Color Affection progress

Finally made it to the third color on my Color Affection shawl. Hello, short rows!

Pls Send Yarn

It's late, I have a door full of magnetic letters, and I am easily amused. #plssendyarn #knittersoftheworld #crochetersoftheworld #yarnaddict #magnets 

Simone's Wedding Shawl Progress

The KAL is going apace:

Parts 1 & 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5 has dropped, so I'll start that tonight at home.

All the repairs...

Monday was the day for electrical inspection, HVAC check, and the start of the massive plumbing repairs. 

As my job was pretty much open the door, then stay out of the way, I had time to play with the pre-stretched canvas pack I got at Michaels.

The canvas isn't taut, and the one I picked needs ironing (turns out my tiny quilting iron is useful for more than O thought). A quick internet search gave me the perfect free pattern.

So, here it is, all finished:

Hitchhiker, finally!

Last week, as I was reorganizing the house, I found a skein of Island Yarns Rivulet in the "Cosmos" colorway. It was even wound and in a yarn cozy(!).

I vaguely recalled wanting it for a particular pattern. Couldn't remember what, though, so I cast on Hitchhiker instead.

I carried around. It got to go to a fancy restaurant downtown and all over.

By Monday, I was done, and I had this much yarn left: 

Yeah. Could not have called it closer. Here it is yesterday, basking in the warmth of the kitchen vent:

26 teeth in all, instead of the 42 of a true hitchhiker. I love the way it worked up, though!!

Simone's Wedding Shawl InstaKAL

So, OwlCat Designs is hosting a KAL for her design "Simone's Wedding Shawl" on Instagram. Today will be Day 3, so you can still play along!

Search Instagram for either @OwlCatDesigns or #SimonesWeddingShawl to get all the instructions.

You need 3 colors of yarn. Mine are MadTosh Light Merino in "Brothers Grimm" (the inky black/green), Wild Hare Fibers Galaxy in "Serenity" (the sparkly red) and Done Roving Frolicking Feet in "Fire &!Ice" (the multi).

Here is my Day 2. The black is my Color A, red is B, and the multi is Color C.

Eagerly awaiting Clue 3!

Hook on a Ring

So I managed to break my K-hook off my multi-hook yesterday. Not sure how I managed it, but there you go.

Turns out, it fits beautifully on my keychain! So... win?

Totally finished!

Ponchalette, all ends woven in. Woot! 

Almost done....

Finished the knitting part of that project I found yesterday. Just need to weave in the ends!

Lost project found?

Clearing the back room, I found my cotton Hackebutl - and it had a project inside. No idea where the rest of the yarn for it is, but at least I found it?

(It's going to be a ponchalette someday.)

A visit to "outdoors"

Discovered Royal Lake today.

Tiny Crochet Dragon!

Tiny crochet dragon was finished today. He takes a wee bit under 2 hours!

Dragon selfie!!

Teaching a class on him in May. :)

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!

Sprout Sweater

So, I almost finished the Sprout sweater today. Got up to the neck:

Tried it on, and the way the sleeves were done is WONKY. So, I ended up unraveling the entire thing. 

The new sweater is done in one piece, because the whole seaming thing made no sense whatsoever, and the sleeves will be bottom-up for one repeat before the join. That will, hopefully, work better.

Also, the new one will have a color change each vertical repeat, and is more tightly cast on in the first place.

I think I'll be happier with this.

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!