yarn tootin'

Monogamy

        Once in awhile, I knit just one thing at a time and then I finish something.  Finishing things is fun.

     A couple of weeks ago, I went to Comfort, Big Texas with the knitting ladies to visit The Tinsmith's Wife, which has officially become my very favorite area yarn store.  It's a little out of the way, but it's well worth the drive.  The Tinsmith's Wife is cute, it has an abundance of really nice yarn that you don't find anywhere else around here, and there is often an older gentleman there knitting (he's just an added bonus, but a good one).  I found a couple of skeins of String Theory Worsted Silk/Merino that I loved and after carrying them around the store for awhile, I decided to buy them even though I had no clue what I was going to do with them.  The beauty of shopping for yarn with a posse of knitters is that everyone is full of suggestions.  When I got home, I cast on with my new yarn more or less immediately and started knitting Ishbel.  Thanks to Amanda for the suggestion.

     Ishbel was so much fun and the yarn is so fabulous that I knit it exclusively for about a week and then I was finished.  Voila!  I never knew that I wasn't the slowest knitter in the world.  It would seem that my problem is that I have too many projects going at once so it just seems like I'm slow.  Here is the back/wingspan/granny view of Ishbel...

     I've never been the biggest fan of triangle shawls because when worn over the shoulders, they just seem so Little House on the Prairie.  Lately, I've been seeing smaller triangle shawls (like this one) worn cowboy style with the point in front and this is a look I can embrace.  I've already started on Traveling Woman which is a similar small triangle shawl.  With any luck, I'll finish that soon too.

Finished Objects

    In the last few weeks, I have finished a couple of things...

      Clapotis number 4 in Manos Silk Blend, just under 4 skeins.  I think I used a US 5, but I finished this back in August, so I don't remember for sure.  You can't go wrong with the Clapotis.  I already have another in mind.

     

No Purl Monkey Socks with a lovely picot edge in Pagewood Farms Denali.  This yarn is generous with the yardage and I have quite a bit left over.  I probably have enough for a pair of little kid's socks, but unfortunately, I'm tired of looking at this colorway.  In my opinion, the purl-less Monkey is the way to go.  It looks just as good as the regular Monkey but it's far less tedious. 

     I have a lot of lovely new yarn with which I am dying to cast on, so I'm on a bit of a finishing kick.  I'm trying to clear the knitting basket of  unfinished objects and free up some needles for fall knitting.  Stay tuned for more finished objects.

Suitcase Full of Yarn

     The knitters have a trip to Comfort planned for tomorrow, so I thought I'd do a little Ravelry destash before I do any more damage.  I spent a couple of hours unpacking my summer yarn purchases and tidying up the yarn room the other day and I came across several skeins that are lovely, but that I will most likely never knit.  I also found a couple of gems that will be excellent for trading in the Completely Pointless and Arbitrary Swap Group on Ravelry.  I've been out of that game for too long and I've missed it.  

    

     I bought this suitcase at Target in early July because I needed a small carry-on bag for a weekend trip.  After the trip, I used it to hold my yarns, both the ones I'd brought with me for the summer and the ones I'd purchased during my travels.  By the time I arrived back in San Antonio in August, the suitcase was full.  After putting my new yarn away, I filled the suitcase with sellables and tradeables and wheeled it out to the backyard for my little photo shoot.  Maybe it's just me, but there's something very satisfying about a suitcase full of yarn.

  

Five Hour Baby Sweater

     Some of you may have noticed that there is a free pattern link  here on my blog for a Five Hour Baby Sweater.  This is a pattern that I adapted from this version of the original when I was a relatively new knitter.  At the time, I found the math involved in making this sweater bigger to be tedious and exhausting, so I decided to publish my work in the side bar of my blog.  If it hadn't been for Ravelry, chances are no one would know about my bigger Five Hour Baby Sweater pattern, but there are currently 102 projects on Ravelry, so I guess people are knitting it.

     Guess what?  There is a mistake in the pattern.  It's not really a mistake, but a wildly unclear instruction.  As I mentioned, when I first rewrote the pattern, I was a clueless newbie knitter and I thought that the unclear instruction was just something I didn't know about yet, so I skipped it when knitting the sweater myself, but for some reason I included it in the pattern.  Now I get a lot of email and blog comments from people saying "How the hell does that work???," so I thought I'd address the situation. 

     I put the correction in the pattern notes on Ravelry a long time ago, but aparently there are still some knitters who aren't on Ravelry.  I know I should just fix the pdf, but who knows how to do that?  Not me.  The pdf was made for me and emailed to me by some kind, knitting stranger and as such, I can't make corrections, nor would I know where to start if I could.  Someday I will get Bob to help me write a new pdf, but until then, here's the news you can use...

     When the pattern says "Bind off leaving the last stitch on the needle, " don't do it!  Just bind off all of the stitches, sew up the sleeve and continue on your merry way.  If anyone has any clue what the leaving the last stitch on the needle business is all about, let me know.  I've never been able to figure it out and now that I know what I'm doing, I know that it's not just me.  Hopefully this simple correction will find its way to those in need of a little help.

Joo-ly

     Oops, it looks like I missed June.  June is generally one of the crazier months of the year for me and Bob because Sequoia is in June.  For those of you who are new, Sequoia is a two week chamber music workshop (it's NOT bandcamp) for middle and high school kids and Bob is the director.  I am the Assistant Director which means that I am in charge of the music library, assorted administrative details, and most importantly, snacks.  Sequoia is fun, but also very exhausting and a lot of work.
     Before flying to California for Sequoia, I drove my car to Boulder, CO which is where I am right now.  I play in a music festival in Boulder most summers and there is never enough time between Sequoia and CMF (Colorado Music Festival) to go back to Big Texas to get my car, so I usually bring my car to Colorado ahead of time.  This year I did some yarn shopping on my way to Colorado.  My first stop was The Tinsmith's Wife in Comfort, TX less than an hour away from my house.  It might be my new favorite local-ish yarn store.  The town of Comfort is adorable and well worth the drive for San Antonioians who have yet to make the trek.  The store is bright and tidy and it's full of pretty yarns, many of which you can't find at other area LYS.  I went a little crazy and bought a sweater quantity of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in Amy's Vintage Office...
  
   I have plans to make Ondule (Ravelry link) by Anne Hanson with this yarn.  The picture is a little blurry, but you get the idea.  I also bought a skein of Malabrigo Sock in Turner, a yarn I'd been hunting for awhile.  I know I could have just ordered it on the interwebs, but sometimes it's more fun to just wait until you find it in the wild.  Here it is...
    
     After Sequoia was over, Bob and I spent a day in Danville, CA at his mom's house.  I wanted to go to Purlescence in Sunnyvale (a mere 45 minutes away) and my mother-in-law was nice enough to indulge my yarn habit and she came along for the ride.  She was also very sneaky and she paid for my yarn while I was in the bathroom.  Thanks again, Diana!  I got three skeins of Socks that Rock, two silkie and one lightweight at Purlescence...
 
     The colors are Alley-Oop, Korppi, and Bleck.  I would never have been drawn to the two silkies if I'd been buying them on the interwebs, but they look great in real life.  I plan to wind them soon and get started on Ulmus by Kristin Kapur sometime this week.  Unfortuately, I have no knitting to report.  I've only knit a couple of rows since arriving in Colorado a week ago.  We've had two challenging programs in a row here in Boulder and I've been rehearsing and practicing so much that my left wrist is bothering me a little bit.  I suspect that knitting will aggrevate it further and since no one is paying me to knit, I'm holding off on the knitting.   I'm going to go put some ice on it and take a couple of Advil and hopefully I'll be back in business soon.  

One for May

     I can't believe it's almost June.  I'm not entirely sure what happened to May, but here I am getting in one post for the month, just under the wire.  I was in the Yarn Barn the other day, and as I was putting my Addi Lace needle on the counter to pay for it, a woman I'd never seen before said "You haven't posted anything on your blog in a long time."  At first I wasn't sure she was talking to me, but neither of the women working at the YB responded and I was the only other person there, so I figured she was referring to my blog.  I told her that she sounded like my mother who also complains that I never put anything on my blog.  Well here it is ladies, something on my blog. 
     I recently finished this scarf with yarn from a previous trip to the Yarn Barn.  The yarn is Handmaiden Great Big Sea in Sangria and the pattern is a $1.99 download from WEBS called Falling Leaves.  Have I mentioned that I love the fact that the new Yarn Barn carries Handmaiden yarns?  They have a bunch of other nice stuff that the old Yarn Barn did not have and while I certainly did like the old Yarn Barn, the new YB is just a little bit more fabulous.  I bought two skeins of this yarn back in December and I ended up using only one for this scarf.  It looked a little small when I was finished knitting the first skein, but it grew a lot when I blocked it.  I don't know what I'll do with the other skein.  I will most likely trade it away.  One of the reasons I've been absent from the blog is because I have been consumed with swapping yarn in the Completely Pointless and Arbitrary Swap Group on Ravelry.  

 

     As usual, I looked like a Muppet in all of the pictures which is why my head is cut off in the one above.  For some reason, I can't resist posting at least one Muppet shot...

 

     I've also finished a pair of socks that had been on the needles since February of 2008.  I love these socks and I am sure that I will wear them a lot, but I found the semi-solid yarn a bit of a snore to knit.  I am sure that is why it took me so long to finish this pair.  My problem is that I like the look of solid or semi-solid finished objects, but I prefer to knit with wildly variegated yarns.  This pattern is  Cookie A.'s BFF Socks and the yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy in Dusky Aurora.

 

     I have a bunch of other stuff on the needles and some yummy new springy yarns, but I need to save something for June.  The Symphony season ended last night.  We made it to the end of the season and it looks like we'll all still be employed when things start up again in September.  Hooray for that.  I have 10 days before I leave for the dreaded chamber music camp and I hope to get another post in before I go.  Right now, I've got some chicken to grill and a pasta salad to make.  I will leave you with my favorite grilled chicken marinade...

1/4 cup EVOO
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup soy sauce
4 cloves minced garlic
basil, oregano, and parsley

Marinate bone-in chicken (Bob likes Pick of the Chick from HEB) overnight and then grill for maximum deliciousness.  This goes well with grilled vegetables and The Best Pasta Salad from Jamie Oliver.  It's all very summery.