Whew. I’m home from a long weekend vacation and I’m pooped. I’m so glad I decided to take today off; I’ve got a quiet day home alone to catch up on puppy cuddles, laundry, and yarn stuff.
So first: the puppies. We had to board them while we were gone and we missed them terribly. I picked them up first thing this morning and Grace was super excited to see me, but my good pupper Jack didn’t want to come see me. He kept backing away and barking. The nice lady said it was because of the smells, but I think he was just too freaked out. Thankfully, when Grace ran over and jumped on me, Jack came to his senses and came to get his cuddles. We had a crazy hour or so once we got home but now they’re both exhausted and sleeping, one on the back of the couch behind me, one at my feet. Life is good: puppies are home.
Now, YARN!! I went to two yarn stores. The first, Knitorious, was fantastic: big, well-organized, great selection of brands and colors, friendly without being pushy or overbearing. The girl went in with me and even she was so caught up in the yarn-love that she bought herself a skein. What did I get? Let’s see:
Malabrigo Mechita in this beautiful rainbow color. I’m thinking Hitchhiker Beyond.
More Malabrigo, Mecha this time. Not sure, but maybe fingerless gloves to keep at work.
Brio!! I love this yarn and hadn’t seen this black and white version before. This is going to become a Darn Knit Kinetic Cowl for me!
This might be my favorite. Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in Black Velvet. Sock Head hat, here I come!
The second yarn store I won’t name because it was not good. At all. Very small. It had a ton of empty shelves and the selection was really limited. The acrylic section was the biggest and was the only yarn with multiple color ways and multiple skeins of any color. The “good” yarns were maybe two or three different brands, which I wasn’t familiar with, but they were pretty enough. But there were just a few skeins of each, one of each colorway. I found one skein I liked but it wasn’t priced. Nothing was priced. There were no signs on the shelves. Finally I found price lists on the top of the shelving unit; my yarn wasn’t on there. I asked the woman working and she showed me the sheet. I looked again, and said, “I’m sorry, I just don’t see it on here.” My yarn wasn’t on there so she had to look up the price. Maybe it’s not a huge deal, but it is one of my pet peeves at yarn stores. I like to be able to see how much the yarn is without asking all the time. I like it when the skeins are priced but I get that takes a lot of time, so I’m okay with labels on shelves. But if you make it too hard for me to find the price, I’m going to give up because it’s awkward for me. Anyway, I won’t recommend that store and I wouldn’t go back. Here’s the one skein I bought, because purple.
It’s Black Bunny Fibers and it’s labeled Mayfair. The label says DK but it looks more like worsted to me. It hasn’t told me what it wants to be yet so I’m pondering.
I got plenty of knitting done too, thanks to a nice husband who did all the driving, and have three FOs to show you!
Fern Lace cowl with Nerd Girl Yarns Luscious. It’s a silk/merino blend and SO soft.
Pisky hat! Love this one. I bought Cascade 220 Superwash from the DK section at my LYS but Ravelry calls it a worsted. So I went down a needle size and it’s wearable, but a little bigger than I’d like. I’d love to make this pattern again with a true DK. It was so fun to knit and it’s so cute.
This one’s a donation for a silent auction. I’ve got matching fingerless gloves to pair it with. It’s a simple beanie recipe; you can see the Ravelry project page here.
So yeah, I had such a nice long weekend full of yarn and bookstores and fun things and family, and today I’m going to wind yarn and cast on new projects for the work days ahead of me. And cuddle with puppies.
I’ve got just a little bit left of that medium gray, and then it’s the last color and my Color Block Wrap will be done! It knits up so much faster than I expected, but it probably helps that I spent yesterday watching TV and knitting. I started Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary, and fell in and couldn’t stop. Total binge day. This was perfect knitting for it too, mindless enough that I could keep my eyes on the screen most of the time. I wish I could have watched the whole series but I have two episodes left and the hubby says I have to wait and watch them with him. Sigh. Fine. Whatever. Maybe I’ll finish it tonight.
But this morning I put it on a head to take photos for this post, and…well. I kind of hate it. 
It’s not the pattern’s fault at all. I love the zigzags and the way the decreases look, but it came out so much more slouchy than I expected.
I’ve made hats with this much slouch and they’re fine, but it’s not what I wanted this time. I’ll try it on my own head to make sure, but I’m thinking this one will be frogged and redone with fewer stitches and/or smaller needles.
Happy Monday, friends!
The pattern was written for DK, so I lowered the number of stitches to cast on with this worsted weight, but not enough. It’s a little looser than I would like, but it will do. It fits well enough on my noggin.
The girl and I went to watch Room with my mom yesterday, and I got this hat up to the decreases while watching. It was a good movie, grim but moving, definitely wonderful performances. I still liked the book better.
Maybe I knit more tightly than Jen, maybe my “super bulky” yarn wasn’t as bulky as hers, I don’t know. But I still love the hat, and I still want to make an adult version at some point. But for now, I’m going through the book to decide which pattern I want to try next! Until I decide, I cast on for another lacy cotton slouch hat, this time in a peachy pink. 
Yesterday was National Puppy Day but I didn’t have the time to blog, so Grace and Jack will send you belated happy puppy wishes! 
Pattern is Duality, yarn is Malabrigo Rios in Lettuce. I’ve got enough leftover of it and the teal that I really want to make a striped version now.
This was knit with size 6 needles, as the pattern recommends. But it was too loosey-goosey for me so I frogged that and started over with 5s, and I like it much better. I learned how to do picots and those are pretty darn nifty. But guys, there’s a trick in this pattern that I didn’t discover until I started knitting. When you start the first garter stitch stripe, you do the first three stitches in the other color and then pick up the stripe color. Well, that left a big stupid hole in my knitting! That irritated me so I frogged back (and frogging picots are interesting) to before the stripe. A bit of investigating showed another Raveler recommending the intarsia technique of twisting the yarns at that point. I’ve never done intarsia but I’ve carried yarns up the side of my knitting; is the twisting the same as that? I’ll do more investigating before going back to knitting this but I’d love any advice you have!
I used Malabrigo Rios (the recommended yarn) in color Teal Feather, and knit to 8.25″ before decreasing. I think it’s the perfect amount of slouch and I’ll definitely be knitting this pattern again.
These are lazy pics, sorry. The lighting inside wasn’t great and I didn’t want to go outside, but these still show the awesome pattern. This is the 
Oy. This dog. So yeah, she was in the doghouse (figuratively) for the rest of the day. At least until it was time for me to stretch out on the couch with my blanket. Then both puppies thought it was cuddle time with mom. Fine. They’re warm and snuggly. 
Fortunately, I did have some good to counteract the bad. The yarn store was indeed open yesterday and I did indeed find some yarn. More than I meant to find, honestly. (That’s always what happens, isn’t it?) Last night I hid in my craft room and wound yarn. It was lovely. Please note: not all of this is new yarn! Some of it was in the stash and I decided it needed to be wound. Mostly to make room for the new yarn. 
This is the new yarn. Yes, I have plenty of cotton now, in a nice variety of colors. 
The three on the left are Berroco Weekend, which my LYS has for 35% off. It’s a crispy yet soft cotton/acrylic blend and I’ve made several hats with it in the past. The two on the right are Universal Yarn Cotton Supreme, which is a deliciously soft yarn. I’m hoping to get one adult hat and one baby hat out of each skein. I don’t have patterns picked out yet, so some of today will be spent perusing Ravelry.
Ravelry notes are 
But this head is pretty slippery, plus it doesn’t have any hair to fill out the hat. Why not try it on a person, you say? What a novel idea! Nobody was around when I finished it, and somehow it didn’t occur to me to try it on myself. And right now it’s upstairs and I’m downstairs and it’s not worth it to go fetch it. It will fit someone, I’m sure. And it’s pretty and I had fun making it. You can find the details on the 
You might remember I mentioned I was going to babysit my wee nephew yesterday, and I was afraid he’d be very cranky? Well, I did and he wasn’t!! Sure, he had a few fussy moments but overall we had a lovely time. He’s about 8 months old and desperately wants to be more mobile than he is, so he gets frustrated. But he seems to be warming up to me and has a perfectly charming grin.
Speaking of Jack: he’s pretty sneaky. Both pups sleep with the girl at night, but they think they want to sleep in my bed. Every night they sneak in when I’m getting ready for bed and jump up and make themselves all cute and comfy so we won’t have the heart to kick them out. (It never works. The husband is stern in this regard.) Last night Jack jumped up and promptly claimed my pillow.
“Dis is pillow for me, right?” Ha. Right. (Actually if it weren’t for the husband, I would let him have it. Even though I don’t sleep well with puppies in the bed either. He’s just that cute.)
I’ll also be driving right by the yarn store again today. And I’m pretty sure they’re open on Tuesdays.
bonnyknits 