Galina Khmeleva and Orenburg Knitted Lace

There are women who are talented. There are women who are amazing. There are women who are inspiring. Galina Khmeleva is all of these plus so many more.

I recently had the pleasure of attending one of Galina's workshop on Orenburg Lace in Newburyport, MA. Kelly, a wonderful new friend of the shop, mentioned the class to me and luckily there was still an opening! Julia - thank you, thank you , thank you - hosted the event at a wonderful inn run by the charming and talented RoseAnn (whom I hope to have come in and run a Knitting with Fabric workshop).

Galina entertained 9 of us with the history of the women in the Orenburg region who make these wonderful shawls as well as starting us on our own Orenburg Design Shawl. As we started our shawls, Galina praised us, scolded us and guided us through any anxieties that we may have had while sharing tips with us from perfect edging purl slip stitches to needle size selection for perfect gauge based solely on yarn selection.

Lovely little disks of fun yarn - Zephry Lace Weight - coupled with Addi Lace needles and the desire to do good lace equals one really cool swatch!

Ta Da! My days lace work!

What makes the Orenburg shawls different from others? Patterning on both sides, no purl stitches (except the edged slip as if to purl stitch), and lovely, lovely patterning that is easy to follow and accordingly to Galina, eventually becomes intuitive as you are working on the pattern!

Galina will be visiting with us and teaching a 2-day class - we have yet to nail down the dates but it should be within the year. This is not to be missed! If you are a lace fan, let us know and we are happy to put you on the waiting/call list. She is wonderful!

Oh, and to end off a perfect day of lace knitting - the purchases.....
1 Orenburg Shawl - (How could I resist especially after I found out that one of these takes an experiened Orenburg knitter 290 hours to make!) Plus, it keeps me warm already as I work through my lace knitting - currently Mystery Stole 3 but I am eyeing a certain Orenburg in my newly "signed" books by Galina :)

2 skeins of silvery-beige 55% Silk, 45% Cashmere lace weight Skaska Designs yarn in 1650 yd sks

2 skeins of springy green 55% Silk, 45% Cashmere lace weight Skaska Designs yarn in 1650 yd sks - I just LOVE this color - note 1 has already been wound!

What's not to love about it all!!!! Excellent class, amazing teacher and fellow lace knitters, perfect location, wonderful potluck lunch, wonderful yarn to purchase and amazing shawls to buy! Well, maybe 290 hours is a long time, but maybe sleeping is overrated!

Hee hee!

Friday Nights are Hosted by Gina!

I needed to drop by on Friday to see how the Friday Night Knitting Club was doing. Last week we had noticed a fairly full parking lot, and it is a big lot, they can't all be here for knitting, can they?

Well most of them were!

This Friday wasn't quite so hectic, at least early on while I was there, Gina draws quite a crowd though. Gina was taught to knit by her great aunt when she was a child, and started again about six years ago when she was pregnant with son Ben, you know how that is! After Ben was born, Gina took on the new mother lifestyle together with a new passion for knitting.

For most of us this would be more than enough, but not for Gina, she started the "Manch Vegas Knitters" (Manchester New Hampshire) with Ericka, now about 40 members strong, and has been hosting a pod-cast and blog "Sleepy Eyes Knits" for about a year, she teaches yoga too!

Gina met Kate Jacobs, author of "The Friday Night Knitting Club" at a book signing at Barnes and Nobles and was inspired to offer to start one at our shop. You can join her any Friday night between 6:00pm and 9:30pm.

In case you were wondering Gina is modelling a crocheted hat I worked up while waiting at the shop to take Cyndi out to dinner, Gina dubed it "The Waiting Hat". It certainly looks better on her than on Stitch! [Personally I think it looks like a bath cap!] If anyone is crazy enough to want one (Gina is) it is a basic double crochet, cast on 5 chain stitches passing through the first to make a loop. Then double crochet. To increase just crochet two stitches onto each of those in the previous row, or every other until you get the size you want. I finished with a row of single crochet. I used a size P hook and the biggest yarn I could find in the scrap yarn bucket (GGH Coco which on sale right now would be perfect)

Friday Night Knitting Club

Ever since Kate Jacobs published "The Friday Night Knitting Club" we thought, probably like many other yarn shops, that it would be cool to have our own Friday Night Knitting Club.

For those who do not know about it The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs is a touching tale of women joining together in a common love of knitting and each other. Georgia Walker is a single mom whose life revolves around her 12-year-old daughter, Dakota, and her small knitting shop, her life is busy, but lonely. But all that's about to change in ways she never expected.

Of course our Friday nights are not necessarily producing book making material, but our wonderful host for the evening is the talented Gina, knitter, blogger and host of a popular online pod-cast. Could we wish for more!

A New Mystery - Shh its a Secret Stole

October 4 is the deadline to sign up for the Secret of the Stole - a new mystery stole I have just found in a yahoo group online. It runs from Oct 5 through Nov 23 and the creator, nauticalknitter, claims we will have a gorgeous beaded stole to wear for New Years Eve when finished - oh these mystery knit alongs are such fun! Especially when more are working on the project! So join up and come work on your stole during our "Fridays Belong to Lace" which are every Friday between 12 -5 at the Yarn and Fiber Company! We can help launch you into lace if you are a beginner lace worker, or if you are experienced, then it is just thrilling to see how fast you are able to make your needles sing! The swatch is already posted and the supplies sound wonderful - lace yarn, beads (optional but preferred), size 4 needles, and lots of wonderful yarn-overs on the way! YEAH!

We had so much fun with the Mystery Stole 3 - no, it isn't finished yet, but it is a wonderful work in progress and seeing so many pictures of finished stoles is making me want to finish it even faster - and I can't wait to start-up this new lace project - hopefully this time I can keep up with the clues - (my three year old at this point would say "Yeah right Mommy.")

If you join, let us know if you have any questions about picking out some lace yarn... we have lots and lots of yummy lace yarns now and more are always on the way!

Cheryl Potter and Missy from Wool in the Woods

The mystery of who Cheryl was bringing was quickly ended when Missy of Wool in the Woods arrived with Cheryl to teach our hand dyeing class. Cherry Tree Hill has completed a buyout of Wool In the Woods and will take over production of their line of hand dyed yarn. Missy took the lead in teaching the class, and I have to say she is a first rate teacher. Her technique was quite different to Cheryl's, and I thought a little easier to master if a lot messier.

It must of felt a little strange for Missy to be dyeing Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn but she took to the task readily explaining in detail the process step by step.

While Cheryl applies dye to the top of the yarn, Missy applies it generously in a pool (or well) under the yarn.

After cooking in the microwave for a couple of minutes and then rinsing in cold water the squidgy mess in the tray turned into a beautiful skein of hand dyed yarn (which I now have in my possesion and will turn into a pair of socks!).

Next it was the turn of the students. The turnout was not as good as for the last class, but the enthusiasm was there and we were eager to get our hands dyed, oh I mean yarn dyed. Three of us brave souls were going for the hand dyed silk lace.

All yarns take dye differently. Sockittome soaks up the dye quickly, silk does not so a lot more acid must be used when dyeing silk.

Our first task was to visualize our color way, and draw it out on paper in crayon.

Cyndi decided to do the sock yarn first and attempt the lace later, Gina decided to do the silk first and I already had my color plan so did my silk first and then did the same color way in sockittome.

Gina finished first. Her pink silk is simply amazing. It was nice to see that everyone was able to turn out gorgeous hand dyed yarn, much credit to missy's teaching ability!

My finished skeins are the top two, the very top one is sockittome, and the lower one is silk. The silk came out much lighter as much dye came out in the rinse compared to the sock yarn. The color is called "Bushkill Falls" named after one of my favorive waterfalls in Pennsylvania (where Missy is from). The lower skein is the very talented Hannah's amazing creation.

An ominous beginning to the weekend

This weekend promised to be packed with activity. Cheryl Potter was bringing a mystery guest to our hand dye class, and we had a hundred things to do to get the shop ready. The day started rather ominously when a truck full of garbage rolled over on the Interstate 93 ramp right outside of the shop, closing down the ramp and causing huge tailbacks. It was also pouring with rain and I don't think the state troopers or local police were too happy.

Anyway we did get everything done and were ready for the hand dye class. Cyndi, Gina and myself decided we were going to try hand dyeing cascade silk. Cyndi was going to use ours for shawls.

Chunky Top-Down Pattern Plus Tip for Knitting with Hand-Dyes

Cool sweater huh! I designed it using Araucania Limari (70% wool, 20% alpaca and 10% silk) yarn which knits for me at 2.25 sts per inch on a US #13. This sweater knits in what feels like minutes! Plus, there are no seams - just ends to weave in..... WOW!!! It's a great man's sweater or woman's sweater (but I think I will make the woman's sweater taper at the waist a little). The pattern will be available soon at the Yarn and Fiber Company store and online. A few knitters are getting the first round of the pattern this morning to work on sweaters for their husbands - if you are interested in trying the sweater prior to the pattern being finished, the pattern is free with the yarn purchase until the pattern is finished (probably early-mid October). This sweater would also work up well in Big Wool, Equinox Stripes and the other bulky yarns!

TIP!!!! When using hand-dyed or kettle-dyed yarns.... always, always run two skeins while you are knitting and alternate the yarns either one (if on circulars) or every two rows (if using straights). This will keep the pooling down plus, many times the shading can be completely different within the same dye-lot! Happy knitting up hand-dyes!