The power of the tweet

You, dear reader, may or may not be aware that I've got a sitemeter for this page. Every week I get an email report of how many visits I've gotten. I put it on initially just to see how many people were showing up, but it turns out that I can see where my visitors are geographically, where they arrive from (if they come from another page for example), when during the day they visited. It's all very interesting, but I honestly don't pay too much attention to it other then to check and see how many visits I've gotten in the last week.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I opened up my report a couple of weeks ago to find this:

And then today, opening up another report to see this:

Apparently, there are little web gremlins running around searching for particular keywords (in this case I suspect The Shard and Putney), and alerting their handlers, resulting in a tweet about some random knitting pattern, and lo and behold - I hit the sitemeter jackpot.

It's all a little Case-Molly the Razorgrrl-Neuromancer, but given that my previous readership is about 50 hits a week, many of which are members of my immediate family, I'm thrilled to bits that more people are visiting. So, to all of you folks who have wandered over to this corner of the knitting blogosphere - welcome! I'm awfully glad to have you here. The red wine and chocolate is over there on the coffee table, let Mario the Barista know if you'd like a cappuccino, and pull out your implements of fibery goodness. I'll try to keep the kid stories to a minimum...

Some knitting to tide you over...first up is Sleeve Island.

And Scarf Island.

Sadly, with no hope of imminent rescue in sight.

Yummy distraction

Dear Lion and Lamb,

We need to talk. Because I've got this List I'm working on, right? But last Friday I took the girls down to the stash to find some yarn for scarves, since it's really starting to get chilly in the mornings. While we were digging out blue and pink yarn for them, I found you buried in the bottom of a bin. And in pawing through the bins, I came across you again. I looked at you fondly, remembering that day almost a year ago when I found you all by your lonesome in the sale bin at Stash, and brought you home with me.

However, the problem lies in what happened next. Even after going back up to the house through the rain you kept calling out to me. And boy were you persistent! You promised me the coziness of wool, the sheen of silk, and you were just the same exact color as the lining of the winter coat I'm working on.

So I did something dumb. I listned to your siren call, pushed the IM Aran sleeves under the couch cushions and wound you up. Then I cast on for a cowl. A few obsessive hours and a couple of bad movies later (Men in Black, The Legend of Baggar Vance - a fine illustration of the extremes of Will Smith's acting career), there it was.

One Darkside Cowl, with gorgeous cushy stitches and brilliant colors,

and a good third of a skein of leftovers, maybe for some matching mitts?

I apologize for ever doubting that your high price wouldn't be worth it, and I now understand why a Clapotis knit out of you might be just the most luxurious thing ever. I have to say, I don't think you're cut out for sweater-dom, but if I ever come across more of you - even at full price! - I'm going to be taking some of your cousins home with me.

Much love forever and ever,
porpoise

Southwark Collection Part 3: Tower Bridge Mitts

The third pattern in the collection is actually the first one that I knit, now almost two years ago.

When we came over to find a place to live a couple of springs ago, I spent one day down near London Bridge wandering about. It was one of those grey days that is gloomy and raw, and then suddenly the sun peaks through the clouds and highlights something - that something happened to be Tower Bridge.

I promptly went home and knit up a pair of fingerless mitts using a stitch pattern that reminded me of the bridge.

I can't really explain what the resemblance was/is, but there you have it. The first pair were knit in a fingering weight yarn (multicolored version) and the second pair are in Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca Silk. The pattern is just about ready to go out to testers, so I'm hoping to get it released soon. Shard should be out in the immediate future, since it's now with test knitters. Gherkin is about to undergo a major redesign, so maybe before Christmas, but I'm not holding my breath. That can be a post-Christmas knit for everyone to cast-on their new yarn.

Good mail

Yesterday was one of the first real wintery days we've had - rainy, chilly, grey and windy. Let's hear it for London winters! But I arrived home with two whiny children in tow to find a very large package waiting for me. Inside the package was a metric buttload of pretty fiber.

First there was a pound of this:

HYFC Timber Romney, September 2010. I was so taken with the photos of this fiber online that I ordered four more bags before mine even arrived. I have visions of handspun garter stitch sweater in my head.

Then there was October's fiber club:

HYFC Burrows Rambouillet, October 2010 offering. This fiber is so gorgeous, and it reminds me of the sea on a stormy fall day. Greys, pale green, pale blue, dark grey, brown. It is stunning. I still haven't spun up my first Rambouillet, which was also a fiber club installment. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this but it is incredibly soft and cushy, even in top form.

Then there was the big deal - my Shelburne Falls Hat was randomly selected for a prize in the 4! Oz! Challenge spin/knit-along this fall, and my prize came in this big bag.

One bump each from Adrian, Amy and David. Let's take a closer look...

First up is Corriedale in the colorway Twenty Ten from Spunky Eclectic.

Lots of oranges and pink, with some darker blue and brown thrown in. Totally not colors I would have picked out for myself, but totally amazing.

Next is Happy Dance Shetland from Hello Yarn.

Happy Dance indeed! I love shetland, and I can't wait to spin up these gorgeous colors. Dev might even go for this yarn - she can not get enough pink. Still (as an aside, I know she's my daughter because I distinctly remember her arrival, and I'm pretty sure they didn't switch her at the hospital, but where did this pink thing come from? Or is it just a little girl thing? Will it pass eventually? Please?).

Last, but certainly not least is the Southern Cross Fibre offering: Cairns Polwarth.

I'm not sure where to begin except to say that David could not have picked a colorway I would adore more if he'd known me from birth (the colors are much better in the first picture of all three). And Polwarth! Excuse me while I go have a little lie down until the blood returns to my brain.

I want to thank all of the people involved in the whole Challenge - the dyers for doing what they do so well, and the moderators Stacie and Maryse for organizing the whole thing. It was such a fun experience to spin with a design in mind and actually see it through to the finished project. I can't wait for next year!

FF/S/S: Merino-silk for Nana

I've managed to circumvent my sore ankle (for which I finally broke down and went to the physio - now I've got ankle homework to do and physical therapy twice a week...) and finish off the 8 oz of merino-silk that I dyed for Nana's Christmas present*.

80%/20% merino-tussah silk from Paradise Fibers, dyed using Jacquard Acid dyes (purple, violet, brilliant blue and burnt orange)
Spun/plied at 9.25:1, singles spun long draw from the fold.
Three skeins, at 397 yds/3.9 oz (1616 ypp), 297 yds/3.1 oz (1536 ypp) and 98 yds/1.0 oz (1568 ypp). I didn't measure wpi before finishing, but after soaking in hot water and rinsing in cold, the wpi ranged from 27-18 (in the third, overplied skein) to 20-10 (in the first two squishy skeins). I'll be using the two squishy skeins for Nana's present.

I was a bit concerned about the intensity of the colors in the dyed top (somehow I managed to forget a photo of the dyed top, but here's some of the singles).

The request was for a more apricot-type of orange, so this was definitely too intense. However, there was a bit of undyed top throughout, which managed to tone down the orange a bit.

Plying helped too, pairing some of the orange with blue/purple. I'm hoping that it gets a bit more muted in the finished object too, but we'll see. Note to my mother: you are allowed to complain about how bright the orange is as long as you still wear it!

* A present requested specifically, so I'm not giving anything** away by posting about it here.
** Final FO shots may have to wait until after the holidays however...