Ah, the memories!

While I have not really gotten much progress in the knitting or spinning categories, I did manage to find the lost pictures from MDS&W.

Behold, the pre-entrance test of Patience:


I kept singing a song in my head,
by a band named Cake,
where the chorus is "And this long line of cars, are all 'cause of you".

Please note: The center picture is the actual road to the festival. The pictures are an accidental and not terribly good panoramic of when my friend and I were waiting. Be forgiving please, it was nine in the morning after a long drive the day before and I was not at my best.

Then there was the parking and the walking, but we will skip that section.

After that there was the fuzzy animals:

The bunnies,

and the llamas,












and the goats,

and, last but not least,
the sheep.












In one of the big buildings, I found some gorgeous spinning wheels.



I mean, if you really want to have a pretty spinning wheel, there is no doubt that you want something like this. If spinning becomes my primary focus (which it has not, so far) then I will probably get a wheel like this. Something that is art for when I am making art, er, yarn.
Yep.

So there, some of my previously-missing-pictures.
I hope you enjoyed!

A missing weekend

I went to Maryland Sheep and Wool.

It was my first fiber fest and I had a blast.

As soon as the morning rain stopped (right after we caved in to get the umbrella out of the car) out came the camera!
Pictures of baby sheep, baby bunnies and baby goats were snapped. Pics of the crowded Ravelry Meetup were taken. I even snapped a few of the sheep dog event and my friend Michelle who was on the trip with me.

I would love to share them with you, I really would.
Unfortunately, the only pics that are on the card are the ones of my friend Michelle.

I know I took pictures. I remember fidgeting with the flash and the exposure when trying to get some nice shots of the lambs behind the big (really crowded) tent that had so many different fibers, books, yarns and a register in the back of the tent.
Strong is the memory of fighting against poor lighting to take pics of the baby French Angora rabbits that I did not buy even when my friend taunted me.
I took the picture to prove how good a roommate I was by not buying them.
No such photo exists.
Nothing of the fest exist except my memories and my fibers (which I shall post about in a different post).


It is sooooo not fair.

Party as Promised

Well, I was going to post this after the party, but I was tired. The next day I had to work and since then I just have been trying to catch up with various things.

Thus follows my report of the Yarn For Breakfast's First Annual Christmas Party and Gift Exchange.


First, the spread. There was tasty food and more tasty food. The picture I took was premature as more dishes arrived a bit later. My favorite was the peanut butter and chocolate cookies, for which I managed to get the recipe.

I brought pastry wrapped cheddar smokies which were actually made by me with no spotter in the kitchen to guide me or prevent me from melting random kitchen items. I am no cook. Baking is a skill I fluent with, but with cooking my vocabulary is limited and often requires a translator. I was very proud of the results of my cooking as the food was tasty and no cutting boards were accidentally destroyed in the process.

Back on December 2nd I aired out my tale of woe as concerns the sock. I told you of how I had ripped it back and left you with a mental image of a tangled pile of yarn next to a partial sock. What I forgot to mention when regaling you with my pain was how limited my pick-up-stitches skills are. Picking up 2x2 ribbing with size US1 needles was beyond me.
I put out a cry for help as the only thing I could think of would be to rip back the entire leg to the stockinette section as I could not thread a lifeline in the ribbing nor find the purl stitches.
My plea was answered by Carly. I promised a gift for whoever got the stitches back on the needles. She told me no such gifts were needed, but I feel she earned it after spending quite a bit of the party tucked away with a bright light working with those size US1 needles quietly concentrating on getting the sock back to a workable state. I had picked up some traditional German Christmas cookies, Domino Stones. They are made with layers of soft gingerbread, creamy persipan and fruit jelly coated in a rich bittersweet chocolate. A barely worthy reward for someone who is willing to do what I myself could not make work.

Diligently she worked and lo, the sock was ready for rows. We needed to complete a row or two to make sure all stitches were accounted for. I told her she could, but as I knit backwards it would probably be best if I did the first row. She was fine with that, but curiosity got to her and she watched me knit the row and asked how she would be able to knit a row for me without making a gap or messing up the stitch orientation. I told her she would knit with the needles on the far side of the sock purling the stitches that were purl oriented to her and knitting the knit ones. Because she would be knitting from the inside it would actually be going the same direction and me knitting from the outside. She asked to try and I handed over the sock. It was an easy success and I got to show that left-handed knitting is easily swappable with right-handed knitting. It was very nice.


Then came the gift exchange. We drew numbers and picked up gifts, then came the opportunity to steal other gifts BEFORE unwrapping the gift. I think this was the best version of the gift stealing I have ever experienced. We had much thieving and still had the surprise of what was in the gift at the end. Several gifts were stolen three times around, the max stealing. This was caused partially because knitters with gifts of yarn can't help but talk about the yarn and so many of us knew that there was some very nice yarns even if we didn't know how much or what else was in the package.
My contribution was named "Most Creative" gift. My gift was two skeins of Cascade yarn and custom designed cookies to match the yarn (plus one cookie that matched a yarn which I have). The yarn was nice, but everyone was taking with the cookies. I had gone to the Cookies by Design store in our area and taken some yarn with me. I talked with the person there and requested cookies that matched and they did an absolutely wonderful job! They even did the labels and the variegation to perfection! They had given me a sample cookie and it was so very tasty. In the gift, I included their catalogs in case someone wanted to see about ordering some.


Myself, I got the perfect gift. See, I wanted the yarns I saw other people had landed. I really did. Yet, each time I caught myself with gift envy I reminded myself of my stash at home and my roommate's comments when I had come home with more yarn after shopping for the party.
No, I didn't need more yarn. Rather, I needed something to replace the knitting bag I used to have. My friend Carolina had crocheted for me a mini-backpack complete with straps. Large enough to hold a large skein and a project. She even put a little pocket on the front and a flap lid with a crocheted button enclosure. This whole thing she made from plastic bags. It was stain resistant, easily cleaned and a great example of recycling. It was perfect, until one of my cats decided to chew off the button and a strap and put a hole in it. When I packed up my knitting to take with me to the party, I had put my projects in this little paper bags I have collected from yarn shops. In a sense, I was brown-bagging it to the party.
I needed a replacement. So when I opened my gift, it was to find the thing I needed more than yarn, a knitting bag! Add to that a super bonus WIP bag! I have been wanting one since I first saw it but have either never found one or was not really sure I would use it. Currently, it is holding the ripped remains of the sock as I work to finish it a second time. The WIP back has prevented me from having to wind the yarn and I know that I could use any ball that will fit in there and yarn won't go bouncing around the room.
Immediately I began loading my projects into the bag and the sock into the WIP bag(which now travels with me to work and back. I take calls while working a sock and can keep the yarn below the desk with no worry about it causing problems.) My roommate does not care for the colors of the bag. When he told me this I told him I could have ended up with more yarn and he shut up quickly. He is learning to accept little wins.

Coming soon:
Knitting for male genitalia is not hard.

Tying up the ends, the conclusion of my trip

On Wednesday, September 3rd, I finally got my chance to visit The Yarnery.
Remember in the last post I said it came highly recommended?
I can easily understand why.

Admittedly I did not get a chance to visit any of the other stores in the Twin Cities, but I figure there will just have to be another trip in the future. St. Paul was lovely and the people were wonderful.

My traveling companions were trying not to visibly drag their feet when we got to The Yarnery, but were failing miserably at hiding their reluctance. I found the solution before started looking for parking. Right across the street is a bar that Bill used to visit often when he lived in St. Paul. He even told us the story about how a drawing of him ended up on the walls.
I directed the boys to stay at the bar while I merrily jaunted across the street for fiber. They were thrilled!

I was as well.

Now, don't get me wrong. They are good boys and they try to be supportive of my yarn addiction, but having them in a yarn shop without the promise of receiving a custom made item is uncomfortable. They stand around and try to fake smiles. They know nothing of yarn and seem uninterested in learning much of anything on the subject. It was decided that, in the event of global economic collapse, I would be in charge of spinning and knitting all sorts of things for the home and for trade. Thus, they don't have to burden themselves with the information.

Now, I admit, I failed to take a single picture of the store. I am not sure how I would have remembered to, since the first thing to be seen walking into the store was a wall of lace weight yarn.

Seriously, they put a whole wall of it opposite the front door. Your eyes are forced to rest upon gorgeous skeins of skinny yarn in all colors and textures immediately.
I probably stood with the door and my mouth open, drooling slightly, for more than five minutes.

Then I was rescued by a most wonderful lady, who will hopefully forgive me for forgetting her name. I explained, while letting my eyes wander briefly from the lace to other yarns, that I was from out of state and how I came to hear about the store.
We chatted a bit and she provided me with a tour of the marvelous store, explaining how each section was arranged by yarn weight. She saved the best for last, that being the wall of yarn on sale.

Before long I had an arm load of yarn. I did try to be careful, truly. After all, my stash at home had already surpassed a hundred different yarns, some of which I do not even know what they are.

I picked two skeins from the lace weight wall, Malabrigo Lace in two colors and from the sale wall I got two skeins of Debbie Bliss Pure Silk (at an absolute steal of a price) and two skeins of Rowan Lurex Shimmer (I could not resist the shiny purple yarn at such a great price).

I made my purchases and, floating on a fiber high, drifted back across the street to check on the boys who were left at the bar.

They were smiling and having a great time even though the pictures had been taken down from the walls and Bill was unable to show us the one of him.
We had reservations for dinner down the road and so had to head out fairly quickly. I took a moment to show off the yarn, even they can appreciate silk and shiny things, and mentioned how very little all that yarn and a large circular knitting needle cost.

Piller looked at Bill and said he was wrong.
Wrong about what, I asked.
He said that he had been telling Bill it was the best yarn shopping trip ever since he was able to spend it in a bar but, now that he knew how much I had spent, he no longer thought that.

I withheld from pointing out how many times he has spent more that I had on comic books, figuring it would only confuse the issue.
Silly boys.

----

There is one last thing to mention about my trip, and that would be what I was knitting while on vacation.
You didn't believe that I went a whole week without moving yarn across needles, did you?

Before we left I had started on the My Favorite Shawl pattern, which I had picked up at the local yarn shop Ewe Knit Kits & Yarn. It is a fairly easy pattern that involves knitting a shawl sideways.

The pattern calls for 500 yards of DK or Worsted weight yarn. I used The Purled Llama's Sol, a worsted weight yarn with rather bright colors of orange and green. The yarn puts me to mind of crayons and kid drawings, which is a bit more colorful than most of my yarn. I love color, but have rarely knit with anything very bright. This was my attempt to get past that.

The yarn is, accordingly, 550 yards.
Which should be more than enough for the shawl.

While we were in St. Paul, I would knit more rows on it every morning. By the time we were to pack for our drive back, I had reached the halfway point. This is decided by measuring the shawl from the middle of your back and then draped forward to verify the desired length has been reached.
I knew we had a longer drive back that we did up, because we were not going to take the toll roads. So I took my knitting with me into the car and knitted nearly non-stop, only pausing when there was no sunlight to see by. For some crazy reason, it took almost twice as long to get back as the trip up. I had two whole days to knit. I reached the end at dusk the second day.

That end was not the finish of the shawl, but rather the end of the yarn.

This yarn is not the kind that has dye lot numbers. Each hank is individually dyed and therefore unmatchable to any other skein. Add to that the purchase time was many months back, so there would certainly be no match, I could not finish the shawl through adding on yarn.
Nor was I going to take some random other yarn (which my stash is mostly darker or more muted colors) and finish it that way. Nope, wouldn't work.
The boys tried all these suggestions and more. I think they were worried about being trapped in a car with a disgruntled knitter who had a cache of pointy sticks at her feet. One suggestion was to cast off there and call it an artistic interpretation.
It was not a bad idea, but I wanted a warm shawl. A blanky that I could get away with carrying around in public. I was more than twenty rows from the end. It would have looked like it had been amputated.

With a deep breath I put the project aside.
No tears, no screaming. I even managed to minimize the twitching.
A master of calm, that is me.

When I got home, I frogged the whole thing back.
Marked the midway point, in case I decided to try again.
And rewound it into a ball.

It will now sit in a basket and think about what it wants to be. Until it has a clear answer, that yarn will not be touched. It is officially grounded until further notice.

I know, it was probably my error. I should have marked the middle of the skein before I started knitting it. I probably made it too big, or perhaps my needles should have been another size up from what I was using.
But if you just push such arguments aside, if only for a moment, then we come to the real point.
My vacation knitting project failed. Really, all of my stitches were perfect and well developed.

I have had many successes, that was the first project to not end well at all. I have removed the evidence of this, and now all that remains of it is this post which I will bravely place on the internet.

Eventually the yarn will be something and it will work out better. In the meantime, I shall focus on other things. It is such a minor thing really.
Thus I will not document the things I said to the yarn as I was ripping out all those stitches. Most of them weren't fit for human consumption anyway.

This ends my vacation posts.
Coming soon: "Quick knits for cold ankles"
Or "Projects that do as they are told"

More Yarn related goodness from my trip

On the morning of my second day in St. Paul, I did some quick searching online. I had traded messages with Franklin Habit before I left. He suggested I visit The Yarnery while I was in town. I made it clear to my traveling companions that there would be yarn shopping during our stay and they accepted this the same way an international traveler accepts having to go through customs.
My online searching turned up a limited time yarn shop that would easily be on our way to other destinations. Thus, when Monday rolled around and we were off to see the RNC hubbub, I casually exclaimed, "Oh, look! A random yarn shop!"
At least I think it was casual. I don't think my companions bought it for a second.

We were quickly greeted by very friendly staff and I even got a guided tour!

A guided tour was needed, as this event was a two week special hosting of five different yarn stores in one.
Five.
In one.

There was much yarn!

I went room to room fondling yarns and testing the patience of my friends. In order to prevent them from reaching full grumbling stage, I quickly turned the tables on them. Doing what any smart knitter would do in this situation.
I turned to Piller and said, "Which sock yarn do you want your socks made out of?"
"Huh?"
"You said you wanted hand knit socks, so pick a yarn."
"I don't know which yarn is sock yarn."
I encouraged him to follow and pointed to a floor to ceiling collection of appropriate fibers.
"Pick one."

This bought me more time and gave me an excuse to walk away with a new skein. He chose the ONline Supersocke 100 Sierra Color 77 in a neat purple-type color. Shown here divided and balled.

I withheld casting on for this sock until I was safely back in Norfolk with my expert knitting friends from Yarn for Breakfast to help guide me. I have made precisely one sock before. Not a pair, just one single sock.
It was very nice not counting that the rib pattern failed and half of it knitted inside out due to a confusion on turning the heel. The reason it is a single sock was because a) it wasn't proper sock yarn to begin with and b) there was not enough yarn to do a second sock.
This time I am doing a toe-up with my own cast-on, no particular pattern and I will be doing an afterthought heel, which will allow me to not mistakenly flip my knitting around half way through.

My gauge is currently showing as 10sts/inch. Piller has large male feet.

This may take a while.

There is more knitting goodness from my trip to come, but you will just have to tune in next time for it.

Finally, a bit about my trip to St. Paul

St. Paul was a lovely place. I hope to visit it again some day.
Our first full day was spent at the state fair. Shortly after the first bit of food and drink were consumed, I insisted on finding the livestock. Thus, I lead four poor bystanders on my quest for raw fibers.

The first thing we found was a booth, outside of a livestock building, proudly displaying the rewards of raising alpacas. They had quite a bit of yarn and many finished items for sale, but what got my attention was the raw fibers.

I picked up a hank of Hand Painted Alpaca Suri Roving (the silky blue fiber on the left), and an ounce of Alpaca batting (the bright pink on the right) for future spinning.
The blue roving feels even better than it looks, and this stuff is gorgeous. I will have to make my way through my first set of fibers I got with my drop spindle before I even think about touching the new fibers, but I think having it will provide much encouragement.

My guilt at having left my two cats at home, almost 1300 miles away, did lead to me buying a cute toy for them from the booth. It was a semi-felted ball of alpaca fibers. I figured Magik, my curious and playful kitten, would love it. When I presented them with it I was not disappointed. Instead, I was surprised at how strongly Hunter, the large and lazy, had decided to claim the new toy as his own. Now I can exercise him by throwing the toy and letting Magik chase it. He will get up and take it away from her then play with it a bit. It seems to have worked as a bribe.

The other four people with me quickly grew impatient as I sorted through all the different items available at the alpaca booth.

Two of the group, Bill and Piller, were my companions for the trip. Both are rather good at making the correct noises when presented with knitting and fiber related words or objects. I know they don't understand much unless it is a finished item they can wear or use, but they do well at knowing when to make positive sounds and when to express sympathy. This may be because of how often I quote lovely knitting phrases like, "Two eyes, two needles" and "Sharp pointy sticks can hurt you more than me". But, alas, even they were ready to move away from the alpaca fiber before I was.

So off we went, resuming our search for livestock. They were at least partially interested in seeing living creatures, but I think mostly they wanted it done with so they could move on to the rest of the fair.

The buildings holding livestock are kindly marked in big letters on the outside declaring what creatures you can expect to find inside.
So, imagine my surprise when we went into the sheep building and found goats. I did a lot of walking around before discovering that there were no sheep in the sheep building. I was informed that sheep had been moved to the swine building so that 4-H could have a goat day.
I at least would have been mollified had there been a single cashmere goat in the building, but there were none to be found. As we left the building I started naming tasty Indian recipes that can be made with goat, starting with a list of curries.

It was a bit more searching to find the swine building, but find it we did. Half of it had the correct swine, but the rest was sheep. Loud, lovely sheep with warm, mostly-white wool.


Some sheep were a bit on the naked side and one being stripped as we watched.
I did get to pick up a few bits abandoned, but most of the sheep there were not raised for their wool. The bright white one pictured just a bit above had the softest wool I had the honor of touching during our tour of the place.

I was informed that most of the sheep there were not raised for wool and, in fact, did not have the proper wool for weaving or spinning. With that bit of knowledge I was ready to leave the swine building and go back to the usual riding of rides, eating of food on a stick and drinking of Minnesota beer that was the original plan held by the majority of our party.

I had a blast at the fair. We wandered around the large grounds, saw many cool things and I picked up a cool gun that does an impressive job of filling the air with round light bubbles. I admit, I have a secret love for all things bubbles. Piller wasted no time explaining the rules, once I had acquired my new toy. No bubbles in the house, no bubbles in the car, no bubbles inside the elevator to and from our temporary residence while in St. Paul.
I nodded and smiled innocently while he recited these rules to me. As soon as I spotted a couple of kids nearby I immediately started firing bubbles into the air. It was not long before I had a happy group of giggling children chasing bubbles like fireflies.
Really, it was a great time.

But wait, there is more! The state fair visit was only Sunday, the first full day in Minnesota. I got two more great yarn related events in during our trip. I will share these stories, and the pics of my new stash additions, in a later post.
So stay tuned!