STITCHES Midwest Registration

STITCHES Midwest Registrations opened today. For the first time since I've been going to STITCHES, I'll be attending classes. I booked 15 class hours! I'll be learning lots of things: how to augment existing patterns for a custom fit; to design a sweater from scratch; introductory crochet (for knitters); and various techniques for knitting in the round. While I knit with dpns and circulars, I'm particularly interested in learning how to knit with 2 circulars and the magic loop. I bought Two-at-a-Time Socks by Melissa Morgan-Oakes a few months ago and I'm hoping this will give me the courage to give it a go. I've knit quite a few socks and each time I come down with second sock syndrome. That second sock just seems to take me twice as long to finish. What's equally awesome about this weekend is I'll be turning 30. The big 3-0. This is in part how I decided to accommodate the cost to go to classes. It's a present to myself. And, since I purchased classes at STITCHES, I decided I'd also partake in the WEBS (http://www.yarn.com/) anniversary sale that is going on this month and next month. I purchased:

• 2 skeins of Cascade Jewel Paints (Cherry Berry and David's Eyes)


• 4 skeins of Knit One Crochet Too Camelino (Honey)


• 2 skeins of Cascade Ecological Wool (Dark Ash)


• 3 skeins of Cascade 220 (Straw, Brown, and Charcoal Gray)


• 16 balls of Berroco Pure Merino (Storm)

I picture making owls (sweater by Kate Davies), some Amigurumi knitted toys (release the kraken!), and French Press Felted Slippers. For the slippers, I have some awesome glass buttons (picture to come), featuring red octopuses on a blue background, that I think would go really well with the Cascade 220 in the straw colorway.

Yarn Belt Buckle

Several weeks ago in Vogue Magazine, I saw an ad for a handmade, glass belt buckle that featured a ball of yarn. I had to have it and placed an order two weeks ago. And today it arrived!! I requested custom colors of opaque gray glass and red ink because the orginial glass color was opaque ivory. I'm not a fan of white. The maker is local to the Chicago area and you can find the website at http://www.kiku-co.com/. There are loads of other really cool buckles. If you're a sewer, there's a great buckle featuring a vintage sewing machine. That might be my next purchase. The other buckles I thought were interesting were the Camera buckle, Underwood buckle, and Robot buckle.

Yarn Acquisition

Somehow it slipped my mind to post my most recent yarn purchases. In January, I used a gift certificate to purchase Noro Silk Garden (used in the Noro Striped scarf I recently posted), and two lace yarns (Filatura di Crosa and Malabrigo).














More recently, I purchased the colorway "Manly Yes, but I like it too!" from Blue Moon Fiber Arts to make some socks for my husband. The yarnband says "Watermelon Tourmaline," which is really a crazy mix of orange, purple and green - colors that are indeed not manly nor a palette for him. But the yarn is correct and that's all that matters.

River Rocked - 5th Shipment of Socks that Rock

This shipment arrived on Saturday, while I was taking a nap. I really like the colors in this yarn: blue, brown, purple, orange, red. Just spectacular. It is like looking at the color palette of a forest. This is both a color way and pattern I would have easily picked out in a shop.
















I am still hoping that the Sock Club folks might have some leftover beads for my Queen of Bead sock. It turns out they used five different types of beads when putting together everyone's shipments. By my own calculations, after looking over the first sock, I'm short nearly 3 dozen beads. I'm not sure what I'm going to do if I'm unable to acquire more.

ADD

I can't seem to stick with having one project at a time. I have several projects slumbering but I guess I have a compulsion to have two projects in actual motion. I started on the second of the Queen of Beads socks (about time!) while on my stay-cation. I'm working the heel and realized that I never wrote down how rows I knit to get the length. I'm going to have to count and measure and hope I come close. My second sock doesn't always match the first so this should be interesting.

While off, I also cast-on a headband using the leftover Noro Tidiori from the Clapotis. It's the Bamboozled pattern on Ravelry. I'm 63 rows in and debating whether to do another repeat of cabling as the pattern suggests or just go straight to the decreasing. I'm afraid I don't have enough yarn. I don't quite have a full skein but I do have some scraps from where the other skeins had knots.

In addition, I made some progress on the TKGA Master Hand Knitting project. I was able to go to the library and pick up some knitting reference books, which came in handy in answering some of the 17 questions. I also stopped by a LYS and picked up some white Cascade 220 for the hat I have to knit, which will be the next thing to knit after the handband.

Yarn from the Isle of Skye and Blackberry Preserves

It arrived!!

My dear ex-pat friend, Jill, who now roams the Scottish Isles, recently sent me a care package containing yarn and some jam. The package arrived on Saturday. I can't wait to dig into the homemade blackberry preserves that she grew on their allotment.

I went to my five-year college reunion and she gave me all these nifty Scottish tidbits. The most bizarre and tasty being Branston Pickle.

The yarn is called Elvincraft. A woman on the Isle of Skye hand-dyes the wool, which is a mixture of her own sheep and sheep from the Shetland Islands (also part of Scotland). Jill reports the Isle of Skye is "completely covered in sheep." I have to find a pattern that can feature the various colors in all their splendor.