A little Vancouver Island fiber culture for you. My mom recently teamed up with the Tzouhalem spinners and weavers guild to compete in a Sheep to Shawl demonstration at the Cowichan Exhibition. In only six hours (wait, is that right??) the teams weave a shawl, two yards long, literally from sheep-to-shawl. Before the 6-hour start, the sheep have to be shorn and the fleece washed. Then for the competition, the fleece is carded, hand-spun, and woven. I'm sure I'm making it sound like less work than it is by summarizing it. The teams are allowed to prepare in advance for the event by designing the shawl and warping the looms. But I think everything else is done on site.

I don't know if They actually say that, but they should. 

I'm making four new cover designs for the graph notebooks. There are a couple very whimsical additions that I hope you will enjoy. More on that later... 

But this one doesn't know if it wants to be intense and sassy or calm and neutral... For fun, and because I can't pick my favorite color, we're having a little vote over on Facebook. Actually, I'm having a vote on Facebook. Charles is being all SuperNerd and having a vote on google+. Have you noticed the loophole yet? Yes, go ahead and vote in both places. As I'm always telling my children, this isn't really a democracy.

It is true what They say: it is the humidity that will get you. It has been hot here in the Comox Valley; highs of 31 or so, lows of 17, day after day. (88 and 63 F for most of you). If you live in a truly hot place, I'm sure you scoff at our moaning. Our "heat" is a weak little kitten compared to true heat, of course. But lord above, the Humidity! Papers curl, that new haircut looks a misshapen toupee, and everything sweats gently through the night and into the morning. Thank goodness for the beautiful rivers around here, we are so lucky to have several incredible swimming holes to choose from.

Today's fresh breeze and delicious 20 degrees are a welcome treat. I can think about knitting without breaking into a sweat. 

There seems to be a droidish theme today. I've been going through my stash, in a semi-annual attempt to organize and air out my yarn and samples. (You can see I'm up to greys and blues today). You become very aware of much yarn you have when you have to transport it upstairs to the deck. Hmm. 

Spent the morning with a big pile of new Sweatermaker Yarns for kits. There are some very, very pretty new colours in this batch.

Having a little fun with the names this time. Tomorrow you will meet Okeefe, a dusty coral/grey combo; Serious, a mix of jam red and deep blue; Russian Blue, a new shimmering taupe/grey combination that Judy tried out at my request. And the one pictured above is called Martina, because it matches so perfectly Martina in Front of the Fire by Carl Larsson. And below, Windflower, named for the Pre-Raph painting by John Waterhouse.

(I know, I know, he's holding a two-bladed battle axe, not a short sword. Don't be pedantic!)

Have you noticed the connection between Nerd and Knitting? Not only have I noticed a lot of software engineers, programmers, web designers, and scientists who are knitters or married to knitters, but knitting requires a certain love of counting, math and geometry. A love of the internet and gadgets. Charts and diagrams. Sharing esoteric techniques. And a dash of whimsy.

So why am I talking about this? DH Charles and an illustrious band of Adventurer-Nerds (I can call them that because I'm married to one) launched a Kickstarter project today! It's called Tabletop Forge and it has something to do with online role playing games. (I know, that sounds dirty, but it's really not). I'll be honest, I'm no RPG expert, so I'll let the project description explain:

Phew! Thank you to everyone for a great month of May. May is such a whirlwind of activity. Birthdays out the wazoo, mother's day, long weekend, and general Spring Fever. Here on Tricksy Knitter, we released the Arimono Shawl, and the Sweatermaker Yarns Kits. On a personal note, you know it's a good month if it involves riding a horse, kayaking a kayak, and attending an elementary school Broadway review. Thanks to the inclusion of the West Side Story number, we can't stop adding "in America" to every phrase. Don't forget your lunch in America. It's garbage day in America. Has anyone seen my needle gauge in America. Please pass the salt in America. Etc, etc. Oh yes, it's very annoying. Please view the movie clip so you can have it stuck in your head and share my pain. (The singing starts around the 3 minute mark).

So, what's next? A couple of things are in the works for some light summer knitting. A sweet little vest, seamless, a little bit of lace. I'll post a pic in the next couple of days. And another simple shawl to go with Sweatermaker Yarns 50 merino 50 silk. But the hamsters are really spinning their wheel towards fall knitting. And I don't know about you, but when I think fall knitting, I think CARDIGANS. 

I love my iPad. But I've been an Apple girl long before I could afford my first Mac (an LG475, had to use 3 different credit cards, see if you can figure out my age from these clues) so I'm a little biased.

Here's a good trick for using your iPad as a knitting companion: get a decent PDF reader. I use GoodReader. GoodReader lets you view PDFs and make notes and marks right on the PDFs. It also makes it pretty easy to move files around. You can use GoodReaderUSB on your computer, and copy files back and forth from iPad to computer. Or (this is the one I prefer) you can use the free Dropbox system. Drop your PDF into your Dropbox, and pick it up from within GoodReader. Or you can Download from Web.

Quick post today, but not really about knitting. Many knitting projects to share, but can't yet, too many secrets, shhhhh...

So I thought I'd tackle the name "Tricksy Knitter". Why "tricksy" I'm often asked? Actually, that's not true. I'm rarely asked. I usually get a bemused look and then I watch as the person writes down t-r-i-x-i-e-k-n-i-t-t-e-r. Maybe I should buy that domain too.

Oh culture, what a funny and charming thing. I've just been perusing images of "Tweed Runs," and had to share. For a little history, check out the official site. I was looking at the images of the New York City Tweed Run, and thought, "Wow, these people look like models. And where did they get all these great clothes?" Ah, some of them are models, for Ralph Lauren Rugby Tweed. But it's all still pretty fabulous. There are also some great shots of Ewan McGregor in the tweed run, with a pipe and a stuffed bear. The bear makes me think of Sebastian's bear, Aloysius, in Brideshead Revisited.