The Gnomes Are Warm Now

This past Saturday Connor and I went on a yarn crawl. I needed a skein of Tosh Sock in Onyx to match a skein of Tosh Sock in Tart that I bought last week. So we battled traffic and drove to several far-away shops in search of the elusive skein.

At Avenue Yarns, formerly known as K2Tog, I found a skein of Hedgehog Fibers' Twist Sock in the Budgie color way. I'd been wanting to try out Hedgehog Fibers for awhile, but I don't really like to buy hand dyed yarns unseen, so when I saw this skein, I knew it had to be mine. I like Katalogi's Pucker, so I may have to dedicate this skein to my own pair of Pucker Socks.

Then we headed to A Verb For Keeping Warm where I saw some of Brooklyn Tweed's new line of yarn called Quarry. Connor and I discussed what color we might like to wear. We both like burgundies, so Hematite won. Then, with only and hour and a half left before Nine Rubies closed, we crossed our fingers and drove over. Traffic was heavy and we had to pay a bridge toll, but we made it with 20 minutes to spare. We rushed in to learn that they didn't have any Onyx!!! I had misunderstood what I saw on their website. As it turns out, their Black Friday sale had cleared them out. Ah well. I still have two tasty skeins to play with.

In other news, we don't own hats anymore. Sometime during the weekend, we both managed to misplace our hand knit hats. I think the house gnomes have stolen them. I hope they are warm now.

Yarn Crawl Of Doooooom

A bunch of us celebrated being done with various projects at the end of August. The only way to truly celebrate when you are a knitter is to go on a yarn crawl. (This might have become some sort of tradition. Carol, Krista, and I did a similar yarn crawl last year when we saw the Yarn Harlot.)
The first stop was K2TOG in Albany. Carol found a pair skeins that would help her finish up a sweater. Krista and I got yarn for no other reason than "because we liked it" and Tyler managed to resist, despite my best efforts to enable. Apparently he needed to save himself for our next stop....

Which was A Verb For Keeping Warm. Tyler had talked about Verb so often that we all thought that he had been there many, many times. Turns out it was his first visit. He almost left with nothing again, but I turned on my super powers of persuasion and he left with a sweater's amount of Shelter. HA! Carol also left with a sweater's amount (Tosh DK). However, Carol is really into three color Brioche at the moment, so her sweater's amount could have made 2-3 sweaters. And Krista got some fiber to spin (camel and silk, I think) and a skein of Verb's house yarn. I got off relatively light. I only bought 2 skeins of Tosh DK in Cousteau to make another Deep Sea Wanderer.

After Verb, we went to lunch at a place down the street from Article Pract. The place kind of reminded me of "The Soup Nazi" episode of Seinfeld. You could order one of two things and the line was out the door and down the street. The chicken sandwich was worth it though.

Promptly after lunch we explored Article Pract. Once again Tyler got off scott free, but not before he found me some yarn that perfectly matched my loud biking shoes. Both Carol and Krista bought some Habu. 

Krista, Article Pract, and I have an interesting relationship. Krista has only been to Article Pract two times, but has four reciepts. Both times, I have been there with her and managed to tempt her enough into going back to the counter to buy more things. This time she liked the skein of Sweet Georgia I was holding. I was kind enough to find another skein for her.

Last year we did a silly picture. It has become a kind of tradition.

We stopped at Lacis Museum of Lace and Textiles. There were so many books! My favorite were the Japanese Stitch Dictionaries. Only Krista fell down. But Carol has been working hard to get everyone to buy a copy of Knitting Brioche. So far, almost everyone has. Everyone except me... for now. 

So here is the Haul. A skein of Cascade 220 fingering in Mossy Rock and two skeins balls of Crystal Palace's Sausalito in Big Sur from K2TOG. (I'll admit it. I bought the two balls because they were called Big Sur. I almost got Half Moon Bay too, but managed to resist.) Then two skeins of Tosh DK in Cousteau from A Verb For Keeping Warm. From Article PRact I got two skeins of Alchemy's Juniper in the colors Tangerine and Blue Jay Way. I also ended up with two skeins of Sweet Georgia's Tough Love Sock in the colors Summer Skin and Lakeshore Drive.

I'm proud to say that I've already knit up the Alchemy and have started in on the Tosh DK. I'm also pleased to say that I have managed to knit up all the yarn I collected on last year's yarn crawl. Go me!

In other news, everyone but Carol "fell down" and bought more yarn within a week of the crawl. It took Carol two weeks to fall down, but only because she was really busy.

A Yarn Harlot Day

After being really, really good about not buying yarn, (not counting the skein I had to get for The Book) I broke down. It's hardly my fault. I was invited to go to Oakland for a knit event and we hit up some yarn shops. First up was Article Pract. I really like this shop. There was a good color selection in each brand. And there were a fair number of brands represented too.

I finally won the right to call myself a yarn enabler after getting Carol (on the right) to buy yarn. She was resisting pretty well, but I got her to buy a book and a bunch of skeins of Pigeonroof Studios. Krista also fell victim to Pigeonroof as you can see below. I resisted, but I'm still thinking about those skeins in the colorway "Greenstone." If only it looked better with my skin tone.

I bought the new Knitscene, Norah Gaughan #7, a skein of Koigu KPM in Prince, Tosh sock in Edison Bulb, and Curious Creek Fibers Wasonga in Emerald City. Now comes everyone's favorite part, the rationalization for each purchase. I bought the magazine because it's my kryptonite. I ought to just get a subscription. The book I bought because it's pretty and has great photography examples. (I also got Krista and Carol to buy a copy. Does that make me a book enabler as well?) I tried to resist the Koigu, but I've never used it before. The electric purple is pretty neat, but I couldn't leave it behind once I saw that it was named "Prince." I've been lusting after Tosh's Edison Bulb for awhile. Don't know why. But it looked like a good match for the Koigu. I think I'll make myself another pair of Velomeisters with the Koigu and Tosh. The skein in Emerald City is for a project my Mum requested right before I left for the shop. I might have been able to resist everything if I hadn't been looking for skein for that project. (Who am I kidding. I might have bought more if there wasn't a project to match yarn to.)

And now I reveal the true purpose of our trip. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee aka the Yarn Harlot was giving a talk at A Verb For Keeping Warm entitled "This Is Your Brain On Knitting."
In the picture you can see that I'm not really smiling. I'm actually really happy to be there, but I stopped smiling at the exact moment Krista took the picture. Just imagine that I have a huge grin on my face, because I totally did before and after the picture was taken. Do you see the sock Stephanie is holding? It's mine. And it's a copy of the any gauge ribbed sock pattern I'm working on. I really appreciated how Stephanie took her time talking to each knitter even though there was a huge line. Plus she liked my sweater, so there is that. (The pattern is another one that I'm working on. It needs to be graded still.)

She signed a copy of her book for me too. 

Thanks to Carol and Krista for the wonderful day. And to Stephanie for such an entertaining talk. I learned a bunch about how my brain works and am even more motivated to continue knitting. It really does keep you calm. If you ever see that Stephanie is giving the "This Is Your Brain On Knitting" talk near you, go to it. It is thoroughly entertaining and enlightening.