Stitches West 2008: Friday

Friday was an amazing day at Stitches, especially since I attended an all-day class taught by Cat Bordhi on the Foxglove Sock Architecture as explained in her latest book. It was amazing just being in Cat’s presence, but watching and listening to her information about sock construction was very enlightening. Her visual aids and her method of explaining techniques were so great, that I really feel like I have reached a whole new level of understanding regarding sock design and sock architecture. She was extremely patient, and was available to anyone at anytime for one-on-one attention if they needed it. It’s really hard to put into words just how amazing this class was.

When class finished in the afternoon she asked to see the baby sock I designed and I was shocked when she said it was one of the better designs she’d seen. Since I didn’t plan the design and it was just created as I knit, I realized that sometimes I over-think things and that just going with the flow sometimes produces the best results. By the way, I hate this photo of me, but since this is the only photo I have or will probably ever have with Cat, I will treasure it. And yes, that is the Tangled Yoke Cardigan.

When class ended that afternoon I met my wonderful husband in the market for more shopping. I only picked up a few items, and although it’s barely worth mentioning the stitch markers I purchased at Ellen’s Half Pint Farm, it is most definitely worth mentioning the Full Thread Ahead booth. Normally I prefer to not shop at these types of vendors since they are a LYS from the local area. I personally would rather give my money to my LYS, but Full Thread Ahead had two items my LYS doesn’t. An over the ear light for knitting in low-light conditions and the new Cookie A sock patterns. I ended up only purchasing the Trystero pattern, but I’m sure the others will be added to my sock patterns fairly soon.

The Ravelry booth had a few fun things to purchase, but I decided on the Raverly pin and the Bob pin. I really wanted the Ravelry canvas bag, but honestly I have too many bags as it is, although on Saturday I forgot this fact. Other than meeting Jess & Casey, the Passport was the best thing at the Ravelry booth. Several exhibitors had their logo imprinted on a page that looked exactly like pages in a passport, and the idea was to go around to each of those exhibitors and get a stamp or sticker from them for your page. When you filled your passport, you then returned it to Ravelry for inspection and you were then entered into a drawing of prizes donated by the participating exhibitors. This Passport got me into lots of “trouble” on Saturday, but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see why.

The marketplace closed at 6pm, so hubby and I went to dinner with Laura, Barbara, Cindi, and Rhonda. Since both Laura and I had a vehicle, we got to leave the horribly overpriced food at the hotel, and went to Red Robin since it was affordable for everyone in the group. The food, drinks, and service were wonderful although little did I know that later I was going to later regret eating the Bonzai Burger, fries, and large beer.

Back at the hotel, nobody wanted to “call it an evening” so we sat in the hotel lobby to knit and got lucky enough to have both Michelle and Rebecca join us as well. Hubby sat with us for 2 rounds of drinks. He ordered us Bailey’s Coffee and that was another item I regretted later on. He left us to our own devices around 10pm and went to the room to watch a movie. We all stayed up until 1am and then decided nobody was going to be useful the next day unless we turned in for the evening.

Back in the room, hubby was in bed soundly sleeping (so cute) and as I leaned over the weird sink to wash my face, I felt a rumbly in my tumbly and it wasn’t good. But that’s not the worst of it. While the rumbly continued in my tumbly, and the horrible feeling of “worshipping the porcelain god” was going on, I had an intense fibromyalgia flare. It was so painful, that even wearing my jammies hurt like hell. It went on for hours until I took a second dose of Flexeril and finally fell asleep. What a day!

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Bad Blogger

I can tell when I’ve been a “bad blogger” and haven’t posted for awhile because I had to log in to blogger to write this post. Can I use a family visit last week as an excuse? Today I thought I’d share with you all the projects (I’m willing to admit) I have on my needles.

I’ve realized that since I’m going to freezing cold southern Idaho for a week in December, I may need some real winter knit-wear. So, I decided to design a scarf for myself. This is the Cable Wave Scarf and I’m using Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted in Prairie Fire although I’ve also test knit it in Malabrigo Worsted. I’ve *got* to add more of that to my stash!

My sister’s birthday is in December and she requested a pair of fingerless gloves that convert to mittens. The pattern I’m using is Urban Necessity from MagKnits Sept. 2005, but honestly I’m not in love with all the yarn end weaving that this project entails. I do love the Cascade 220 superwash wool though so that definitely helps. I must admit though that after trying these on multiple times, I think I need to rip these back and make them larger. Drat.

I’m unsure why I was so excited to cast on for these Diamond Waffle Socks when I saw them in the last Knitty issue, but I think I cast-on in haste because I’ve not liked knitting these at all. I thought they’d be perfect for DH, but I’ve not liked the yarn (Cherry Tree Hill Supersock) nor the pattern and once I completed knitting the heel, I disliked the particular heel in the pattern, ripped them back, and threw them across the room. They’ve been sitting in time out ever since. Normally I love CTH Supersock, so that’s odd, but maybe it’s a bad combination of yarn and pattern. Regardless, since I’ve already done so much work on them, I’m going to pick them back up soon and maybe DH will have them in time for Christmas.

Tangled Yoke is completely knit and ready to be blocked. This is the first cardigan I’ve knit for myself (or anyone else for that matter), so I’m excited to almost have it finished. I suppose I should also be concerned about getting buttons too. Hopefully the next photo of this will be me wearing it.

I’ve had the Drunken Bees socks in my queue ever since the day I saw the pattern on Domesticraft’s blog site. Finally I received the perfect yarn (Shibui Sock) and cast on. Can I just tell you that both the pattern and the yarn are exceeding my expectations. I’m in love!

I’m test knitting Laura’s South Seas Stole and loving every minute of it. In fact, all the above mentioned projects have been sitting in limbo since I cast on for the stole. I already had the yarn in my stash which I coincidentally purchased from Laura a few months ago. I’m not sure what the yarn is comprised of, but it has very little, if any stretch to it, so I’m suspecting there is no wool. Maybe an Acrylic blend? I have no clue, but the finished fabric is beautiful. Finding the correct sized beads though that complemented the color was quite tricky though and luckily I’ve discovered (after 2 other stores failed to “wow” me) a wonderful store right by my house called Brea Bead Works.

I’ve knit the entire length of the stole and am now working on the border, but have discovered I’m running out of yarn. Hopefully Laura has more I can sneak away from her while I distract her with a German beer and deli sandwich from Mattern’s deli.

Thanks again for everyone’s comments. If I didn’t get to yours or your blogs recently, I’m sincerely sorry. My sister’s family was here visiting last week and my fibro wasn’t cooperating, so computer time was limited. Since this big desktop system won’t fit on my bed or my comfy knitting chair, I think it may be appropriate to start researching laptop computers.

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Tuesday This ‘n That

Labor Day was fairly uneventful around here, since it’s honestly too hot to do anything. If you read any blogs from others Californians, then you already know that we’re having an extreme heat wave. For example, last night at 7pm it was 90 degree INSIDE my home and I’d had the air conditioner on since 8am that morning. In addition to the hot weather though, my health has taken a turn for the worse and in addition to my normal Fibromyalgia symptoms, I’m battling the return of all my Epstein-Barr Virus symptoms. Supposedly it has returned because my immune system sucks, so I’m attempting to remedy that with a 30-day trial for what I hope to be “miracle” vitamins.

Laura recently asked me about the sock I was designing to see if it were complete. I’m on the verge of posting about it, but not today, so here’s a sneak-preview photo.

Wendy wrote a post last month regarding this light tent. I’m feeling tempted into purchasing it. Although my photos are alright, I would love for them to better. Also, with this tent, maybe my photo assistants wouldn’t steal my props. Currently I photograph everything outside by placing a few sheets of white tissue paper on my backyard patio or walkway, and I keep it from blowing away with a few rocks stolen from the base of my water fountain. Unfortunately, my golden retrievers think they are my photo assistants and just for giggles they like to steal the rocks off the tissue paper when I setup between photos.

All setup and ready for it’s picture

Kya nonchalantly standing near the photo setup acting all innocent

The little thief stealing the rock from the bottom left corner

The yarn in the photos was recently acquired from Jenny of the Stash & Burn podcast. She was doing a de-stash and I decided to pick up these two skeins of Lamb’s Pride Worsted in the Prairie Fire colorway. I’m considering using this yarn to make a scarf for the Red Scarf Project. They’ve changed the guidelines this year to sending in a maximum of five scarves and they need to be received by October 15th, but they are also recommending no mohair scarves. There is 15% mohair in this yarn, so do you think it would be alright to use this, or should I find something else?

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