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!

FOlympics!

I entered, and completed the 2010 UFOlympics. In case you don't know what that means, it's a Ravelry group in which you declare one or more WIPs that are foundering. You work on them furiously between the opening and closing ceremonies, and get a gold medal if you finish everything you proposed during that time. I declared my baby blanket that I started back in July, and a grown-up's blanket that I was given. I am glad I joined the group as the two projects I declared for the event had been my guilty WIPs for quite some time! Now I am down to 2 WIPs, and I am contemplating COing another project.

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.

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*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 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!

Knitbroken

I have just accepted a short term job in Minnesota; the thriving metropolis of Austin to be exact. My pre-doctoral adviser is setting up a new lab there and I am helping him out until I get married in June. I am glad to be getting out of South Bend but I am sorry to be leaving my friends behind. On the bright side, my boss's wife has already found a Sunday knitting group which I will probably check out. That said, nothing will ever replace my beloved Knitwork.

Sometime in early 2008, Carly, Faith and I went to an organized knitting group where we met Kristine and Sandy. We decided to meet up again for coffee and knitting and in seemingly no time, we had a structured knitting club, complete with a webpage (on Ravelry) and email address.

Our group was formed with the mutual desire to have a small group of young professionals who love to knit over coffee, dessert and some light-hearted banter. That said, in a few short months, we have gone through almost every conceivable landmark event that life has to offer. We have seen some relationships begin and others end. We have stood by each other through both the gaining of new family members and through tragic loss. We have helped each other survive traumas, heartbreaks and frustrations. We have cried uncontrollably and we've laughed until we've cried together. We've been each others' support system for dealing with over-bearing parents, unreasonable in-laws and other examples of life's unpleasantness. We gossiped, we've analysed and we've listened. And dare I forget to mention, we've helped each other with knitting too.

From a mere hobby, I have managed to find a group of treasured friends, and two of my bridesmaids for my forthcoming wedding. It has been an privilege to be part of the South Bend Knitwork and it is a chapter of my life I will always cherish.

Day 21: Hi, My name's Liz and I'm a knitting addict...

I love Wednesdays. I get a break from thesis writing, experiments, and the ever expanding piles of laundry, and I head off for some well earned therapy masquerading as a knitting circle. We have a great group of girls, and I love getting to call each of them my friends. I have agreed to give up all diversions, so that I can focus on getting graduated, but I think keeping my appointment with my woolly support group keeps my productivity, and more importantly, my sanity, as well maintained as possible. For various reasons, a few people were absent this evening, but there's always someone to talk to. Definitely the highlight of my week!

(L-R): Sandy, Kayleigh, Kristine, Mary, Carly.