Well, it's taken a few years, but I think I can honestly say now that I am a football fan. I've always enjoyed the annual Super Bowl parties, and have even hosted a few, but this year especially, I'll be watching the game instead of engaging in the other activities going on - chatting, playing cards, etc. Oh, and knitting of course, but I can do that while watching the game, as long as it's something mindless that I won't drop stitches on when I jump up screaming at the TV!

Oh, and one more thing:

GO COLTS!!!!

Posted by Tammy at 7:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't think so. At least, I don't believe you can have too much quality yarn. When I first started knitting, I was under the (mis)impression that one had to have a stash, regardless of what was in it. I shopped at Hobby Lobby, Michaels, and gasp! even Wal-Mart to begin a meager stash of man-made fibers in mostly solid colors. One of the first scarves I made for Robert was a black 2x2 rib. What was I thinking?

Anyway, over the years I've become much more discriminating in my yarn choices. Three years ago my LYS starting having annual sales, where it was a good time to stock up on yarn you'd need for the year's projects. I listened to someone I shouldn't have, and believed her when she told me that Cascade 220 was a good workhorse yarn for sweaters. I bought enough for 3 sweaters, made one, and discovered it to be scratchy, itchy, and not at all quality. It was a little better than what I could get at the discount stores, but not by much. A lot of the yarn I bought at the two prior sales I've culled from my stash if I didn't use it.

I've learned over the years that I am a true yarn snob. And that's okay. If you're not, no big deal, but I'm going to avoid yarns like Cascade, Plymouth, and especially Berrocco. My favorites are Wollmeise, Numma Numma, Malabrigo, Dream in Color, Socks that Rock, Tempted, Louet, and Madelinetosh. I've still got some random yarns in my stash, and I'll use them or give them away, but I'm not going to pad my stash anymore with yarn just because it's on sale.

This morning beginning at 6:00 a.m. was the 2010 annual sale, and I made a list and stuck to it. I purchased some Classic Elite Waterlily which I've used before and really liked, some Plymouth Baby Alpaca Grande (yes, I know I don't like Plymouth as a general rule, but this is the yarn called for in the Sideways Grande Cloche hat pattern, and it is alpaca, so I made an exception), and two other bulky weight yarns - most likely for chunky cabled hats like the Unoriginal Hat.

Now, if I could only wake up to start knitting something!

(BTW: the yarn in the photo did not come from my LYS. You can only get Wollmeise Lace-Garn from the Wollmeise herself, at The Loopy Ewe (on very rare occasions), or from another knitter.)

Posted by Tammy at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And the song in my head is:

Oh, when the Saints
Go marching in,
Oh, when the Saints go marching in.
Oh, Lord I want to be in that number,
When the Saints go marching in.

Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints for beating the Minnesota Vikings and making it to the Super Bowl!

I have a second verse in my head as well:

Oh, when Brett Favre
Is shown the door,
Oh, when Brett Favre is shown the door.
I really hope he'll stay retired,
And we won't see him anymore.

At the beginning of the season, I was still a Favre fan. Although I didn't like his wishy-washy behavior of being disingenuous regarding his alleged retirement, I appreciated that he was able to play at such a strong level at his age. Until last week. His cocky demeanor and poor sportsmanship really turned me off and was totally unnecessary.

Now, for the Super Bowl, I'm still rooting for the Colts. :-)

Posted by Tammy at 9:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Nope, there's not a "T" missing in the title. Before Christmas, I went on a tear favoriting patterns in Ravelry and adding projects to my queue, trying to get organized for the new year. I did several revisions, trying to come up with the top projects I wanted to make this year. And although I had deemed 2010 to be The Year of Shawls long before the 10 Shawls in 2010 group was created, I also had hats in my queue. Lots of hats.

The thing about queuing projects is that if you're using Ravelry to its fullest, you're also watching what your friends are queuing, which makes you queue more, and them queue more, and you're caught in a vicious circle of queue. So when Christa and I realized that we had more hats queued than we thought we could knit, I said, "No. Hat's are easy. Hat's are fast. Two hours - three tops - and you've got a hat. We should have a weekend where we get the group together and ignore all our other projects and just knit hats."

That idea then turned into a day of knitting hats on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which most of us had as a holiday from work. I first said that everyone had to knit 2 hats before they could leave, but we decided to be generous and lower the goal to just one hat.

Those up for the challenge were: Christa, Amy, Mary, Stephine, Ginger, and me.

With yarn in hand, Christa and I started to tackle Sloucher. Stephine worked on the Amanda Hat, Mary knit on a Cousteau hat, Ginger worked on a Beaufort hat and Amy knit Hannah, and then started on Amanda.

Amy is the only one who actually finished a hat at my house, but Christa, Stephine, and I all finished our hats by the end of the night. According to the most recent issue of Good Housekeeping, we've got "Star Style."

Posted by Tammy at 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

What with Thanksgiving being so late last year, and Christmas falling on a Friday so that I had a 4-day weekend, followed by New Year's Day falling on a Friday making another 3-day weekend, last week working all 5 workdays seemed like an eternity! I definitely think the time off spoiled me because this past weekend was so short.

I was also spoiled at Christmas by Robert, who bought me a gift certificate to The Loopy Ewe for using at the Spring Fling. But when not one, but two Wollmeise updates hit at TLE, I went shopping. Wollmeise is not as hard to get as it used to be, although not as easy as it was in the early days, which I still remember, so hitting an update with many colors available AND having a credit in my account made it easy to shop.

I scored 6 skeins to add to my WM stash: Pesto, Zenzi, Am Kalten Polar, Lavendel, Fruhling, and Campari Piccolo. And rumor has it there will be another update this week, so who knows what else I'll wind up with?

In knitting news, I finished my Gaenor shawl using Numma Numma Doppio in the It's Complicated colorway. I love everything about this shawl; the yarn is fabulous and the pattern was a cinch and easy to remember. I thought I'd have enough with one skein, but only got a little over halfway done. It's Complicated was a limited edition colorway, but I was fortunate to find a Raveler willing to part with her skein so I could finish. When the next Numma Numma update it, I bought 3 more skeins of Doppio in Chocolate Teal to make another full-sized Shawl that Jazz.

So much fabulous yarn to knit, and so little knitting time. Thank goodness this next weekend is a 3-day weekend, too!

Posted by Tammy at 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)