Quick Update

I have woefully neglected this blog all summer. Shame on me.

On the other hand, I have finished a sweater I blogged about back in January. This is just a "teaser" post, though, because the sweater isn't making it's debut until the Yarn Harlot's visit today.

The Main Event (a.k.a. Part 3)

Because I order the book & event tickets over the phone, I walked down the hill from The Studio at 6 p.m. to pick up my book & my tickets early. Here are pictures of the growing crowd, at 6:15, 6:30, & almost 7:00




I wore my Icarus shawl to this book signing, since no one in Kansas City would have seen it before. The hand-dyer of this yarn, Rachel of Dyeabolical, now has her own website for her roving & yarn.

(Excuse the blurry photo -- lack of experience modelling, plus Knitters have trouble keeping their hands still anyway.)




I first encountered Stephanie Pearl-McPhee when she visited St. Louis in 2006. At the time, I'd only recently picked the needles back up, & had yet to read any knit bloggers or knitting books, so the sock photo thing was new to me then. This time, I had a much better idea of what was going on. (Stash = yarn, for one thing. Not my first thought a couple years ago.)

The view from the other side of the sock, & perspective from the other side of the podium, can be found here, as if you didn't know that already.

Stephanie was her usual witty self. We all listened, & laughed, & knit. I haven't laughed so much in ages. My knitting may not care how loud I laugh, but I hope I didn't disturb anyone around me. They were laughing as well, so hopefully not.


In between the laughter, it was amazing how quiet the crowd became at more serious moments. There was a perfect blend of insightful in between the amusing.

It was great to be part of crowd where it was the most normal thing in the world for everyone's hands to be busy, & it was taken for granted that knitting adds to concentration, rather than knitting taking anything away from the experience.


We all kept knitting while waiting to wait in line. (I forgot to ask the bookstore folks if any of their other crowds for author signings were as patient as ours was.) I briefly considered counting a four hour drive as a special circumstance worth "pre-boarding", but decided against it for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I was having too much fun to cut the evening short. Besides, continueing to knit & wait meant that I got to see Delores On the Fibertarian Tour.

All in all, it was a wonderful evening, & well worth the drive from St. Louis.

The Event Before the Event. (a.k.a. Part 2)

A few blocks up the hill from Unity Temple is The Studio Knitting & Needlepoint store. Yesterday they had a Yarn Harlot Pre-party event. (Ravelry link.) They had a buffet of snack foods out, along with apple cider, which was a welcome refreshment after the long drive.

I'm always up for visiting new yarn stores, & yesterday was no exception. I found some gorgeous locally dyed yarn, which always makes the best souvenir yarn. In what has become a tradition, I also found another Dale of Norway pattern book, different from the one I bought at Nana's Knitting Shop on my Oak Lawn trip.

Road Trip (a.k.a. Part 1)

The drive yesterday went very well. The sky stayed overcast & did not really rain on us until we were almost to Kansas City. The best thing about it, though, was that my dad agreed to do most of the driving. That gave me a chance to knit & to take pictures.



The rain never got very heavy, & there were not the threatened thunderstorms. It was fine weather for travelling, thank goodness.

I'll post a full report later. For now, though, I think I need to go back to sleep. We pushed on through & made it home at 2:30 in the morning, but I'm not so much of a night owl as I used to be.

Strange Folk, Part 2

(Otherwise known as, The Post With The Loot.)

Finally there is time to finish up the post I started last week about the Strange Folk Festival.

Since Rachel had a booth there, I decided to wear my Icarus Shawl & my African Grey socks in honor of the occasion, to show off how her yarn knits up. I should have asked my husband to take a picture of me all decked out, but I forgot. I did at least think to get a picture of my socks later on that day.


I had several people comment on my shawl, & I pointed them all in the direction of the Dyeabolical Yarns booth.

Rachel's husband was there too, making good use of his time by spindle spinning.


I had to buy some yarn, of course. I bought DK weight in "Blue Beetle" & fingering weight in "Christmas is Coming". (Her yarn is available at Knitorious or on etsy.)
The first 100 people at the Festival got free Strange Folk bags, but I narrowly missed getting there in time for that. They did still have some extra goodies if you bought a bag, though, so I got a free copy of Craft magazine along with my $3 totebag.

I also bought some project bags from Pretty Fun. I love the little gnomes on the ribbon -- very "in theme" for the Festival. This bag will always remind me of a gorgeous September Saturday.

Lastly, I bought some cloth baggies from Gnomeclothes. They are fabric versions of the old-fashioned, pre-ziploc plastic sandwich bags, & are the perfect size to hold a cake of yarn.

Saturday Sky, June 28th 2008

There was no Saturday Sky post last week for several reasons, not the least of which is that I didn't take any pictures that day.

I was disappointed that I wasn't able to make it back up to Oak Lawn for the Yarn Harlot's rescheduled visit. I sent an email to Nana's Knitting Shop to let them know to give my tickets to someone else who would be able to make the trip.

However, not travelling to Chicago last weekend meant that I was finally able to make it to the St. Louis Knitting Guild's summer potluck. That was a lot of fun, so at least I had a yarny weekend, even though I wasn't travelling.





Here is my Saturday Sky picture for the last Saturday of June, 2008, plus bonus pictures of some goslings. These are the first goslings I've seen this year, which is unusual for this area.

Saturday is for Knitting In Public

Saturday started out foggy, but cleared up nicely by the time I travelled down to the Arch grounds for World Wide Knit In Public Day.
I took Metrolink into the city, so that I could knit on the train. There were quite a few Cardinal fans trying to beat the crowd to the stadium, so Metrolink was a bit more crowded than I was expecting for late Saturday morning.
I couldn't resist checking out the Mississippi river levels while I was so close to it. This is the highest I've ever seen it "live" in person, & it's going to get higher before it starts going back to normal.


I found the knitters in a lovely big spot of shade next to one of the walkways. Tammy picked a great spot for Knitting In Public.
The shade shrank as the day went on, so when it came time to be moving chairs yet again, some of us made our way to WWKIP Part 2.
The folks at Knitty Couture had put up some shade of their own, & there was already quite a crowd of knitters when we arrived. They had a cooler full of water bottles & lemonade for everybody, which was very nice.

Both places were very well located for the "Public" part of WWKIP. We had lots of attention from the folks passing by, & quite a few comments or people who stopped to talk to us. Thank-you so much to Tammy & Thi for organizing everything!

Stitching in Red

The knitting picture from last Saturday's post is a summer cotton sweater that I started for my Stitch N Pitch project this year. The Cardinal's Stitch N Pitch game for this year was held on May 28th.

I had a fabulous time, & got quite a bit of knitting in the round done. (Plus the Cardinals won! Yay!) It was fun to see so many needleworkers, & the T-shirts designed by one of the St. Louis Ravelers were a huge hit!
This year there were quite a few people who hung around at the demo/giftbag area to stitch & gab before the game. The weather turned out to be absolutely perfect for sitting & knitting before the game, & for being in the stands watching the game.

This is how much knitting I got done at the game, including the Metrolink ride on the way home. Unfortunately I decided it was turning out too small, so I frogged most of it, thinking I needed to go up a needle size. Midway through the frogging, though, I realized that the gauge was just fine when not crammed up on a 24 inch needle. Sigh...

So I ended up saving just the cable cast on from the original & restarting the sweater on the same size needles.
One thing I did do when I restarted was to turn the cable cast on around, which seems to be making the rolling a bit less extreme. Rolled hems are fine, but I don't want it rolling all the way up to my armpits!

A Weekend Stuffed with Yarn

I think this past weekend may have been my best Mother's Day weekend yet. (Well, except for some allergy related vertigo, that is. But sitting still makes for good knitting time, at least.) This past weekend was completely busy with fiber related activities, & I even have FO's to show for it.

I took Friday off work, & went down to Knitorious EARLY in the morning for the filming of a Stitch N Pitch news spot.

My kids went with me, since the promo shooting was going to be finished early enough for them to get to school on time. One of my kids took this picture. Looking bleary-eyed & half asleep is what I get for waking up at 5 a.m.

I also managed to fit some extra knitting time in around the other things I did that day.



There is video of the event available at Fox 2's website. Linking directly to the video doesn't seem to work, so search "Knitorious" on their site & it should bring you to the story. This link might get you directly to the video, but if not, try the other way.



Saturday was the big STL Ravelry Members Yarn Crawl. I didn't get to participate in every stop, but I did manage to make some of them. It was a LOT of fun. I got to see Ann twice in two days! Mary Beth did an awesome job organizing the Yarn Crawl.
My aunts who were visiting from out of town even got to participate in the Kirkwood Knittery stop, when my Mom brought my kids to join me. (Having the kids with me meant the Loopy Ewe stop was more expensive than it otherwise would have been, though. I ended up with 3 red Loopy Ewe water bottles that I wouldn't have bought otherwise.) I didn't take enough pictures of the day -- should have taken more pictures & bought less yarn! For more details about the Yarn Crawl, I know Mary Beth is planning a big post to cover the whole day.





Over the whole weekend, I managed to finish toes on FIVE socks. Yes, I said 5. One was a second sock to match one I started all the way back in Summer of Socks 2007, another pair had been languishing since last fall, waiting for me to even up the last of the foot sections, & the third pair were my Amtrak Knitting socks from the trip to Oak Lawn. Socks go amazingly much faster on size 1 needles than size 0, I must say.

I still need to weave in the ends on those 5 socks, but the Kitchenering is DONE. Afterwards, I did what I always do when I finish socks, I filled the needles right back up again!

Oak Lawn

This was a weekend full of trains, but not quite so full of yarn as I had been hoping.

Friday morning, my daughter & I got up VERY early to ride Amtrak to Chicago. At Chicago's Union Station, we turned right around & took the Metra commuter train back out to Oak Lawn. I had tickets reserved at Nana's Knitting Shop to see the Yarn Harlot at her stop in Oak Lawn, Illinois.



The Metra station is indeed just across from Nana's Knitting Shop. We stopped in briefly, but didn't stay very long, since we were still carrying our luggage. It was a couple blocks walk to the Hilton where the Yarn Harlot event was being held, & where I had reservations to spend the night.


Unfortunately, the Yarn Harlot had A.Very.Bad.Day. I was disappointed she couldn't be there, of course, but it couldn't be helped. My daughter was consoled by the promise of a trip to the hotel pool. On the way to the pool, we met some other out of town knitters who had made the trip to the Chicago area to see Stephanie. Our travel days were better than Stephanie's, though. At least we got to our destination, & had a chance to do some knitting & get together with other knitters.

One thing that this trip forced me to get done was a shawl that I had in mind ever since I bought this yarn a couple years ago. I bought two skeins of this Dyeabolical Yarn hand-dyed merino at my LYS & always had in mind to make a shawl with it. The colorway is "Dark Envy", available from Dyeabolical Yarns on Etsy or in St. Louis at Knitorious.

(The shirt says "Knitting is so DIY -- purchased from Cafe Press.)


The biggest advantage to taking the train -- Knitting Time! It's impossible to knit & drive. (Well, unless you are completely stopped in a traffic jam, but that's not driving, only frustration.) I did manage to get most of a pair of socks done over the weekend. As you can see in the first picture, I only had the cuffs done at the start of the train trip. Here is their status now.

Dropping Off the Squares

This Wednesday post is all about what came OFF my needles in the past week.


I finished my daughter's sweater in time for her to wear it to the Sticks & Stitches game on Sunday.




I also finished a third Warm Up America square during the first period of the game & handed it in to the collection basket.



Here's a couple more shots from the game. Also, more pictures from the St. Louis Blues official website are published here.



I've been to other Blues games before, but this was the first time that I was there when they WON a game. I guess I'll have to bring my knitting more often, since it seems to be good luck!