Crawling Around for Yarn

Busy, busy, busy. Two yarn crawls. Yes, TWO. The first, on October 6, was sponsored by a LYS, carrying 50 yarnaholics just like me on a chartered bus to five different LYS in the Texas Hill Country.

The second Yarn Crawl was one that I organized for our local Austin Knitting and Crocheting Meetup Group. This past May, I organized one where we visited Sandra Singh in Spicewood, Yarnbow in Lakeway, Craft-O-Rama in Austin, and Artisan Yarns in Burnet. We had, in a word, a BLAST. There was such a clamor for another one that I figure we could do this each season, covering different shops.

Personally, I like this smaller scale yarn crawl a lot better: We rent a 12 passenger van. The ideal capacity, we discovered, is NOT 12.

It is 10, reasonably, in comfort. On our May crawl, we had 10. On this second one on October 20, we filled it to the stated capacity of 12, and it was tight. Twelve is just a tad too many, for a variety of reasons: First, the van. People need elbow room; we're knitters, after all. Second, most shops are overwhelmed when of us 12 arrive at once.
Tough to get personal service that some need, as well as make purchases a timely manner, since there's usually one computer per shop for all transactions. And as you already know, each computer transaction takes forever. Multiply that 12 times and you have wasted a precious thirty to forty minutes at each and every shop when you could be ogling and fondling yarns someplace else. All that time adds up fast: On our small scale crawl, we spent a total of more than two hours just waiting to make purchases in the various stores. That's a lot of waiting-around time. Third, it's tough to get timely and good service in a restaurant for a party of 12. We time our lunch to be on the late side, but it's still difficult on a Saturday. On this latest trip, we tried the Dodging Duck in Boerne. They offer wonderful homemade beers, and the menu choices include a delicious German lunch complete with homemade soft pretzels. Lastly, we plan an ambitious itinerary: This time around, we visited Sandra Singh in Spicewood, the Old Oaks Ranch Fiber Studio in Wimberley, Ewe & Eye and Rosewood Yarns in Boerne, and a brand new shop in Austin, The Knitting Nest. See? We could have used those two hours!


The best discovery? There are so many yarns and so many yarn manufacturers and small-scale hand-dyers that there are only a few common overlaps in the products each shop offers. Even with products overlapping, the colorways each offers are different. Everyone wins, and it is a bonanza for knitters, crocheters, and fiber artists.

So, all this yarn means I must have a lot of projects.

Projects?

Christmas is coming, and this Santa is busily working away on various items. I don't think it prudent to be more specific, since some of the giftees may peek in on this blog. Sufficeth to say there are currently 8 Christmas gifts on the needles. To top it off, I joined two Knit-A-Longs: The Mystic Waters Shawl KAL, which started today (eek!) and a Spring Shawl KAL, which begins January 1.

I can thank (or blame) Ravelry for my absence, too. I found the KALs there, and a bunch of patterns that I am adding to my queue soon (well, after Christmas is over). It is an astounding, globally diverse community of knitters making a mind-boggling array of projects. It's fabulous!

Another Crossing

This will be the last post for awhile, as I am absconding for yet another transatlantic crossing, this one on Celebrity's CONSTELLATION, leaving from Dover, England with stops in Dublin, Cork, Cornwall, Le Havre, St. John's Newfoundland, Halifax NS, and Bayonne NJ. Yes, I will be knitting on sea days. No, I don't plan to take the Cherry Leaf project or any lace knitting, for that matter: I need uninterrupted time to do lace, something that isn't realistic on a crossing. So my Shoulder Shawl in Cherry Leaf Pattern is going to sit home and sulk for a few weeks. I will be casting on the Pea Pod Baby Set and the Tweedy Vest during this trip, though.

I am hosting a charity knitting event on sea days, for Stitches From the Heart, asking those on the Cruiseline Fans and Cruise Critic roll call boards, and anyone else who is on the ship for this crossing to participate and/or donate machine washable/dryable worsted, DK, sport weight, or fingering weight yarn in baby/child colors, and/or straight needles in size 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8, to make their preferred knitting patterns or crochet patterns. Don't forget to print out the pattern directions and put them in your knitting tote! We will meet on sea days, beginning with the 2nd sea day, on Deck Twelve forward, in the Revelations Lounge, at 2 p.m. If you are on this crossing, I look forward to meeting you, continuing the tradition of charity knitting events aboard ship on sea day afternoons that Ann Landau started last year on CENTURY.

I can knit, I can purl, but can I get it on the needles?

On returning to Austin from the crossing, I made for the closest store that had yarn, a Hancock Fabrics, which pretty much carry Lion Brand yarn exclusively. So I loaded up on a dozen skeins of LION WOOL, and a few balls of MYSTERY to make the heretofore mentioned scarves. But before the scarves, I was on a mission to make a tea cozy for moi.

Prior to the Austin move, I lived for 22 years in the DC metro area in Maryland. My dear friend and back door neighbor there has relatives in Ireland who make a pilgrimage to the US every couple of years for extended visits. Her Auntie Nyna was a knitter, and she made both of us the most remarkable tea cozies: they were honeycombed in texture, giving them fabulous thermal properties. Her cozy would keep a pot a tea hot for over two hours, better than any carafe on the market. But over the years, my grey and salmon cozy slowly but surely lost it's elasticity and most of the buoyant thick texture that made it function so well. I still have it (sentimental fool that I am) but it is pretty much useless. Auntie Nyna died several years ago, and with her the tea cozy pattern. No one knew anything about it. The first project idea that lept into my head was finding a similar tea cozy pattern and actually and knitting it. Myself.

God Bless the Internet, long may it reign. On the ship, Ann told me there were veritable storehouses of information about knitting on the Internet, including video tutorials and patterns. Once home, a Google search produced not only the tutorials I needed, but also a nearly identical tea cozy pattern! I couldn't believe my luck. It had the same double walled (I call it honeycomb) construction as my Auntie Nyna cozy. The pattern called for worsted weight 100% wool yarn, so I chose two skeins from my new stash: Lion Wool 'goldenrod' and 'winter white', and dove into my first project on my own. Then a real dilemma then arose: I had never learned casting on while under Ann's protective custody. The process just stymied me. Instead of belaboring it and delaying other progress, she merely did it for me ... as did others in our group. A definite disadvantage, but one that I could fix when I returned home with Internet video tutorials, she reasoned.

I sat before the computer armed with needles and yarn, replaying the long tail cast on tutorial over and over and over and OVER. I just couldn't figure it out. My youngest daughter wandered in, and sensing my frustration, came to see why I was so near tears. "Let me try" she said, having never even seen a knitting needle in her short 16 year life. She studied the tutorial a few replays, then took the needles and the goldenrod yarn and cast on 40 perfect stitches!

Another knitaholic was born.

Claire knitting Christmas gifts for friends,
with Sophie placidly snoozing in "her" chair.
Claire made all the baby hats on the table.
She's a natural!

I'm all for role reversal, especially when it's my kids teaching me. Over and over, Claire cast on and demonstrated the necessary finger movements. Once again, I started to feel like a knitting retard, until suddenly it just CLICKED. We were both jubilant. Claire quickly learned to knit and purl, and suddenly we had a new interest we could share.

Once the cozy was on the needles, I was fine. My first solo project had colorwork! Every four stitches I had to change colors, but it wasn't a big deal. Claire made one for her own small teapot in Lion Wool 'lemongrass' and 'purple'. Both cozies were made on size 6 needles. With her usual flair, Claire added two amber glass beads to the tails of her bow.

Happy teapots are cozy teapots. On the left, large cozy in Lion Brand Yarn, LION WOOL. Colors: 'Winter White' and 'Goldenrod'. This is a 48 oz. pot (large!), and I cast on 84 stitches to get the correct size. Right: Small cozy in Lion Brand Yarn, LION WOOL, colors 'Lemongrass' and 'Purple'. Claire cast on 76 stitches for the small teapot.