For those that may not be on the Ravelry group:

Surprise! There’s a new free pattern for SOS members! To avoid some of the issues with sending the pattern by e-mail that we encountered last time, I’ve created a Google group for pattern distribution. If you are an official member of SOS’08, you should have received an invitation to the group by now. Please accept membership in the group and your pattern will be distributed through there in a couple of days. I will post again when the pattern has been sent out.

Remember, the pattern is restricted to official members. If you joined the Ravelry and/or Flickr groups after the sign up deadline in May, you are not eligible.

Questions or problems? Leave a comment or send me a private message on Ravelry (Zarzuela) or by e-mail (Zarzuelaknits [at] gmail [dot] com).

Real blog post tomorrow when I recover from 12+ hours in the car in 95+ degree heat with no AC!

Express Lane continues to chug along making progress on my way to and from work and at lunchtimes.

I have no dyeing to show you because I have no fiber to dye! The shop is completely sold out and I’m waiting on deliveries which will hopefully arrive starting today. In the meantime I’m cooking up an idea for a fiber club that is sports related, so stay tuned!

That leaves only one other bit of progress around here to show you.

She’s definitely a growing girl!

My Summer of Socks has been pretty much slow and steady instead of a flurry of activity like some in the SOS group on Ravelry. Many have already posted their second pair. All I can say is at least I’ve got the first sock of my second pair done!

Please shade your eyes for the apparently blinding whiteness that is my leg.

I originally started out the summer thinking I could probably do about a pair a week. Enter etsy shop and Tour de Fleece.

Yeah. Not so much.

Not that I regret either of those things, but that means that sock knitting is pretty much relegated to those times when I’m not home and can’t have a wheel with me. Home means dyepots and wheels. End of story.

These are proving a fun knit though. If I had more time to dedicate to them, they’d probably be done by now.

For the weekend I’ll be going to a spinning gathering tonight, working on Saturday (ugh!) and just maybe, getting a little rest on Sunday.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

A very happy Holiday wish to all those in the U.S. today as we celebrate our country’s birthday!

Since HWJF has to work today (yeah. Seriously. I really hate his company sometimes) I’ll be spending my day with these

in an attempt to get next month’s inventory for the shop started. Thanks so much to those of you who have already purchased something from me! I eventually hope to have a gallery here of what you’ve made with Zarzuela’s Fibers, so do send me pics when you get around to it. Some of my plurk buddies have given me some interesting new dyeing ideas, so I’m planning on having a lot of fun today.

If I’m real lucky, I may even get some time to work on this:

SOS’08 Sock number two is Express Lane in DIC Smooshy. It’s already much further along than this pic shows. It really is a fast knit.

I hope your weekend is filled with fiber, fun and maybe even a little sock knitting too.

How about the FO first?

Spring Forward Socks

Pattern: Spring Forward from Knitty.com
Yarn: Socks that Rock lightweight in Firebird
Needles: Size 1 addi turbos
Knit: 6/21-7/1/2008
Mods: none

I’m very happy with how these turned out! I have a feeling this pattern might end up being one of those “viral knits” that everyone ends up doing at least once. It’s well written, easy to memorize and works with a variety of yarns. I’ve seen several other lovely versions in the SOS’08 group on Ravelry, so there’s already plenty of proof out there.

Besides, what’s not to love about how the pattern squiggles back and forth? And the lacey but not too lacey-ness of it all?

And despite being far from my usual color range, I really do love this STR colorway. Definitely a perfect combination for a great summer knit.

And now for a big announcement…

You know how I’ve been doing a lot of dyeing lately?

And a lot of spinning too?

Did you, by any chance, wish that some of these rovings or yarns might be yours someday? You’re in luck! Announcing

Zarzuela’s Fibers!! My new etsy shop!!

Obviously I’ve had *way* too much free time on my hands lately so I’ve decided to start myself a little side business. You’ll find hand dyed spinning fibers in a variety of colorways (not just blue! Really!) and types of fiber (BFL, superwash merino, and Romney to name a few) and a few handspun yarns for those of you that don’t spin (but really, resistance is futile y’all)! I invite you to mosey on over and have a look and I’d really love to hear what you think of what I’ve got there so far, so please leave me a comment or a message on etsy! I plan to have more handspun yarns and some hand dyed merino in there next, so please add me to your bookmarks and come back often. And tell your friends!

Happy Shopping!

P.S. Big thanks to Tina for not only being my first customer, but also my second and third!!

The first Spring Forward sock is done.

The second is to the heel flap. As Wendy would say, alert the media.

Unfortunately, that’s about all the blog post I can muster for today. We found out yesterday that HWJF’s grandmother passed away. Plans are still up in the air at this point so expect blogging to be sporadic at best for at least the next week. My weekend plans for the Hudson River Knit and Spin and visiting my parents are still in tact for now anyway.

Tell the people you love how much they mean to you today, ok.

And have a wonderful weekend!

…but a little bit to start.

The SOS’08 Cafepress store is running strong! Thanks to all that have made a purchase so far. I’ve recently added several products including Plus Size T-shirts, Notecards and Jr. Raglan T-shirts and a Tank. Go check it out if you haven’t already!

There was a small typo in the pattern that Wendy wrote for us. She was kind enough to send me a corrected file which I have uploaded to replace the old one. If you think you must have the corrected copy, you can find it at the same exact link that you were e-mail with last weekend.

When I haven’t been dealing with SOS stuff I’ve been hitting the dyepots pretty hard lately.

There’s about two pounds of fiber there. It’s mostly superwash merino with some Romney and some Wensleydale. Most of that was dyed last Friday on my day off, but I have figured out how to work dyeing into my week when I’m working too, which is a good thing indeed.

Along with the dyeing there’s been a fair amount of spinning too. I finished a second bobbin of Mocha the other night:

And a first bobbin of more Cloverleaf BFL whose colorway I can’t seem to remember:

I’m very much looking forward to doing more spinning amongst fiber folk at the Hudson River Knit and Spin (.pdf) this weekend. Who else is going to be there? Me and the Ladybug will be there spinning some freshly dyed fiber if anything dries by then.

And finally, I must admit that I am addicted to Plurk. Want to join me? I can send you an invite if you like. It’s a ton of fun. I can finally blog all the crazy little things in life without boring the audience here that might not be interested.

You know. Things like seeing a guy with bewbs tatooed to his shoulder yesterday. Yeah. Seriously.

Boy oh boy did SOS’08 get off to a rousing start this year! First there was the party at Modern Yarn where I think we all nearly O.D.ed on Pocky.

But it was a great way to past the last three hours until the kick off. We all cast on together at 12:01am and there was a serious adrenaline surge (there were hot flashes to prove it).

(HWJF even stopped by to take pictures for me! How cool is that?!?)

Thanks so much to the owners of MY for the idea!! Maybe next year we will have to drop a sock at midnight.

I also launched the SOS Cafepress store, a joint effort between myself and Zhenya (who won the button contest). I think we’ve come up with some really cool swag, so go do some shopping if you’re so inclined.

Saturday I woke up to a ton of messages in the Ravelry group about people’s goals for the first day. The excitement this year is really palpable over there. Definitely join in if you haven’t already! There are even some finished socks to see.

I decided to start a new sock for SOS myself. I chose Spring Forward from the latest Knitty. I’m using STR lightweight from last year’s sock club for it. I think it’s definitely a summer friendly yarn and pattern.

Since this picture I finished three pattern repeats on the leg and have started the heel. It was hard to knit when I wasn’t on the computer tending to SOS stuff since my little helper just couldn’t resist that wiggling string.

I’ve also finished up the first sock of my latest design.

I’m calling them Piscean Socks! I’m a Pisces and I’ve always wanted fishy socks. I’m sure there are others out there that would agree. I plan to make this pattern available for purchase in the very near future. Would anyone out there be willing to test knit it for me? Leave a comment or send me an e-mail!

1. I’m no longer changing links. Too much to do folks. There was plenty of fair warning.

2. If you haven’t already seen it there is now an SOS’08 Cafepress store! Go get yer swag y’all!

3. And much more importantly: I’ve gone through all three gmail accounts that we sent the pattern from this morning. There were about 20 delivery errors that I couldn’t solve. Here are the steps you should take if you have not received your pattern e-mail yet (**PLEASE FOLLOW THESE DIRECTIONS CAREFULLY!!**)-
A. Check your spam filter! Many people found them there.
B. Send an E-mail and ONLY an E-mail (NOT a Rav message) to Zarzuelaknits [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject PATTERN from the address you would like to have the pattern sent to. I will reply with the attachment as soon as I can.

If you have received the e-mail and were unable to get the pattern, please try again and check your URL address for a stray ( or ) which would keep your browser from finding it. I’m sure many of you have been trying to get it throughout the day and it’s possible that the server couldn’t keep up.

Please also note: There was a small error discovered in the pattern. The lace pattern is only three rows. The directions asking for 4 rows to be repeated contain a typo. It should only be three.

4. Make sure you read the interview in the post below if you haven’t already!

Thank you for your patients everyone!

Welcome welcome welcome to the kick off for the Summer of Socks 2008!!!!

I think this year is proving to be extra special already with over 1500 people signed up to play along and a Ravelry group that’s just gone crazy! I know by now many of you have already cast on your first pair (myself included!) and I hope you are enjoying our first day of sock knitting. To set the festivities off with a bang, I’m very happy to present you all with an interesting little interview with Wendy of Wendyknits!

We all know that you’re an accomplished sock knitter now, but can you tell us about your sock knitting beginnings? Were you in love with sock knitting the first time you tried it? Who helped you with your first sock? What did it come out like?

I resisted knitting socks for a long time because I didn’t see the point of knitting something that was so disposable. I caved after seeing Opal Tiger yarn in its first iteration a few years ago. I did some research online and knitted toe-up socks with an “easy” toe and a short-row heel. Those first socks looked like this:

Be gentle with me and try not to laugh too much when looking at the photo. I had no help or guidance!

For a first pair, they sure look pretty darn good to me!

I’ve noticed that you use a wide range of colors ::cough:: unlike some people I know (me!) ::cough:: and yarns in your designs. Do you have an absolute favorite color and fiber or do they all appeal to you on some level?

My favorite colors are earth-tones – browns and greens. But I will happily knit socks in pretty much any color. My favorite fiber is wool (surprise, surprise). Merino! And more Merino!

MMMMmmm… who wouldn’t like Merino?!?!

So what kind of qualities do you look for in a good sock yarn? Do you think nylon content is a plus or a detriment? And what about some of the “newer” fibers (such as bamboo and seacell)? How do you think these effect the quality of a sock yarn?

Merino, with a firm twist, please. Nylon is a good thing, because sock yarns with a bit of nylon added will make the resulting socks stand up to wear much better. But I prefer to knit with 100% merino wool. I’ve knit with a wool/bamboo mix and a wool/seacell mix, but I still like plain wool best. You can keep tencel.

I haven’t had a chance to try some of these newer fibers in a sock yarn myself yet, but I bet I’ll agree with you when I do.

What about designing. How did you make the transition from knitting socks to designing your own?

It is all part of my evil plan to make everything in the world conform exactly to what I think it should be. I only like to knit socks toe-up with certain heels, so I therefore design socks the way I like to knit them.

Actually, I started out knitting socks according to my own pattern (if you could call it that) and have only knit a very few socks by other people’s patterns – fewer than 5 pair, I’d say.

Wow! I don’t think many of us can say that.

Where do you find your inspiration for your designs?

Everywhere! I see sock designs in everything I look at. Some of them spring full-grown from my brain, and some are the result of my doodles on graph paper. Some start with a pattern from a stitch dictionary, and some are totally original.

Can you tell us more about the specific inspiration for the SOS’08 sock that you’ve designed just for us ::we’re not worthy! we’re not worthy!:: ?

I set out to design a sock that was easy so that beginners would be comfortable knitting it, but was pretty enough to appeal to a wide audience. I wanted something open and lacy because that seemed right for summer. And I wanted to do a design that worked in a wide range of sizes. I wrote it up in 5 different sizes and it’s a pretty easy stitch pattern that looks nice in a lot of different yarns, so hopefully I’ve achieved the universality that I was striving for.

I’m sure you’ve achieved that goal and I can’t wait to see the socks that people will be making during SOS with your pattern!

You’ve talked about using published stitch patterns in a few of your designs. When you use a stitch pattern from a book or other source when designing a sock, how do you determine when you’ve changed something enough to make it “your own”?

I’m moving away from using stitch dictionaries at all because I don’t want to duplicate someone else’s pattern. The last few sock designs I’ve done using stitches from dictionaries I’ve given away as freebies. But I do think it is okay to incorporate a known pattern as an element in a sock. I mean, it’s hard to do a lace pattern without doing a k2tog yo, right? The originality of a sock comes from how the designer puts the different stitches together.

I’ve noticed that many of your sock patterns focus on texture or lace patterns. Do you have any plans for socks involving colorwork any time soon?

I’ve been thinking about colorwork in socks a lot lately, but haven’t done anything about it. I have not done any colorwork socks thus far because I find them uncomfortable to wear for the most part. (And, as I said, it is all about me.) Of course there are exceptions to this and I may explore colorwork sock designs at some point. I tend to go through phases in my knitting focus. So you never know.

I’ll definitely be waiting with baited breath to see what you come up with if you do delve into some colorwork!

I was so excited when I found out that you’ll be the author of a new sock knitting book early next year! With so many sock books on the market, can you tell us more about your new book? What makes it unique (besides the magnificent Wendy magic contained therein of course!)?

What makes it unique is that it is all about toe-up socks. Not only does it contain 23 patterns, but it has a huge reference section on essential techniques for knitting toe-up socks. The techniques section is comprised of step-by-step instructions, all illustrated with drawings. And it also includes every tip and trick I can think of to make your sock knitting more fun and enjoyable.

That sounds like it will be a great reference for those of us already in love with toe up sock knitting and a fantastic resource for those wanting to try it. I know a few of our SOS participants are going to be stepping into toe up waters this time around. We’ll all be counting the days until it hits the shelves!

Most people know I’m a bit of a spinning addict. I know you’ve got a spinning wheel. Have you ever tried to spin you’re own sock yarn? Any tips to share?

I have spun my own sock yarn and knit socks from that yarn. Here they are:

I’m not sure I’d call my handspun sock yarn a big success – it’s a bit overspun so it’s somewhat scratchy. I haven’t done any spinning in over a year and when I was spinning I was a novice at best, so I have no advice to offer, apart from “don’t be like me.”

Well they sure do look nice in that picture!

There’s a rumor out there that you don’t keep many of the socks you knit. Where do they end up?

My family is well outfitted with handknit socks, and they are also foisted upon friends and acquaintances.

Sounds very similar to most of us.

Finally, do you have any personal goals for SOS this year?

Not really – last year I kept track of how many pairs I knit and made an effort to knit a lot. Right now I’ve got so many things going on that I don’t want to set any goals that I’ll feel pressured to try to meet. In fact, I haven’t picked out a pattern for my first SOS pair of socks.

I guess I ought to do that pretty soon, huh?

I suppose you should!

Thanks again Wendy for sharing your thoughts with all of us! I’d also like to thank all of the Ravelers that suggested questions for this interview.

Now what are you still doing here?!? Go knit those socks!!!

News flash: The e-mails for Wendy’s pattern have been sent! Please check your spam filters if you don’t see it in your inbox. There were several e-mails that bounced and several that were malformed to start with. I am currently figuring out how to deal with those issues and will keep you posted.