A little bit of writing, a little bit of knitting...

Friday, May 28, 2004

My stash groweth

I just placed my order for shawl yarn. Beehive Wool is having a sale on Fresco this month, and it just hit me that it would be nice for a summer shawl. So I bought plenty of Sol -- and a skein of Melon, just in case I feel ambitious when I'm done and want to add a single-crochet edging.

The hardest part now is the wait. Since Beehive is in Canada, I had it shipped to my in-laws' house. We'll be visiting them in a few weeks, and it's a lot cheaper to ship to Toronto than it is to ship to Massachusetts. But now I have to wait THREE WHOLE WEEKS to start working on the shawl. Granted, I've got plenty of other projects to work on, and Paul and I haven't even finished the pattern yet, but I WANT MY FRESCO NOW!!

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

An adventure at the LYS

My friend Lisa called this morning. We'd been talking about hitting the LYS before the sale ends this weekend, and she said that she and the kids were free this morning. So I did a little work and headed out the door. We gave Lynn a little excitement this morning -- the four kids were totally fascinated by all the yarns and the colors and the textures and the knitted samples. Jonah (he's four) was especially intrigued by the expensive hand-dyed yarn. And the girls were so excited to pick out yarns for making scarves of their own. Grace (6) was totally prepared to empty out her bank account. Ah, the sound of a young yarn addict...


Lynn was absolutely fantastic with the kids. She helped Alicia (12) pick out a great pattern for a purse, and she made sure there were plenty of little free sample skeins for the kids to pick out and take home. And she even found a great pattern for toys for Lisa to make for her physical therapy patients.


After we made our purchases, we headed back to Lisa's house for coffee. I knew I should have brought my needles! Lisa finished up a headband for Grace, Alicia started a gorgeous new scarf from a skein she got for only $1 (how did I miss that?!), and I helped Bethany (9) do a little practicing. Now it's time to get back at it...


On an unrelated note, I've gotten Paul into knitting now. He won't pick up the needles, but he wants to design patterns for me. I was playing around with creating charts over the weekend, and that's right up his alley. Now he wants to learn the different textures and patterns so he can design charts for me. Right now, he's working on a shawl -- one with a flame pattern. :)

Monday, May 24, 2004

The Phone Call

I just got the funniest phone call from Amy. I picked up the phone, we exchanged pleasantries and how-are-yous, and then she took a deep breath and said, "I'm addicted." Even though she had to work a 24-hour shift at the hospital this weekend, she still managed to finish off an entire skein of Lion Boucle. Now she needs me to show her how to start a new skein. And she's decided that she's going to need four skeins for her scarf, and she only has two -- so I have to take her to AC Moore this afternoon so she can get enough to last her through the week.


Sometimes I feel like a pusher, slyly getting my friends to join me in my addiction. But it's a good thing, right? Drugs are bad. Knitting is good.

Obsession

Every once in a while, I get obsessed with finding the perfect pattern for something. About a month or so ago, it was a poncho. I have the pattern now, and I have the yarn stashed under the bed, and I've got the project tentatively scheduled for later this summer -- so I'll have it in time for fall.


Now it's a shawl. I want to find the perfect pattern and the perfect yarn for the perfect summer shawl -- something casual and colorful and cottony that I can throw over a tank or a T-shirt when it gets chilly at night. I did a lot of searching over the weekend. Paul spent the majority of it at the computer, so I kept him company in the office. I sat at my computer and made some money to support my stash at April Gold's while I worked out a chart to put an initial in that scarf for my niece. And I did a lot of surfing for a good shawl pattern. I haven't found it yet, so I may have to design my own...

Saturday, May 22, 2004

A crazy night of knitting

I think I can safely say that we all had a blast last night. Despite the fact that the toilet broke as soon as Paul got home from work, and we had a toilet emergency for a while there, everything was working and cleaned up again by the time everyone showed up.


The evening began with a little game of Dutch Bingo. For those of you who aren't Dutch, this will be a strange and seemingly impossible story for you. But for those of you who are Dutch, you'll totally understand. You see, the Dutch tend to stick together. We're from a number of small communities, and many of us end up at the same college (Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan -- it's my alma mater). So once we meet a new Dutch person, we get the connections straight -- because there's always a connection -- and we figure out how we're related or who we both know. Well, Lisa's friend Marcy is Dutch. And before Paul left with Amy's husband, Jason, to go and play pool for the evening, he discovered that Marcy grew up in Hamilton, Ontario -- the same place where Paul's parents grew up. In fact, Marcy went to the same school as Paul's mom -- and Marcy knew Paul's mom's family. Paul quickly dialed his mom, and she and Marcy played a little Dutch Bingo of their own for a while. And then, after Marcy got off the phone, she and I figured out that her nieces were at Calvin at the same time I was -- and I know I knew them, but it's been a while, and I'm still trying to remember how.


So then the guys left, we paused in our Dutch Bingo (temporarily -- Paul's mom called back later, after she'd gotten out her old yearbooks, to ask a few more questions) and got down to knitting business. Marcy has been working on some incredible blanket squares, which she and her daughters and nieces and her mother are all contributing to make blankets for one another. She also helped Amy, who decided that it was time to stop practicing and do a real project -- so she started a gorgeous scarf out of Lion Boucle. Lisa continued with her practice piece, and she's starting to feel more confident. And I worked with Lynn, who picked the whole thing up especially quickly. She spent the evening working on a practice square, and I showed her how to bind off before she left. Then I gave her my yarn and needles to practice with until she gets her own. When I was working on teaching Lynn, I picked out a ball of sparkly white yarn, leftovers from the purse I made for my niece last Christmas, and I figured I'd start a scarf to match. And the rest of the time, I worked on my fuzzy peach top.


I didn't get a lot done, but as Paul said, I built something more important last night -- a new group of friends. I'll have time for the knitting stuff next month. We're planning to meet again on the 11th.

Friday, May 21, 2004

Ready to knit...

My knitting group is coming over tonight, so I've spent the day cleaning and getting ready. But now the apartment is ready for guests. My bathroom is gunk-free. My kitchen floor has been scrubbed. The rugs have been shaken out. And there's a pan of Dutch boterkoek in the oven for snacks.


Last month was our first group meeting -- and there were only two of us. Tonight there should be five -- me and Lisa (the charter members), Amy, who's just learning, Lisa's friend Marcy, who's been knitting for years, and Lynn, who's never picked up needles before in her life. I'm sure it'll be a blast.


I have two projects on the needles right now -- both are shells, and both are peachy in color. One is the Reynolds Cabana shell that I got from Friends of Wool when I was visiting Mom back in March -- I'm doing that for the Tank Along. And the other is the boat neck shell from Knitty in a fuzzy peach Snowflake DK (from Sidar). I totally fell in love with the yarn, and I'll be going back to Hub Mills to buy more, since it's marked down for closeout. It'll be great for soft, warm scarves...

I did it!

I've wanted to start my very own knitting blog for quite some time now (I mean, really...everybody's got one). So I finally broke down and signed myself up. But now that I'm here, I'm not quite sure what to do next. I think this is going to take a little bit of practice...


But for those of you who stop by to say hello (probably just Mom and my friend Jay), hi! Thanks for stopping by. And I promise that I'll have things up and running in no time (though I'm afraid that setting up a blog is going to seriously detract from my weekend knitting time...).



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