Falling Down at the Yarn Store

I fell down at my LYS this past weekend.

I went in to get some yarn for a pair of legwarmers for my eldest niece. My plan was for that to be my only purchase (ha!), but on my way out the door J said not to go too crazy. Which to me meant it was ok to go a little crazy.

I personally don’t think I even touched crazy, but he might beg to differ. To which I say, what does he know about it anyway?

In addition to legwarmer yarn (Berroco Comfort), I picked up three skeins of Koigu KPPPM that were on sale to add to my hoard stash for what will eventually be a Beekeeper’s Quilt.

Since I already have a sock yarn scrap blanket going, I have this harebrained idea of doing a blanket entirely out of Koigu. Right now I’m in the acquisition phase. I expect I will eventually start it before completing this phase, but the idea of having two pieced blankets on the needles simultaneously leaves me twitchy. So it won’t be started for sometime, I think.

Then Joe, the owner, very nicely pointed out the new coffee mugs they had gotten in just a couple days earlier.

Even the box is adorable. There were several designs to chose from, but given J’s recent affinity to IndyCar racing (thanks bunches, Dad.), which has stretched to include Formula One (he draws the line at NASCAR, though. I’m grateful, but don’t quite understand the distinction.), I had to go for the one with the sheep racing a donkey-powered cart.

My favorite part is the “Form-Ewe-la One” on the inside of the mug. (Please pardon the blurriness.)

I was on my way out the door when Joe flagged me down to give me an adorable little mitten ornament plus the pattern, a kind of holiday card from the shop.  I might have to re-purpose some sock yarn scraps for some of these. I think I can see a Christmas tree done entirely in knitted miniature mittens, socks and sweaters in my future. It might be the quite distant future, but hey, I think I’ve already demonstrated my proclivity for planning far off future projects. What’s one more?

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Nice to meet you, Mr. Yarn.

Emily of the Whatcha Swatchin video podcast recently introduced me to Mr. Yarn, and I think I love him.

As soon as I saw the “Knitters Gonna Knit” project bags, I knew I had to have one. So I ordered two. And yarn for some long-contemplated and now really coveted fingerless mitts. Purple is my absolute favorite color, and it goes exceptionally well with green. In my humble opinion, of course.

I also did some damage at my LYS this weekend. But let’s spread the yarn love out a couple posts, shall we?

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Ups and Downs

Down: I “got” to work from 9:30pm Friday night until 6:00am Saturday morning.

Up: I got to attend my first ever knitting class, Finishing Techniques I, at my LYS Personal Threads Boutique on Saturday afternoon. While I can’t say I learned a ton of new things, I had a lot of fun and I did pick up some handy tips and tricks. Plus, as a self-taught knitter, I found the validation that the way I’ve been doing some of my finishing is in fact a good way to do it almost worth the cost of the class alone.

Down: After the class, J and I went to the county fair with his parents. I’ve been thinking about submitting something to either the county or state fair next year and wanted to scope out the kinds of things other people have submitted. It was miserably hot, and there were practically no knitted items to speak of. The state fair is 3 hours west of us, and it doesn’t seem likely we’ll make it out there this year. So I may just end up checking out the submission requirements online and go for it. The worst that could happen is I get one of those participant ribbons (do they give those to grown-ups?) or else no ribbon at all. I can live with that.

Up: Fair food! Ribbon fries, frozen hot chocolate, and funnel cake. Delicious!

Up: On Sunday J and I decided to check out a few antique stores looking for fans. He didn’t end up coming home with anything, but I found a framed picture of some vintage children’s socks and a couple of old wooden sock blockers.

I’m not exactly sure why I’m so taken with the framed piece, but I am.  The middle sock I’m fairly certain is hand knit, and the one on the left looks like the heel was darned. The sock blockers are too big even for J’s feet, so I think that I will hang them on the wall on either side of the framed socks. A kind of tribute to sock knitting.

Down: A big storm knocked out our power at 4am this morning. It came back on right as I was leaving for work. After I had already gotten ready by flashflight, of course.

Up: The gorgeous skein of yarn I ordered from an etsy seller arrived in the mail today!

This is Kelpie Fiber’s Appalachian Trail Sock Yarn in Rockfish Gap. I was reading some forum posts in Ravelry when I spotted her ad at the bottom,  after I had already clicked “next page”. I immediately clicked the back button on the browser and am so glad I did! I love this skein of yarn! The colors make me happy.

Up: Also in the mail today, a surprise package from my oldest and dearest friend in the world, Kim. She’s the best person I know, and she knows me better than I know myself. She showed interest in my knitting before she herself started knitting (she also taught herself, several months ago!), and still talks about the socks and cowl I knit her. She moved to Michigan last year, but some how she still seems to know exactly when I need her, and the words I need to hear.

I also collect frogs, which makes this doubly perfect. She's the best!

It’s nice when the ups outnumber the downs.

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Coming Soon: Striped Socks

Inspired by the Knit Girllls and their fabulous striped socks, and enabled by Carin at Round the Twist, I purchased my first official skein of self-striping sock yarn. Well, make that my first two skeins.

I say official because it occurs to me that the Jawoll Magic by Lang Yarns that I used awhile back to make my first pair of socks with afterthought heels may be considered by some to be self-striping. Maybe it’s because of the soft color transitions, but I don’t consider it as such.

But I digress.

This is the Light My Fire colorway from Three Ewes Twisted in Fiber in their Blue Ewe base. As soon as I saw the colorway they did for Carin I had to check them out, especially since they were offering a 10% discount for her viewers! I scored this one through their Art Fire shop, and then went over to check them out on etsy.

And that’s where the real fun began! This is one of their custom Candy Heart colorways in their Ewe Look Great in Stripes offering. I got to pick the color for my main stripe (purple, of course!), a phrase to be written on the white stripe (I chose Kiss Me) as well as the color of the lettering (hot pink).

I’m itching to cast on with one of these! I’m telling myself I can’t until I finish J’s socks, but we got into a kind of fight last week (the socks and me,  not J!) so I’m a bit stalled out on them. I figured out a way to deal with the issue, but I’ve lost a lot of my mojo for the project. I think a pair of striped socks might be just thing to reignite my sock knitting. (Get it? Reignite? Light My Fire? Har.)

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