New Goals.

It's not even Thanksgiving and I already have resolutions for 2009.

As it turns out I'm slowly becoming the person that will drown in her yarn stash if I keep my rate of acquisition going. So I'm putting it to an end. A complete stop. At least in ordering anymore. Having finally found a dyer that can dye my ABSOLUTELY favorite colorway on some great yarn (Yak/Bamboo Blend) at quite a pretty penny, I've decided that I've most definitely gone off the deep end and it's time I get realistic about my situation at large. NO MORE BUYING.

To add to it, my knitting twin has gotten me a beautiful skein of Great Adirondack Silk Delight in Beach House. It's going into a beautiful project if I can only think of one that is perfect for it.



I've covered an extensive palette of colors in my stash and I'm almost afraid of putting up a slide show of just my stash since it would scare me and I've been the person responsible for squirreling this stuff away for a few months. Yes. A. Few. Months. I've only been knitting a year and I'm afraid of that day that'll come when I decide I no longer have the will to knit. All I have to say to that is someone please be prepared with a big bottle of something. Maybe 2.

Seeing (Ruby Port) Red

Oh how quickly I went from staying on the wagon to mildly tripping with a skein of beautiful soft malabrig, then falling off and waving to the wagon in utter defeat. A few days after the malabrigo incident, I fell for this indie dyer currently living in Sweden (simple scarves by mabel) and snatched up four skeins of beautiful bamboo/merino blend sock yarn. I still haven't figured out why I'm so drawn to bamboo blends, I could be part panda, but I'm weak-kneed at the mere mention of it. A choice between silk or bamboo? Bamboo. Cashmere and bamboo? Give me the green stalks of plants every time. I really must have been a panda in my previous life.

Everything went so well until I finally started to clear out my inbox and was directed toward a Sundara Update- then I was done for. The ruby port. I did my best to ignore it. Did I really need another skein or two of yarn that was going to be a shawl? Didn't I own enough yarns to make me a dozen shawls? How many people did I really love enough to actually make them for? Forget taking the time to knit, how many do I know that I can really knit something beautiful and them not throw it on the floor, lose it in a restaurant or clean up dog vomit?

And then after awhile, it didn't matter. I just had to have it. Then I found the perfect pattern for it. And the voice in the back of my head just kept goading me on. Buy it. Get the red. So I did. Happy Birthday to me. I bought two lovely skeins of FSM and since I won't receive it until 2009, I've got a few more weeks to reduce my stash and wait for the arrival of this cranberry beauty. Yarn makes me happy. I wish I knew it before, but at least I know it now.

On a side note, my friend got me a stunning edible arrangement. The fruits were cold and ripe. Beautiful also. Much more practical than flowers that die prematurely.

Soft and plushy.

I'm weak. I'll be the first to admit it. But you would be too if you walked into the store and there in front of you was a beautifully deep purple hued skein promising to be soft, stunning and pretty when knitted up. It felt like cashmere and if I had to imagine what cloud 9 was made up of? It would be the Malabrigo sock yarn. And I'm not drinking the company koolaid. I don't like any of Malabrigo's other yarns. I've tried but every time a skein came home with me, I found myself destashing it to other lovers. More for them, I always say.

I broke my wonderful yarn fast with this and since I had been planning to get a skein from when I first heard of it, I don't think I broke any rules, maybe bended them slightly. If that. It's already on its way to becoming a beautiful object: Knotty Gloves.

1 Year Anniversary.

As I've finally settled down, planted my feet back home and temporarily stopped making travel plans, I decided to share my 1st year anniversary to you. In late October 2007 while everyone was making Halloween plans, I decided to learn to knit with my friend. We spent a lunch hour (or two, but who's counting?) getting starter needles (KA Bamboo Needles Sz 8) and yarn (Plymouth Encore) and sitting down at a now defunct cafe (blame the Wall Street crash for that) to learn to knit. The only great tragedy about that cafe is that the Pomegranate Lemonade there was to die for. The needles are long gone, having been given away in a teaching lesson to a friend. The scarf frogged for charity socks. I'm not sentimental.

Knitting is an obsession. A year later and there's nothing I really won't try, complicated charts don't phase me- instructions written in another language? Bring them on! But I'm getting ahead of myself. I started out knitting a simple scarf. It languished for about 2-3 months and I realized that I did more frogging than knitting, buying a skein or two every few weeks without ever really thinking about how long this phase would last. Three months later I started to learn lace knitting, different stitches, knitted different items with various yarns and was on a constant search for more patterns.

A little knitting lingo.
Frog = Ripping knitted work back into its original unknitted ball of yarn state. Called Frogging bc you're ripping back your work. Rip it, rip it (ribbit ribbit)
Tink= Backwards of Knit. Exactly what it is. Undoing knitted stitches a stitch at a time.

Magic Number 257

Yes. We all know it. Obama won. But that's not the subject of this post. I don't interfere with politics and I voted, but I've had bigger fish to fry.

I agreed to host my friend's baby shower in a city 4 hours from me. So throw in all the logistics of a baby shower, figure in about 50 guests, including kids, held in hotel at a place that I could only navigate through GPS. Once I got to Boston, I started a list of things that went on forever and required me to go to every store in a 10 mile radius of her home. Or so it felt.

But the magnum opus of the weekend involved creating a diaper cake that was the size of Montana. In my head it was going to be a simple 2 tier affair, maybe two of them, decorated simply, so that people could write notes to the Mother to be and slip in small pacifiers, bottles, washcloths, onesies. Instead it turned into a 5 tier wedding cake affair.

The problem can probably be traced back to the fact that BJ's sells diapers in packages of 276. So the first night I dutifully spent a few hours watching late night tv and rolling these diapers in perfect little cylinders and tying them with rubber bands. And the second night I started to assemble the tied diapers and worked with all the ribbon and streamers I had. 2 hours later? A stunning display that involved 257 diapers and yards of ribbon and streamers in baby pastels and boy colored blues. However I totally forgot my original goal. At least it makes for a pretty photo.

That this project ballooned in size? No surprise there. In fact, for a shower of 50, I think the cake ended up getting was targeted for a smaller people size but it ended up looking like it could feed 100. We had a lot of leftovers for a lot of people. The only sad realization I had post party was that I ended up spending more time with everyone else that was invited than the actual mother-to-be. At least everyone liked the hand knitted door prizes. Best game of the party? Baby Bingo. It's not a game for only the church-going crowds and little grannies in Vegas.