I stayed late yesterday at knit group because neither Kathy nor I wanted to go home and do stuff. So we hung around and hung around.. Bryan showed up for a little while, and then left. Kathy had a question about her yarnovers (which she was doing as YO + K1), and I taught her three new things:
1. How to make a slipknot without using an entire lap. (She had been using the same technique since she was 8. It worked, but having another way can be cool, especially if you have a dog or cat in your lap.)
2. The knitted cast-on.
3. The Cable cast-on.
She was doing the long-tail cast-on, and when her 2nd finger went down, her middle finger went up... the flip-off cast-on.
I also verified what I had assumed for a while... I knit funny. I drop the yarn up and over my knit stitches, instead of coming up from under them. My purls are similarly backwards. But it works for me. The fabric comes out looking the same.
I'm trying to teach myself how to "pick" instead of "throw" today, though. Just because I think it's faster, not because my throwing is weird. I can throw the other way 'round (which I did when demonstrating to Kathy), but it's slower for me to do.
Sunday, October 9
Friday, October 7
Yay! Yarn is up!
Ben & I worked together yesterday to get the hand-dyed yarn up on our website. We also made it over to Table Rock Llamas to buy some different yarn to dye. I got some licorice twist, and some weird thick-n-thin plied with a 2-ply wool, and oh yeah, pastaza. I'm going to dye pastaza! Yay!
Monday, October 3
4 yarn shops...
LYS Rankings!
I've now been to all 4 yarn shops in the area, so I think I can rank them now.
Number One: Table Rock Llamas. Surprised? I didn't think so. They're my favorite. They don't have a whole lot of anything, but they have a lot of what they have. Tons of Cascade 220, and lots of Pastaza (mm.... felting). Plus, they're really friendly, and the store is comfortable. Oh, and they carry not only acid dyes, but natural dyes as well. And spindles! Beautiful handpainted spindles!
Number Two: Green Valley Weavers & Spinners. Bright, well lit, and more Lamb's Pride Bulky (and Worsted, but I usually get the bulky) than you can shake a stick at. The sock yarn room is cool, too. But it leaves me sometimes wondering "where's the rest of the store". They carry dyes, but oddly enough, they carry procion mx (which is fiber-reactive, and mostly used for cotton) as well as the jacquard acid dyes (for wool and silk, although I've had some fairly good results with silk and the procion dyes).
Number Three: Needleworks by Holly Berry. A little close and cozy, a little higher priced. They have Rowan. This is where I got my $#@*^ Addis. [No, I do not like addis. the points are too blunt on the ones I have (10.5's), and I can't get the needle into the stitches.] They have some interesting yarns, in colors that I love.
Number Four: Knitter's Kove. For some reason, it seemed more disorganized than the others, and it seemed full of all sorts of novelty crap. A full third of it seemed to be Mirror FX, fizz, some sort of cording, etc. They have some roving and unspun fibers, but most seem to be in bags, not begging to be petted. I *did* buy some noro (kureyon) and pastaza, and I *did* get the sheep butt measuring tape, but it took a lot of looking to find what I wanted.
New Technique!
Oh, and I tried the 2 circ thing yesterday. I had to start my new bag, and I didn't have my dpn's. I picked up both of my 10.5 circs on the way out the door, though, thinking I'd have it enough done to transfer it onto one or the other of them. Got to work, no dpn's (as I had cleaned out my bag looking for something), and so... 9 stitches on 2 circs sucks. 18, too. 36, not so bad. 72's ok. I'm hoping to graduate to one circ soon.
2 circs left me with ladders worse than with dpn's (although I tend not to get ladders on dpn's) until I started treating the circ ends like dpn's, putting my "new" needle over the old needle and under the new one. I like the way a needle sandwich keeps the stitches close. Of course, I do the *yank* on the first and second stitch which doesn't hurt, either. I'd still rather have a good set of dpn's, though.
More yarn!
I rewound the blue-green skein last night, and started winding the SKEIN FROM HELL (the 40' one, with peach to pink to grey). I got discouraged around 10:30, 20 minutes into winding (and untangling), so it sits in a chair waiting for me to get back home. I still have to wind the rainbow lace... and take pictures, and put it on the crazymonkey website (so I have something to sell). I need to buy more 'blank' yarn, too. This is so much fun!
I've now been to all 4 yarn shops in the area, so I think I can rank them now.
Number One: Table Rock Llamas. Surprised? I didn't think so. They're my favorite. They don't have a whole lot of anything, but they have a lot of what they have. Tons of Cascade 220, and lots of Pastaza (mm.... felting). Plus, they're really friendly, and the store is comfortable. Oh, and they carry not only acid dyes, but natural dyes as well. And spindles! Beautiful handpainted spindles!
Number Two: Green Valley Weavers & Spinners. Bright, well lit, and more Lamb's Pride Bulky (and Worsted, but I usually get the bulky) than you can shake a stick at. The sock yarn room is cool, too. But it leaves me sometimes wondering "where's the rest of the store". They carry dyes, but oddly enough, they carry procion mx (which is fiber-reactive, and mostly used for cotton) as well as the jacquard acid dyes (for wool and silk, although I've had some fairly good results with silk and the procion dyes).
Number Three: Needleworks by Holly Berry. A little close and cozy, a little higher priced. They have Rowan. This is where I got my $#@*^ Addis. [No, I do not like addis. the points are too blunt on the ones I have (10.5's), and I can't get the needle into the stitches.] They have some interesting yarns, in colors that I love.
Number Four: Knitter's Kove. For some reason, it seemed more disorganized than the others, and it seemed full of all sorts of novelty crap. A full third of it seemed to be Mirror FX, fizz, some sort of cording, etc. They have some roving and unspun fibers, but most seem to be in bags, not begging to be petted. I *did* buy some noro (kureyon) and pastaza, and I *did* get the sheep butt measuring tape, but it took a lot of looking to find what I wanted.
New Technique!
Oh, and I tried the 2 circ thing yesterday. I had to start my new bag, and I didn't have my dpn's. I picked up both of my 10.5 circs on the way out the door, though, thinking I'd have it enough done to transfer it onto one or the other of them. Got to work, no dpn's (as I had cleaned out my bag looking for something), and so... 9 stitches on 2 circs sucks. 18, too. 36, not so bad. 72's ok. I'm hoping to graduate to one circ soon.
2 circs left me with ladders worse than with dpn's (although I tend not to get ladders on dpn's) until I started treating the circ ends like dpn's, putting my "new" needle over the old needle and under the new one. I like the way a needle sandwich keeps the stitches close. Of course, I do the *yank* on the first and second stitch which doesn't hurt, either. I'd still rather have a good set of dpn's, though.
More yarn!
I rewound the blue-green skein last night, and started winding the SKEIN FROM HELL (the 40' one, with peach to pink to grey). I got discouraged around 10:30, 20 minutes into winding (and untangling), so it sits in a chair waiting for me to get back home. I still have to wind the rainbow lace... and take pictures, and put it on the crazymonkey website (so I have something to sell). I need to buy more 'blank' yarn, too. This is so much fun!
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