Girl Child in Dangerous Land

Middle of last week I discovered that six of the local yarn stores in the Salt Lake Valley have joined forces for an annual "Yarn Quest." They had "great fibery prizes" and "a fabulous Grand Prize (Bag FULL of knitting goodies) worth about $450!" The stores are scattered from Ogden to Provo. Dang! No way I could hit all of them in three days. I'm not sad, though, the flyer gave me the addresses of three yarn stores I'd never visited.

Monday morning I had an appointment with a blood sucker at the Red Cross in Murray, so I decided to reward myself afterwards with a visit to the Three Wishes Fiber Arts store.

I am lost!

I walked into the store and gazed at a loom and strange spinning devices. To the left was a wall of shelves stocked with big cones of yarn. There were baskets of roving on the floor. I walked back to the left past the loom and my fingers started to twitch. Oh, the yarns Kristine has in her store. I want ALL of them!

So many beautiful yarns. To the back left there was lots and lots of Manos del Uruguay, including the yarn I need to go with the two skeins that kidnapped me at the Wool Cabin. I had to get the Manos. And there were sale yarns in the back room (it is not safe for me to go near sale yarns.) I got two skeins of a manly-man brown, cream and blue-gray wool worsted to make a scarf for my large and manly cousin. And there was a skein of grey/taupe/cream wool that would make a perfect hat for a friend.

Kristine, the owner, knew I was lost. She kept pointing out beautiful fibers to me. I told her she was evil. She grinned. I told her she had the most dangerous yarn store in the valley. and she said, "Good, that's what we want."

Then, the final blow. On the way to the cash register I saw a wonderful yarn, all bronze and gold, pewter, silver and copper. It sang a siren song to me of becoming an evening wrap. It painted pictures of itself all knit up and looking oh so glamorous draped over my shoulders (as if I've ever looked glam in my entire life.)

Kristine laughed as she handed back my plastic. "You kept it under a hundred," she said. If she hadn't been so nice, if she hadn't had such beautiful yarn, I might have had a heart attack when I saw it was all of 37¢ under.

Danger! Danger! I cannot go back there.

I will go back there.

Baby Kimono Jacket

Finished the baby kimono wrap jacket by knitting a belt that goes from the end of the inner front flap, through a hole in the side seam, around the back and buttons on the end of the outer front flap. I crocheted three loops on the business end of the belt so that it would be adjustable. Found a really cute button too. This is the first thing I've knit that has been seamed. I think I need a whole lot of practice at that before it looks good.

I sure hope that this fits the baby when she arrives -- never having had a baby, I don't know if it still has gorilla arms or not.

Knitting By the Seat of My Pants

I have now been knitting for six months, a half a year, I'm getting to be an old hand at this (ha!) At least I'm not afraid to frog any more.

I have a friend who's having a baby in November. I'm reluctant to start back on the mostly finished baby booties. Probably because I don't like knitting with the yarn, but also because they have me slightly... frustrated. I saw a picture of a cute little baby kimono knit by my e-friend, Iron Needles. I was inspired to decide that what my friend really needs is a kimono for her baby.

Iron Needles' blog gave the name of the kimono, "Heartbreakingly Cute Baby Kimono", that it was knit in Sugar n' Cream and that the pattern was in a book called "Mason-Dixon Knitting." I looked the book up on the library web site. Not only did they have it, it was available on the 4th floor of the main branch. So I hustled myself out, bought four skeins of Buttercream variegated Sugar n' Cream cotton yarn (machine wash and dry, just what you need for a baby) and headed to the library.

Couldn't find the book. Went to the service desk. The guy said, "It shows as being in," and went with me to the shelves to show me where it was. He couldn't find it either. That's kind of a mixed blessing; yeah, I would really have like for him to find the book, but when he couldn't, it showed I was no blind dummy. Still, I'd rather have had the book than my dignity/vanity. He put it on a special seek and reserve hold for me, but I was hot to trot and decided I could wing it.

The next half hour was spent by looking through all of the baby knitting books that were on the shelf trying to find a "close enough" pattern. Didn't find anything in the right gauge, so I took out the two that came the closest in appearance and studied them.

It was at that point I decided that I should approach knitting like I approach cooking. If I want to cook something I have never tried before, I research it. I read any recipes in my cookbook library. I go on line -- Epicurious.com and I are on first name basis. Then, when I've got the idea, I take what I like
best from the recipes I've read and go ahead and make it.

Usually this works well, sometimes is produces unmitigable disasters, but usually it works.

To get a better idea of just how the one piece baby jacket pattern worked and how to do the fastenings, I made a bitty paper model of the kimono. Sloppy, but kinda cute.

Then I knit a nice big swatch which I officially christened the "Baby Washcloth" after I'd bound it off. That way it's not a waste of yarn. I looked around on line for measurements on baby sweaters.

I did the math and started knitting.

Fortunately, not long after I'd started on the sleeves, I noticed a very creative group of stitches several rows back. So creative, in fact, that I had now earthly idea what I'd done or how the area had come into being. When I took the kimono off the needles to rip back, I realized I had been knitting it for Baby GorillaArms. Oops!

So I ripped all be way back to the row before the arms started and made the new arms a good bit shorter.

I still think I'm going to have to cuff them.

It Grew...

I finally got around to blocking the Graduation Scarf -- mainly because I had a chance today to give it to the lovely graduate's Mom to pass along.

It grew!

Started out at a scant 8 inches wide and 6 feet long. By the time I'd blocked and fringed it, it was almost 9 inches wide by 8 feet, 2 inches long.

That's one dang long scarf!

The Yarn Barf

For some reason, I was having trouble finding the inside end of my balls of yarn. The outside end was usually sitting there in plain sight, practically waving at me, so I would go ahead and knit with it. What a pain, every time I needed more yarn, I had to pick up the ball and unwind some before I could knit more. If I was careless and tugged without thinking, the ball would bounce from my chair arm and roll across the floor -- usually chased by a cat with evil intent.

I have seen cute little jars with holes in the top and pretty little bags to hold yarn balls, but they sure wouldn't work as intended if the ball had to roll around to release its yarn.

Then, I don't remember were, I read the term "Yarn Barf."

O frabjous day! It wasn't me, it was the way the balls and skeins were constructed!

So now I stuff my index finger right down the yarn's throat and make it cough up the yarn barf.

Sometimes it takes a whole lot more untangling than I would like, but it sure beats having a yarn ball bouncing and rolling and fighting the cats for it.







P.S. The link above is to Lewis Carroll's poem "Jabberwocky."

Something More Interesting

I had knit a loop-through scarf for Sister-in-law the Wiser of elann.com's washable wool/bamboo yarn. Pretty yarn, but I'm not sure I'll ever buy it again. It shows every single sin in my knitting.

Fretting, albeit in a very low key, about this, I decided I needed to knit her a different Christmas scarf, so I rummaged through the stash and came up with the blue colorway of the yarn I'd knit Niece Kidlette's red scarf with.









Now, instead of knitting on my procrastination projects, I am forging ahead on the blue lace scarf for Sis-in-law the Wiser.

Of course I still have to figure out what to do with the less than spiffy loop-through scarf. Anybody have a puppy dog who needs a neckerchief?

Tah-Dah!

Finished the evening wrap. Had to bind off twice because the first try ended up being too lose. That was a new one for me; I usually do everything too tightly. It is, as I suspected it would be, one big piece of knitting.

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Now to get on with the projects I'm part way through:

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Finish up these two scarves -- I don't like the yarns, so it's a chore to work on them.

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I've sewed the gaudy purse together, now I need to make the liner and put on a button and it's done.

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I knit one and a half baby booties and the baby outgrew them.
Yes, I am a slow knitter.

All is not lost, however. Another friend has become pregnant and is due with a girl in November. Surely I can finish half of a bootie by then.

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And last, but not least, the ScarfieBeanie. I have the beanie knit and half of one scarf. Should take no time to finish up a scarf and a half.

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Unless, of course, something more interesting calls my name...