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Thursday, February 26, 2004
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Oh, the angst!
Oh, how I want to knit, yet everything I try is not quite right.
I tried making this shawl yet my yarn (Cherry Tree Hill Suri Alpaca in Birches) isn't quite right (too fuzzy, too fine). I really want to make that shawl but don't have appropriate yarn. I have laceweight in sage green and dark teal - this shawl needs to be white or black, I think.
I swatched some Austermann Marina I have, originally for Marcel's Sweater. Wowza, that's some elastic yarn. It curled like a mofo, but it blocked absolutely beautifully. I think I might use it for Empire instead, as it will look better on a size four needle (I swatched with a five and it's a tad bit loose).
I dug out my size 17 needles and the last of the Colinette Fandango from Smae's afghan and I have enough to almost make a decent scarf, it seems. It's about 6 inches short of being usable. Argh.
Tonight I looked through Unexpected Knitting again and got an idea for a scribble lace shawl (an example). I have a ton of embroidery floss that I won off of eBay back when I was interested in doing lots of embroidery (five years ago?). In the bottom I found several spools of very fine silk thread that I decided to combine with some bulky angora blend that I rescued from a sweater. The silk thread is ivory, light and dark sage, dark magenta, and rust color and look really neat together; the plan is to do a yarn row, an ivory block, a yarn row, a light sage block, and so on. Anyway, it looks okay, but it's rather annoying, which might improve once I do a little more and there's a little more weight to it. But right now I'm not sure if the annoyingness and boringness (it's stockinette, after all) will be made up for by the awesomeness.
If I have appropriate yarn, maybe I'll try the calyx hat, also from Unexpected Knitting. My face deserves to look like a flower, non? I AM A PRETTY PRETTY FLOWER, I shall go about saying.
I hope Rogue doesn't turn into a disaster. My very, very late yarn does not bode well.
Pictures:
I visited a fabulous yarn store the other day, Amazing Threads in Osseo, Minnesota. They've got a huge selection of "regular" yarn and the most novelty yarn I've ever seen in one place. I was dreadfully tempted by the Schaefer "Anne" in the teal/rust/black colorway, but managed to walk out with only one ball of Crystal Palace Shimmer in dark teal and one ball of Gedifra Distrato in 3580 - Blue Multi (there's pink, orange, purple, yellow, green in addition to teal blue). I knit these two together to make the scarf above (2x2 rib on size 13 needles) and made fringe out of the remaining Shimmer. The Distrato is groovy - it makes "stripes" of eyelash and the rest is plain cotton yarn.
I also, finally, finished the first sock of my boyfriend's pair. It only took me three months!
Website update to come!
Since I've been to so many yarn stores and absolutely love reviewing them, I'm going to add a yarn shop review section to my website soon. If anyone would like to contribute, please email me at tipper @ plasticsoul . org. The reviews should include the name, address, phone number, and website (if available) of the shop, as well as a thorough, well-written review. I reserve the right to edit submissions, but they won't be included without your final approval.
Tipper @ 5:26 PM * link
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Saturday, February 21, 2004
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I present to you all...
A felted project that I managed to not make look like ass:
Before
After
It is cute as pie. I think I shall never again use anything but Cascade 220 for my felting needs.
I tried as well as I could to adjust the color levels, but I didn't do a very good job. The orange in the wool really pops out and, luckily, the eyelash isn't too much different than the wool. It's not exactly the same, but it's the same enough.
Ooh, know what would look really cool? Using a white base (or as close to white as you can get) and making the eyelash *rainbow* (i.e. one row red, one orange, one yellow, etc.). That'd be swank, and that's the only way I could see myself using this pattern in a non-monochromatic way.
I would also like to note that I looooooove the oval base and the little extra thing you do to it to make it really snazzy.
I'm not really working on much else, other than the legwarmers. I'm not so sure about 'em. They'll take far more yarn than I expected; I'll have to consult with the recipient to see if she's willing to shell out more for them.
Lace knitting is calling to me. I should drag out my Snowdrift Stole, but for some reason it's intimidating me. Either that or I've bored myself with it - that's a lot of little tiny entrelac!
I have yet to receive the yarn for my Rogue sweater, though it should be coming shortly.
I really want a tight-fitting raglan with a deep v-neck in a very retro green color. I found the perfect green yarn for it at a thrift store but, of course, only one ball. I bought it anyway - it'll make a fun hat or something. I'm beginning to love having all sorts of oddballs around; it really gets my mind churning sometimes. I have an empty plastic jar that I fill with my longish scraps and it's getting very full; I'll be turning it into some sort of crazy scarf someday.
Tipper @ 12:15 PM * link
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Thursday, February 12, 2004
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Let us have a moment of silence, in praise of big yarn and big needles.
I am about half finished with my Uptown Tote already.
Please forgive the poor image quality.
You can't really see the stripes, but I tried to accurately portray the color. I am in love with the oval bottom. Such simple things make me happy!
I have to start over on the legwarmers; they're a bit too small. I hope I can achieve my vision!
I also hope I remember to someday felt a bag I made using this as the front:
The observant of you will notice that I made a huge, glaring mistake. But, hell, it still looks damn cool.
This bit was fashioned using the spiral knitting technique from Unexpected Knitting and Noro Kureyon. I've since made a back, bottom, and strap, and the entire thing has been waiting patiently for me to remember to throw it in the washing machine. I'm eager to see how it'll turn out.
Tipper @ 12:54 AM * link
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Tuesday, February 10, 2004
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I'm very glad to have my mojo back.
Today I completed my best friend's Yule present, which I hope to give to her very soon. It looks absolutely gorgeous - I'll attempt to take a picture with my phone sometime. (Man, do I need a digital camera!) I have two projects to finish before I'm free - Jack's socks (of which one is almost done) and his friend's mittens (one is finished, one has the ribbing done).
Of course, this meant I took on another project for someone else. This time it's black legwarmers, which I'm doing in Berocco Softwist Bulky. I think that'll give me the right amount of glitz, warmth, slinkiness and weight. I've cast on for the first one.
I was a bad girl today, actually. Aside from the yarn to make Rogue, I haven't bought any yarn for myself in a couple of months, so I took today as an opportunity to visit Depth of Field (I'm so glad I have another yarn shop available to me by bus, lest I be almost entirely yarnstoreless). Their bargain loft always has something to make me happy - this time it was two skeins of Colinette Mercury in Lilac (mine has less purple and more gold and green) for only $10 each. There was one skein that was a little less together than the other and it took me an hour and a half of wrestling (and, unfortunately, quite a bit of snipping) to untangle. But still! It will be a fabulous slinky fancy scarf for me - I realized that I don't have any and have been searching for the perfect yarn since. I'm going to do something drop-stitched with fringe.
In addition, I bought four skeins of Cascade 220 Quattro in Madagascar and two balls of Schachenmayer Salsa/Brazilia in Peach (34) for the Uptown Tote. I saw this tote in person on Sunday, thanks to an understanding boyfriend who let me drag him to Three Kittens in St. Paul. I fell in love! I hope no one does the bag in contrasting stripes, since the monochromaticness is what makes it really pop. The example I saw was in orange... I picked the color scheme I did because 1) red was too hard to match, 2) I couldn't find any black wool, 3) I wanted something fun and springtimey but not too garish. I would've done orange if I could've found oranges that matched. My bag will be a nice orangey-salmon color. This is definitely a project you want to buy yarn in person for, since the closer the colors match, the better. I'm astounded at how much yarn this will require, but I NEED this bag, darnit! And I've already cast on, of course.
I wish to sing my boyfriend's praises once again. He wound up some yarn for me with my swift and ballwinder and seemed to have fun doing it. He watched as I clumsily demonstrated how spinning with a drop spindle was done. To top it all off, he bought his mom (she knits constantly, which is why he's so understanding, I'm sure) a present at the yarn store - a ball of Galway and some mohair to make this Fiber Trends hat. She had expressed some interest in felting, so it's a suitable gift. I hope she enjoys it - it was fun picking things out.
I wish I could get a job as a personal yarn shopper!
Tipper @ 8:50 PM * link
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Friday, February 06, 2004
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I take knitting very seriously.
It's not just the craft itself that I hold to high standards. I hold yarn stores to high standards as well. I'm continually visiting yarn stores wherever I go - I plan trips around yarn stores, even - and making note of the service and products offered. When I find a store I like, whether it's because they carry excellent stock, offer a lot of good deals, or have wonderful customer service, I plug the hell out of it. Not only do I want to see excellent knitting shops thrive, I want to see the excellent small, brick-and-mortar stores thrive.
I had an extremely bad experience - no, two extremely bad experiences - with what I had always considered to be my favorite yarn store. In short, I was treated like a thief and a liar - and above all, extremely rudely - when I was sold defective merchandise. They took issue to me mentioning the issue in my blog. They failed to note that I didn't mention the name of their store.
I hope they notice that I'm not going to, as I'm not that sort of person.
However, the next time someone asks, "What's a good yarn store to visit?" I will staunchly NOT recommend them, just as I have staunchly NOT recommended other stores where I've received less-than-pleasant customer service or encountered exhorbitantly high prices or poorly kept stock. It's only fair to drive business to those places that treat every customer with respect, regardless of the circumstance.
I understand return policies. I can see that they can't have people returning needles every single day. However, the advantage to patronizing small businesses has always been the closer link between the employees, management, and customers. If you're a regular customer, you should expect to be known. You should expect to be trusted. And you should always expect to be treated with respect. When you have a choice between losing a regular customer and losing another $4 profit on a pair of needles (profit, by the way, already taken by someone else), you choose the latter. Period. After all, an unhappy customer is far more vocal than a happy one.
I was an employee at Lands' End for about a year. Many, many people took advantage of the company's "return anything, anytime, for any reason" guarantee. People would bring in jackets they bought 10 years ago to get the zipper fixed. They'd bring in shoes that they'd worn out. But you know what? We accepted every single return, and as a result, brought in more business. The small amount of money that the company lost on these customers was more than made up for by the people those customers recommended, or those customers themselves. Lands' End is consistently rated the higest for customer service. As a result, they keep growing and growing and making more millions upon their millions.
If a shop is having a problem with theft, they should make an effort to do something about it. Rather than scolding customers who are HONEST, they should deter the customers who aren't. I've been to plenty of yarn stores where their needles are located behind the counter. After all, needles aren't something you usually need to examine (although, word of advice - examine your needles. Take them out of the package and measure them, if possible, or ask an employee to do it for you.). At least, take the needles out of the corner and put them in a high-traffic area. Let other customers help do the watching for you.
Thankfully, I received the correct needle. But a yarn store lost a regular customer and her recommendations with her.
Tipper @ 3:36 AM * link
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