Author: Polgara

Categories
Knitting and Crochet

This week in yarn

The past week was a very expensive one for yarn. You see, on Tuesday one of my dearest friends went into early labor–three months early.  The darlingest little twins ever were born that night, but at only a pound and a half each, they were far too tiny for the crib blankets I was already working on for them, so of course I had to go out and buy new yarn for softer, smaller blankets and hats.

$95 later, I stepped out of Unwind with four balls of RY Classic Yarns Cashsoft DK (10% cashmere!) in pinks and greens; four skeins of Cascade’s Luna in red, yellow, green and purple; three skeins of Tahki’s Cotton Classic in green, blue and aqua; and a new set of size six Clovers.  Damn, but that adds up fast!

So far I’ve made two hats (one came out smaller than the other, despite casting on six extra stitches for it and following the row directions verbatim-wtf?), and half of a 15-in sq. blanket, all from the Cashsoft.  I’d post pictures, but my batteries ran out as I was photographing them, so it’ll have to wait.  I suspect I’ll be needing more Cashsoft to finish the blankets and to make a larger replacement hat.  Figures, it being the most expensive of the three yarns.

Categories
Knitting and Crochet

Blanket's finished, purse sadly not

Blanket, finishedI finished the blanket yesterday–my first crocheted project!  As you can see, it doesn’t lie quite as flat as it should; I had difficulty figuring out how many stitches to pick up along the edges, so it’s….oddly shaped, I guess.  Hopefully washing it will even it out a little, but if not, I’m not too worried–it’s a baby blanket, and babies are notoriously forgiving about such details.  Which is good, because I’m sure you’ve noticed the white isn’t pure white, it’s a baby blend with pink and blue mixed in.  This is what happens when I try to use stash yarn only.  But at least the Plymouth Encore is machine washable, which I think is key for any baby gift.  Alpaca may be the most wonderful fiber in the whole wide world, and would make marvelous heirloom quality items, but what mother of an infant has time to handwash anything?  It would sit in a box or drawer somewhere, lovely to look at, but never actually used.  Hopefully this blanket will be used and abused until there’s nothing left but string (which hopefully won’t happen until well after the baby has grown out of it).

WIP, purseIn other news, I had a brain fart, and forgot that this purse was supposed to be finished by a deadline–today, to be exact.  Yeah, that didn’t happen.  The knitting part was done long ago, but it needs to be stitched along the bottom and felted.  It’s the felting part that’s been holding things up, since I don’t have my own washing machine, and the water in the machines in my building’s laundry room isn’t hot enough to do the job properly.  I also haven’t tracked down the appropriate accessorizing hardware.  It was supposed to be finished today, because it’s a gift for my friend who took her black belt test yesterday (krav maga).  I suck.  I may show her a picture of the soon-to-be-a-purse, but I doubt it.  I’ll just have to surprise her with it later–hopefully sooner than her next birthday, though.

Also, this picture doesn’t do the colors justice–the red is much deeper and less bright than it appears here. Sadly, I can’t get the colors to be true to life with this camera. Makes me miss my old Powershot A300 sometimes.

Categories
Miscellaneous

Handmade, a Needlework Studio

All week I’ve been meaning to post about a marvelous LYS experience I had last week.  As I’d posted earlier, I’d run out of the golden Plymouth Encore for my crocheted log cabin blanket.  I’d called all the yarn stores nearest to me (of which there are many, being in Los Angeles), and the only store that had it was Black Sheep Knittery. 

So Saturday comes along, and I get all set to go to BSK, but I couldn’t remember the cross streets, so I went to the SnB mailing list to get the exact address, and lo and behold, there’s a post from BSK, announcing that they would be closed for the day due to a large anti-war protest going on nearby.  Grrrrrrrrrr!  Need! Yarn! Now!

I was too desperate for the yarn, having been unable to work on my blanket for a whole four days, and I didn’t want to wait until it reopened on Sunday.  I had posted to the list earlier asking for LYS recommendations, but the only other two that were mentioned were terribly far away, one in Westlake and one in the far reaches of Burbank, further into the Valley than I’d ever been except to pass through on my way to Yosemite or San Francisco.  Compared to Westlake, though, the Burbank store was much closer, so I printed out a map and away I went.  And no, I didn’t even call first, because if I was going to be disappointed, I wanted to put it off for as long as possible.

But it wasn’t a disappointment!  First, Handmade wasn’t nearly as far as the map made it look, which is a good thing, because it was adorable!  There was plenty of Encore, in many beautiful colors, as well as my favorite felting yarn, Cascade (they could use more 220, though).  The Encore was totally reasonably priced ($5!), which is always a joy after shopping in the more expensive “boutiques” of West Hollywood and Santa Monica.  And  the owner was truly a delight (which isn’t always the case, in my experience).  She was warm and friendly, accessible but not obtrusive, and wonderful to talk to.  She was all decked out in green for St. Patrick’s Day, which was also her wedding anniversary, and the beautiful green stained glass window in one of her interior walls that had been made by her dad years ago proclaimed her to be Irish all year round and not just on the 17th of March.  (Perhaps this is only important to me, being all Boston Irish myself.)

I wish the store was a little closer, because this would easily become my first choice LYS, but even with the 10 miles between us, I suspect I’ll be there again.  Heck, according to Mapquest, it’s really only 23 minutes away!

Well, phooey.

I ran out of Plymouth Encore 1014 last night right in the middle of a yellow/orange section.  The nearest yarn store to me is too frou-frou to carry Plymouth, and I won’t have time to get to an LYS further away until Saturday.  The only L.A. store that I even suspect carries Plymouth is Unwind.  I see many phone calls in my future to see if anyone closer has it.  I could close my eyes, spin around and throw a rock and hit at least two stores, surely somebody has it!

It's a zen thing

I know it comes as no surprise to anyone that knitting and crocheting are incredibly soothing activities.  As the yarn slips through your fingers, so does the stress of the moment, hour, or day.  Your mind becomes clearer, more focussed, less cluttered.  It can be difficult to make the world go away, and to do so in a constructive way (unlike, say, vegging in front of a tv–not that I’m against vegging in front of the tv); exercise is the only other way that comes to mind, at least for me, yet exercise isn’t always an option.  For immediate release, there’s nothing like picking up a project and stitching together a few rows.

I bring this up because I did something completely bone-headed this afternoon:  I forgot my ATM pin number.  ?!  Yeah, no clue how I managed that one, but I completely blanked in front of the ATM, and now I have to waste time this afternoon at the bank to clear it up.  But after crocheting a few rows on my log cabin blanket, I’m a little more “whatever” about the whole thing.  Yeah, it was stupid, but I will deal, and it will be fixed, and I will laugh about it next week.  Or maybe next month.

Wait, I think I need to crochet a few more rows…