The Knitting Pirate

This is the last yarn I’ll be getting for a while, I think! It is Cascade Heritage Paints in the “Isle of Skye” colourway, and it seems like the perfect colours for Mom. I hope she doesn’t mind the tinges of purple amongst the blues!

I plan to make a simple ribbed sock, 64 stitches around, since my 64-stitch socks fit her just fine. The only measurement I need to get is the length of her foot, and then I’m good to go – as soon as I finish some other projects! (Psst, Mom, can you measure your foot for me please?)

It is becoming more difficult by the day to refrain from casting on for a new project! I’m doing my best to hold out but I don’t know how long I can manage…

KnitPicks has my vote based on shipping speed alone – I ordered this yarn only two days ago, and here it is. That is amazingly fast! This is the first time I’ve seen the Felici yarn in person, and already I’m pleased with it. It feels very soft and smells deliciously of wool. The only disappointment I have is that the skeins don’t begin with the same colour, so I’m going to have to skip a few stripes of one in order to make matching socks with the stripes properly lined up. It will be incredibly difficult to keep myself from casting on for the new Jaywalkers tonight. I haven’t been this excited about starting a new pair of socks in a while!

When I told Pirate-Husband about this yarn, he quipped, “If you knit the socks for me, then you could be The Time Traveler’s Wife.” *groan* Awful.

Did I really make plans to be out of town on the same weekend as the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival? That’s what I get for not looking at my calendar. Boy, did I feel stupid when I realized my mistake. Fortunately, Amtrak doesn’t charge change fees, and I am able to move my trip to the following weekendweekend before (the following weekend is Mothers Day, and I can’t miss that either!) Whew!

Despite not remembering when it is, I’m pretty excited about MDSW. Like last year, I plan to buy mostly fibre – the hand-dyed stuff that I love to touch before deciding to buy. I’m going to help a friend look for her first drop spindle and some fibre so I can teach her to spin. I’m *not* going to buy anything that hasn’t already been washed. I haven’t gotten around to carding any of the solid-coloured stuff that I bought last year, so I don’t think I need more of those. I meant to bring the carder out over the weekend, but it didn’t quite work out. I *am* going to buy a braid of fibre in colours that I don’t usually go for, and something in a semi-solid, and maybe a sort of fibre that I haven’t yet tried – perhaps a blend that will spin into a tweedy yarn.

If I see the perfect sock yarn for my mom, I’ll pick it up; otherwise I’m going to have to order from WEBS as my local yarn store doesn’t have the colourway and wasn’t very forthcoming about their ability to order it in for me. I was a little disappointed at the hedging about ordering, and the implication that I’d have to buy a full bag of the yarn when all I need is one skein. (But ordering from WEBS is dangerous! I never want to get just one thing; I always want to get up to a $60 order so that I can have the 20% discount!)

I wasn’t too happy to hear that one of my favourite yarns, Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed, was being discontinued. It’s the yarn I used to knit the Fleep-Tops, and I just knew that I would want another pair – and my swornbrother Michael kept eyeing them enviously, too. When I was in Canada this past February, I was able to find some in “Cedar,” a deep green colourway, but Michael only wanted black or dark gray. So I happily kept the green for myself, thus ensuring that my next winter coat will have to be something that goes well with dark green, and went on a quest for “Night,” the colourway I’d used for the original pair.

Apparently, the “Night” colourway was discontinued two years ago, but after some serious web-searching, I finally found two skeins for a great price at the Red Bird Knits moving sale. What a deal! Of course I bought them right away, before anyone else could. I will have to size my pattern notes up to fit his larger hands, but that shouldn’t be too difficult at all, and I’m sort of looking forward to the challenge of it.

In looking around the web, it seems as if the yarn isn’t actually being discontinued, just no longer shipped to America and Canada. There are plenty of colourways listed on Jo Sharp’s site and no mention that it’s going out of production. Does anyone have anything further about this?

Last weekend, while my house in Virginia was buried in more than two feet of snow, I went to Canada. Ironically, the weather there was beautiful and clear, if really cold. It was even too cold for me to want to skate on the canal. Instead, my sworn-sister the Ninja and I, along with our friend Amy, took an afternoon to visit yarn stores.

Our first stop was Wool N’ Things in Orleans, where I was thrilled to find some of the discontinued Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed, the same yarn that I used to knit my Fleep-Tops. I picked up two skeins in Cedar, a gorgeous dark green with red and yellow flecks. They’ll probably become another pair of Fleeps, as backup for when my first pair inevitably wears out. The green totally doesn’t match my dark blue winter coat, but it’s time for a new coat anyway. Perhaps something in green, or preferably black. Black goes with everything.

Then we headed over to Yarn Forward in Ottawa proper, where I bought two skeins of this super-soft (and superwash!) Lang Merino DK in a gray so dark it’s almost black. My first thought was that it might make a pair of Fleeps for Michael, but he wanted something thicker and tweedier, so I’m going to use it for a pair of classy office armwarmers for myself and pick up some Rowan Felted Tweed in as black as it comes for him. Not that I mind being able to use this pettably soft stuff for myself, not at all! I am thinking about making something like these Cafe au Lait Mitts from SnapperKnits, or perhaps I will come up with my own pattern for them.

I did have a disappointment this year: My old Stellar Toque, now over four years old, may be nearing retirement. It’s gotten stretched out and too large, and lets the wind through to my ears. I am thinking that before next Winterlude, I will knit a colourwork hat with earflaps and line it with fleece. We saw many of them in the Byward Market when we were there for the Stew Cook-Off on Friday, and I was seriously tempted to buy one – but why buy what I can knit? Pirate-Husband suggested that I could salvage the Stellar Toque by knitting earflaps onto it and lining it with fleece, instead of making a whole new hat. I could also felt it a little to shrink it and make it more windproof.

There should have been pictures, but it’s been raining. Obviously I need a piece of white posterboard and all the lights in the house, so I can take pics even if the sun isn’t out. Meanwhile…

I have eight more stripes to go in the first of the Stripey Striped Socks, and I’m hating it. The Kureyon Sock yarn is almost as harsh on my hands as knitting with cotton. Working from both sides of the ball at once has gotten everything all twisted. The thick bits are too thick for my needles, the thin bits too thin. I can’t just knit comfortably without thinking about it. I’m so glad I didn’t buy more of this stuff when I was tempted to. (grump grump. grump.)

On the pro side, when I drop a stitch, it doesn’t fall. And there’s no vegetable matter in this yarn like there is in regular Kureyon. And, the real kicker… the colors are gorgeous and vivid and wonderful, and I love how the stripes come out, and I’ve heard that this yarn softens up amazingly in the wash.

Maybe I’ll put the project aside when I’ve finished the first sock. Take a break from it, work with yarn I like more. Knit the second sock some other time.

Since I seem to have forgotten to put it in my last post, the yarn that Michael bought for me is Cascade Heritage Paints, in colorway 9922. It is squishy-soft and I’ve put it on my desk to motivate me to finish some of the socks currently on the needles, so I can get to knit with this stuff! It might stripe or it might spiral, or the colors might be evenly distributed. I only hope they match, and that they don’t flash too badly over the gusset. I’ll be working up a very simple pattern, probably a 3×1 rib over 72 stitches (gotta check those numbers!), which should go fairly quickly once I get started.

A visit from my swornsister the Knitting Ninja would not have been complete without a trip to at least one yarn store. We, along with our brother Michael, decided to check out the new Needles in the Haymarket. They’ve recently moved from the third floor of their building to a much larger store on the first floor. It’s quite nice already, and looks as if there’s even more yarn to come!

I told both sibs that I was on a yarn diet and would not be buying anything. Then this jumped into my hands. “These look like your colors,” I said to Michael, and maybe also “I would knit you another pair of socks,” and perhaps I might have added “One little skein won’t hurt, right?”

Said Michael, “If you’re going to knit socks for me, then I should buy the yarn for you.” And he did, thus absolving me of sin for having broken the yarn diet. (Isn’t it lovely and so subtle in the colors? I can’t wait to see how it knits up!)

Pirate-Husband laughed at me when I said “After this, I’m not going to buy any more yarn until MD Sheep and Wool in May.” Can I really go nine months without buying any yarn? We shall see – but that’s my plan!

But this was a special case (aren’t they all?) This is Opal Rainforest yarn in the discontinued and hard-to-find Tiger colorway, and I’ve been looking for two skeins of it for over a year so that I can make matching tiger paw socks for both of us. I finally found some through an Australian Raveler who was kind enough to ship overseas for me!

My favorite animal is the mountain lion, but Pirate-Husband likes tigers better, and so I thought it would be perfect to make him socks like these. Here is a link to the original project on Ravelry. I think they’re adorable!

I did tell Pirate-Husband that I have no idea when I’m going to actually get to knit these. But at least now I have the yarn, right?

If all went well, we now have threaded comments up to ten levels deep, so that you’ll be able to reply to other people’s comments in addition to commenting on my posts. Pretty nifty! (Please feel free to test the system.)

I’ve been planning to go to Stitch ‘n Bitch tomorrow, but I’ve had a sore throat for about a week. In the last few days I’ve started coughing. If I’m not feeling better by morning, I’ll have to put it off another week. Phooey. I was really looking forward to it, but I certainly don’t want to infect anyone with this cold.

Next weekend I am taking a quick trip up to Philadelphia, and I’d love to visit a yarn store or two while I’m there. Can you recommend one? Loop is already on my list. I enjoy buying souvenir yarn when I’m traveling. Later, when I knit it up, I can reminisce about my trip. And even after that, when I’m wearing the finished product, I think, “These are the socks I knit with the yarn I bought with Michael in Ottawa, in that neat little shop on Bank Street that’s closed down now,” or something like that. “This is the hat I knit with the yarn that I bought when Janis and I snuck off after dim sum to splurge at Woolwinders. This is the–”

I remember where I bought most of my yarn, actually. Even though there’s so much of it now.

I know I said I didn’t need any.

I know I said I would only buy yarn at festivals.

I know I have enough yarn, especially sock yarn, to keep me knitting for at least five years.

But I didn’t buy any yarn or fiber at Pennsic, and yesterday there was a sale on Louet Gems Fingering at Discontinued Brand Name Yarn, which is just the stuff I need to make Cookie A.’s Rhiannon socks. I could not resist the incredible price of $3.49/skein, marked down from $13.95/skein, and so I bought five skeins in *cherry red*, which should be the most awesome color for knee socks ever.

I bought this pattern (the picture is from Cookie A.’s site) back in September, when I attended her top-down sock design class, and I’ve been waiting for the right yarn to show up ever since. Nothing was quite right – it was too expensive, it was the wrong color, it had the wrong feel to it. But now I’ve got the right stuff! It may take me forever and a day to knit these monsters, but I am really excited about them! Doesn’t everyone need a pair of cherry-red knee socks? I’m already daydreaming the outfit to go with them – maybe one of those cute flared black skirts, a blouse with just the right red to match. Most likely it’ll take me as long to find the right pair of shoes as it will to knit the socks, so I’d better start looking for those now. It’s not always easy to find affordable size 10.5 shoes that aren’t terribly ugly.

Pirate-Husband thinks that I should wear them as thigh-high socks with the tops unfolded. I’m not so sure, but he can be awfully convincing sometimes…