Knitter's Connection!

On this final morning of Knitter's Connection, I find myself unable to sleep in. Which, on any other Saturday morning, might have driven me crazy. But not today.

Today is the last day of Knitter's Connection, a wonderful convention that dovetails on one of TNNA's semi-annual conventions. A delightful mix of well-known teachers and authors hold classes on a a wide variety of techniques, patterns, and everything else related to knitting. There was even a spinning wheel related course this year. In the evenings, there's usually events, which are absolutely lovely. Myrna Stahman was there, and she complemented me on my shawl! Oh raptures!

This year, the events featured Franklin Habit, author of It Itches. I cannot rave enough about how delightful and entertaining he is in person. The first evening, he gave a talk about the history of the knitting pattern. Sometimes I wish I had a more perfect memory, so I could relate to you his humor line by line. He showed us this historical pattern, which was nothing but text with tiny margins cramped on a 8.5 x 11 pages.

"That was just page 1," he said, implying more. Somewhere in the bottom right hand corner of that terrible first page, was row 300. Franklin went on to point out that there was an error on row 300 which ruined the rest of the shawl, just ask him how he knows. Afterwards, he lamented that it was a lot of yarn to throw away in the garbage. The whole talk was like that, delightfully informative and peppered with humor. His description of the vagueness of historical patterns reminded me of Vogue. It was as though a light bulb had gone off over my head, and I finally understood why Vogue's patterns were so terribly vague. They must have come from the tradition of historical patterns, for how else could they mangle modern knitting patterns?

Then there's the market, which always fills me with giddy delight. Every year, I tell myself that I will walk through the whole market to look at every booth before I buy anything. Every year, I never make it all the way through. While the economic downturn appears to have cut down on the number of vendors staying, the selection is still dizzying in its array. People are selling spinning wheels this year! Oh, if I were a trophy wife! Perhaps then I could afford that gorgeous, walnut-stained, double-treadle Kromsky wheel. Alas, I think I may content myself with another spindle.

But the market sings its siren song, and I must go...

The End of an Era

So, I'm not very good at growing up and changing. Well, atleast, whenever big changes happen, I kick my feet, dig in my heels, and complain at the top of my lungs. Nobody said I was meek. As a matter of fact, I think stubbornness is a point of pride with me.

(I heard all that jeering from the peanut gallery, btw.)

Another school year winds down to a close, ushering in a lot of new changes. A lot. Quite a few of the girls are graduating from knitting club, and I'm going to miss their company alot. Not that I'm not happy for them, they're going on to do almost exactly what they want with their lives to a T. I'm really happy for them! But the selfish part of me whines "What about me? Why am I getting left behind!" I told you it was whiny and selfish.

It reminds me that my life is slowly drifting away from the pace of college life. No more panic induced periods of studying feverishly for exams. Instead of waking up to that first class in the morning, or not, as the case may be, I'm in a 9-5 8-4'ish job. Goodbye late night, middle of the week drinking escapades. If I show up to work hung over, I'm liable to drop a 4L jar of methanol. And no more rental life for me, we just got a new house. What I want to know is when the hell did I get old and want to live in the suburbs?! WTF! When did I love a quiet neighborhood? As if to add insult to injury, I've discovered 3 more white hairs on my head. Now, if I part my hair differently, you actually can see them. God, when did I grow up and get old!

Did I say something about growing old gracefully? Screw that, I'm growing old immaturely! Kicking and screaming the whole way, screw this whole getting more mature with age thing. To commemorate things a bit, I've started a secret project. Sorry ladies, no pictures... yet. I've got one done, but I still have several more to go. It's surprized me with the level of difficulty inherent in working on it, but I finally got the hang of it on the third try. I'm really excited about it. But I suppose I should go do grown up things now, like unpack.

Mattress Stitching From The Other Side

So.

Before I learned to knit, I knew how to sew. I'm a decent seamstress, I've made a top from scratch and sewn a Vogue corset. For the record, vogue sewing patters are just as difficult as Vogue knitting patterns. I think their motto is to be completely inaccessible to the average person.

Anyways, I'm nearly done with a sweater that's been languishing in my knitting pile. I finally brought myself to knit with my Filatura di Crosa Superior yarn. LOVE it. It'd be my deserted island yarn, if I had no limitation on funds. Yeah, the halo can obscure stitches, but holy cow, it feels wonderful. Working with it is a pure, sensual experience. I may have to knit lingerie with it next time, it's just that good.

So I'm nearly done with the sweater and I'm re-learning how to do mattress stitch. Why did no one EVER tell me that you sew the two RIGHT sides on the outside? This goes against every sewing cannon I've EVER learned!!! I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have had to pick apart a seam and start over because I sewed right sides the wrong way. So to do this the right way which is the wrong way for normal sewing kind of makes my head explode. But the seam is coming out lovely, and I'm totally excited about finishing the Stardust sweater.

In addition, I'm watching "Something's Gotta Give" while sewing the sleeves together. There is ALOT I missed the first time around. I was 24 when the movie first came out and I turn 30 this year. How did I miss all the social commentary the first time around? I really didn't understand alot of what was going on the first time, and all of a sudden it's relevant. Wacky. I'm totally fascinated by how the older generation of men recoils from the idea of accomplished women, but these women are fascinating and appealing to a younger generation. It's intriguing social commentary. I'm puzzled as to how my point of view changed in the last 5 years. It's going to be a good saturday to figure it all out with perfect weather, a good movie, and knitting.

Denial isn't just a river in Africa

Last night, we went out with some of the girls from knitting club. Man I have missed them! I finally got to see Joy's handspun aeolian shawl in person. Oh my god, is it amazing! Total love! I'm still intimidated by my silk, so I haven't spun it yet. We all went to Dave & Busters and just had a blast. The boyfriend found a game he was absolutely fantastic at, so of course, we won a bunch of tickets. Beats me if I know what we'll use our tickets on.

But getting together with everyone reminded me that I want to try to have a fiber party before the new school year starts. Holy crap. I won't be going to school this september.... I'm graduating! It's still slowly sinking in.

To get back to the title however, I think it's time to admit that my stash has gotten away from me. I still vehemently believe that I have not achieved S.A.B.L.E. That's stash aquisition beyond life expectancy for those that are not familiar with the term. But I have alot of stash. I have atleast 5 unfinished projects, and a queue that's starting to intimidate me with its size. I'm feeling a need to declutter my stash and things, and I'm feeling the need for a yarn diet.

Yeah, I said it.

Yarn diet.

Of course, there will have to be rules and exceptions. I'm debating on whether or not to start it before next month, because it's my birthday month. Yes, I expect yarn for my birthday. It's my birthday after all! (IOW, if you don't realize the best present for my birthday is luxury yarn, you don't know me very well.) But I'm slowly thinking up rules to solidify the yarn diet. Exceptions would include birthdays, major holidays like christmas, and anniversaries. New yarn cannot be acquired unless 3 projects get completed. Gift yarn can only be acquired if there is a project selected. I can't decide if there needs to be a time frame on gift yarn projects, because there's 8 balls of elann super kydd upstairs waiting for me to knit them into scarves for the mom and sister. Due to current family drama, I really don't feel that they deserve any presents. (Bottom line, apparently they think that I should risk my health to make them happy. I disagree.) I don't care if they paid for the yarn. Mmm, perhaps I should pose this to the selfish knitters.

Anyways, back to the stash that seems to grow like tribbles. Mostly because I keep finding bits that I forgot I had, which is a bit unnerving. I'm kind of frightened that I could achieve SABLE, so I must swish through the projects as fast as my knitterly fingers can take me. I suppose that means I should finish sewing the grad dress. Whoops!

There's a first time for everything

Even running out of yarn it seems! So shocking, especially for me! I'm notorious among my friends for having more lace scraps than I know what to do with. One particular ball of yarn lasted through a hat, a crocheted rose, AND the choker, Asphyxiation. Seriously.

I think I finally jinxed myself, though. As I finish the last few rows on the Panache shawl, I feel trepidation building as the ball of yarn shrinks and shrinks an shrinks... I'm cutting out something like 20 rows and I'm STILL not sure I'll have enough yarn. I unravelled the swatch for more yarn, and I'm still not sure I'll have enough. It's a very unsettling feeling, and one that I am entirely unfamiliar with.

I'm trying to see this as an opportunity, because I really like the mods to the pattern that I am making in order to adjust to a lesser amount of yarn. I didn't like the final 3 repeats of additional feather and fan that happened before the crochet cast off. That's going away. I didn't quite like the look of the "eye" of the feather, so now it's going to be much smaller. I may even have to use some of the alternate bind-offs I saw in ravelry, because they seem to use less yarn. Seem to. I'm not sure. I do NOT look forward to frogging back 12 rows because I ran out of yarn AGAIN.

In some ways, I can't shake the feeling that this is what I get for trying a style of yarn I usually don't like. That's right, I usually find the rapid color changes of hand-dyed yarn far too busy for my tastes. Other people like them, and that's fine, I've never really been one of them. Then I found the lovely semi-solid lace work by YarnAddictAnni, and thought I could give it a shot. 1200 yards of lace weight is more than enough to make anything.

Or so I thought.

About 600 yards later, I look at my doubled yarn and wonder where it all went. I'm actually a combination knitter (read: my purl stitches sit backwards compared to "normal" knitting styles.) and I've heard that it's a style that uses less yarn. My history of projects and scraps have most certainly been a testament to that fact. But now, the fickle yarn gods have laughed at my hubris and ensured that I will run out of yarn JUST once. Just so that I will live with the taste of fear of yarn shortages and be humbled. I have to wonder what do I need to sacrifice in order to appease their fickle nature? I'd gladly burn my DPNs as a sweet sacrifical incense if it meant that I wouldn't run out of yarn. But I'm not sure bamboo wood makes for good incense.

Damn yarn gods.

Tink, tink, tink

Sadly, that is not the lonely sound of a solo coin bumping around a can. I wish it were. Unfortunately, I have to tink back some rows on the panache shawl, because I am running out of yarn and I want to do the border. Well, I want to do certain parts of the border anyways, including the gorgeous scalloped edge. It's going to require some interesting fudging.

I recommend using a smaller needle size when you tink so that you have more room to weave the needle around the stitches. So, let's say you need to go back three rows and you're using a size 7 needle. With a size 6 needle, insert the tip at the beginning of the row, and weave it in. You'll always have 2 stitches between the needles, because the third stitch is in the row you're picking up with the smaller needles. It occurs to me that this would make sense with pictures. I don't think I'll subject you to picking up stitches in lace. It's hard enough to see your patterns, much less trying to decipher rows. Perhaps I'll do a tutorial on it if there's a demand for it.

Long story short - use a size smaller if you have to rip back to a row. And stick end caps or needle point protectors on the ends when you are done so you don't have the project sliding off one end. That'd just be tragic to have an unraveled mess just because one end slipped off and frogged itself while you were working on the other end. Not that I've had that happen before... often. I learned. Hopefully, I've spared you the agony. Although, if you were really smart, you'd have used life lines and not had to deal with this whole mess!

Souvenir Yarn

So, this past weekend, I went to Bay City, Michigan.

Can I just say how much I love Michigan speed limits? 70 mph and that means if you don't drive 80+ you will be run over. It warms the cockles of my little Texan heart. Needless to say, my driving style fit right in. I went up there to visit the boyfriend who is away for 2 weeks on guard duty. It's a little weird having him away, and I miss him. I'm really tired right now, so I miss him more it seems.

So I have new yarn to snuggle when I miss him. We stopped by A Piece of Ewe, the yarn shop in Bay City. I recommend going, they have a healthy selection of yarn despite their small size. I saw some eye-blindingly bright jawoll sock yarn that felt deliciously soft because it was a superwash wool and silk yarn. I would have walked away with a skein of that, except it came in magenta, neon green, and highlighter yellow self-striping blends. Yarnmaiden may love those colors, but I almost passed up on fondling the yarn because it was so garish. Sorry, no love for the uber bright colors from me.

I did make out with some Elsebeth Lavoid Silky Wool yarn, in this gorgeous jewel-toned purple color. I got enough to make a sweater for me, which I really, really want to start so I can pretend that my boyfriend is hugging me when he's not around. Except, the needles I need are in use with the second panache shawl. So I wound up winding a skein into a ball for me to fondle. It's also absorbed some of the scent of his cologne so it reminds me of him. We also got some beautiful pale blue silky wool to make a shawl for his grandmother. I offered to do a joint Christmas present for his grandmother: he buys the yarn, I make the shawl. Considering that it takes me, oh, a week, to knit panache if I'm completely focused on it, I am totally not worried about knitting the shawl.

I'm just resisting the urge to buy more needles, but I may lose the battle. Knitpicks has their new zephyr needles out and I am seriously tempted to try them. Even with shipping, cables and needle tips are cheaper through knitpicks than any lys and I am on a shoe string budget. Hooray college student budget. There's light at the end of the tunnel, with graduation on August 30th. Which also means resume brushing up and applications out the ears.

It's been a tiring few days with kitty drama and family drama, so I really miss the boyfriend. I may wind up casting on the sweater anyways, just because. He comes back this saturday, but I'm being mopey and silly because I haven't had much of a chance to indulge myself in the past 48 hours. I've picked out the pattern already, it's the Queen Anne Cardigan. Gorgeous cardigan and it doesn't take much yardage either. Also, it's top down so it's an easy knit! I may lose the battle against new needles.