Sock Contest

This was originally posted on Ravelry. Thought it made sense to put it here too.


Hi everyone!!

It is getting to around that time of year again! The TNNA summer market is just around the corner and new colors have been popping up here and there around the studio for premier at the show. It’s all VERY exciting if you ask me!!

We love to get a chance to see what new and budding designers are up to and figured what better way than to have a sock design contest!

So, with no further delay here are the details:

Designs must be in Shepherd Sock yarn (color does not matter).

Submit 1 sock along with a written version of your pattern by May 14th to:
Lorna’s Laces Yarns
4229 N. Honore St.
Chicago, IL 60613
(Please securely attach your name, address & contact information to your sock so we can return it to you.)

You may also submit your design via high resolution digital image to yarn@lornaslaces.net with the subject line “sock contest submission” by May 14th.

The winning sock designs will become the sole property of Lorna’s Laces for distribution in our pattern line.

1st Prize: Publication of your pattern in the Lorna’s Laces pattern line, 3 copies of your pattern for yourself & 8 skeins of Shepherd Sock yarn in assorted colors (enough for 4 pairs of socks).

2nd Prize: Publication of your pattern in the Lorna’s Laces pattern line, 3 copies of your pattern for yourself & 4 skeins of Shepherd Sock yarn in assorted colors (enough for 2 pairs of socks).

3rd Prize: Publication of your pattern in the Lorna’s Laces pattern line, 3 copies of your pattern for yourself & 1 Little Can of Paint sock kit.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me. I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Cheers,
Amanda Allen

Please feel free to cross-post this to any other forums you think might find it interesting.

Knit.1

Wow, I got the new Knit.1 over the weekend. What a gorgeous issue! I'll admit to being biased....the cover is a Nicky Epstein design in our Green Line DK.

We have started shipping the Green Line in earnest over the past couple of weeks. It feels so nice to have it out in the world. Once we got the dyeing figured out, I love this yarn more than ever! It's nice and soft but has a firm enough hand that cables are really going to pop. I really hope folks like it as well as I do.

Lately we've been busy working on new colors for fall. We've got four figured out for the Purple Line right now. I'd like to have one or two more.

Even more exciting is putting together multi-colors for the Green Line. We'll work with some of the nearly solids we already have as well some new things. I'm not sure what we'll end up with, but this week should be lots of fun. I find designing colorways just about the most satisfying thing we do around here.

Wee Tiny II

My Wee Tiny Sock has arrived! It's even wee tinier than the one I knit. Thanks Dawn!

Persnickety

Isn't it funny how the stuff you learn in grade school sticks with you?

When I was a kid, my parents made great sacrifices to ensure all their children went to Catholic schools. Let me tell you, those nuns didn't mess around when it came to the basics. We memorized multiplication tables, state capitals, the Gettysburg Address. (I still know that one by heart, complete with punctuation.)

Proper letter writing was high on their list. Business letters had a salutation that was followed by a colon. For personal correspondence, you followed it with a comma. My brain is full of minutia.

I know times have changed and I am all for living in a more relaxed society. Goodness knows that I don't want to go back to the days of full slips, girdles and untold other "foundation garments".

But, I do find myself cringing when email comes across my desk with no salutation or regard for upper and lower case. Now, I don't mind when it's a note from a friend, but I think business correspondence, even email, should have at least some regard for proper form, particularly when it's early on in that relationship.

Maybe I shouldn't be so fussy. Is it crazy to worry that a person who can't be bothered with punctuation will be able to write an error-free pattern? Or that someone who doesn't run spellcheck will be a reliable test knitter? After all, they are different skill sets, aren't they? Arent' they?

I suppose you are wondering what brought this all on. Well, Monday was opening day at Wrigley Field. A statue of Ernie Banks was unveiled. Ernie Banks is a member of The Baseball Hall of Fame who played his entire career with the Cubs. He's a legend around these parts.

The statue is beautiful.













The caption of the base is another story.


In case you can't tell from the photo, it reads: "LETS PLAY TWO". The apostrophe in "Let's" is missing. Can you imagine? I'm not privy to all the details, but you have to figure that this sculpture has been in the works for months, probably years. I'm dumbfounded to think that in all that time no one took bothered to make sure every single detail was correct before it was engraved in granite.

Given the press that this has received in the past few days, I'm just glad it wasn't me. Yikes!

Wee Tiny Socks

Late last week I heard about the Wee Tiny Sock Swap in one of the issues of Lime and Violet's Daily Chum. I haven't really gotten involved in any of these swaps or the wars, but something about this one seemed so sweet that I jumped on board.

The first thing I had to do was figure out what yarn to use. Like all knitters, I have more small balls of yarn than you can shake a stick (or needle) at. Rifling through that stash of leftovers felt like a virtual history of both my knitting and my life. Here was a ball from my very first sweater, Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Bulky in Cream. There was a ball of handspun I picked up on a trip to visit my brother in Wyoming. I found yarns still on bobbins from my first attempt at intarsia....before I took a class to learn how to do it properly. The sweater with all the holes had long since been frogged and turned into something else.

Then I found the yarn for this project. It was just a tiny bit of Shepherd Sock yarn in Shadow. This yarn was from the very first Lorna's Laces I every cast on.

Way back in fall of 2002 I flew out to California to visit Lorna Miser and check out the company. I spent two days with her seeing the operation and learning what Lorna's Laces was all about. During the course of the visit I learned that Shepherd Sock was her best-selling yarn. I had never knit a sock but I figured that if I was serious about buying the company, girl should knit at least one pair.

Lorna offered me any color I wanted so I picked up some Shadow. I stopped at the LYS on the way to the airport and bought some size 1 dpn's. Once I got to the the gate, I cast on. It's a four hour flight, so I had plenty of time to get my feet wet with the sock-knitting. I have to admit that it wasn't love at first stitch. I looked at these tiny little needles and this fingering weight yarn and thought to myself that I will persevere and finish these socks, but I don't think there will be any more in my future.

Then I turned my first heel...and I literally squealed. I've had a pair of socks on needles ever since. It was like crack. I couldn't stop. There is just something about socks that feels so right. They are portable, everyone wears them, they aren't a big commitment in time or money, it's rare that you'll finish a pair of socks and realize the silhouette isn't right for your body type or that the color makes you look washed out. Socks are good.

So, I had found the yarn for my Wee Tiny Sock. And had a wonderful trip down memory lane to boot. Look how cute it is.













And even more fun, here it is with that first pair of socks. I still wear them.

Scaruffle

So, last week I finally got around to purchasing Clara Parkes: Knitter's Book of Yarn. I'm a little embarrassed to admit I'm just getting around to it, but sadly, it's true. I'd asked for it for Christmas and it wasn't under the tree and then other things just kind of took over and I didn't get around to picking it up.

Enough excuses, I have it now. I pretty much devoured it in one sitting. It's just that kind of book. I was humbled by it. If all goes well in the world, I may someday know half as much about yarn as Clara.

I immediately cast of the Scaruffle in Pinto Bean. It's yarn I picked up at my hair salon. The owners have a herd of alpacas and this yarn was spun from the fiber of one.

This was the third or fourth project that I'd cast on with this yarn. None of them were working. I kept splitting the plies on one so I quickly abandoned it. Another had lots of K3Tog that ended up being troublesome because the alpaca isn't as elastic as wool. I decided that I wasn't going to put up with it being that much of a PITA. Had I read Clara's book beforehand, I would have done a better job matching the yarn to the project and saved myself plenty of time and frustration.

The instant I saw the Scaruffle, I knew it was the project for me and Pinto Bean. Big needles, simple stitch pattern (OK, no real stitch pattern) and small. I love me some instant gratification.
And since we're still getting snow here in Chicago, I'll be able to wear it for several more months.

More Fun Than a Barrel of Monkeys

So, yesterday as part of the Yarn Market News Conference, most of the attending LYS owners got on a bus for a tour of Lorna's Laces and a yarn shop crawl. We were the first stop. What fun!

Karin Strom, the editor of YMN has told me to expect about 50 people. I was a little anxious about fitting everyone in, but hey, we're all good friends, right?

Keep in mind that Lorna's Laces is run out of a 2400 square foot space. That may seem luxuriously large until you think about everything that has to fit inside that room. It's our warehouse, production facility, offices, creative department, shipping and receiving. You name it, we do it all right here.

It was a really great bunch of people. I gave them a rundown of all the different yarns we dye here and then gave a dye demonstration. My only regret is that we didn't have more time.

It's kind of funny, I gave a presentation to the same group on Tuesday morning at the conference itself. I practiced and practiced ahead of time and was still nervous. I walked away afterward feeling as though I did a respectable job, but that was about all. I certainly didn't shine.

Then, twenty-four hours later, on my own turf, I was completely at ease. I felt like everything went very well and that if there had been more time we could have gone on forever.

I think there were probably two factors at work. First, I had home field advantage. And, second, it was a much less formal setting. It's interesting how very small things can make such a big difference, isn't it?