WIP City

As soon as the ends are woven in on one project, the hooks and needles instantly begin to fly on the next. As per usual, I have no shortage of perpetual WIPs going.  For starters, I enjoyed the Flatiron Shawl I finished last month so much that I already started another with some Houndstooth yarn I recently purchased at Lambtown up in Dixon.  The colorways I picked for this fade are so autumnal, my fingers are plunging into pumpkin spice with every stitch.

Next I've been garter-stitching away to make a very conspicuously colored supply bag with some totally outrageous HHF yarn I bought ages ago (and then completely forgot about).

Since I'm talking about knitting, (as I mentioned last month) my 3rd knitting class is tonight.  For the first 2 weeks we worked on a sampler with Lamb's Pride.  The photo above features the sampler I made over 3 years ago and the sampler I just finished (and still need to bind off) last week.  Tonight I'll start my hat with the ball of Baby Alpaca Grand in the corner.  The yarn is SO soft and gentle, I can't wait to feel and wear the finished project!

Truly last but not least, I came up with the brilliant idea, utterly at the last minute to crochet scarves for the 2 sisters at my salon for X-Mas gifts.  So now it's a race against time to get them finished sooner than later.  I downloaded a great shifted stitch yarn cake pattern from Yarnybird on Etsy.  Tomorrow night we're flying to Chicago for a stamp show and I plan to be busting out my hook at any given opportunity during our travels.  So here's to hoping I'll have plenty of HOTHs to proudly display in the very near future!

Stitches SoCal 2018

A couple of weekends ago, Kristine and I went on our first roadtrip together, down to Stitches SoCal in Pasadena.

We had such a wonderful time together, surrounded by 100s of fellow fiber artists!

We took a great class on improving our Continental knitting style.  We learned some incredibly helpful tips.  My speed and tension consistency immediately improved (literally during the class, simply by making a few simple adjustments) and most of all, I've discovered that this is truly the least arduous and most ergonomically pleasing style of knitting.

Both of us went pretty crazy in the marketplace.  I bought some beautiful yarns but my finest purchase of the trip was finally investing in my own yarn swift and ball winder.  Knitpicks had them on sale and I simply couldn't resist.  The double bonus is that Xena is completely mesmerized by the yarn spinning around the swift and she now immediately crawls under the table and peacefully sprawls beneath it while I wind the yarn.

The 2nd class was a wild and wacky introduction to Crochet cables, taught by the CLF's very own Shibaguyz.  It was super fun and informative and like a grand finale to our weekend, they raffled off free yarn and supplies and we both went home with more freebies than we even knew what to do with.

This photo easily captures the way I felt all weekend long.  We're already anxiously anticipating Stitches West in Santa Clara in February 2019!