Stitches South Part 2

Okay, so I can see the exact day when exam prep took over my crafting time, since I posted the first half of my Stitches South post in April, and haven't updated since.

So here is the rest of my Stitches South story.

Saturday morning, Kelly and I both had classes. I took Math for Knitters with Edie Eckman. It was great, I learned a lot.

Later that day, we hit up the market again.


Some Koigu KPPM, in color P500.





Maple Creek Farms South Blend - Wood Plank



This is an absolutely delicious feeling yarn. It's soft. smooth and cool, perfect for Florida. It's destined to become a shawl.



Kitechen Sink Dyeworks Merino Fine in Edgar



Kitchen Sink Dyeworks BFL Roving - I'm seeing a trend with all the blue





Newton's Yarn Country Bamboo Print - I have no idea what this will be.





Louet Euroflax - For some hand towels





Silk cap and Noils from Ellen's Half Pint Farm





Creatively Hand Dyed Yarns Bamboo Wool





Lisa Souza Black Hills Gold




I am really looking forward to spinning up these wool blends, but right now I'm lacking the inspiration. I haven't even touched any of the yarn yet.

The rest of the weekend was a blast, and I was so glad we did it. I definitely want to go next year!

Since Stitches, I've mostly been studying for exams, and complaining about studying for exams. I've done a little with the Triathlon training, and took a trip to the Keys with family. I think I passed the exam, so hopefully I will have more time for crafting and getting back on the internets over the next few months.

Right now, I am lacking inspiration in the crafting department, so I am mostly trying to finish up UFO's. Hopefully I'll get my mojo back soon.

Join the Club

Just a quick post to share two club shipments that I've gotten recently and am absolutely in love with.

The February shipment of Hank's in Gainesville is this lovely green/brown varigated, in a cashmere blend base.



As Rachel Ray would say, Yum-O. These will probably become a pair of Charades for me, or maybe Aquaphobias, because I am not giving this yarn up.

And goodies! The tag on the stitchmarkers is only ripped because I got a little excited trying to open them.

Then, there is theSlipped Stitch Studios Knitmare on Elm Street Bag club.



Isn't it so cool! If it was green it would be perfect. The middle button cracks me up.



Also, I forgot to photograph it, but there was a matching key fob too. I forgot it because it's been on my keys since I got it. I love it, but my hubby isn't so thrilled when we switch cars. At least it has skulls and not unicorns.

State of the Stash - 2010

I have a tradition. Every year, I go through all of my crafting supplies on the first of the year. I empty out the tubs, take note of what I have, reorganize, wind up partial skeins that have gotten tangled, wipe down all of the containers storing yarn, check for damage, that sort of stuff. And I take pictures.

I've done this every year since 2007, but only posted to the blog in 2008.

Every year, it gets a little easier, and I get a little more organized. This year, it included organizing my craft room/guest room.



The spinning wheel sits in the corner, next to my craft bookcase.



Do you see the yarn? No? It's neatly packaged away in the blue boxes.

And then there's the bookcase.



This is where I store all of my UFO's. Every last one of them. Knitting, crochet, spinning, the braided rug I started in 2005, all of it. Several of these are more than a year old.

Here's a better look.



My goal for 2010 is to clean this up considerably, so I can use it for other things. Like books.

Anyways, my sewing table, blocking board, and ironing board all fit in the closet, although in reality they don't spend much time there. The important part is that they can!

Having a guest room, with furniture, painted walls and pictures makes me feel oddly grown up.


But surely that can't be all of my crafting supplies, right? Right. The giant tower of craft remains in my hubbies office.



I did organize everything on here.

There's a shelf for sewing supplies



and one for fiber



and the other shelves are organized by how much I'll use them.

But what about the yarn stash?

Well, here is my handspun



and here is my collection of all the little bits and bobs.



It may seem odd to keep all of these little scraps, but they are surprisingly useful. I'm never without stuffing or stitchmarkers.

Here is all of the partial balls



and the source of all my guilt, the yarns which I haven't used at all.



Indy and I investigated and



The oldest: a ball of GGH Apart I bought in 2006, for the Rockstar scarf I never made.

This seems like a reasonable amount of stash to me. It hasn't grown too much since last year.

My only crafting resolution this year is to finish every UFO I have now by the end of the year. And to keep my guest room looking like a guest room.

Field Trip - The Local Needle

Last weekend, our knitting group went to the Local Needle.

We were greeted by Joan (the proprietor) in style. She made a sign, and buttons!



The graphic is the group logo made by Kate, one of our members. Joan is so thoughtful and always makes us feel welcome.

And, she has great yarns. As part of my anniversary present (more on that in another post later) I got to splurge a little.

Here's the take:



First, Alpaca with a Twist laceweight Fino, which will probably grow up to be a lace shawl or stole.



Some Wildfoote for some baby booties. I'm interested to work with this yarn.



Dream in Color Smooshy in November Muse.



And least but definitely not least



Pagewood Farms sock weight in Really Red. Besides being the most appropriate color name ever, it is my favorite of the bunch. It was also damn hard to catch the color on a rainy day.



The actual color is somewhere between the two pictures. It's amazing. Amazing enough to convince me to get some color in my life. I bought two skeins to make some fingerless mitts and socks. I'm contemplating getting some worsted weight for the February Lady Sweater.

Mmmmmm Alpaca

Last weekend I went to the Alpaca Fest with some people from the knitting circle.

We came for the



and stayed for the





I thought that fiber would be the highlight of the show, but those animals are so darn cute, they totally won us over. My main goal was to pet an alpaca. And I did. Here's proof:



There were so many alpaca there. There were chocolate alpaca




and dirty alpaca...




and surfer alpaca...




and emo alpaca...




Some were shy




and others have so much hair they can't see




and many were gorgeous.



This one looks like living, breathing Lorna's Laces or Socks that Rock. This picture doesn't do it justice.


We felt up some fiber




and got tattoos (thanks to Jen, you rock)




and I may or may not have bought some yarn



This is undyed alpaca light weight, from Long Skinny Ranch. It came off the alpaca like that. Amazing.

As amazing as the animals were, we were equally amazed at how nice alpaca people are. The folks at Breath of Heaven Alpaca Ranch were there spreading the good word of alpaca, and our knitting circle will probably be taking a trip out there soon. I got some interviews and clips of alpacas humming for the podcast, and everyone I asked was more than willing to answer questions.

Full Disclosure

So, it's the new year and I'm starting a new tradition. As I generally have New Year's Day off, and I'm recovering from (read: trying to finish) frantic holiday knitting, January First will be my annual "evaluate the stash" day, where I'll empty out every single project bag or box with yarn in it, organize it all, and evaluate.

And take pictures.



There it is, every bit of yarn that isn't in a FO. It's embarrassingly small, but I almost always buy yarn for specific projects, then cast them on right away. Since I've been finishing up things, the yarn's been cleared out.

I've learned that I have way too much sock yarn, and found some partial balls to donate to someone in my Knitting group.

I also finally let go and ripped out a crocheted shrug that was looking absolutely ghastly, so that I can move on to cuter ones, namely MimiCat's Purple Shrug.

Podcast Update

We recorded a promo and a short intro segment at knitting group this Saturday. Squee.

Victory in The Giant Dishcloth Campaign

Well, not complete victory, not yet anyways. But a step in the right direction.

I ran out of yarn shortly after joining the petals to knit the center of the flower, which will be of considerable size. The yarn used is LionBrand VelvetSpun in pastel yellow. It's a bulky polyester chenille in light pastel colors. It couldn't be less desirable. I had originally picked up the yarn as a filler in Grandma's afghan, which was going to be pink on one side and yellow on the other. I wanted big big stitches to make the afghan go fast and have that squishy feel.

However, when I found out that I had more than enough pink yarn for a blanket, I scrapped the yellow idea and faded from pink to white rather than from pink to white to yellow. The result is a lot of yellow yarn, some nice and bought from KnitWitz, the first yarn store I visited in Jax (the first trip there I bought several single skeins in yellow and pink), the rest was not as nice yarn from big box stores. Yellow is not my color. I'm more of a gray, brown, dark blue person, so this yarn has been "marinating", waiting to be used.

Anyways, when we chose the daisy dishcloth pattern for our first Knit-a-Long, I thought the VelvetSpun would be perfect, because Brenda had made them out of chenille and they turned out great.

But, as we all know by now, I didn't check gauge and ended up with this.



And I ran out of yarn.

I thought that since it was big craft store yarn it would be no problem finding it. So I go to the Micheal's where I'd bought it, and there was no VelvetSpun to be found. Same story at Joann's. In a panic, I checked LionBrand's site and Yarndex to see if it was discontinued. Thankfully it wasn't. Then I checked Micheal's and Joann's websites to see if they still sold the yarn. Yep, it just wasn't at my stores here. No vendors on ebay were selling it at a cheap price with low shipping. And I wasn't going to spend like $10 on this yarn. Heck no.

So, while in Orlando for the ONS, I stopped at the Micheal's near our friend's house where we were staying. The woman there knew exactly where it was, and pointed me straight to it. I let out a little pirate-like "Ya-har!" (an affectation picked up from the Nerdy Husband), which startled the prim little old ladies that were shopping. I didn't care, it was a victory!



I still can't believe that this was my real find for the show weekend. Not the best yarn I got by any means - what was there was gorgeous - but this was my most highly anticipated yarn of the weekend.

When I returned, I also found this in our mailbox:



It's cotton baby yarn (Peaches and Cream Baby Ombre). Someone at work just had a baby, and I'm at that age where supposedly all of our friends start having kids, so I want to be prepared to do some baby knitting. The thing is, though, none of my friends or family has little babies. So this guy at work is getting a Baby Kimono for his new daughter even if work isn't having a shower. Congratulations, here's a gift whether you expect it or not!

That, finishing Nerdy Husband's Ugly Brown Sweater, and maybe finding a glove pattern for my dad are in the line up for our trip to the Carolina's for Thanksgiving. It's always prime knitting time, and I'll probably post some, because it's prime online time as well. Nerdy Husband and his Techie Father usually get the internet on our laptop before all the bags are unpacked from the car, so access is never an issue. Maybe visiting a yarn shop with mother in law (who used to knit) and her daughter. My SIL started learning to knit last Christmas when I showed her a few stitches and lent her my copy of SnB. This year, she's making her mom a sweater. It's great!

The Orlando Needlework Show

Let me start off by saying that I am very disappointed in myself, because while I remembered to bring my camera and extra batteries to the show, I was so excited (then disappointed) that I forgot to take any pictures. Until I was leaving. Then I got the fountain outside. I have some gratuitous puppy pictures to make up for it, though.

The Fountain
Originally uploaded by shishyb

We arrived in at a friends' house in Orlando late Thursday night. No one was there, but we were greeted by Quima, their german shepherd. Quima and Indy got along great all weekend. Pictures at the end.


The Class: My Yard is only 27 Inches
Friday morning, I had a class, "Crochet Tips and Tricks", with Lily Chin. It was great. Lily is so creative and really funny. She talked about "the butt hair of the Botswana Armidillo" when talking about ridiculously rare fibers, "trophy wife stitches" which are pretty to look at but a bear to live with. I even got her to crack up. At one point she told us to measure out about a yard of yarn before cutting it, by holding our work in one hand, and reeling off yarn with the other, cutting it at about our nose. I ran out of yarn, and she asked if I had done as she asked. I replied "I did, but I'm little, so my yard is shorter than yours". I measured it this morning, it's 27 inches, as opposed to 36 (translated for the benefit of number-hating or the lazy people).

Lily had a ton of great tips, and most of them are actually going to be in her next book, funnily enough called "Crochet Tips and Tricks". I really learned a lot.

The class was also cool because I met Hannah and Tracie, two cool Floridians who knit and crochet. As there was a lack of events besides classes and the vendors, classes were really the only way to meet people.

And yes, I did say crochet, not knitting. Even though you couldn't tell it from my blog, I do crochet; I just haven't done any in a while.


The Show: As disappointing as the movie Ultraviolet

After the class, we went to check out the vendors. I was a little afraid, because I had watched the vendor list since I found out the show, and I only saw a few yarn vendors.

My fears were justified, it turns out because there were only three yarn vendors. What vendors were there were wonderful, but there was a distinct lack of yarn companies. Since there were so few, I can review them all.

The Local Needle
This is a local yarn store near Jacksonville. I've been to there before, and I know the owner. She is very nice and always very welcoming. She even remembered what some of the yarn I had bought there over a month ago, so it was good to see them doing so well. I got some lovely Pagewood Farms hand dyed sock yarn in Navajo, shades of blue and a little brown.

Pagewood Farms Hand Dyed Sock Yarn in Navajo
Originally uploaded by shishyb

Picasso's Moon
This is a local yarn store with a twist in Sarasota. What sets this store apart is that the owner does some pretty cool things, such as taking four different very light yarns and combining them into a single ball of a heavier yarn. Again, this owner is very warm and has an awesome sense of color. She also had kits that had several balls of rag strip yarns in coordinating colors and patterns, as well as single balls of rag yarns and lots of indy dyers, and a few balls of what looked distinctly like Cascade 220 in the corner. If I'm ever near Sarasota, I'm definitely going to check out her store. I got just one ball of hand dyed wool yarn, in pinks and browns. I have no clue as to what to do with it. Actual stash yarn!

Handpainted Wool from Picasso's Moon
Originally uploaded by shishyb

Tess's Designer Yarns
This was the only true (traditional) yarn company. This booth had some gorgeous yarns, in some very interesting fibers. Everything was smooth and shiny here. They're located in Maine, but a lot of their yarns were blends that would be very appropriate to warm weather wear. All of their display pieces were tank tops and mesh wraps, with the exception of the cutest child's capelet.


All in all , I got out in under $30. Here are the disappointing results.

ONS Stuff 1
Originally uploaded by shishyb

On the right, you see the bags that I brought with me. This includes class supplies (in the striped bag graciously gifted to me by Donna), the Coriolis socks (in a bag made of grey jersey material that a set of jersey sheets came in) and my purse (featuring the face of Jim Morrison). The brown bag on the left is the bag that holds my purchases and other acquisitions (including three free magazines). I'm sorry Brenda, there are no pictures of me swimming in yarn, because I didn't buy nearly enough. Had some of the other less accessible yarn vendors been there (Blue Moon Fiber Arts, Webs, indy dyers this means you) I would've got more. Oh well, since Nerdy Husband's car is in the shop, and with the holidays coming up, I guess I don't need much more yarn. I have enough to get through the holiday projects, and I shouldn't start anything for myself right now.

And now, here are the puppies to lighted the mood. Here's Indy and his new girlfriend, Quima.

Indy and Quima 3
Originally uploaded by shishyb

She's a older woman, and I think she's a retired police dog. I say this because the owner is a police officer, and the dog was really well behaved. I kept trying to get good pictures to compare their sizes, but for the first time in his life, Indy was camera shy.