Yarn on Tuesday

You know how people hate Mondays? After a nice weekend doing whatever going back to work the following Monday really bites. Not for me though. I'm ok on Mondays. I accept that I work 5 days a week (sometimes more) and thoroughly enjoy my weekend (whenever I get the chance). When Monday rolls around I go to work still high on the buzz of the weekend's activities. Now, Tuesday -- that's hard. The weekend is now a distant past and there's still a good portion of the work week to get through before Saturday rolls around again. Tuesdays are when I really need that yarn fix. Used to be you could go to any yarn store and buy yarn on a Tuesday. There are a few yarn stores open 7 days a week, mostly though they are closed 1 day and that day is either Sunday or Monday. But now there are stores that are closed on Tuesdays. I get the point -- if you're going to be open both Sunday and Monday then being closed on Tuesday works -- and maybe Tuesday is the slowest day of the week. And if I know a yarn store is closed on Tuesday I'll just go to one that's not. I work in Santa Clara and if I really need the medicinal qualities of yarn fumes I'll turn my car south on a Tuesday, north on a Monday and I'm fine. It's okay, really. As long as I know.

This last Tuesday though I decided to go further north. I thought, yeah, that's the store where I left my shop hop passport -- I'll go pick it up -- I earned a bumper sticker and I can ask about those beads I bought for that scarf and see if I have enough. Then I can go to that italian deli and get a prosciutto sandwich on fresh foccacia, ooh and a limonata. Convinced I got in my car and headed north. Way north. I parked behind the store. Walked around the block to the front only to find that it was closed. On Tuesday. Damn. Well, it's a short week. Sigh. Ok, I'm here I might as well get my sandwich. I walked up the block, entered the deli and placed my order at the counter. I went to the beverage cooler and picked up my limonata. And while I waited I thought, I really wanted to buy some yarn. Nothing in particular, just a little something...in pink -- sock yarn? Yarn for hand warmers? A little fair-isle project? I was lost in my little yarn daydream, I absentmindedly went to pay for my lunch that I got to go, when it hit me like a sack of sweet potatoes -- there's another yarn store in this town. I headed out the door and back down the street. It was a nice day and the limonata was quite refreshing. I'd gotten a small one and finished it just as I got to the door of the other yarn store, it was open. Yes!

Ah the sweet smell of wool. Ooh the touch of cashmere -- mmm, a nice deep pink colored cashmere blend in the odd ball bin, on sale, 1, 2, 3 balls, score! Hey and what's this? Wool silk in lavender blue and deep purple yummy, we'll need some gray for those fair isle hand warmers. Oh look, sock yarn -- alpaca sock yarn -- hey I don't have this color, a cool red and rose with a touch of gray. I can feel the tension leaving my body. I'm in heaven. I go to pay for my goodies. And I leave the store $70 poorer but I can see the end of the week -- hey and it's a short week. As I pull into the parking lot at work I smile. I leave my purchase in the car. I head up to my desk with my lunch and log into my computer. And, I note what yarn stores are closed on Tuesdays. At least now I know.

If you want a quick fix and need to know where you can buy yarn, right now -- be sure to check knitmap I should have, well, maybe not.

I'm on Ravelry!

OMG! Gotta admit, I sorta tried to resist it. Like a ostrich I buried my head in the ground and pretended it was not there. I signed up and I think I waited, what, a month? But I didn't hold my breath, I wasn't expecting an invitation anytime soon. I keep track of my projects using NeedleTrax. And what was this Ravelry thing but a way to keep track of projects? I've got my lists of "dream projects", "WIPs", "FOs", books, patterns, and oh yes, the stash. Any of which I can export to excel spreadsheets and download to my PocketPC and have at my fingertips. Who needs a new system? I mean really. I was blissfully happy in my own little world.

And then my world imploded. Two things happened pretty much simulaneously: 1) my Yahoo! Photos got move to Flickr and 2) I got my invitation to Ravelry. After a little frustration (step away from the computer, go knit) trying to get my Flickr account settings so Ravelry can see my pictures, I was golden. That was yesterday and I got 5 projects up -- 3 wips, 2 FO's and a few books. This morning I've got 2 computers going. One has Picasa and Flickr running so I can upload more pictures into Flickr. And this one's got Blogger and Ravelry going so I can add more projects, books, and I don't know maybe yarn. I mean should I even go there? This is madness! But evil good fun.

The goal today is to get some of my favorite FO's up and start a "queue". I'm not going to take a picture of every yarn I have and project planned. At least, not today. I will also try to get most of the WIP's in. This one's already there:

Florence Shrug is done. Vivace Bamboo in Rainbow. It's big and it, um, grew, but I'm moving on. After 10+ years knitting you'd think I'd know my own gauge! I do know my personal sock gauge, I durned well knit enough socks to know that 64sts around with size 1 or 2's works for me. I've yet to find that magical formula for sweaters that fit. So far it's work the next size smaller w/ needles also down a size. Yes, I'm a loose knitter. And no, I didn't do that with Florence. Sigh.

Now that I've finished something that was ALREADY ON NEEDLES I don't feel so bad starting a Clapotis (in CTH wool silk) and Lady Eleanor (with CE Embrace, oh yes I did). They're already up on Ravelry. And with all this "ravelry" going on, I'm ready to finish up some more stuff. Next off the needles: Jester Scarf (no really) and Tokyo Bloom which will now be a shrug. If you're on Ravelry -- I'm "fiberdev".

Finishing

The yarn harlot sets the pace in this knitting household. Although I can't keep up, I do try. She was on a finishing stint but has since moved on. She finished Kauni, I bought the kit. She finished MS3, I'm on clue 3. She received her reward yarn. I ordered mine and since it's "dyed-to-order" it'll be awhile.

Having just bought a whole slew of projects the guilt in not finishing anything was weighing heavy on my shoulders. Looking at the mountain of work ahead of me seemed too overwhelming. Everything currently on needles either needed lots of knitting or lots of thought. But I had to finish something...so I cast on this:









Sometimes you need a boost.

The Haul

Not bad for a weekend jaunt, eh? Ok, ok -- the bag in the back right only 2 of those colors were purchased during the hop. That's the Rowan Summer Tweed, now I have enough for the Tobias sweater -- you like the colors? Bag in the back left -- that's four hanks of Schaefer Esperanza, yum. Also in the basket are 2 sks of Suri Elegance -- enough for a full sized shawl. Among the bags here there are 2 sweaters, 1 shawl, 2 shrugs, 1 stole, 1 hat, 1 sack, 4 pairs socks, 2 pairs fingerless mitts, 2 scarves, 1 vest, 1 pair of slippers, 3 sks laceweight merino and 2 sks alpaca which I don't know what I'm going to do with,...well I'm not sure what I'm going to to do with the Esperanza either -- but there's enough for a sweater.

Note: 3 of these projects are K's ;)

More Shopping!

Whew! I don't think the KFYS 07 was such a good idea. It was suppose to keep me from adding to the stash and all it did was made me wait and do it later. And boy did I make up for lost time! This weekend was the Peninsula to Pier LYS Shop Hop, and I did all 16 stores. I started slow by visiting the middle stores (where I live) during lunch, Rug & Yarn Hut and Yarndogs Thursday, and Commuknity and the Knitting Room Friday. Friday night my favorite Aunt VJ came up and Saturday morning she, my eldest daughter K and I piled into my Pacifica and did the "southern" stores starting with Continental Stitch in Morgan Hill.

In the morning I programmed the 7 stores in my GPS and off we went. The day was beautiful for driving and shopping. CS was a good first stop as they have so many inspirational ideas! VJ bought a kit for the carpet bag in IW Felt, something she's been wanting do since she first saw the bag in a previous issue of IW Knit. The Pacifica got us to Carmel even though I already knew how to get to Knitting-By-the-Sea, however I didn't have a street number to put into the GPS so I made one up. But you know, the funny thing about making up a number is we had to drive to that spot before the GPS would move to the next item in the itinerary. Each shop on the tour features a 1 skein pattern and special on the yarn used -- K got the yarn for KBTS's project, a cute mini duffle purse. The next stop was Monarch Knits where I saw a Summer Tweed sweater out of Rowan #41 in a different colorway and I thought, "Hmm, I have that magazine but I don't remember that sweater". I got some luscious karaoke to SPIN! MK had expanded since I'd been there last and has a full spectrum of spinning fiber! It was lunchtime and I highly recommend being in Monterey when you're hungry -- there's lots of places to eat off Lighthouse -- we got directions to Sea Harvest and enjoyed fresh fish, yum!

Half the day had gone and we had 4 more shops to go starting with Yarn Place in Capitola and ending with Luminous Threads in Felton. These shops we go to semi-regularly when we do our annual retreat. I bought the crochet project featured at Swift Stitch (the sample and yarn was so luscious that I don't mind that it's not knit). VJ bought fuzz for a felted Hedge Hog. At the Golden Fleece both of us got a mini needle felting kit and I got a deal on 8 sks of a discontinued color of Kathmandu Aran (I'm not one to turn down pink yarn on sale). As an added bonus we stopped at Yarndogs so K and VJ could get their passports stamped.

When we got home we all put our pj's on and knit -- we were sooo tired! My awesome husband (and I'm not saying that because he's reading this over my shoulder) got us takeout from our favorite Chinese restaurant and we all got to rest up for the next day's itinerary.

Sunday morning we were all gung ho to visit the "northern" stores. VJ hadn't been to ANY of those stores. Nine Rubies was the first stop. I'd never been to this one either and boy was it a treat! They had hired a consultant to do the their layout and it was well worth it. You could do a 360 in the room and see everything they had. The yarn/project featured was Baywood Yarns and the dyer was there. I got 2 sks of the featured yarns (1 each in the same colorway, which by the way was called "Jocelyn's Red" -- ha, ha -- named, not for me but for one of the staff at Nine Rubies). From there we headed back south to Creative Hands where I found a pattern book for my Kathmandu (score!). We had lunch in Menlo Park after a visit to Knitter's Studio then left for the last two shops in Los Altos. At Uncommon Threads I thumbed through their copy of Rowan #41. Remember the sweater I saw at Monarch? Turns out I already had 2 of the 4 colors for the sweater so I bought 2 more. At Full Thread Ahead K got the featured project, a lovely feather and fan in hand painted merino laceweight, and I got my 16th stamp and turned in my passport. This was the end of the line for VJ too as she had guests waiting back home. K decided she wanted to fill her passport so we went on to revist those shops that were close to home before calling it a day.

I'm still buzzing from the yarn fumes -- the hop was fantabulous fun. Please visit the shop hop link to find links to all the shops and pictures of the projects. Kudos to the organizers and all the yarn shops that participated -- my stash runneth over.