I Think the Magical Yarn Babies Have Taken Residence in My Stash, However (The VogueKnitting Live 2016 Debrief)

Another year, another VogueKnitting Live debrief. Luckily, nothing else was going on this year behind the scenes.  That also means I have no excuse for purchasing a package and spending over $100 dollars to go and spend more money. Oh well. 

In General
This year was a lot saner than last year.  Well, not in the amount of yarn I bought, but in what they were offering.  I don't know if it's because I spend all of Sunday attending class and lecture and was distracted but both all the pretties and other people on Saturday and therefore missed the crazier stuff (well, OK, crazier than this thing:

), but it still seemed like what they were offering was rather tame. 

The Class and Lecture
So, because it turns out that with VogueKnitting's price increases this year, it only cost me around $10 more to buy a class/lecture/marketplace package than buying the marketplace and class al la carte, I did so. It doesn't help that the package is called the Times Square Day Tripper Package. Because that's exactly what you want to be doing as a native New Yorker, going to Times Square.  On a weekend.  Where all the tourists and wonky, shady characters are.  I might still be a bit sour that VogueKnitting moved to a hotel smack in the middle of Times Square, meaning I have to go through there on a weekend, but anyway...

The Lecture
I signed up for the lecture called Knit to Flatter by Amy Herzog.  Now, lectures always feel a little stunted to me, but that's simply because they're only a hour long, and most of the people giving them are used to classes.  This has nothing to do with this lecture in particular, by the way, it's just something I've noticed from the past two lectures after taking a lecture and a class back to back for the first time.

However, this lecture was semi-interactive and funny, and made some good points.  It turns out what she was discussing (how to make a sweater that you would wear 'out to lunch with a non-knitter') is something I've already done, however, her point about fabric behavior being crucial was something I don't think I fully appreciated before.  Also, the statement that (and I'm sure I'm paraphrasing a bit here) 'the yarn's not growing [when you block it]. It's not making magical yarn babies' will forever be in my vocabulary (it was also used in the context of pilling, as in 'when the sweater pills, it's not making magical yarn babies, that's material from your sweater'.  I knew that, but that way of putting it is still funny).

The Class
First off, all the really interesting classes this year seemed to be scheduled for Friday, which kind of sucks.  Even if I could have taken off of work (I couldn't have this year anyway because I was too busy in company-approved training on how to build iPhone apps), I wouldn't have.  However, I did find a Sunday class similar to one I spotted on a Friday date at first, and that was Seams Like Surgery by John Brinegar.

The good news is that the class was good.  It was well-taught and led, we laughed at jokes and, for me, I learned some decorative seams as well as how to better due mattress stitch.  It turns out I've been doing it pretty well, but his way of thinking about the instructions really helps with porting the technique away from stockinette.  I was immediately able to seam a garter stitch item much better afterward despite that not technically being taught.  While I will say I probably could have learned most of the material off of the Internet, I still don't regret taking the class.

Fashion Shows and the Panels
Honestly, I didn't catch too many fashion shows this year, and absolutely none of the panels.  Actually, I don't think they had any traditional panels this year.  The had events like participating in extreme knitting! (no thanks; I like my needles smaller than I am) and...I don't remember.  Anyway, I did catch part of one, and two other fashion shows and they were pretty meh.  Nothing too crazy.  Nothing standard or overly practical either (after all, this is a fashion show and when is fashion not overly artistic over practical), but nothing that made me go WTF?!?

If anyone from VogueKnitting is reading this, let it be known: I like the WTF?!? stuff; the best part of what makes VogueKnitting VogueKnitting was making fun of some of the stuff considered fashion.

Anyway, there was a couple of questionable items, including a really bulky garter stitch cardigan (what is it with rug-looking cartigans?):

And a very bulky, very glowing, hot pink shawl-scarf:

Otherwise it was your standard sparkly shawls and batwing sweaters that make the model look like they have short stubby arms, and as normal items that you're going to get that meet current trends. Oh well.

Purchases
Beyond my quickly-becoming-normal behavior of 'buy all the yarn for all projects I want to do now and then some!, in the early hours of being there Saturday this is the exchange I had with my mom over text:

Me: LOL I found self-striping yarn that looks like watermelon
Mom: Interesting.  Are you at Vogue?
Me: Yes.
Me: Want something?
Mom: Yarn for the baby blanket pattern you sent
At this point, I'm thinking 'this is the wrong place to look for yarn for a baby blanket', but this is my mom, so...
Me: Ok, will look.

So I got stuck running around the marketplace, desperately trying to find a DK like yarn that had enough quantities to make a baby blanket.  Now, there's two things about VogueKnitting that I don't know if my mom gets: 1) it's mostly mid to upper range yarn that is the type to not have dye lots and be hand-painted (oh, and good luck finding one that can be washed) and 2) there's usually limited quantities at shows.

At one point, I asked my mom what her budget for this was, because I was finding really nice superwash yarn where the vendor had multiple skeins, but it was all at least $25 dollars a pop. Her answer was '$100 or so', so that cut those out. I ended up having to get three different colors of Malabrigo Rios at the Knitty City booth of all places (I try not to spend all my money at the local yarn shop booths; I can go to them here if I want and there's other vendors you can't get anywhere else attending, but sometimes they have the right stuff when you want it), because there wasn't enough of any of the colors I liked. 

I ended up sending her another pattern to consider that used three colors as well. I also ended up buying her a present:

Because the joke is funny alone, it's even funnier when carried by a crocheting dietitian.

Oh, and despite this being the wrong place to buy yarn for a baby blanket, I also bought yarn for a baby blanket.  Mine costs a bit more than $100 dollars, but it was perfect and superwash, and came in bigger skeins so I didn't need as many of them and my yarn budget gives up.

Conclusion
All in all, I had fun.  Sure, the fashion shows are getting boring and their free non-marketplace offerings were slim this year, but the class and lecture made up for that (despite having to pay extra for those). I really need to stop buying all the yarn, though, despite the fact that I did need a bit of it this year as I didn't have anything suitable in my stash.  And I am using it now, so this isn't a 'shove in there and leave it for two years' situation.  Well, maybe the yarn I bought for myself with no pattern in mind will be that, but half of it won't.

We'll see what next year brings.

As it Turns Out, I Didn't Get Too Distracted (Xeina Shawl Debrief)

So I did manage to finish the Xeina Shawl this weekend:

Its really hard to get a good picture of a large shawl

Despite all the minor problems, I think it came out pretty decent.  However, it also came out *huge*, which is completely my fault. I did a number of extra repeats in the body since I was using lighter yarn and later decided to just work the body until I ran out of one skein of the blue yarn, 13 repeats in total.  Yeah, in hindsight, I probably should have done 10 or 11 repeats instead, especially since the lace border came out bigger as well (probably due to using lighter yarn...heavy lace weight blocks out lacier, it turns out:

 ). When I realized it was blocking out really big, I measured it, and it's 80.5 inches long, and around 20 inches deep. As a 5 foot aught woman, it means the tips of the shawl go past my knees.

Though I probably shouldn't fret about it being big. I rarely wear shawls as intended; I usually use them as coat stuffers, and having a big shawl with some cashmere content means I have a neck warmer with length to wrap it around my neck and down my coat.  Or over my head and around my neck.

However, I'm still in love with the color scheme I used and how it works in this pattern, so I am a little sad this won't work so well with a dress. Not that I want to be wearing this now, with all the 85-90F degree weather we've been having here.

Ah, screw it, I'll do this properly:

The Pattern
I have little to say. It's a solid pattern that I had no issues with. All the issues I ran into were due to my misjudgement, not the pattern itself. Also, while it took me months, let me note that this was due to not having time to work on it much and the fact that I was using lighter yarn. If I had been using the sport weight yarn as intended, I could see this being a 2-3 month pattern with downtime, not a 6 month one.

The Yarn
I used Spirit Trails Fiberworks Sunna (the royal blue color) and Spirit Trails Fiberworks Nona (the darker blue). Sunna is a fingering weight and Nona is a heavy lace weight, by the way, and so not recommended for this pattern unless you're willing to do what I did, which is do more repeats and get through more repeats of the lace pattern (which, honestly, if you manage to get the right count for the lace part after adding stuff, I commend you.  I didn't, and had to fudge it, then fudge it again when my first fudge was miscalculated). However, these are beautiful yarns, especially the Sunna.  The Nona one unwinds a bit and sometimes sticks to itself or splits, but I find this an issue with most lace weight yarns.  I have a funny feeling that the issues I had, especially with the yo and k2tog rows in the body, wouldn't have happened if I had a heavier yarn than lace weight. Such is screwing around with the yarn choices.

Two warnings though: they do grow like no body's business (shame on me for not swatching, I guess) and it bleeds:

Ran out of vinegar before I could completely set it as well. Will have to try again another time.

 Funny story on how I ended up with this yarn for this pattern, though.  For the past two years at NYS Sheep and Wool, Spirit Trails has had this shawl as one of their display patterns, and it's still one of my favorite examples of it.  When I saw it the first time I did two things: fell in love with the two-colored version of the pattern and decided that this was something I could use the Sunna I bought the first time I went to Rhinebeck for.  However, because I though Spirit Trails only sold fingering weight yarn (they don't, by the way), I thought the Xeina Shawl had to be fingering weight.  It was only after I had bought the Nona yarn, blinded to the pattern and finding a matching color for the Sunna I had, that I realized that Xeina was a sport weight shawl and that I now had fingering and lace weight for it.  So I was determined to make it work.

Conclusion
All in all, it worked out, other than the size. And even that doesn't render it unusable. Also, now I finally have one of my big projects done.  Now back to using more of my backlogged stash. 

A Cacophony of Chaos

Well...I would say a lot of things have happened in this void, but in terms of yarn craft, I would be stretching the truth somewhat. I mean, sure, I got a couple of minor things done, mainly these bags here:

No pattern; made these up.

I got the second one done just in time to use it, so I guess that was good. As well, I did finally get and set up a new place to store my yarn stash:

But otherwise, I've been starting and working on a number of things that still ain't done, of course. Like the Xenia Shawl:

Ok, if I huff it I could probably get it done this weekend, which means most likely I'll be distracted by other shiny things to do and not touch it.  But I could. Maybe.

I also, thanks to one of my knitting group people, ended up starting a dish towel that, due to the fact that I'm using scrap cotton, thought I ran out of the blue color, then found another fourth of a skein of it, is coming out just a little funky:

Pattern is Triple L Tweed Dishcloth by Purl Soho, though I'm making it much longer and with different weight yarn.

My only excuse for this project is that I can work on it on the subway, unlike the shawl.  That's what I'm going with.  But having a subway project, of course, didn't stop me from swatching for a pair of socks with some really, really brightly offensive yarn (that I bought at WEBS, because one of the things I did in this void was go on the annal WEBS trip (I'm one of the drivers; I kind of have to).  It turns out that between having moved my yarn stash recently and bringing my sister along, I spent way less money than usual (I got my sister to spend more than me, he he he. But she doesn't have a stash, so that made it easy).  That didn't stop me from buying a number of skeins of yarn, of course):

This is not my type of yarn.  That's because it's for my other sister, as she likes the loud bright colors. I'm planning Hanukkah presents early this year.

Also, I started swatching and doing the spreadsheet formulas for another sweater design. Because it's about time I started attempting a design again; I have way too many of them in my head, with the yarn ready to go as well, and no other work done on them.  It doesn't help that I have a bit of a deadline to my free time (well, what little I have left after being in the middle of selling a house and going a little crazy at work).  I'm going for my master's starting this month, and will be in class four evenings a week, plus using my weekends to do school work. This should be fun.

 But maybe I can get that all but started (I still need to order the needles for it because I need a different length circular; unfortunately a thought that only occurred to me after I attempted to create a sheet for my size to start it). Oh, who am I kidding, I'll spend this weekend (of which I'm taking off two days so it's a four day weekend) mostly playing Skyrim or XCOM or maybe even Karmaflow, if I feel like frustrating myself.  Or actually cleaning the apartment. Or doing the thousand other things I should be doing that I didn't do yet because last week, I took a little vacation:

Went fishing one morning; caught nothing. Oh well. This is Lake George, if you want to know.

Of course, got very little knitting done there either.  There was too much to do, and any downtime we usually spent playing board and card games.  I did, however, start teaching my boyfriend to knit. He's now attempting a one colored version of the dishcloth I'm doing, because it's only knit and slip stitches, it's a little more complicated than garter stitch, and I haven't taught him the purl stitch yet:

He wants it a certain size, so I'm teaching him how to swatch at the moment.

We'll see how this goes.

I Fail at Yarn Chicken

I guess this doesn't really count as yarn chicken as I actually had another skein of it, but I was hoping not to have to break into it, damnit:

That was how much farther I had to go with the royal blue color to finish the last repeat I decided to do.  A measly one or so inches.  But of course, since the other choice was ripping the whole last repeat of the pattern out, I did bother winding the second skein to use a tiny, little bit to finish the body.

I'm now on the border, which is a bit more fiddly:

 And oh so even slower. But it's still coming along, which I guess is a good thing.
 
However, as it's a lace pattern and so I can't travel with it much, I've ended up knitting this as well:

A bag.  Where it's obvious I got bored and changed up the pattern a couple of times.  I was going for a medieval look, but the yarn I used kind of ruins that...however, that's what I had at the time, and I was playing with a concept there.

However, since I now have to carry my work phone on me for my next SCA event (yay for being the only support for my apps now), I thought I would make a new bag with the first pattern there.  With better colors. Though it also turns out that all my sock and lace yarn is variegated modern stuff.  Because of course it is; why else would I buy the random skein unless it was nicely colored variegated sock yarn? 

Guess I know what to get at WEBS this year now. 

The VogueKnitting Live 2015 Debrief

Oh look, I did make it to VogueKnitting Live.  Barely.  Only because even though everything goes wrong the weekend you plan to do something fun (and by everything I mean a burst pipe flooding kitchen of the unoccupied house I'm responsible for), I had good relatives who stepped in and took care of the stuff someone had to be there for.  You know, so I wasn't out $100.  Instead, I spent more money.

Anyway, I'll make this shorter and sweeter than I usually do, in the interest of time (given I'm already late to this party).

In General
Two things worked in my favor this year: I noticed that they had the guide on their website (it was linked at the bottom of a copro-spam email from them. I was lucky I noticed it) and since Rhinebeck wasn't as awesome of a time as usually, for reasons completely unrelated to Rhinebeck, I said screw it and signed up for a class and went yarn-shopping.

So, since I saw the guide way ahead of time, I found out that yes, all the fashion shows were on Saturday again and I need to go early, which I did.  I actually went a bit too early; by the end of Saturday I was ready to leave and spent 30 minutes sitting on the floor waiting for my knit group. That didn't stop me from running around the marketplace on Sunday, of course.

The Class
This year I took my chances again and signed up for 'Knitting Bag of Tricks' taught by Patty Lyons.

It was way better than last year's class.  The instructor taught well, including taking into consideration what we wanted to learn, while keeping control of the class and not going off the rails.  While a couple of the tricks taught ended up not applying to me since the hack was 'knit combined' and I normally am a combination knitter, I learned several things I didn't even think of.  Like the fact that you can cast on purl-wise using long tail cast on.  Or twisting the back stitch of an standard k2tog or ssk makes it neater.  Also, it turns out that she's been teaching the whole Knitting by Structure concept I though I was clever in figuring out.  Guess I'm glad I didn't continue on with those posts (sorry).

I highly recommend this class, and I'm glad I just pony-ed up 90% of its cost instead of not bothering when the 50% coupon didn't show up.

Fashion Shows and the Panels
Having gone early for the fashion shows, I first was slightly disappointed. The first two shows I saw, Vogue Knitting and Classic Elite Yarns were pretty tame. Though Vogue Knitting did have these questionable items on display:

But anyway, as I got to the Rowan show, I looked at the pamphlet, realize it was full of standard boxy cut, cable laden sweaters, and skedaddled off to shop the marketplace.  While seeing patterns I either kind of like or or are so far in the box it's not funny modeled isn't bad, I really go for the WTF factor.  Which, when I came back in the middle of the Stephen & Steven fashion show I got it in spades:

This show made up for the last three.  All the knitwear in that show was an insane conglomerate of brightly-colored sacks and scarves that served more purpose as decoration for the strutting and dancing models than anything resembling an actual outfit. Don't get me wrong, it was a fun spectacle.  But it wasn't really a knitwear showcase, and I have no clue what patterns were modeled. Maybe it's was better because it didn't pretend to be one.

Which leads me to the last fashion show I saw, Koigu.  This was the standard fashion show I'm used to.  Some stuff that's ok, some stuff that's trying to pass itself off as a wearable item but you still wonder what went through the designers mind when she came up with that.  Like the target vest:

and the knitted yoga pants that don't even look flattering on the model, and the carpet sweater:

 and, to top it off, your granny's doilies turned into a dress:

Oh, VogueKnitting Live, never change.

On Sunday, I did go to see a specific panel called 'Design is a Process', which was a good look into how different designers approach designing.  It really got me thinking about the designs I want to do, which is bad because I currently have absolutely no time to do them. But I bought the yarn for a couple anyway. Mission accomplished, VogueKnitting?

Purchases
So, yeah, I bought way too much yarn for myself.  And some yarn for my mother and the sister who got screwed dealing with the brunt of the burst pipe crisis while I frolicked here.  And some stitch markers. And a shawl pin.  Also, I have no pictures of any of it as I already packed it up (well, all but the skein I'm already using).

Let's just say that I'm set for awhile in yarn.  Which didn't stop me from ordering more two weekends later (one planned since I didn't find it at VogueKnitting, one because my original plan didn't work).

Conclusion
This year was a better year than last year as I got to see fashion shows and had a great class. And bought too much yarn, which is always fun.  Here's to next year, where hopefully I'm not ducking around making phone calls to the insurance company and relatives on top of everything.

Me? Learn? Never...

The computer ate my yarn again:

And I have no excuse, because I just bought the switch I needed.  I really should shove the computer under the desk.

But not right now.  Because the yarn broke free on it's own and there's still a bit wrapped around the fan:

However, the fan's still running, so I'll get it out when I turn off the computer. Serves me right for knitting with a long tail around the computer again.

UPDATE:
So getting that out was a little harder than last time. Since this yarn was much skinnier, the yarn had got into the joint of the fan, and even with the top off I couldn't get a good angle to grab the yarn through the fan.  So I had to open up my computer and de-attach the fan to reach it:

Remember people: unplug the computer first and make sure you stay grounded.  Don't want to electrocute yourself or one of the boards.

I'm still lucky this case is pretty easy to mess with.  Then again, I wouldn't have this problem if it wasn't a custom case...oh well.

The Computer Ate My Yarn

I'm not kidding:

I was knitting at my computer desk while surfing the interwebz when I heard a *slurp* and looked down to see a piece of yarn attached to the project I was working on sticking out of the back of my computer.

I may need to clarify a couple of things here.  One, there's a huge open space in the back of my computer due to the fact that I have a slim-sized motherboard in a full-sized chassis.  Two, one of the case fans is right next to that lovely hole.  Three, my computer is currently sitting next to my chair because I don't want to shove it in the corner it belongs until I get the switch I need to complete my setup (and of course I haven't bought the switch yet).

So I guess it was a matter of time before it ate my yarn.

Luckily for me, it only ate the piece left over from the start of my project and the top of the chassis comes right off.  So I was able to cut the yarn off the project and open the computer up to unwrap the yarn from the back fan:

 Now I know to keep my yarn away from the damn thing. Oye.

The Scrap Project Paradox and The Law Of More Yarn Required

After finishing the lovely but long and complex shawl, I was trying to be good and go back to the stupid scrap project I've been working on for far too long (try two and a half years):

To remind everyone (though I've mentioned this project before), this is a simple log cabin squares put into a small blanket project that I started to get rid of all the Simply Soft I had laying around.  I've been working on it on and off, but during the Olympics I made a effort to get all the squares done and sewn up, which I accomplished.  I, however, only started the border before dropping it to do the shawl.  Priorities, priorities.

Anyway, this, of course, has gone the way of every scrap project, which is it fell for the Law of More Yarn Required.  The Law of More Yarn Required states that if you do something trying to use up random not full skeins of yarn, such as undertaking a scrap project, you will need more yarn to complete it than you have in your stash.  It isn't the worse thing in the world if you use all that extra yarn, but this goes hand-in-hand with the Scrap Project Paradox, which is any scrap project doesn't actually use up your scrap yarn.  It may change the dynamic or amount of such, but it never will use up all the scrap yarn.  You will always have some left.

Trying to avoid that for my scrap project, when I started the border I planned out the design so that I would use more of the yarn I had more of while still maintaining some semblance of a design.  I would not fall for this rule...and yeah:

I made the black sections way too big, and ran out of black yarn on the last side I had to do (I'm also log-cabining the border). Ten more rows of black I don't have the yarn for, nowhere, not even in my stash (for obvious reasons the half-skein of black wool I still have would not work, unfortunately).  So now I need more yarn for the scrap project I was doing to get rid of yarn. Sigh.

Not that I wasn't falling for this law even without the black yarn shortage (though, to be far, less yarn than I started with):

Best laid plans of mice and men and all that.  Next time I may do the whole thing properly; that is, weight the damn yarn and see how much area I can cover with it.  Maybe then I'll actually defeat the Law and the Paradox...or at least I can dream, right?

Misadventures in Shawls, Part 2: Well This isn't So Bad But it is a Snail

Now being a little more of a month into this shawl (I am including last week in that count, despite the fact that I made no progress on the shawl at all since I had to make garb instead), it's not as bad as I feared, though it is as slow as I've feared:

Up to row 43, woot!  Though there's a lot more beads on this shawl than it looks; flash washed them out.

This pattern has two things going for it: it's not that complicated (the pattern's written and charted well to boot) and it's pretty repetitive.  At least so far.  Beading turns out to be easy as well; you just slide the bead onto a small crochet hook and then slide it onto the desired stitch.  However, 20 repeats of lace with beads still eats time, especially at the bottom there where you had to place 2 or 3 beads a repeat for every right side row.  I guess the other good thing I got going for it is that the stitch count is decreasing (you start at the bottom of the shawl).

I decided to alternate between the blue square beads (for which I ran out of rather quickly and had to go find the store I bought them from to buy four more boxes.  They went fast) and the iridescent silvery round beads that I bought last. The result is not something I love 100%, but it doesn't look bad:

Way less yellow colored; more silvery with color accents, but you get the picture.

But this is where I have to remember that it's not for me.  I don't like that the beads that stand out so much and don't quite match, but my sister's a eclectic person who loves shiny things.  In one of my self-doubt moments I texted her a picture (better colored than this one) asking how she liked it and her answer was 'pretty!'.  So I'm on the right track.  I do have to say it's kind of grown on me at this point, though I still would have picked darker beads.

Some notes about this pattern so far:

• The cast on for this shawl is rather interesting and I don't know if it comes from somewhere but I've never seen it before.  It involves creating a crochet chain that at certain chain counts, you YO over the knitting needle to create a stitch.  Row one is knitted using the YOs, with the chains hanging off like decorative eyelets:

After the CO is done

What it looks like on the shawl

          I'm sure it'll look better when it's blocked out.  And if I had a clearer picture.

• As I stated, pattern makes perfect sense so far.

• This is a simpler motif than my last lace shawl.  Maybe it's because I have more experience under my belt that it seems like that to me, but I'm thinking this is easier.  The last shawl I did I couldn't figure out the pattern for my life, but it was wall-to-wall lace with cables.  This has more stockinette dead space in it.  It's a lot easier to see where the lace will be going, and therefore I'm not glued to the chart. 

• Which means I'm most likely faster than I was last time, but knitting 400 and something stitches of lace weight still takes 30-50 minutes for a RS and WS row.

• However, I haven't had to rip it out to a lifeline yet (note: the green-white stripes in the shawl in all the pictures...that's a lifeline.  They get removed).  I have had to hack fixes for a couple of mistakes, but at least I can do that in this pattern.  The worst mistake so far was when I decreased one off of the center stitch of one of the repeats and didn't notice until the next RS row.  I managed to drop a stitch down one side and ladder a new one up on the other side to fix the stitch count, and keep going as is.  It's noticeable if you look hard enough, but the other beauty of lace weight is that each stitch is but a small dot in a sea of stitches; one being off isn't too obvious when looked at as a whole.

• The crappy part about lace weight yarn is that it's soooo thin and loves to tangle in everything.  It took me a day to wind the damn thing because it didn't quite fit on my swift and managed to tangle up in itself.  It could have been worse, but I now have three separate balls from one skein because there was a couple of times I had to cut the current ball off and start another to get rid of a knot that developed.

But all in all...it's going.  Almost done with chart B; we'll see what holds up on the next chart.

Misadventures in Shawls, Part 1: Looking for Yarn in All the Wrong Places

So, among all the many things I've been doing recently, I've planned out and have started a lace shawl.

A couple of noteworthy things about this:

• This is only the third shawl I've ever knitted (in the about 4 years I've been knitting), and the first one was all garter stitch so it doesn't count
• This is only the second large lace project I've ever knitted
• This is my first project with beads
• I made the last lace shawl over two years ago, and it took me six months to complete it
• The shawl is for my sister.  For her wedding.  In August.  Which gives me four months to do it.

It's not that I've been procrastinating.  The first problem was that the planning part took a couple of months.  The reason it took so much time wasn't the time spent looking for the perfect pattern (I found that rather quickly), or even getting my sister to tell me what she wanted (though that took some effort).  It was finding the yarn.

You see, when you agree to attempt to first match the dress (which is a slightly off-white color), its bad.  Luckily the bride-to-be then stated the preference of having the shawl match the bridesmaids dresses, which were described to me as 'similar to this dark royal blue dress I'm wearing' (which, if you've read my blog, you'll know is my favorite color).  For which I was very happy because finding that color yarn shouldn't be hard, right?  I buy it all the time.

A couple of things about that:

• The color of the bridesmaids dress wasn't quite that dark royal blue I love, it was a medium blue that loves to change colors in different lighting (thank you to the people who suggested I could buy a swatch instead of trying to judge it on the computer screen.  That seriously didn't occur to me)
• Any blue color around it loves to change colors in different lighting...including on a computer screen
• The amount of lace weight yarn I would consider 'wedding worthy' (read: has a good silk content and/or is smooth and shiny) contains a lot less variety than you'd think
• That color is hard to find in nice lace weight yarn 

This resulted in several things happening:

• Having to send back $70 dollars worth of yarn because I jumped the gun and bought it without seeing the dress at all (including computer), and it wasn't the right color (didn't help that the picture made it look darker as well).  Which somehow went the way of Alaska to get back to the west coast, just making it there by the return deadline.  Good old USPS.
• Having to send back another skein of yarn because it was a completely different color blue than it looked in the photo
• Running to one yarn store and finding nothing
• Running to another yarn store and coming back with a 100% wool, single-ply skein that nevertheless was at least close to the right color
• Running to a third yarn store and ending up with a nice 100% silk yarn that was a variegated...dark navy blue
• Running to a fourth yarn store and after not finding anything there yarn-wise, bought needles that I thought I'd need (turns out I had to go up a size for gauge, so no dice there either) Oh, did I mention that I don't live anywhere near a yarn store, so running involves more than one subway/bus?
• Realizing that I had bought the same brand of yarn the last two times, and if I could find the 100% yarn in the wool yarn's colorway, I'd be golden
• Finding said colorway in the silk yarn online (yes!)
• Getting it a week later to find out that...it may be the same colorway, but they were not the same color (but it's close enough to the dress so screw it)
• Went looking for beads, and when I couldn't find some that matched the yarn, bought a bunch of cordinated ones
• One, and my favorite of the bunch, of which didn't fit my smallest crochet hook, so I went to a craft store when up at my parents' house to get a smaller one...which was also too big
•  Going and after checking a sewing supply store for the hook (of which, despite the type of store, they carried a lot of, just not smaller than what I already owned), buying more beads that were similar and bigger than the ones I bought...only to find a smaller crochet hook in a beading store

So yeah, it took me some time.

Here's the two skeins of yarn I got at the local yarn stores:

I really like the dark blue color one, but it doesn't work for this shawl

 And here's the yarn on the left with it's 100% silk, same colorway counterpart:

Yes, that is the same colorway, I swear.  Madelinetosh's Lapis colorway in Prairie (L) and Pure Silk Lace (R)

I don't think I need to tell you that nothing pictured here looks exactly like the color in the photos.  The bottom one is closer to true color, though.

Oh, and some beads:

My sister ended up liking the ones on the far left, though I liked the ones right next to it (those are the evil smaller beads).  I've started using the far left ones, and also these:

Which is kind of a blend between the ones I liked and the ones she liked.  I dunno if I'll still use the other ones.

And this is only the beginning.  The fun didn't end there, but I'll save it for another post.  I better go work on the shawl now (or, more realistically, I'll do a couple of pattern repeats and then go play Skyrim.  Because nothing beats a deadline like procrastination).

In Other News, I'm Still Here

So I am a lazy bum who just got out of obsessively watching the Olympics for over two weeks and realized that I haven't written a blog post in over a month.  However, this lazy bum also has been spending half her free time studying for the GRE, and the other half trying to keep up with social obligations, projects, and the fact that she really needs to keep her apartment a little cleaner since a roach decided to chase her out of the kitchen yesterday (I'm no where near a slob and the kitchen wasn't insanely dirty either, but I had been keeping dishes in the sink overnight.  Not that you could ever get a kitchen to a level of cleanness that completely stops them from coming in, over, whatever.  I also have a roach phobia so...yeah).

Anyway, I did get my cardigan done, finally:

Of course, this was after I ripped out the collar three times on top of all the stupid little mistakes I make while knitting.  My swatch lied, or otherwise I was blinded with my love of this yarn, this pattern, or both, because when I blocked it the thing grew.  Not massively, but enough that it felt like it was just hanging on my shoulders, with a huge neckline and floppy collar.  Also, I spaced the buttons out too far and they were gaping.  After throwing it into a corner and sleeping on it so I didn't rip the whole thing out in spite, I ripped out the collar and button band.  I then ripped out three rows of the back before realizing that that section was the only one with live stitches and now I had to pick them back up (which didn't work 100% -- there was an unexplainable gap where the extra yarn hung out at the end of the live stitches and the start of the bind-off -- but I was able to hack it enough and the collar hid it anyway).  Once I fixed that, I decided to go down several needle sizes and re-knit it with new yarn (well, that wasn't a choice because I murdered the yarn when I ripped it out).  Along the way I decided to put one more button and less spaced out, and put less decreases in the collar.  The first thing worked (though I did bind off a bit too tightly), the second thing didn't.  Collar was now too small.  So I ripped that part out again, added more decreases and knitted over the short rows a bit more so the fronts were bigger.  That produced a do-able collar, though I had to sew it down to keep it folded.

I'm still not completely happy with it; it really needs a tighter gauge (damn worsted weight acting like a DK), one button band is slightly tighter than the other, and the collar isn't exactly what I would like...but it does fit more or less now and is extremely warm.  Oh well.  Shit happens.

I probably should do a proper debrief, but right now it's 11pm and I'm tired, so I'm off to bed instead.

It's Another Vogue Knitting Live Debrief

 

By now I think you know I always go to Vogue Knitting Live NYC.  This year was no exception.  However, unlike at Rhinebeck I had a slightly different experience this year, so here's the debrief

You can't see it very well but there are tacks on Australia, Africa, and South America.  Someone in my class was from Vienna.  It's amazing how far people will travel to these things.

In General
The one thing that was consistent from last year was the overall feel of the event.  It was the same big, diverse, more fashion oriented but otherwise Rhinebeck-esq event it was last year.  I have no problem with this, so this was fine.  However, there were a couple of minor changes that I didn't like that made my experience a little less enjoyable than last year.  Next year I really  need to get the guide on Friday like someone in my knitting group did.  If I had I would have showed up earlier on Saturday.  I'll get to these in the relevant sections.

Like last year, I met up with my knitting group on Saturday and then went back on Sunday on my own.  Unlike last year I took a class instead of a lecture and didn't get to see as much of the free stuff.

The Lecture Class
At one point late last year a coupon came out for half-off Sunday classes at this event (the benefit of attending more than one year in a row is I get all the emails about the events).  Since that subsequently made attending a Sunday class close to the same price as the lecture package, I decided to go for it.  Sunday's my better day to do stuff like this anyway.  So I signed up for Designing with Cables taught by Carla Scott.

How can I say this nicely...the class sucked.  Ok, that wasn't nice.  But while the instructor was very friendly and seemed knowledgeable, she got distracted easily and let random questions completely derail the class.  Subsequently, very little got taught.  We covered gauge a bit and started talking about schematics, and then the class got so derailed nothing else on actually designing with cables were ever covered.  Even the random chatter faded out to the instructor chatting with a few of the students, and most of the class left thirty minutes early, including me.

This is not the way to run a class.  I get that instructor wanted the students to feel free to ask questions and she wanted to cover topics some of the students wanted to hear about, even if they didn't have much to do with the course.  But you can't let that prevent covering what the class was supposed to cover.  Actually, I'm not so sure where the class was going.  All I know is the few things that were actually officially taught I knew, and we never got to anything beyond that.  Conversations about, say, copyright and where we live and what x designer did are all great, except when that's all that happens.  I paid $42 dollars to learn nothing (well, ok, that was with the entry fee).  I could have paid $85, so I'm glad at least I didn't do that.

If I didn't know better, this would turn me off from taking another class here.  Luckily, I know enough people who have taken classes at this event and loved them, so it just means I'm going to be a lot more picky if I end up taking a class next year.

Fashion Shows and the Panels
Here's the other thing that sucked this year.  There were no fashion shows on Sunday.  You see, on Saturday I'm busy hanging out with my knitting group, and so I don't get to see any of the shows and panels.  I come back on Sunday mainly to do that.  Except most of everything was on Saturday this year, and that was different than last year so I wasn't planning on it.

This is what I meant about picking up the guide early (or even better if they could mail that schedule with the IDs to us who pre-order, that would be awesome, but I know that's a bit much to ask for).  If I had known that all the fashion shows would be on Saturday, I may have come in early to see a couple of them.  But since I didn't know this until after I had come in to meet my knitting group, I was out of luck. 

So I saw no fashion shows.

What I did do on Sunday after my class, well other than cruse the Marketplace again, was see a panel and a free lecture (again, a lot of them were Saturday, but at least there were Sunday ones).  The panel was one of those general interest, hear people in the industry talk about their experiences, ones, but I like those.  This one was the one titled 'Men at Work', and featured all male yarn industry professionals (well, except one of them was a former Project Runway contestant instead of in the knitting/yarn industry...an odd choice, but that shows popular or something so I get the rational behind it).  It was good in the same way most of these types of panels are: voyeuristic and funny.

The free lecture I went to was on the Trends in Knitting, and while the lecture was fine, all the trends were more about what was trending in fashion and they all were ugly as sin.  However, I already knew that big, bulky sweaters and clothing that looks like it's falling apart was coming back (and skinny pants are still here.  I'm still waiting for that trend to go away so I can finally buy pants that don't make me look like crap).  One thing the city is good for is seeing the new fashion trends before many others notice because people start wearing them here sooner. But I was expecting something more geared to the knitting world in general, but it was fun in the way that the fashion shows are fun: you point and laugh at the stupidity of it.

Also, I had a short but interesting conversation with a older woman that got the lecturer to admit that most of this was looking at the teen and young adult trends.  I pointed out to her that just because one was in that age group didn't mean they liked such things, and vice versa (you know...being that I'm in that age group and tend to hate most of the trends).  We got into a conversation about how if we were going to spend all that time knitting something it better look good a year from now, and that if one looked at pattern trends on sites such as Ravelry instead of liked pictures on sites such as Pinterest, such high-fashion trends didn't show up and it was more classic, timeless stuff.

Purchases
I was bad this year and bought five skeins of yarn:

Ok, three are the same yarn.  I've been thinking about getting this colorway (Stargazing) of Madelinetosh for awhile now to do a sweater, and getting it here was an excuse to buy yarn from my old LYS (who was back again and still remembered me).

The other two are impulse buys.  The gray skein is Squishy Lace from Dragonfly Fibers.  It is very soft and squishy and Dragonfly Fibers had a lot of yarn I loved but I picked this one for some unknown reason.  I have never used Laceweight before, and I'm not really a shawl person.  Oh well, first time for everything.

The other one is sock yarn from Neighborhood Fibers, and I got it because it's such an interesting color.  Since I don't tend to get much outside of the blue/black/gray that I love, I got it.  I was looking for a color to go with some black sock yarn to maybe try some more colorwork, and this should work.  We'll see.

I also bought another Sock Rocket, so now I'm only missing one in the standard sock sizes.

Oh, and the third thing that sucked is that Soak wasn't there!  I'm all but out of the Soak I bought last year, and how perfect it was that it ran out right when VKL was going on again so I could by more and...they didn't have it.  Probably because Eucalan was one of the sponsors of the event.  I looked at the Eucalan and wasn't thrilled with the flower scent it came in (of course this is a personal preference; I'm sure some people love it and I can't speak to how it works).  I like some of Soak's scents better (I really love their Aquae scent, and Unleashed is nice as well), so now I have to go order it online today because I am officially out of it.

Conclusion
Overall, I did enjoy my time at Vogue Knitting Live.  One positive thing was the yarn selection this year was great...I was so tempted to buy more yarn than I did.  I'm just a little disappointed that it was worse than last year in the other aspects of the event...you know, the ones that make it VKL 

Well...to be fair, there was a lot of random items like this:

They were amusing and very VKL.  But other than that, I mean.

Well, there's always next year.

So I Went to Rhinebeck and Brought Back More Photos of Cats Than Yarn (Rhinebeck Debrief 2013)

I said I was going to post about Rhinebeck and...I don't know what to talk about.  I re-read my post from last year and realized that my experience was pretty damn similar.  I went upstate, stayed with family, went to the fair, had a fun time, and went back home.  It was great but it was pretty much a repeat of last year, minus the class I took then.  I didn't take a class this year, so I can't even talk about that.

So, I guess I'll just picture dump then (not that I have many good ones.  I seriously have just as many pictures of cats this year, and none of the yarn):

The view from the porch of the building my sister's apartment was in (slightly north of Duchess County).  Pretty leaves. Still loooove the fall upstate, though it was freezing cold both mornings (it was better during the day).  Dunno what was going on at that church over there though.

Crappy picture; got taken through my windshield

The billboard on the way to the fair!  They seem to use the same design every year, though this is the first time I got a picture.  I shouldn't have been on 9G anyway (the billboard is at the intersection of the road from the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge (it's also a highway, but I forgot the name) and Rt. 9G.  It's meant for people coming from the bridge, which is why it's at a weird angle here)  Turns out you can drive straight down Route 9 through Red Hook to the Fairgrounds.  Duh.  I turned in Red Hook, got on 9G, and got stuck in all the traffic coming off the bridge to the fair.  Took me 30 minutes to get through it.  On the other hand, when I went Sunday, there was no traffic and I got there early because I was expecting to crawl for at least 10 minutes.

I got to the fair with plenty of time though, and got to see everything this time, more than once (several times in some cases...hey, you miss stuff the first two times). Saturday was crowded (figures with all that traffic), so I did more looking than shopping that day, though my mother and I are a bad influence on each other and so we both ended up with unplanned things that Saturday (favorite quote from her this year: 'I'm buying so  many things for myself this year and not for other people!'  I told her that was a good thing, that she should make stuff for herself).  Sunday I ran around with my sisters, and bought most of the yarn I wanted.  I also convinced my poor college student of a sister that she had to buy some yarn there, he he he.

For some reason, I have no pictures of the actual fair, but a few of sheep:

...and a llama (llama llama duck.  You're welcome for the earworm):

Wait, I took this bad picture of a shawl I really liked and want to knit:

I did buy yarn to do it at the fair, and by buy yarn I mean I bought a skein of heavy laceweight dark blue yarn to go with some royal blue fingering weight yarn I bought two years ago and still haven't used...for a sport weight shawl.  Oops. All sorts of fail there.  For some reason I thought that vendor only sold fingering weight yarn.

Of course I then went a bought what ended up being three skeins of sport weight yarn for a fingering weight shawl I've wanted to do since Phil Plait,of all people, linked to the Ravelry page for it, because of course Socks that Rock Mediumweight isn't actually standard sock weight yarn.  At least that just gets you a bigger 'shawl' (it will most likely go on my wall, not get worn.  It's just awesome).

And before you ask, no, I can't use the yarn I bought for the second shawl for the first and vice versa (well, I could do that first one, but I don't want to).  I need a dark black-blue yarn for the second one and two different colors for the first one.

So...wait, did I mention I have tons of photos of cats? I won't derail completely so I'll just post a few that go with a story about yarn.  Saturday night I spent lazing around my sister's apartment. Of course I had bought some of the yarn I bought that day (not the stuff above.  Other yarn.  You'll see). One of her cats (she has two) first decided it liked the yarn I was knitting with:

And then decided it wanted to get the new yarn in my bag:

And then decided that on top of my yarn and bag was a good place to sleep:

Yes, the socks in the bottom corner are my Crazy Purple Socks.  Had to wear something I made to Rhinebeck...

I eventually moved the yarn to the suitcase so it didn't become cat toys overnight.

On Sunday we did dinner and then I drove back to my parent's place.  Since I was lazing about on Monday as well and never made it to the bus to go back to the city (took off Friday and Monday.  Yay four-day weekend), I took pictures of what I bought:

Lots of gray and black this year

...and then decided to go check out the new yarn store that opened up the next town over this year.  Because Rhinebeck wasn't enough yarn.  Anyway, it ended up being a pretty nice store, and I had a nice chat with the owner since I was the only one there mid-day Monday.  Turns out she had organized a bus trip to Rhinebeck on Sunday, and she also had bought more yarn than she needed (her actual statement was closer to: 'I bought some yarn and then asked myself why I was buying yarn; I own a yarn store').  I also bought a skein of yarn, and signed my mother up for the mailing list because she keeps saying she's going to go check out the store and never does (I also told the owner about her so now she has no excuse). 

After the yarn store, I went to a local park and took more pictures:

I also sat in the island in the middle of the lake and knitted a bit.  Because why the hell not;  I had an hour left on the meter for my car.

And that was my weekend at the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival.  And with the cats.

Next year I'll take photos of the fair instead, I promise.