Look! Pretty yarn!

It’s Misti Alpacas new sock yarn, an alpaca/merino/nylon blend of yarny gorgeousness. I have been coveting this yarn and I got a belated birthday gift of a Hill Country Weavers gift certificate so I bought it. I don’t plan on knitting any socks any time soon. I am relishing this yarn as is. Isn’t it sublime?

And speaking of sublime, I also got this for my birthday.

From my dad. Didn’t he choose well? There are five skeins, 120 yards each. What should I make? Any little jacket-y thing come to mind? Please share your ideas. I am eager to knit this up but at a loss as to what to make. The calm colors are just lovely and so soft and I could definitely see something stripey happening.

Did that distract you from Marilyn’s-Not-So-Shrunken Cardigan? No? Well, I haven’t forgotten it either. The body is done. Now I have to pick up stitches for the button bands (blaarrrrgh) and tack down the hems and make ruffles. None of that is to difficult, but I’ve been stymied by fit concerns. It seems as though it may be a wee bit tight around my bosom (I love that word). It’s silk and wool, so it will grow, and the button bands will add another inch or so, but still. I’m unsure, so I can’t bear to go on with it right now. Especially since I know for a fact it will look tremendous on a very good and very thin friend of mine and it seems more than destined to become hers and I was really intending to knit something for myself this time. And the cardigan languishes.

No jeers, please. I haven’t stopped making stuff altogether. See?

I’m in the throws of a torrid spring tryst with strip quilting. I don’t expect it to last, it’s not serious or anything, but it’s fun and makes me feel sort of naughty. I’ll finish the binding and go back to the cardigan. I promise.

I don’t know where to start. With the photos, I mean. Maybe here.

These are some of the empties from Friday night at Knitbuzz. It was the first bi-monthly (is bi-monthly every other month? I never get that right) “Cocktales” event. There were drinks. There was knitting. There was a guy whose sole purpose was to read to us while we drank and knat. Knitbuzz lived up to its name.

Our reader, Jason Andres, was a little flummoxed, but handled it well. I don’t think he really understood what I was talking about when I described to him what he would be doing. He looked a bit shocked when he came into a room crammed with 20 drinky knitters all ready to be entertained.

It was a rowdier bunch than the photos indicate. Hecklers and all. Jason mangled a Sex in the City transcript and it was hilarious, really. He kept getting the characters confused and by the end, Carrie was talking like George W Bush. Good stuff. Then he read several David Sedaris short stories. Again, good stuff. You just can’t go wrong with David Sedaris, can you?

We ate cheese and quince paste. I worked on Marilyn’s-Not-So-Shrunken Cardigan (one sleeve and some ruffles to go) and drank champagne. I was out until 10:00! Wooo!

Crazy.

Gina, I finally spent the voucher at kpixie you gave me for Christmas. Thanks again! After months of agonizing and deliberating and “adding to cart” and deleting from cart, I ultimately decided on this:

It’s Tilli Thomas Disco Lights in Atmosphere. It’s a worsted/aran weight spun silk with sequins. That’s right. I chose sequined yarn. Who would have thought? I was drawn to it immediately, but it seemed so impractical. What would I knit with sequined yarn? And where would I wear whatever it was I knit? Absurd. Ridiculous! That’s a lot of money to spend on one skein of yarn. I kept selecting it and then chickening out, deciding to wait. I would revisit kpixie once a week or so, virtually fondle the Disco Lights, and leave. I would toy with the Blue Sky Skinny Dyed cotton. Or the Alpaca Silk. But the Disco Lights kept calling me back. I tried to deny it, but finally, a few days ago, I gave in. That’s what a gift voucher is for, right? To buy something you would never buy for yourself?

The yarn is beautiful. Just beautiful. Atmosphere is a silvery gray, very pale, with iridescent silvery sequins. It’s squeaky, the delicious way silk yarn is, and Fletch loves it - he took off running with it, squealing the whole time. I cruelly took it back. I love the boy, but really. We have to set some boundaries.

I’m considering knitting some sort of sassy scarf, or some sort of head wrap thingie. Or maybe just putting it in a crystal bowl on the shelf in the knitting room (okay, it’s really a guest room, but whatever). What do you think?

Anyway, thank you. Thank you! What a perfect gift.

Hill Country Weavers just opened up a little annex right next door. A clubhouse for knitters. It’s called Knit Buzz and I went to check it out on Saturday. And again on Sunday. I only had a minute to drop in on Saturday and enter the drawing for door prizes (I didn’t win) and I had to go back on Sunday when the boys were off doing their thing.

I sat and knat for almost two hours! Right here, next to Stella.

That’s not my knitting on the futon. That’s someone else’s stuff. I’m working on Marilyn’s Not So Shrunken Cardigan right now. More about that later….

So the Knit Buzz is great and I’m really glad it’s finally open. A year or so ago, before Gauge and The Knitting Nest came on the scene, Alison and I were seriously talking about opening an actual Yarnbar, where knitters could buy yarn, buy booze, and hang out. Then we heard HCW was opening a knit cafe and we decided that they would probably be able to move faster than we could since they already had a location, capital and inventory, so we shelved it. And waited for it to open. And waited and waited and regretted (well, I did anyway. I can’t say if Alison regretted it or not). In that time, two new shops opened and we were glad we hadn’t borrowed loads of cash to open our own place. Three yarn dealers in town seems like enough, yeah? And The Knitting Nest gives the drinks away. We would have had a tough time, I’m thinking. Our edge may have been programming. Well, Knit Buzz has that covered. They have drinks, snacks, yarn, comfy space, and fun stuff in the works. They have a big tv for knitting and watching Weeds and for movie nights. There is an iPod docking station so you can listen to knitting podcasts while you hang out. They have free wifi. They have a well-stocked fridge. They have cupcakes. I think Yarnbar would really have been tough. Lucky we were poor, eh Alison? Now we can hang out and enjoy the fun part without having to do the work part (though I am arranging a fun activity in the near future for Knit Buzz and I’ll tell you all about it SOON).

Knit Buzz is open when Hill Country Weavers is open and also for events (make Hill Country Weavers your pal on Ravelry and you can know when something’s going down). You can hang out however long you’d like and sort of act like it’s your own living room, without the annoying family members asking you to do something. I may set up residence there on Sunday afternoons. I call golden chair on the futon.

Before I had a baby, I looooooved knitting for them. Relatively quick to finish, cute patterns, and small (read: cheap) yarn requirements. Now that I have a baby… I’m not so sure. I knit Olive a whole buncha stuff while I was pregnant and I use exactly none of those things. The booties fell off. Like, immediately. The hats fit but were too warm. Sweaters were too small right from the beginning or only after one wearing. Perhaps this is because I have a freakishly giant baby?

Case in point:

I knit this sweater in the 18-month size and expected it to be the perfect little fall cover up. I happened to pull it out the other day while digging around for a soon-to-be-blogged project and thought, “you know, I should probably try this on Olive just to make sure.”

The result:

It just fits. Which means she may wear it once more. I’m sure her stuffed walrus (who’s already wearing her beret) will enjoy it. Woobies and toys from now on. I WILL resist you, Debbie Bliss!

Last night, right before I went to bed, Gina and I were chatting about yarn. Go figure. We were talking about “shopping from the stash” and how that’s all we do these days. I may have mentioned before that I have a sort of wonky stash, full of odd balls from sales or things I bought just because it was soft or pretty or quirky and I just knew I would figure out what to do with it eventually. The bunny I just finished? Stash buster.

But I digress.

(Anyway, we were chatting about yarn and how it’s hard to spend money on yarn and how we love yarn. Yarn yarn yarn. Then I went to bed and dreamed that I was in a dusty old thrift shop with a woman I used to work with and really detested (that part is real, that I detested this old co-worker). We were shopping for knitting supplies because I was going to teach her how to knit. (What the hell was my subconscious trying to tell me there?) So we find her some aluminum needles and a fat skein of lavender acrylic (it just occurred to me, Gina, that this is the yarn your granny used for Olive’s little outfit!) and I talk her into buying this stuff. (That’s more like it.) Then, as the cashier is ringing up the sale, I spy a dusty little wicker basket full of hanks of yarn. I grab it up and immediately tell the cashier, “I’ll take it!” She tells me that it costs $1.50 a hank, sort of apologetically, as though I may balk at the price. I repeat, “I’ll take it!” with a little more urgency. It was five or so skeins of something very much like this yarn from Fiesta Yarns:

It was silky and shimmery and had green instead of blue. Pink and yellow and green and purple. And one hank had a ribbon label that said “Maidenhair” on it in a fancy curly font. In my dream, it was the score of a lifetime. I snatched it up and didn’t dare tell the cashier what a bargain I was getting.

So what does this say about me?

We finally get the blog back up and running and then…..

crickets.

No knitting, no blogging. You’ve come to expect this, right?

Then you won’t be surprised when I announce that yes, I have actually been knitting. Just a bit. That’s how it happens, in fits and starts, right? I’m working for more fits and more starts, but we’ll see.

There was an orange hat barely worth mentioning. The boy outgrew it after the first day. There haven’t been many days that necessitate wearing a knitted hat anyway, and he won’t keep a hat on very long (certainly not this one, not long enough for a photo) and truly, it fit perfectly the first day and then it was too small. That’s it. The story of the orange hat. Imagine it and enjoy. Imagine it with cables and bobbles and intarsia though, maybe gnomes in a forest or something rad like that - that’s better.

Then there’s this.

It really did only take about 6 hours total, including the embroidery and seaming and stuffing. I used Blue Sky Alpacas sport weight in natural dark brown for the body, Berroco Chinchilla for the nose, and some super soft fuzzy white stuff for the inner ears and tail. The whole thing is so soft and squishy that I may not give it Fletch at all. I may just keep it by my bed, next to the Rescue Remedy and the flask of whiskey, for those dark and troubled times. Look at the cute little crocheted tail!

I love this bunny. It may be one of my favorite eff ohs so far. Or maybe I’m just delirious and so happy to have finished something and to have something to share with you. I don’t know, but it doesn’t really matter, does it?

I think I’m going to make another bunny next. The Kate Gilbert bunny, with some fuzzy pink stuff I have left over from knitting my sister-in-law a pig (at her request, nothing sinister there) a couple of years ago. I haven’t made any toys in a while, have I? I forget how much I like to make them. Short and sweet and hard to mess up. For me, they are the opposite of sock knitting. I may cast on a monster while I’m at it.

Oh yeah - I may teach a knitting class at a local shop soon. I was thinking of teaching toys. Is that crazy?

I sewed. I sewed! I cut out a pattern (from Sewing Stars) and cut out the pattern pieces and sewed them together after winding the bobbin and threading the machine properly. I made this little flannel mouse.

I made the head twice. The first time, I sewed it up too much to stuff and when I tried to open it up a bit with the seam ripper, I suppose I was a bit too enthusiastic. It was a very cute head before that. The second time I made the head, the sewing was much better but I pinned the ears in upside down. I wasn’t willing to sew a third head because it was starting to feel like this little mouse was taking too long to make and sewing is supposed to be so quick and fun and the joy was beginning to fade, ever so slightly. So the ears stayed.

I made the body once. Sewing around the little curves was trickier than I imagined it would be but I got the hang of it. After the first leg, that is. You may notice that one leg is sort of sharper than the other. Meh. It’s my first softie. I can live with it. For the curious among you, here’s what was left of the first head. Aside from my mistake, it was a superior head. Look at the ears. Right-side up. And a little heart shaped nose. Oh well. There will be more.

On the knitting front, there is not much news. Only questions. Should I or shouldn’t I?

I knit all the pieces to this little shruggy thing a long time ago. I hated the yarn. It is a railroad ribbon yarn and I kvetched the entire two hundred years it took me to slog through the knitting. Then I realized I very likely did not have enough yarn to knit the prescribed edging, even after shortening and narrowing the waist ties. I put it aside. Now it’s back and I see that the back seems awfully wide. The sleeves fit, and the front panels look right, but the back is, I’m afraid, too wide. The chances of me tinking it and straightening out this godforsaken yarn and re-knitting the blasted thing are very slim. VERY slim. As in “hell no, you can’t make me, I’ll never knit again if I have to do this because I hate it with every fiber of my being.” Should I just seam it together and see what happens?

You may wonder why I don’t just throw the whole thing away and be done with it. See, the yarn and the pattern were carefully chosen by my dad and given to me for my birthday. He was very impressed with the yarn and it’s colorway and texture. He lives in a cold climate and made sure to ask the woman who owns the yarn shop down the street from him to help him find a yarn that would be useful and wearable here. After thoughtfully selecting the yarn, he looked through all the patterns and found the one he knew I would love best. He bought the pattern book and enough yarn for the project. He mailed it to me. He was very enthusiastic about it. I so wish I could have been a fly on the wall, watching him in a yarn shop! It was a very sweet and considerate thing for him to do. I also wish I could throttle the yarn shop owner for unloading this yarn on him.

What would you do?

I finished the socks last Sunday, as projected.

They are quite lovely and soft and squooshy. They are made from Lotus Toes yarn by Zenstring. I like to try them on and admire them. In spite of what this photo suggests, one is not longer than the other. They are symmetrical.

I still may gift them.

How much of your knitting is for yourself and how much is for others? I feel like I knit a lot for other people. Especially children. I can’t say I do it because I simply enjoy the act of knitting, though I do, and the end result is unimportant. It is important, and I get much satisfaction from a knit well knat. I take great pains to finish a knitted item well, so that it will hold up to use and washing and wear and handling. I think about my knits after they have been given away. I hope they are loved. I enjoy giving handmade items to people I care about. I try to give them to people who appreciate handknits and usually they do (I think).

The things I have knit for myself, I hardly use. I like to make myself sweaters and ponchos and cute hats and mitts. I live in Austin. It was 80 degrees here yesterday. In February. I think it’s only been cold enough to freeze once this winter. And that was for a day. I have a nice dry bin in my closet, full of knitted things I haven’t even pulled out this year. I have yarn in the stash for a mohair shawl and a cardigan for myself and while I love the projects and adore the yarn, I can’t seem to manage to start the knitting. Why bother? They’ll just go back to the stash, in a way. So these socks, you see, may be destined for someone else. Someone who will get more use out of them than I will.

Remember the purple vest for Fletch? Here it is.

I don’t think I am going to try the vest again. It’s the whole weather thing. I can make him a vest, but it’s supposed to be warm again after this weekend. It may not get “cold” again until next winter. Should I bother knitting a vest he may not get a chance to wear until next year, and then it won’t even fit him? I’m considering a nice beret for my soon-to-be sister-in-law instead. She loves purple.

Again with the gift knitting. Sheesh.

You tell me. We’re finally back after a technical snafu and here. Lookit.

Since I last posted, I’ve made it this far on the socks. In a month. Not completed. But oh, am I close! If I weren’t going on a real live date tonight (!!!) I wold say these are practically done. However, I won’t finish them until tomorrow night. I haven’t been on a date since December 15 and no knitting can keep me from it now. Dinner! And a movie! At the same time! In days past, I may have considered bringing my knitting with me to the movie. What’s the harm in knitting a few rows in the dark, really? As I often say, “Time to sit, time to knit.” However, since I rarely get out with my boo, I’ll leave the yarn at home. Heck - we may want to hold hands during the movie! Dare to dream.

To be honest, even I know the socks should have been finished by now. How does it take more than a month to knit a pair of simple socks? You see, I got distracted. First, by this little vest.

I thought I would whip up a little vee-neck sweater vest for my boy. Easy peasy. No pattern required. Except I am a moron and knitted it too small at first (no room for the buddha belly - doh!) so I ripped back. I started over and was knitting right along and then, as I began my three-needle bindoff on the shoulders, congratulating myself on coming up with such a simple and charming garment and so quickly - just two nights of knitting!, I realize that there is no way his huge melon head (it’s like Sputnik!) is going to fit through the tiny head hole I made. Rats. So I did what any reasonable knitter would do. I left it on the stitch holders and cast it aside and returned with new enthusiasm to the boring second sock knitting.

And while I’m confessing, there’s one more thing I need to come clean about. This.

It’s in my home, I find it very intriguing, and I have spent knitting time fooling around with th Singer. It’s possibly more than a fling, but it’s too soon to say. I can’t do zig zags or buttonholes, which frustrates me and makes even sock knitting more appealing. But still, I am drawn to it. I’ve always liked the bad boy.