i recently received some sock yarn from White Oak Studio in her X-files colorway. now, i'm a dyed in the wool (so to speak) top down sock knitter from way back. i've experimented with other methods, but always end up going back to my long loved 'top down heal flap' method. after a couple of weeks of gazing fondly at (and drooling over) this yummy X-files yarn (hand painted on louet gems sock yarn) i decided that i'd give the toe up (short row tow and heel) method another go. after all, wendy's generic toe up pattern makes it seem so simple. here's the progress so far.



i loved this yarn in the skein, and i'm liking it even better now. :-) i seem to always have a little trouble with wrapping my stitches too tightly on one side of the short rows. i suppose i'll just have to flip the toe in the opposite direction on the other sock and have dedicated right and left feet.......

i love etsy.
it's been growing incredibly fast. several times in the last couple of week the site has been down for scheduled maintenance--upgrading server architecture, making room for more pictures, etc. this is all good. :-) However. last night's scheduled maintenance, which was expected to cause the site to be down from about 12:30am to about 4:30 am had some unexpected difficulties, and it's JUST NOW coming back up.

this has caused me to realize that i'm completely and totally addicted to etsy. the constant refreshing of the page (to see if it was up and running yet) has caused a rather disturbing case of carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand. :-(

it would have been nice to think that i'd have used the time in some sort of productive manner. well, i did, but not to the degree i could have. i did get a small amount of laundry done, took a shower, and skeined some yarn. but geez, i wasted a lot of time clicking the refresh button.

i'm guessing that now that the site is back, all the people wanting to log on at the same time is going to cause it to crash. lol.

molly sent me this picture a few minutes ago, so i thought i'd share. they look a lot better 'on' than they do just laying on the counter. :-)

i just posted some hand dyed merino roving in my etsy store. see it here.

i also finished some fingerless mitts for my friend Molly, knit from superwash merino sock yarn that she got from cavy shops on etsy.com. i'm hoping to get a nice pic of her wearing them very soon (that's a hint, Molly :P ) but here's a preview pic i took at work on the awful red counter.

i decided to create a new etsy shop with a username that related more directly to the stuff i'm selling. so if you're looking for me on etsy, i'm now FiberDiversions. or you could just use the link to my etsy shop over there---> or click on my etsymini, also in the side bar. of course, at the time of this writing, the etsy site is down for maintenance. but it's definitely a cool place to check out (if you haven't already).

speaking of etsy, i'm now part of the etsypittsburgh street team. it's about getting the word out about etsy to the pittsburgh area, and also supporting each other in growing our businesses. about 10 of us got together today for sort of a brainstorming session and it was a lot of fun. the name of the group hasn't been finalized yet....possibilities are etsypittsburgh, pittsburghetsy, and SteelCityEtsy.