Rachael Herron!

Friday night, I went to IndyReads, a bookstore on Mass. Ave. for a book reading by Rachael Herron. There weren't a ton of us there (although a couple had left before we took this picture), so Rachael did a short reading and then we hung around and chatted and knitted.

(One of the women was a little tripped out by the proliferation of knitting. I suppose it is odd unless you know Rachael from the Cypress Hollow books.)

Her newest book is Pack Up the Moon. I purchased it Friday night (yay for signed copies!) but haven't read it. No matter. It will be fabulous. Every single thing she writes is fabulous. I love her books, her short stories, her blog. I'm guessing her grocery list has an excellent plot as well. She's that good. Go ahead and buy a copy now. I'll wait.

Done?

Excellent. You'll thank me later.

Now, a few of you will understand that it is a big deal that I went to this event. I rate so highly on the introversion scale that it's easy for me to decide that hanging out on my couch is better than hanging out with people. Most of the time this is fine, but for events like this in which I'd meet someone I admire, it's important for me to go regardless of my love for solitude and couch-ness. To thwart myself bailing at the last moment, I e-mailed Rachael and told her I was bringing her a yarn present. Once you tell someone you're bringing them yarn, you cannot not bring them yarn. So, I took my skein of Socks that Rock Lightweight in the Maia colorway, met Rachael, and had a delightful time. Yay!

Thanks, Rachael, for being awesome. I'm looking forward to reading Pack Up the Moon!

Yarn Shopping in Manhattan

Some people collect Swarovski animals. Some people collect stamps. Some people collect spoons.

I collect yarn.

Naturally, once we'd booked our vacation, I started scoping out yarn stores. Fortuitously, there was an article on lesser-known Manhattan yarn shops in the Interweave Knits Spring 2014 issue. I knew I wanted to visit Lion Brand, and I also decided to check out School Products Yarn and Habu Textiles. (The last two are located in the same building, which figured heavily into my decision.)

First up: Lion Brand.

I have mixed feelings about Lion Brand in general. You can buy Lion Brand at places like JoAnns, Michaels, and even possibly at Wal-Mart. It's economical. It's mass produced. When I'm feeling snobby, I turn up my nose at yarn like this and pretend I only knit with yarn blessed by Buddhist monks, handspun by novice Catholic nuns, and dyed with organic dyes in filtered water by a women's cooperative.

Mom and I outside Lion Brand

On the other hand, there are some pretty great yarns in their line (I've knit a lot of projects out of Lion Brand yarns) and knitting can be a prohibitively expensive hobby. There are lots of times when an economical yarn is not only necessary from a budget standpoint, but also is appropriate for the recipient. Some people need knitwear that can be thrown in the washer. Not everyone can handle hand washing in Soak.  

The storefront for Lion Brand is a cute spot in Chelsea. It's appropriately yarn bombed and has a great window display. Inside, even the light fixtures are knitting-related.

There's a Sampling wall so you can see how a yarn behaves on the needles (or hooks).

There's a gnome hidden somewhere in the store, and the first person to find it each day gets $5 off their purchase. Andrew found it. He's extremely useful.

I was most interested in the yarn lines that are only available in this store and online, yarn I couldn't buy locally. I ended up with a skein of Fettuccini, made from remnants of garment manufacturing. If you buy it online, you get random colorways. That makes me twitchy, so I'm glad I got to pick my skein of gray and white.

I also bought two skeins of  Baby Alpaca in a beautiful dark gray.

My last purchase was a bag--the sort that can be wadded up into a pouch and kept in my purse. It came in handy the rest of the day, holding small purchases and maps. The store was really lovely, and so were the people working there. I'm really glad we went.

Next up was 135 W. 29th St., the Haymarket Building.

School Products Yarns is on the 4th floor. It has a big center section and then yarn on shelves around the edges of the room. 

It seems to have a lot of sale yarn--like this:

Despite that, I couldn't find anything I wanted to buy. This is startling, and I can't really explain it. I loved the bright blue in the picture above, but there was only one skein of it and I couldn't think what I'd do with it. Disappointed, I headed up to Habu Textiles on the 8th floor.

It was a little bit difficult to shop. The floor was crowded with baskets, and there was very little walking room around them. The shop also carried a bit of fabric, sold in 1/4 yd.

The Interweave Knits article warned that you'd need to ring a bell to summon an employee, and they were correct.

I bought a beautiful inky-blue bamboo laceweight. It has 574 yd./skein. I'm thinking about making this with it.

My experiences will be different from anyone else's, of course, but I was pleasantly surprised by Lion Brand and felt I wouldn't go to either of the other stores unless I was just in the mood to shop with no definite purchase in mind. I'm not really a shopper, so I can't imagine wanting to poke around on the off chance of finding a great skein.

Filling the Shelves

Back in June, I redid a set of shelves that used to be in the parts department of my grandparents' store that I rescued from their garage after my grandfather died. (I chatted about it here.) For over three months, it sat in our bedroom empty.

 

Saturday, I filled it.*

 

The dividers are filled with handknit socks, both mine and Andrew's. (The vast majority are mine, if I'm honest.)

The shelf under the dividers and part of the top shelf houses my knitting books. The magazines, binders with loose patterns, and Vogue Stitchionaries I kept in the guest room where they were. All the other books I moved to this shelf.

On the floor at the very bottom is a stuffed sheep I bought in Israel on a trip in college. I wasn't a knitter then, and I'm not sure what drew me to this stuffed sheep. Maybe a touch of prescience? The basket is one Andrew's aunt helped me make. It was on the gift table at our wedding to hold cards. Now it holds leftover cotton yarn.

On the very top, I put a set of rainbow-colored test tubes given to me by a friend. In the test tubes are knitting needles that belonged to my grandma.

I miss my grandparents a lot. I dreamed about being in their house last night. It's been nearly nine months since Grandfather died. I know it's getting easier, but it's in no way easy yet. Maybe this is as easy as it gets.

*Let's take a moment to recognize how awesome Andrew is for not minding that there's now a set of shelves filled with yarn and knitting related stuff in our bedroom.

Thanks and Happy Anniversary

Today is Andrew and my 13th anniversary. He is my very favorite person in all the world. He's delightful.

Let's look at one example of his wonderfulness from yesterday:

After getting home from hanging out with his family for Father's Day, I decided I wanted to wind some yarn. Andrew used to be my human swift, but then he wised up and bought me a swift for some holiday. Clever.

I put the yarn on the swift and didn't have one of the loops correct. It is always a mistake to ignore this. I know this, and I ignored it anyway. Immediately, one end tangled. When I untangled it, it wrapped itself around the main bar of the swift.

After getting that unwound and tucked where it hopefully wouldn't get loose, I was able to wind about 75% of the yarn without further incident. Then all hell broke loose.

The end wrapped itself around the swift again. I eventually just took it off the swift and laid it on the floor.

I tried to wind the yarn again. The ball winder flew off the shelf.

The first time I roared like a lion in frustration, Andrew yelled from downstairs to see if I was all right.

Try again. Then the ball, which must have been too loose, flew off the winder.

Then it wrapped itself around the gears of the winder.

Another roar, and this time I leave the room and shut the door. I'll do it another day.

Except I can't leave it.* Ten minutes later, I'm back in the room. This time, I get it so wound around the workings of the ball winder that I can't untangle it.

I yell downstairs, "Andrew I need you." He trots upstairs, looks at me kindly and says, "I thought you were going to leave it for today."

"I know, but I can't."

He sits on the floor, gently untangling the yarn, and in three minutes the skein is wound.

I threaten the yarn, reminding it that I own scissors and I want no more sass out of it. Andrew asks if it's really a good idea to taunt yarn that is already clearly mischievous, and I simply yell loudly in the direction of the skein still on the ball winder, "You were only $11. If I have to, I will cut you."

And then we went downstairs.

Andrew not only does not have me committed for holding angry conversations with inanimate objects, but he also will spend time untangling my messes that would be easier to untangle if I could just leave them alone for awhile.

And we're not just talking about yarn.

Happy anniversary, Andrew! I love you. I am immeasurably grateful you're my partner for this ride.

*This explains a lot about me.

Research

I'm hoping to make a trip to Simply Socks Yarn Company on June 8.

Clearly, I need to think about what projects I might want to make with fingering weight yarn. It's research.

All the photos are from Ravelry and clicking on their caption will take you to the pattern's Ravelry page.

Iron Maiden shawl

I think this is pretty without being too frilly, and it can be made with one skein of sock yarn. How is it possible to get something so big out of one skein of yarn? 

Holden Shawlette

Holden is frillier, but has a stockinette body that makes the frilly less overwhelming. I like the shape of the edge a lot.

Color Affection Shawl

This shawl has gone viral, and I was doing a great job of resisting it until I saw this one and then this one. I'm only human. It needs three different colors, but only one skein of each.

A teenager has requested socks in Packers colors, and it's surprisingly difficult to find decent solid colored sock yarn in the proper colors. I had planned to buy the correct shades of Simply Socks' own solid line. It's reasonably priced at $10 for a 175 yd. skein. However, they also carry Cascade Heritage solids, and they're $11 for a 437 yd. skein. That seems more sensible, although I'm not sure what I'm going to do with half a skein each of hunter green and gold. How many Packers Christmas ornaments does the world need? I'm not even from Wisconsin!

Favorite Scarf Ever

In a clear example of "know thyself," I need to look at some patterns that will work with variegated yarn. I will tell myself that I'm only looking at semisolid yarn, but then some delightful trollop will call to me from the shelves. It will be riotous in color and I will not be able to resist. I plan to tell myself that I meant to buy a skein just for this scarf. 

I also plan to conveniently forget how many variegated sock yarns I already own and the fact that I don't really need another scarf.

And of course there are socks.

Curveball

Fields of Flowers

Really, there are too many sock patterns in my Favorites to even think about. Let's just say that I'll be fine finding sock patterns for whatever yarn I buy!

I was given the pattern for these awesome fingerless gloves, so I could pick some solids for them.

Fightin' Words

I love knitting. I love yarn. I love looking at yarn. Yarn and plants are the only items for which I really enjoy shopping. I just paused to see if that was actually true. It is. 

I'm ready.

Gray

I've been thinking a lot about gray since Thursday's post. I spent some time playing in my yarn guest room, and I decided to really take a look at the gray yarn I own.

clockwise from top: Arauchania Yarns Itala color 2016, Fleece Artist Trail Socks in Blomidon (also has lots of purple), Cascade 128 Tweed color 7618, Knitpicks Gloss in Coast Grey, Cascade Heritage Paint Sock in 9872, and Good for Ewe Sultry Steps in 0098

clockwise from bottomm left: Regia Antik Color in 08912, Lion Superwash Merino Cashmere in Slate, Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud in Smoke, Deborah Norville Serenity Sock in Charcoal, and Knitpicks Felici Sport in Monochrome

clockwise from top: Sweet Georgia Tough Love Sock in Rusted; indigodragonfly Merino Sock in Angst for the Memories; Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Heavyweight in Manly yes, but I like it too!; Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight in Deep Unrelenting Gray; indigodragonfly Merino Silk Sock in Also, I Can Kill You With My Brain; and Plymouth Happy Feet color 18

Even though I can objectively see that this is a lot of gray, I have no remorse about buying any of it.