Stitches West 2012 -- and a giveaway!

Well, that was fun!  But first, a bit of back story...  About a thousand years ago, when I lived in northern Caifornia, and our company was publishing a knitting book for kids, my friend BB and I learned to knit  by testing instructions for it.  Excited about our new-found hobby, we went to a knitting show that had rolled into town called Stitches West.  Talk about sensory overload!  I remember looking around with my mouth hanging open and whispering to BB, "What's she doing???" She was knitting a sock.  On dpns.  Ha!  We walked around for a bit, bought a bit of stuff that I never used and left. 

Flash forward 10 or so years and we're both pretty obsessed knitters, only now she lives in New Hampshire, and I live in Colorado, and we both knit a whole lotta socks.  Since Stitches fell on my birthday this year, I suggested we meet out there, see all our old friends and do Stitches v.2.  Remarkably, she agreed! 

So last weekend, we met out on the coast and got to see all our old coworkers, and eat our way across the bay area.  It was bliss.  On Thursday night, we headed for the Market Preview, where folks who're signed up for at least one class get exclusive admission to the market vendors before the doors are opened to the public.  We were not alone (but we are in this pic, see if you can spot my red Angostura!)


(photo from the Stitches West Flickr set)

While we were there, we stopped by the Cascade Yarns booth, and since we were both wearing sweaters knit with Cascade, they took our picture and it popped up on their Facebook page today.  Too funny!

 We did some serious damage at all the zillions of vendors, and still made it out in time for a late dinner.  The market preview by itself is worth the price of a class, IMHO.  It was so nice to shop without having to fight big crowds! 

On Friday morning, we showed up bright and early for a class taught by Cookie A, which was also pretty awesome.  We learned all about reading cable charts intuitively, without having to consult the symbol key all the tine.  It was very cool, and Cookie was a fabulous teacher. 

A little more shopping after class, then we spent the rest of the weekend catching up with old friends and squishing our new yarn.  It was, all in all, a fabulous vacation.

Wanna see what I got?  I hope so, because you're gonna have to wade through all of it to get to the giveaway at the end of the post!

First up was 5 skeins of Malabrigo Merino Worsted in the blue graphite colorway.  It's such a pretty dark blue gray, a bit more navy than in this picture.

I found this at the Carolina Homespun booth, where they went waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of their way for me and then gave me a screaming deal on all of it. 

And other than that, the yarn shopping was pretty much all Madtosh all the time for me.  Since I'm pretty much a cheapskate when I buy yarn, and since it was my birthday, I gave myself an unlimited yarn budget for the weekend.  Throwing caution to the wind resulted in this:

It's Tosh Vintage in Mica, which I bought to knit Skelf. 

And also this: 

Tosh sock in Calligraphy.  I bought a skein of this stuff at Loopy Ewe last month, and then decided I really needed enough to make an Austin Hoodie out of it.  That, my friends is a LOT of teensy stitches in a sweater, but I think it will be worth it.

Finally, I got another screaming deal:

2 skeins of Mini Mochi in colorway #307.  Catchy name, no?  Anyway, I love the first Mini Mochi socks I knit, so I decided another pair would be a good idea, especially for half price.

I had to break up all that yarn buying with some books, just for the sake of variety, and so came home with these:

We were even able to get our books signed by Alana Dakos, who was incredibly nice.  I'm dying to knit at least 3 of these sweaters, and all of the patterns are pretty awesome.

And this, because we all know about how much I <3 Ysolda...

I even got an awesome knitting-y birthday present while I was out there.  BB made me the prettiest project bag...

It's even lined!

That's all I bought for me this trip (not too bad since I wasn't on a budget!), but I had to buy a skein for you guys to share a little of the Stitches love!  Here it is:

That's right, more Madeline Tosh.  This is Tosh Merino Light, a fingering weight, in the Dahlia colorway, and here's what you have to do to make it yours:  Leave a comment on this post before 8 am MST on Saturday, March 10.  Easy peasy.  I'll ship it anywhere you are if you're the winner. 

Okay, one more thing:  When I got home, I got to open my birthday present from Mr. Right.  A new camera!  Which takes pretty pictures, including some of the birthday cake he baked me all by himself:

And a gratuitous shot of last night's epic sunset.  Pretty spectacular birthday, all in all!

Work in Progress Wednesday v.80

Welcome back to another week of Invisible Knitting Progress.  I'm continuing to knit a whole lot, and continuing to make cute things that I can't show you since they're about to jump into a box and head out to my swap partner.

Thing 1 was finished last week, and is now blocked.  My first time knitting two-sided lace, and it turned out pretty darn well -- as long as I was paying attention.

Thing 2 was just a wee little seed of a project last week, and now it's done and blocked, too.  With this one, I learned how to make bobbles.  I also learned that I hate them.  Good to know!

Thing 3 is really, really killing me not to show you.  It's pretty much the cutest thing ever and you can bet I'll be posting the heck out of it once my swap partner has received and opened all her goodies.  Anyway, it's about 80% done and the only thing keeping the package from being mailed at the moment.  I'm hoping to polish it off in the next day or so.

I'd be done with it by now for sure, but I've spent my very little knitting time over the last couple of days working on Duckie sock #2 so that I would actually have something to show this week.  And here it is (in all its blurry bad-photoness)...

Breathtakingly exciting, no?  I know I've mentioned this before, but I love this pattern.  It's so easy and fast to work up, and fun.  What more can you ask for  in a sock pattern?

One thing keeping me from knitting last weekend was a field trip(!) with my Monday night knitting group back to Fort Collins to visit the Loopy Ewe.  I know, I was just there a couple of weeks ago, but I'm a team player!  I had to go support my friends in their first visit.

I exercised more restraint this time, and only bought one skein of yarn since we're leaving for Stitches in a week.  (Yay!)  But boy, did I make that one skein count:

Yep.  It's the knitter's holy grail:  Wollmeise.  The colorway is Petit Poison n.5.  And it's even more spectacularly colored in person than it is in pictures.  I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but for the moment, it's sitting on the counter in the family room so it can be properly admired every time I walk by.  I have to say, it doesn't feel nearly as good as it looks in the skein, but I have high hopes for it once it's knitted up and blocked.  I'll definitely keep you posted.  Meanwhile, does anyone have any experience knitting with this stuff?  I'd love to hear.

And now, I'm going to go celebrate a quiet Valentine's Day with Mr. Right since it's still Tuesday night as I write this.  Hope you all got spoiled rotten yesterday, by yourself or a loved one!  And I'll see you over on the WIPW pages, but probably not until tonight (busy day!).

Work in Progress Wednesday v.77

Happy Wednesday, everyone!  I'm ecstatic to report that there's not much on the needles around here this week, since Lorna Suzanne is done (!) and swimming around in a sink full of Soak as we speak.  If I can find some buttons, I'll be all ready to share on Friday.  Eep!  I'm so excited.  This one will definitely be a great candidate for one of those Blocking:  Before and After photos (I hope), because it was looking seriously rough when it went into the bath.  The collar was curled, the hem was flipped, the lace was scrunched.  It was not pretty.  Keep your fingers crossed!

In other news, the Duckie sock has been feeling some love this week when I wasn't working like mad to finish up the sweater.  We have heel turn, folks:

I'm still madly in love with this yarn, and convinced that I need to try the fingering weight version.  It's a dream to knit with, the colors are gorgeous (and much more muted than in this stinky pic) and it feels amazing in my hands.  Love.

The mitten has been utterly neglected this week in my push to finish the sweater.  Since it was not the sweater, and not a portable project, it got back-burnered in a big way.  I've pulled it out again today though and here's how it looks now, just having started the thumb gusset. 

More love for the mitten this week, I promise!

That's it for stuff on the needles, but happily I now have some more stuff next to the needles.  Do y'all know about The Loopy Ewe?  They're an online seller of loads of incredible yarns, and (I think, but don't quote me on this) one of the only places in the US where you can buy the yarn snob's holy grail:   Woolmeise.  Until very recently, they were based in St. Louis, with a small store front where local folks could come in and shop.

As luck would have it, they just packed it all up and moved to Colorado!  What're the odds?  Anyway, they opened on Thursday and I had to wait all the way until Saturday to make the 80 mile drive north to go visit.  And it was awesome!  So much gorgeous yarn, and so beautifully organized, and such friendly people that I lost my mind just a tiny bit.

Say hello to my new friend Madelinetosh (Tosh Sock) in Calligraphy.

It doesn't photograph so well in crappy light, but it is beyond beautiful.  Sigh.

I also made friends with Stonehedge Fiber Mill Shepherd's Wool in Sage.  Four times.

I can't begin to describe how soft this yarn is, and I love, love, love this color.  A quick peek at the Ravelry comments tells me that some folks have had trouble with it pilling, but I have high hopes regardless.  It's set aside for Narragansett.

If I weren't getting ready to go to Stitches West, I'd have lost my head some more, but I'm practicing restraint.  In case you're not in the mood to practice restraint, I've installed a little Loopy Ewe button over there on the right and you can click over and see what all the fuss is about.  I gotta say, I'm pretty smitten.  I even joined up and became a Loopy Groupie! 

That's all for this week, I'm getting ready to dive into a few little projects for my swap partner in the next couple of days so we'll all have something shiny and new to look forward to next time.  Whee!  Until then, you can content yourself with checking out the amazing projects that are happening on the rest of the WIPW pages.

WIPW v.27 - and a Giveaway Winner!

First things first:  Thanks SO much to everyone who entered last Wednesday's pattern giveaway, and especially to everyone who wandered over to Eskimimi's blog to offer cheering thoughts and snag some amazing deals on patterns.  14 folks entered the giveaway for my extra Snowbaby Hat pattern, and here's what Random.org's number generator well... generated:

Lucky #7 is bbatting!  The Snowbaby Hat pattern has been zapped off to you this evening.  Enjoy!

And now for those pesky works in progress...  The Burbery Inspired Cowl is all done, save for grafting the ends together, so we'll save the pictures for Friday.  Suffice to say, this was a super quick knit, and I'm excited to wear it.

In other news, the cable lace vest situation isn't as dire as previously thought.  Phew!  Turns out I was supposed to measure from the side, not from the front (where there were loads of short rows put in), and the length isn't too far from where it should be.

I have to say, I'm not loving this pattern.  It has complicated instructions that look like this:

BO 5 sts at beg of nxt row, work 1 row even, then BO 5 at beg of next row. Then dec 1 st at armhole edge on every row 5 times, then every other row 3 times.  AT THE SAME TIME: dec 1 st at neck edge on nxt row, then every 6th row 3 times,then every 8th row once.

And that's just too much for my wee little head to track all at once.  So I've resorted to this:

High tech, no?  Writing it by hand helps me to process, but I can't quite see how I'm going to squeeze all of these 1 jillion rows into the next 4" of knitting.  There's also at least one  error in the pattern which left me confused for a while.  Bleh.  I'll pick it up again soon, as I'm determined to get it done.  I'm just worried it's not going to fit at all, but we'll see...

My other WIP this week is my stash.  I got all excited to post new pics to the 2011 Flash Your Stash thread on Ravelry, and so took a new stash picture:

I was dismayed to find that the current stash is actually smaller *gasp* than last year's...

How can that be?

But, if you look closely, you'll see that there's been quite a bit of turnover from one year to the next, which made me feel a little bit better.  This also made me feel a little bit better...

I had no choice, really.  The scrawny stash needed feeding!  And two skeins isn't all that much.  And I'm in LOVE with the colors.  And I'll be casting on new socks tomorrow.  Stay tuned!

And now, if you've made it through all of that babbling, go check out everyone else's WIPW entries for this week.  They're probably less wordy.

Jackpot!

First things first... in case you missed it, We're still celebrating my 3-month blogging anniversary, posting the 40th post and finishing Avast, all on the same day. To share the joy, I'm giving away 2 skeins of yarn, just for leaving a comment before Wednesday on this entry. Go. Comment. Win.   There's still time!

I know I promised a family post this weekend, and completely failed.  That's the bad news.  The good news is I have lots of yummy yarn to show you instead.  Here's what happened...

Late last week, I noticed a post on the Colorado Knitters group on Ravelry advertising a Yarn! Sale!  Apparently, a Denver yarn store had closed and the woman who owned it brought all of her remaining inventory to a local church, where she sold it for cheap.  And boy, did she have some good stuff!  Here's what came home with me:



One of these to use for knitting an Elijah.  So stinking cute.



and two of these for making a second Elijah (non-Ravelry link this time).  Because, did I mention?  CUTE!



And one of these.  I have no earthly idea what it is, but it's this really beautiful yellow-y, green-y, blue-y, glow-y stuff (Really, the picture doesn't do it justice at all). And it was $1.  I know, right?  Crazy.



I also got one skein of this stuff, which totally stinks.  You know why it stinks?  Because I needed 2.  So frustrating.  I emailed the nice lady with the yarn and she's checking to see if she has another one I can buy so I'm not the dork running around with one Chevalier mitten this winter.  Fingers crossed.



And then I found this crazy orange and pink and tangerine colored sock yarn from Pagewood Farms.  And I had to have it.  I was standing there scooping up sock yarn one skein after another, and this nice girl next to me said, "So, do you knit socks, or shawls?  Or something else?"  And I said, because I cannot lie... "Sometimes I knit socks, but mostly I just buy sock yarn."  Who can resist a color called Fruit Freeze?  Not me, apparently.



And speaking of sock yarn, here's another one that the picture just doesn't do justice.  It's Socks That Rock and the color is called Motley Hue.  How awesome is that?  It's grey, blue, copper craziness and reminds me a ton of my favorite eye shadow:  Club by MAC.  When one finds a skein of sock yarn that matches perfectly one's favorite eye shadow, there's really nothing to do but take it home.  Trust me on this.



And finally, a skein of the softest, squishiest palest pink imaginable for making Mousie(s) (ears and tails, that is).  I'm still on the hunt for the right shade of mousie grey, but this is for sure the perfect pink.



So, to recap... I scored all this yummy yarn for just less than $50.  I'm so proud.  Apologies for playing hooky on the family post.  There's one brewing that will be up soon.  Hopefully, later this week.  Right after I start knitting elephants...

Flash Your Stash Friday

Okay, just a quickie today since Tami, of Work in Progress Wednesday fame has decided to host a Flash Your Stash Friday.  How could I possibly pass that up?  I could not.  So I'm neglecting every single thing I should be doing at the moment and photographing my yarn.  That's sane, right?

Anyhow, Flash Your Stash is an annual thread on Ravelry, and this was my first year participating (coincidentally, also the first year I had any stash to flash).  Here's what my stash looked like on April 1:

Hmmph.  Flickr isn't cooperating with me sharing that photo, so you'll have to live with its teensy-ness for the moment.  I'll see if I can get it fixed this weekend.  Sorry!  And now, here's my stash as of today:

I thought it was so much bigger now, but really it's just pretty different, and better quality yarn.  From the April stash, the aqua blue became a cardigan, the periwinkle blue was gifted to my neighbor, the variegated wine-colored stuff on the top right became a short sleeve cardigan and the silvery green stuff found a new home at a garage sale.  Not a bad turnaround for 4 months!

Back to the family stuff on Sunday... I'm doing more digging this weekend.