Recent incidents

In an interesting development my stash has radically changed in size.

See, there is this woman who had a storage unit. In this storage unit she had yarn. Lots and lots of yarn. This was too much for her. So she invited the local Yarn for Breakfast group over to 'adopt' some yarn.

For myself, I was not sure I would be getting a chance to participate, but with the help of my friend I was one of the first ones there.

I think you see where this is going, no?



The arrangement was for members to go over in shifts, to prevent overrunning her house. Three vehicles were on the first shift, four ladies in our truck, two in a car and a single person in another car. Our truck arrived before the other vehicles.

It is theorized that our vehicle contained a greater quantity of yearning and anticipation (due to the quantity of knitters in the vehicle) pulling us toward our destination which allowed us to leave the coffee shop last yet arrive first.

And arrive we did. Cheerfully and politely we knocked and where granted admission into a strangers house to paw at her yarn.
And yarn there was. There were boxes of yarn. Boxes and boxes of yarn. Not small cute boxes, but rather large plastic tubs and moving boxes STUFFED with yarn. There were cones on top of the table. There were boxes on top of furniture. There was yet another room with even more and larger boxes. It was awe inspiring, but the crux was what was in the boxes.
For inside the boxes were neatly organized bags and bags of yarns. Some where of a set, a grouping of matching yarn producer and color. Other bags contained the makings of nice afghan kits. Sometimes there were several bags of the same yarn. Sometimes there were bags of balled/or wound yarn and another bag of the same yarn as it was when it was shipped to her.



Often we had to stop and ask her, "What type of yarn is this?" She was happy to answer, "handspun from Washington" or "handpainted yarn from Tibet" or "that was a colorway designed for me, would you like to see the jacket I made from it?"






Of of the things I ended up scoring was a full bag of six wound skeins of matching yarn for a future sweater. She picked the yarn for me based on what I was describing for my sweater and based on my eyes.





Several times cried, "I am done! No more!" (I have witnesses who heard me say it.) Three times this statement was met with further accumulation of yarn into my arms. Eventually, and with great effort, I made it to and out of the front door. Myself and another lady from our carpool staggered out into the sunlight, joyful and afraid. (Part of that fear was that we may have gone a bit overboard, part of that fear was that perhaps we might have missed something) With great willpower we stayed outside, trying to catch our breath, until the other two people from our vehicle made it out.

Then we collected our new yarns and hightailed it to the truck before the others would waiver as we had been doing.

We were not too soon as the others started making it out side and hustling to their car. I found out later, when we regrouped at the coffee shop and tagged the next group yarn hunters to go, those ladies who were last out of the door were asked a few times if they were coming back for more yarn. The lady who needed to be free of a good portion of her stash was very adamant that they needed to take more yarn or come back for another round.

I fear that even after the last car left (including those that did go back for a second run) there was probably still yarn left. I just hope that we made a good enough dent on her stash.



In the meantime I had a new concern.

As I have mentioned before, my roommmate and another friend of mine have taken to muttering words like "yarn addiction" and "intervention" in my general direction. This can be a bit distressing and as I looked at my pile of adopted fibers, I was most worried about my roommate finding out. Worried enough that before I left the coffee shop, I cast on for his second sock.

Luck was with me when I finally returned home. My roommate was gone and I was able to move the yarn into my room without him witnessing it. Eventually he did show up and went straight to the kitchen to start making our lunches for the week (he cooks, I clean, it works). I waited until he was quite busy chopping onions to let him know that I had spent the morning with my knitting group.
I guess I might have sounded a bit guilty as he responded, "And?"
"Nothing. And nothing. I just thought you should know."
He brushed this off and I quickly departed back to my room having made my disclaimer and feeling like I had won.

Later, we were talking about my computer and the silly habit it has of going into standby mode. He offered to fix it. I said that it could wait.
He was standing between me and my room. He was closer to my door than I was and there was no way for me to get around him to block access.
He insisted it would be quick and easy to fix and turned toward my room.

"NO! Don't go in there!" I cried.

He paused, turning slowly to look at me. My roommate did not ask why, or what it was I did not want him to see or even if I had gotten more yarn. Unfortunately he is too bright for that.
"How much yarn did you bring home?"

"Um..."


He quickly opened the door and rushed into my room, where he froze. He stayed perfectly still for several moments, his eyes locked on the THREE bags of yarn piled up in my chair.

"It was free yarn," I muttered, "doesn't even count, really." But I knew I was busted.

I am hoping that having completed several projects lately has helped balance this out in his eyes, though even I know there is more new yarn that came in than there was old yarn turning into FO's.


But I am happy with my new yarn. It is totally gorgeous and I think it balances out the knitting up and giving away my Angora yarn. I have decided the fact that I was able to participate and was one of the first ones in is good yarn karma for my treasured yarn sacrifice. Totally.

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.

Some Statements on Sinister Knitting

I recently got involved in a discussion about Sinister knitting in Ravelry on the On The Other Hand forum (a group for left handed people who knit and crochet).

A left handed person, we will call them B, had joined the group and in response to a thread that dealt with a new knitter learning Sinister knitting, piped up to say that she should be given an option of right handed knitting so that she doesn't have to deal with issues reversing patterns.
In a way, it almost seemed like flaming and a few people did react. After a few posts where B said they were being attacked, I put in my two cents as follows:

I think part of the issue here (and this is my view), is that some of the things you are saying is the same things many of us have heard in our lives which threatens to drive us away from other people and bonds us as a group here in OTOH.
Thus, some of your statements push buttons.
For example:

“Knitting is a two-handed activity”
Sure, and so is playing guitar, but that does not change the fact that some people are more comfortable doing where the left hand will be doing the more intense or precision or the larger amount of work. Putting a stick in a small hole of yarn does require a bit of eye-hand coordination, thus while both hands can be used (some knitting styles don’t use both hands) one hand needs to be more involved and therefore the knitter needs to use the hand that they are comfortable with.
While people can overcome discomfort through practice and repetition, many of us believe that overcoming left handed leanings (even as a simple suggestion) is offensive.

“you can only ask online and hope people give you good advice”
That I can simply disagree with. A person can learn by trying and swatching and practicing. This will allow them to not only figure out the question, but also to learn something knew which can apply to future projects or designing patterns. There may be some people who would rather have all the answers handed to them than to risk trying on their own, but there are many who will bravely move forward even if we can’t find a helping hand. I learned to knit all by my self with no one to ask what the small pictures meant. I don’t know if knitting help was available back then, but it sure didn’t cross my mind to check. Instead I just tried and tried until I thought I had it right. I made scarves that got better each time. Now I can teach right handed people to knit, and not just the basics. A person is limited to the basics if they are not willing to experiment. Before I ever got a pattern book, I was fiddling with yarn and figuring out many different ways to increase and decrease, wondering if what I was doing had a name or if I had discovered a new technique.

“having to translate all the patterns and most of the instruction books”
This is just untrue and has been mentioned already. MOST patterns do NOT need to be translated. (Caps used for stressing the word, not yelling). Most patterns can be knit up just as is with no changes needed. None. At worse, the ws/rs is flipped, but since MOST patterns don’t even mention ws/rs again it does not matter and no changes are needed. Any person with enough braincells to rub together will learn while knitting, in whatever direction, and end up being able to figure things out, or have friends to ask, when they do get to the more challenging things like lace.
For the record, lace is challenging no matter which way you knit. Left handed knitters don’t seem to be asking unique questions on knitting technique, but rather benefit from getting answers that do not include “You’re doing it wrong” “you need to learn to knit right handed” and so forth. OTOH provides an arena where we can ask questions and not get our knitting style attacked.
Also, many patterns have errors. So even right handed people with only a grasp of the basics are going to have to ask for help or try to ‘fix’ the pattern in order to make the project work.

I hope this helps.

The response I got involved B saying that I take disagreement as an attack, claiming that I was easily offended because right handed people are the majority, that someone who chooses to knit left handed will ALWAYS have to translate patterns and that is a BIG DEAL and finishing with more statements about me being easily offended.

So I gave this response:

I do not interpret your disagreement as an attack, I’m sorry if you got that impression some how. I was trying to point out how some things you have said would bother some people. I am not trying to change your views, only trying to provide some perspective.

I am not offended that the majority of many countries is right handed. I am not offended by people being right handed or any such thing. I said it can be offensive to be told to do something that is uncomfortable just to make life a wee bit easier. Life doesn’t get easier just because you conform and doing things in a different way that is comfortable means carving your own path. I have no problem spending a little bit of energy to follow my natural inclinations and I still have energy left over to knit and do other things.

You are welcome to make your own choices. Freedom of speech means you can voice the advice that you thing is good, but it also means other people can disagree with you. Funny you say that it is a big thing for you, yet you wonder what a person is doing wrong if they turn being left handed into a big deal.
I think it is amusing how many people make a big deal out of knitting right handed and make it sound like it is such a better way to do things. If it is better for you, that’s great, but it is not better for everyone. The big deal about doing something left handed is dealing with right handed people constantly shoving out the same advice as if it was something new. It really does get tiring to be told about pattern difficulties, especially when so many left handed people have not had such a difficulty.

“You seem to be so invested in your left-handedness that you want to deny that this choice exists.”
First, you are not me and you do not know me or how I think. I do not go around telling people to knit left handed. In fact, handedness only seems to come up when someone else points out which hand I use. I am not invested in left-handedness, I am supportive of people who do things the way that is most comfortable for them. If the ratio was reverse and I heard someone telling a right-handed person to do it left-handed I would defend that person’s right to be comfortable. I do not deny the existence of choices and how you got that is a mystery to me. Considering your previous statement about the majority of the “world” being right-handed coupled with being left-handed runs counter to the idea of denying a choice. Rather, my statements have been the opposite. People should have a choice and those options should be provided without scare tactics attached. Telling someone to do something one way because the other way will make their life harder is not a balance explanation of the option.

I have never said I was offended that people need to choose nor that they may choose something different than me. I’m sorry, but I’m not that ego-centric. If someone makes a decision to do something how they want to, I’m OK with that. It is their choice. I think it would be even better if they tried out both options first. It’s not like a person will be limited to knitting only one way for the rest of their lives.
Frankly, I don’t care how you chose to knit. If someone asks because they are trying to decide, then great and whatever decision they make is wonderful. Unfortunately I have met many people who are very insistent that left handed people have to learn right hand knitting and if they learned left handed they have to relearn everything JUST so they can avoid the cliched line of problems with patterns. People who act that way bug me, because frequently it is those same people who want left handed people to eat right handed and write right handed and everything else.
A lot of people in this group have run across the same issues.

The purpose of my post was simply to try and shed a little light as to how some things you said can lead to the reactions you have gotten. If it is accidental flaming, then now you know that maybe you could consider what you are saying and to whom. That doesn’t mean you can’t say what you want, but don’t be surprised or get your hackles up if someone disagrees with you. Advocating right-handedness in a left-handed forum (especially since there are so many people on the main forums who do it all the time) is going to get people going.

Hopefully you understand that there is no personal points being made here. I’m not attacking you and I don’t think you are attacking me. If you read this and still don’t understand, fine. We can agree to disagree, and may again in the future.

B came back saying that the standard way of knitting was not necessarily right handed (a confusing statement, really). B then said their point was that the new knitter had to choose how to knit and our group was obviously on a crusade to make the world easier for left handed people and that not telling a new knitter that they would have to translate patterns and reference books is dishonest.
B went on to say we were "downplaying" the issue of patterns and that it was equally as wrong as not telling a left handed person that standard knitting would be awkward. B stated that they had given their advice and opinion and had gotten attacked for it, sited posts that were considered attacking and said they were done with the conversation.

I got the impression that B was claiming to wash their hands of the issue as an emotional response and probably wasn't done stating their side. Thus, the next response:

I understand you are willing to drop this, as am I.

Yet I think in our discussion we have one basic disagreement that we are dancing around but not directly addressing with each other. If you don’t respond I’ll understand and I won't push.

You seem to believe that all or most of the patterns will need to be changed or adjustments made.

Based on my experience and taking other people’s statements into account, this not true.

Patterns that need adjustment are actually not something a beginning knitter is likely to run across. By the time they pick up a pattern that really needs an adjustment, they will already have been knitting left-handed.
Often, there are decreases that do not make a difference in direction, so it no adjustments needed.

I understand you are left handed and, if I recall correctly, you knit your stitches from the left needle to the right needle. If this is correct then you knit right-handed and that is great, but that means you follow patterns as written. So your statement that most patterns would have to be adjusted is based on a belief and not experience. I’m not saying that as an attack, rather just to clear things up a bit, but if it is an accurate statement then perhaps you might take in to account the views of people who have been knitting sinister (aka, from right needle to left) for years when we say that the pattern issue really is not a big deal.
Most patterns work just fine. Left-handed knitters ask for help on the same techniques that right handed knitters ask and have equal amount (if occasionally different reasons) of problems with patterns. Frequently, the way you knit, does not make a difference with the pattern.

If there was no support for someone to get pattern help then the occasional issue would be more of a big deal, but that is not the case. Just as a beginning knitter often needs help, if they can get the help then any difficulty is reduced. If someone in Florida wanted to learn downhill snow skiing and they have people to answer questions and give support then it is not as hard as someone in Colorado trying to learn it all by themselves.

The existence of our group helps reduce any difficulty for other people who knit sinister. It’s part of why we are here. It is not about changing the world, but rather supporting each other in a world that often seeks to change us.

B then quit the group then made a final post on the subject claiming that our group was holding a belief that knitting stitches from left needle to right was right handed and knitting from right needle to left was left handed and B just could not accept those terms as B did not believe the direction of stitches to be related to right or left hand knitting.

That blew my mind and I made a final reply stating that we did not make the rules, or in this case the definitions, but that we live with those terms.

After all was said and done, I felt there was some good points worth posting here. The claim that all patterns have to be adjusted if you knit sinister is WRONG, just plainly and simply WRONG. I would be nice if we could lay that excuse to rest and move on.

Coming up:
The really delayed post about the Yarn For Breakfast X-Mas Party.

The good and the bad and the really bad

Last night I was writing this post in my mind. In my fancy I thought of titling it "Good news/Bad news". The following text would crow my success on one project and lightly bemoan the errors of another. There was to be a finishing flourish holding my success as a beautiful reason to overcome the challenges that other projects may throw at you. There was going to be pictures of the "good news" project.

Unfortunately things did not work out so simply. Allow me to start again. I shall start with the good news, and rather than writing a story of triumph support us over difficulties, this story shall be a bit more of a tragedy.

It begins back in September. No, it begins earlier.
It was the end of July when I gave my roommate the opportunity to select some yarn for a requested project. It was September 13th when I cast on, using the toe-up afterthought heel steps and no real pattern. I cast on at the Yarn for Breakfast Meetup and with the help of my friends found the needed math to make the sock. The afterthought heel went well.
I did occasional fittings after I got past the heel. The comments were that the foot was a bit snug. I told him that would probably block out.
This brings us to 6:08 PM last night.
That was the time on the clock when I cast off the last stitch on the cuff. The sock was shown off to some coworkers. A text message was sent to my roommate warning him of an impending surprise. After dinner I presented him with Sock A and around 10 PM he tried it on.

This, dear reader, is where things take a bad turn.
For now, we shall pause and look toward the originally planned "bad news."

I have been knitting a simple two row sock for my friend Bill. It has gone smoothly and quickly and feels very nice. It has already shown a very distinguished coloring and is very much a man' man's scarf. I have knit almost 3 feet of it, reveling in the simplicity of making a scarf that relies on the texture and color of the fibers rather than intricate stitches to stand out.
Unfortunately, the "pattern" for the scarf was not read closely enough.

Rather than being a simple stockinette going the length of it, it is actually a 1x1 rib. The difference in this is the rolling of the fabric. Right now, the part of the scarf not close to the needles is in the form of two tubes.

I could continue the scarf. A quick purchase of fabric relaxer and studious use of steam pressing could resolve the issue. Though when the scarf is washed, the process would have to be repeated. If this was my scarf, I would be fine with that.

What I should due is frog it back and redo it in the proper ribbing. Even if only for the outside rows.

I don't think I could cheat my friend Bill by taking a short cut and leaving him extra work for the life of the scarf.

This, this was my big bad news. Now, compared to the really bad news, frogging a few feet of scarf is nothing. It does not even cause a slight twinge. I have a deeper pain to deal with.

Please understand. I have the calf muscles that many strong short women have. My calves are made of curves. A quick look at a top down sock pattern for men shows a wider ribbing at the top of the leg than the bottom.
I can blame my brain, claiming that I was subconsciously knitting the socks for myself. I could blame this other pattern for putting bad theory in my mind. Either way the result is the same.

I widened the ribbing as I reached the end of the sock. I wanted the sock to be comfortable. I cast off VERY loosely as that is what every cuff bind off says one should do.

When my roommate tried the sock on last night, it was snug at the foot and perfect around the ankle. Where it went up toward his knee it belled out with enough room to encompass his pants after being rucked up for the fitting.

Thus, at 10:30pm I started ripping.

I shall have to redo around half of the leg. There is, in my mind, a sore temptation to leave that sock for a while and cast on for the other one. I am a bit mad at the sock I have, though I know it is my own fault.
I have never been terribly good at picking up stitches and trying to thread the ribbing with floss has turned out to be beyond me at this time. I have considered ripping the leg all the way back to the heel. The ribbing really does start a bit earlier than it should.

So here I am, at the beginning of December with two projects a'ripping.
I am almost afraid to touch the blanket. I don't want to frog that one, please. It is too big! It would be too much! No. I shall not touch it. Not for now. First I must fix these other projects. Then, then it will be safe. Right?

New to the Stash

Well, today I went and bought more yarn.

Why, you might ask?
Is it not enough that I have yarn stacked around me, in boxes, in dresser drawers and in bags in the closet?

Apparently not.

Thought to be fair, I had to go get yarn today because I needed to secure my gift for the gift swap at the Christmas party Yarn For Breakfast is having. Pictures of yarn for the swap may or may not be included in this post. Wouldn't want to give it away, now would I?


Unfortunately the store I went to was having a sale of half off on half of the store. This meant that I could buy a yarn that was normally $43 for only $21.50.
How was I to resist? I mean, we are talking 2480 yards of fingering weight (though everyone says it is lace weight) yarn for the lowest price one may ever find on such a product!


Admittedly, the sock yarn was not really needed, though the price was very nice. The silk I needed since I already have one skein. All in all, I think I did rather well at keeping my purchases to a minimum.
Edited to Add: Here's this for fate. The skein of Shibui Silk Cloud I got is the EXACT dye lot match to the one I already had! None of the skeins that I had to choose from when I was at the store were of matching dye lots and I figured I won't be able to guess which one matched the one at home. I did. I got it right. :-D

A few weeks prior, I had purchased some Allure. It was a required purchase for a specific project. The baby yarn was just to try it out and the glow in the dark yarn was really curiosity. I am not sure why I grabbed two skeins of it.

A brief update

Some how days have slipped past me again without me keeping up on the posts. Mia culpa.

There are some changes coming up soon.
First:
As of Monday Oct 20th, I will be a full time technical support representative for a cell phone company.
This is will be an evening job and during training I will be getting out at 7pm. After training I will be working until 11pm or Midnight and will have either a Saturday or Sunday every week to work.
The drawback of this is that I will not be able to attend most (or maybe any) of the Yarn for Breakfast events. There will be the two month training which will allow for me to be late to the Norfolk event, and the chance I might make one Portsmouth morning event, but that will be it. After training I shall not have the chance to visit with these fine people.
Frankly I won't have much of a life at all, but I will miss going to these events.

Second:
Once I get paid and get all caught up with my debts, I will be able to buy yarn and patterns again!
Since I won't have much of a life, I expect that I can do a bit more knitting and talking online about knitting. That is the theory at this point, so we will see how that works out. Prior experience with my other blog shows that having a life reduces blogging.

Now for a quick update.
Remember I mentioned teaching a friend how to knit? Well we finally got to spend some time together recently. She came over and we spent the day knitting, followed by a lovely dinner my roommate cooked. (He understands that knitters make him stuff and should be fed.)
While she was over she showed me the blanket she is working on. It has the dropped yarn over that is fairly popular right now. Her pattern varies, so it makes waves and bubbles. I looked at what she had done so far and asked, "Do you know how to purl?"
Why did I have to ask? Because she has been busy knitting on her own and looking techniques up online and has been doing just fine at it, or so she told me on the phone. Therefore it did not cross my mind that I might need to teach her more tricks. I had assumed that she was flying along and teaching herself.
Yes, I taught her to do a knit stitch and a yarn over. Yes, she found a pattern that uses yarn overs and takes it another level by dropping the yarn over. She also had a lovely story about searching online and watching knitting videos to figure things out.
I forget now what video she watched, but I think it was only a how to cast off. She did need to cast of while in Alaska and far from my lessons.
My student did not know how to purl and there were purl rows in her blanket pattern. I asked about how she was handling that part. She tells me she has been wrapping the yarn in the other direction, as she figured that was what a purl was.
Yes, that would be two things I needed to explain and teach her about.
By the way, I want to make this one thing as a gift, but I do not understand this 'round knitting' stuff.
Very well, I happen to have a sock on the needles right now. I can explain what I am doing and show you the process. Easy enough.
Oh! Could you teach me to cable? I so want to learn to cable.
Hmmm, cables you say? Haven't successfully done one yet, but I think I can manage. Let me just go into my knitting library and pull out the 365 Patterns a Day calendar and the Knitting Answer Book. That should do it....

So I had a wonderful time and before you know it I had taught her about Eastern Crossed knitting, how to purl, how to knit backwards (it is what I do after all), showed her knitting on dpns, and handed her some yarn and needles to learn cables on. By the time dinner was served, she was comfortably doing stockinette knitting, 2x2 ribbing, a three stitch cable, Six-Stitch Spiral Cables and the Little Pearl Cable.
I even gave her a brief idea of other increases and the many decreases and how to pick up a dropped stitch, with her promise to come to me for more lessons later on.

She has my copy of One Skein Wonders and now will be reading the Knitting Answer Book to help round out her education. I do feel that these are two fundamentals to knitting. A new knitter must read the Answer Book and needs to understand the potential that is in a single skein of yarn.

WIPS:
The sock is on hold as I have been doing online work at home stuff. Thus my hands are on the keyboard more than they are on yarn.
The laundry soap bag got a few more rows on laundry day, so nothing special to report there.
The Domino case has totally stalled out do to engineering flaws.

That wraps up our post for today.
Tune in next time to learn how I deal with multiple projects that all need the same set of needles.

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.

New Skills

Yesterday I had my first in person lesson about spinning yarn.

This is another fiber related interest that I can blame on Franklin.

I have to say, it was not as challenging as I thought it would be. My first bit, a single ply at this time, varies in width from worsted weight to oh-my-it-will-snap-at-any-second. I am fine with this as I know people who buy that kind of yarn on purpose.

I got the wool and drop spindle from a nice little Learn to Spin Kit. It includes a DVD which I did watch, but I managed to hold myself back from getting into the fiber until I could attend a group event.

Our local Meetup group, Yarn for Breakfast, made plans for a get together to learn spinning. Queue, the wonderful lady giving the lessons, was brutally honest. She told us how she worked a full day then drove nine hours to pick up her spinning wheel, rather than have it shipped, and then stayed up into the wee hours playing with her new wheel. Her spinning wheel looks like this, but is a single treadle (or pedal). It is compact and folds for easy traveling. I got to pedal it a few times and it was very nice.

For now I will stick to my drop spindle. Goodness knows I can't afford a spinning wheel at this time, but someday... oh yes, someday it will be mine.
Honestly I don't know which wheel I will get, but I do rather like the center style design so far.

When I can, I will post pictures of my 'yarn'. In the meantime, I have much practicing to do.