Fiber = Fun

I really, really wasn't going to spend any money on the Sunflower Knitters Guild fall yarn crawl. In fact, I wasn't even going to go, because temptation and I, we get along. And I don't mean we get along like Jo and I get along, I mean we actually don't fight at all.

All this to say, it's Jo's fault that I went. And spent money. And had fun.

The entire roster included:

• Textiles a Mano
• Florilegium
• Urban Arts and Crafts
• Stitch Knitch
• MisKnits (Huzzah!)
• The Studio
• Knitcraft

Big shoutout to Dick Cheney TJStein for cramming seven stores spanning the entire Missouri side of the metro area into nine hours. Not everybody went to every shop - some started crawling later and some ended early - so it will be a few days before everybody's photos are compiled.

The picture at right is Team Jo petting something shiny. For more yarn porn, colorandtexture uploaded a set of the part of our day that she shared.

Seriously, you should go look at her pictures. I mean, they include this:

I also did some cranking to finish my contribution to Red Scarf Project. To be honest, now that I look at the directions more closely, I didn't follow the rules very well - I used Brown Sheep, and the Web site specifically says not to use anything with mohair in it. I feel bad about this, because I know it's irritating when you're trying to make something charitable run smoothly and people just ignore the rules because hey, they're donating stuff for free. I didn't mean to ignore the rules, I just wasn't thinking past the fact that my scarf was worsted weight and had red in it. If you look at OFA's gallery of past donations, however, you can see that some people didn't even do the red part. . . so I hope that means my scarf will find a good home. Here he is:

And here he is with a few of his friends, donated by other people in the guild:

Let's see... in other words, Cheeky came to visit me last week. She was so excited about visiting that she forgot her knitting bag at home, so we went to visit Amber on Saturday. She said "I want to learn how to do fair isle" so Amber, as always, helped her pick out just the right yarn and pattern for her first fair isle project. Cheeky sat around and petted her yarn for awhile rather than casting on. She waited until Sunday late afternoon for that:

And then, by the time the guild meeting got started on Monday night, she had finished and blocked this for show and tell:

I don't know about you, but I think it's rock star. All in day's work, even.

Right now I'm working on some fingerless typing gloves for K, because she hinted she's wearing out the last pair from overuse. I made one with some stranding in colors I associate with her, but it turned out a little too roomy, so I'm keeping it for myself. The second pair is going to fit, and I should probably even write up the pattern. It's basic, customizable, classy, has all the OCD finishing details that I love (no raw edges) and it knits up quick. The colors are nice, but brighter than I ordinarily see her wear, so I hope she likes them. I've been having fun using up bits from old projects on these; I may make her another pair just for fun. I picked up some interesting odds and ends (charms, buttons, etc.) recently and a few ideas for some subtle inside joke voodoo typing gloves are percolating in my head. Also, I am just geeky enough to get excited about how many different shapes and gusset constructions I can come up with or borrow to make something as simple as a pair of fingerless mitts or gloves.

This is what happens when I only post once a month. On that note, I'm going to go curl up on the futon and admire my stash yarn. . . or at least, I was, but someone beat me to it:

Mesh and ruffles

Originally uploaded by sonnetstitches

There hasn't been much knitting, but there has been knitting. I've put myself on a new project diet, meaning that in between the starting of new projects must be the finishing of old ones, even the ones that are deadly dull and involve tens of thousands of stitches worth of ruffles around the edges.

The scarf is an example of what Two Windows Knitty Bits does if you don't use it for a sock: i.e., it's still pretty fantastic. The ruffle around the edge is also local, via Crafty in a Good Way, my absolute favorite local dyer. And no, I'm not bitter that her stuff is getting harder to find because she reportedly has a life, but I am sad. I'm also known to drop cash for it if I see it, which I do on occasion. Case in point, the Retro Redux Shrug, which is also dyed by Crafty Andrea. The fact that I happened to be wearing a green T-shirt to the shop the day that I took a picture didn't do it any favors. However, despite arguments from The Other Jo to the contrary, my rear end is not so huge that it cannot be cropped out of a photo taken of me from the back.

I love this shrug. I want about six of them. Our office has temperature issues, and an extra pair of sleeves for Random Air Conditioning Ambushes is a good thing to have.

I am this ||<-- close to finishing a vest/shrug thing and slightly further away from being finished with my October charity project for guild, which I need to knit like a maniac in order to have finished by Monday. Circumstances in my life lately have not been conducive to knitting or to concentrating, so I've managed to take days and days to bind off 170 stitches. I've got Gift Knitting to do, for Christmas and for a birthday or two (rare are the non-knitting people in my life who warrant hand-knits, but high on that list are people who have previously received handknits and are starting to fret loudly about what will happen if said handknits wear out from overuse and love).

In other news, we went to see The Yarn Harlot this week, which was fun, and my girl Cheekyknits is coming to visit me this weekend, which is even more fun.