Road to Rhinebeck 2022 Socks

Hey Everyone!

Yesterday afternoon I finished up my pair of “Road to Rhinebeck 2022” socks, two days after Rhinebeck ended, not that I got to go anyway.

This was the second year I ordered the “Road to Rhinebeck” sock set from Bumblebee Acres Fiber Farm.

The finished product

The main colorway is “Road to Rhinebeck 2022” and the accent colorway was called “All the Wine”. They came as a set and are no longer available to order. The yarn base is the Coquette base.

The Coquette base my favorite yarn base to order colorways on from Bumblebee Acres Fiber Farm. I like this base because it is a 3 ply fingering weight so it knits up the thickest, cosiest socks without being too thick.

This morning, just before sitting down to write this post, I washed up this pair of socks as well as the pair of Crackling Fire socks I finished recently. I used the Wool and Cashmere Shampoo by The Laundress New York to wash these socks. The scent is called Cedar, but I don’t know exactly how cedar specific it is, but it has an amazing woodsy scent to it that I love. I love this wash for new socks. For socks I have worn and need to wash I prefer using the original Kookaburra wash that has and smells like tea tree oil or Outback Gold wool wash that also has tea tree oil. I prefer either of these two for socks I have worn because Tea Tree Oil is an antiseptic / anti bacterial / anti fungal properties to help kill any funk that might be in my socks and want to grow and cause problems for my feet.

Monday evening, I hadn’t really felt like finishing up the Road to Rhinebeck socks so I cast on the first of many Christmas socks. I decided to start with the yarn called “little drummer boy” it is the darkest of all then Christmas yarn I recently ordered, so I decided I would tackle it first before our weather and days get much darker and dreamer, leaving the brighter colorways to work as the days get even shorter and rainy.

With the socks I just cast on, I went back to my good ole’ trusty wooden needles that I prefer. I definitely do not like metal needles.

A Yarny Fall Day

Hey Everyone!

I have definitely been enjoying my day off.

I have been working on my current sock throughout the day.

While it didn’t get super warm today, the sun was out today and made it feel warmer today than it was. So I decided to was the socks I had finished up, and put them on the drying rack.

The hank of yarn I had ordered from Deep Dyed Yarns, which had been recommended to me by a reader, arrived today. So I got it wound up.

I definitely love the colors here, and I am excited to knit these up into socks. This colorway was my favorite of the ones available.

After working 5 days in a row last week, and only having two nights / one full day off, it is nice to be back to my normal schedule. It has certainly been nice to be able to knit the past couple of days as well. I have certainly missed it.

Another LYS is Closing

Hey Everyone!

I found out this afternoon that another Portland yarn store that has been one of the main yarn stores for years will be closing its brick and mortar store in a couple months. That will make the fourth yarn store (that I know of) to close its physical store in about 5 years. While the reasons given, typically are personal in nature (family illness, time to move on etc), I can’t help but wonder if the rising rent / lease prices in the shop front spaces and the growing move of consumers to online retailers is also part of what is driving this shift in Portland’s (and thus Oregon’s) LYS scene.

I also kind of feel like the crafting (knitters and crocheters) community here isn’t what it once was. Then again Portland isn’t what it was 10 – 15 years ago. The demographics of the area has been changing a lot since many of these yarn stores opened.

We do have a handful of local / indie dyers here in the area (only one that I can name off the top of my head), and the closest fiber festivals are 15 – 18 hours away, in SoCal.

I know I order a lot of my yarn online, and while I have definitely ordered a fair amount of yarn from KnitPicks, and will likely order from there again, most, of not all the sock yarn I have ordered in the last year has been from small, indie dyers from back east.

I would definitely love to see things change out here, since this part of the country is home. At the same time I definitely want to attend a few fiber festivals, meet my favorite dyers, and see some more of the country.