Have you seen the new hand painted colorways of Stroll sock yarn (formerly Essential)?

I had the great pleasure of designing them months ago, and I’ve been awaiting their release eagerly ever since. I had to place an order right away yesterday for the Make Believe color (along with a City Tweed order to make a fall sweater). I plan to collect more of my favorites, like Tree Fort and Playtime over the next few months. I’m not much of a sock knitter, but I just discovered a new small shawl pattern on Ravelry called Ulmus that is perfect for two different skeins of multicolored sock yarn. Time to knit down my impulse buy sock yarn into gorgeous little shawls to wear at the office when the a/c kicks on!
Anyway, many of you might be wondering what the difference is between Stroll Multi and …

I love lace knitting, but I’m already the proud owner of four lace shawls, so I wanted to knit something else in lace. When I saw the Essential Tank Top by Laura Zukaite in the book Lace Style, I knew that was the next lace thing I HAD to knit! (It is image #1 under View More Images, and we’ll also be showing a version of it knit in double stranded Gloss Lace on page 5 of our lace catalog which is now online!)
I’m knitting it in single stranded Essential Kettle-Dyed in a sample color that didn’t make the cut (sorry!). However, if you’re an orange lover like me, I think you could get really close to this color by dyeing the Bare version of Essential with Burnt Orange Jacquard Acid Dye (maybe throw in a few grains of Chestnut for a slightly darker edge). Which reminds …

When I first heard about Worldwide Knit in Public Day, I didn’t really understand the concept. I mean, I knit in public ALL THE TIME. On public transportation, in the car, in restaurants,in airports…..at any seated event really. And some un-seated: in line at the post office, at the bank…I could go on and on. So, what’s the point of a whole entire day devoted to knitting in public? I already do that!
Then I realized that I have only certain types of projects that I knit on in public. Socks are the most likely thing you’ll spot me working on because they are so portable. Mittens and gloves are up there too, closely followed by hats and cowls. When I knit in public, I don’t drag out the afghans, the color work, the sweaters knit in pieces with 2 sleeves on the needle at once, the snowy white lace that …

I’ve never dyed yarn before. I love to experiment, but I
don’t really like following instructions. This makes for an interesting combo
when it comes to hand dyeing. I cook a lot and like to mix different recipes
for the same dish into a funny hybrid that by nature I can never
remember how I
made. Must be a good method for dyeing yarn, right? Definitely! Well,
perhaps .
. .

I was actually going for more of a gradated-sunset-kind-of-look with my second sock blank,
but since my cherry blank completely exhausted all the dye in the red
Kool-Aid (to my surprise!), I only had lemonade and orange left. I
decided to wing it and try mixing 1 pack of orange with some red food
dye and a splash of vinegar and see what I’d get.

First I dumped the whole blank in the pot of boiling lemonade until it exhausted the dye.