The Thrifty Knitter

Dude, these are freaking adorable.

It’s a box set of mini-prints of the drawings Laurenn McCubbin made for the Naughty Needles show! (She’s selling larger versions as well.)

And if you’re in KC, you should go to this today:

I wanted to participate, but just couldn’t swing it this year. But it’s on my Uberlist for next!

I was running low on the contrast yarn and about the the pits on the increases, so I skipped the words on the sleeve and just went for the torso words. I got within 2 rows before running out of yarn, but I have to go back and adjust all the yarn stitch by stitch to minimize the bumpiness, which I think will find me enough extra yarn to finish up. I’m a really crappy and loose at colorwork, as you can see. Part of the problem is that this really isn’t a fair isle design, but I’m not willing to deal with intarsia in the round, and I only seem to like top-down raglans lately.

Here I’ve only adjusted the first quarter of rounds, and as you can see, it’s already yielded a fair amount of yarn. I had to cut and splice the excess a couple rows from here, because it was just becoming too unwieldy, and I was afraid it would put too much wear on the yarn.  Although the yarn seems to hold up very well, in addition to being nice and bouncy. It’s this stuff.

I haven’t started fixing the dark brown yet, but hopefully I’ll get a little extra mileage from it, too, because I’m almost through the second of only 5 balls, which doesn’t bode well for the future of my sweater. I may have to try to spin some in the same family, but I just don’t know that I have a fiber that will match. I have enough natural brown rovings to come up with something, but I’d rather just have the 2 colors.

This came from these.

Yesterday I spun a teal Peace Fleece single, plied it with my Mystery yarn, knit up a shoulder yoke thing, decided the teal overwhelmed the mystery, and unravelled and unplied it. And from this I have learned a valuable lesson: SAMPLE YOUR FREAKING YARN, LADY.

Next time, I will sample.

Now I have to figure out what do do with my Mystery. I can’t believe it held up to the abuse. I’m going to hot dunk it along with Ron’s sweater, which has yet to get a soak.

I’ve also spun some Spunky wool I got ages ago, which I plan to ply with some mystery superwash finewool I bought at Yarn School.

Check the gorgeous bobbin, courtesy of my new Woolee Winder. That thing is the best invention of all times. I have many, many new toys, thanks to a pretty hefty initial order requirement to become a Fricke dealer. I’ll probably blog them later this week, after I’ve made some headway on my datebook.

And this nice tweedy stuff came from a Late Fall Art Club Cuckoobatt. The color’s a little richer; my crispest photo was also a little washed out. I think I’m going to spin up another one and ply it with some of my natural dark brown roving, and then ply some brown to itself, to knit a sweater that shifts from light to dark as it goes down. Top-down raglan, of course, which I can’t seem to get enough of.

Hooray, hooray! Look what I just got from Melissa Moustacherides!

I don’t know how I could possibly match something this fabulous! I’ve already spun up the batts. I’m going to spin up some Peace Fleece roving–a little too lumpy by itself, but I think it’ll be fabulous plied with this crazy yarn, and that’ll tie all the color together. I’m thinking a fitted ponchoy wrap, something outerweary, since the Peace Fleece isn’t super soft.

These batts were freaking awesome to spin, really easy and very fun. If you want your very own, she sells them here. Bargain!

Today instead of working on the 2008 datebook, what I really should have done today (but my office is so cold!), I knitted 3 hats for the 3 fellas responsible for putting in our new boiler (Bruce, Harold & Dan). They were going to match, but I made one a little bigger, used up too much yarn, and had to make the 3rd one striped. But I got to use the traveling jogless stripes technique, which is dandy.

Ooh! Or what about the hem of a skirt? No, probably too much circus in that yarn to have it careening all around my fat ass. Much more sensible around my shoulders.

My hoodie baby blanket pattern is on Magknits! (Actual pattern.) The baby is our former neighbor’s grandchild, Bailey Reese, and the blanket went to Angele’s baby.

Speaking of babies, I just found out Malin already had hers, back in October. She sent me a picture, and he looks exactly like a baby! I need to knit him something, as he’s a mountain baby. I also need to send Kelly Sue the lambykin hat for Henry (and post the pattern to encourage the dressing of babies as fuzzy animals).

I’m almost done with Ron’s sweater.

I kept going and going with the first sleeve instead of stopping and having him try it on, so now I’m going to have to rip it back a little before the cuff. The other’s ready to cuff.

I didn’t go down a needle on the hem, thinking I’d prefer it loose, but I think it needs a little more bounce, so I’ll rip this too & go down a size to redo it.

I did use a smaller needle on the collar, but it’s still a little baggy, thanks to my loose Norwegian purling. I’m going to snip this out, I think, and make it tighter and a couple rows longer.

Here’s the underarm gusset. I cast on extra stitches for his broad chest, but those numbers made for a huge sleeve, so I rapidly decreased on the sleeve side to a nice point in the armpit.

I should be able to finish it up tonight or tomorrow and force Ron to model it.

I think maybe the best thing about Norwegian purl is binding off in ribbing. Binding off ribbing with Norwegian purl is heaven, not having to dick around, moving your yarn around all over the place between every bind off. It also keeps the bindoff nice and loose. Norwegian purl rocks.

And so does Karen, the nice lady from The Studio in KC who taught me it. I think it’s the very best knitting thing I’ve ever learned. That and knitting continental, which she also taught me. I’m a freaking speedboat now. And I did my part passing it on at the Expo to a grandma who was really tickled to learn it. I hope she got to practice and absorb it right away (she didn’t have her knitting on her at the time).

Thank everyone so much for all the kind words about Skinny Cat. It really did help me feel better, although I’m still totally in disbelief that he’s gone. Aside from the grief/loss, it’s just so disconcerting losing an animals when they’re totally healthy and young.

Sugarfoot’s totally picking up the slack, being sweet and looking out for me, and spending all day in my lap (even when I’m spinning, which is strange, with all the movement), just like she did when poor Hermie died.

Skinny relaxing during Yarn School. (Why do their eyes photograph so creepy?)

We finally found Skinny today (he never came home Wednesday night), and not the way you hope to find a friend. He was missing while I was gone and I was trying not to jinx it, hoping too much. I guess I can quit hoping now. At least he wasn’t mangled, and I was able to clean him up and dry him off so just seemed to be napping. We sent him off with his favorite toys, catnip, some of Sugarfoot’s fluff, and the last skein of yarn I finished.

He was a top-notch friend, generous and loving and brave. He will be well missed.

I’ve found that I don’t have many pictures of my sweet boy, so if you’ve visited and snapped a shot of Skinny Cat, please send it my way. It would mean an awful lot to me.

Bye-bye, Skinny Bones.

Okay, so the Expo didn’t love me, but I consoled myself with the fun fun of Yarn Con! My train didn’t leave until 3.15, so Shannon let me share her table:

That’s Sara Ellis, soon to be Sara Ware (a new line of housewares from Target or CB2?). I haven’t seen Sara since college & she was one of the organizers, so that was a charming surprise! If I’d’ve known, I’d’ve made fabudestash grab bags to sell. Maybe next year… I’ll always have too much stash.

The space was beautiful. My pictures were crap, so here’s one from Sarah K of hi how are you designs. This was early on, before we arrived (that empty table in the corner is Shannon’s). The had free classes on the stage throughout.

Now the important part, What I Bought at YarnCon:

Adorable stitch markers in fortune cookie, teaput, chopsticks, and fish from Evil Eye Emporium & Shannon’s yummy superwash merino lace yarn.

Same yarn, on its own.

Big mess o’ natural colored wool handspun, which I still find crazy irresistable. This is a bouncy 2-ply corriedale. The 6 on the right are sport; the other 2 are bulky. All by Vera Videnovich. She also had simple but beautifully textured, yummy tweedy sturdy wonderful A-line skirts I coveted but were not quite in my budget (although the were not a cent overpriced, and well worth it, and may be in my future yet). She’s planning on selling the pattern, so I may have to settle for that, but the natural yellow dyed one was smashing and I can’t get it out of my head. Sadly, all my pictures on site were really crap. I just wasn’t myself.

Green Apple Yarns dyed alpaca top and natural indigo & osage orange dyed commercial yarn.

Spinning Fiber from Biggie.

And this wasn’t from YarnCon, but it’s so dandy, I have to share it:

It’s a hook for holding a center-pull ball whilst knitting on the go. Works very well & also holds a hank, for those times you just can’t wait to get to a ball winder before you start knitting the yummy yarn you just bought. Comes in waistband and belt loop models (with the main hook oriented appropriately). I used mine for 2 balls + I hung a little WIP off it. Made by pattern designer and knitter Christine Johnson’s blacksmith husband, it’s beautiful, handmade & surprisingly lightweight. For sale here.

I’m going to go clean my horrible room now. Or at least, that’s the plan.