Kool Thing Sunday, May 11 2008

Did you know that Kim Gordon lives in Northampton? I had a spotting the other day between Haymarket and Masonic Street Laundry, it always tickles the crap out of me to see her or Thurston Moore just hanging around town.

I have a lot of kool things to show you. The first is a store sample, the Petal Tank knit in Terra by the Fibre Company. Good Lord, I love this yarn. It is so unspeakably pretty. This color is Cochineal, it looks like pink lemonade. It has all the rustic beauty of tweedy wool with the luster and softness of alpaca and silk. I wax rhapsodic about it more here. I will definitely be making one of these for myself.

Also, I wove something! It’s a very simple, gray scarf that I’m calling the Mithril Stole, yeah, I’m a big dork. I used Valley Yarns 2/14 Alpaca Silk and a bit of Rowan Kidsilk Haze Night, woven on a Schacht Rigid Heddle Flip Loom, 25″ with a 10-dent reed. Someone said it was very Banana Republic and I think that fits. I had a fun time weaving it, I love being a total beginner again. I can’t see myself getting really into the technical side of weaving (at least any more than I have to to wind warps and get a nice finished project), it’s the same way I feel about spinning. I’m very product driven at the wheel and the loom, not so for knitting. I’m still hoping this will be the year of boring, wearable, expertly executed classics. Call it No Dud Duds in ’08!

I’ve also started a Shetland Triangle with some Sundara Yarn Silky Merino Aran in Ruby Port. This was Autumn’s Seasons Club offering. I love it! I was in Autumn and Spring this round; I’ve signed up for Winter for the next round. Good stuff.

CR

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“It’s about making yarn by hand.” Wednesday, Jan 16 2008

So, remember those Calvin Klein ads from the early 90s? The ones that looked like they were set in a basement and all creepy? Well, that’s my bathroom. Behold, a makeshift dye lab, made of a tension bar and a bucket! This is a Louet Hand Dyed Sock Kit, it will eventually be a pair of socks and then it will live at Webs. It’s like a mash-up of girlie colors and animal print. I followed the directions to the letter and they didn’t say to unwind the skanks (skein-hanks) so I left them wound and ended up with lots of white spaces! I thought I’d saturated them pretty well, burrowing the squeeze bottle nozzle into the skein, but apparently not. Oh well, I tend to like a lot of white in my sock yarn.

This is what it looks like wound up:

I started plying the Spunky Eclectic BFL in Monkey Farts. It has a really pretty translucent quality, very pale milk chocolate brown and vanilla pudding yellow, okay, now I feel like Homer Simpson. It was very easy to draft, and since I don’t have plans for it I experimented with TPI and different drafting techniques (from the fold, semi-woolen spun, etc.) and now I’m plying it in a very haphazard manner, seeing what happens when I treadle really quickly and barely support the yarns (a tightly wound Koigu-ish effect) or when I treadle slowly and let the twist into the singles slowly (a calmer, softer effect, with a bit of a barber-pole effect).

After consulting this I know that I’ve been stripping and pre-drafting and plying two identical (in theory, they don’t match up because I’m still pretty uneven) bobbins together which should yield a somewhat self-striping yarn. It’s fun learning on my own, but I can already tell I’m going to get lots of bad habits this way. It’s also a problem that I don’t really know the technical side of what I’m doing. For instance, ratios? No idea.

Secret knitting continues!

Speaking of dying, Gail/Kangaroo Dyer was the guest on Ready, Set, Knit this week! It was a great interview. She is great about inviting people to come dye with her but I’ve never been tempted, I just don’t think dying is for me. All I could think of during the process was A. I’m screwing this up and it will be ugly and a waste of Louet, B. this is messy, C. this is wasteful (all the water, the microwaving and the Saran Wrap/plastic bags)! Also, there are sooOOooo many already dyed yarns that I love. Fiesta Baby Boom in Plum Pudding (I don’t even like pink!), Pigeonroof’s Nightshade and this sushi colorway from Keegan Lane Yarns, and so on and so on…
CR

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NoSoNaFiSweMo Tuesday, Nov 6 2007

So you’ve heard of NaNoWriMo and it’s knit twin NaNoSweMo. Meet NoSoNaFiSweMo.

It’s my very own Not-So-National Finish a Sweater Month…contest!

You see, the cold has finally arrived. My closet is pretty slim in the sweater department. The ones I wear the most are Salvation Army rescues. I’ve stupidly felted a few sweaters recently. My go-to black cardigan is full of holes.

L.L. Bean is offering free shipping at the moment so I went over to score some wool cardigans. I was happily creating a cart (tempting items: a red plaid coat a la Little Pete from “Pete and Pete,” a union suit and red plaid duct tape). Then it hit me–I have one kojillion unfinished sweaters all over the apartment. Well, I’m rounding up, but let’s take a head count of all the sweaters I have just…stopped mentioning (lots of Ravelry links, sorry):

1. Tilted Duster

2. Blood Orange Cardigan

3. Enid Cardigan

4. Hudson Hoodie

5. Treeline Cardigan

6. Thermal

7. Forecast

8. Spray/T-Storms

SO–I’ve decided to finish these. In November. Pretty sure I can’t do all of them, but I’m going to see how many I can pull off. Here is the contest: guess how many sweaters (and which ones) I’ll finish by December 1st! There will be a blog runway show to show off the finished objects.

The info about these sweaters is on the blog, on Ravelry and on some knit-along pages. Some of it isn’t up to date and starting now, I will not edit or update ANYTHING related to these sweaters until December 1st. No new info!! This month is a busy one for me but there is Thanksgiving break and residual energy from all the caffeine I’ll be chugging to get through the schoolwork. You can ask me ONE question in the comments before making your guess.

Winners will receive a custom prize package, most likely a combination of some stash items, books or Lexie Barnes bags I’d like to pass along and new items purchased especially for the winner. If no one guesses exactly correctly, I will choose randomly from whoever guessed the correct NUMBER of sweaters. Unclear? Please ask away.

The gauntlet has been thrown down!

CR

P.S. My statcounter tells me that I had a random jump in readership on Monday…but I can’t figure out why. The Visitor Paths are only reported for the most recent 100 visitors. Does anyone know who linked to me?

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OMG, ya’ll! Tuesday, Oct 30 2007

The first Gallery Jacket! Is it vain if I say that I think it’s freaking adorable? Julie is right, you can style it a million ways…it was difficult to pick one way to show it in the catalog to be honest.

I haven’t been the best blogger lately…I’ve been consumed with school stuff but somehow, after chatting with Lisa Shroyer at Stitches East, I thought it’d be a good idea to submit a few designs to Knitscene. I was all flattered and big headed for a few minutes but then I saw that it was more of an open call…heh…oh well, it was wicked fun to play designer for a week, it was just like playing with Fashion Plates! I suck at sketching so I did a little collage work. I’m in love with some of the swatches, here is a peek:

Speaking of secret designs, I can reveal the secret from an old post. Norah Gaughan designed a pattern, Lotus that was knit to fit my exact measurements (acoustic guitar-like: long neck, long torso, flared bottom/hip region, also monkey arms)! It was knit in Jasper, velvety soft Jasper in a deep wine red colorway that had stripes of charcoal of beige. I love it!!

What else…I’m knitting some simple winter accessories, the cold has finally arrived and they’re very much needed, I play the same game the Harlot mentions here. The most exciting is the shawl I’ve started with Jenna’s handspun:

I’m calling this the Girl Power shawl because Spunky Eclectic dyed the fiber, Jenna spun the yarn and I’m knitting it up, using a Spunky Eclectic pattern. The cirrrrrrrcle of yaarrrrn…

Poor Jenna was at my house for the final Red Sox World Series game…she is a Yankees fan and…we…may have bickered. The lovable underdog days are officially over, so I was kind of at a disadvantage, but I refuse to believe that Yankee fans outnumber the citizenry of Red Sox nation, which is much larger than just Massachusetts! Jenna ate some of my overcooked and bitter broccoli rabe and I felt slightly vindicated.

This song is currently stuck in my head and I don’t mind at all…

CR

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Double sock fame!! Sunday, Aug 12 2007

My socks arrived! Green lace, just like the socks I knit for my pal!

My pal? Perhaps you’ve heard of her:

Yes, THE Alison Hansel, author of Charmed Knits, founder of Sockapalooza, all around excellent Boston blogger! I’m almost flustered by these socks, probably the way Grumperina‘s Sock Pal from Socka-pa-2za felt (she was the recipient of the original Jaywalker socks!)

They fit perfectly and I love the pattern (Embossed Leaves) so, so much! I’m one of those unimaginative types who firmly believes that leaf patterns should only be knit in leaf colors (granted, this does leave a lot of options). One of my jobs as marketing assistant at Webs was to organize the Charmed Knits book signing and book Alison on the podcast. She did a great job of keeping the secret, I had no idea!!

On Saturday I was heading out the door to attend a party for a friend who had successfully defended her Master’s thesis (on Maxim magazine). I realized that I didn’t have a bar appropriate project. I fully realize how ridiculous this might sound, even to knitters, but please remember that I commute mostly by bus, which takes forever. And what’s better than a little drunken knitting, even if you have to rip it out the next day?

I threw a few balls of Kidsilk Haze into my new Monkey bag so I could cast on for the Earth Stripe Wrap, the cover design on Rowan 42. I fell in love with this when I saw it in a promotional poster at TKGA which MAY be hanging in my room, violating my post-college anti-poster sentiments. I’d assumed it was knit in Kidsilk Aura because I couldn’t readily identify the colors. I soon learned that Kaffe has paired 14 shades of Kidsilk Haze in different combinations to create entirely new, entirely gorgeous colors. Apparently, all of my favorites–rooting through my stash I realized that I already had a single ball of almost every color he calls for. Single balls that I acquired on random road trips, before Webs was carrying KSH, simply because they were nice to look at.

I’m about 6 stripes in and it’s a glorious, easy project. I love stockinette stitch, which makes me a knitting simpleton. Oh well. I’ve added 6 stitches so I can keep the first and last 3 in garter stitch. I realize that the rolled edges are probably a carefully considered design element but I
abhor rolling edges.

While I’m on the subject of Rowan, Jen had a few apt appraisals of the new issue. We both love when the designers re-knit the items–I find that without the extreme styling and ethereal sets you get a much better sense of the garment’s practicality (as well as it’s suitability for different bodies). They did this last fall and showed the same sweater on women from different age groups, it was brilliant. I was tickled to see the focus of this re-knit feature: the same tenets of color analysis I’ve been jabbering about! I created a Flickr set with excerpts from Carole Jackson’s book Color Me Beautiful, as well as a few pictures of the Rowan design team in their season appropriate knitwear. Inspiring, no?

CR

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Let’s get ripped. Wednesday, Jun 20 2007

I’ve been knitting a lot lately. If this semester was about collecting yarn this summer is about knitting it up. I find it hard to sleep in the summer so late-night/early A.M. knitting is the name of the game. I’m re-watching some gems, including the LOTR trilogy and Clarissa Explains it All.
I WAS Clarissa growing up, from the crazy ensembles to the mom enforced tofu and brewers’ yeast laced diet. The only trouble with my knitting is that it’s been a total RIPFEST. Things are going wrong left and right and to be honest, I haven’t minded the ripping one bit. It’ll all be worth it in the end.

Next in the to rip pile is Coachella:

I tried it on this morning and the armholes are reeeeeeeeeeeallly right. I think Suede might stretch a bit but I was planning to neaten the edges with a crochet border but that would make it unwearable at this point. I’m planning to lengthen the racer back strap and change the rate of increases before re-joining in the round.

Also ripped, a store sample, Grumperina’s Art Deco Beret (pre-beaded chart knitting, so no big loss):

Knowing myself I didn’t knit a gauge swatch (ahem) but just dropped my usual needle size. This made the cool (tubular-ish) cast-on ribbing too small by a few inches.

Also being ripped a decent amount for minor tweaking is Bamboo Grove, a cleverly constructed top-down henley in the works for the fall catalog. Kirsten in customer service is the queen of top down!

Last but not least…my summer job rules. People ask me if I’m getting sick of yarn and the answer is “HECK NO.” One of my tasks is writing descriptions of nwe yarns, which puts me in a really good mood. After awhile you sort of feel like you’ve seen it all and it’s easy to slam a yarn or pattern book but the description writing requires a sort of Pollyanna, best case scenario outlook. It carries over to other things, which is awesome! Oh, and today I arrived to find a big sack of new Rowan yarns on my chair. There are some fantastic new colors of Kracksilk Haze and one of Kid Classic that I’m over the moon for. Kidsilk Aura (the heavier version of KSH) promises big things, and it was a long time coming. So many patterns for KSH start “with yarn doubled…” Love the fabric is produces, but it can be annoying.

Speaking of color, I’ve been obsessed lately. This day at the printers only added to it! This is Kathy and Penny checking color accuracy with total focus!

This was so fun, it was straight out of another childhood favorite, Reading Rainbow.

Rememeber Color Me Beautiful? I’m trying to purge my closet (and yarn stash) of colors that don’t agree with me and I’ve finally submitted to reading this book. According to some online quizzes I’m a Deep Winter! I can live with that =) I hope this Shi Bui color will be okay. If not, hey, it’s for feet!

CR

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Shedding! Wednesday, Jun 13 2007

Thank you to everyone who purchased yarn from my destashing sale! I still have quite a bit of good stuff if you’re looking for some cheap stash enhancement.

I’ve cast on some new projects. Don’t roll your eyes, I might actually finish these!! The first is so addictive to knit and such a cool shape that I might actually complete my goal of knitting and wearing a garment in the SAME SEASON. I quickly fell for Coachella in the new Knitty as it covers up an unfortunate tattoo I have (racerback=my friend). Details to follow!

Speaking of Knitty, Gudrun Johnson, a former student of mine and loyal Webs customer scored the cover, deservedly so!! Looks like her daughter will be joining me in the elite ranks (ha) of knitwear supermodels!

I’m using another Knitty pattern for my sock pal socks (after many, many starts I’ve finally settled on a yarn and pattern): Sweet Pea in Socks that Rock Silkie, Beryl. She professed a new love for green and lace (funny, those were MY preferences) so I ripped the pink baby cable socks I’d started and cast on for these. I realize I’m under the gun but I have a bit of travel in my future so I’m planning to bring these along. I finished a pair of socks the last time I visited Mom in D.C. so maybe the luck will continue!

The real reason I’m posting is because of Berroco–have you seen the fall preview?! I am totally, totally INFATUATED with the following (and one of the new yarns, Ultra Alpaca LITE anyone?!):

Kaino:

Annikki:

Chantal:

Manon:

Peso:

Pinot:

Also adorable: Aune, Aamu, Parchesi, Poska, Piccolo, Josepha. The Stash and Burn ladies recently sung the praises of KnitBits and the free pattern archive on Berroco.com and I have to second them. The patterns are always well-written and I have to say, my Berroco sweater is one of the only ones I actually wear.

Enough gushing for one day,

CR

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Cummington 2007… Monday, May 28 2007

…was WAY TOO FUN! I am so happy to have a gang of ladies nearby who are as over the moon about spending a day huffing lanolin and giggling at bleating animals as I am. I was on the fence about Rheinbeck but I decided that Sheep and Wool festivals are pretty much the best ever.

As we arrived, Jenna’s car passed THE ELKINS-MOBILE exiting. That whole adage about logging ‘facetime’ with your bosses is all the better when it’s accidental! We (Jenna, Huelo and I) were half-shamed and half-proud to be revealed as total wool junkies. But I’m pretty sure the Elkin’s knew about our collective habit the day they hired us!

There are a lot of pictures of adorable animals and happy knitters over at my Flickr. Just a taste:

You can’t see my contribution, but this is Val, Spunky Eclectic and I modelling our handpainted hair!

Happy Knitters! Huelo, Jenna and Dena:

Bloggers…bloggers who blog bloggers…are the luckiest bloggers in the worlllld…(Megan and Melissa)

After a hard and fast deliberation, Jenna decides that this lamb burger probably had an excellent life on a posh farm…

This picture reminds me of Carnivale…maybe it’s the empty pew-esque seats or the old fashioned fonts on the posters…I love it!

You want to see what I bought?? Not THAT much, but definitely more than I expected to!!

Greenwood Hill Farm Merino 2-Ply DK in Pewter, a blend of natural greys. This was the only thing I was “looking” for…I wanted a soft, rustic wool for a really basic garter stitch shawl, like the Prairie Shawl from Folk Shawls. This stuff is really, really, really nice.

Spunky Eclectic spinning fiber, 8 oz. of South African Fine in Rocky Mountain High. Jenna has generously agreed to spin this up for me! I can’t tell you how excited I am about this! Hopefully enough for a hat and thrummed mittens with whatever is left over. I just noticed that this matches a favorite fabric of mine.

Shearling inserts! Probably for the inside of some felted slippers that I’ve been promising to make for yeaaaaaars. A pair for Eric and a pair for moi, both doing first position in this photo. All the comfort of Uggs, but on the DL.

Now to commence with my crazy week. First, to tackle these:

Then, to move. Lots and lots and lots of yarn. Then, working the Harlot event and easing back into Webs life in general (after this school year, it will actually be more like a 6-year-old running towards a pool to do a giant cannonball!). Speaking of her, she has written that when you move, somewhere in the old house, there is yarn. My apartment is so small that I doubt this could happen to me but I sort of feel like leaving a ceremonial ball anyway.

Speaking of yarn, JENNA AND KATHY, YOU WERE RIGHT. I have seen the light, and it is Log Cabin-y! To Jenny and Nicole of Stash and Burn, this is what you do with the “stupid single ball of Noro,” of which I have puh-LENTY. P.S. ladies, I don’t want to freak you out or anything, but I love you both. You had me at Macintosh square!! Hey, maybe I can Log Cabin a Macintosh square!!?!

Over and out,

CR

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Puesta del Sol Friday, May 18 2007

I ordered the yellow shoes! Eep! Since my first yellow shoe lust was sold out, I specified a back-up choice at Remix. Thing is, I’m going to be walking a lot this summer. To and from work (back at Webs!) and around that…not small…store. We once wore pedometers and were blown away at how many miles we all logged in a single day. I’ve actually got a bunch of sturdy looking sandals coming (along with a new incarnation of my favorite Hepburn-y go-to, the black ballet flat (currently Crocs Primas). The Primas are pretty great, but they can be embarrassingly squeaky and a little sad. I mean, even if it’s fancy rubber, I’m still wearing rubber shoes. I can hear people think to themselves, “Jellies are okay for 8 year olds, but geez…” Still, they’re bouncy and fun to wear. And, a friend of mine spilled soup on my foot the other day and I just rinsed it off! Anyhow, I’ll be trying on and send back as needed. I hate shoe shopping any other way, Zappos rules.

Anyhow, shoes–I momentarily feel guilty for how much I spend on them BUT, here is my reasoning–I have BAD feet, painful shoes can ruin your day, since I don’t own a car I can consider shoes to be a transportation cost (tires for my feet!), I spend woefully little on my wardrobe…uh…they cheer me up when I look down…

Okay, that’s enough of that. One of my main reasons I’m so excited about the Remix Shoes is that I have a new dressing goal. After seeing Pan’s Labyrinth I decided that I really needed to wear more: leather satchels, tweed, utilitarian aprons, shawls, Mary Janes with socks and dresses. Oh, and a little knife hidden in my skirt’s waistband! The best accessory. (Mom, if you haven’t seen this yet, we’re watching it together in June!!)

Thanks for all the awesome comments about my dress idea! I don’t really intend to over dye it unless I look truly appalling in that much yellow but I will certainly be dunking these swatches into a dye bath out of pure curiosity! Swatching normally doesn’t happen this swiftly but now that I’ve ‘leaked’ my idea I felt compelled to get going! First up, some simple eyelets, which I imagine would form an empire waist:

Could thread a ribbon through it, but that might be too twee for me:

This is the wrong side (flash is on, heightened orangeness!), which is the right side for the Eiffel Tower eyelets right above ribbon eyelets. I don’t know, they remind me of getting a run in one’s tights…not exactly a look I want to emulate. Blocking didn’t straighten them out at all. Blocking didn’t help my drunken attempt at Dayflower, either! Why did I save the hardest for last again? I was a goner after the last minute of The Office and the lace suffered. I blame John Krasinski completely!

In case you haven’t had enough yellow for today, here is an update of my travel project, my April/May Project Spectrum sock:

If you can call that an update…it’s on zeros and I’m actually leaving it at home when I head to the library. Simultaneous read-knit days are pretty much over for this semester. I love how perfectly variegated it’s knitting up, it’s veddy pretty. I should be working on my Sock Pal socks, but my order from Little Knits is lost in the ether, apparently…

I’ll leave you with a tease, a project that has come out of hibernation and will actually come in handy during some of the chilly thunderstorms we’ve been having lately.

More soon,

CR

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Stitches West 2007 Saturday, Mar 10 2007

Hi everyone! I know I promised to stop making such infrequent gigantic posts, but I’ve decided…maybe that’s just how I roll. Onward:

I had to laugh when I read Yarn Harlot’s freak-out about white paint. I recently re-organized my pattern stash and had to find a way to decorate that outer spine since they hog so much of the shelf. I dug out my stash of paint sample cards and settled on all watered down versions of primary colors, but not before flipping through about 20 cards of ‘whites’. My reaction was more ‘awe’ than ‘rage’ but I can totally see her point.

I’m glad so many of you agreed with my Interweave makeover reaction, which I felt wildly snarky about. I fully acknowledge the need to innovate, especially aesthetically, but I couldn’t help but feel a good deal of loss. To get over it I placed an order for color cards and yarn samples at the decidedly old school (in the best possible way) Schoolhouse Press. I threw in a wheel of unspun Icelandic and look how neat it is:

It’s supposed to be ‘nested’ in a box, not wound into a ball, and it’s like working with cotton candy. Very soft, very lovely.

Project Spectrum: My first Socks that Rock ( lightweight in the Lucy colorway, my mini-review to follow) totally fits this month’s call for blue, white and grey, neutrals that I love. Yes, blue is neutral to me. In another ‘late to the game’ move, I picked Grumperina’s Jaywalker for my pattern. If I’d known how addictive and easy to memorize it was I would’ve knit these a long time ago!! BTW, my new Knitpicks double-pointeds are JUST the thing for all those double decreases.

Stitches West 2007 haul/highlights, or The Gluttony:

• Grass green hemp from Lanaknits for a lacy summer top. This booth was an oasis of calm–burlap lined walls just like Moving Mud, clean and modern designs, and a fun ‘by-weight’ way of buying that A) evokes a farmer’s market and B) feels a lot more accurate than buying by the skein. Did I mention hemp is a dirt cheap fiber? For $100 bucks I could have purchased a whole new summer wardrobe. I exercised restraint but I did show a slight moment of weakness when I purchased a…wait for it…poncho pattern. The lovely designer heard me making jokes and said “no no, it’s a ponch–ETTE!” Absolved! And a good thing too, since I’ve admired Winnie’s for…3 years now? Yikes! I’ve got a bit of a backlog going, eh?

• I had a blast at the Knitterly booth–the ‘creative consultants’ (stealing that title!) were decked out in some amazing aprons and their entire booth looked basically like my apartment. I stocked up on that limited edition Soak wash, which I would like to bathe in, and some random stuff–a cute leather bag strap, a funny tote and some pink Koigu that looks like kiddie birthday cake!

• A kit for a Habu bag that I’ve stalked for 4 Stitches now. Takao works her booth with one of these draped across her small frame, knitting swatches with the yarn nested in the bag. I’m thrilled to finally have the pattern, and to have found a kit in such atypical colors (for Habu)–instead of the usual stony neutrals, this one is orange and deep plum. I’ve started to play with this–it’s slow knitting, but so cool. Hmm…I’m just now realizing that the pattern was living in a magazine of mine all along. Oh well, it’s still fun to play with the new fibers.

• Socks that Rock–I finally joined the cult, in a big way. I walked away with 6 skeins of sock yarn, many patterns and a severe sinking sadness that I wasn’t in the Club (for serious, that first kit for this round is so ‘me’ it hurts!’) I started working with the stuff and all I can think of is the sort of ice cream I enjoy–really heavy, extremely rich, full of exciting surprises to excavate with my spoon (or in this case, with each new round) and what gourmands call ‘good mouthfeel‘. This yarn has fantastic mouthfeel! I’m sure you’ve heard it called ‘delicious’ or ‘yummy’, I never knew how literal the evaluation really was until I started knitting it. Besides the two bright skeins picture first, I gravitated towards all of the colorways with a good dose of white. Odd, since they’re so famous for their saturated brights, but I went with it! To my dear friend Andra, it isn’t just hype, you have GOT to knit this stuff sometime! I UPS’ed my purchases home and was shocked that it was 8 lbs. In my defense, I had several bottles of wool wash, lotsa hemp (yarn, heh). I had to laugh when I came across this site that calls the yarn “atypically dense”. Amen to that!

• The lovely Tina at BMFA (I think) laughed at me because I declared myself cut-off many times but kept stalking this amazingly soft top knit with their Bambu–it literally felt like water running through my hands. In the very last TEN MINUTES of the 4 day show she aptly cried “You’re obsessing!” and gave me the “pitiful grad student” discount. I couldn’t have been more thrilled, I truly did stalk the garment, and probably sold it to ten people while I did so! I was a total pain in the ass picking a color, she said Thunder (stormy pinks and purples), I was contrary and took Savannah (sandy browns and blues with a shot of rust orange), then switched at the last minute, in that panicky insane/typical Stitches customer fashion. Anyhow, I was quite the pusher for their booth and dragged my co-workers Sarah and Karen over before the show opened. They were smart and snagged the Bambu top ingredients the first night, but not before witnessing the stam–PEDE of women running towards the booth the minute the market opened. We kept making bathroom detours to get a fix–a skein here, a pattern there–it kept us sane (make that elated) through the madness!

• Lastly, I got a good deal on some Manos del Uraguay. I ripped out my heavy, droopy chunky alpaca version of Hot Lava and will hopefully have more success with this yarn, the one called for in the first place!

Okay, do I feel appropriately guilty yet…? I’d say so. Time to get to work.

CR

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