Holy Yarn Crawl!

I just completed my first official yarn crawl! Nine yarn stores in two days! I am overwhelmed to say the least! Along with the gifts skeins we received at each location, I purchased more on my own. I tried to resist, but I couldn't. But as one very wise knitter said after she transferred more money to her account, yarn is our jewelry.

I don't even know where to begin about what a wonderful experience the yarn crawl was - I can't wait to do it again next year! Stacy and I had fun on the bus and made new knitting friends. I saw and purchased spectacular yarn. We appreciated small towns and dreamed about moving to one.

At one store I was introduced to an old craft: rug hooking. Stacy and I were both intrigued as the women of Stonehill Spinning in Fredricksburg demonstrated the art on a piece in progress. Rug hooking involves pulling strips of wool up through linen or burlap in small looped increments to create beautiful rugs. It looks to me what would be the predecessor to latch hooking. Stacy bought some tools; I think I will wait and see if I can find a reasonably priced starter kit. I was telling Clint and my dad about it and my dad said that his mother used to do rug hooking in the 60s and 70s! She even had her own fabric cutter which cuts five or six strips at once. So fiber arts are truly in my blood!

I can't imagine how long it's going to take me to photograph and catalog all of my yarn spoils, but I'm looking forward to the task!

All this time...

All this time, I thought I knew how to pick up stitches. I mean, I've been picking them up, but unsuccessfully. I knew all along that something didn't look right, but I continued on with my absurd picking up technique anyway. I would look at knitting books and stare at the instructions for picking up stitches and think, that's what I'm doing - why do my projects look so...bad? On a whim, I watched a video on YouTube and finally learned the error of my ways!

All this time, I have been picking up a stitch with my left needle and then knitting it with my right. The result was this twisted-looking line of stitches that pulled very far away from the edge they had been picked up from. What I didn't understand until now is that your left needle is not involved at all in the process: it's just the right needle, the stitch and the working yarn!

The funniest thing is that all this time, I thought I was right! This makes me want to go back and reknit things so that I can pick up the stitches correctly. Well, not really. But from here on out, I will.

Knitting and Learning

I'm working on the body of the top-down raglan. I really love the Spud & Chloe yarn; I'm glad I gave it a second chance. The more I think about it, the more I realize the sock yarn I am alluding to is really not responsible for my dislike. I'm pretty sure the culprit was the size 1 needles I was insisting on using even though it felt terrible. Note to self: frog the socks that have sat untouched for who knows how long and use it, but not on size 1's! When I started the body, I thought I was a 0 ease kind of gal, but as I'm trying it on every couple of inches I am realizing that I am indeed a negative ease gal. How much negative ease? That is yet to be determined. I guess I will just have to make another sweater to find out! For now I am accepting this sweater for what it is and enjoying the learning process : )

Recent Knitting Epiphanies

I am trucking along on my top-down raglan and loving it. I finished my first skein and it's time to start a new one. I decided that instead of joining my yarn in one of the two ways I have made up, that maybe it's about time that I learn the proper way. So I searched YouTube for a knitting tutorial and found one. What I learned was beyond simple and I actually already knew it, I just wasn't applying what I knew at the right time. The secret to joining the yarn is to do so at the beginning of the row (or round in this case), then you just weave in the ends when you're done! Duh! Why did this take me so long to figure out?

My other epiphany came when I magically realized how to do a yarn over at the beginning of a row: you wrap the yarn before the first stitch! Duh! I have actually avoided patterns and stitches because I didn't understand how to do this!

Feeling unsatisfied by all your current projects? Start another!

For me, having six knitting projects at once is pretty normal. So it's no surprise then, that I felt the need to cast on for the top-down raglan knit-along that Susan B. Anderson is sponsoring here. I am so excited to be working on this sweater; it's the first cold weather item of the season. I picked a beautiful burnt orange for the fall (and for UT) and just knitting it makes fall seem a little closer, despite the fact that my car thermometer said 107 when I got in after lunch.

I love knit-alongs because they make an otherwise daunting knitting project feel doable. The parts are doled out weekly and I feel like a kid in school again! I looked at the blog yesterday because I was so excited and Susan had already posted the first steps - yea! I finished my whole assignment last night and I can't wait for the next part!

In other knitting news, I saw Barbara W. up at school today. She is a retired teacher and was up at school visiting all of us. She is very special to me because she taught me how to read a pattern and make booties. Once I learned that, my knitting life really took off. And when I say "took off", that's an understatement. Learning how to read a pattern was life-changing for me. I didn't even know I wanted to learn, so I'm glad Barbara took a chance on such an ambivalent person! Anyway, we're going to try to arrange a regular knitting night which is great because Stacy and I had already been talking about this AND Stacy was in Barbara's class in middle school! I can't wait to tell her (Stacy).

Knitting Update and other things

After finishing one washcloth, I am hooked. I must make more washcloths! I usually don't care to knit with cotton, but I have a newfound respect for the fiber. I am on #2 and cannot wait to start #3!

I am slogging away at Abalone. I know I am going to love it when it's done, but right now I'm drowning in stockinette. I want to get it finished up until seaming by August 28 because on that day there is a finishing class at Gauge and I would really like to go.

Finley's monster has stalled out for a little while, but that's okay, it's already belated, but I need to start on Cash's because I know October will be here before we know it. I also realize that Lora is one of my two followers, and this may ruin the surprise, but oh well. Maybe she won't read this post.

The brown charades are slow going. I'm almost to the 2nd heel and if I can get past that, I'm in the home stretch!

I survived job-alike today. I don't know why I was so nervous. I ended up having two co-presenters and a class of 15 teachers; no sweat. Tomorrow we don't report to school until 11:00! Yea! One more morning of sleeping in and knitting!

Delicious Minutiae

I survived the first two days of staff development and am excited to start the weekend. I am terrified about presenting at my district's curriculum day next week, but I guess I'll worry about that next week. There are going to be a lot of changes this year and I'm trying to take things one day at a time, which is great until you notice there are plenty of teachers trying to pack 48 hours into one day; that's hard to compete with.

Tomorrow Nancy and I will be doing a mini yarn crawl. On the tour for sure are: Gauge and Hill Country Weavers. We are also thinking about checking out Yarnbow in Lakeway and the Knitting Nest, which I did not realize until last night, is at a new location on South Congress! I am out to purchase some yarn, but I'm mostly excited to be around yarn with the woman that started it all for me. It should be a great day.

Then Chris and Rodney will be making there way to Austin for a visit. I'm hoping we can plan an elaborate Greek meal and then go on a fun shopping excursion to either Whole Foods or Central Market.