on March 13-14; from there I will be in Pittsburgh for the Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival on March 20-22; and then it’s on to Hartford, CT for Stitches United on March 26-29. It’s a two drive home from there. I am working through my preparation list and have completed most of the tasks. I am mostly just focusing on that and trying not to think too much about being away from my loved ones for almost three weeks. :-( I enjoy what I do but that is the hard part.

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Posting from Raleigh

Good morning again! Last week you may recall I was in Pittsburgh for the Knit & Crochet Festival there and in the final stretch on my Holbrook shawl. All went well at the festival and I drove from there on Monday morning to Raleigh, NC, where I am currently for the Carolina Fiber Fest. I have had a couple of days here of down time, so I mostly hung out at the hotel and made good progress on my booth sample knitting.

I finished the Holbrook last night and while it is impossible for my to block it here in the hotel I will show you how it looks right off the needles and will update on it later once it is properly blocked.

So, last night after finishing that project I immediately cast on for the next one I had in the queue, Kimani, which I had brought the yarn with me in case I got to this point while away from home. I am re-knitting this one also to replace the sample I have in this pattern because I decided I wanted to try it in a new lighter color. I am using the same yarn I used before, Knitting Notions Classic Merino Superwash Sport in Honeydew. I have completed the first chart so far. I like how it is looking in this color. :-)

I have to go get the booth set up right now so I need to get the trailer hitched and head out for the afternoon. Next post I write will probably be from home. I love doing shows, but am sure going to be glad to get home. I miss my people. See you soon!

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I think I can…

I am about 10 days into my Holbrook Shawl and the progress is encouraging. I have only 3 repeats of the main stitch pattern, which means 18 more rows, if I want to end it there and move on to the border. I had entertained the idea of adding two more repeats to make it a bit larger, but I am probably just going to go with the size as written. I would like to have this one finished in time to have it in the booth at Pittsburgh and Raleigh next month.

Speaking of fiber festivals, I have been working through my other show prep lists when I am not knitting or taking care of the household and family tasks. It has been a challenge with all the rain this winter but I did manage to get some yarn dyeing done on Monday. This is about half of it which I put back out on the lines today during a short respite in the wet weather. My next opportunity to get it all dry will be Sunday and Monday.

There are things that can be done on rainy days too. I have some Yarn Boxes I need to wax, yarn labels that need printed, cut apart and color labeled, patterns to be printed, etc. Of course it’s that time of year that we all dread; tax time. I have done my Federal return, first quarter sales tax returns, and local business personal property return, so that’s at least out of the way. Whew! I also need to take my truck to get some scheduled maintenance done before I hit the road again.

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What’s Next?

I am finished with my Dowland shawl and have begun my next project. I actually have quite a few in the queue, but have selected and wound the yarn for the next two projects. The darker one is Classic Merino Superwash Sock yarn in color Slate which is the yarn I am using for a new Holbrook shawl in the photo below. The light green is Classic Merino Superwash Sport yarn in color Honeydew which I will be using for a new Kimani shawl. I need to knit new samples of both of these due to inventory changes.

Holbrook Shawl beginning

Holbrook should be a quick knit even if I decide to enlarge the original size a bit. It is an easily memorized lace and I remember it being very fast the first time I made it.

Dowland on the blocking mat

So, I was blocking Dowland yesterday and to my annoyance I realized I still need more blocking mats. I thought 18 should be plenty but if I had just ONE more I wouldn’t have had to come up with the work around you see below for that ONE point I couldn’t pin down. Sigh. It worked for this time but I will be buying some more before I block the next shawl, just in case. Of course I won’t need them then, right? :-D

Looks like I still need more blocking mats. :-)

I am quite pleased with how it came out and hope it will inspire many knitters in the booth this year. I can’t believe it’s only about a month until festival season begins again for me. First up is the Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival and the next weekend I am happy to be going back to the Carolina Fiber Festival.

Usonian Shawl
Katania Shawl
Dowland Shawl

I hope to have the Holbrook finished to add to these three new samples. I think it is too much to expect that I can have the Kimani finished before I leave but I should have it on the needles to work on in my down time while I am traveling.


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