Willpower fail

!!The plan: do not buy any Ancient Arts yarn (the Stacked Stitch Shawl Kit I got last week doesn't count).

That failed, and I'm making another Emergency Hat.

Oops.

Edited to add later: Oh look it's finished!!

And the seam is pretty darned invisible, too!

So now I need another project...

Westknits MKAL 2016

After some waffling on Instagram, these are my colors - "Enlightened" (green) by Unplanned Peacock (lost label, pretty sure it's sparkly sock?); "Be Happy" (bright multi) by Reflections, "Lemon/Lime" also by Reflections, (both are Petite Sock); and the blue is "Paradise" in Anzula's Haiku.

Special Yarn

So Shadow Dyer appeared at Nature's Yarns overnight.... 

I got some.

The yellow will be color #4 in the upcoming Stephen West MKAL; the multi ("Be Happy" colorway) will be the Cosmic Garden Cowl from the most recent ReCrochetions newsletter.

Yay! Yarn!

This week got away from me...

I did manage 3 medals in the Ravellenic Games this year... and a whole lot of misses (mostly WIPs). 

Restarted a Looped infinity scarf. We had a store model in Lustra; I have this stuff.

Got cookies.

Got new kicks.

(PS, taking photos of one's own feet is tricky.)

Walked around historic Occoquan, VA.

There are vultures there, yo. And spy cameras?

Did I mention cookies?

Yep. Had a lobster dinner. ;)

More coherence this week, hopefully!

Pin Loom Book!

Woohoo! B&N FX had the 100 Pin Loom Squares book in stock!

And also the Squirrel Girl #1-6 compilation and Tokidoki backpacks....

Yeah, I really should stay out of bookstores. But really, there was tons of cool stuff I didn't get!!

Felt-Splicing Skeino

So since vacation last week, I've somehow lost a day. Or six. Anyway, yesterday a Skeino Arabella Shawl Kit happened. 

Being me, I decided to splice the whole thing into a ball.

Carefully separate single ply into two for about two to three inches. Put the joins so they fully intersect and soak in water for a second:

Then, use friction between your pans to hear it up and felt it solid. (It's done when the water is gone.)

Then continue...

... and continue...

... and continue.

Here's the full color run and label info:

Left to right, winter gray thru spring greens into summer golds and then the reds and browns of autumn!

I'm going to make a Fall of Leaves cloak, if I can!

Not to be trusted in craft stores.

I went into Michael's to get one skein of very short color run multi. You can kinda see it at the top of the basket...

Oops.

Metro Yarn Crawl, Part 2D: Yarn Cloud

The final stop on this year's crawl was Yarn Cloud in Occoquan, VA. As it was now around 2pm, we found the traffic:

Luckily, we were only stop-n-go for about 20 minutes. (We took the back way home, too.) Finally, we got there. Mom, of course, found parking within 50ft of the front door on a Sunday afternoon. (If you've ever done a historic district on Sunday afternoon...)

Yarn Cloud has the best collection of needle tatting stuff anywhere, so I got some of that. And a set of crochet hooks. And a Skeino (the autumnal one in the right pic, in fact). And buttons. And put myself on the list for the 2016 Men in Knits calendar.

And, based on the photo, some square knitting needles, and a hat. The little Yarn Cloud notions bag & pen were freebies.

I decided to put my passport in for the Yarn Cloud basket. 8 stamps from stores I don't work at:

I got a call from Robyn that evening that I'd won one of the door prizes, too! Will try to pick that up tomorrow. Yay!

Metro Yarn Crawl, Part 2C: Second Story Knits

Third stop on Sunday: Second Story knits in Bethesda. Things you need to know, in no particular order:

1. There is a parking lot next to the building. It is small, but has high turnover.

2. There is a flight of stairs, no elevator.

3. It is just a few blocks from the Bethesda Metro station - and just 2 blocks from the street-level elevator.

4. It is the door next to a small restaurant, and you need to look for it. I've accidentally gone into the restaurant twice, and I know better!

Second Story Knits door, right.

Once in the actual shop (be sure to look at the pretty shawls on the way up!), there's a lot to see! There aren't as many books as there used to be - the advent of electronic pattern sales has caused a downturn in both sales and publishing - but there's a good selection in the Book Nook.

There are indie dyers, Chiagoo needles, lots of notions, and more yarn. And more yarn.

I ended up getting a wee bit here:

A skein from A Hundred Ravens (fingering weight, "Flaming June" colorway, some brightly-colored needle coils, and a half-priced Slipped Stitch Studios pattern wallet (it had me at "Zombie HORDE!").

No idea what I'll use this yarn for. YET.

Metro Yarn Crawl, Part 2B: WoolWinders

The second last-day-of-Crawl stop was WoolWinders in Rockville, MD. It's just a quick hop down from Boyds, and mom pulled her usual "let's park right in front!" (As usual, there was a perfectly legal space just waiting for her. Parkma is a legit superpower.)

(WoolWinders, the view from the car, left.)

They've moved things - and gosh, look at the pics from last year: http://craftygryphon.blogspot.com/2015/06/wool-winders.html?m=0

Yeah. Even the front sign is different! (I bet they were told to get a new sign by whoever manages the complex to make everything more uniform or something, because the old one was cute.)

Inside: 

Different color scheme on the walls (I love the little yarn-and-needles border), things moved around a bit, more light in the corners for seeing the pretty yarn.

What I found there:

3 Hedgehog Fibers mini skeins, a MadTosh Unicorn Tail, a (hopefully) shatterproof/less fragile yarn dispenser, and the Mason-Dixon Knitting coloring book.

Onward!

Metro Yarn Crawl, Part 2A: Knit Locally!

Managed four more stores on the #metroyarncrawl2016 today. Since there's a lot to show, I'll do one store each of the next four days.

The first store we hit was Knit Locally up in Boyds, MD. It took much less time to get there than we'd allowed, so we sat in the parking lot behind the store and knit (me) and crocheted (mom), as we'd arrived a full hour before opening.

At 11.30, Peggy, the owner, tapped on our window and invited us in, so we finished whichever rows and scampered in after her.

It's a lovely little shop!

There's the front room (bottom left) and a middle room (top and bottom right), plus a long room off the middle room (which I'm calling the back room).

Top right is a view down the back room, left and bottom right are two more views of the middle room.

The store has plenty of yarn, indie dyers and commercial. I noticed Chiagoo needles, and some beautiful handcrafted jewelry. And yarn.

I got a sweater quantity of sparkly copper Venezia (yay!), a gradient kit from The Copper Corgi (one of the new-to-me dyers, and a Done Roving/Frolicking Feet Transitions, which will be a Sand Dollar shawl.  There was also a basket of back issues of magazines, which totally got raided. (There's stuff not pictured, which will remain secret until after Mothers' Day.)

I'm really glad we made it all the way north this crawl, this is a fabulous little shop!

Metro Yarn Crawl 2016!

Today was my #metroyarncrawl2016 day. I'm only able to hit 5 stores this year (including the one that employs me), but here's the virtual tour! Presented in order of shop, then loot.

Stop 1: The Yarn Barn in Burke

Three minutes after open:

Stop 2: Uniquities in Vienna

Stop 3: Aylin's Woolgatherer in Falls Church. V. sad she's closing 5/31.

 

Final stop: Fibre Space in Alexandria

And lunch at Eamon's, corner of King & Columbus. BEST chipper in the states, because it's the real deal.

Fun day! Time for a nap!

Useful iApp for Knitters/Crocheters

I have tried a LOT of counters for my phone. I finally found one that does what I want. Here's the developers' site, as they can tell you all the bells and whistles better than I: http://counter.bluevine.net/category/app-development/

Here's a screenshot so you can find it in the App Store:

Seriously, this thing is wonderful and does EVERYTHING I want it to do. Highly reccomend!