Ravelympics Progress

How about some Yarn Harlot-style sock action:


Tuesday night was the Ravelympics party at Candace's house, where we ate, knit and where we discussed Olympic uniforms, the psyche's of Olympic swimmers and the ages of Olympic gymnasts.


I was in the middle of turning my heel on my Wickerware Socks when we disbanded. I ended up having to undo the short rows because I was off a few stitches. I managed to redo them during my break at work today.


Last night I got some good work done on Center Square. I'm past the colorwork at this point.

I'm a little worried because it's so small. Somehow I'm down to five stitches per inch instead the (approximately) 4 stitches per inch called for in the pattern. I guess I needed larger needles. If I can't block it out, I'll give it to a kid on my Christmas list.

Yarn Crawl Blues

I found out today that the Meetup Yarn Crawl has been postponed.

*sigh*

Some people were unable to make it this Saturday, which would make the cost for everyone go up for everyone. So the adult in me realizes that if we wait, it will cost less and more people would be able to come. (Keep an eye out if you want to join us in September.) That would mean more fun and more money to spend on roving on yarn.

But the little kid in me wants to go nnnooooowwwww!!!!

Seriously, I've been looking forward to this for a while. So I was kind of bummed out. And that leaves me low on roving.

I looked around and couldn't find that little bit of handpainted tussah silk roving I have. But I did find this.


This milk fiber roving that I got at Old Oaks Ranch when we went on the San Antonio Yarn Crawl. I only got a little bit, just enough to try it out.


It is pretty difficult to spin, although I'm getting the hand of it. There's no "grip." If I don't pre-draft enough, the yarn is really hard to draft when I spin. If I pre-draft too much, it falls apart. But the lack of grip is what makes it so silky smooth and wonderful.


You may have noticed that there is only one yarn on the Niddy Noddy. That's because I took off the yarn barf from my first spinning attempts. I've come a long way.


Compare that to my Merino single, all set and ready to go.

BTW - Go check out yesterday's post. I got permission to add some more pictures.

WIP: Clapotis

Cross posted at Sally Comes Unraveled and Second Wave Clapotis KAL.

I was all excited about sleeping in on my day off, but then I woke up at 7:15 and couldn't go back to sleep. (However, I will be napping after this post.) I think I'm excited because today is the first day of my 1,001 Days.

I've been meaning to post more WIP pictures of Clapotis. I love to see the progress as I go along.

I took this picture earlier this week in the break room during work. The white couch makes a good background. I think I was near the end of section three here.

This picture was taken Wednesday at Chicks with Sticks Wednesday night at Bluebonnet. I think I was officially at the end of section three.

Here it is as of yesterday, at the North Central meetup. I've done some significant work on section 4 at this point.

With any luck, there will be an FO post tomorrow.

Yarn Pr0n: Yarn Crawl Booty

I almost forgot the gratuitous yarn (and fiber) shot from the San Antonio Yarn Crawl. Go here and mouse over the picture to find out the specifics.

Yarn (Store) Pr0n: Old Oaks Ranch

This is the third part in a three part series on the Meetup group's San Antonio Yarn Crawl. (It's about time, I know.)

Our final stop was Old Oaks Ranch in Wimberley. In addition to yarn for knitting and crochet, they have supplies and classes on weaving, spinning, dying and other fiber arts.

We arrived in the middle of spinning class. Fortunately, no one seemed to mind.

This is the spinning teacher, Carol Wyche, looking through some milk fiber roving. Yes, that's actually made from milk. (I'm not sure how.) According to the website, Carol does $25 private lessons. I think I'm going to sign up for one.

Here are some of the looms.

Here's a nice tapestry that they had on the wall.

I had to snap a picture of the angora bunny painting while I was at it.

Here's the gratuitous yarn shot. I don't thing it's in this picture, but they had Colinette Jitterbug, like the other two shops. And like at the other two shops, I didn't buy any.

I'm pretty sure the yarn on the second to bottom shelf is all Henry's Attic alpaca. That was tempting as well. Again, I was watching my budget.

I did buy a skein of this. Spun from their own alpacas (if I remember correctly.)

And they do have their own alpacas.

This is the new baby. (I couldn't get it to come any closer.)

However, this one wasn't shy. I had no problem getting him to come closer.

He (or she?) didn't mind smelling my hand, but didn't want to be pet.

Did I mention that they have a sculpture garden?

I made another friend.

You can see all my yarn crawl pictures here.

Yarn (Store) Pr0n: Yarnivore

This is the second part in a three part series on the Meetup group's San Antonio Yarn Crawl. (You would think I was Ken Burns or something.)

After lunch, our next stop was Yarnivore, the place that Titian Knitter recommended for roving.

Here's about half of their roving selection. (Sorry for the crummy picture, the light was at the wrong angle.) They also had some merino and merino/silk blends in another area.

This is the owner, Melanie, weighing Corriedale roving for me. This was one of the types of wool Mom recommended. I thought choosing a lighter shade would make spinning a little easier (they had it in some other natural shades as well.) Melanie said the heathered color would make it easier to see the twist.

Those other two bags contain dyed merino roving in indigo and periwinkle. I bought two ounces of each. When I get better at spinning, I plan to spin them into singles and ply the two colors together.

These were taped to the back of the computer where I checked out. The top is spun out of Melanie's cat's fur, and the other out of a customer's cat's fur.

They're big cat fans at Yarnivore. This needlefelted piece was also on the back of the computer.

Of course, they had yarn as well.

I loved the little "yarn tree." Some of this yarn was dyed by the shop. The furry stuff is UT and A&M yarn that believe is also unique to the shop.

Melanie said they seem to have two types of customers. Those who are crazy for novelty yarn, and those who won't touch the stuff. They try to stock to keep everyone happy.

It's the great wall of Manos del Uruguay!

Yes, it's more Colinette Jitterbug. No, I didn't buy any here either, although I seriously considered it.

I think all the shops we visited put up signs with prices rather than labeling every single skein of yarn. I like the fact that they list price per yard.

I wanted to spend more time, but everyone was waiting on me so we could make it to our next stop before they closed. They had a nice sitting area. I wish I was closer so I could hang out there more often. (They had some munchies too, but we were still stuffed from lunch.)

For our parting shot, here's a piece of artwork hanging in the shop. Melanie said a customer made this for a mixed media art class and gave it to the store when she was done.

You can see all my yarn crawl pictures here.

Yarn (Store) Pr0n: Yarn Barn

This is the first part in a three part series on the Meetup group's San Antonio Yarn Crawl. (You would think this was serious journalism.) There was so much to blog about, I decided to break it up into parts.

In case you missed the memo, Yarn Barn in San Antonio is closing. We went on this trip specifically to see the store before it closed.

I spoke with some of the employees there (to my knowledge, the owner was not there that day.) As stated on the sign, the store lost it's lease. As stated on the website, the owner has decided it was a good time to retire. However, the fate of the store is still up in the air. Apparently, it's officially for sale, but no one knows if it will sell or who would buy it. This may be why they don't have any clearance sales going on right now.

They had a good selection of some old friends of mine, including Rowan, Noro, Plymouth, Blue Sky Alpacas and others.

However, it was the selection of books that was truly impressive. This is the book room. They had more books outside the book room as well. They covered all types of fiber arts, as well as art, design, color theory and other related topics. Titian Knitter was psyched to find a book about costuming for her mother-in-law.

This bookcase was in the bathroom, across from the stalls. I kid you not. (One of the employees said it was back stock.)

In case you couldn't tell, the Yarn Barn is a well rounded store for all sorts of fiber artists. Here are some of their needlepoint supplies. They also carry some basic spinning and weaving supplies. (Quilting too, if I'm remembering correctly.)

Here are some needles and notions. As you can see, they have a great selection.

I couldn't resist posting another book shot, with my fellow yarn crawlers looking through the titles. (This isn't even "the book room.")

This was what I was most excited about. While several local stores are supposed to be getting the Noro Kuyeron Sock Yarn, this is the first place I've brick-and-mortar store where I've seen it for sale. We actually arrived at the store about 10 minutes before the shop opened, so I saw a few skeins of it in the window while we were waiting.

Yes, that's Colinette Jitterbug below the Noro. I almost bought some, but I was trying to curb my spending. It was tempting though. I wish I could have bought some books as well.

I asked this employee if I could take a picture of her vest for my blog. (She said she knit it herself a long time ago.) She agreed, as long as I didn't show her face. She has been working at the Yarn Barn for about 30 years. The store has resided in other locations, but the current owner started the business about 37 years ago (if I remember correctly) in an actual barn.

The store is still "old school" in several ways. For one thing, they don't have computers. When you check out they write out receipts by hand.

As we were waiting for everyone to check out, several of us got into a discussion about socks with a woman and her daughter. I think we may have overwhelmed her. Titian Knitter, myself and some others were talking about magic loop versus dpns and started spouting off names of books, like this one and this one. I'd like to think we helped her, at least a little bit.

For our parting shot, I leave you with a look at our lunch at La Fonda. (Those are my Enchiladas Rojas de Queso.)

You can see all my yarn crawl pictures here.

Pictures from the San Antonio yarn crawl

Right now, I'm way to tired to post a full entry on the Meetup yarn crawl to San Antonio. However, I'm uploading the pictures here if you want a sneak peek. Details to come.

Shopping List

Well, I didn't win the 1980s contest at work. If I had planned ahead my capri pants (the closest thing I have to leggings) would have been clean and I would have been able to find my "Ked-like" shoes. Also, my shirt was a little too tight for the tie on the side, I couldn't find the proper slouchy socks and I didn't have good earrings (in fact, I think one of my holes has closed up.)

I know, I'm making excuses. Tammy won. (She's next to me in the picture.)

I was proud of my ponytail, although you can't see the two scrunchies in my hair in this picture. My scalp still hurts. I know a ponytail shouldn't be enough to make my scalp hurt, but I can't figure out what else it could be. I didn't get hit on the head or anything.

The good news is that I took a bunch of my old CDs to Planet Replay and got $20 back. (Thanks for the tip, Elizabeth.) I spent about two hours importing music into my iTunes before I went out there. Most of the music is from the 1990s. I wonder if I'll regret getting rid of the physical CDs. It's a dying medium. But I think the main thing is that I still have the music itself. (They did reject a few for scratches, and I kept a couple of sentimental favorites. So I have some physical CDs left as well.)

I should have done this ages ago. I've been dragging those CDs around for years, and I hardly ever listen to them. And the $20 will be enough for a quality skein of sock yarn, which will take up less space than the CDs.

So now I'm working on a shopping list. It's not an exact list, more of a list of possible projects to keep in mind as I shop.

Some things to consider:
-I need good wool roving and/or a batt to learn to spin.
-I want some wool lace weight for lace knitting.
-I want to knit an entrelac scarf, possibly this one.
-I need nice, but durable and machine washable sock yarn in a fine gauge (I have several in heavier gauges.)
-Jules wants me to knit him some gloves. Green ones.
-I want to make some awesome Latvian Mittens. (or something similar)
-I want to combine different colors of Koigu like they do in my Koigu book.
-I want to finally make Clapotis.

I think there's more, but that's enough for now. I know there's no way I can afford to buy yarn for everything listed.

I can't wait for tomorrow.