Whew!

(warning: picture-heavy post)

Wow! Stitches West is over for another year and I'm exhausted after working for the Purlescence Girls for the last 3 days. But let me tell you, I wouldn't miss it for the world!

There was lots of laughter and finding friends I haven't seen in a while, and making new friends along the way. There was lots of fiberlicious goodness everywhere and an incredible creative energy that is difficult to find anywhere else. I definitely love being a librarian, but those library conferences don't quite have the same vibe! (No, we don't spend the whole time shushing people...)

I can't even remember a lot of the people I saw - but I remember meeting KnottyLa, Cockeyed and EttaMae from Blue Moon, WonderMike from the YKnit podcast... and so many more wonderful local creative people in the Bay Area.

Oh - you wanted to see what I bought, right? Ummm, I vaguely remember telling someone not to let me buy any laceweight yarn because I already had a lace stash that will take a while to deal with. So how did this Malabrigo lace end up in my bag? 2 skeins of Purple Mystery and 2 skeins of Cypress. Got those at Carolina Homespun. And where did the MerinoCash (in the Pearl Ten colorway) come from (the one on the left)? Hmmm, can you say "Malabrigo Junkies"? Say the magic words at the Malabrigo yarns booth at Stitches and something wonderful may just fall into your bag!

A skein of merino/tencel from Ellen's Half-pint farms is on the left, and 3 skeins of a merino/silk blend from Redfish Dyeworks on the right.






2 skeins of BFL Sport from Blue Moon in Motley Hue.







For the Hubby (his request for his next project or two), 2 skeins of Fiber Fiend's Bulky Wool in the Mars colorway, and a skein of Brooks Farm Mas Acero.





Some knitting actually happened during the last few weeks!

Katrina Rib (a Cookie A. pattern, unfortunately no longer available)
Yarn: Rowan Calmer, 3 1/4 balls
Needles: US 8
Started Feb. 7, 2009
Finished Feb. 28, 2009
I'll be making the sleeves a little longer though.


A few other projects have happened recently. I made this beanie for our housemate out of a couple skeins of Noro Kureyon (from a swap)








A garter-stitch scarf from Lion Brand Watercolors (discontinued).







A scarf that The Hubby knit out of a skein of Malabrigo worsted.








And here was one project that took about 7 hours to completely untangle. This hank of laceweight was so badly tangled that it took that long to unwind it. You can see part of the problem: too many ends!




I will leave you with a picture of Nathania on Saturday night during the show and tell at the shop. Do you think she likes that plummy color?

Notes to Self:

My Tour de Fleece challenge is finished! All 16 oz. of fiber have been spun and plied and I've learned a lot in the process. Of course, I want to keep spinning other stuff now.

Note 1. You like to spin. Doesn't really matter how the end product turns out, you are a process spinner, as you are knitter and crocheter. However if you spin with intention, you might surprise yourself.

Exhibit A:
Crown Mountain Superwash Merino, 8 oz.
Color: Layla
3-ply, worsted weight, 325 yards
Divided into 3rds, top, middle, bottom
Comment: more muddled color & slubby than I thought it would be. Also overspun.



Exhibit B:
Lisa Souza blue-faced leicester, 2 oz.
Color: Berry Poppins
3-ply, aran weight, 80 yards
Divided into 3rds lengthwise, and pre-drafted
Comment: tried to intentionally match last year's spinning of the same fiber. I think I did pretty well, but it ended up being a little thicker.

Exhibit C:
Grafton Corriedale batts, each 2 oz.
Colors #1, 5 & 9
3-ply, light worsted weight, total of 325 yards









Note 2. Batts must be spun from the fold in order to align the fibers in a spinnable fashion. Until Sandi told me that, I wasn't enjoying this fiber. Now...I think I need to get more batts in the same color so I have enough for a shawl! I love these colors, and think I'll call the combination "Purple sunset".

I also, for the first time, played with the ratios on my wheel and found the one that for me, produced a perfectly balanced yarn. It had less than a half-twist in it before I set/whacked it.

Note 3: Before you wet-finish by whacking the heck out of the wet yarn, make sure you tie the skeins securely, so when you rear back with the yarn over your head and accidentally drop it behind you, you don't get a tangled mess.




Note 4: When you try to salvage the disaster you've created by laying out the yarn so you can rewind the hank, don't sit down on the ground with the dog outside. She will think it's an invitation to play, or to roll in your wet yarn!

If there was a videocamera around, it would have been a candidate for America's Funniest Home Videos. The Dog rolling in the yarn, tangling herself, me trying to stop laughing long enough to untangle her before she tries to run off...




Note 5:
My guys are now both knitters! The Dork decided that he would like to make himself a sweater. Specifically, a hoodie with a zipper. After looking through my books and Ravelry, he chose to make an Adult Tomten, using some stashed Noro Kureyon (discontinued color #55). He has swatched, we've done the basic calculations and cast on. Wish him luck! He'll be working on it while we're at the SF Giants' Stitch & Pitch game on Tuesday.

Great Balls of...

YARN!

"...I need to acquire/make a giant ball of yarn. Round ball. The size of a basketball at least. I was thinking of using a cheap ball and gluing yarn or rope to it. But then I thought I should at least ask the yarn guru if anyone actually had one..."

After I stopped laughing at this email from my friend at school, I knew exactly what to do. You see, she's is getting props together for a play the Kindergarten classes are doing. 1/2 of each class are playing dogs and the others are cats. Of course, cats need yarn balls, right?

The purple ball is about 7" in diameter, the rainbow boucle is about 8-1/2" to 9" in diameter. Not quite basketball-sized, but I think they'll show up pretty well onstage. But I can't remember what the yarns are - I think the purple is a Rowan super-bulky, but I've lost the ball band from the other one.

Swapping stuff...

I'm bringing approximately 2.5 miles of yarn to Purlescence for a yarn swap tomorrow. I am positive that I will not come home with that much to replace it! Much of it is yarn that I acquired at least 8-10 years ago. Since I no longer have a desire to use it - out it goes!


I'm having a mixed-luck-with-shoes day. Dog got to my slippers this evening and I didn't give her the "Chew" command (see yesterday's post)! The thing that bugs me about it is that I've worn these slippers for the last 2 winters, and she's shown no interest in them during that time. Why tonight? Argh!


On the other foot, I did score a great set of super-comfy clogs today. They're pure Joy to wear! I haven't taken them off since I got them.

Okay, I really need to get off the computer and get spinning, otherwise I won't meet my weekend goals.

Wish me luck!

I've taken most of the day to work on my yarn inventory. Honey (Hubby) and The Dork (son) are gone for a few more days at camp, so I could pull all the bins out and see what I really have. I don't dare do it while they're home because I've now taken over the entire bed, and half the living room. No, I'm not showing you those pictures!

I'd like to blame the blogging bug for this project, because I thought I should find all my purple yarn! I did, and piled it all on the patio table. Hmmm, over 85 different purple yarns (I only grabbed one skein of each, so don't ask how many total purple skeins I have...) I wanted to put it up as the picture in my header, but Blogger wouldn't load the pic correctly. So, it'll be here, for the moment.

Then, I realized that a lot of the yarn had migrated to various places and tote bags, and started to get it back together. Then, I thought as long as it was out, I should take some photographic evidence. Which evolved into updating the Excel spreadsheet, and maybe will eventually get me to admit that I have a yarn habit! Eventually, the pics will go into a Flickr account, and eventually into Ravelry. I'm only behind about 5,000 more people!

Time to get back to photographing and updating!