A Blanket for Baby

Last weekend, I was given the gift of a wonderful handmade blanket from my friends in the South Bend knitting group. The blanket arrived to my house close to two weeks ago, but I wasn't allowed to open it. I confess that I tried poking my finger into the box to feel the blanket, but fortunately the person who sent it, Amy, knew me well enough to use enough packing tape to secure Fort Knox! The reason I had to wait was that my friend, Kristine, organized a Skpye reunion of the knitting group. We all got to sit and chat -while knitting- just like the old days. It was such a wonderful afternoon and I loved getting the opportunity to catch up with everyone.

The other highlight of the meeting was obviously the blanket. A tradition has arisen within our group that we collectively, and secretively, make blankets for members of the group that are pregnant. While many of us have moved away from South Bend, the tradition is still going strong (though involves an increasing amount of coordination via email), and is a lovely connection to a knitting group that we all held so dearly.

Prior to the gift opening, I had received a Knit Picks catalogue in the mail and was contemplating ordering some yarn to make a blanket for my daughter, to replace a recently frogged effort. It occurred to me that I should to wait to see what the girls had made for me, and I am lucky that I did because I would have picked the exact same colours they chose. My true luck is having friends that know me so well, they can pick colours I would buy myself! The blanket is now packed away in the hospital bag in anticipation of the arrival of its rightful owner (though I do take it out to peek at it every so often).



Thank you, South Bend knitters!

21 Miles to Redemption

Just as cheerleading on the sidelines of football has become its own sport, so too can collecting yarn become a bona fide hobby, distinct from that of knitting. There is so much to the world of yarn. The different weights, colourways, fibres and blends. Once you venture out of the chain stores and into the LYS's, there are so many unique and rare yarns that you have to pounce when you see them.

Then there's the dye-lot issue. You can't risk buying a mere 200 yards of a yarn you like the look of. What if you later decide to make a sweater? A few months from now, you may reach the end of the skein only to find out that your dye-lot is nowhere to be found. Better play it safe and buy ten.

And the chain stores pose their own pitfalls for your wallet. As your husband is rounding in on a straight hour of looking at Guitar Hero games*, you're four aisles over, boredom-talking yourself into buying yet another cone of Lily cotton.

The subject of yarn stashes has been featured in two of my friends' blogs over the last week. EMoaOG decided to put a halt on her yarn purchases until she knits her way through some of her stash. I remember thinking that I too buy faster than I knit, so it may not be the worst idea in the world for me to consider making a similar promise to myself. But that thought proved fleeting as I was passing the time in Joann's while my husband was doing whatever it is that men do at Best Buy. Buy 1, Get 1 50% Off on Patons Merino? Sold!

Then I read Unravel Me's post about her yarn stash. A friend challenged her to calculate her stash yardage. It turned out to be a whopping 19K yards! Hmmm, seems someone's addicted to adopting yarn. I wonder how many yards I have...

I have documented my stash at Ravelry so tried using that information to determine the yardage on a calculator. That proved unsuccessful, so I turned to an Excel spreadsheet and worked it out one row at a time. Some yarns didn't have yardage available and were excluded from the calculation. Similarly, yarns that haven't yet been entered into my Ravelry stash were also omitted. I have one more than one occasion bought 10 skeins at a time (see above for pertinent rationalizations), and each time I came across one on my alphabetically arranged Ravelry stash (the C's were particularly nerve-wracking), I could see the total climbing. I was, however, still taken aback when I typed Sum() and then dragged the cursor over the cells only to find that my stash was 37,868 yards!

Wow! When did that happen? I can, and did in the initial draft of this post, make justifications such as the fact that friends have given me yarn, I picked up a number of skeins in bargain bins and yard sales, a yarn crawl or two have been bankrolled for me as gifts... But none of that explains the ludicrous amount of yarn I have accrued. It wouldn't get to the moon and back, but I could climb it halfway into the stratosphere!

So, I too will enter a vow of woolly poverty until I work through, or donate away most of my stash. Oh, and that Patons deal in Joann's? That brings the total to 38760 yds. Yeah, I got two.

---

*Yes, Nick. I am directing this at you! It's absolutely ridiculous that you own no less than nine of these fricking cacophony-generating collections, yet you are somehow completely incapable of walking past an electronics department going through their entire collection on the off-chance they have something you don't!!!!!

A Day in July: Husband Edition!

My husband and I went to Northampton last weekend. It's a little town North of where we live, and between its lack of chain stores, beautiful architecture and fantastic restaurants (honourable mention to the Thai food), it's fast becoming one of my favourite towns.

We didn't go to Northampton for any particular reason. It was a nice day and Nick had heard on the radio that Northampton was holding its annual Sidewalk Sale, so we wanted to go see what it was all about. It was a lot of fun. There were a lot of people out, and the whole town just had a really great energy. All the vendors along the main street had set up stalls along the pavement, and there were some great deals. We found a place to print off some pictures of our wedding at a really great price.

On our way back toward the car, I decided to stop into Northampton Wools, the place where I picked up my Pom Pom yarn. I loved how my Baby Surprise Jacket (BSJ) came out so much, that I decided to see if they had any more on sale to make a hat, or some booties, to go with it. In a $5 bin, there were two skeins of pink and some other colours. I grabbed the pink ones and went to pay. The lady rang them up as only $3 each. I asked if she was sure, and she told me it was an extra reduction, because of the town event. I told her to ring up the rest and grabbed the remaining two skeins.

Now I have four skeins of Pom-Pom yarn. I haven't quite figured out what I am going to do with it, but it will definitely be used to make a set to complement my BSJ. Yippee!

A Day in June

I love yarn shopping weekends! This past weekend, my friend Aubrey drove down from her new home in New Hampshire, and we went to my favourite type of Mom and Pop, the locally owned yarn store. Aubrey actually grew up in the area, so was able to navigate around and come up with suggestions for where we should shop and eat.

We started the day having Thai for lunch at the Siam Square in Northampton. Then we headed off to Webs. Aubrey told me that it was bigger than it looks from the outside, but I had no idea to what extent she meant! The main floor was huge, and had all types of yarn. I was a little overwhelmed, but nothing compared to how in awe I was of the adjoining yarn warehouse, housing all the sale items. It took us about 30 minutes, maybe more, of wandering up and down the warehouse aisles to decide what we wanted.

I finally settled on some undyed Happy Feet sock yarn (guess who found her acid-dying materials!), some worsted weight Araucania and, being inspired by the stole Aubrey wore to my wedding, some Misti Alpaca lace weight yarn. I also picked some Noro Silk Garden sock yarn. I know this is a climbdown on my Noro Sucks position, but I have never used any of their silk-containing products. I also loved the colourway, so decided to keep an open mind.





After Webs, and a quick caffeination pit-stop, we headed back to Northampton. We dropped into Nothampton Wools and Northampton Wools Too. We were a little yarned out at that point, and I wasn't looking for anything in particular, with the exception of perhaps some confettied cotton yarn which I have been in love with ever since I saw how Jessica's dress turned out. They didn't have any so we headed out, after browsing around for a while. On the way out we passed some sale bins on the outside steps, only to spot exactly what I was looking for!!!

We got some ice-cream from Herrell's, where I discovered No-Moo Ice Cream to fit in with my new faux vegan (or "Faux-gan", if you will) lifestyle. After that, we headed to my place where I started a Baby Surprise Jacket with my Pom-Pom yarn, which I am pretty close to finishing now.


Awesome day!

A Day in April

I just turned... ahem... let's just say "an age" and leave it at that. I had an awesome time over this year's birthday weekend. My very good friend, Faith, came into town for a yarn shopping trip! We headed out to the Twin Cities at what I would consider the crack of dawn on Saturday, and went to the Three Kittens Yarn store in Mendota Heights, and Borealis Yarn and The Yarnery, both in St. Paul.

I had been to the Three Kittens before, where, for some unknown reason, I decided against buying the yarn made from milk. I had since come to regret that act of woolly thinking, so this time, I picked up two skeins of the 80% milk sock yarn. Our next stop was The Yarnery, where we were delighted to find that everything was discounted by at least 20%. I ran a amok in that store, buying three skeins of Cascade Ecological Wool for a sweater I have wanted to make, a skein of Alpaca Sock yarn and two skeins of black Cascade 220, which, while I have no particular project in mind, is always useful. Finally, we went to Borealis Yarns. I was also able to pick up some Snuggly Bubbly, which I will probably make into a Baby Surprise Jacket. Finally, I found some navy Hempathy, which I will use to make some socks for my fiancé.

My main objectives, other than getting to spend time with Faith, were to pick up yarn for my cardigan pattern, buy yarn made from unusual or interesting fibres, and find some nice baby yarn. All in all, the trip was a complete success! I even found a cute clasp for my Butterfly cardigan, and locking stitch markers to finally finish my Ben sweater!

Despite this bounty of yarn and yarn accessories, the best thing I received this weekend was, instead, an early wedding present from Faith. I was just so grateful that she bought me the Addi Click set! I have been having so much fun with it and repaid her generosity by making silly sound effects every time I switched out the needles. I was so excited to be the proud owner of interchangeable Addi Turbos, that I instantly set them to work on the Deborah cardigan with my new Ecological wool. These needles are truly amazing, and I was able to finish the entire back panel over the weekend! I also finally learned how to do the continental purl stitch!

My only regret from this trip was that I forgot to charge my camera! I had this very wonderful idea of having various pictures of us outside each yarn store, inside the stores staring pensively at potential purchases, beaming gleefully with overflowing bags of wool and cotton.... But alas, it was not to be. Luckily, Faith had more photographic wherewithal than I, and took this picture:

A Day in March

This weekend was a lot of fun. My boss's wife, Gretchen, and I went to Minneapolis on my second ever yarn crawl. We started off the day at the Three Kittens yarn store in Mendota Heights. The sales assistants were really friendly and extremely knowledgeable about a number of aspects of the yarns they carried. They had a great selection of yarns, and more importantly, a large selection of yarns that I had never seen or heard of before. My favourite was a yarn that was 50% milk! I initially assumed this just had to be a typo, and so I asked the sales assistant. Nope, it was milk! I never ceased to be amazed what can be spun. I didn't buy any because I was specifically looking for yarn to make a sweater than I plan to make and monochrome yarns to make lacy socks with. I picked up some Fresco by Classic Elite Yarns which I think will become a pair of Monkeys or another pair of Hederas. If or when I visit them again, I may take a less regimental approach to shopping and come home with some milk yarn!!


Our next stop was Borealis Yarns in St. Paul. They have a huge range of yarns spread throughout 3 different rooms, which make for a lovely atmosphere. They had a good mixture of the mainstays as well as more novel yarns. Again, the staff were really friendly. I picked up some Cascade 220 which I intend to use for a sweater and some Cascade sock yarn which I had never come across before.




Finally, we went to Depth of Field yarns, which is obviously very important to visit as a microscopist! This store had a much more laid-back feel. The selection was great and they also carried a wide range of acid dyes. I am definitely going to visit them again when I give dyeing another go. Unfortunately, we shopped through lunch and by the time we got to depth of field, the hypoglycaemia had taken hold! I was completely indecisive, but managed to select some Shirley by Kraemer Yarns which I converted into a pair of newborn size Sheepy Pants on the drive home.


I then dyed them with some acid dyes I picked up in Kansas. The yarn is half cotton and half wool. I love how the yarn stained the fibres in different ways!