Eastburn Adventures

So this morning was like most other Saturday mornings, except that Robert and I had a date.  I had learned from a friend at work about an estate auction here in town and that there was some "knitting stuff."  Now, I've never been to an auction before, but Robert grew up with this.  His parents had flea market booths, and although I really enjoy browsing flea markets and vintage or antique items, I'm not one to buy something with the intent to sell it for a profit.  Robert was very happy to escort me to my first auction and teach me the ropes.

First of all, a lot of auctions occur outdoors.  It was like 20 degrees this morning.  Thanks to my dear hubby, I was cozy in my long johns and Harry Potter scarf (wish I'd had the Short-Row hat done, though!).  Second, you have to dig through boxes and remember what you want and where it was - and then keep an eye on it so someone doesn't move it.  Third, when you're with your husband and ask him to bid for you - don't get caught up in the excitement and bid against him!  Sorry, Babe.  Fourth, sometime's you just have to give up on understanding what's going on and rely on the expert. 

HeynowheynowdoIhear10five'llgetyou10heynowlet'sgo10dollar10dollar10rightheredoIhear 12doIhear12comeon12who'llgiveme12yip12dollar12dollarwho'llgiveme15doIhear15come on15thisisarightnicepieceworthalotmore15rightheredoIhear2015goingonceSOLDfor15.

Huh?  Anyway, Robert scored a really cool little 4-drawer wooden chest for $15 and then while he was putting it in the truck, he left me alone with the bidder number.  Okay, so I had scouted out The Box, and was there waiting, but this was happening too fast.  I just kept saying "yip," as Robert had taught me, and when he came back, I was the proud owner of The Box.  (Nope, I won't tell you what I paid!)

The Box was quite large, and filled with a lot of old scissors, vintage sewing supplies, including probably a 100 wooden spools of thread, and yes, some "knitting stuff." 

This is just some of the haul.  There were some old stitch markers and point protectors, needle gauges, and some circulars.  You can tell that some of the needles are pretty old, and maybe they are the same as the Boye's that you can still buy at Michael's or Hobby Lobby, but I'm especially proud of the wooden case.  Plus, it's nice to know that even though my KnitPicks Options will still be my needles of choice to work with, I'm taking care of these supplies that belonged to the prior generation and I get to share in the history of our craft. 

It was a good morning.

I've been a little under the weather.  I had to clean the house for the Super Bowl party (yes, Robert helped).  I need to do our taxes.  I had to wash my hair.  The snow melted.  My ankle still hurts a little.  Etc. etc. etc.

One or more of the above has to be an acceptable excuse for this:

 Look!  Actual progress on the Short-Row hat!

 Look!  Actual HUMONGOUS mistake in the Short-Row hat!

Not that I'm surprised.  But I was really moving along - I learned how to do the ssp here, and I was actually starting to figure out how the pattern worked.  The part where I messed up is the brim - I finally got it that you knit the crazy thing sideways!  I had completed almost the entire first page of the pattern, but when I realized that it wasn't right, I decided to frog it yet again.  It's going to be right, people.  I'm going to make this hat.  I might never wear it after it's done, but I'm going to make it! 

My problem is two-fold.  One, I'm "punishing" myself for not getting this pattern by restricting my knitting on other projects.  That's also a reward system for me, so once I'm back in the groove, I'll allow myself to do something I'm liking (since Short-Row and I are not on very good terms right now).  Like for instance, Lizard Ridge.  Check out Zarah's blanket - she's got 16 of those squares done!  I only have one.  I'm inspired - yet - must. do. Short. Row. hat.

Two, while I was encouraged surfing the web and finding all these other knitters and bloggers who had successfully knitted this hat, and found a couple of instances where they too thought the pattern was written needlessly complex, I am discouraged by the instructions in Section 3 (which I will get to again someday).

"Row 13: (RS) K15, turn.

Row 15: K14, turn."

Ummm, Ms. Avery?  Veronik?  What am I supposed to do on Row 14? 

HELP!

But see - others have figured this out.  Why can't I?  I'm having a knitting inferiority complex.  The only thing I've successfully knitted this week is the February KAL:

 Yeah, yeah.  It's cute.  Yippee.  A heart dishcloth.  Whoo hoo.

Thanks for letting me whine.  I'm off to rip out the hat - again!  I guess I should think positively - after all, I am getting very good at the provisional cast on!

Okay, I don't want to get cocky here, but look!

It's working!  See!  No blatant errors, anyway!  Thank you to everyone who sent good wishes and Short-Row mojo my way.  The power of knitters united will not be denied. 

(And thank you to Veronik Avery, the designer, who answered my question about the "missing row" in the pattern without making me feel as dumb as I really was.  FYI, when the pattern says "Row 2 and all WS rows," which is all the even rows - that includes row 14 (an even number).  Geez.  Hard to believe my first degree was in mathematics). 

Can you believe it?  YES!  The Short-Row Hat is finished, finito, done!

Specs:

Pattern:  Short-Row Hat by Veronik Avery

Yarn:  1 1/2 balls of Diakeito in Color #41

Needles:  Brittany size 7 straights, size 7 dpn's

Start Date:  (okay, final restart date):  Thursday, February 8, 2007

Finish Date:  Sunday, February 11, 2007

Modifications:  I'd like to say I didn't make any deliberate modifications, but I didn't do the i-cord on the top.  The pattern says to pick up 32 stitches to close the crown using dpn's, but there was no way I could pick up that many.  I picked up 22 and skipped the lines in the pattern to coincide.

As frustrated as I got with this pattern, I did enjoy it once it got going.  I might consider doing another one sometime, but with other yarn.  The Diakeito has a lovely colorway, but the fiber goes from really thin to really thick periodically, and made some of the gaps more noticeable.

Thanks to the impromptu knit-in at my house this afternoon, I was inspired to keep at this until it was done tonight!  I had a great time with my sister, the blogless Kathy (who learned to purl today and was doing a great job!), Zarah, Brianne, and Meredith.  Thanks again, girls!

So if you're like me, when you're not knitting (and let's face it, we can't all the time), we're blogging about knitting, or reading knitting blogs, or looking on the web for knitting patterns, or reading knitting books, or reading books about knitting.

This is where I made my mistake.  A couple of months ago there was some blog chatter about "The Friday Night Knitting Club" book being made into a movie starring Julia Roberts (release date for the movie is sometime in 2008).  The book was just released, and I checked it out at the library. 

Friends - this book is absolutely awful.  Other than the fact that it's primarily set in a yarn shop in Manhattan, it has nothing to do about knitting.  It's a trite attempt to write about various relationships women have, and it's dark, depressing, and just plain bad.  It was one of those reads where it starts out rocky, and you hope it gets better, but then you're past the point of no return and feel like you have to finish.  I wish I'd just stopped in the middle and returned it to the library (thank goodness I didn't waste money on buying this book).  The plot was sketchy in many places, and frankly, one doesn't care about the characters.  There's bad language scattered throughout (why do some writers think this is necessary), and some references to some various Christian denominations that are completely wrong (the author obviously didn't research this part of the book).  Additionally, I doubt the author even knits.  Yes, there's a few references to knit and purl, and continental style, but other than that, nothing substantial.  I realize this is a novel, and not necessarily a book about knitting, but in my view, it fails miserably.  Reading it was a complete waste of time.

For my picks, stick with Debbie Macomber's "A Shop on Blossom Street" and "A Good Yarn."  They're not as dark, it's fun fiction, and knitting itself essentially becomes its own character.  And as much as I like Julia Roberts, I'll be skipping "The Friday Night Knitting Club" when it hits theatres.

There's a quotation that says, "You can't know where you're going unless you know where you've been."  I think President Kennedy has been attributed with this quote, but a web search also indicated it was an African proverb.  In any event, there's a lot of truth that's applicable to many parts of our lives.

My favorite (non-biblical) quote is from St. Augustine:

"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page."

Maybe this is why I love to travel so much.  I never liked history in school, but it's completely different visiting so many places and learning about the history and culture when you're actually there.

Anyway, Trish had this cool map on her site where you can select which states you've been to:

create your own visited states map or check out these Google Hacks.

Hmmm.  I've got a few (concentrated) gaps.  Good thing we'll get to fill in some this summer.  Robert and I are planning a road trip through Michigan (I've always wanted to go to Mackinac Island ever since I saw "Somewhere in Time"), by way of Cincinnati, so that'll cross two more states off the list (and yes, I've already been mapping out the LYS' on the way).  I'd love to take a trip to New England in the fall, but not this year.  For our fifth anniversaries, our friends Steve and Ginger and we are planning a trip to Hawaii (probably a cruise so we can hit a lot of islands).  I've been to Maui three times and absolutely love it, but it'll be fun to see the Big Island and Kauai, too.

That's a nice vacation to think about when it's 8 degrees outside.  Aloha!

I feel like such a slacker!  Here I had the entire weekend with nothing planned, and I had to deal with a major sinus infection that won't go away and did not accomplish as much knitting as I would have liked.

I did however complete my second Lizard Ridge square, in spite of being drugged up on TheraFlu (for more info on knitting on medication, ask Brianne):

I am quite proud of square #2, and very happy that Zarah has completed all of her squares (I really think she's going to miss making them, though!)  Unlike my friend, however, I'm weaving in the ends as I go!  :-0)

I also worked on a project that I had forgotten to mention I'd started.  Remember the "Scarf that Never Ends?"  No, no, I didn't start another one!  But Robert reminded me that I promised to make him a matching hat.  And since I'd conquered the Short-Row hat, how hard could a simple stocking cap be?

It's coming along.  I only hope I don't have to order more yarn - I mean, um, wait till there's cooler weather to finish it - yeah, that's the ticket!

I also started the Baby Cable Socks in the Sensational Knitted Socks book using my Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn in Tuscany.  I'm not sure I'm really liking it, so no photo yet.  I've only made one pair of socks before, and they didn't turn out great, so I might need to get a lesson or two from a sock guru (hint, hint, Zarah).  Also, this is the first time I've used size 1 dpn's (or size 1 anything, really), and metal dpn's at that, so I'm going a little slow.

And in other knitting obsessive news, Simply fibers is having the final Knit In of the winter this coming Friday!  I'm so glad I started going to those and meeting all of the local knitting community!  I also got an e-mail that the Stitches Midwest brochure is available for download at http://www.knittinguniverse.com/flash/webfeatures/xrxinsider06/xrxinsider.htm#Registration.

Anyone up for a road trip to Chicago?

I am sorry to say that I have not always been a knitter.  At least, I didn't know I was.  I've since learned that some of us (we know who we are) have an "inner knitter" that has to be released, and whoo boy - just wait until that happens!  My journey on becoming a knitter began sometime in 2005 when my sister innocently asked me - "Do you know how to knit?  I want to learn to knit.  Can you find someone who knows how and have them show you and then you teach me?"  I really didn't have an interest (so I thought), so I didn't really pursue it.

Then we had the fateful trip to Alaska in May 2005 to visit one of my very best friends in the whole world, Michelle (Robert calls her "Spunky").  And what is her newest hobby - you guessed it!  Knitting!  So I asked her to teach me.  Steve and Ginger were vacationing with us, so one night when we were out without Michelle, we stopped in a Fred Meyer store and bought some cheap yarn and what seemed to be like 6 foot long knitting needles.  We excitedly showed our purchases to Michelle when we got back to her house, and her response was - "I'm not going to teach you with those.  Tomorrow we'll go to the yarn store."  The what?  They have stores dedicated to yarn?  Are you kidding me?  Yeah, yeah, you and I both know what happened next.  Yes, my name is Tammy and I am a yarn snob.  So what?

Anyway, I finally got permission to post some photos of Spunky's illustrious finished objects on the blog.  She is definitely an inspiration, and very talented.  So, by way of introduction:

This is Michelle and me in St. Louis when she competed in the Scottish Games (she's also a competitive Highland Dancer).

The gorgeous afghan (and closeup) she made out of the "Big Book of Quick Knit Afghans" (I'm not sure which specific pattern) out of KnitPicks Andean Silk.

A Feather and Fan pattern Baby Afghan (I think this is KnitPicks Crayon), and

The start to this awesome kimono sweater! (Yes, she does really like KnitPicks!)

So, I'm dedicating this post to my friend ("love you") and sending hugs to Alaska.  Thanks for introducing me to the world of knitting and fibers!  (And yes, I did eventually teach my sister how to knit!)

Good grief!  How'd I let so many days go by without posting?  I honestly don't know how it got to be Monday so fast!

The Knit In Friday night at Simply fibers was a lot of fun - the Ozark bloggers were there in full force:  Zarah, Brianne, Meredith, and Lana.  Zarah has finished the fabulous Lizard Ridge Afghan and is movin' on!  I, on the other hand, have only finished 3 squares (but I'm half done with the 4th!).  I need to get some of those "percentage done" trackers on my sidebar.  Any suggestions?

Here's LR Square #3:

The colors didn't mix as well as I'd hoped with this ball of Noro, but it'll still work nicely in the afghan.  And I can't believe I'm saying this, but after seeing Zarah's blanket, I'm thinking I want mine to be a little wider - which means 30 squares, not 24.  Good thing I've got the pattern memorized now!

At the Knit In Brianne was kind enough to offer some sock guidance.  I think I just needed some reassurance that I was doing okay.  Then, of course, I ended up ripping them out twice this weekend, so again, no photos.  I promise to keep at it!  Especially since Brianne and I both snagged the last two hanks of some fabulous sock yarn!  I've got to finish these Lorna's Laces socks so I can start with the new yarn! 

I think most of my new knitting friends and I all snagged some linen yarn to make the Moss Grid dishtowel in the Mason Dixon book.  Looks like we've started our own KAL!

I did finish Robert's Slytherin hat using just a basic hat pattern from "The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns."  So it's been in the 60's the past week.  He can wear it next winter.  Of course, I have a feeling I'll probably be making another one since on May 7th this book will be released!

 I also ended up getting my sister started on a similar hat in a candy cane pink yarn.  She's still learning the long-tail cast-on, so I did it for her and handed it off.  I was also a very good little sister and loaned her my size 8 Knit Picks Options.  That means I'm working the LR squares on my Addi Turbos.  I really can tell the difference between those needles.

I think I need to go shopping now!