Yarn Crawling, DC Style

Those are some happy knitters. On the left, in the black and white dress, is Rachael, who blogs as Yarnagogo, and whose first knitting mystery romance will be released early next spring. Believe me, you will all hear from me when her book comes out. She's a terrific writer and I've done what I can to mentor her along the way. She repaid me last year in San Francisco by introducing me to Kyoto, a truly fantastic mohair and silk worsted yarn.

In the middle is the glowing-with-pregnancy ninja knitter, MB, who blogs as Merry Gentlemen. She is also the entrepreneur who has brought us Rock Creek Yarns. That's another brand of crack to add to your collections. Gorgeous stuff, and if you need proof, it's at the end of this post. MB was a Chicago knitter until she became a DC knitter, and she was kind enough to play hostess for our little band of writer-knitters during the DC conference. She did a marvelous job of enabling our addictions.

On the right, wearing the uber-cool shades, is Tara, who blogs as Random Ranter. She's a writer in the early stages of her career, and a knitter of many talents. I don't get her love of cotton, but hey, she can have my share of the cotton if I can have her share of the shetland wool. Check out her blog for a really interesting multicolored cotton scarf that's so cool it makes me want to give cotton another try. And that's saying something.

We spent a lovely day touring the Maryland side of DC. Our lunch was in a little French bistro with outstanding spinach and brie crepes, which adds another line item for my theory that it's impossible to get a bad meal in DC. (Have I already mentioned that my hotel was across the street from the Lebanese Taverna? This is the best middle eastern restaurant I've ever visited, in DC or in any other place.)

Enough about the food. Let's talk about the important stuff. The yarn.

At the first shop we visited, which I think might have been in Bethesda, I bought this gorgeous pink laceweight merino and some wonderful Jojoland sock yarn. I have no idea what I'll do with the laceweight. There are about 1400 yards on that skein, so options abound.




















And this is the rest of my haul. This is the indie-dyer portion of the adventure. Left and center are sock yarns from local DC dyers purchased at a shop in, if memory serves, Hyattsville. Charming shop on a charming street. I fell in love with that blue at first sight, but fate alone knows when I will ever be able to knit it.

On the right is a skein of MB's wonderful silk laceweight. I love her color sense. This one feels like the color scheme you would find in a wild, modernist or impressionist painting of irises. The color manages to be both saturated and pale by turns. Very appealing stuff.

Happy New Yarn!

Starting a stash diet for the new year is an utter impossibility when you live two counties away from an amazing yarn shop, and that amazing yarn shop has its annual blowout sale on New Year's Day.

Today, three carloads of us wound our way up to The Fold, about a 75 minute drive in good traffic with good road conditions. It's worth it even when, like last year, a blizzard slows down the driving.

Last year, I gave myself a stash exception for this particular sale. 30% off all yarn, 40% off all books, and some super discount yarns marked as low as 75% off? I'd be a fool not to take advantage of a sale like that, right?

This year, though, I didn't give myself an exception. I could shop, but within the stash rules for the new year. I wanted to find something for St. Brigid -- see the khaki green yarn -- and I thought I might find a little something in the super discount bin. I didn't, but I fell in love with that chocolate brown undyed Shepherd's Own from Fibranatura, and picked up 3 skeins. Amazing stuff, soft and rich, and my only regret now is not buying more of it.

So I'm starting the new year with 1500 grams added to the plus column. But it could have been much worse, given all the yarns I fondled but left behind.

My stash goal for last year was simple. I wanted to knit as much yarn as I bought, an even grams in / grams out measure. Sock yarn was exempted, and if you leave sock yarn out of the tallies, I ended up knitting 83% of the yarn I took in. (9536 grams in, and 7910 grams out.) If you leave out the yarn I received as gifts, and factor in the pink sweater, which is off the needles but not quite a finished item yet (still needs seams and a neckband), then that number climbs closer to 95%. It's not perfect, but it's not bad, all things considered. Too bad the pink sweater isn't a finished object yet! Or that great yarn hog, Catherine Parr!

Happy New Year, everyone!

About the Sock Yarn

In one corner of a tightly packed closet, atop a narrow bookcase teeters a stack of storage boxes filled with enough yarn to make 63 pairs of socks.

63. I know. I counted.

And that doesn't include the several yarns in the fingering to DK range that could eventually be made into socks. That's just the stuff that was bought expressly to make socks.

I made 9 pairs of socks this year. So at my current rate of knitting, I have enough sock yarn to last me seven years.That's assuming I continue to knit socks at the same rate, which is by no measure a certain thing. I'm planning more sweater knitting, which means less sock knitting.

Three years ago, before I started hoarding sock yarn, these bins held the yarn for sweaters-in-progress. They held needles and notions. Now, to make room for the sock yarn, all those things have been crammed into nooks and crannies on bookcases, which are bowing under the weight of everything I ask them to hold.

2009 will be the year I stop collecting sock yarn as if it doesn't count towards the stash. I'm sure I'll still buy some here and there, and I've "budgeted" to allow myself to purchase new sock yarn after I've completed three pairs of socks. After. Not before. The storage closet has no more credit to extend.

Last year, I granted myself two exceptions in my personal rules. I said that sock yarn didn't count, as long as I paid cash for it from my weekly pocket money allowance. And I said that the rules didn't apply to Stitches and to The Fold's annual New Year's Day sale. This year, sock yarn counts, whether I pay from my weekly allowance or from gold that rains down from the skies.

Will there be an exception for Stitches? Still debating that one. I may leave it an open question until I see just how many pairs of socks I manage to knit between now and September. But my usual splurge mentality for the Stitches marketplace has started to come under heavy scrutiny, too. So we'll see, I guess.

Easing Back Into My Rut

I'm slowly -- very slowly, I'm sorry to say -- reclaiming a normal routine. Things continue to interrupt that process, things such as the phone company guy who spent hours at the new shop on Friday trying to arrange for our phone number to ring on our phones. This was more difficult than anyone anticipated, and I spent many more hours at the shop with him than I had planned.

And then there's the shoulder, which continues to ache intermittently, but is getting better. It's very strange to me to read submissions without working on a plain sock. The two things go together so much that I almost don't want to read if I can't also knit a sock. But my shoulder won't tolerate a lot of movement, so I'm learning how not to multitask again. Except, to be honest, it's hard for me to sit still and just read. Without that sock in my hands, I find myself popping out of the chair far more frequently, so instead of getting caught up on submissions, I'm just sort of picking at them. But at least there's forward motion in that department, too.

Anyway, with a few fits and starts and interruptions, normal life is resuming again. For the most part, I'm at the shop for a few hours in the morning. For the most part, I work at home in the afternoons and evenings. The mountain of laundry which grew during the move is back to manageable dimensions. I even have groceries in the fridge again.

And I have these:



















Two skeins of yummy new Malabrigo sock yarn. I've cut way back on my yarn shopping in the last two months or so, but I made an exception for these. Soft, luscious, with a depth of color and intricacy of shading that's hard to see in pictures. The skein on the left, for example, is steel gray shot through with a dark teal jewel-tone, and once I started looking at the way the colors threaded together, I got sort of lost in the yarn. It doesn't show at all in the photos, no matter the background I used, the photo doctoring, the lighting -- nothing can capture the subtlety of the colorwork in this yarn. It's almost kaleidescopic in person.

So I'm happy with these new purchases, even if it felt like the worst kind of self-indulgence to buy yarn when I can't even knit. And when I'm in stash-busting mode, on a personal quest to minimize the cubic footage of my stash. But the way I look at it is:

a) It's Malabrigo.
b) After the hell of the last three weeks, it was either buy yarn or eat a mountain of chocolate. I've lost six pounds in the last six weeks and would like to keep them off, so yarn is better.
c) This puts me two skeins closer to completing the sock club thingie at Nana's.
d) Did I mention that it's Malabrigo?

Holy. Crap.

I haven't counted up all the yarn yet. I've merely counted up everything I can reach -- minus the organic hand-dyed homespun that was a gift from author Nathalie Gray, which I can't count properly because I don't know the yardage.

There are at least two more boxes of yarn that I can't reach. As far as I can remember, anyway. I know I have some raspberry pink boucle that's in there somewhere, and some natural aran wool -- I'm dead sure they're not packed together, which means at least two more boxes of yarn yet to count.

And without those two boxes, my current yardage total stands at

::drumroll::
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92,519 yards

The Best Kind of Weekend

It all started innocently enough. I went home from the shop Friday afternoon and told myself I ought to wind a second skein of yarn for Da Bears clapotis.

"Self," sez I, "you're probably going to knock out that first skein of Gypsy Girl this weekend. Might as well haul out the swift and winder and wind off the second skein."

So I did. Easy enough.

Then it occurred to me that I still hadn't wound off any skeins for Catherine Parr, and we're casting on for that some time this month. So I wound one pale green and two hunters to get ready for that. Easy enough.

And then disaster struck.

"Hmm," sez I, "Long as you have this contraption set up, might be worth winding whatever else you need for the month. So ... what else do you need for the month?"














Up came the stash bins from the basement. Out came the stash bins from under the bed. Pretty soon, every table in my house was covered in yarn. Living room floor? Covered. Sofas and coffee tables? Covered. Front hall? Covered, and the piano and piano bench too.

I left pathways through the yarn so I could get to the sink for water. Very important to remain hydrated during a major stash dive. It's a highly aerobic sport, y'all. If you love yarn like I do, all that gasping and swooning burns off major calories.

Want a peek?

















This is one of the basement bins. To the left, three mill packs of merino from Stitches this summer. To the right, Cascade 220 in two shades of blue. The exact origins of this stash enhancement are shrouded by the mists of time. I can report that under the 220 was a massive pile of Torino and some green yarn I forgot I owned. Funny how we forget these things.

It's a short hop from the stash bins to the pattern files. And from there, an even shorter hop to delirium and madness.

I wanted to cast on everything. Right. This. Minute. I started searching for needles, hunting for specific patterns, re-reading pattern books that are already as familiar to me as my own fingernails.

I carried yarn with me from room to room, unwilling to part with a current favorite even long enough to make a peanut butter sandwich.

I wound up with a huge pile of books and pattern files next to the bathtub, because you have to have good reading material while you soak, right? And heaven forbid I should walk away from the stash and all its possibilities even long enough to wash my body.

My house looked like an explosion in a knitting factory. It was awful. And wonderful. And a really great weekend.

Some decisions were made, and sanity eventually returned. (ish) My floors are visible again, and most of the stash bins have been returned to their rightful places. And the consequences of this stash dive and winding marathon will be disclosed as the week unfolds. Stay tuned....

Ouch! My Aching Wallet!

From the top: Austerman Step, Silver Creek Merino in color Iris, Bearfoot in solid-ish burgundy, and Claudia Handpainted in a colorway that ought to be named cloudy skies, because that's what it looks like to me.

We piled into a van and hauled on up to The Fold Saturday because Kris needed more yarn for her Fulmar and I needed dye for Lady Eleanor. I was going to be all good and virtuous and not spend money except for the dye and maybe a little sock yarn. The Fold has such a nice selection of sock yarn, and as we all know, yarn has a tendency to leap of its own accord into my shopping basket and sneak a ride home in the back of my car. This is because yarn love me so much, and how can I deny something that wants to be with me so very much?

Yeah. That's it. That's the reason. Because yarn loves me.

So we walk in, and greet the lovely Toni, and chat a minute. I showed her my Fulmar in progress, and Kris showed hers, because we both bought the yarn there during the infamous spinning wheel trip last spring. The whole time we were talking, I kept glancing over my shoulder at something very, very dangerous.

New yarn.

So much new yarn that she even had a new display rack front and center by the sock yarn.

The others started wandering and browsing, but I stopped cold in front of that new display. Claudia Handpainted, lots of new colors of Step and Trekking, even sock yarn made from alpaca. Things I can't get at home, things I haven't ever seen in person before. At one point, I had about nine skeins of sock yarn clutched to my heaving bosoms.

And then I made the dreadful mistake of walking into the yarn room.

Gasp!

...clutch chest...



















It's so -- so -- so --

PURPLE!

And it's Silver Creek Merino, one of my soopah fave yarns!

I think half the store heard my yarngasmic gasp at the sight of that yarn. Luckily, I've been there before. They know me. They know this is just my charming little way. No need to call the paramedics.

It's just because I'm so overwhelmed by how much the yarn loves me.

So I dithered and fussed over how many skeins to buy. I've never seen that purple before. Toni says she had it, but I beg to differ. There is NO WAY this yarn would not have followed me home had I seen it before, and EVERY TIME we've gone to The Fold, I've ended up standing in front of the Silver Creek shelf, pattern list in one hand, calculator in the other, computing the total damage, muttering, "need it, need it, got it, need it, got it" as I scan the colors.

My theory? When I needed a couple more skeins of the Royal for Fulmar, Toni and/or her son went into their storage room to look for it. She mentioned at the time that she found a big box of it. I think the purple was in that box. Just a theory, because, seriously? This yarn belonged to me from the moment it came out of the mill. We just hadn't found each other yet.

I bought every skein she had -- there are eight -- and will use them to make the Swedish Thora.











Also, here is a better picture of the Bearfoot. This yarn doesn't like to have it's picture taken. It's very shy and tries to blend into the countertop. I had to take a lot of pictures to get this one with the true color showing.

So....

The Fold trip was planned before I made my Skinny-4-Stash goals, and that's probably just as well. I would have owed myself a whole slew of treadmill miles to pay for this yarn! And given that the treadmill at the clubhouse broke last weekend (seriously bad bad timing), I'd probably still be walking off that yarn come January.

No, not really. I'm going to go buy a health club membership this afternoon. Gotta have a treadmill if I want to get Skinny-4-Stash and ever be able to shop again!

On Your Mark

Summer of Socks 2007 begins one week from today. Because I have no kitchen and am getting a tetch antsy, and because "a tetch antsy" = "swamped by an OCD-like urge to organize my crap," I pulled out all my sock yarn and laid it out on the table. That's enough to make 26 pairs of socks. I seriously doubt I can knit 26 pairs of socks in 3 months. Six pairs would be more like it. Eight, if I really knit hard.

Which means I am currently engaged in the very pleasant task of shopping my stash for the lucky eight skeins and in debating sock patterns for those eight. I know I want the Dale Baby Ull (upper left corner, turquoise) to be textured, maybe with some kind of cable pattern. I know I want the black and gold Lorna's Laces (top center) knit in plain stockinette, toe up, to make tall socks to wear to football games this fall. (Black and gold are my alma mater's colors.) And, of course, the grey frogged yarn between the Dale and the black and gold LL is intended for Jaywalkers.

Other than that ... ? I'm sort of in the anything goes stage, but I thought I might at least make a couple decisions in advance of next week's official kickoff. I am leaning toward starting with the Koigu (under the L of the Dale) because it's already wound into cakes. Seems like as good a rationale as any for picking the first pair.

My only other knitting goals between now and then are to finish the striped socks (which are behaving themselves now), and the Shedir (which is not).

I did something somewhere I wasn't supposed to do on that Shedir, and now the pattern is all out of whack. There are purls where there should be knits, and knits where there should be purls, and altogether more stitches than I'm supposed to have. I'm going to have to tink back the crown shaping until what's on my needles makes sense again.

In other words, Shedir is in jail. But it can't stay in jail too long, because the woman it's intended for may not have much time left to wear it. So sometime before next Thursday, I'll tink and reknit until it's off the needles and on her head.

In Book News...

I keep forgetting to report that I finished "Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife" by Jane Berdoll. I read this book for what might seem a silly reason: I met the editor, liked her, and wanted to see something she'd edited. This book met that criteria, plus I'm something of a Jane-ophile. (Austen, not Berdoll.)

The book was good. I was initially dazzled by the author's ability to remain true to Austen's style, which couldn't have been easy. As the book dragged on, though, I started to get offended by the liberties taken with Lizzy's character. Casual fans of Pride and Prejudice -- such as those of you who have only been exposed to the story through that thoroughly irritating Keira Knightley film adaptation -- will probably not feel anything near to my irritation over Berdoll's conversion of Lizzy into a foot-stomping, pants-wearing, fiesty romance heroine. But for those of us who know and love the book, the loss of Lizzy's dignity alters the character too far.

In the end, though, the spot-on rendering of Darcy's character and the brilliant echoing of Austen's voice allowed me to like the book. I give it a qualified recommendation for those of you looking for some intelligent but fun summer reading.

After finishing that book, I reached for "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a book which has been on my TBR list since before it was available in English. Well, technically, it's more a novella than a book, but it's diminished length didn't diminish my interest in reading it. As expected, it was a lyrical, beautifully written piece, light on plot and heavy on character. I enjoyed every word and feel enriched for having read it. What more could we ask from any story?

Note To Self

Dear Self,

In light of today's escapade at the yarn shop, I feel compelled to remind you of a few things.

Yes, yes. It was aminor escapade. Especially for you. You do tend to buy yarn by the truckload. Not by the cutesy little lunchbag-sized load. So two skeins of sock yarn and a single skein of Calmer is really not that bad.

But you see how that rationalizing works? You say, oh it's not so bad, it's just three skeins. And then the yarn follows you home despite your earlier decisions to abstain from yarn shopping for a while.

You remember last year at Stitches Midwest? In the market -- the market with millions of skeins of yarn, all of which made you nearly hyperventilate with yearning? You remember how paltry your $150 yarn budget seemed in the presence of such yarnbundance? Keep your money close, Self, so that you can really splurge at Stitches this year. You know you want it that way.

And don't give me any crap about sock yarn not being stash. Admit it. Seven six-quart bins of sock yarn are jampacked -- you can't even fit all the sock yarn in there any more. That's forty-two quarts of socks waiting to be knit, plus the odd skeins hidden in your knitting bag and cookie jar.

That's stash.

And that's why you joined the Summer of Socks. Because you want to lighten the sock yarn load a bit. And clear out some space before Stitches. You'll need it for the STR binge you have planned. Try to remember that.

Also try to remember that you don't have to buy every single bit of teal sock yarn in greater Chicagoland just because you're knitting a teal cardigan that you really, really love. You can only wear one pair of socks at a time, you know. And it's entirely possible that you won't want to wear the cardigan every single day to match your avalanche of teal socks.

Now, the Calmer, that we can all agree was excusable. You have a family member in heavy treatment for recurrent breast cancer. She will not be with us much longer. Neither will be her hair, and she needs a chemo cap. A very soft one. In a pretty, uplifting, feminine color. Nothing in the stash will come near to accommodating this project, so a single skein of Calmer is perfectly acceptable.

Especially when it's on sale. As was everything else in the store. But that doesn't mean you can buy it all. No, you can't go back there tomorrow, even though the sale is still on.

Now, Self, go knit what you've got, and try to get a little Self-control. It's only two months until Stitches. You can handle it.

Very truly yours,
Me.

Diet Food

I went to the yarn store today to buy the new IK. This is the same yarn store for which I have a 15% off coupon just about burning a hole in my wallet. I intend to use that coupon to pick up some sweater yarn, but not until after Stitches. Because I am not buying yarn until Stitches, remember?

I think I did okay today. The purple dishcloth cotton is needed to finish off some, well, dishcloths. Imagine that! I needed this solid purple to do a coordinating trim on some leftover variegated from my learn-to-entrelac project last summer. (Entrelac wash cloths ROCK! One side is smooth, and one side is scrubby. Love em!) So I don't mind spending two dollars on a single ball of cotton that will allow me to clear out some old stash. And I don't think it counts as a diet-breaker.

And the sock yarn? Everyone know sock yarn doesn't count! But seriously, you can all be proud of me. I had two skeins of Cherry Tree Hill supersock in hand, and was fondling some very, very intriguing On-Line. Instead of buying the lot, I went for the Regia in grey and black. I wear a lot of grey and black, and there are very few sock yarns to match. So this was a good buy, and it will be knit as my next carry-along project. (My current carry-alongs, the trampoline socks, are one botched cast-off away from FO status.)

All told, I spent around $23. For me, this is practically miraculous self-control. Woot!

Fold Report, or, The Fellowship of the Wheel

We band of naughty knitters, we sisterhood of the clicking sticks, journeyed far (like two whole counties away) under indescribable conditions (a/k/a Becca's new hybrid, indescribably cool) with one common goal: a spinning wheel for Kris. Okay, better make that two goals, cuz some of us really really wanted to buy yarn too.

We braved traffic (294 sucks ass), ferocious weather (well, more like a light spring rain), and death defying obstacles (the i-290 split) in search of only the greatest yarns. Nothing could keep the intrepid knitters out of the yarn room at The Fold. Not even the snarling fangs of Cerberus himself.


Okay, okay, he's hardly the demon dog of the underworld. But we did have to occasionally step around him to get to a new shelf of yarn. That counts, right?

Here is my total haul:

From the left, that's a skein of Austerman Step (the one with aloe), Socks That Rock in the In The Navy colorway, two skeins of Gypsy Girl sock yarn, and an eight skein pyramid of Silver Creek merino in the Royal colorway.

I have to take a minute to plug the Silver Creek yarn. I have no idea who makes this stuff, and have never seen the yarn anywhere but The Fold. But I have to tell you, it's a dream to knit with. The colors are incredibly saturated and rich, and it knits into an indecently soft fabric with crisp stitch definition. Plus the skeins are enormous -- 306 yards of sportweight per skein. I mean, most of you know the size of a STR skein, right? Look at how much larger the Silver Creek skeins are by comparison. That's a lot of quality yardage for the price.

Something tells me I'll never be able to go to The Fold without buying more of the Silver Creek yarn. I'm already thinking of the rosey-mauvey color for Fulmar.

Here's a better look at the sock yarn. That bright blue in the Gypsy Girl is an exact match for the Royal Silver Creek. I haven't knit with the Gypsy Girl yet, but I'm very intrigued by this yarn. The colors are insane -- wickedly bright neons, flashes of black and white, combinations that take your breath away. Which means I may have to buy more of that, too.

But not until after Stitches Midwest. I'm declaring a temporary moratorium on yarn shopping so I can save for Stitches. Only three months until the market doors open....