Fell down and went boom

I had a great time hanging out with Sister. We stayed up past 1am talking, drinking wine, and looking at magazines. She's renovating her condo, so she was all into the Blueprint and Real Simple magazines I bought.

Food summary:
Friday dinner: Korean. Saturday brunch: leftover Korean. Saturday dinner: Chili's. Sunday brunch: Dim Sum.

I so need to get back to the gym.

I had my knitting going of course. I really cranked on My So-Called Scarf, and have almost finished one ball:

Saturday we were going to have the Korean massage but we decided to go shopping instead. I wanted to visit a yarn shop and Sister wanted to go to Ikea to scope out living room furniture.

Before we went, I drew out a floor plan with measurements, taking into account things like location on A/C unit, height of window sills, etc. I also took measurements of her existing furniture. She didn't buy anything and was rather disappointed that the perfect piece wasn't available.

As for the yarn shop, we went to Aylin's Wool Gatherer, the only yarn shop listed in Sister's town's yellow pages. It was very well hidden, and I have to say, the staff gave lousy directions over the phone. But once there, I fell down and went boom. They had a 15% off sale, so I went nuts buying:

2 skeins of Manos del Uruguay 119 Adobe: 4 skeins of Manos del Uruguay colorway 111, Eclipse. You might be able to tell that 2 skeins are lighter than the other 2. Here's one skein of Malabrigo Purple Mystery (it's really darker than seen here) and 2 skeins of Manos del Uruguay 117 Violets 1 skein of Malabrigo in Tiger Lily: 2 skeins Wildfoote sock yarn in the Bluegrass colorway 1 ball of Jo Sharp Silk Tweed in color 124 Jewel. I had taken a stack of my knitting books, mostly from Interweave press, and told Sister that since Bi-colored Cables cardigan wasn't working out so well, that I'd make her something else. She liked the Paisley Shawl from Folk Style, but wanted it in a deep eggplant or russet red. I told her to pick out a color she'd like and I'd use it as reference when buying yarn for her shawl. So she chose the Jo Sharp. Maybe Knitpicks or Elann will have something appropriate.

I also offered to make Sister's boyfriend something and he liked Ela's Favorite Hat from One-Skein Wonders. He was wearing dark red and grey at the time, so maybe I'll make it for him from a skein of Manos in Bramble, like My So-called Scarf above. He doesn't use scarves, which is too bad because then I'd have one winter present done. Ah well.

What will I do with all that yarn? I don't know. Maybe a bunch of scarves. I'm really enjoying My So-Called Scarf. I'm also thinking of making another Argosy scarf. I told Husband that I went to a yarn shop and bought a lot of yarn. He said he erased that message as soon as he heard it.

All in all, a really fun weekend. And in 2 months, I'll be seeing them again for Thanksgiving. Perhaps I'll have fixed Bi-Colored Cables by then.

Sister's Birthday -- Pig!

Tomorrow I fly to DC to spend the weekend with Sister. It's her 36th birthday, meaning she's done 3 Chinese zodiac cycles (12 years each), so that's something. But the 60th birthday's the really big one. It means you've lived 5 cycles, and back when the average life span didn't quite reach that far, doing 5 cycles was really something special.

I'm not sure what's planned other than going to the spa on Saturday. Sister warned me that it's a Korean spa which is really, really exfoliating. Hm.

I'm taking her Bi-Colored Cables cardigan, gorilla sleeves and all, to pin up how it should really fit on her arms. Then my options are to cut and sew up, as if steeking, or to re-knit. If the cutting and sewing doesn't work, I may end up reknitting anyway. At least I'll know how many stitches wide to knit it.

I'm also packing the Manos So-called Scarf in Bramble and the Pagewood Farms sock yarn in Crayon (much more pastel than shown on the site, even more than the Pretty Pastels colorway) I got at Knitch last night. I'm playing around with it now, doing a So-Called Scarf swatch on size 8 US needle.

By the way, it's the year of the pig.

Heard the Yarn Harlot, finished Honorine

I tried to explain to Husband who the Yarn Harlot was, and why I was going to see her. She doesn't teach people how to knit, but it's more knitting commentary, like all those sports analyst shows where 4 guys will sit around and talk about sports and not actually play the sports.

Yesterday the doors to the Hilan Theater opened at 5pm. I got there at 5:30ish and there was a line out on the sidewalk. It was all women, all white women, as far as I could tell. Out of the crowd in the theatre, I saw only one black woman. And there was me.

Before Stephanie Pearl-McPhee aka the Yarn Harlot came on, Knitch raffled off some prizes. As I knit on Honorine, I balanced my raffle ticket on the knitting and tried not to knock over my wine. I was concerned that someone in the row in front of me would win, jump up, knock over her chair at the thrill of winning 2 skeins of Malabrigo, and knock over my wine. Didn't happen. Nor did I win anything.

The Hilan Theater seems to be more set up for live music performances because there were three levels, 2 bars in the open space, concrete floors, a rail for putting drinks, and they had to set up rows of folding chairs for us. I sat in the upper level, three rows back, and couldn't see anything. Which in the end was fine, because most people had their eyes on their knitting, not on Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. The e-mail from Knitch said that there were 700 confirmations sent out, but it looked more like 250. But I'm no gauge of crowds.

I'm looking forward to seeing what she posts about on her blog about her trip to Atlanta. She did mention at that the Atlanta airport, in the ladies' room, she ran into Vickie Howell of Knitty Gritty. Makes me wonder what she was doing in town.

YH was funny, and talked mostly about how people don't understand knitting and knitters. A lot of what she talked about has been covered in her books and her blogs, so I won't discuss too much of it here. One of my favorite lines was "There are no machines that shear sheep, so every single skein of yarn started with a man with a seriously pissed off sheep between his legs. In my mind, he's a sweaty, shirtless Australian named Mick."

I really liked her discussion about the ability of knitters to change the world, using the example of Knitters Without Borders, her effort to raise funds for Doctors Without Borders. It brought tears to my eyes because as the primary fundraiser for my organization, I really would love to be able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from individual donors, as she has.

And I had to laugh as she compared fundraising to knitting, each requiring small gestures repeated over and over and over, ad nauseum, to create a beautiful, useful, and larger whole.

The first shift of book signing was changed to occur at the theater and the second shift at Knitch. I was in the first shift, but didn't get her to sign my books. It was getting late, I hadn't had anything to eat, the space was crowded and confusing with people trying to line up for the book signing, people trying to leave, people trying to get to the bathrooms. I got crabby so left. To go to Knitch to shop.

The store was full too, which didn't help my mood. What did help was fondling all the yarn. I did buy some hand painted sock yarn (don't remember the company now) to make another So-Called Scarf, nevermind that I haven't finished the first one. I'm really liking the stitch pattern. Mainly, I was there for some bamboo circular needles, which they keep behind the counter, so if I have to stand in line for needles, I might as well buy some yarn and make the wait worthwhile. And that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

When I got home, I showed the yarn to Husband who saw that the skein of 450 yards of machine washable, hand painted yarn was $20.50 and asked what are you going to make with that? I said a scarf. The colors are pale but not pastel, mostly light blue with some pink, light green, and then blips of chocolate brown. I'm trying to branch out from my usual jewel tones and primary colors.

Then I finished Honorine before bed. Now all that remains is to send it through the washer and dryer and it'll be ready for wearing. Pictures next week.

Yarn Harlot tonight

Going to see the Yarn Harlot tonight, as arranged by Knitch. I have Honorine with me and My S0-Called Scarf. I started the scarf last night with Manos del Uruguay in Bramble just in case I finished Honorine and needed something else to work on. Not likely, but I am prepared.