Dyeing to start

This week we reviewed a PHENOMENAL book on the podcast- it's Coastal Knits by Alana Dakos and Hannah Fettig. They're both brilliant, and this book is - as the kids say - 100% full of win. It took real restraint for me to actually sit and record with Mom instead of just go stashdiving and start half a dozen new sweaters.

Seriously. I love all the sweaters in this book. Instead of pulling yarn for all the sweaters, I decided to start with ONE (restraint! Self-control!)- the Rocky Coast Cardigan:

Picture shamelessly stolen from Alana's blog.

There are so many things I love about this sweater- mostly that it's an open-front, drapey cardigan that I can wear regardless of how big the bump gets. It will also look great once I've lost all the baby weight and have a six-pack. (A woman can dream!)

One of the (many) great parts of Coastal Knits is that they suggest alternative yarns for each sweater. And for the Rocky Coast cardigan, Malabrigo is a suggested substitute.

I have a robust stash. I could have *sworn* that I had a bag of navy blue Malabrigo in my stash- and I'm rarely wrong about what yarn I do - or don't - have. I checked the stash, and there were other colors, just no navy blue Malabrigo. Boo. (Any bets on the navy blue turning up when I'm 90% done with this sweater?)

I went and fished the poison green (which they call "Apple Green") out of my stash, and to my utter shock and delight, this cardigan calls for *ONLY* four skeins of Malabrigo. I had four skeins, five if you counted the skein that was in a Hugo-in-Progress.

I swatched, because I've never knit Malabrigo at 4 stitches per inch- in CABLES!

Ever-so-gently blocked. Houston, we have gauge!

In the spirit of "making it work" a la Project Runway (CAUTION: noisy site), which we're FINALLY current on, guess who has two thumbs and still had 4 (or 5, if you count the one skein in my half-knit Hugo monster) skeins of poison green Malabrigo leftover from her Twist cardigan, and a dyepot? This gal.

I have faith in Hannah Fettig, but when it comes to custom colors, an extra skein is always better than trying to match it at the end. So, I ripped out my half-knit monster and told Hugo, "Sorry, this is for the good of the sweater."

I threw all five (neatly tied) skeins in some soapy water to soak, and waited.

I had to wait for Andrew to get home, because my dyeing stuff is all neatly tucked away behind some of the baby stuff we've got- but completely inaccessible to my short and round-in-front self. While he was not thrilled that I was cooking wool (instead of, you know, food), he knows better than to put a dampener on my enthusiasm. Smart man.

(He also made dinner while I was cooking wool.)

I used Mother MacKenzie's miracle dyes, because *somehow* I am completely out of any and all blue Jacquard dyes. I have enough red to dye the Nile, but blue? Nuthin'.

Just blue in the dye bath yielded these results:

Dye bath #1

Not dark enough. Not navy blue, not hunter green, not a nice teal. I decided to let the pot cool overnight, and overdye it the next day.

I got up early yesterday morning and fired up a pot of the Mother MacKenzie's worker blue and a good dose of black. Today? We have a beautiful, albeit damp, hunter green.

Now if only it would hurry up and dry so that I can cast on. Dyeing is not for the impatient.

Bzzz!

Saturday, Tika and I went to Color: A Fiber Festival on Saturday. The drive up to Cal was pleasant, with some discussion of musical theater, our mutual love of Little Shop of Horrors, and how Christian Bale and the whole "Santa Fe" scene from Newsies never should have happened.

When we arrived, we were pleasantly surprised to find that there was actual, free parking on the Berkeley campus within shouting distance of Color. First, we hit Pidgeonroof Studios, and bought roving. Then we hit Tactile / A Verb for Keeping Warm and bought roving. Then we hit Girl on the Rocks. And bought roving. Noticing a theme?

In keeping with Jasmin 2008, I only bought the stuff that I absolutely loved. Once the Roving Tornado had subsided, we sat down, set up our wheels, and enjoyed the day. Well, Tika set up her wheel immediately. I looked at my Victoria bag and saw this:

Nature. On my spinning wheel bag. Here is the picture to scale:

Given the niceness of the day and the weather I figured I would just relax and chat until The Bee went off on it's merry way.

I thought The Bee had gone on it's merry way (it was no longer on the handle). Without looking, I reached down to the zipper and -

MASSIVE, STINGING PAIN!!!

Ow. The Bee stung me. Stupid nature.

I washed my hands, took an allergy pill, and the day was not ruined. We spun there until early afternoon, and then drove to my favorite taco place ever.

It's a taco truck in Oakland, and for $1.25 one can purchase a taste of heaven. (FYI, it's at the intersection of International and the 880 ramp to Alameda.) Tika and I wolfed down three heavenly tacos each, and two sodas. All for less than $10.

The day was going super-well, so I suggested a trip to the Great Bear in Los Gatos for Chocolate Coffee Creams. Tika had never experienced the CCC before- and it was a great way to end that part of my day.

I've started spinning some of my purchases- which I'll post as I finish stuff.

(PS, if Krista tells you we bought everything, I deny it all. LIES!)

Royal Hare Superwash Roving review- Part One

Product: Royal Hare Superwash Merino Roving Top

Product Description: One braid of roving, either 100g or 4 oz(read below) in Calistoga Calypso

Bought from: The Royal Hare, Stitches West 2008

Price: $13/braid

Photos:

Comments:

The first thing that I noticed was that the braid I purchased was 3 ¾ oz, which surprised me, since most roving is put up in 4 oz bumps. However, upon discussion with Andrew, I checked it in grams, and it was 108g. Enough for socks, but I’m a little miffed over being shorted- since I specifically asked if the braids were 4 oz.

I really like how they dye their braids- in even lengths and weights so that if you’re inclined to line up the colors when you ply, it’s a little easier than Navajo-plying.

(I wouldn’t recommend this way of doing your spinning if you’re crazy OCD about your colors lining up perfectly. In that case, just Navajo ply. Or buy commercial yarns.)

The roving they use is pleasant to spin- not the nicest stuff I’ve ever spun, but a nice base roving nonetheless. The colors are very saturated and rich, which I love, and the yarn ends up just as vibrant as the roving.

With the colors as saturated as they are, I was concerned about bleeding. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was minimal bleeding (slightly pinkish) water after a thorough soaking.

For the price and quality, it's a good buy, just make sure you're getting the right weight. I'll keep you posted as to whether this light bump was a fluke or if the others are light as well.

Stay posted for Part Two, where I discuss the wear and washing

Creatively Dyed Yarn Review Part One

One of the booths that I got caught in was the Creatively Dyed Yarn booth. I didn't actually buy any yarn from her, I bought some of her roving.

Product: SW Merino Tencel 4 oz

Product Description: 50% SW Merino / 50% Tencel. Color RMT9

Bought from: Creatively Dyed Yarns, at Stitches West 2008

Price: $15

Photos:

Comments: I love her colors. I am a big fan of handpaints that are a little more impulsive looking, and the roving I bought was intended for socks- so having to match more than one bump was not a concern of mine. If you want perfectly even and uniformly dyed bumps, go elsewhere. Hers are for the free of spirit.

They spin with the best qualities of silk (or tencel, really) without any of the hassle. She uses a really excellent base roving- it's equivalent in quality to the Crown Mountain Superwash base roving, which I love.

She uses some unusual colors to accent the main colors, but it works out beautifully. (So, for those of you who rip out colors you don't like out of roving, don't. You'll be sorry.)

The first color I chose to spin didn't have any bleeding issues- but the bump was predominantly white. When I spin one of the others, we'll see how they compare.

The price point is in the right range, and she makes sure that each bump is at LEAST 4 oz by adding a chunk of roving into the braid. Though it's not totally uniform (which is fine), she makes sure not to short her customers, which is awesome.

Any questions? I'll be happy to answer them.

Part two of the review will come once the socks are knit and washed. Stay tuned!

Nineteen pounds of fun

That’s how much roving arrived at the house yesterday. We bought five fleeces at the Monterey Wool Auction. Colleen and Cynthia got the 2^nd place fleece last month- a white fleece from a beautiful Corriedale ewe.

Today, we got the two Merinos and one of the two Romney fleeces. As always, they arrived in Sheri’s beautiful, OCD-inducing coils (“Keep them pretty!”).

I bet you want to see them. Knitters are all voyeurs; so you’ll have to wait until I can figure out how to photograph 19 pounds to show it’s true glory.

Grey and navy blue are my colors this year. When we went to the wool auction, I was strictly looking for “natural” colored fleeces. “Natural” meaning anything non-white, since white fleeces are a trait that sheep are bred for. Some of the coolest looking fleeces are the colors that appear naturally. There were three variegated fleeces at the auction, and I bid on all of them.

If it wasn’t for the evil woman behind me (who was bidding on everything I was bidding on, after seeing me bid), I would have won all three. Oh well. Next year I’ll take Rachel to be my muscle (to menace the aforementioned evil

Sense and color sensibility

On Sunday, I made a trek over to Purlescence to deliver some gluten-free beer cheese soup, and to pick up two balls of sock yarn.

Since one of the Minions has Celiac disease, a fair amount of my cooking (for Saturdays) is gluten-free. Since one of the Purl Girls has a wheat allergy, when I have a gluten-free dish, I like to share. A fair amount of Persian food happens to be gluten-free, so options aren't entirely limited for the anti-wheat contingent. But when a woman has a hankering for beer cheese soup, nobody stands in her way. And by "her" I mean, me.

When I made the decision to do beer cheese soup, I called Erica and discussed gluten-free beer, along with safe brands of chicken broth and Worcestershire sauce. Grocery shopping was done, and the soup took less than a half hour (both prep and cooking time). Once the Minions were done eating, we separated out a care package to be delivered.

Not to toot my own horn, but that soup was GOOOOD. I modified the recipe a fair amount, which I normally don't do the first time I try a recipe, but what can I say? Jasmin 2008 lives dangerously.

I hung out at Purlescence for a little while, caused a little chaos, bought some black sock yarn, and bought some UUUUUUGly sock yarn. See?

Ok, maybe it's not "UUUUUUGly", but it IS loud. My recent success with overdyeing has made me bold. I see unusual, moderately unappealing colors, a generous sale price, and I think "That will be TERRIFIC to overdye."

While I was there, Robin asked what color it was going to be. The truth is, I don't know yet. I figure I'll start a pot of dye, throw a bunch of stuff in there, and one of the four balls of yarn will go in there. 2008 is about unclenching, letting go, and letting my inner artist come out.

I made a crack about the potential for the yarn turning out "like vomit". That was when it dawned on me, that my sense of color vomit could be someone else's rainbow. That my favorite colors certainly are someone else's color vomit.

I suppose it's all about color sensibility- we buy yarn, clothes, roving, and home decor in colors that are appealing to us. I have two friends who look stunning in baby-poop green. I knit one of them a baby-poop green shawl, and it was hard to get through. Though I like the color well enough, I am keenly aware that I look jaundiced in it.

This is the reason why most of my yarn is orange, pink, and olive green. The same goes for my mother and red.

The comforting part of this realization is that if my yarn turns out in a way that is unappealing to me, I know for certain that someone else will absolutely love it.

Time off

I made the worst use of my time off from work over the Christmas holiday. I got sick. My time management skills really could use some work.

In any case, I didn’t get a fraction of the knitting and spinning done that I had intended to do. Ignore the housework and cooking that fell completely to the wayside; I did.

The box from Susan’s Spinning Bunny arrived, and as soon as I felt well enough to sit upright (Monday and Tuesday), I sat down at the wheel. I was too dizzy to knit, but not too dizzy to spin. I may not be logical, but at least I got a little done.

I chose to start here. This is her “Oriental Poppies” colorway. In an attempt NOT to end up with [yet another] interminable spinning project [that accidentally turned into a 4-ply laceweight], I measured my WPI.

So, we have (approximately) 62 WPI. If my math is right, this should end up a nice fingering weight with 3 plies. I’m consciously focusing on NOT spinning this cobweb weight

Ally and I had our dyeing day- which was on the small scale, but totally funl

Foreground: the dyed yarn and roving. Background: trash and recycling bins.

I overdyed two groups of yarn with black- they were originally a Kelly green, now they’re a deep forest green.

Ally meticulously planned out her dyeing, and mine sort of just happened. When she pulled her yarn out of the pot, I saw that a fair amount of dye was still left. I grabbed my ten pound bump of rambouillet, pulled off a length of roving, and dropped it in to exhaust the dye. There is too much of it to plan out my dyeing, and this was less daunting.

After a few minutes, I realized that I hadn’t exhausted the dye enough, so another length went into the pot. (With the green, several lengths were necessary to adequately exhaust the pot.) The exhausts should spin up as very pretty, tone-on-tone, tweedy yarn.

It’s worth mentioning that the Reduran dye remover does a terrific job of getting dye off of ugly, old, linoleum counters. Not so much with fingernails, but Andrew was pretty thrilled that we don’t have a tie-dyed kitchen. In my defense, tie-dyeing the counters can ONLY improve them.

Phew!

Christmas is over. I kicked “It” squarely in the ass. I give you, two completed hats for my father:

It is unkind to take pictures of people without warning them ahead of time. That’s why Sinead, my glass head, is posing in the hat. My father looked exhausted in the pictures.
The pictures that follow are “au natural”. You’ve been warned.
Andrew had a Trek-alicious Christmas; I got him four of the eight Star Trek Micro Machine collections.

See? I actually surprised him AND he loved the gift.
Though I was not surprised, I think you can tell that I loved my gifts:



Nothing says ‘I love you’ like wool. Luscious, soft, handpainted, superwash wool from Crown Mountain…

…in quantities.

The dogs had a good holiday, too. But the pictures make them look bored.

The highest point of our Christmas season: The ornaments that Colleen made me. They are snowman approximations of me, Andrew, and Mom. The resemblance is uncanny.

N’es pa?

Spinning up a storm

A very fine, time-consuming storm, that is. I’ve spun (almost) half of the 14 oz of the “Twist and Shout” project. I’ve been fixated on spinning “fine” yarn, and may have gone a bit overboard.

Check it out.

That’s 872 yards to 113 grams.

Laceweight. Four plies equals laceweight?

Yes. Did I do it deliberately?

Not quite. See, the intent was a heavenly sock yarn. I’ve got two plies of superwash merino top from Crown Mountain (Twist and Shout), one ply of 50% superwash merino/ 50% Tencel (in Clematis) from Susan’s Spinning Bunny, and one ply of silk from Susan’s Spinning Bunny (in Tropical Sea).

If I did the math correctly, that makes for a yarn with the following fiber content: 62.5% Superwash merino, 12.5% Tencel, 25% Silk. Sounds terrific, right?

I’ve had time to think about it and deliberate on what type of lace to knit out of it (simply because I’m not insane ENOUGH to knit laceweight socks), and I do like it. It has just become an interminable project because of how fine it’s been spun.

I’ve only spun half of the total roving (so, eight out of sixteen ounces), and I’ve only plied four of those eight ounces.

For now, I think I’m going to finish plying what I’ve spun, and take a break from this spinning project, since eight ounces will knit a (more than) respectable shawl. I have some Christmas roving (from the C-dawg) that I’ve been itching to spin, as well as some new stuff that I picked up.

Yes, I know that I said I was going to buy less, and I have. I restrained myself at Stitches and did NOT buy any of the Fiber Fiend roving. This was a bad move. While Cynthia was spinning hers up, I was all lustful and covetous. I’m sure there’s some sort of commandment about lust and coveting, so when I found out that she was doing a trunk show at Purlescence, I picked up only the stuff I loved.

The upside of both the Colleen Gifted roving and the Fiber Fiend roving is that most of it comes in 4 oz bumps.

I am not complaining about the 8.5 oz bumps from Crown Mountain- the size is both a blessing and a curse. It’s super-well-priced, and they give you a lot of bang for your buck. But, I am a compulsive spinner, and that’s where the curse is. I don’t have “leftovers” when I spin. I may have leftover yarn when the project is finished, but I don’t have a handful of roving here and there. I spin it all. It’s the spinning equivalent of clearing your plate.

I don’t need to spin 8.5 oz for socks for myself. If Andrew likes the color, then I spin it all up and we both get handspun, handknit socks, but usually, I give the second half of the spun yarn away. I don’t know exactly where I developed this compulsion, but I certainly was not raised in a “clear your plate” kind of house. I was raised in a “dish as much as you plan to eat, THEN clear your plate” kind of house.

The appeal of spinning all of the roving is the feeling of completion when that last little bit of fluff turns into yarn. It gives me what I like to call a “Spinner’s High”.

It’s like a runner’s high, without all that pesky exercise.

Two-ply, or not two-ply?

For my birthday and Christmas gifts, Andrew is giving me 21 bumps of Crown Mountain Superwash merino roving. If you've been reading the blog this last year, you've seen bump after bump turn into yarn, and eventually socks. When the new colors went up, I used every last ounce of resistance that I had, and when the Minions ordered theirs, I did not order a single bump.

Two days later, while I was driving home, I was listening to Lime and Violet, and they were talking about doing a co-op order. The Minions had placed an order large enough to get halfway there- mine would get us to about 80% of the total. I got on the phone with Klaus IMMEDIATELY, and got working on what we needed to do to qualify for the co-op pricing.

I'll say right now that I think he's much more accommodating than I would be (in his shoes). I made it easy for him, and placed one giant order, had him ship everything to my house (or headquarters for the local wool cartel), did some math, entered it in a spreadsheet, sent e-mails, and played wool fairy. Playing wool fairy was the best part.

Getting back to the topic at hand, at some point this last year, my two-ply became too thin to (realistically) knit socks with, so I transitioned over to 3-ply. 3-ply yarns are rounder and look more like "real" yarn. It made the color transitions much more subtle, which is different (not good or bad, necessarily), and I think that the 3-ply socks are wearing a little better.

My last bump of Crown Mountain (Wild Thing) turned into a light fingering weight. That's three plies of the wool and one ply of silk. I have shown myself that I can spin very fine yarn. The sick thing is that I LIKE it. It looks even real-ER than just 3-ply.

I've been spinning the Twist and Shout at that same, very fine weight on the Victoria, and I started a sweater spinning project on the Schacht.

(One ply of the Twist and Shout)

(This is the roving for the sweater.)

By force of whorl and will, I think the yarn for that sweater will be a light worsted weight 3-ply.

Here's the question: Now that I have better control of how my yarn comes out, should I spin it a little thicker and 2-ply it, do a slightly lighter 3-ply, or continue on with my current insanity?

I worry that if I change what I'm doing, I'll look back on the yarn and be annoyed that I didn't do the other two options, because CLEARLY those were better ideas. I have AMAZING powers of hindsight. With the generous 8.5 ounces, I could do both. It just requires a little more math.

You know how I love the math. There may also be an Excel spreadsheet, for added nerd points.

Ah... The Sweet Smell of Wet Wool

So, Lily of the Valley (which has been finished for a week and a half) is now on the blocking board. Is there anything as pleasant as the smell of wet wool? Mmmm.... (I know, I'm a total weirdo.) I also finished my Guenevere (from Shawl Style) this last weekend. It looks like a crumpled wad of yuck now, but it will be much improved with blocking. Pictures will be posted then. This makes a total of 4 lace shawls this summer. (Summer is over on the 21st of this month.) Wendy is doing her "Summer of Socks"; mine ended up being the "Summer of Shawls". I've cast on two more lace shawls, and I am still obsessed. One of the lace shawls is a semi- original, the other is from one of the little Vogue Knitting books. I'm still spinning- just nothing interesting. I'm not about to post pictures of white roving, or white singles. Once they're dyed, then I'll post pictures. Speaking of dyeing, the Minions are doing a dyeing day at the end of the month, so Cynthia, Colleen and I all went up to Carolina Homespun on Friday. I bought the necessities- and found the PERFECT roving for my Peacock Plumes shawl:

I know it's a giant picture, but you can really see the depth of the color. FINALLY! I've found something that feels "just right" for this shawl!

A Fertile Crescent?

I went to the Monterey County Fair for the wool auction, and came home with a crescent-shaped sunburn. It looks like my lower back is smiling. Andrew has taken to mocking it by grinning widely at me. He mocks my pain. More posts soon, unpacking is going well and things should quiet down some starting now.

“Would you like some poultry with your lime sherbet?”

I bought the most AMAZING roving on eBay on Monday, moments after Gretchen pinged me with the link, asking me whether I thought it would fluoresce under blacklight.

Since I am nothing if not scientific, I believe in gathering my own empirical (and experiential) evidence. Moments later, I was the proud winner of the auction.

I glanced a little closer at the description, and it was a Rambouillet fleece (which is fine), with… Peacock feathers?

That can't be right. I thought, Maybe it's slang for something else in spinning.

The box arrives. Sure enough, they were peacock feathers. From a peacock. If I knew what kind of noise a peacock makes, I would thrill you with the appropriate onomatopoeia.

I was worried that my disgust was based on ignorance, and I just wasn't classy enough to realize what a gem these peacock feathers were. As always, when in doubt, ask Sandi.

I took my Victoria (and lime sherbet) over to Purlescence, where I asked, very candidly, how one should spin incorporated peacock feathers into one's lime green rambouillet.

Sandi looked at it, made a face, and assured me that by removing them I would not be committing any crimes against wool.

The presence of the peacock feather wisps led to a discussion about perceived class through ownership of peacocks down to my saying:

"Ugh. It's like peacock pubes," as Nathania was using her OCT (that's Obsessive Compulsive Tendencies) to remove the offending peacock bits.

Pictures coming, as soon as my camera cables materialize from the boxes.

Veni, Vidi, Vino

… or Spinning at the Retzlaff Winery

The Scene: A winery in Livermore
The People: Spinners and a few vendors
The Wine: A Sauvignon Blanc
The Chicken:

Yes, someone brought their chicken.

Erica, Mom and I loaded up Morocco Mole (my Prius, sidekick to Andrew's Secret Squirrel) and drove to the Retzlaff Winery. Now, whenever I plan a Minion event, I add a "time buffer". Whenever there are more people/children, more chitchatting goes on, getting people loaded up and coffee-d takes longer.

I was shocked to find that with three people- no time buffer is really necessary.

At the winery, we saw Morgaine and Lann from Carolina Homespun with their table of temptation. Morgaine had been kind enough to bring my order (and Colleen's), and I limited my purchases to * just * my order- and two small impulse buys.

A SpindleWood Co drop spindle (Flamewood, 25g):

A WPI tool and a mini niddy noddy:

[I love purple heart wood.]

Mom insisted that we look around (there were * maybe * a dozen vendors), and that was when I met Carlos- a gunmetal colored Lincoln/Corriedale fleece.

I have a terrible track record with fleeces. I don't like cleaning them, I don't like carding, and I really don't like combing them. Historically (read: "Before Morgaine told me about fleece processing people."), they would go in the tub and either felt, or get washed, I would card some of it, lose interest, and it would languish, somewhere. I bought a fleece with crimp like an anemone and it languished, somewhat felted. I was heartbroken.

When there wasn't time to wash a fleece, it would languish out of sight in the garage. I told Andrew, "I will never bring home another fleece! If I buy another one, I'll find someone to process it and hand it directly over." He agreed that this was a good idea.

So there was Carlos. I walked past this fleece three times. The last time, I fondled some of it, and stood there, seriously considering it. I told the woman that I wanted to purchase Carlos, and she said, "Cash or check."

Crap. Carlos was a little over $80, and I had * maybe * $60 in my wallet. No checks.

Mom pulls cash out of her wallet and pays the woman. Mom is the person who has been following me around squawking, "No more wool! I want babies!" Carlos is that good.

Fortunately, Shari from Morrow Fleece Works was there. I walked Carlos directly over and handed him over to her care. He should be at the Shanty by the end of July.

After the purchasing was complete, I set up the Victoria, and we wandered over to get some wine. The wine pourer was (no joke) a FIREMAN. Now, if you're a long-time reader, you know how I love the firemen. I especially love firemen who pour wine and agree to pose with my sock:

Stash and Burn Meetup

So, on Sunday I made the trek up to Nine Rubies in San Mateo for the Stash and Burn meet-up. Remember how I posted last year about my stash having reached CYM (Critical Yarn Mass)? I also may have mentioned something about taking a hiatus on yarn purchases.

I am full of crap. I love yarn. I love buying yarn. I love the newness of the yarn, the thrill of the purchase. I'm sure it is a feeling akin to that of a new relationship. I went home with a heart full of shame, and a bag full of this:

It's not * that * much yarn. Not really. Especially since half of the orange is for Colleen. So it's really this much:

Seriously, I can't buy any more yarn until Rhinebeck. I have only been finishing socks, and at a fraction of the speed that I can buy it at. What is up with that? Clearly I need to knit faster and sleep less.

Part of the More Knitting Solution (notice how I'm not calling it the "Less Yarn Solution") is carpooling with Andrew- giving me about 40 minutes of knitting time that I normally wouldn't have. He also is driving on all of our longer trips- on Easter I finished two socks during the drive. But I digress.

I went to the meet-up, and met Jenny and Nicole, of Stash and Burn fame. They were both friendly and super-cool. I chatted with Nicole about FileMaker (I know, I am such a nerd) at length with Janice about general stuff. I met Lisa, who kindly let me hold Darwin (her baby) for the better part of an hour.

I never posted about this, but until about two weeks ago, I had baby phobia.

[NOTE: If you have a weak stomach, skip down to the next bolded section.]

On Easter my in-laws relayed a story about one of their nephews eating two magnets (from the recalled Magnetix toy- which is super-fun to play with, by the way) on two separate days and the tale of how they met in the middle. The result was magnets tearing through two parts of his intestine trying to meet.

Nephew-in-law (what else do you call your in-laws' nephews?) had to have surgery, and a gastro-something nose tube while the intestine healed. I was convinced that there is no way I could both have a child and keep it alive, despite the fact that I have managed to keep my dogs from eating what can only be classified as "weird shit".

[Weak stomachs can resume reading here.]

Mom assured me that Sam and I never ate our toys, although Sam chewed up my markers (rainbow diapers, but nothing worse than that) and stuck a dried pea in his ear, nothing worse than that was done.

When I told people in public that I was terrified of having children because "They eat magnets!", people felt compelled to tell me TERRIBLE stories about the mishaps, accidents and odd ingestions that they dealt with when their children were little. They would always end the story with something like, "See? My kids survived, you'll be fine." This didn't help.

I told Andrew that the dogs were enough, because I'm obviously too neurotic and crazy to be able to cope with magnet-eating/ bodily harm / anything bad. With the dogs, I'm already constantly checking to make sure they're still breathing and healthy. I check poop (not too thoroughly, don't be gross), and when there is dog barf, I take a glance at what may have caused it. The vet has assured me that I am a conscientious (not neurotic) owner.

(Note: The Minions keep telling me that children are great and I'm convinced that Julie keeps bringing her terrific kids in order to inspire us to get on with it and have some of our own.)

In any case, holding baby Darwin got the "babies are awesome" feelings flowing again.

So, to summarize:

I backslid on the goal of buying less yarn, but we're back on the "babies are cool" track.

Lace!

First:

Hollis is evil. Pure evil. First, she starts carrying Fleece Artist, and then she has the nerve to show me what she's knitting. Like the yarn crack dealer she is, she also was more than helpful when I was matching yarn to the fabric.

Truly, the yarn was a perfect match:

Second:

Eunny Jang is also evil. An evil genius. Her Print 'o the Wave Stole (a free knitting pattern, found here) is beautiful and ADDICTIVE. It turns out that I prefer knitting rectangular shawls to Faroese style ones. (Math isn't hard, but figuring out what your numbers should be when you haven't been paying attention is um…. hard.) I may knit a thousand of these. Or, you know, three.

I started it on Sunday, and by tonight (Tuesday) I have finished seven of the 34 repeats. This morning I considered calling in sick to knit lace.

As an alternative to needless deceit, Beautiful Lace came to work with me. I used the T-pins I have at work to pseudo-block it on my walls, an in-progress bit of art.

Wouldn't you want to gaze adoringly upon this all day?

[Aside: It turns out that I can't knit lace and read subtitles. I made Andrew read me the subtitles on Heroes on Monday. Although he is a charming man, he didn't do voices to differentiate the characters.]

Third:

My house has reached what can only be referred to as "Critical Yarn Mass" (C.Y.M.). I have two (ahem, maybe three) solutions to this problem that are being implemented as we speak:

Solution A: Move into a new house. Sell the Shanty. (Hopefully this will work.)

Solution B: Knit and spin more. I was planning on doing a whole lot of knitting and spinning during my leisurely search for employment. Un/Fortunately, I had (maybe) five days where I wasn't interviewing or prepping for the new job.

Solution C: (We'll call this "The Silent Solution", since I don't want to hear about it, EVER.) Stop buying yarn for a while. A long while. Unlike a person with a substance abuse problem, I have decided that I do not need a Yarn Anonymous sponsor. I am happy being a yarn lush. What I need to do is knit more, and simply restrict my purchases to must-haves that I simply can not wait on.

Realistically speaking, to keep my yarn at the current level (we won't talk about my wardrobe, this is simply a manual count of balls of yarn), I could buy a pair of socks worth of socks per week, since I've been finishing roughly a pair a week, minimum. (More if I go to a show/movie or Andrew and I go somewhere with a long drive.)

Since I could outfit the nations of the world with the sock yarn that I already have in my stash, logic says that I should not be buying sock yarn for a while. Solving the C.Y.M. problem also logically implies that I would be knitting anything but lace (one ball = a million yards= lots of knitting time), but in Rosario's timeless words, "The heart wants what it wants, Chica!"

It is at this point where I can * almost * understand knitting giant bulky sweaters on broomsticks, but at that point, I may as well give all of my yarn away. Giving it away is always better than committing Crimes Against Yarn, and we all know that I'm not about to give away my yarn at this point.

I'm a wool pig, and I know it.

Stitches West- The Haul

Per Angela's demands- er, requests, here are the pictures of what I bought at Stitches West 2007.

I bought some yarn from Lisa Souza:



...and some roving:


A Don't Drop Spindle and Orifice Hook from Michael & Sheila Ernst:




I also bought some of the Monarch sock yarn from them:



I bought some roving from Angora Cottage and Carolina Homspun:








I also bought some Crosspatch Creations roving from Carolina Homespun:





Stunning Rainbow Bumps from Carolina Homespun:







I stopped by Ellen's Half Pint Farm and got some of her Superwash Merino/Tencel Sock Yarn (look at that sheen!):


I bought some lace yarn for my newfound love of lace knitting:


Some lovely Cashmere roving:



Linda bought some roving too:





But since she doesn't spin, she bought these to pay me in trade (the three on the left are from Ellen's Half Pint Farm and the one on the right is something else):