If you said Fibre Space, you are right.

Fibre Space is a new-ish (opened last summer) yarn shop in my hometown — Alexandria, VA. And I finally made time for a visit. It’s located on North Fayette Street in Old Town. Great location — there was plenty of street parking within a block of the shop, and there is a Five Guys across the street.

Here are a few images of the shop. The street view:

They just decorated their front window for the holidays:

They have excellent taste in the books they have for sale:

They have a great classroom off the main room:

And they’ve got lots of yarn!

The owner, Danielle, kindly allowed me to photograph her behind the counter:

I’ll be doing an event in conjunction with Fibre Space in a couple of months (more on that next week) so it was about time I stopped by to check out the shop.

A Contest!

Y’all remember that I did a sock design for the Dye Dreams Four Seasons Sock club — right? What you may not know is that the lovely ladies at Dye Dreams have also started a Four Seasons Mitten Club — and they asked me to do a mitten design for the first club offering — the winter mittens.

And I need your help.

I’ve created the mitten pattern and love it but I have one problem — I can’t for the life of me think of a good name for the pattern. Here’s the mitten design:

Another view:

We want a winter-themed name. Any ideas?

Leave your suggestion for a name in the comments to this post by noon eastern time this Sunday, November 29. We’ll pick a name from the suggestions and the person who suggested the winning name will win a kit to knit the mittens!

Lucy sez

“Those of us with floofy feet don’t need mittens.”

I designed this to be their November sock, and it is now available. (As I write this, the Dye Dreams website seems to be down, but check back there if you are interested.)

This past weekend I did my annual trip down to Graves Mountain for a weekend of fun with friends

A photo mosaic of Graves Mountain:

1. IMG_0535, 2. IMG_0536, 3. IMG_0537, 4. IMG_0538, 5. IMG_0539, 6. IMG_0540, 7. IMG_0541, 8. IMG_0542, 9. IMG_0543, 10. IMG_0544, 11. IMG_0545, 12. IMG_0546, 13. IMG_0547, 14. IMG_0548, 15. IMG_0551, 16. IMG_0550, 17. IMG_0552, 18. IMG_0556, 19. IMG_0576, 20. IMG_0577

A photo mosaic of Kid Hollow farm, where we visited on Saturday:

1. IMG_0557, 2. IMG_0558, 3. IMG_0559, 4. IMG_0560, 5. IMG_0561, 6. IMG_0562, 7. IMG_0563, 8. IMG_0564, 9. IMG_0565, 10. IMG_0566, 11. IMG_0567, 12. IMG_0568, 13. IMG_0569, 14. IMG_0570, 15. IMG_0571, 16. IMG_0572, 17. IMG_0573, 18. IMG_0574, 19. IMG_0575

And a photo mosaic of a parade of classic cars that arrived at Graves Mountain yesterday:

1. IMG_0579, 2. IMG_0580, 3. IMG_0581, 4. IMG_0582, 5. IMG_0583, 6. IMG_0584, 7. IMG_0585, 8. IMG_0586, 9. IMG_0587, 10. IMG_0588, 11. IMG_0589, 12. IMG_0590, 13. IMG_0591, 14. IMG_0592, 15. IMG_0593, 16. IMG_0594, 17. IMG_0595, 18. IMG_0596

And this is the little bundle of purrs that was waiting for me when I arrived home yesterday afternoon:

Title aside, do you chart the lace patterns before you start knitting?

Busted!

Yes, I do. So calling it “uncharted territory” really isn’t completely accurate, now is it?

There has been a lot of charting and recharting and swapping of patterns and last minute switching with this design, however.

When I started a circular shawl in my Tilli Tomas Elsie yarn that I abandoned, it consisted of completely different stitch patterns. After I decided that I did not want to use that yarn, I completely revamped the charts. And I’ve tweaked them a couple of times while knitting. And just before I started the chart for the section I’m on now, I completely re-did it. And then again as I started knitting, I adjusted it on the fly.

Sort of makes my head spin.

I only did a couple of rounds last night because I had some non-knitting-related work that I needed to do.

But, I have finished the sock design for the Dye Dreams sock club offering for Autumn. You have to click on the link to see the sock.

Clicky here.

I’m very happy with it!

Lucy Sez

“Call me when my new kitty bed is finished.”

Last May I traveled out to Guthrie, Oklahoma for the S.W.A.K. Knit Out. My friend Tempted Stacy was attending and offered to pick me up at the airport, as she drove down to the event. Stacy’s sister, Muriel, lives in Guthrie, so she came along to the airport as well.

Muriel is one of those people. As soon as I met her, I loved her. She’s intelligent, beautiful, kind, and has the same smart-ass sense of humor as me. The fact that we hit it off immediately doesn’t really surprise me, since she’s Stacy’s sister and Stacy is one of the greatest people I know.

So as well as having a great time at the Knit Out, I gained a wonderful new friend. While in Guthrie I taught Muriel how to knit, and she took to it like she was born to knit. Considering her gene pool, this really isn’t shocking.

Anyway, this week Muriel has been visiting Stacy and did some dyeing with her. And yesterday I got this in the mail:

A colorway that Muriel created for me, with (Stacy tells me) pretty much zero help from her.

I love the name she gave this colorway.

Thank you so much, Muriel. I feel so fortunate that I had the opportunity to meet you and am so happy and proud that you and Stacy are in my Circle of Friends.

You can be darn sure that there will be a Circle of Friends sock design in the very near future!

Hey, Look!

Guess what’s available for pre-order over at Amazon.com?

Dye Dreams Sock Club Design

My stealth project right now is something I’ve been told I can share.

A while back the lovely ladies of Dye Dreams contacted me to see if I would be willing to design a sock for their Four Seasons Sock Club — the Autumn sock, to be exact. Autumn is my favorite season so I was happy to do it. Stephanie and Mona have been lovely to work with. I was  given carte blanche on the design and they even let me pick the colorway I wanted to work with from among a number of samples they sent to me.

They told me I could blog about the process of creating the design, so here I am. I have a photo of the design in progress that I’ve hidden behind a link, so those of you who are already club members and want to be surprised won’t see it.

You have been warned. Click at your own peril.

Click here to see the design in progress.

I’m loving knitting with Dye Dreams yarn! Just sayin’.

See Ya!

Tomorrow I’m off to Newark, Delaware for fun and classes at Stitches With Style. See y’all Sunday!

Lucy Sez

“What? Momma’s going away again?”