Some Christmas Gifts Revealed

I couldn't resist knitting some cute gifts for my tiny nephew while he's a baby and a) too young to possibly not like them and b) small enough that it's not a huge commitment to make things like sweaters for him to wear.

The first pic is of a last minute washcloth that I just couldn't resist making. It's an adorable pattern, a very quick knit, and I had quite a bit of yarn left from the nephew's blanket to make it. And, since I hated having my face washed as a kid I though it was a good gift that might make the face washing easier to take just in case he hates it as much as I did!

Pattern: Grrr

Yarn: The Unique Sheep Pima Petite in Kisses

Needle: US 7 / 4.5 mm

And then there's the sweater. It's been in the planning stages since long before he was born when I saw that one of the yarn colorway names was especially fitting. When the colors looked a little girly I decided to try to knit it to fit around Easter/springtime. My first attempt... not so good, especially for a boy. It's amazing how long you can knit something before giving in to the realization that it's ugly, really ugly!

So I changed plans and decided to avoid stripes with variegated yarn. I bought a new pattern and ended up with a cute hoodie instead, one that should be sized to be worn around May 2010. Pattern: Necco Wafter Hoodie
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock - Heavyweight
Needle: US 4 / 3.5 mm

US 5 / 3.75 mm

But this little nephew of mine is a serious challenge to knit for! The sleep sack I knit for him was never really worn because as soon as he squirmed he opened it right up with the buttons popping out of their holes all in line. And so, true to form, as soon as we tried to put him in his new hoodie on Christmas Day we found that we couldn't get it over his jumbo noggin, even though it was supposedly sized for a baby 6 months older than him! I think it was about the fourth try when I finally figured out a way to get it past his head and then made sure to take lots of pictures, just in case he never does get to wear it again.

Clearly he wasn't too traumatized by the efforts to dress him and it appears that he probably won't hold it against his aunt in the future.

And maybe it helps that the sweater tasted good - at least to a baby. Now to see how much a baby's head grows in six months time...

Socks and Hats and Things

Holiday craziness is coming and when I have long stretches away from work I also tend to spend much less time near a computer. So, before I get caught up in other things for a bit, here's a quick update on some recent knitting progress.

It was stupidly challenging for as simple as something like a hat is supposed to be, but fortunately I finished it with plenty of time to spare:Pattern: Ardelle hat
Yarn: Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breeds - BFL
Needles: US 9 / 5.5 mm bamboo
Completed: December 10, 2009

This hat is a Christmas gift, but even on the completely random chance that the family somehow stumbles onto this blog they won't know who it's for since we're doing a Secret Santa exchange. The Purelife yarn is really lovely to work with and thankfully handled all of the abuse of being knit, ripped out, and reknit remarkably well.


I also finished my Angee socks in plenty of time for the Cookie A Knit-Along, but I didn't get good pictures of them as a pair, so the best information about them is still in the previous post. I am wearing them today, though, so they're officially in the rotation!


And finally, I've started my latest socks from the Woolgirl Oz club, the Cowardly Lions:
The yarn is really soft and I love the color variations that are blending so nicely together and not pooling at all! It's been a long time since I've worked on a sock with so much stockinette and it feels so soft and squooshy that I'm loving it.


Of course I've been working on and finishing a few other gifts, but I'm keeping them secret for now just in case. It's only a few days until Christmas and I'd hate to risk ruining the surprise now.

And just in case I fall apart on posting and don't get back here until the new year, here's wishing everyone very Happy Holidays and a lot of fun, relaxing time with family and friends!

Woolgirl Oz Sock Club - Cowardly Lion

This kit shipped a bit late, so although it's marked as the November kit it didn't arrive until the second week of December. Then, since daylight outside of standard working hours is hard to come by this time of year, I didn't get it photographed until this weekend. But before it gets lost in the shuffle of Holiday activities, here it is!

************ Spoilers from this point on! ************

The overall shot:

Lots of Cowardly Lion swag, including bookmarks, magnets, and a notebook with a Cowardly Lion cover. This time there are some items themed on the illustrations from the book, too, and not just from the movie - little charms and a couple of round glass magnets.

Here's a little close-up of the charms:

The sock pattern is from Irishgirlieknits and although it looks pretty simple the cuff looks interesting and it looks like it will show off the lovely yarn well. This time we have Union Center Knits Whatnot Sock in fingering weight and I love the variation of colors in the skein with hints of russet brown and green.

And probably the best of all of the little goodies:

The super-adorable stitch marker lion holding his little tail -- I'm always amazed people can craft such tiny things with so much detail!

Now since I finished my knit-along socks last night I don't have any socks in progress at the moment, so these might leap-frog the Enchanted Forest socks and get cast on next. My last couple of pairs of socks have been knit with such dark yarn that the lion color looks much more cheery and appealing to me at the moment.

Due to the aforementioned issues with finding daylight the pictures have been slower in coming lately, but look for updates on the knit-along socks and some holiday knits before too, too long.

More Knit-Along Socks

Since sariebeth expressed such love for her Jitterbug yarn, I bought some so that I could give it a try, too. Of course that was months ago, but when the Sock Innovation KAL group set December as a Free-for-All month where any Cookie A. sock pattern was eligible I seized the chance. I was too busy to participate in September when this pattern rolled around the first time, but it's the perfect introduction for the traditionally yardage-challenged Jitterbug since the pattern itself includes a modification specifically for a single Jitterbug skein.

Pattern: Angee
Source: Sock Innovation, by Cookie A
Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug in Morello Mash
Needles: US 1½ / 2.5 mm 40″ Addi Lace

I agree the Jitterbug is fun to knit with (not even a hint of splitiness, which is lovely) and I love how sock #1 came out, but I wonder what it will be like to wear. It feels a bit heavy to me, but it's got a tight twist and I've been working with some really fine sock yarns lately so it might just be the comparison to things like Madelinetosh tosh sock that's throwing me off.

And while the first sock is obviously done, I've been distracted by a few other projects lately. Now I just have to make sure I don't get so distracted that I forget to crank out sock #2 before the December 31 deadline. Oh yeah, and somehow take care of all of the Holiday-related and non-knitting things, too!

Bags of Knit

Much like Woot, Dizzy Sheep is a site that offers a deal a day and when things sell out then that's it until midnight brings the next deal. On occasion, both sites offer a mystery deal - a bag of something you buy sight unseen that will likely be worth at least what you paid for it, maybe more, but may also be something you would never have bought for yourself. The yarn-related "Bag of Knit" seems more like a sure thing, since it's almost guaranteed to be useful for some project, but there is the possibility of getting novelty yarn or colors you hate, so it's still a gamble. Of course, some people gets skeins of lovely cashmere, too, so you just hope you're one of the lucky ones.

So when Thanksgiving rolled around and I was still up at midnight to check the Daily Dizzy Deal, I scored 4 bags of knit. A bit excessive, I know, but I'm not always near a computer when the BoKs appear and the chances of getting something awesome seem better when you get more than 1 chance, so I splurged. Anyway, here they are in the order I opened them:

First, 2 skeins of Bristol Yarn Gallery Ashton in black Lovely DK weight, 8 ply Wool, Silk, and Alpaca. Lucky so far!

Next, 1 skein of Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine in black and 1 skein of Karabella Lace Mohair in black
Yum, Alpaca and huh... Mohair. I suppose bundling them together means Dizzy thinks I should make something that uses both yarns in the same project, but I've never worked with Mohair before so we'll see. But they're both lovely and soft - so far so good...

Next, Karabella Gossamer in a maroon-ish color with red metallicHaha, there it is, the reason I try to get more than one! It's obviously an expensive yarn, just not one I'd ever pick for myself. No idea what to do with this one, but I love red and it might work for something festive for the holidays, though maybe not something to wear.

And finally, a Bully Woolies Knit Kit in a Box for a Coin Purse.Cute and unexpected! I think it might be similar to something Sariebeth found sometime around Christmas last year, too, so maybe we can get a tiny ludistitch knit-a-long going.

All in all, I was really, really lucky! All of the black is great, even if there's some lace weight stuff in there that I'm not sure what to do with yet. Having someone pick things randomly for you is definitely a way to try to force you to use new kinds of yarn, so I'll see if I can't work some of the Bag of Knit items into some projects in the queue soon. Not that I needed more yarn, but these were some fun little pre-Christmas surprises.

P.S. We need to encourage Xandermommy and Sariebeth to come out of hiding and post again before the year is up! C'mon fellow ludistitchers, there's less than 30 days left in 2009!

Knitting on Holiday Time

With extra time off around the Thanksgiving holiday and some serious laziness around the house, I wrapped up some knitting, including a complete project redo.

Once upon a time, in a place called Schaumburg, two of us visited a yarn gathering known as Stitches Midwest, but one little Sariebeth had to stay home. We missed her, though, so I endeavored to make her a pink cabled hat while we were away to give her when we returned. After all, Sariebeth loves all things pink! So I followed the hat pattern and even finished with some yarn to spare, but discovered that although it was marked as an adult pattern, it barely fit my head. It could be squashed on, but barely reached the top of my ears. I hoped that maybe I just had an unusually large head since I didn't have time to re-knit the hat before seeing Sariebeth. Unfortunately, my head wasn't so unusually large and the hat barely fit on her head either. So it became one of those gifts where "it's the thought that counts", but it bothered me that I made such a useless gift.

So, when the weather started to turn cold and I was still thinking about the sadly undersized hat, I asked Sariebeth's husband to bring me the hat so that I could fix it. He knew where to find it and returned it to me, and I set to work frogging it back to a couple of balls of yarn. I started over from scratch and added another repeat of stitches to the cast on (and fixed some of the mistakes I accidentally added in the first attempt when converting the pattern from flat to knit in the round). Then, to make it lengthy enough to cover the ears, I added a full pattern repeat before decreasing at the top. This time I had just a tiny ball of yarn left instead of half a skein and it fit my head like a proper hat should!

And so I re-gifted the pink cabled hat to Sariebeth this weekend and all is again right in the knitting world. The End.

Oh, and I finished my first pair of anklets this past week, too. While still in progress they even traveled to the Thanksgiving dinner festivities for both sides of the family, but I spent more time cooking than knitting.
Yep, I'm still knitting.

Finished Emerald City Socks

It took me a little over a month to get through all of the tiny stitches (US1 needles, oh my!), but my Emerald City socks are finished and they fit beautifully.

I say they fit well because I've tried them on, but I haven't actually worn them yet. I kept noticing a tinge of dye on my fingers while knitting them, so these were the first socks that got a good few rinses before their first wear. I actually only saw a hint of dye in the water, but the thought of blue-green feet wasn't really appealing so I went with the better safe than sorry approach. They should be dry by now, though, so they'll be in the sock rotation soon.

I am really glad that I bought a set of Kollage square needles in time for these socks, though. I'm a bit of a tight knitter and that sometimes makes things difficult on my Harmony wood needles with socks that have stitches with multiple increases and decreases and such. I was worried that it might get even uglier with the smaller yarn and needles (I hadn't knit on anything smaller than a US1.5 before). The square needles are metal and allowed the stitches to slide more easily, but the square sides did make it easier for me to keep the stitches on the needles. I loved working with these needles so I plan to reach for them whenever I work socks in this size in the future.

So I'm really happy with how these socks came out, but I'm done with twisted ribbing for a while. It's not difficult, but something about the tediousness of it with the little stitches got to me a bit on these. Now I'm just looking forward to wearing these and comparing the tight, tiny stitch fabric to some of my previous socks of a looser gauge.

The Finished Sweater

My first hand-knit sweater is complete and has already been worn several times. Unfortunately, by the time it was finished and ready for photos, a busy travel weekend and Daylight Saving Time conspired to make it difficult to get photos of it in any sort of natural light. But this past weekend was unseasonably warm and presented me with the best possible scenario to get some quick pictures.

As for the rumors of Dream in Color Classy growing when exposed to water - they're definitely true! When I laid the sweater out to dry while it was damp it had grown almost 4" in length, even after a short time in the dryer on a very low setting. But the Classy seems to have amazing memory and having worn it a few times it has sprung back closer to the original knit length.

Now I was counting on the crazy growth everyone was warning about after the first wash, and in hindsight I probably shouldn't have counted on it quite so much. I probably should have knit the body slightly longer, but it’s very stretchy and it's been very comfortable to wear and surprisingly warm for a cardi.

And fortunately the extra material that bunched near the armpits before the first wash has smoothed out considerably. It's still there, but it's much softer and not as noticeable and obviously hasn't kept me from wearing it. Whew!

So there it is - I've knit an entire sweater for myself! It's not perfect (the sleeve decreases I added are too obvious to me, but not as noticeable when it's being worn), but it didn't take as long as I thought it might and there's definitely something rewarding about getting to wear it. My first attempt didn't kill me so I might become a sweater knitter after all.

Woolgirl Oz Sock Club - Enchanted Forest/Flying Monkeys

The next kit in my Woolgirl Oz sock club arrived on Monday, this time themed for the Enchanted Forest/Flying Monkeys. It's the first of my Oz kits to arrive before I finished knitting the previous one - partly because I started knitting a sweater and partly because the kits are now coming monthly instead of every other month until the end of the year.

************ Spoilers from this point on! ************

So here it is all wrapped up like a gift:

And here it is unpacked:

Again, the included bag is a bit small to hold an entire ball/cake of sock yarn, but large enough for the rest of what came with the kit. I admit that on that point I've been disappointed with the kits so far. I only need so many small bags for tiny notions and things, but I could really use some that were big enough to hold a sock project while in progress. At least they've all been unique and of different shapes and styles, though.

The Oz pill box is divided into thirds inside, which although tiny will probably good for keeping stitch markers. The "Don't make me get the Flying Monkeys" button is actually a mirror on the back, which is fun. But my favorite accessory might be the little plastic boxy looking thing with colored circles - it holds a full-width post-it pad on one side and then a rainbow of post-it tabs on the other. Awesome! (Post-it tabs are things I've seen other people put to good use before but haven't yet tried. Now I have no excuse not to.)

This time there weren't quite as many goodies, but twice the yarn and 3 patterns!

There's a full-size sock pattern for the forest yarn (Curious Creek Wasonga), and both a Flying Monkey anklet and Flying Monkey fingerless mitts pattern for the Mama Llama DK. Now I'm not a huge fan of pink and I don't think it quite fits with the Flying Monkeys theme (I think they have more red than pink), but I think the anklet pattern looks fun and it will probably be what I cast on first. (Especially since my size 1 sock needles are still in use for the Emerald City socks, doh!)

But , it's getting to be that busy time of year again and so this is the first of my Oz kits that I haven't cast on within the first few days. I just have too many things going on so I'm not exactly sure when I'll get to them. My flying monkey isn't happy about it, but he's just going to have to wait his turn.

Boo!!!

Happy Halloween!

I recently took a break from my everyday knitting projects to use up some of my leftover yarn to make this adorable little Fall pumpkin. I'm still not a very fast knitter, so it took me an entire evening to make him, but the finished product was definitely worth the time to me.

My First Sweater

The February Lady Sweater pattern is hugely popular on Ravelry - a viral knit, of sorts, that's known for being flattering to a lot of body shapes and of simple construction. In fact we saw many, many incarnations of it being worn at Stitches Midwest. So, when I bought my first sweater quantity of yarn I tried to make sure I had enough yarn to try this popular cardigan. It seemed like a good place to start for someone like me who knows next to nothing about knitting sweaters.

Now it's knit from the top down, and from the moment I started I was unsure if it would fit me. I went through many stages of taking it off the needles to try it on to try to decide if it was too small and where the garter stitch yoke section should end and whether or not it was almost meeting under the arms like the pattern said or needed to be closer to almost meeting. (Of course, if I bought a cord that was longer than the 32" circular I've been using I wouldn't have to take it off the needles, but I couldn't bring myself to place an order for just one cord for a sweater that might or might not succeed anyway.)


Fortunately, Ravelry is a good place for reassurance and having read through many other people's February Lady project notes I discovered that I unwittingly made a pretty good choice of yarn - at least if I want it to be bigger instead of smaller. Apparently Dream in Color Classy has quite a reputation for blooming into a much more stretched out version of itself when washed, so while a lot of people report freaking out at how much their sweater had grown when wet, I was reassured to think that at worst it was going to get bigger and I could work on shaping it to fit me if I was a bit off on my guess of which size to knit.

So after a few months of off-and-on knitting I've finished the body of the sweater and the first of the sleeves. It's a snug fit so far, but given a certain amount of blocking I think it should be about right. The biggest issue that makes me question whether I'll end up wearing it in public or not is the extra material that bunches near the armpits (which you can see a hint of in the picture below). When following the pattern, I ended up knitting a lot of plain rows past the raglan shaping to get the right size for the sleeve, but apparently this causes too much build-up of fabric near the arms. As an admitted sweater-knitting newbie, I don't actually know what I should have done to fix that, so I'll live with it and keep an eye out for that on future patterns. I'm certainly not going to rip out the whole sweater to fix it and there's probably little that can be done once it's all knit. If anything, I'm kind of hoping it's one of those things that becomes less noticeable when washed or worn.


Now for the last sleeve and some buttons and then we'll see how it works as an actual garment. I have to say, I love the color and the subtle variation of the yarn, so if it fits well enough it could easily become a favorite. And since I have some yarn from Stitches Midwest in sweater quantities I really need to get some decent sweater-knitting skills going here sometime soon!

Emerald City - Sock One

Even though my Woolgirl Oz - Emerald City kit arrived nearly two weeks ago there are apparently still some people waiting on theirs even within the US. That hasn't kept me from working on my socks, of course, but it means I'll leave the photos behind the spoiler links just so I don't ruin it for someone else. (ETA: spoiler safety removed 5-Nov-2009)

So here's a little detail shot of the toe of the first sock:

This is the first thing I've ever knit on needles this small (US1 aka 2.25mm) and although it's been slow, it wasn't as bad as I expected it might be. Of course, after the first night without much progress I think I had convinced myself it would take me at least 3 months to knit these so finishing one in just a couple of weeks was a pleasant surprise!

Last night I finally finished the toe decreases and wove in the ends to get this:

Now I like the pattern and it fits me really well (I went with the middle size with a cast on of 70 stitches), but I have to say that I'm not sure it really pops with the yarn. Even though the yarn is essentially semisolid it just doesn't show the pattern very well, at least in my case. But the fabric at this gauge is really nice and the yarn is twisty and feels like it will be comfortably soft when washed and the twisted ribbing really pops, so I'm still happy with it overall.

I did cast on for the second sock as soon as I finished the first one, but I think I need to switch back to more dedicated work on my classy sweater soon. We got a bit of Indian Summer weather, but I'm still hoping to be able to finish it before Thanksgiving. It's about time to get out my gorgeous new swift and put it to work winding the last skein of my In Vino Veritas and hope that it's enough yarn to finish the sweater. It looks like it should be, but I don't have much experience with sweaters just yet, so the fingers are still crossed for now.

Woolgirl Oz Sock Club - Emerald City

The next kit in my Woolgirl Oz sock club has arrived, this time themed for the Emerald City. It also marks the start of a new Oz kit every month! Most of the year the club is on an every other month basis, but starting with this kit there will be one every month from September (this one was late and shipped in Oct., but was listed as a Sept. kit) through January. I seriously need to learn to knit a lot faster!

************ Spoilers from this point on! ************

So here it is all wrapped up like a gift:

And here it is unpacked:

The green corduroy fabric is a zippered bag from Sheila D - a bit small to hold an entire ball/cake of sock yarn, but large enough for the rest of what came with the kit. There's also another nice pen, this time with an appropriate green highlighter on top. The little Emerald City stitch marker is adorably detailed and was obviously a labor of love, and the Emerald City tin is going to be great for keeping track of little knitting accessories.

Although I held out the first night, I was anxious to try the Madelinetosh tosh sock yarn and cast on the next night (although this photo includes progress from a few nights):

I was also looking forward to trying my new Kollage square metal sock needles. I bought a set of US size 1 in anticipation of needing them for one of the Oz kits since some of the fingering weight sock yarn seems to require tiny needles. I already like working with them, but this pattern has been going really slowly for me. I think it's partly the tiny needles and partly the fact that I've acquired so much yarn in my stash and feel like I'm not knitting nearly fast enough.

But I'm trying to avoid burning myself out so I've been working on my first adult-sized sweater, too. It's nice to be able to switch to bigger needles and an easy pattern that doesn't require a lot of concentration on charts. I don't think these socks will be all that complicated, just a long labor of love. Plus, there's the possibility of some fall knits that might steal my attention, too, so we'll see.

Socks and a sweet gift

Since I've been keeping my sock club socks to myself I felt like it had been a long time since I'd made some for my husband, so I was determined to squeeze in a pair for him before starting the next club shipment. I let him pick the yarn, and even though it promised to be flashy, he chose Yarn Love's Marianne Dashwood in the Mr. Wonderful colorway. He is my Mr. Wonderful, after all!

So I worked up some Mr. Wonderful socks two at a time using Magic Loop on my new 40” Addi Lace Turbos. The yarn didn't disappoint on the flashy front - it pooled even more brightly than I expected. So I stuck with a tiny cable pattern and let the yarn do all of the talking this time since it obviously had so much to say! They ended up a little long, but otherwise seem to fit him well and they've already seen a lot of use keeping his feet warm in the house.

Two at a time on the same circular needle and yet they still pooled rather differently!

And of course with socks this bright I'll know that if he loses one or both it's because he was really trying to get rid of them! (I'm kidding - no, he doesn't have a history of losing socks anyway.)

Now I don't have updated photos of some of the other projects yet, but I do have a photo of this:


An awesome birthday present from Mr. Wonderful himself - a beautiful, hand made swift from a nearby woodworker! I love it! It spins so smoothly and silently and the best part is that both the arms and legs of it quickly fold together for storage and it came with a small storage bag for the movable pegs. It's a major knitting accessory, so I definitely have to keep knitting now!

Too Quiet

It might be noticeable that although I did manage to get through all of my Stitches recap, things have since stalled and it seems that none of us have anything to blog about. But it's not true.

There hasn't been a complete lack of knitting - I've finished a new pair of socks and started the second sock of a pair that has been waiting in the wings too long - there's just been a lack of photographic proof. I've been traveling on the weekend and much busier after work than usual and by the time I have a little spare time before bed I sit down for a quick bit of knitting instead of snapping photos of said knitting.

But, there is the promise of a little more spare time on the horizon, so I predict new knitting photos soon...ish. After all, there are more Woolgirl sock kits (both in hand and on their way) and even the start of my very first sweater attempt, just waiting at home for me to have time to pose them and give them their proper photo shoots. In the meantime, here's a random yarn photo and a reminder of ambitions to keep working through the stash!

Stitches Midwest Recap: The End

Sunday, Sept. 13 - It was our last day at Stitches, so we spent most of the morning getting ready to go and packing our things into the car. We moved the car to the Convention Center parking lot and headed into the Market for our last-minute browsing and to wait for the results of the final raffle. We didn't win any of the big prizes, but we did squeeze in some final purchases - some in sweater quantities, even! Mmm, some nice squishy Alpaca for me.

We decided to stop for one last lunch in Schaumburg before we left and ended up at the nearby Weber Grill restaurant. After a pretty quick lunch we were on the road and we even followed the original directions to avoid the Chicago traffic this time. The trip home was pretty uneventful and we were home by sometime around 9pm after the time zone change.

Random trip notes:

• We're pretty much convinced that everyone in Schaumburg lives mostly on pretzel rolls and diet Pepsi! The diet Pepsi thing was probably just the convention center making a deal with Pepsi, but the pretzel rolls were at every meal - even at Weber Grill. Don't get me wrong, we had a lot of them and they were tasty, but it was getting a little crazy.
• Remember how we didn't know exactly which direction Ikea was from our hotel? Turns out we could have known if we had really checked out the view from our hotel first. The blue and yellow building is pretty distinctive, but initially we weren't in our room very much and it was quite a bit off to the left so we didn't actually see it until the following day!
  

So there you go - all that you might have wanted to know about our Stitches adventure, and probably more! Now we really need to get to knitting some of our fabulous new yarn. And hopefully the timing will be better next time so that Sariebeth can join in on the fun, since it just wasn't the same without her!

Stitches Midwest Recap: Part 3

Saturday, Sept. 12 - Since we had an afternoon class we got an earlier start and we were back in the Market not long after it opened. I hadn't brought the yarn I needed for our Intro to Entrelac class, but I knew I could find a couple of nice, relatively inexpensive worsted weight yarns - especially since this was the day we planned to hit up the Webs booth and pool our purchases for their discount.

First, though, we were armed with our list of appealing items from the Fashion show and started our shopping by wandering to the various booths to see the samples in person. Some were not as appealing when viewed up close, but we did purchase some patterns along the way.

The bulk of the yarn purchases came later when we made our dedicated foray into the Webs area. We did have a bit of a red tweed thing going on, as both Xandermommy and I picked up sweater quantities in similar, but different yarns there. I got my yarns for class from Webs, too, and Xandermommy found some other yarns of various weights that she wanted to try working with. And, as seemed to be the case every day, time flew while we were shopping and before we knew it it was nearly time for class and we hadn't stopped for lunch yet.

So, we deposited our purchases in our hotel room and headed back down to the lobby with about 20 minutes for lunch. Sam & Harry's was offering a special express lunch for Stitches visitors and we started there, but as soon as we were seated we realized we were cutting it way too close on time and we hurried over to the Starbucks cafe to split a prepackaged salad and a sandwich wrap.

Even though we scarfed our lunch and took some with us as leftovers we were still apparently the last ones to the classroom and settled in just before class began. It was a very quiet and serious class, but within the first 10 minutes or so we were both confident that we understood the concept of Entrelac outlined in the course handouts. It seemed like we both kept up with our swatch work well enough, although after messing up the first part of the bind off row I opted to save the rest of my new yarn and just leave my swatch on the needle for the day. I don't know if either one of us has a project in mind where we might use Entrelac, even after the class, but it was still fun to learn a new technique - especially one that might seem counter-intuitive without the nice diagrams.

After the hurried lunch we were both hungry for dinner and a bit tired of running all over so we decided to return to Sam & Harry's for our expensive dinner out. It was a nice dinner with tasty wine and some fabulous steaks and we were well stuffed by the time we headed back to our room. This was the first night that we managed to return to our hotel room relatively early and we decided it was definitely a night for relaxing and knitting. Nearly an entire movie and a few TV shows later we settled in for our last night in the hotel and our Stitches trip was nearly over.

Stitches Midwest Recap: Part 2

Friday, Sept. 11 - I was enjoying the time off and slept in a bit while Xandermommy got up a little earlier and went down to the Starbucks cafe in the lobby for a bit of breakfast and something to eat. We didn't have anything official on our schedule until the Fashion Show and banquet in the evening, so it was a mostly laid back day.

We stopped by the Market to drop off our tickets for the daily door prize and spent an hour or so wandering the floor again. We made a few more purchases, but we didn't stay long since we were planning to head for Ikea for an inexpensive lunch and some non-knitting browsing.

My Ivy Brambles Sockscene purchase - Autumn Flame

Of course, while we knew we were staying basically across the road from Ikea, we didn't actually know in which direction, so it took a bit of wandering before we spotted the building and wound our way over a highway to it. Ikea never disappoints and we had fun shopping, but since we were already spending so much at Stitches we kept our purchases there pretty small.

Now we also had the ambition of finding some public WiFi access so that we could hop on Ravelry. We wanted to check out some of our favorite patterns for yardage and get some extra info on some yarn before we joined forces to spend more and get a volume discount at the Webs booth. So, when we spotted a Panera we stopped in for an hour or so to surf and make our lists.

By this point we were running out of time before the Fashion Show, but Xandermommy had asked for directions to the nearest pharmacy and we were determined to make a quick stop to get her some meds for her uncooperative sinuses while I visited a nearby ATM to get some additional cash to pay her back for a previous debt (and conveniently increase her Stitches budget!). Although we drove a little further than we intended, we did manage both and made it back barely in time for the show.

But, even though they were closing the doors for the Fashion Show when we got there, they were still just talking about and introducing various people involved with the magazine, authors, and designers, so we didn't exactly feel like we'd missed out on anything. We found a couple of open seats along the side towards the back and settled in with knitting in hand to watch the show. Like all fashion shows, there were plenty of garments that weren't to our taste, but we marked the list for the ones we wanted to check out in more detail on the Market floor and enjoyed the show.


When the show was over and we made our way through the line to the banquet room for dinner, many of the tables were already filling up. Rather than trying to squeeze in somewhere we opted for a table at the back so we could sit facing the podium. It wasn't long before we realized that we were some of the last ones in the room so we actually ended up with a large table to ourselves. The food was good and there were a lot of door prizes and, as she already mentioned, Xandermommy scored one of the gift certificate prizes!


Then we spent the rest of the night in one of the cozy nooks with couches and chairs in the hotel lobby, took advantage of the free WiFi (lobby only, we were told), and got some knitting time before heading up to bed a bit late.