Knit Along, Little Dogie

Maria and I met at Sock Camp this year.  While she is a legitimate knitting phenomenon (check out the little lace number she's sporting below - I actually heard Anne Hanson  tell somebody it was the prettiest thing she had ever seen in that colorway), she's also an outstanding and lovely lady.  Mom to five (5) children, wife to one extremely lucky fella, and now, friend to me.  We were separated at birth by seven years, sharing a birthday, mutual dislike of garter stitch, and a healthy regard for the well-made margarita.

When Maria found out that I have never knit a shawl, it was flatly more than she could abide.  She told me that she was going to make it her personal mission to cause me to become a shawl knitter.  When the mother of five children tells you how something is going to be, the safest course is to just shut up and nod.  As the youngest of five children, I learned this early and well:  Don't struggle - it'll only hurt more.

So it came as NO surprise to me when this morning Maria called and asked me if I was ready to start our "Teach Mary to Knit a Shawl For Pity's Sake Knitalong".  I was.  Somebody told me that this pattern was a good bet for somebody new to shawls, and marginal at lace.  What do I know?  I downloaded a copy and submitted it to my daughter for approval.  I already knew that the yarn would be the handspun I made for her last year, and that it had to be "the triangle kind, otherwise it's not really a shawl".

Lindsay wants me to make a shawl almost as badly as Maria does, so I know when resistance is futile.

So, who among you, Gentle Readers, will take up the call?  Join me in my march toward Shawl Knitterhood?  Or my prayer for the sweet release of death, whichever?  Come on - I'll bet it hardly will hurt at all.  Maria is making one too, except she had to add beads to hers to level the playing field.  Good sport, that Maria.  At the end, we'll either all have shawls, or more respect for them.  What could possibly go wrong?  Join us, Do!
 

The Road to a Friend's House is Never Long

I've been staying with the incomparable Carson , my BFF of BFL.  We're just like peas and carrots, we two, and there is no end to the inspiration I get, just from being in a room with him.  That's how it is with the best friends:  Feed one another's obsessions, validate each other's opinions, and teach each other all the tricks you know.  And for me, being with someone I adore so completely is just the kick-start my creativity needed.  In the last few days I have:

Completed two fronts on the Rare Gems cardigan (no comment on the back and sleeves).

Renewed my assault on this one from last year.  It's 2-ply merino yarn that I spun on my spindle.  I reverse-engineered the pattern from a sweater that my mom knit no less than 6 times in the 60's.  This is a woman who won't drive down the same street two days running, so if she made the thing that many times, you know it's a bangin' pattern.  It occurred to me that if it were re-engineered to be worked from the top down that it would be the perfect thing for handspun, because when you run out of yarn, that's when you're done.  It can have any length of sleeves, and any body length; Handspun-Perfect!

While Carson is at work during the days, I've been secretly scouring his fleece.  It's really been bugging him that he can't seem to get this particular job done.  There are two other whole sheep in his fiber room waiting for the same, so it's understandable he's a bit overwhelmed.  You know what's funny?  Scouring fleece at someone else's house is exactly like doing the dishes in someone else's kitchen:  You're so much better at it and it's so much more satisfying.  Bizarre, no?

In the backyard there are lemons.  Real live lemons, just growing their citrusy little hearts out.  Like they don't even know what a miracle they are.  600 miles north, at my house, it rains 360 days a year.  The only naturally occurring vegetation there is mildew.  Carson let me pick a bunch of these, and then showed me how to make real lemonade.  I'm a complete addict now.  It's all part of his cunning plan to make me move to San Francisco.  Dude has got skills.
 

And then we went to the yarn store, where I completely lost my mind (try to contain your surprise).  I succumbed to this pattern, which I have been in love with since last summer, when Rowan released it for fall.  I had been in control of my impulses because the yarn required to make it is extremely special, and not at all substitute-able.  In addition to being special, it is also crazy expensive, so I had a built-in safety net.  Even I am pretty much safe from a $170 pile of yarn.  Most days.  And then some clever soul on Ravelry suggested that Berrocco Comfort, of all things, had a similar ply construction to the prohibitive Rowan, and I was, shall we say, intrigued?  An acrylic/nylon blend (which I should hate, but don't) to replace an alpaca and nylon blend (which I should also hate, but don't)?  Why, that's just crazy enough to work!  I'll risk $40 to find out.  I love that pattern.  I love the color of this yarn.  And staging them on Carson's Norm Hall wheel for the photo was pretty much fiber erotica.  Get a load of that wheel, whouldja?  Sometimes I tell Carson that I'm going to steal it.  Could happen - he has to sleep sometime.

Oh, and I started my new book.  Nice little vacay I'm having.
 

All in the Family

The more knitters I meet, the more knitters I love.  Last weekend I had the great good fortune to meet the owners and patrons of Purlescence Yarns , In beautiful Sunnyvale, CA.  And when I say "meet", it's more like "be assimilated into the collective".  These people know how to administer the daily dose of fiber.  Here they are in their native habitat, "The Living Room":

Note the presence of all the essentials in the living room:  Comfy chairs (all different sizes for all different knitters), laptops, water bottles, and tissue, in case anybody laughs so hard they spew.  Yes, it could happen here.

All ages are welcome in the Living Room.  All experience levels, and all degrees of commitment.  Purlescence is a place where everybody knows your name.

My new friends at Purlescence fed me beautiful food, regaled me with hilarious anecdotes, and let me touch ALL their yarn.  They knit, they spin, they weave, they teach, they design, and most of all, they love.  Nathania, Sandy and Kaye, together with their families, reach out to connect with everyone they meet.

That's so much more than a Local Yarn Shop.  That's Family.

Stop by and get assimilated next time you're in the neighborhood.