Back For A Bit

I've taken about a year's hiatus from writing this here blog thingy. Honestly, I think blogs are a thing of the past. Everything is Instagram now. But I think I'll keep writing. Part of the reason I took some time off was because I wasn't really doing a lot of knitting. I was buying yarn. And as my friend Lucy says, the act of buying yarn and the act of knitting are two very different acts, which only sometimes intersect. I went to Rinebeck last October (I've got a draft of my essay on that, which I never published), and earlier this year I went to the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival. This past weekend I went to a fibre festival in Vicksburg, MS. And in November I'll be going to one in central Massachusetts. To buy more YAAAAARRRRRNNNN!

Like I need more. I have all these wonderful ideas for what I'm going to make with it, but I never quite get there. Oooh, these yarns are something person X will love! I'll make them a something. And then I search Ravelry for patterns and never quite see anything I really love, or want to try, or which jumps out at me and says, "Knit me!" Sometimes it sucks not having the knitting design gene. But I did get some gorgeous yarns, and I do have plans to make at least one thing with them. The others will sit in zip-lock baggies in my stash and mock me. I tell my husband that I'm buying yarn now while I can afford it so that when I retire and can't afford it I'll have something to knit. I don't think he believes me.

Anyway, I did get some lovely yarns and here are a couple of them.

From LeadingMenFiberArts, this lovely purple yarn. And I love the name of the colourway: Drama Queen. It's such a bright and happy shade of purple, I can't imagine any drama queen being this cheerful!

From Lazy Cat Yarn, this amazing not-quite-blue-not-quite-purple, Blue Iris. I know for whom I want to make something with this,but I may need to get a second colour to make the project I have in mind. But this really glows.

From Crafting My Chaos, I bought the red skein of yarn. I really wanted the yellow as well, but I didn't have the money for it, and also, it's a bit too Gryffindor for me. I'm a Ravenclaw, so I only got the red. But man! Is it intense!



















I got some other things, but the photos don't show them to their best advantage, and I'll highlight them in another post. Especially the stuff from Kimmarie. I already have a pattern and an idea for the yarns I got from her!

So there you have it. Some new yarns. I did knit six lace scarves last year. I don't think I took pictures of them, other than while they were on the blocking board. And since I use a cardboard sewing board, they really aren't shown to their best advantage. I really need to learn how to photograph my knitting!

This Is Where I Get To Squee

This is the part where I squee like a little kid.
Why?
Because there's a better than 50% chance that I'll be going to Reinbeck this year.
Squeeeee!
It isn't settled yet, but it's a possible, and as Eleanor of Aquitaine says in The Lion in Winter, "In a world where carpenters are resurrected, anything is possible."

Here's the deal. On Friday I fly up to Boston for the Bat Mitzvah of my friend Naomi, whose parents are some of my closest and dearest friends. I've known Naomi since the day she was born, and used to babysit her. At one point she wanted to be a lawyer, an architect, and an interior designer, all at once. It's a lot of schooling, but hell, she's a smart kid. That was when she was eight, now, at a stately 13, I wonder if she still wants to become all those things. Anyway, our friend Kim* will also be at the Bat Mitzvah, and she lives in Schenectady. We could go to Reinbeck on Sunday. I would have to be back in the Boston area by Monday, but it's possible that I can get there this year. And I've been putting aside money from each paycheque for such a yarn carnage, so if the stars align, you know I'll be there.

If I am unable to make it to Reinbeck, at least I get to see dear friends, eat some amazing food, and get to experience a little bit of fall (while the humidity has abated somewhat, it's still in the high 80s here in the Crescent City, and it's still uncomfortably hot to me). I hope there are still some leaves in colour when I get up there, though I know I've totally missed the peak colour, and most everything will be brown. But if I can see one sugar maple. . . .

Speaking of sugar maples, a friend from the far northern reaches of Vermont was visiting last week, and she brought me a whole gallon of Vermont maple syrup! Such riches! Such extravagance! Such deliciousness! That stuff can't be had for love or money down here.

So now I hope that Kim and I can swing this trip. I haven't been to Reinbeck in a wicked long time. It will be good to see it again. So, fingers, toes, and eyes all crossed (which makes it decidedly difficult to type!).


*One of my fondest memories of Naomi is from when she was about two. She'd point at Kim and say, "Ken!" then she'd point at me and say, "Kim!" and then she'd dissolve into a fit of giggles, and then she'd do it all over again. Even at two she noted the similarity of our names.

Toe In the Water: A Return to My Blog

Well, hello. It's been a while. Sorry about that. I was busy knitting. I fell in love with a pattern, and by the fifth iteration of it, I had fallen quite out of love with it. I still need to finish that fifth iteration, and make two more. I hate to think of knitting as penance for my sins, but there you are. Sometimes that's exactly what it is.

In the last seven or so months that I've been away from this blog, I visited the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival in May; I bought many gorgeous yarns, and passed even more by, since I was on a limited budget. I've enjoyed New Orleans Pride, Southern Decadence, and am planning a trip to Boston for a bat mitzvah later this month. My yarn stash has increased, despite my attempts to knit my stash, which has been an abysmal failure, I got defriended on Facebook by two people for whom I was making hats (nothing I did or said, I think they were just cleaning up their friends' lists of people they'd never met in real life, but I'll never know, will I? I'm not taking it personally. Well, yes I am, fuck them with a steak knife, but I struggle to be all Zen about it). I've already given one of the hats away, and am currently looking for a recipient of the other hat. Not everyone I know is yarn worthy. Life has had triumphs and set backs, like all lives.

I have been working on the Dragon Scale pattern. I've done it in Baah's London Blue. I've done it in Mad Color Fiber's Land of Oz green. I've done it in Zen Garden's red. I've done it in Mad Color Fiber's Amethyst. I'm currently doing it in Madline Tosh's Blood Run Cold, which is a gorgeous red, and is the only one that isn't merino, since this line is in Blue Face Leicester. I'm struggling with this last one, since I'm a bit bored of the pattern. I find that when I actually knit it , I sort of enjoy it (except for the purled backside), but I'm unable to work up some enthusiasm about it. But two or three more repeats of the pattern, and I should be done. That's a mercy.

Here's a picture of me talking to a llama at the NHS&WF, May, 2018

Plans gone awry, and others to fruition

Some days I just can't brain because I have the dumb. I had yesterday off, with not plans other than to throw some clothes in the washer to fetch groceries sometime before bed. So tried to knit. I dropped a stitch on a hat, and so help me, was completely unable to pick it up and ladder it through with a crochet hook. I know how to pick up stitches with a crochet hook. It's plain stockinette. I did nothing but split the wool of each stitch. So frustrating.

Then I thought I could knit. I'm doing the fairly easy dragon scale pattern. I know that one starts on the bottom row of a pattern and moves to the left. I can read Hebrew and Arabic, I know about reading from right to left. Instead, while I read it in the correct direction, I started on the top row, rather than the bottom. Then I did the purl row right after it, so now I have to rows of 40 stitches each to tink. I decided I was not smart enough yesterday to fool around with sticks and string any more, so I just put it away. A perfectly good day for knitting gone to waste.

Something that did go well was that my friend Greg came over to learn how to do the decreases for his hat. I'd taught him to knit last month, gave him some yarn and needles for Christmas, and we sat down, he learned quickly, and I started him on a hat in the round. I did not tell him that knitting in the round is a little harder than knitting flat. What he didn't know did not kill him. So now he's made a really kick-ass hat. He came by to learn the decrease pattern, so we did that for a bit. His stitches are still a bit tight, and he had a bit of a challenge to knit two together, but he did it and eventually he'll relax his tension to something a little easier to manage.

This is the hat Greg made, with yarn I got for him. I cannot remember the brand, but I do know it is a superwash wool. His colour choices were black and red. He has decided he never wants to knit in black yarn ever again. And I don't blame him.

New Hats and Stash Busting

While I haven't posted much, I have been trying to knit some every day. I completed two hats, made from yarn that I got at Forever Yarn, one for me and one for Brandon. I had noted that I kept buying yarn there, but never knitting it up. So I finally sat down and used some yarn from that store. Here are the results:

The yarn is Woolfolk and the yarn is super soft Merino. I can't tell you what the colourways are, since they don't really list them on their website, so we'll call them Grey and Creme. That works for me. I had a lot of fun making these hats since the wool was so wonderful to work with.

I have been thinking of other things to make with yarn bought at this particular shop, and I'm scouring Ravelry for patterns. The first time I was there I got some gorgeous Shibui Silk Cloud in a red colourway that has since been discontinued. I have three skeins, 330 yards each, and I'm at a loss for what to make. The patterns I seem to like most blend the Silk Cloud with other yarns, and I'm trying to stash bust, not buy more yarn.

I can't remember the name of the colourway, but I'm so disappointed that they discontinued it. This is a true "fuck-me-red".

I've been thinking of stash busting, and last night I cast on and knit the first four rows of some Baah La Jolla (in London Blue). No pictures yet, since four rows of garter in fingering weight yarn doesn't look like anything, but my plan is to make the Dragon Scale scarf, and you can see it by clicking the link dragon scale scarf.  I think it's really pretty. If I make this for the three friends at our annual Div School reunion, that's three skeins out of my stash. I know I have some purple La Jolla, so now I need to check the stash for other colours.

I like the idea of stash busting. I think I'll make a list of who should get what, and get started on some of these projects. And I hope I'll be able to post some of them before too long.

Forever Yarn Visit 2018

I've been home from Pennsylvania for the better part of a week now, and I had all last week off from work (New Orleans really does shut down when it gets a snow dusting), and I'm only now getting around to writing this up. Bad knitter, no Malabrigo!

As we do every winter, we had our annual reunion in Sellersville. As I do every reunion, I made my way to Forever Yarn to visit Yan and to add some beautiful stuff to my stash. I actually made it to the shop twice, since Yan was not there on Saturday, since she was at Vogue Knitting. But she was there on Sunday! But to assuage my sorrow at not seeing Yan, I got some Madeline Tosh Twist Light.

The green is Forsta 426 and the speckled is SS Jade, and I'm thinking a Death of the Moon shawl.

I returned to the shop on Sunday, and got to see Yan. Since the store has moved to a new location, she gave me a little tour. The walls are white and there is a big window that lets in lots of light. It's much brighter and cheerier than the old store, and while everything isn't out yet, I'm looking forward to next year's visit, the wall cubbies all filled with gorgeous yarn.

I picked up a few more skeins. Yan suggested something I've never seen before, Woolfolk. It is a very soft Merino wool, worsted weight and is the softest stuff I've ever knit with. I hate to say it but it makes things like Mad Tosh and Malabrigo Rios feel rough. Brandon picked out a skein and I've already started knitting it. Unfortunately, it's white, and will have to be washed when I'm done. White yarn seems to pick up every bit of dirt on your hands.

One project on the needles, one ready to be wound up. The grey skein will become a hat, too. The colourways are Too and T2. *Sigh* I kind of wish colour names would reflect reality and not some bizarre nomenclature that is meaningless. This shit is worse than Mad Tosh's colour names.

This yarn, Woolen Boon, comes from New Hampshire, and how could I resist anything with the tag line, "Wicked Pretty Yarn For All"? I'm not sure what it will become, but it sure is pretty. Colourway is Dress Blues.

For the second year in a row I got some Qing, a hand dyed yarn from England. Brandon picked it out and I need to figure what I can make for him with this. The colourway is Fox Glove.

New to the store is Walk, a hand dyed yarn from Germany. The colourway is Treasure Island, and I think it could make a right pretty shawl.

Shibui Silk Mohair is something one can never go wrong with, and I saw a larger shawl paired with Habu, a simple knit on big needles. It was knit with two skeins but I wanted more of a scarf, so with a cast on of 30 stitches I think I can make a right pretty scarf for myself. Or someone else. The Shibui colourway is Blueprint.

Finally, Yan gave me a skein of Madeline Tosh Merono Light, colourway Laurel. A little bit of lagniappe far away from the home of lagniappe. I very much appreciate the gift.

I have been visiting Forever Yarn for several years: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2018, and I don't think I've ever knit anything from the yarn I've gotten there. It's become part of my core stash. I need to look up all the things I've gotten there and start knitting it. It's such beautiful yarn, and it would probably be happy becoming something beautiful and useful.

After the long time of not knitting. . . .

Since June, I have not done any real knitting. I say that I've lost my knitting mojo, and I haven't really touched the projects I have going since then. I think part of it is linked to depression. While I love New Orleans and I like living here, I am homesick for Boston (Narnia and the North!). I miss the fall colours, the brilliant oranges and reds of the sugar maples, and the cool sweater weather, which we don't really experience in Louisiana.

Last year, after I moved here, a friend asked me to knit him a hat. I have an ample stash, much of it dedicated to becoming hats eventually, so I agreed. Of course, he wanted a black hat, and I don't keep a lot of black yarn in my stash. I put the project aside, to address later. Last week, after not being able to get back into my complicated patterns already on the needles, nor being too interested in the projects for which I bought a lovely pattern (the yarn is from the stash), I just sat there, staring blankly at the tools of my craft. So I remembered he wanted a hat, and I thought that making something simple and not too challenging might be the way to ease back into doing what I love so much. I went to the Quarter Stitch and picked up some lovely Malabrigo Rios in Pearl Ten. Black with a silver sheen to it, the yarn looks like a black pearl. My friend gets his black hat, and I get to knit something other than jet black yarn.

I finished it last night. I'll give it to him sometime over the holiday weekend. It was not difficult to knit, I actually enjoyed it, and loved counting out the decreases when I reached those rows.

The next item on the list is a hat for a friend who has Crohn's Disease and has lost a lot of weight and who is always cold. He lives in New England, and it is cold up there right now, so I'll do four inches of ribbing so he can fold it over his ears to keep them warmer. I just have to wind the yarn, Malabrigo Rios, Bobby Blue, and I'll be on my way!