yarn

Say what you mean

2005-12-03T17:51:33+00:00

Stick by your words, domesticat.

Despite what Matthew will tell you, I'm generally a nice and polite person, especially in public. I let my hair down on this site more than I often do in face-to-face conversations, and every now and then I have to learn to live with the little lump in my throat that comes with speaking my mind.

I went to this morning's variable-percentage-off sale at Yarn Expressions this morning, and found out that the owner knew about this site. I was pretty sure I knew what she'd seen, and even though I stood (and still stand) by my criticism, I had the irrational urge to apologize for it anyway.

"Think you're the only knitter in northeast Alabama? Think again, bucko, because every grandmother with a knitting fetish gets the little announcement postcards and they all show up, garbage bags in hand, ready to loot and kill at the slightest provocation.

Think marauding herds of knitting grandmothers, all with the scent of Sale Yarn in their nostrils, stalking the perfect skein. God help you if you get in their way.

Did I mention the checkout line?

One person. One keyboard. One skein of yarn, laboriously keyed in at a time. One machine to process credit card orders. Large numbers of women standing around with garbage bags full of purchases, many of them filled with multiple hundreds of dollars worth of yarn.

You don't want to know how long the wait was in the checkout line."
- 'Attention shoppers' (5 December 2004)

I have a love-hate relationship with Yarn Expressions' semi-annual percentage-off sales. Truly good yarn is not cheap, and it very rarely goes on sale. That's why an untold number of north Alabama knitters descend on Yarn Expressions for the sale. It's a rare opportunity to pick up excellent-quality yarn for a bit less than retail.

I am cognizant of the inherent value of the sale, but I loathe the crowds. Loathe them. When I have to stand in line for over an hour just to pay for my purchases, I'm going to gripe. That's not good customer service. I can love that store, and love having in-town access to a good crack dealer … er, good yarn, but there comes a point when the value of my time exceeds the value of the [x]% discount on the yarn I want to buy.

I got smart this year. I planned ahead. I knew what I needed—a certain yardage of good-quality burgundy yarn for a little project I'm about to start on—and I figured my only reasonable option was to arrive just a few minutes after Yarn Expressions opened, find an acceptable yarn, and then run run run to the checkout line and get out before things [read: the checkout line] got bad.

That's exactly what I did. I even drew a 35% off ticket, which is higher than the standard 20%, and the highest I've ever drawn at this sale. I clocked out right around 10:05, five minutes after they opened, and there was no wait at the register. None. I was stunned.

One of my failings as a person is that I am neither good at leveling, nor taking, criticism, even if it is constructive. My love for peace is at odds with my sharp tongue. Don't mistake me for a nice, genteel person; I learned well from the women in my family how to present a charitable and pleasant exterior even if internally, I am seething with frustration or annoyance. Yet if someone actually hears my criticisms, no matter how well-founded or amusingly stated, I flinch and [wonder|obsess] over the effects of what I said. Did I wound unintentionally? Was the shop owner insulted that I said less-than-positive things about her store, even if they were true? Will I always be remembered as "that bitch"?

Hopefully not. I spoke my mind, and that's that. My continued patronage hopefully tells the rest of the story.

* * * * *

Amusingly enough, though, I was up late last night talking with friends, one of whom pitched the idea of a Harry Potter costuming group for dragon*con 2006. I'm amused by the idea, and wouldn't mind doing my own take on it (the simple gray school sweater plus an appropriate skirt would work well for me). Ever since reading the books I'd entertained idle thoughts which house suited me best. I've always been accused (rightfully, I fear) of having more 'book smarts' than common sense, so what little thought I'd given it had made me think, "Oh, perhaps Ravenclaw."

I asked several friends about it last night, and was surprised to hear them all voice the idea of Hufflepuff: loyal, quiet, hard-working, home-loving, but stubborn and courageous in times of need.

I'm likely to stick with my original decision, but perhaps my friends have a point, after all.

Peacock eyes

2005-11-08T19:13:49+00:00

You never know when you're going to fall in love. Well, I wouldn't so much call it 'love' as I would 'deep and abiding lust.'Adrienne Vittadini. Cristina. Color #4. [photo of skein] Any knitter who tells you that there is no such thing as 'crack' yarn is a lying sumbitch who is desperately trying to cover up his/her addiction. In this world, there are workaday yarns, yarns you use to construct beautiful but unfussy garments; garments that don't attract a moment's notice. Then there are yarns that, once spotted in a store, never leave your mind, quickly ascending ranks to the level of obsession. I spotted one of those yarns nearly a year ago, back in Colorado. I was nosing around Lambspun in Fort Collins, in the dead of winter, and I stumbled across a ball of … something … that I'd never seen before. Even in the dim light of the store, it had a luminous quality that I couldn't even explain. Luminous it might have been, but it was also $17/skein and I was already over budget for my trip, so I put it down. I walked through the rest of the store, before coming back to the yarn and fondling it again. I realized that I was verging on public molestation and decided that it was time to stop before someone caught me actually drooling on the yarn. Stats for the knitters: 65% wool, 35% viscose, 50 grams = ~140yds, 22 stitches / 31 rows = 4" on a #8 needle. Dry clean only, don't steam. Made in Italy. I'd just go home and order it when I had more money, right? Easy. Simple. Wrong. I'd apparently fallen in love with a yarn that nobody in the States had even heard of, much less actually carried for sale. When I searched for it, I turned up (at the most) four websites, all of which had such dark and ugly photos of the yarn I understood why nobody was talking about it. I wanted to shake them and say, "Knit something with this! Take photos in sunlight! They'll buy, I tell you, they'll buy in droves!" Eventually, I got smart. I put a watch on ebay for this particular yarn. Every now and then, I would see a skein come available, but it was not the fabled color #4, that magnificent deep teal blue. Then one day, four balls of it came available on ebay. I sniped that auction faster than you can say "bad evil domestikitty," and ended up with 4 balls of yarn for about $10 apiece. Stats for everyone else: it's a teal blue yarn. If you turn a knitted swatch to the side, you can see the teal blue viscose threads making a halo around the main yarn, which is composed of multiple strands, like a rope. (Unlike most yarn, the strand doesn't seem so much 'spun' as 'woven,' giving it a slight stretch and a very smooth, non-fuzzy appearance.) Viewed straight on, the finished fabric sparkles like Christmas lights . Until I turned my work sideways for the first time, I was convinced the yarn contained metallic threads. It does not. Once the yarn was inside my home, I considered it above the age of consent, and bent it to my will. It seemed willing, and hey, Officer, it was wearing a short skirt and was asking for it! The junkie had her fix. The d.t.'s stopped shortly thereafter. A shawl, I figured. I've been intending to make a few, for different occasions, since over the past year I've used my weight loss to justify a change in wardrobe. These days, single-color dresses are the norm for semi-formal and formal occasions, and having a few different good-quality shawls/scarves on hand works wonders for this magical adult thing called "looking well put together." In other words, not showing up at your friend's wedding looking like you pulled on the first thing in your closet that fit and didn't require ironing.

(Rule one: always make sure that the little black dress is within reach and ironed. Faking adulthood is little more complicated than an understated splash of makeup, a little black dress, and a good pair of shoes. Don't let anyone tell you differently.)

(Rule two has something to do with never starting a land war in Asia, and is irrelevant to this discussion.)

Meanwhile, I kept talking to the yarn, and curling up with my pattern stitch books at night. Something would come to me. It had to be openwork, to let those lovely nonmetallic threads catch the light. Lacy and stretchy wouldn't be bad, and a pattern simple enough for memorization wouldn't hurt. I ended up with a version of a vertical drop stitch, and ended up agreeing with the writer—(tune out if you don't knit) this stitch looked much better and cleaner if, on the rows where stitches were dropped, the knit stitches were knit twisted. (Tune back in, non-knitters.) I got halfway through the project before I realized I had unwittingly chosen a pattern and a gauge that meant I was essentially knitting peacock eyes for motifs. Wait, no, I didn't say that—it was planned! Planned from the start, I tell you! I saw the color and thought "peacocks!" and searched the web tirelessly until I found a stitch pattern that could bring my visions to life! Since none of you are buying even a word of this twaddle, I'll stop. I can't really blame you. I'm not buying it either. But, as coincidences and luck and yarn addictions go, it's not half bad. I even have a skein left over. I think I need a hat. :D

Birthday shawl

2005-10-17T03:51:03+00:00

This is a shawl salvaged from a pattern gone desperately, desperately wrong. We're talking "throw the unfinished project across the room and screech out loud" wrong. I'd started working this yarn in an Irish net stitch, which looks like a large series of interconnected X's with open areas in between.Except I was working with yarn that was completely and utterly wrong for that stitch pattern, and I kept losing stitches without realizing it. By the time I'd worked up about nine inches' worth of shawl, I folded my work over and realized in horror that my knitting was getting smaller with every row. I knew that I needed a shawl by birthdaybash weekend, and that I was running out of time. I resorted to one of the quickest and easiest openwork patterns known to knitters: k2tog, yarn over, repeat. Luckily, desperation made me knit fast. I keep forgetting one of the adages of knitting: the more spectacular the yarn, the simpler your stitch pattern should be. As I worked on the new version of the shawl, I realized I had it right this time; the simplicity of the stitch let the yarn show through. …and what luscious, yet maddening, yarn it is. I agree with the hordes of knitters that say that the sumptuously colored yarn made from 100% recycled sari silk threads (imagine an explosively fuzzy rainbow with the iridescence of silk) is the idiot savant of yarn. When it's good, it's brilliant: exquisite color, that burnished sheen only silk gives, amazing softness. When it's bad, though, it's everything that's bad about handspun yarn: massive changes in diameter (causing some areas to look thin and worn if it's bad), irregular and uneven color choices, varying quality of spin (ranging from almost unspun and very fluffy, to so tightly spun that the knitter must either manually un-spin it a bit or have very tight, crunchy feel to the garment), and occasional tiny twigs and leaves spun in with the silk. So I took my time, picked out the few bad spots, un-spun the areas that were too tight, and kept an eye on the yarn and cut out any spots that were too thin for use. I'd link to the yarn, which Brian was kind enough to pick up for me from ArtFibers in San Francisco a few months ago, but they have just recently changed their website over to this Flash monstrosity that I can't read, much less navigate. They call it "Sanskrit." This shawl is technically my warmup; what I've got coming next is the most expensive yarn I've ever worked with, and I'll be making the shawl that I plan on wearing to more formal events with my Little Black Dress. For now, though, the photos of the Birthday Shawl will have to do. Click on the photo for a larger version.

dragon*con 2005: T minus seven

2005-08-23T15:54:17+00:00

"Good morning, this is Yarn Expressions.""Hi. I think I've got the weirdest question you're going to hear all day. My name's Amy…"

"Ah, yes. That ball of green yarn you bought yesterday afternoon is sitting here on the counter. You can pick it up at any time."

"I tore my car apart yesterday after I got home, looking for that yarn."

"Yeah, you probably wouldn't have found it in your car… If you hadn't called by noon we were going to call you."

"It's been sort of a long week."

"We all have those."

Seven days until I leave for dragon*con. Here's hoping I remember to pack my brain. Current likelihood: 30% and dropping.

Blue Ambition #2: gothed and halfway!

2005-08-01T20:49:35+00:00

If you missed the explanation of what "Blue Ambition" is, and why I'm knitting it, go back to the entry "Blue Ambition #1: grid up!" and catch up. I have a bit more detail to pass on now.I took the week of Jeff's first week in San Francisco off, so that I could concentrate on the dragon*con tech staff work that was piling up, and thus I'm not as far along as I'd like to be. The good news is that I'm halfway through the knitting of the blanket. Here's the grid of what's completed as of August 1, and a shot of the first half, assembled together Getting the large green square done was quite a slog the other night. As a result, I think I'm going to tackle smaller area next, just so I've got a little bit of variety. It'll almost certainly be the 1 block tall x 1 block wide green area on the left, followed by the 2x2 striped block. I think I'm going to have to make another change to it, as well - I think I may need to add a backing fabric to it. The more I think about it, the more I'm pretty sure that this is probably the way to go. I've got to finish the knitting first, so I can think about that now and deal with that later. Still, it's just nice to make some progress on the silly thing. I've been waiting to sew the latest round of completed blocks together until I got the green one done. Somewhere out there are photos of me sitting on Brian & Suzan's couch, knitting busily on what is obviously a baby blanket, while dressed in full gothwear (fishnets, black wig, black fingernail polish, heavy makeup, etc.). What can I say? I was waiting for my turn in front of the camera during the latest DCTV shoot, and my nail polish was dry and I had nothing better to do between takes. Can't wait to see how Andrew and Joy explain those photos to the little one someday. :D

Blue Ambition #1: grid up!

2005-07-13T05:29:13+00:00

Quickie post, as I'm facing the pharmaceutically-enforced time limit of having taken my sleep meds. Finish the post quickly, Amy, or there shall be no post at all.The first round of Hogwarts scarves are knitted, finished, and mailed off; time to get back to the baby blanket. Andrew and Joy picked out two colors, and for the longest time I couldn't figure out how in the world I was going to make a simple striped blanket interesting. I wandered through my books of stitch patterns, looking for something that caught my fancy. I didn't find it until I saw the cover of Vogue Knitting on the Go: Baby Blankets. (Link goes to amazon.com.) It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it was cute and the idea of making a 'third' color out of striping the two main yarns was exactly the trick I was looking for. After playing with Excel whilst yammering on the phone with Matthew, I had it: the pattern for Andrew and Joy's baby blanket. It's an intentionally broken-up variation on a 9x12 checkerboard, using the pale blue and pale green yarns that Andrew and Joy picked out when they visited Huntsville. Final intended size: approximately 36"x48". (Consistent gauge permitting, mind you.) Lots of different square sizes are thrown in just to piss me off regularly. I'm not knitting it a single square at a time—notice the red lines—those are where I suspect I'll make the divisions. Most are based on color pattern, a couple on size. I'll tackle that tricky upper left corner last. Here's what's completed as of July 13, and a shot of the first two sections joined together. (Light colors are completed sections.) The stitches will smooth out once I wash and block the blanket for the first time, but I may need to re-do that seam. (Anyone truly interested in the technical details of why can just ask.) I got a shot of the project in natural light this afternoon; it's as accurate of a color rendition that I'm likely to get. Don't worry. I'm sure I'll post incessantly about this project. Thus the "part one" business. I usually name big projects of any sort; this one ("blue ambition") came to me while driving. I've been surprised by how few people (read: one) have gotten the reference without cues from me. As projects go, it's one of the biggest I've ever attempted; an utterly bombastic name seemed appropriate. Now, if you'll excuse me, my hand wants to fall off, so I'm going to bed now.