Getting Close

1. Almost to the end of 50 Hats in 50 Days.  Last evening I completed hat #44, an olive green Windy City.
2. It's Friday afternoon and the weekend dyeing will be the many shades we call green:  bright, pale, grassy, mossy, turquoise, loden, chartreuse, and a few multi-tonals.
3. The semester is coming to an end.  Though there are still some finals to give and grade and a few portfolios to review and a student video to tinker with and grant work to complete, I am putting this one to bed.
4. It's nearly Christmas and that means I'll travel to Portland, OR to see my sister and her family whom I totally love.  I don't see them often enough so we hardly stop talking except to eat!  The kids will be bigger and the voices deeper.  Scary!
5. I changed my Facebook page from 'In a relationship' to 'Single,' but then hid it. 

Still Knitting

This is the time of year when I knit a lot of hats.  Although I try to knit throughout the year, it seems that it catches up with me about now.  Shops want hats, matching hat & scarf sets and this year, fingerless mitts.  I set a goal of 50 hats in 50 days but I slid a bit behind this week.  I shifted to a couple pair of fingerless mitts (aka texting mitts) that took longer to make than hats, but they are selling nicely at one of my customer-galleries, so I promised a few more pair.

My studio is a total disaster.  This is the view from the wide end of the ironing board.  Lots of yarns, grouped by color.  Some a re little bits and pieces; others are full (or nearly full) skeins.  As I get yarns matched up, they go into bags and the bags go into a tub.  Then I can grab a bag without thinking too much and knit a hat.  By the time I get to the bottom of the tub, I have forgotten what I put in and there are always a few nice surprises.

But this is the view from the other end of the ironing board.  It's a nice stack of hats in red, orange, pink, purple, and a wee touch of green.  There are even some naturals in there.  I made my hat tracking system even easier this year by using Google docs instead of Excel.  I can get to my spreadsheet from any computer and although it isn't totally fabulous, there is nothing that I wanted to do that I wasn't able to accomplish.

In the first 30 days of the challenge, I knit 36 hats and 2 pair of texting mitts.  Though not a world record by any means, (and I just admitted to slacking off), still this is acceptable progress.  I'll be calling a contra dance tonight, so I'll take a bit of knitting.  I have a preference for hats, mostly because circular knitting is easy and mindless.  I have one on the needles at about the 1/2 way point, but as it has a slightly fussy stitch pattern, I think I may need to cast on something simpler.  I'm talking about you, Windy City!

A Saturday Hike

http://gowaterfalling.com/waterfalls/rainbow.shtml

Western North Carolina is a leaf lookers paradise.  I have a 20 minute commute  - both ways every weekday - to look at the leaves, the flowers, the clouds, the snow - whatever.  I love my drive - it gives me a chance to admire the beauty that I see around me every day.  But I really like to get out of the car to see my environment with out a windshield between us.

On Saturday my sweetie and I took a little walk through Gorges State Park and onto Forest Service land to bag a lovely waterfall.  Rainbow Falls is a 150 foot waterfall on the Horsepasture River in Jackson County, NC.  It's about a 3 mile roundtrip hike and although rated strenuous, we rather disagreed.  The trial to the base of the falls is not too well defined, so footing was a bit tricky.  Both the bottom and the top of the Falls are quite lovely.  The water was cold, but the sun was warm and only a bit breezy.

Always the negotiator, we took my car, but my sweetie drove so I could knit.  Hats of course. 1.7 hats, bringing the November total to 8.  A fine hike!

Hat Season Returns

Last year at about this time, I realized that hat season was back and with it the need to have lots of hats available to my gallery customers.  At that time I challenged myself to knit 30 hats in 30 days.  I did - plus kept knitting untill I knit about 50 hats between early November and Christmas.  I'm hoping to do the same this year.

I spent a bit of time last weekend making up hat kits.  Matching yarns to patterns of my own design, I can now grab a bag and knit a hat. I got a headstart, having knit about 6 hats already this week.  So this weekend, I'll start a spreadsheet to log my production.  I brought a kit to work today - a pink & teal 'Show Off' hat.

If you are short on things to do, keep an eye on this site to track Hat-a-Thon 2011. I'l be posting my progress toward my new lofty goal - 50 Hats in 50 Days!

October Was So Busy I Forgot to Blog

Yes, it's been a long time since last I blogged.  I haven't given up, life has just gotten in the way.  So a few random bits...

SAFF has come and gone in the loveliest way.  With a zillion changes that all kicked in a few weeks before our regional fiber festival, the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair has been put to bed for another year.  While everything wasn't perfect, it was really quite lovely.  The animals were there in full fleece - lots of sheep and llamas, a few angora goats, the charming alpacas.  The people were there too, most friendly, a few crazies, but pretty much everybody smiling and glowing to be with like-minded people and lots of yarn and fiber.  Thanks to everyone who came by my booth - I got to know a few people who I only 'knew' online before. 

I've been spinning and knitting regularly.  Yarn and hats have becoming and I have the trashed studio to prove it.  This morning I needed to find something to wear that did not require ironing as the ironging board is covered with yarn.  I had a booth at the Madison County (NC) Heritage Festival on a very chilly Saturday.

High on last weekend's agenda was to kit up yarn for hats - a very messy process that apparently involves pulling every skein of yarn out of the tub or drawer or basket that it resides in and grouping it with any possible related color, texture or weight, looking at it in several different light sources and then putting 2 or 3 or 4 yarns in a bag to be knit up at a later date.  Then I can just grab a bag and knit at hat.  I take a few to work for lunch hour knitting, so I can not work about thinking too much.

I really can only blame the blog silence on my day job.  Love my day job - I am very lucky to have a job that I like, but both halves of my work-self have been running on overdrive lately.  My grant work has been very busy as I have been working with a school district who has been selected to be a pilot school implementing the new Social Studies standards (for non-educators, I know this sounds like gibberish) in addition to the regular stuff I do.  My undergrad classes have also been kicking my bum.  As everyone who does grant-based work knows, your job is only as secure as your current funding.  Although it hasn't happened yet, I took on an additional class as a bit of job security in case this grant funding is reduced.  I love the classes and my students, but it's a struggle to keep all the balls in the air.  The main balls that have dropped are this blog and the garden.  I did plant some salad greens, but I've let nature take care of the rest.

But as midterm is behind us and most of my workshops are completed, so I can put a bit more energy into the fiber-y part of my life. Back to dyeing, back to the Etsy shop, back to the blog.  And I'm happy to be back!

ADD Travel Knitting

I took a little dutiful non-vacation last week.  You know the kind - hanging out with the older generation - talking, cooking, movin' kind of slow.  Add excessive time riding in the car.  Sounds like lots of knitting time to me.

And although it's the heat of the summer, those hats don't knit themselves.  So I spent some time in the stash, selecting yarns for my in-car and around-the-house knitting, figuring that I would knit at least a dozen hats.  I wound lots of balls of handspun and pulled yarns that I don't always grab because they are fairly small gauge.  But when you are stuck in the car and have limited choices, you will use the small yarns and needles.

Then I did something kind of naughty.  I grabbed some sock yarn.  Pretty blue & green self striping sock yarn.  Sock yarn is so very small and light and I might could reach my hat goal .  Besides, I like to knit socks - even when I am so finished with the sock of the month plan.  Six is enough.  Really!

Then some other yarn snuck into my tub.  Did I tell you about the killer fiber yard sale a few weeks back where I ended up with a newish Lendrum spinning wheel and a shopping bag full of yarn?  One of the yarns was 6 skeins of Peace Fleece worsted in an earthy greenish tweed called Grass Roots.  A sweater was already started and I was pretty sure that the pattern was Melissa Bare's Garter Yoke Cardi [rav link], but because my gauge didn't match the original gauge, I abandoned that idea.  Only 2 days into the trip I cast on for the Knitting Pure and Simple top down cardi #9725.  I've had this pattern for years, even have the yarn to knit it, but somehow it never knitted itself.  I knit most of the yoke, then put it aside because, I'M SUPPOSED TO BE KNITTING HATS, DARN IT!  Besides I seem to be a bit off gauge so need to make the yoke section longer and needed to refer to EZ or Barbara Walker (which I had in a suitcase pocket but didn't find until I got home).

There is so big reveal here - kind of a lame results show.  I ended up with...

• Seven hats
• About 40% of one sock -- most of the cuff.
• About 80% of the raglan section of a top down cardi - probably about 22.7% of the sweater.  Sounds much more scientific that not quite 25%, eh?

Not bad for a 6 day stretch!  And now I have several yarns nicely staged for some quick hat knitting. Unless I sneak back to the sweater...or the sock!

Herbs and Spices

I love greens!  Mossy green, deep forest green, the color of leaves and frogs.  Greens on the blue side and greens on the yellow side. So although the May Phat Fiber theme is Spice Market, I have to tell you that I went a bit herbal myself.  I dyed both Merino and Falklands roving in 2 shades of green - one kind of olive; another more on the bronze side - both beautiful.  The colors should be just right for leaves of you are a felt maker.  I will likely spin some yarn from this colorway.  It definitely belongs in the permanent line for my Etsy shop.


Perhaps green is my favorite color at the moment because my garden is looking so pretty right now.  The peas are in blossom, so I'll be munching on Sugar Snaps by the end of the week.  The Red Russian kale is coming up nicely and we can eat all the green onions and parsely we want.  It's time to start to plant warmer weather crops, with the most tender after mid-May.  No garden pictures yet, though I definitely should.  With everything weeded and mulched, it doesn't look too much better than it does right now.

I did a fun little weekend project.  As my faithful readers know, I knit a lot of hats that are sold in a number of local shops, so I need to start knitting about now so I'll have enough.  So over the weekend I pulled out lots and lots of yarn to make 'kits.'  Match yarns and patterns to knit later, put them in bags and then in totes.  One tote is already in my office for lunch hour knitting.  I just cast on a (green!) hat, then decided to write this little post instead.  But my knitting is ready and waiting for me.  I have a final to give today.  Perhaps I'll knit while my students write!

Stitches South; Dancing Everywhere

Stitches South is coming up soon in Atlanta.  Seems like almost everyone I know will be there.  Even though I won't be there, my knitting will be.  Friends & Fiberworks, one of the local fiber shops that I work with will be a vendor for the first time.  Now this shop has an excellent presence at SAFF, so a number of their followers are sure to find there way to the booth.  I developed 2 patterns that will debut at Stitches along with a number of other exclusive patterns by Asheville designers.

One pattern is a reworking of my Trailside pattern - in 2 versions and a smaller gauge.  Some people (mostly men) really like a ribbed brim that folds up.  Rather traditional, it keeps your ears extra warm.  But there is a 'hat head' factor, that some of us wish to avoid.  So I also wrote an alternate brim that people can push back and make the hat a bit puffy.  Both should be  good for both men and women and work well in solids, heathers and tweeds.  Both are one-skein patterns designed for Berroco Vintage Bulky, but will work just fine for any other yarns in that weight, like Lamb's Pride Bulky.

The other pattern is a garter stitch pattern meant to show off a wilder yarn.  I wrote this for Berroco's Borealis - a multicolored yarn that creates subtle stripes.  Now I will admit to my blog readers that it seems ridiculous to claim that this is a pattern, but at SAFF last year, people kept asking for it.  I told them how to make it, but over and over I heard, 'No, I'll never remember that.  I need the pattern.'  So I finally wrote it down.  in two sizes.  and tested it.  and printed it.  Now it is going to Stitches.  I'm sorry I will not be there for the acclaim or catcalls, and I imagine there will be both.  That is, if the Southerners aren't too polite for the catcalls.

I hope to make both these patterns available on Ravelry.  However since the yarn shops want to sell them, I can't make them free downloads.  They will be low priced however and I'll let my readers know when to expect them.  

Instead of hanging out with knitters at Stitches, I will be calling dances all around the area.  If it's Friday it must be an English dance in Greenville, SC.  Saturday takes me to Greensboro, NC for a contra dance with Ted Erhart and Dean Herington founding members of Footloose and Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops!  On Sunday I am back in Asheville for our regular English Country Dance.  I also called contra dances last Saturday and Monday.  If I had just that kind of ego, I'd declare myself on tour.  Instead, I'll just consider it being busy with dance calling.

Enough With the Hats Already

My 30 Hats in 30 Days challenge continued well into December, even picking up the pace to 21 hats in 16 days.  I will deliver another dozen hats today to my best customer.  After that I'll be taking a wee break to do a bit of my own knitting. 

I ended as I began, with hats for guys, particularly my ubiquitous 'Boyfriend Hat' and several variations of the new 'Skater Boy' series in solids, color blocks and even with a brim, shown here in blue, but badly edited just to be visible.  The room was too dark!.  Some are close fitting, some over-size, but they are all destined for heads around town and points distant.  One of the glories of living in a place that people like to visit, is that the market doesn't get saturated.

I also worked on the design of a new felt hat.  For years I have knit a deeply rolled brim that looks good and fits right and even sells quite well, but is a total snooze to knit.  So I started on a cloche style.  I think I finally got the pattern right (after 6 prototypes), so we will have to see what the market says.  No pictures yet. 

With the semester over, grades in and no begging students in my office ( I guess I got the grades right this time!), I'm happy to take a few weeks off.  I'll be spinning and knitting (for me!), dancing, traveling, cooking, and visiting with friends and family.  I plan to read some good books, watch some good movies and generally take some time off.  I MIGHT bring home a stack of journals, but no guarantees that I'll actually read them.  I certainly don't read them here!  

I'll put the Etsy shop to bed for a few days too.  I'd like to develop some new colorways or create some carded batts, but for the mean time, it will go a bit dark.  Let's let the creative juices take a break too!

Success: 30 Hats in 30 Days!

I set a challenge for myself to knit 30 hats in the month of November.  With my hats in 3 shops, I need to keep my production up for the winter hat shopping season and this was a way to stay on or even ahead of schedule.  I did it!  It was close at the end, but I managed to knit a-hat-a-day.  On November 29th, with all 30 hats completed and logged into my handy dandy Excel spreadsheet, I cast on for a felt hat in a style that I've never made before.

I also made an effort to knit from the stash as much as possible and tore through several hundred yards, so I knit down the stash too.  However since part of knitting down the stash required me to purchase more yarns to go with the stash yarns, I didn't get too far out front of that.  But all in all, a fine effort.

Only one tiny problem - a good problem to have.  Almost as fast as I have been making hats, I have been delivering them to stores and they are selling!  Of course that is the point - I can't sell them if I don't have them!  Nor do they sell piling up in a nice stack in the studio.  And as I backed off the spinning, I have very little hand spun yarn to knit my always popular guy hats - so I am still a wee bit behind.

Thanksgiving weekend was busy here at the world headquarters of Smoky Mountain Fibers.  In addition to manic hat knitting, I did a bit of dyeing and carding and spinning.  I also visited a couple of my favorite local yarn shops (one on Black Friday - Hey, 30% off and I bought some lovely silk-merino spinning fiber for a sweater for me!), spun at the Locally Grown Gallery and shipped a healthy number of orders for the Etsy shop (Thank you very much!).

I also painted my bedroom, including 2 coats on the dreaded popcorn ceiling.  I'll spare you pictures.  Although I am very happy with the results, photos of dingy off white with drywall mud over the cracks  and photos of fresh off white aren't really that exciting to anyone other than me.

Tonight is spinning night at Friends & Fiberworks.  I'll be spinning some over-dyed blue-green that looks like a really iridescent peacock. A colorway that will never be duplicated, I can assure you.  Hope the yarn is half as pretty as the roving!

Hats Challenge

The 30 Hats in 30 Days challenge continues unabated.  I'm having great fun in the design process - matching different yarns to make hats that look great and are fun to knit.  I'm discovering yarns in my stash and in a few different yarn shops in my local yarn shops.  I'm also spinning yarns that should work nicely in my hats.  In an earlier post, I showed off some yarns I was spinning.  Here are those yarns all knitted up.

This is the pretty, sparkly blue yarn in an all-garter stitch hat with a brim that you can turn up or not - your choice.  I added a darker blue stripe just because I had the yarn around and thought it would be pretty.  I'm wondering if both of these hats are a bit short.  I may adjust them longer - and I have the yarn.  Of course that means I have to pull out the crown and knit a few rows before I start the decreases, but I think I'll like them better.

The second hat is from the yarn I didn't like very much.  It was brown with a bit of yellow-y tan that I wished I hadn't carded in.  Guess what?  It's not bad at all knitted up.  Go figure!  Both hats are from the same recipe: all garter stitch. Just start knitting, decrease when it makes sense and don't stop until you are nearly out of yarn.

I'll continue knitting hats this weekend.  I'm still a bit ahead on my challenge, even though one day did not see a completed hat.  I spun instead.  I have a plan to go to the WNC Farmers Market this weekend and spin in front of my friend Sally's gallery shop, Locally Grown.  It gets me out of the house on quiet weekends and is good for both our businesses!

Also on the weekend's agenda - dying, delivering. working in the yard and attending a event to honor a local teacher.  Since I nominated her, I think I should go!

2 Days 2 Hats

The Challenge is on: 30 Hats in 30 Days.  As today is November 3rd, I have the first 2 hats to show you.  Both are the same pattern. but are different in fiber and size.

November One is my Windy City pattern in purple worsted with a band of Plymouth Expressions.  I like this multicolored soft, textured yarn.  Although I am usually not a fan of unnatural fibers, this yarn is 55% wool and 45% acrylic and is quite soft.  The colors are very nice - expect to see a good bit of it in the coming month.

November Two is Windy City again, but sized larger and in different yarns.  This time it's made of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride and Ironstone Sunset, a glittery mohair blend.  The color is a deep red and super pretty.  Because most of my hats are for sale, I try to make some larger and some a bit smaller.  After all, people have different size heads. 

The hat for November 3rd? Already on the needles.  Don't worry, this month will not be a parade of similar hats. I'm keeping a spreadsheet (what a geek!) for myself, so I'll only show off the ones I particularly like.  I admit, I do make a lot of Windy City Hats. They are quite flattering on a number of women. Plus, two of the shops that carry my hats also sell the patterns.  A few nice variations on display help sell hats as well as patterns.  If you like this pattern and want to make your own, visit my Etsy shop. It's a great way to use up  30 yards of a pretty yarn already in the stash.

By the way, this hat is looking for a new name.  I originally called in 'Windy City' because a friend who wore hers in Chicago says it really stays on.  But there is another Windy City hat on Ravelry so I need to change the name.  Any ideas?

New - Vember

Just coming off of 2 very busy,crazy months, I am happy to usher October out the door.  November is looking good.  Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday comes later this month, with it's mini-break.  It's the last full month of the semester, so for the academic side of my life it's a nice period of getting things tidied up.

One other thing that happened in November is the winter knitting season keeps pace roughly ahead of the  Christmas shopping season.  The shops that sell my work will sell a good many hats in the next 7 weeks.  Although I have several in the 'hat bank,'  I'd like to have a few more on hand.  How about 30 hats in 30 days?

Can I do it?  Should I do it?  I looked back at the last 2 previous years and found I sold about 50 hats in November and December.  With an increased presence in the 3 shops where I sell my work but also with a depressed economy, I should be able to match or beat that number.   And to sell the hats, I have to knit the hats.  Lately I have been spinning a lot -mostly because I find peace and joy in spinning.  I simply love to make yarn and so have been spinning daily - or almost.  I also need the yarn!  My marketing mix requires me to sell a hats in a combination of hand spun and commercial yarns.  And that means I need to make the yarn so I can knit it up.

Last week I traded both patterns and blogging services for yarn - the kind I can't make but love to make into hats that should sell quite nicely.  So I currently have a table of interesting yarns in the studio.  I'll keep track of  my progress here.  In all fairness, I have a couple of hats in progress, but finishing counts, so that unfinished hat that I just found the yarn to finish knitting the last couple inches - it's in!  Time to get knitting.

Translating Yarn to Hats

A few days ago I blogged about some green yarn that I had dyed and spun.  Although I liked it in the yarn, I'm not sure I'm crazy about it knitted up. I like the seed stitch section, but not the stockinette area.  I think that the seeming randomness of the yarn did not translate well into areas that were essentially knit flat. 

Now the orange hat (actually Smoky Mountain Fibers 'Fire' colorway) looks good in what I call the 'Skater Boy' style.  Totally in garter stitch, the purl bumps that dominate the surface are quite happy to show off their random colors.  The stripy-ness of this kind of spinning can live in harmony with a textured surface.

I like both styles.  Depending on the yarn, they can look good on men or women.  They also look good in multi-colored bulky yarns - heavy worsted or chunky. 

Both theses hats are destined to one of my local gallery shops.  That way people can try them on and see what they are taking home.  Because online shopping can be fraught with disappointment, I like people to see these in person. 

Just one week until SAFF setup!  Tonight is the board meeting and I am looking forward to the festival.

Not as Quiet as it Seems

The blog, Facebook and Etsy shop have been quiet this week, but I'm not asleep.  I've been knitting and spinning, and doing the behind the scenes work that keeps Smoky Mountain Fibers the fun business that it is.  It's not the kind of work that makes good blog posts.  I can't imagine that people want to here that I have been making up grab bags or tagging hats for the retail accounts.  But it all takes time and a wee bit of effort, particularly during a time that I'm on deadline for the day job.

The picture here are some of the hats that are in inventory and are going out to my newest account, Garrou Pottery in Black Mountain, NC.  In addition to selling their own beautiful pottery, their gallery has work by a number of local artists, including functional wood items, jewelry, and now my hand spun and hand knit hats.  These hats were knit while I was on my trip to Colorado.  I am also taking hats and fiber to my other shops this weekend.

My weekend plans include knitting a few hats (it's time to knit a hat a day!), going to the NC Mountain State Fair for the wool breeds sheep show and fleece show and leading an English Country Dance on Sunday. 

Break Time

I took a wee break from my day job.  At the end of the regular semester, before the summer workshop season kicks in, I usually need a bit of a break.  It's also my work anniversary, and I usually have vacation days to burn before they vanish into thin air.  I wanted a vacation that was relaxing - no big cities, no plane rides, no fancy clothes.  Reading, knitting, spinning, perhaps a bit of dancing - - essentially chilling out.  The obvious choice is the beach, but my skin isn't made for bright sunshine.

So it was off for a dutiful family visit to my boyfriend's family in Columbus, Ohio, which is a big city, but in a good way.  We drove up, mostly on 4 lane, non-interstate roads.  We ate, we talked, I knit, we took old people to the doctor and we visited a couple of museums.  The Columbus Museum of Art is under the cloud of renovation, so only the Chihuly Glass exhibit was open, but it was fabulous.  I've seen his work before, but the 'baskets' don't travel very often, so this was a real treat.   The Wexner Center for the Arts featured a show by LA artist Mark Bradford.  I won't try to decribe his remarkable work.  Check it out here instead.  Way cool.

When we started planning this trip, I suggested that perhaps there might be a Wright Brothers Museum over in Dayton. Maybe an old plane or 2. I like the Wright Brothers.  They were inventive, creative Ohio guys who changed the world!  Because they went to Kitty Hawk to play with their great big gliders, North Carolina stole them.  North Carolina likes to 'borrow' famous people and claim them - Carl Sandburg, for instance.  I recently heard that Steve Martin bought a house near Brevard.  Better banjo playing round these parts. 

Ummm, how about the Air Force Museum - with lots of planes, including some of Orville and Wilbur's fine work.  A bit heavy on war (after all, it is the US Air Force!), but it was fascinating.  Perhaps my favorite part was the collection of Presidential Planes.  You take a bus over to a hangar on Wright-Patterson AFB to see the cool experimental aircraft and you can go aboard a couple of  Air Force One.  The one that brought tears to my eyes was the one used by several presidents.  This was the plane that carried John F. Kennedy's body back from Texas.  The famous picture of  Lyndon Johnson taking the oath of office, with Jackie Kennedy as a witness, hangs in the plane where the event took place. 

I knit like crazy too.  I knit about10 hats.  No socks, because I couldn't concentrate enough to follow a pattern and I needed a break from socks. I even ran out of yarn (well, sort of...) and had to go to a yarn shop.  But I'll save that for another day.  I may even take a picture or 2!

Post-Conference Wrap up

All in all, the AASLconference was a good one.  I didn't become a conference blogger, because I didn't want to carry my laptop the 4 blocks from the hotel to the Convention Center,  I went to a couple of session that I found engaging and enlightening.  I found some answers to my questions, about how to add elements of inquiry as I work with veteran teachers.  I also learned about some new resources for using images in my work.  Schmoozed the Washington crowd too.  Had yummy Thai food.

I also knitted 4 lovely hats, including a ribbed ski hat made from my newly hand spun yarn in a rich brown.  Still a bit of lanolin, it will get a nice bath before it goes to its future home, wherever that may be.  Perhaps it's time for an Etsy hat listing again.

This is the yarn that I spun at the Mars Hill Heritage Festival and it is much prettier than I expected.  The fleece has a good bit of grey, but it didn't really come through in the yarn.

Once home, I called a dance Saturday evening in Jonesborough, Tennessee with the Contra Cowboys.  About a year ago we worked together at their premiere gig, but we have not had the opportunity since.  They play fiddle tunes combined with a Texas swing style that some contra dancers don't like, but it certainly brings out my inner cowgirl.  I tried to pick dances that complemented their music.  Kind of fun!  I tried waltzing on my bum knee and I was not in pain later, and that's a good thing!

On Sunday I spent some quality time with my drum carder, making batts in sparkly blue grey and also sparkly hot pink.  I spun a good bit of the blue-grey, but haven't plied it yet.  I'll start spinning the pink this evening.

Remember that Great Things are About to Happen?  Tomorrow the solar hot water should go live!  Stay tuned...

Phat Stripes Hat Free Pattern

This hat is easy to make and does a great job of showing off small amounts of hand spun, hand dyed yarns, particularly ones that you make from your Phat Fiber samples. Make your stripes subtle or wild, smooth or textured - what ever suits you! How ever you color it, you don't need a lot of yardage to make a great hat that looks good on women or men.

This pattern is written for bulky weight yarn (6-8 wraps per inch) and size 10 1/2 needles. You will need a total of about 65-75 yards. This hat fits an average adult, but can easily be sized up or down by casting on more or fewer stitches and adjusting your decreases. Experienced knitters can also adjust the number of cast on stitches to a finer gauge yarn and needles.

Materials:
Basic color (brim and top) - 30-35 yards of bulky weight yarn
Stripes - 3-4 stripes - 8-15 yards per stripe

Needles:
Size 10 1/2 (6.5 mm) 16" circular needle & one set of double pointed needles
Yarn needle; stitch marker

Gauge: 3 stitches per inch

Instructions:
With basic color, cast on 56 stitches. Join in a ring, being careful not to twist stitches.

Knit 3 rows.
Purl 1 row.
Knit 2 rows.

Attach Stripe #1. Knit 1 row.
Purl 1 row.
Knit 2-4 rows.

Attach Stripe #2. Knit 1 row.
Purl 1 row.
Knit 2-4 rows.

Attach Stripe #3. Knit 1 row.
Purl 1 row.
Knit 1-3 rows.

Reattach your basic color. Knit at least 1 row, or until the hat is 5 1/2-6 inches tall.

Begin decreases. Place a marker to show the end of the round.

Knit 5; Knit 2 together (K2T). Repeat around.
Knit around.
Knit 4; K2T. Repeat around.
Knit around.
Knit 3; K2T. Repeat around.
Knit around. Change to double pointed needles.
Knit 2; K2T. Repeat around.
Knit around.
Knit 1; K2T. Repeat around.
Knit around.
Knit 2 together. Repeat around.

Cut yarn, leaving a 6 inch tail. Thread yarn through stitches and weave in tail. Weave in all ends.

Variations:
Instead of the rolled brim, try a K2P2 ribbed cuff, using a size 10 (6mm) needle.
Keep adding stripes all the way to the top.

Yarn credits:
Base yarn & pink stripe hand dyed and hand spun by Smoky Mountain Fibers.
Orange stripe: Merino wool & SeaCell roving by Knit It Up (www.knit.etsy.com), color English Garden; plied with Smoky Mountain Fibers apricot handspun.
Teal Stripe: Breeze Merino and Bamboo roving by 1,000 petals (www.lotusjulie.etsy.com), color Hydra; plied with Smoky Mountain Fibers teal handspun.

Copyright 2009 by AnneMarie Walter for SmokyMountainFibers (www.smokymountainfibers.etsy.com) & Phat Fibers (www.phatfibers.com). You have my permission to make as many of these hats as you wish from this pattern. Sell them if you like; giva a few to charity. You may not sell this pattern, but you may link to it on Ravelry (I'm SmokyMtnFibers) or my blog, http:\\smokymountainfibers.blogspot.com/.

Phat Fiber Sampler Box -Spoiler Alert!

June marks the 2nd month that I have been a contributor to the Phat Fiber Sampler Box, a project that assembles boxes from a number of fiber artists and is sold through the Etsy Shop. It's a way for consumers to try lots of different samples and fiber artists to get their work in the hands of shoppers who are looking for handmade work by indie spinners, dyers, knitters and other artists.

This month's theme was 'Oceans' - a theme I can really relate to. Since blues and greens are two of my favorite colors to dye, I had a lot of fun with this one.

I chose to make 1/3 ounce samples of 3 of my best selling colorways. On the top is Muted Sea Glass, a creamy pale blue-green merino. The lower right is one of my all time faves, Beach Glass a mid-toned blue/green/lavender, which in this case is very green - think 7Up bottle. On the left is Oceana, a bright blue-teal. I also sent a number of business cards with small swatches of handspun yarn & a discount code (20% off) to go in the business card pouch. Maybe the coolest item in the box I shipped was the lovely spiral of 'Deep Blue Sea' Falklands roving. This is for Jessie (the Phat Fiber Queen herself) to blog about and give away. Since the way she does the giveaways is to send people to the Etsy store and ask them to comment on the things that they find there. This drives traffic to my site so that fiber people can do a bit of shopping.

I decided to get involved in this promotion for a couple of reasons. OK, should increase sales - that's obvious. But it also builds community. The more people work together, the better it is for all of us. I know that people are shopping from the vendors who contribute to the boxes. I did! I bought 2 (not 1!) GREAT knitting bags from Ruddawg, whose work I sampled in the April box, the first one I contributed to. It's a great little bag - just the right size with lots of interior pockets. Today I am using the Medium size to carry the secret hat project that I am currently working on.

Speaking of the Secret Hat Project, last night I spun up some roving from the April box + my own stash to make the yarn for a pattern that I am writing for the Phat Fiber site. Works nicely for small amounts of handspun. I'd best stop before it is no longer secret!

Dancing in Saxapaha

Just back from a delightful weekend of dance in the NC Triangle area. My friend Stephen built a house a few years ago with a large living room that is great for house concerts and small dance parties. He even had a sprung wooden dance floor installed. This weekend he hosted a small contra dance weekend for about 40 people. Notorious (Eden McAdam-Somer and Larry Unger) played and Nils Fridland called and played trombone. I had so much fun dancing and visiting with old friends and new.

Nils called a lot of squares, including a set of singing squares that he has been collecting and learning (and getting ready to publish with Ralph Sweet). There was an open mike session with Skylark, so I called a few too. Notorious was great as always and sat in with Skylark. At one point we had a six piece band including twin fiddles, piano, guitar, bodran and the trombone. Not bad for an intimate dance setting.

Great weather for the event with a sunny Saturday, cool evening and a bit of rain on Sunday morning to freshen every thing up nicely. I camped out on my truck which I had not done in some time. I spent time with some people who I had not seen since I moved away from the Piedmont. Other folks I have kept in touch with throughout that time - My English dance friends & people who travel up this way.

I kept my knitting simple, working on the 2nd sleeve of the Spicy Cardi - Got about 3 inches done. The kitting up I did last weekend is really paying off! I have knit about 4 hats with plenty more to come. I also dyed up a good bit of 'orphan' yarn in shades that should go nicely with the mohairs that didn't have good companions.

I have been dyeing sock yarns again, in my subtle shades line.So far I have taken most of them to Asheville HomeCrafts. They move nicely there. Today, I need to get my Phat Fiber box shipped to PF Central.

Photos removed due to copyright restrictions of the photographer.