Boing!

I try to buy this at my LYS whenever possible, because it keeps them THERE (support your local independent businesses!). Occasionally, I want yarn/patterns/whatever that they don't offer, and I turn to online stores.

I'm going to make 2009 my year for shopping at Eat Sleep Knit. I bought a sweater's worth of silky Malabrigo from them during their Black Friday sale, and was delighted with their service -- AND the goodies! They run a Yarnathon -- all yardage is applied to your "distance," with some power boost yarns giving a little extra help -- and my one purchase got me a *beautiful* shawl pattern and some very helpful yarn samples, and a Yarn Lotto card which revealed a $5 store credit. The further you run, the more goodies you get -- so I'm going to concentrate my non-LYS purchases there and see how far I can go!

(And yes, I get rewarded for pimping their site, so make with the clickies!) Srsly tho, FAB. Lurve.

1. Find 5 skeins of yarn on sale at a store while on a trip. Note remarkable German Shepherd fur camouflaging quality. Buy yarn, dreaming about snuggling with husband under lovely squooshy afghan.

2. Take skein of yarn into home LYS (local yarn store) to ask other knitters' opinions about afghan possibilities. Tell them you have 660 yards of it. Try not to feel defeated when they laugh and laugh at the thought of a 660 yard afghan being at all sizeable; these women have far more years of knitting experience than you.

3. At their suggestion, buy book of pattern samples, and take it home. Dig through large stack of pattern books inherited from Mom. Find patterns you like.

4. Swatch endlessly.

5. Find yarn is widely available on the internet, and buy more of it. 16 skeins more, to be precise, as 2772 yards is far more likely to be of use.

6. Discover pattern you like. Measure, calculate, plan.

7. Knit, off and on, for about 6 months. After 17.5 skeins worth (also known as "before you run screaming into the night if you have to knit another pattern repeat"), bind off.

8. Admire lack of visible German Shepherd fur. Snuggle with husband.

( pictures hidden for your flist happiness )
Yarn: Cascade Pastaza, 50% wool/50% llama heavy worsted, color "Rainier Heather" Approximately 2310 yards.
Needles: 10.5 (6.5mm)

Simultaneous toe-up socks, two needles, one skein.

::flexing::

Dana had a class in Norfolk on Saturday, so we dropped off Hagen at doggy daycare and headed down Friday. If you're ever in Norfolk, and you're a foodie, go to Bobbywood. This was our second meal there, and FABULOUS. We started with little "spoons" of appetizers -- mashed potatoes and blue cheese, wild mushroom risotto, cream cheese and leek polenta, and crab mac & cheese. Soup was a roasted red pepper with crab meat, and then Dana had foie gras and I had a YUMMEH goat cheese tart thingy. No idea what he had for dinner, except that it was fab (I was a little cacked by that point), and I had filet mignon with mashed potatoes and cippolini onions. His dessert was chocolate lava cake with pistachio ice cream and chocolate jelly, and I had lemon chess pie with raspberry sorbet and perfectly marvelous raspberries.

Saturday he headed off to class, and I amused myself at the hotel until checkout, and then drove to Virginia Beach to Ewe Knits Kits & Yarn. I tried to look their ratings up on KnitMap, but my Treo wouldn't show me anything and Dana's iPhone would only give us a 5 mile radius. What a lovely store!! They've got about double the stock of my LYS, with only a little overlap, so there was MUCH shopping to be had. They'd never heard of Malabrigo, so I showed them my scarf, and they showed me Manos a Uruguay, which looks just the same but doesn't feel as nice because it's a completely different fiber content. I ended up with the Magic Loop instruction booklet, three sock patterns, a skein of Austermann in husband-approved colors, a skein of Lorna's Laces worsted for me (one of the sock patterns only called for 1 skein!), and some unbelievably yummy rayon chenille that washes and dries from garter stitch to such velvety depths -- I couldn't pass it up.

Sunday was more knitting, with a short visit to my LYS, and then we had pizza with the rescue team at our house. I finished my Ana bandanna which is totally cyoot, and will cast on some fetchings today.

WHEE!

School's been out since the 21st, so I've been working from home. When not coding long-distance, I've been curled up in a chair knitting, watching Dana take on Oblivion, generally with a dawg at our feet. Not a bad existence, says I.

( but Faith, WHAT did you knit? )

AND, I've received my assignment for the Malabrigo swap, and I couldn't be happier. Not only is her favorite color one of the only colors I know my LYS has Malabrigo in-stock, but she's a gothy piratical seamstress type. It's like shopping for a friend, I swear. :) I'm hoping to find fun notions or perhaps a cool pattern that's off the beaten track for her.

Pictures to follow, of course. Someday I must break out the good camera and not just my phone...

I apologize for the craptastic nature of the following photos.

Fuschia baby hat

Blue baby hat

(both baby hats modeled courtesy of The Office Plush Cow)

Little brown hat (skullcap, seed stitch banding and earflaps, i-cord ties with pompoms on end -- I point all that out because you really can't see it)

I'll get a shot of the Felted Intarsia Thing when I get home tonight -- I'll never wear it and it will likely go on Etsy, but I'm very pleased that I pulled off both techniques. :)

(and OMG! pacertypepad actually reads my blatherings?!? ::scampers off to tidy up the place::)

Thirteen bobbins hanging!

Inside in progress

If you've ever wondered what intarsia in the round might look like, here y'are. After I finish the next row of circles, I will end up with TWENTY FOUR bobbins. At least I feel like I'll understand this knitting style when I'm done.

EDIT: (before someone beats me to it)
The eagle eyed and/or anal-retentive among you may notice that there are 14 bobbins; the first one is my original tail. I'm only knitting with 13 at the moment. :)

Okay, I've succumbed to the lure of knitting -- Mom taught me to knit when I was a little girl, but I hadn't made anything since college. This summer I was stuck waiting for Hagen to be done with a bath, and wandered into the Ben Franklin to see if I still remembered anything.

I've finished two sweaters and one sock. I have the second sock on needle, along with a neck-down wrap cardigan, and then a coolio little scarflet waiting in the wings. Yesterday was my first class (an all-skills affair), which is where I learned that my refusal to make anything else that I have to stitch together does NOT mean that I have to give up making sweaters. And I got to sit and knit with PEOPLE, which was fun and community stuff like that there.

My yarn store is The Yarn Lounge, or their blog is available on LJ here. Love love love!!

(oh, and I am posting pics of my FOs at the moblog, available on LJ here!)