Silk Yarn from India

Aug19

My husband got home this weekend from a two-week work trip to Bangalore, India. For the most part, it sucked. A lot. I’m not used to being a single parent to our two kids and rambunctious puppy, so that was stressful. Plus I missed him. I didn’t think I would. I thought I’d be all “Oh yay I can do whatever I want!” and I kind of did, but…I do that anyway and he never cares. So that part was the same except I didn’t have him around and I didn’t like it. But enough mushiness. Because he’s home now, and he came home with presents! The best present ever: YARN!

That’s right, my fabulous husband found a company in Bangalore called Silkindian that creates specialty, luxury silk products, including handpainted, handspun yarns. (They also have machine spun yarn, custom yarns, fiber for your own spinning pleasure, silk fabrics and knitting needles.) Not only that, he convinced his driver to go out of their way to find this place so he could buy me yarn. That was difficult since apparently not many women in Bangalore knit for fun and the driver couldn’t figure out why Alex would want to go to this place.Silkindian’s wall o’yarnMohammed poses with some of his offeringsAlex and Mohammed. I like these guys. They provide yarn.

Yarn yarn yarny yarn for me! I have no idea how Alex picked but pick he did, and he picked out a lot more than I expected. Probably more than I would have allowed myself! Look what I ended up with:Let’s take a closer look, shall we? Obviously it’s all silk. My favorite is two skeins of Roving Silk, a worsted weight with 200 yards of variegated purple in each skein. Gorgeous.I got three skeins of this worsted Duke Silk Yarn, and these are the softest skeins of yarn I’ve ever touched. They’re heavenly. The colors are so rich too. Truly, this photo does not do the yarn justice.Two more skeins of Roving Silk, again in worsted. (The man knows what I like!) It’s a really pretty combination of colors and I can’t wait to see how it knits up. I’m thinking they’ll be a shawl, maybe with an edge of the lilac Duke in the previous picture.Another Duke Silk Yarn, 225 yards of worsted, in two of my favorite colors. I adore pink and green, especially together. Just one skein of this. What will it be?This Duke Silk is a gorgeous rainbow with purple and teal and olive and salmon and mint. Mmm. The colors are brighter than the picture shows. Multicolored yarns are my favorite way to do colorwork! I think this will make my new favorite cowl.More multicolored but these are pastel, and a bulky weight. 115 yards in each, so I’m glad I have two! Maybe a hat and mittens? They’re soft enough that I’ll love the feel against my skin.These are my “outside of the box” yarns. The purple is a sport weight, thinner than I usually use but 350 yards of it! I’m excited to branch out and see if I can make a pretty spring shawlette with it. The green isn’t labeled but I’m pretty sure it’s a DK weight. I just have no idea how many yards are in it, so I’ll have to find a great flexible pattern for it. I do love the subtle variations in the greens.Whew, are you getting tired yet? I am, but I’m not done! I have four more mystery skeins, already wound but lacking any labels. I’m pretty sure they’re worsted weight. Three are these marvelous rainbow skeins. I haven’t weighed them yet but I will, which should give me a basic idea of how much I have to play with. And one little random skein of pink and brown which will make a darling hat, I think.

Now look at these little beauties! Alex knows how much I like a little sparkle, so I’ve got two skeins of this yarn with some shimmery gold woven through. No labels but they look/feel like maybe a sport weight. They’re not as silky soft as the worsted & bulky yarns, but they feel light and bouncy. I’d love a shawl from them, I think. Do I work the colors separately or together? Okay, we’ve reached the last bit of yarn, and these are the most unusual. They’re the recycled silk skeins. They’re cheaper than the others, not as soft, and there can be a lot of variation in thickness throughout each skein, but they’re fantastic nonetheless. The colors are still so bright and vivid, and more than any of the other yarns they evoke the feeling and personality of India. I’m saving these four to make a purse for myself, and it will be a treasure!That’s the end of the yarn, but not the end of the presents. Alex picked up a lovely pair of knitting needles from Silkindian too, a 14″ set of size 8 with nifty ends. I’m already trying to figure out what pattern I can make to use them.And finally, I got a silk pashmina in shades of fuchsia, purple and teal with stripes and polka dots: all my favorites in one article of clothing! I’ve already worn it and LOVE it. (This wasn’t from Silkindian.)I know. I’m so terribly spoiled. I quite like it that way. If you’re jealous of my yarn, check out the Silkindian’s website here or find him on ravelry here. What I have is just the tip of the iceberg!

On School, Bullies, and Doctor Who Knitting

Aug13

So the kids started school yesterday, and overall both considered the first day a success. The girl said her day was “Awesome!”, and the boy said his day was “okay”. Given that he didn’t get lost, show up to class tardy, miss the bus, or have problems with his locker, my son said his day was better than he was expecting. In my mind, that’s a win, especially since he was in a good enough mood this morning while we waited for the bus.

My daughter loves her teachers, her classes and her new high school. She got a map from a helpful teacher and is figuring out where everything is. She’s excited about all the club and activity options offered, and is trying to decide which ones she wants to join to go along with marching band. She’s in a somewhat difficult situation, because 99% of her middle school friends went to a different high school, so she’s trying to find some new ones. She’s a great kid, friendly and helpful and kind and outgoing, and it won’t be long before she’s got a gaggle of friends again. But it’s hard to get there, especially when the people you trust turn on you.

With all the talk of bullying these days, I’ve seen more friend-on-friend meanness than true bullying. I know bullying happens, believe me, I do know. I’ve been through it and it’s horrible. And the Mean Girls stuff has been around forever, too. It’s just sad. It’s sad that kids can’t even trust their friends to be kind to them. Maybe it’s typical, maybe everybody makes fun of their friends. But it hurts. I think it might even hurt more to hear it from a friend than from a stranger. And it’s not just kids, it’s parents too, questioning and ridiculing my daughter’s choices. So maybe these kids are taking the hurtful things said to them and spewing it back out. Could it be a defense mechanism, a way to cope? I don’t know.

All I know is that I’m trying to teach my daughter how to be strong in the face of unkindness. I’m thankful she is self-confident, so these incidents sting but don’t crush her. I’m thankful she’s sympathetic and generous, and I am confident she would never talk to someone else the way some of her “friends” have talked to her.

I know I am trying very hard to restrain my mama-bear tendencies to go after those who have hurt my girl. She *has* to learn how to deal with people like this, unfortunately. And the sooner the better. I’m trying to help her find ways to communicate with these people, to let them know their words hurt, but it’s a hard skill. It’s something I didn’t learn until I was an adult. But boy does it help. I know sometimes teasing comes with love, and is not intended to hurt. But if it does hurt, you’ve got to let them know or else it will keep happening. And if it keeps happening, then you’ve discovered a sad truth about that person and you can move on.

Dealing with these hiccups, I’ve found that one of the best ways to cheer up my kids is to say the words “Doctor Who”. Yesterday I distracted them by showing them my LYS find. I celebrated the first day of school by going to Knitcraft and found some gorgeous TARDIS blue mercerized cotton. A row below was a fabulous red-orange-yellow multi. Well, put those two together and what do you get? Exploding TARDIS! I may not be a Whovian but I can speak the language pretty well. Needless to say, I bought them and am planning to make a market bag with them. I’ve cast on the bottom of the bag and hope to get plenty more done today.

Back-to-School Knitting

Aug12

The kids started school today, one in high school and one in middle school. I cannot believe they’re that old, or that I’m old enough to have kids that old. We had an early start to the day to get them on the bus, and now I am relishing the quiet. I still have a bouncy puppy who wants to play, but otherwise the house is empty. There’s no one else here that I have to worry about, or take care of, or anticipate the needs of. It is bliss. It’s a feeling that I haven’t felt for a long time, and I’ve needed it. I like being their mom, I like helping them and the rest of my family, but I need this time to myself too. What’s the saying? “In the event of an emergency, apply the oxygen mask to yourself before helping others.” I’ve been trying to remind myself of that lately, that I need to take care of myself so that I’m healthy enough to help others. But it’s hard. You all know it’s hard.

Anyway, so today. Quiet, empty house. I finished another Christmas present last night so as a reward I’m casting on a treat for myself. When I went to that store-closing sale a few months back, I bought a bunch of yarn, but I also bought an awesome book by Rowan called Winter Warmers. It’s full of patterns for their Lima (worsted) and Alpaca Chunky yarns, which are the weights I use most. They’re all these gorgeous muted tones of gray and blue and lilac and caramel and I want to make everything in there. I don’t have any Rowan chunky, but I do have several skeins of Cascade Baby Alpaca Chunky, which is probably my favorite yarn ever.I have three skeins of this red, and they’ve been earmarked for this pattern since I looked through the book. Can’t wait! I’m off to cast on now!

Knit along if you know what Happiness is to you

Aug9

Whew. After a few really crazy weeks, I finally have time to catch my breath and post a few pictures of my latest projects. With a lot of kid activities and back-to-school stuff happening right now, my yarn is all that’s keeping me sane! So this is a photo-heavy post–I need a lot of help to stay sane right now. I had another request for girl/doll hats, but this time in blue. After that, I had another set to make, but it was a little trickier. She wanted the cowboy style (only more like a fedora) but she wanted it for a girl and doll, and before I’d only made that style in the doll size. I searched for a good pattern, and went through three of them and wasn’t happy with any of them. I even bought a pattern! But they were all wrong in some way. Either they were too small or the wrong shape or they were too floppy.

Finally, I went back to the original hat pattern and modified it to fit a child. (*fingers crossed* She hasn’t received the hats yet.) I doubled the yarn, went up two hook sizes, and kept increasing by about 20 stitches. I do like how it came out; it’s soft but still holds a shape somewhat. I just hope I made it deep enough for her head. If not, I’ll be making another attempt!

We celebrated my niece’s birthday this weekend, and I got to make her a couple of things too. She loves stuffed animals, so I crocheted a little cardigan for her Hello Kitty doll to wear. It went so fast, and it’s super cute.

I also made her a hat of her own. She’d seen me making the purple one, and kept telling me how much she liked it, so I worked up a blue version for her. I used a single strand of a bulky yarn, with some wool instead of all acrylic, and I wasn’t happy with the end result. It came out floppier than I wanted, and today I discovered that it’s too small for her. (*insert sad face here*) However, it looks adorable on my nephew, so I might just make another, bigger one for her.

Finally, I was done with all those hats! With no pressing yarny needs and a sore wrist from crocheting, it was time for fat yarn and knitting needles. I picked up my indigo Cascade Magnum and my size 19 needles and made a Marian twisted cowl.

I think that’s all. Ok, not really, I also made an adorable Christmas present but can’t show it off yet. Darn it. I do love it, too. And now I think I will be working on some more Christmas presents because I ordered a bunch of stuff in the Knitpicks summer sale and I have this fun box of yarn to play with now!

Yarn for the Nerd in all of us

Aug3

Have you heard of Make magazine? Or maybe the Maker Faire? They’re parts of a larger Maker movement that encourages people to…well, to make stuff. They want people to interact with their environment, to open their minds enough to think about how to do something differently, or to create something fun and interesting and helpful. The magazine has all kinds of project ideas, and my husband has been reading it for ages. He loves to find fun things to do with the kids. I’m awfully glad he does too, because it led to a new yarn source for me.

So, the Maker Faire. It’s “the Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth—a family-friendly festival of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker movement.” Sounds cool, doesn’t it? Kansas City hosted a Maker Faire last month, but unfortunately it fell on a weekend when we simply did not have time to go. But shortly after, the Make blog featured one of the KC vendors, Nerd Girl Yarns, and since Alex reads the blog, is a nerd, and has a wife who loves yarn, he watched the interview. (Watch her interviews here) And then he shared it with me, and I got all excited because guess what? NGY is in Odessa, Missouri which is only about 30 minutes from me!

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of them before, but as I poked through the website I realized that it was because she focuses on the dyeing, and selling custom orders. She does have a small retail space, but it seems to be more of a sideline. And I’m okay with that, because the yarns she creates are awesome. Yesterday I got out to the studio for the first time to see some of the yarn in person. The retail section is small, with just one little bit of wall devoted to yarn. The other side has the hand-dyed clothing, and there were a couple of chairs for those inclined to stay and be crafty. I wasn’t there for that. I was there for the yarn.

A lot of the colors are inspired by Doctor Who, like a blue and brown named Tenth Doctor. There was a red named I Am the Cyber King, and a Gallifrey with oranges and reds. There was a TARDIS blue, of course, and a yellow/orange with a touch of blue Sunflower. I was really hoping for the Blue Box Exploding, which is mostly blue with some yellow/orange too. She has Don’t Blink, Doctor Donna, Fantastic, Raggedy Man, Regenerate, and Time Machine. Both my kids (and the husband) are Whovians so I’d love to get some of each to make them lots of Whovian presents. I can’t do it all at once, though. I know. Patience, grasshopper.

They’re not all Doctor Who, of course. There’s Windu, Nevermore, Resurrection Stone, Serenity Firefly Class, Forbidden Forest, Walking Dead, Girl on Fire and so much more. So many references that I don’t even get! I can’t list them all, so you really should check out her stuff yourself. Go to her website here.

The really cool thing is that you can order the colorway on any base you like. So if you adore fingering weight, you can get that. If you love bulky yarn, like me, you can get that. You can get exactly the yarn you want!

“What did you get??” I can hear you asking. My eye went first to a gorgeous purple sparkly yarn named Secretly Spiders. The site says it’s inspired by Night Vale, and sadly I have no idea what that means. All I know is that I love it. It’s on Smashing, which is a DK of 70% merino and 20% silk with 5% silver-toned stellina to make it shine.I kept picking skeins up and putting them back. I really needed to restrain myself to 2 or 3 skeins, but it was hard. I struggled with choosing based on the Whovian names or the colors. I ended up going for the colors this time. So my second skein was a beautiful blue-green blend named #nofilter. The colors were more vivid on the fingering weights, but I knew I’d enjoy a heaver weight more, so I went with Foxy. Foxy is a DK weight too, but it’s 85% Polwarth Wool and 15% silk.Once I got through the initial getting-to-know-you phase, I was able to look beyond the wall o’ yarn, and that’s when I saw the sale section. It wasn’t big, and there were only two bowls of yarn, but any sale yarn is good yarn in my book. My third selection came from that.This is called Shtako. No idea what that means. Feel free to enlighten me. But the purple caught my eye, and as soon as I touched it, it was mine. It’s on the Luscious yarn, and it really is luscious. It’s Heavy Worsted, 60% superfine merino and 40% silk. It’s heavenly. It’s only 100 yards so it will have to be a small project; I’m thinking some fingerless gloves.

I also got a medium project bag with the logo, like you see in that first picture. You can never have enough project bags, and at $12 it was the perfect price. She didn’t have any Blue Box Exploding, so I’ll probably be ordering some in the near future. And we got to talk to Christa, the owner, for a little while, and she mentioned the possibility of doing quarterly events where they dye larger quantities of some of the popular colorways. I’m really hoping that happens, because I’d be there in a heartbeat! If you’d like to find out when that happens, follow her blog here. Maybe I’ll see you there!

Fighting with the Yarn

Jul30

The yarn has not liked me this week. I am fighting with every project I pick up, and it’s getting me down.

Remember those cowboy hats that looked like fedoras, the ones I made for American Girl dolls? I have someone who wants one for her daughter too, and I’m really struggling to find a good pattern. I thought I’d found one, but it’s new enough that there are no projects on Ravelry yet. Not a problem, except there’s nothing to look to when I have issues. And I have issues. My gauge is nearly 2″ too big, and I can’t easily go down a hook size since I’m already using an F hook on worsted weight yarn. The size of the hat top looks plausible, but when I did the chains for the body it seems huge. So I set it aside and searched through the patterns again.

I found a cowboy hat pattern that looks cute, and plenty of people have made it, so that was my next attempt. The problem with this one is that there’s no size given except “Child” and most of the project notes mention how small it comes out. I went up two hook sizes and started crocheting. It’s a simple enough pattern, but I don’t think it’s coming out big enough. I can’t go to a bigger hook or it will be too loose and floppy.

Argh. What now? I can buy another skein of the yarn and double it to make the cowboy hat bigger. Or I can trust the pattern on the original fedora and soldier on. Or I guess I could try to adapt the doll hat pattern to a child size…but that sounds horrific. I’m not a big fan of that. I’d rather find a pattern and just follow it.

Given those struggles, I decided to start an “easy” project while I waited during the boy’s swim lesson. I took my treasured Madelinetosh DK to cast on for a Honey Cowl. That pattern keeps popping up whenever I browse patterns, and I decided it was a sign that I need to make one. My first cast-on attempt came up short. I frogged and cast on again, this time ending up with easily 18″ of tail, more than I like. The heck with it, I thought, and kept going. It’s a great pattern, simple and easy to remember, but somehow I managed to mess it up. Nothing major, but I want this project to be special. This yarn is special, my first Madelintosh yarn and souvenir yarn from DC. So I think I will be frogging it and starting over.

While I try to recover, I’m going to browse my pattern library and find the easiest pattern on there, and that’s what I’ll start next. I need a success to keep me going!

Loving my new co-worker

Jul27

I have a partner in my yarn adventures now. Her name is Georgia, and she’s going to help me sell my knitted and crocheted items. I’m quite pleased with her work so far, and the best thing is that she’s very cheap labor!

Crochet Hats for American Girl Dolls & Their Girls

Jul25

The hats have arrived so I can finally share some photos with you! I made three sets of hats for a girl and her doll, and two sets of cowboy hats and boots for the dolls. I started with the doll hats while I waited for measurements. I found a great pattern by Carol Ballard on Ravelry here and she’s also got a blog called Cobbler’s Cabin. The first hat went quickly. It was awfully cute, even though the family thought it looked more like a fedora than a cowboy hat. With some shaping and tacking, I got it to look pretty close to a cowboy hat, I think.

The boots were tricky. I used a Lion Brand pattern for baby cowboy booties, thinking that surely it wouldn’t be too hard to modify for a doll size. Ha! I crocheted and frogged the first boot at least three times while I figured out the right stitch counts. I finally got a good pattern and after that, the boots flew off the hook…until I got to the brown and tan pair. Brown was the requested color, but I used more on the hat than I expected, so I had just a tiny ball left for the boots. I tried to crochet as fast as possible, but it didn’t work, and I still ran out of yarn too quickly. The second boot didn’t match the first, and I am just OCD enough that it bothered me a lot. First boot was frogged and redone, and I finished the second with brown yarn to spare.

Owl hats were next. I found this great pattern by Kathy Russell for the doll size, and I had a blast making up the little eyes and beak and the little tufty ears. Plus I love buttons, so getting to add button eyes was a treat. The girl size was done using an awesome pattern by Sarah at the Repeat Crafter Me blog. She does some super cute stuff, and this hat is so cool. So easy to modify for size or design, you can make any kind of hat you want!

I used the same patterns for the Minnie Mouse hats, adding round ears and a flower instead of a face.

Almost done! The last request was for a set of newsboy caps in blue-green. I found some great yarn at Michaels and a couple of great patterns to go with it. The doll pattern came from Posh Patterns, and you can find plenty more of her patterns on her Etsy site. The last hat ended up being my very favorite. The yarn worked perfectly with the pattern, and the sizing was great, and it’s just as cute as can be. The pattern is called Newsie by Heidi Yates, and she includes a handy size chart in the pattern so you can easily modify the pattern for sizes from newborn to adult. It’s the same pattern I used for my Tart Newsboy.

All the hats fit their girls well and were a huge hit. She’s already asked for two more sets, so I’ll have more to show soon. I hope I’ve inspired you to start hooking your own wee hats, but if you’d rather, I’d love to do it for you! Visit me on Facebook and send me a message.

Retail Memories: A manuscript snippet

Jul24

This is scary. But I’m going to do it anyway. *deep breath* I spent several years working retail, and my company is closing soon. I’ve been working on a memoir about my retail escapades, and today I thought for Throwback Thursday I would share a little snippet. You meet a lot of customers over seven years and many of them were good. And many were…not. *Please note, names have been changed!*

***

I hate to say it, but when it came to outright rudeness, some of our older customers took the prize. I don’t know if it was the mindset of “I’ve lived this long so I can say what I want”, or if we truly just lose our filter as we age, but there were a lot of insensitive women out there. Sometimes it was a minor snub: ignoring us when we talked to them, using a cold voice to tell us, “No. I don’t need your help.” Sometimes they were flat-out mean, like Martha and Hazel.

These two women (I don’t want to use the word “ladies”) were the bitchiest couple of women I ever had to help. They were friends, probably in their late 70s, and they typically shopped together. Martha had short brown curly hair and a permanent scowl on her face. Hazel was beautiful: gorgeous thick platinum hair, porcelain skin, big eyes, wide smile. She had to have been a knockout when she was young. Hazel was in better health so she drove them to the store. When they were there, they demanded the full attention of at least one associate for their entire visit. Being older, often it was easier for them to call us than come in. If we were really lucky, they would use three-way calling to call us together.

“This is Bonny, how can I help you?”

“Yeah, I need another pair of those pants.”

Of course I knew who it was. We had caller ID on our phone. But the idea that she expected me to know her instantly, and know what pants she was talking about, irked me.

“I’m sorry, who is this?”

“It’s Martha!” she snapped. “Hazel needs another pair of those jeans she bought!”

At that point, I would hold back my sigh and start looking her up in the computer to try to figure out which pants she was talking about.

“Can you tell me which jeans they were, Martha?”

“The black ones! Hold on, let me get Hazel on the phone.”

By the time Hazel joined us, I was looking through her profile. “Okay, Hazel, you need another pair of the classic waist straight leg in size 16?”

“No no no, I need the petite 16.”

“We don’t have that in the store. You bought the 16. You would have to order the petite and have it sent to you.”

“I don’t think that’s right. I’m sure I bought a petite.”

Martha couldn’t hold it in. “Well, we bought it there the other day!” No you didn’t. “Maybe whoever helped us that day knew how to find things.” Said with contempt and derision. Yep, that was me. “But if you can’t manage to find it, then fine. Order it and send it to her.”

“I can’t do that, Martha. You’ll have to call customer service.”

“Oh no! I’m not doing that! They’ll charge me shipping and there’s no way in hell I’m paying shipping just because you can’t find the right pants!”

Logic and reason were useless. If I tried to tell them that we weren’t allowed to place orders over the phone (which was true and I did try to explain sometimes), one of them (usually Martha) carped that we did it before and they couldn’t always get in the store and they were our best customers.

Resistance was futile. It made it difficult when they called asking for things we didn’t have, items they’d seen in some other store’s ad and were convinced were ours. At least once, Martha insisted that we carried other brand names so of course we would have these pants she’d seen at Macy’s. While we realized part of the problem was honest confusion borne of age and mental decline, their attitudes and the way they spoke to us made it very difficult to be sympathetic.

For a long time, I thought Martha was the ringleader in their antics, since she took charge when they came in. Then one day I helped Hazel when she came in without Martha and realized they just had different styles of bitchiness. Martha was overt, always looking for a fight. Hazel was a queen who expected to be catered to, and would speak with a cutting forcefulness if we didn’t comply with her requests. More often than not, it wasn’t worth the effort to argue with them. We tried our best to anticipate and meet their needs in hopes that they would go peacefully, because in the long run, we knew we would end up doing whatever they wanted.

***

So there you have it. Just one encounter of many. I’d love feedback if you have it. Just be constructive and not cruel, if you don’t mind!

A Crochet Newsboy Cap, just because

Jul23

I sent off that box of girl and doll hats yesterday. It had three sets of matching hats for a girl and her doll, and two sets of cowboy hats and boots for a doll. I had so much fun getting back into crochet to make those, and I didn’t want to stop. The last few months I’ve been so absorbed by knitting that I’d forgotten how much I love the rhythm and speed of crochet. The last hat I made for my friend was my favorite; I fell in love with the pattern and needed to make another one. I was at loose ends last night, with nothing that *needed* to be worked on, but I still wanted to play with yarn. I grabbed a single skein of bulky Premier Yarns Serenity Chunky yarn and got busy while I watched America’s Got Talent. Since I can’t show you the gifted one yet, I’ll show you that one.

I do love bulky yarn, and this is a lovely soft one. The random stripes of blue and brown were kind of strange, and not my favorite, but at least it went back to the pink quickly. I ran out of yarn halfway through the last row, which was the finishing edge, so I just pulled back and edged the brim. This was a perfect one-skein, one-evening project. If you’re interested, here’s the pattern. It’s easily modified for any size from newborn to adult.