Inspiration in a Box (or Two)

We never used to do much online shopping, but you know what? I think we’re getting the hang of it. I haven’t had any projects that I’m really passionate about lately, I’ve just been doing a little busy work (although I stumbled across something fun that I’m really enjoying now - but we’ll talk about that when it’s finished) but now that I’ve gotten my mail I’ve got so many fun options that I’m barely hanging onto my project to get it finished before whooshing off to something else. I ordered my two packages about a week apart, but they showed up at the post office the same day! (Maybe they caught the same ride over?) The first was a package from Amazon that I bought as a reward for meeting a personal goal:

That’s the Harmony Guide to Basic Crochet Stitches, the Harmony Guide to Lace and Eyelets (that would be knitting), and Crochet Me: Designs to Fuel the Crochet Revolution. I am really, really excited about these. I finally caved (I’d been resisting because I almost never actually use patterns, not because I didn’t want the book) and ordered the Crochet Me book after I saw someone make the Baby Doll Dress (scroll down almost to the bottom, or just Ctrl+F Baby Doll) as a shirt. I don’t know about you, but I’m not much of a babydoll dress fan (especially one that’s crocheted…out of worsted weight yarn…) but as a top it is really cute. Let’s see if I ever make it.

The stitch dictionaries are just as exciting! I’ve already paged through them each twice and I’ve gotten too many new ideas to keep track of. Just the thought of designs I could make with this stitch or that - it’s so inspiring, and I can’t wait until I’m done with my current project so that I can attack something new with a clean conscience.

In the second package I found something very special:

It’s a brand-new wooden swift! It is so beautiful. I love it. (My children can never, never, never know that I have this, or where I am keeping it. They would break it, and I would cry.) I bought it from JoAnn’s online store when they sent out that 40% off coupon. What a deal! Now it will be so much easier for me to use my Gloss, and my Cascade 220, and that awesome yarn I bought in Colorado - and dyeing will be less hassle, and maybe now that I don’t have to keep it over my knees or around a baby gate, I’ll unravel a few more sweaters! I am jumping up and down over this. I haven’t gotten a ball-winder yet, but I don’t mind so much winding it by hand as long as I don’t have the tangles and snarling problems to contend with. I can’t wait to try this out too.

Then (because I was already ordering a package from JoAnn’s and paying for postage, and NOT adding a little something else would just have been wasteful) I ordered a little bit of yarn.

It’s TLC Cotton Plus (about which I have heard good things) and it was on sale for $2.00 a skein. That’s enough to make two large projects. YAY! I’m leaving them in their protective little baggies until I decide what to do with them - except, of course, the two little skeins that are in a bag that’s only tied, not sealed.

So. Darn. Gorgeous. I haven’t decided what to do with them yet: I may make my Baby Doll Top with the Tan, who knows? I’m also thinking that I might make the Ruffled Surplice from Interweave Knits with the Kiwi. You may recall that I bought the magazine with the pattern and some yarn for it last fall at Kid n Ewe, but it looks like (big surprise) the yarn I bought is the wrong weight. Really the wrong weight. (I am not so awesome at gauging yarn weights.) So, now I have 1200 yards of gorgeous wool/silk with no pattern attached, and a lovely summery pattern with no yarn attached, and a bunch of new, cotton-blend yarn just begging to be used.

Now that I’ve written it out, I think I will work through at least one pattern (though the urge to design something with my new yarn is strong) as a bit of a vacation. I can’t wait to play with my new toys! If only I could get that pesky project finished…

Kid ‘n Ewe…

…and children, too! Yes, that’s right, today Max, Charlie and I made the trek to Kid ‘n Ewe, marking my very first fiber festival! I think the expressions on the boys’ faces really says it all about their attitude towards this particular event.

Awww. They were kind of excited. Mostly to get out of the car. We got lost in Boerne and spent an extra thirty minutes trying to find the fairgrounds. So we moved them from their carseats into the portable two-person baby prison and they felt a little better. Once we got inside, I think I must have lost my head, because I only have one more photo from the entire thing:

Yup. Those are alpaca ‘tocks. We got to pet alpaca! (They were soft.) Max kept trying to pat them on the bum, the one place the woman leading them said would get you kicked in the face. Yup. It was quite the experience, though - we went into the first building after staying a while to listen to the musicians playing the dulcimer out front. The whole place was full of yarn, and fiber, and books and needles and patterns and beads - the whole building smelled like sheep. There were probably 15 women at the back of the building, spinning (they were having a class). Max was fascinated by the wheels, even more so when I told him they were making yarn.

We went from there into the next building, stopping briefly to ogle the angora bunnies outside. In there we found Melanie at the Yarnivore booth and chatted for a while. They gave Max and Charlie each a chunk of unspun angora to pet - apparently at a fiber festival they hand out chunks of fiber like tootsie rolls (at least to little children). In the next booth over a very nice old man handed them each a chunk of wool about a foot long to play with while he gave me tips about how to get started with a drop spindle. I think I’m going to make one and mess around with it. I saved the fiber from my boys when they got bored with it, I thought I’d start on that.

Also in the second building was Amanda! She had a little box full of Ravelry nametags for any Ravelers who came by - and boy, there were a lot of us! It seemed like everywhere you turned you saw a little green and white tag, or a beta tee. It was fun to meet some people I’d only seen online, and it was cool to meet some new people too. We picked up something else at Amanda’s booth, too -

a set of size 5 Chiaogoo bamboo needles, perfect for some nice, thick socks. In the third building (the alpaca building, apparently) the free sampleage for the kiddos continued. The nice woman at the Tierra Prometida booth (that means ‘promised land,’ incidentally - and I figured that out before I went to their site. Woohoo for high school Spanish!) had a rack of little knitted finger puppets that were just adorable and gave the boys each one. Check it out:

She picked two that were the same (she obviously has children). I think it’s cute that one of them is smaller than the other one - big brother, little brother. I have an urge to make up a third one, and a troll, so we can act out the 3 Billy Goats Gruff. It was here that I picked up a 4oz skein of undyed alpaca with unknown yardage. Pretty!

And the boys had had just about enough and started to howl. We headed back out of the building, but I stopped to pick up a back issue of Interweave Knits -

The top on the cover has really grown on me, and I’d just decided to be on the lookout for it yesterday. And there it was! That’s really only important because it spurred me to stop by the Brooks Farm booth again. We’d spent a good chunk of time there earlier, but I’d left empty-handed because I couldn’t convince myself that I knew what I would do with anything I bought there. With pattern in hand, though, I picked up three skeins of the green Acero I’d been sighing over.

Crazy pretty. I really hope that I worked it out carefully enough to be able to use it for this pattern, but it’s entirely possible that I’m deluding myself with the strength of my love for this yarn…

So. Um. No yarn shopping for a while.

Lots of ‘New and Exciting’

Yesterday I went somewhere new…

and it was exciting!

I took pictures. I couldn’t decide if I felt more like a stealthy ninja-blogger, or a ridiculous yarn-store tourist (it was my first time at a yarn store!). I didn’t ask the other customers what they thought. They had lots of yarns I’d never heard of before, along with many ‘famous’ brands. There was, for instance, a wall in the back full of Manos del Uruguay:

Dang, that’s a lot of big, pretty yarn. Also fun things like Baby Alpaca Grande, Noro, some really lovely Patagonia Nature Cotton, lots of sock yarns, lots of other yarns; silk and alpaca and mohair, oh my! I think. It was a little much to take in all at once. I didn’t even duck into the room with the books, which is ridiculous, since (as you may recall) I have a full-blown case of PAS (pattern-acquisition syndrome) that is only rendered sillier by the fact that I almost never use someone else’s pattern. You know. The whole thing. I just looked: the last time I used a pattern was for Greg’s Christmas gloves. Almost six months ago. Only because I had never done gloves before. Sigh. I should probably invest in some good stitch dictionaries instead.

Anyway! I saw a sample in the ’specialty’ yarn area that reminded me of something the Yarn Harlot did last week:

Actually, it’s the same thing. Same yarn, everything. Look over on the left side of the picture - that red/orange/yellow ball even looks like the same color. At the time, I mentioned it to Melanie (the owner), and used words like “yarn harlot” and “blog” in public conversation and she knew what I was talking about (or, at the very least, pretended to quite gracefully. She said she’s not much of a blog reader. Hello, she owns a yarn store. Would you be on the computer?). It was surreal.

Speaking of Melanie, I asked her if I could get a picture of her for the blog. After a brief pause (I think she was trying to decide whether I was a crazy person) she agreed.

See? She’s very nice, and helpful, and seems to know a lot about the yarns and notions in the shop. (She endorses the Knitpicks Options needles, although of course she can’t sell them - she has good taste, too! I’m in love with my Knitpicks dpns…I’m going to get the Options. Eventually.) On the left there is Sheila the Dressform, Melanie of course is in the middle, and on the right is a selection of yarns dyed by the Yarnivore staff. See that skein just left of the yellow one? 100% Silk, and the color is lovely. A leetle bit out of my preferred price range, though.

I snapped the shot of the storefront while we were leaving, and as I was editing the photo today I noticed something interesting reflected in the window:

See? It’s us! There I am, taking pictures in full-blown blogging dork mode, while Greg looks in the bag and says to himself, “She spent 20 bucks on what?”

Now on to the yarn, of course:

It’s pretty.

I got two balls of Cashcotton DK in Sage, which I think, with care, will produce a shrug. I can do that with 284 yards, right?

Hello, there!

And welcome to everyone who has found my blog via the Crochetme newsletter. Let me tell you, that was an unexpected spike in traffic. Anyway, let’s see what we have to show for ourselves today. First and foremost, go poke around in my new Cafepress Shop! I made four different ‘candy heart’ designs. Writing messages for candy hearts is, unfortunately, one of the ways that I amuse myself around this time of year. Here’s one:

Go see. Aaaaalso, I went to Joann’s the other day (to pick up something important, and not for me) and they were having a sale on the Super Size balls of Lily’s Sugar’n Cream cotton. You know, the new 4 oz. balls. It was 2 for $3. I bought 4, which means that I bought a pound of cotton for $6. Rather a good deal. I almost bought twice that. The yarn I bought is earmarked for a project, though. So it’s completely allowable. Right?

I may perhaps have started disassembling another sweater. Maybe. And, um, I got in a package from Knitpicks.

Look. It’s a lot more economical to ship a lot of them at once. Okay? Plus now I know which yarn I want to order for another project in planning…

Sigh

Well. Greg is gone - off for a few months of tech training that will, we hope, qualify him for a job that will have us sticking around here for a few years. Wait, did I say hope? I mean - well - I’m confused. We had better move somewhere fun after this - and by fun, I mean someplace where the leaves change colors, and it might snow once in a while, and you can play outside in the summer during daylight hours, and you don’t have scorpions in your bathroom. That kind of a place.
Anyway, my older sister has agreed to come and stay with me while he’s gone, to keep me company. She may (if she so chooses) be featured on the blog at some point. Since she’s here and all. I’ve been very busy since Greg left on Sunday working on a (non-yarny) project and various pressing issues, but I haven’t gotten much done - of the wooly variety at least.

While the four of us were out yesterday, we stopped by the thrift shop ‘just for a minute.’ I started poking through the sweaters. Like ya doooo. My sister may have voiced a comment disparaging my mental soundness as I scoured the racks, but then I shoved this into her hands:

And she said, “Ohhhhhhh.” No more giggles from her! Isn’t that color gorgeous? Well, you can’t really see it, but I love it. It’s not so brown, much greener. I may replace that pic later. It’s like…it’s like a forest green heather, one of my all-time favorite of the colors. I love it way more than I love the sage-y seafoam of the other one, and I like that a lot. And, of course, it’s 100% cashmere. What? No! Stop it. Be quiet - what do you want from me, it was two dollars! You think I could just leave it there? I turned my face from the wool, the lambswool and angora blends - even the angora and silk blend! So what if I don’t have the other sweater wound yet - I do have it frogged, just not wound and weighed and washed. I will. It’s not like I’m going to start this one before I finish the other, I just had to get it. It’s a sickness. No, thank you, an intervention is neither welcome nor necessary. No! Don’t even think it. If you try to get between me and that sweater, I can’t be held responsible for my actions.

Keep your hands out of my cashmere. I’ve got a seam ripper, and I will cut you.

My Favorite Yarny Tale

‘Listen, my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of’ - no, wait, wrong story. Something very exciting indeed has happened in toomanyhooks-land, and so (in the hopes that this will help oblitera- I mean, alleviate the formatting nightmare of shame that is my previous post) please read on to hear a wonderful yarny tale (complete with pictures!)

Once upon a time, there was a young woman who liked to crochet. She crocheted hats, she crocheted toys. She crocheted sweaters, and she crocheted scarves. She loved to crochet! One day, this young woman was cruising around the internet, when what should she find but this book:

“Oh, dear,” she said. “I love that book. I want that book. I must have that book!” So, she bought it, not caring whether any other pattern in the book was good, because she was going to make the beautiful little dress on the cover. The young woman waited, and she waited, and she waited, until one day a package arrived! She ripped the packaging open, and withdrew the book.

“Huh?” she said.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “It looks like a different version. Well, that doesn’t matter, as long as it has the pattern I want.” So she looked, and she looked, and sure enough, there was the smock.

“Well, that’s all right then,” she said. “Let’s see what kind of yarn it calls for.” She looked, and she looked, and then she realized that the yarn was not available in the United States - not locally, anyway - because although they had converted the stitches to American conventions, it was still an English book. Undeterred, she looked for a sub. “Red Heart Baby Fingering should do fine,” she said. “I even have some. Oh, it’s not enough for the whole thing - but I can start now and buy more later. Oh, but I don’t have the right hook. Oh. Darn.”
Not long after that (really, not long at all) she went to Walmart for yarn and a hook. To her surprise, she couldn’t find the Baby Fingering anywhere. She looked high, she looked low, but there was none to be found. “Where could it be?” she wondered aloud as she checked out, hook in hand.
Somewhat later, the young woman happened to be exploring the Coats and Clark website when the awful truth was brought home. The Baby Fingering yarn had been discontinued. “Oh, no!” she cried. “That’s the only fingering yarn I have ever seen! What yarn will I use now?” So, for many sad months, the young woman looked, at Walmart and Michaels and Hobby Lobby and even Joann’s, but she just couldn’t find a fingering yarn. “Oh, well,” she said. “I’ll have to make an internet order, but I don’t have a daughter yet, anyway. It would be silly to do it now. I’ll just wait.” And so the book sat on the shelf, unused, for well over a year.
Then, one day, she went to Walmart to buy some Softee Baby in Lemon and Mint:

(Doesn’t that sound delicious? And I like mint, especially for baby things - no matter what Crochetme says…)

…when she saw something amazing. Her Walmart was carrying Bernat Baby! She stopped. She stared. She dove in with both hands! And, in the end, she bought skeins and skeins - enough to make the smock both in Antique White -

- and Baby Green.

“Hurrah!” she said. She brought the yarn home, and introduced it to the book. “We’ll start tonight!” she declared.
There was only one problem. The hook she had bought, so long ago, was the wrong size.
“Oh, not again!” She couldn’t believe it. Still, the next day, she took one more trip to Walmart. Battling Saturday traffic, forging her way through the crowds, she bought the only thing standing between her and a little smock WIP - the hook! And a candy bar. But that’s beside the point! She returned triumphant with her size 4 steel hook, and she crocheted happily ever after.

The End.

Oh, Anthropologie…

Why do I even look? And the worst part is that I have an insane urge to attempt to reproduce it. Nuff said.

Well, there goes that idea…

Greg has the camera today. “What if Charlie does something cute while you’re gone?” I asked. Greg just gave me a Look and a comment about how we don’t need 800 pictures of an infant lying in bed. Turns out I was right, though (of course): Charlie took a nap in his swing today, which was completely adorable. I could have used about 3 shots of that. Never doubt, Greg - never doubt!

The absence of the camera also means that I can’t do the post I was planning, which was a summary of all of the handmade items I’ve made or recieved for Charlie, complete with a few modeled shots. I’m actually guiltily relieved that I can’t do that today - I’ve been putting it off. Turns out that when he’s awake he’s usually not in the mood to model, and no one wants to wake a sleeping baby to take a picture of a hat. Hah. So I think we’ll get back to that eventually, but for now - moving on!

I was browsing the yarn on ebay yesterday when I came across this vendor:

See that? That is 100% superfine Alpaca, undyed and in all of its natural glory. (By the way, somebody alert Knitpicks! They should totally do that. According to the seller, alpacas come in 24 different shades, including various tans, browns, grays, black, cream… I love those colors! And this stuff is almost 70 cents cheaper per skein than Andean Treasure, even including shipping. Undyed is cheaper, I’m drooling over here imagining the Knitpicks price.) The seller offers them in 10-skein packs. 50 grams a skein, that’s 500 grams: 1090 yards of worsted weight, 2000 yards of the fingering. According to The Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns, that’s enough yardage for me to make myself a sweater. Mmmmmmmm, alpaca sweater.

Why the alpaca love, you may ask? I ordered an Andean Treasure color card a few weeks ago, and it is heeeeeaven to the touch. I love it. I can’t wait to buy some alpaca to actually work with - lurvely. I think I’m going to buy one of the ebay 10-packs in Chestnut, a gorgeous dark brown (really, it looks gorgeous). I love rich browns. I am concerned, though: I’ve heard that alpaca is super-warm (it’s from the Andes, after all) which could translate to “unbearably sweaty” here in Texas. I’m considering crocheting a (fairly open) sweater from it, rather than knitting one, which I think could work better with the natural tendencies of the yarn: I’ve also heard that alpaca is less sproingy than wool, and since crochet stitches are firmer than knit ones it should prevent bagging. It’s the same reason that crocheted skirts work better - why spend all that effort on a baggy bottom? In theory, anyway, it’s a plan. I still need input from those who have actually worked with the fiber. Any advice, o blog-readers?

At any rate, I have found my next project. Usually I prefer to design almost everything that I make; it’s rare for me to find a pattern that I like well enough to make as written. It’s even rarer for me to find a pattern that I love as is and that I have to make right now. As you may have gathered, I found one.

That image was taken from the pattern. Not my photo. Just so we’re clear. Anyway, while browsing the new patterns at Knitting Pattern Central (like ya doooooooo - hahahaa. Thank you, Eddie Izzard…) I ran across the Quinn: Cabled Bag pattern. And I will make it. Asap. I’ve decided to use some of the off-white Simply Soft that I bought for the Abominable Baby Slippers (Originally they were intended to be adult sized, so obviously I have a great deal of the yarn left. Off-white is not the most attractive color on me, especially yellowish off-white. A bag is a great idea.) that’s been festering in my stash for quite a while, now. The pattern (aside from being slathered with big, bold cables - you know I love the cabley goodness) is full of all sorts of exciting words, like ‘provisional cast-on’ and ‘grafting’ and ‘i-cord.’ I’m looking forward to discovering what the heck those things are. It should be a challenge.

*cough* *gasp* Aaaaaaah! KNITTY!

If you’re a cross-crafter, like I am, you probably already know that the new Knitty is up. And it looks fabulous! Topi looks tight, Reid is precious, and does anyone else love, Love, LOVE Nagano Sakura?

What really has me breathless, though, is this:

Allow me to provide a little zoom action for you:

Do you know what that is? That is a nautiloid.

I love it. I want it. I have to have it. You probably have never guessed this about me, but I love paleontology. I seriously considered it as a career choice into my teenage years. And forget T-rexes and brontosaurus, I was in love with the smaller, the older, and the more weird. I mean, I told people that my favorite bird was the Archaeopteryx until I was twelve. Knitting myself a nautiloid would be perfection. Of course, I seriously doubt that I currently possess the knitting expertise to do it. If I’m feeling particularly lazy in that department, I may just create a crocheted version. Too bad she didn’t pair it with a trilobite…
I should totally do that!

And in other news, sometime after my last post and before this one, my ticker passed 50,000 hits. I’m famous!