Q is for Quick Giveaway

I finished another scrap scarf. My friends at Green Planet Yarn have been saving these odds and ends for me so I have a nice healthy stash of them. It's a lot of fun to put together the magic ball and make it into something so pretty and useful.

Message on Ravelry if you want to claim this scarf. Better yet, if you can send charity yarn to my mom in Houston. Call it a knitters karma.

P is for Point Gammon Pullover 守灯塔的人

Project:  Point Gammon Pullover 守灯塔的人
Pattern:  Point Gammon Pullover by Elinor Brown, Interweave Knits, Fall 2010
Yarn:  Cascade Yarns Ecological Wool, aran to bulky weight
Yardage:  1434 yards in stash
Needles: Size 8
Cast on: February 9, 2014

Note: I love knitting. I love knitting cables. I try to be a helpful person. Sometimes I'm over enthusiastic in trying to help people, without thinking over my own ability and whether it's necessary to offer help. When people praise my cables and ask me to knit a cable sweater I fall head over heels into the project. That's how this sweater got started. I'm knitting it for another raveler for her son. The yarn is too heavy for the gauge the pattern calls for (surprisingly there are couple of knitters had done this sweater in the same yarn and got gauge, I wonder what the sweater feels like), and I recalculated so I can knit it on size 8 needles instead of size 6. The design itself is simple and easy to follow. The sweater starts bottom up in the round till armholes which is only couple of inches away. The combination of the heavy yarn and doing both front and back on the same needle means the knitting gets pretty heavy! If I ever do over I'd knit the pieces separately for sure. 

As I was going through forum posts on Ravelry I found my own post from when the magazine first came out, and I said I'd make this sweater. There, it took all these years and another knitter's request to get me started.

It's Fiber Arts Friday! Visit Andrea's blog to see lots of fun things!

N is for Netflix Movies

I'm on a movie kick lately, so I've been getting DVDs from Netflix and do a movie night once or twice a week. To point out the obvious, their selection for movie streaming is pathetic. I like keeping up with the pop culture, plus I can knit while watching movies.

Here are a few recent DVDs:

1. The Grand Budapest Hotel
2. The Hundred-Foot Journey
3. Million Dollar Arm
4. Boyhood
5. Frozen
6. Her
7. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

I'm building up a very long queue, but if you have suggestions for good movies I'd love to hear about it.

M is for Mom

Most of my blog readers know that my mom is a long time knitter, now mostly knits for charity. About two years ago she moved from Carmel CA to Houston to be closer to my brother and his family. In October she fell and broke her hip, she had hip replacement soon after that, and has been in physical therapy since then. Now that she's even more confined than before, she's knitting a lot and most of the finished work are donated to her local charity groups. Here are couple of examples of her recent knitting on a borrowed child.

If you are interested in sending her yarn feel free to message me on Ravelry. She likes craft store baby yarns in cheerful colors, or any smooth yarn between fingering and worsted weight.

L Is for Lines and Vines 青藤

Project:  Lines and Vines 青藤
Pattern:  Lines & Vines by Diane Zangl, Knitters magazine Fall 2008
Yarn:  Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Worsted Weight
Yardage:  1100 yards
Needles: Size 8
Cast on: August 7, 2014
Cast off: November 7, 2014

Notes: This is a simple little cardigan in tradition design. The all over cable ribbing pulls in quite tight to give the wearer the benefit of a leaner look. Since there is no button and the pin on top only keeps the neckline together I find myself constantly pulling the front together to cover my stomach. The Knit Picks yarn is a good discount yarn that gives a firm hand and stitch definition. This is a good every day everywhere piece in my wardrobe.

K is for Keep Stashing!

I have been stashing since I got back to knitting in 1998. Usually my yarn live in plastic tubs in my closet. When I look for something I dig up the surface layer before declaring "I can't find it." so there are some yarn in the deep freeze I haven't seen for a few years at least.

On Ravelry there is a thread called Flash Your Stash where people lay out everything they have in their stash and show off the picture. I have been wanting to do that for awhile, wondering what my stash might look like all lined up together.

So post-Stitches with all the new acquisitions to tuck away would be a good time to do some digging, flashing, rearranging. Yesterday I dragged out the first few boxes, and here is the result:

I still had at least four more boxes in the back of the closet, plus a file cabinet packed with yarn, plus craft store yarns not boxed up, plus odds and ends scattered in bags and small boxes, plus a charity stash that doesn't get counted towards my regular stash. So what's in the picture is only about 1/3 of my stash, and it's a cal king bed.

No I don't have a stash problem.

J is for the Joy of New Yarn!

One of the most important and enjoyable thing about Stitches is to come home and round up all the purchases. Yesterday I went back and re-read my previous years reviews, and was surprised I couldn't remember some of my purchases. Pleasant surprises.

The loot from Stitches West 2015:

1. Top left, Elsebeth Lavold Favorite Wool, 10 balls in the bag, color Blackcurrent, from the play pen
2. Diakeito Rococo (teal/red/yellow/green), 10 balls in the bag, from Sunrise booth
3. Lower right corner: Green Mountain Spinnery Sock Art-Meadow in blue green
4. Two skeins Ellen's Half Pint Farm 50% Merino 50% Silk in Ice Pansy from Webs booth
5. Middle: JaggerSpun Super Lamb 4/8 Cone, 1lb, 1120 yards, from Webs
6. Apple Tree Knits Silk Lace Mini in Blueberries in cream gradient
7. Valley Yarns Leyden fingering weight
8. Lower left: Dream in Color Jilly, hand dyed twin set sold together, with free pattern code on Ravelry for Stricken shawl
9. On top of Ellen's yarn is a beautiful shawl pin I splurged so my shawls will have a proper decor
10. Little sheep pin on top of the bag of Favorite Wool, for Chinese Year of Sheep
11. Assorted buttons scattered on top of other yarns

Till next time.

I is for Images from Stitches West 2015

Previous reports:  2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

This year I worked for Sunrise Yarns, a distributor of Diakeito yarns from Japan. Kathee usually only does wholesale and there is not a shop carries Diakeito in the bay area. So the yarn was all new to Stitches West and to me.

When not working I spent plenty of time in the market.

The sign has been there every year and I get the idea. I don't have to like it.

Purlescence booth

I never figured out what this guy was all about.

Can you spot the one different from others?

Stephen West

Webs hosted Ellen's yarn since she couldn't make it.

H is for Henry

My son turned 16 on Sunday.

I'm not sure if it has sunk in yet, in my mind any way, that my son, my only child, the one that most of the time I still think of as a little boy, is almost an adult.

G is for Giving

In the past year I seem to have been knitting quite a few things for the purpose of giving away. As they say, giving is more fun than receiving.

Couple of little hats for charity.

A bunch of stripy scarves that I knit as car project, now counting to seven. The latest one will be going to New York state in exchange for charity yarn being sent to my mom in Houston.

My friends at Green Planet Yarn have been saving me the odds and ends when they wind yarn, I put the pieces into a magic ball and make scarves. I'm now on scarf # 6 which will be given away on Ravelry.