Meetup.com

I met up with the Meetup.com Chicago Knitting Crew last night, and I must say I think that knitters must just be awesome people. This group was everybit as friendly as the Stitch n'Bitch crew I meet up with every Tuesday, and they had wine & cheese-its to boot!

So I met a bunch of people: Michelle (who offered useful job advice), Lynn (and later her husband Dan?), Dee Dee, Susan (the organizer), Roland (former Jaime student and token male knitter;) ), Sarah, Nikki (and her sparkling tank top), Shawn, Abby, Sam (the helpful and way cool Nina salesperson) and a whole host of other people whose names currently escape me.

Unfortunately their next event is an afternoon picnic that I won't be able to attend, but I look forward to "meeting up" with them again!

Nina was nice enough to offer the group a 15% discount during the event, so I scored some black Cascade 220 ($7/skein + 15% off) to start the Tubey Sweater from the Winter Knitty. I'm normally not too into stripes, or multiple colors, but I'm fairly excited about this one, and the colors I've picked out look great together.

It's funny that I picked colors fairly similar to the one's in the pattern, but I really was just looking at some scraps of the yarn I have and thought how nice a few of them looked together and then decided to use them for this pattern. It was much later that I saw the color picture again (my directions were printed b&w) and realized their similarities.

The colors:
Black--Cascade 220 (worsted)
Burgandy--Ebay Purchase/worsted merino wool
Dark Blue/Green--Cascade 220(worsted)
Light Lavender--Cascade 220(worsted)
Grass Green--Knit Picks Elegance (DK weight Alpaca/Silk blend)

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I thought it would never happen to me!

I have been fairly resolute in my belief that I would never be sucked into two things in knitting...First, knitting socks--my reason for this is that I don't like my socks to be colorful, so it would simply be wasteful of me to spend time on something I would never enjoy. Second is the toothpick and dental floss lace knitting that I am certain is the cause of many a crowsfoot and adoption of reading glasses, as well as pointy old lady fingers and hysterical crying fits.

Well...I'm gettin' old...and aparently brave. I'm now knitting a lace-weight scarf in Knit Pick's Alpaca Cloud. I bought the yarn a long time ago, thinking I would strand it with other yarns in making things. It has patiently waited in my stash for a project to participate in since last fall and since I never ran across that project I was pretty much chalking it up as another ball of stitch markers and lifelines.

Flash to a few weeks ago when the Spring Interweave Knits magazine came out. I flipped through it, admiring several of the projects, but not especially in love with any of them. I noticed a lace scarf that I commented to a friend on, saying that you couldn't really see the pattern very well in the pictures they had posted.



A week or two went by, and on Easter Sunday I found myself stranded in Evanston with no plans for a few more hours, so I went to hang out at Barnes & Noble. I picked up the magazine again and flipped through it. I stopped short on the page with the Trellis scarf, and remembered a post on Flickr with a picture of a Trellis scarf that I had admired...then I realized that the pattern called for one ball of Knit Pick's Alpaca Cloud. The same Alpaca Cloud that I had six balls of slumbering away in my stash. It called for size 5 needles, which I have, and wasn't nearly as intimidating as some of the size 0's I had seen before. Now I'm not one to often use the EXACT same yarn as the pattern calls for, but what was this? Fate? Coincidence? a seven dollar magazine to use up only one four dollar ball of yarn? ...yup, it was Perfect!

So I bought the magazine (and a collection of stories and poems by Poe) and headed off for the evening.

On Tuesday morning I cast on with my new project, and by 6:30PM I knew I was going to be late to Stich n'Bitch because I had been too caught up in my knitting!

I'm still too chart dependant to work in most places with distractions and talking, and am so focused that I notice myself short on breath by the end of a row (59 stitches is too long to hold your breath for). But I must admit I find the results fascinating and addictive. I love that it just looks like a jumble until you stretch it out. I love that I've been able to fix mistakes without crying. I love the little lifelines and the fact that I can fit my entire project in a sandwich baggie.

I'm a lace knitter.

Unstretched














...

And through the magic of stetching (and hopefully blocking)

40 hours without my knitting!

Can you believe I survived from Saturday evening until Monday afternoon without any of my works in progress? Well, I'll tell you, a lot of planning was done, charts were drawn, and magazines were bought in order to fill in for the knitting I left at work Saturday, and I realized I need a lot more projects on my needles to prevent this in the future.

Seriously, I was THIS close to driving the 34 miles to go pick up my knitting...that's bad.

Pictures!

I took some pics with my cameraphone and uploaded them, so I thought I'd share. I've got a few of the finished skull & crossbones tote, and some of the new scarf (color is off on it, it is a pale, powder blue color in reality). Enjoy.




Close up of the Purse Stitch:


And for those that like to see the reverse side:

Wondering about the rest of my life

Rather than have too much "other life" stuff overflowing onto my knitting blog I've started a second blog for random stuff. It can be foundhere if you're interested. (Although I should warn you that I'm starting off on a whiny note and I'm not sure where it will go from there)