Spinalcat's Crafty Adventures

I finally felted Bryan's clogs and sewed on the suede soles (made by Fiber Trends, bought at Yarndogs). Protip: if you're making these for a gift, allow up to a week for drying! The clogs are even more comfy and warm than I imagined! I definitely need a pair for myself. Here's a both-socks-finished photo of my basic self-striping socks . This is a pattern I give away with purchase of striping yarns, but I've been meaning to put it up for free on Ravelry so I don't have to remember to email it to people! I also recently finished these lacy socks in Colinette Jitterbug. The pattern is going into testing and editing now, but it still needs a name. Somehow, this is only my first pair of red socks! And this is my finished swirl ball from the pattern Mary taught at the December guild meeting. I finished it that same night, but forgot to blog about it. The cats have definitely claimed it as theirs. Ziva's sitting next to me on the couch now and she's got...

I worked out a trade with my awesome customer Angelica for a Bond knitting machine. I was curious about using it to produce long-striping yarns where the stripes kind of variegate into each other at the transitions. There's a Sock Blank Artist group on Ravelry with lots of examples of this kind of effect. Here's the first double-stranded sock blank off the machine. I used 50 stitches and the number 4 plate. This blog post was super helpful in figuring out how to get started. What appear to be clips from the original instruction video are on YouTube here . Here's one side of the blank after dyeing- And here's the finished socks ! I did these toe-up with a short row heel. Specifically, I used the Sherman heel which uses an encroachment technique instead of wrapped or yarn over short rows. I think it gives the same result as Japanese short rows without using a pin to mark the strand that gets picked up. Sock blanks aren't going to replace my normal method for...

I created this silk flower pin kit for the January Phat Fiber box theme (Chinese New Year) and also taught it at the January meeting of the Knitspiration Guild of Silicon Valley. The above video shows the process of making yarn from the silk hanky stack with no spinning required, plus the specific increase techniques used in the pattern. There's also a lot of cute cat screen time. They just have to be in the middle of everything! :) When I tried spinning silk hankies a few years ago, I wasn't the biggest fan. I've been having a great time knitting with them, though! They still stick to your hands (and clothes, and cats) a lot when you're drafting them, but I find the knitting really enjoyable. I'll be listing more kits in my Etsy shop after I dye some more hankies. If you're a guild member who didn't get to make it to the meeting, contact me for the special guild price.