Needles & hooks

Who says Main Street is disappearing?

I’ve been meaning to write a little bit about the new projects and goodies that I’ve received in the mail. And about the dangers of web shopping. As I thought about it, I grew concerned that I’m buying more over the web than ever before. And a little guilty that many times I often go to the web first before looking around for local shops to provide the goods I seek. Is my willingness to buy online shutting down the small businesses of the world? Am I responsible for closing down Main Street, U.S.A.?!

But then I thought about what I purchased on-line recently:
- a suit jacket
- some sock yarn
- some crochet kits
- some internal components for my TiVo
- some custom-made pom poms
- a new Palm PDA
- some Kinder eggs

And I realized that with most of those purchases, I was supporting small businesses. Yes, the Palm purchase was from a Big Box retailer, but I probably wouldn’t have bought it anywhere else and at least by buying it online I was spared an actual visit to those stores I detest. The suit jacket was also from a major retailer, but they didn’t have my size in stock when I wanted it. And I’m not at a point in my life where I might regularly go to a tailor.

But the rest, all small businesses.

The pom poms came from a small cheerleading supply company. The TiVo stuff from a boutique web store that only sells custom-made TiVo parts and sells them along with a few other geeky items: 9th Tee (look at one of the most useful products I’ve seen in ages: Power Strip Jumper Cables). The Kinder eggs from a guy who sends them from Canada to people in the U.S.

The crochet kits are for farm animal finger puppets are from Nancy Queen Designs, a designer with a small web storefront. I love making crochet toys because they turn out so neat and they usually finish quickly. I don’t know who I might make these for, but when I saw them, I knew I needed to get them, if only to have the patterns.

The sock yarn came from Threadbear Fibers, a yarn store whose owners both have active blogs (Black Dog and Crowing Ram) that serve as inventory advertisements. They gush over the products that arrive and it’s almost like I’m opening each of those boxes myself. It seems they do a huge mail order business that way.

Which brings me to the point. Both the crochet kits and the sock yarn I discovered by reading blogs. I stumbled onto Nancy Queen’s site when a co-worker asked what else she might make with eyelash yarn besides scarves. I remembered some purses on a blog I’d recently read, went back, followed the link to NQ’s site, and looked around, stumbling onto the kits.

Maybe some small stores are finding it hard to compete in the modern world. But others are thriving in their place. Not only do they have dynamic websites and mail order, but they have mastered the art of self promotion by talking about their craft in such a compelling way. For the thrilling account of what it is like to start your own yarn shop, read Digital Yarn (and don’t miss the blog at the store itself: Knit Happens). I wish I lived near these stores so I could visit them. Someday I may find myself in their towns and wander in.

So, either I’m a more responsible world citizen or I’m just justifying my inability to control my crafting habits. Either way, I’m happy.

Comments: 0 — Posted under: Musing

Yarn Corraled!

I made a little progress on the mouse blanket this weekend. Finished with the fourth row of blocks - 2/3 of the way.

I also think I got a handle on all the balls of yarn:

As you can see, it’s a box designed to carry wine bottles. I cut off the top so that it would be easier to reach over and grab balls, but if I hadn’t, it would have been a nice caddy. I would have cut it down even further, but the box is an ingenious construction from one sheet of cardboard. If I’d cut further, I would have removed the dividers and the whole box would be useless. The only downside is that there are only 6 holes and I have up to 10 balls of yarn in play for this one. I wasn’t sure how well it would work, so I only liberated one box from Whole Foods. I’ll liberate another next time I go.

Comments: 0 — Posted under: Uncategorized

Intangled in Intarsia

I didn’t get a lot of knitting done this past weekend. Instead, I spent a lot of type hacking my TiVo (this is “stuff I do with my hands”). It’s got bigger hard drives now (to record 10 days of TV, yes, days) and an ethernet card, and pretty soon, I’ll be able to transfer shows from it to my Macintosh and burn DVDs.

For the curious, here are a few pictures. The first is what the inside of a TiVo looks like. It’s really just a computer. The second is the hacking setup — I had to put the TiVo hard drive into a PC to format it and I needed my Mac laptop to read the webpages with the instructions. The last is a close-up of the “tools” I had to add to the PC to temporarily hold the hard drives (see the Cadbury Egg box near the middle and at the very bottom, under the hard drive in the lower left corner, is a GladWare container that I used as a platform - it was just the right size).

But enough about that.

In the odd moments that I did knit (watching my TiVo, hoping I didn’t break it), I worked on the Mouse Baby Blanket. I’m more than half finished as you can see in this photo:

As you might guess, there’s a lot of instarsia. For the non-knitters, “intarsia” is the practise of knitting with multiple balls of yarn to create color blocks. Everywhere I switch colors, there is another ball of yarn. Fortunately, I can start over at each new row of squares. But, with the 4 different squares and the two sections of edging, and the adornments of stripes or polka dots or mice (the grey blobs), that’s a lot of balls to keep in the air. So all I see is this:

Now, I could use some yarn bobbins instead of whole balls, but the squares are pretty big and I’m doing enough weaving at the corners and for the embellishments that I don’t want to risk having too little yarn on a bobbin. I finally had the epiphany over the weekend to stick each ball in a separate ziploc bag. This minimizes the tangling. And I’ve worked out a great system where I line up the balls I’m working and do a quick swap when I have to switch colors and twist the yarn. But the bags are slippery and they take up a lot of room next to me on the couch. And my husband eyes it all with disdain, because after all, he thinks he should get the whole couch. What I really need is a small milk crate with individual cubbies to stick each ball in. A bag won’t do, because I want something rigid that will hold the balls upright in their proper places. Maybe it’s time to run out to the liquor store (to find a box with cubbies!).

The good news is that there end up being so many tails to weave in with this project, that I pause to take the time to do it after I complete each row of squares. Otherwise, I get hopelessly tangled while I’m working. So when I finish this blanket, there will be minimal finishing work to do.

I was going to say something about the dangers of reading other knitter’s blogs, causing one to want to do yet more projects. But not tonight.

Comments: 0 — Posted under: Knitting, Tech-head

What was that about catching up?!

I told myself I was going to finish what I was working on before starting something new. I’ve got these projects that I really should finish. They even have deadlines. And then in every knitting magazine I picked up I saw this sweater by Adrienne Vittadini.

So on Saturday I went out to my LYS and bought the pattern booklet. And while I was there and they kept showing me yarns that I could use, I realized that I really liked the colors in the sweater and that I’d have to buy the actual yarn. So I placed an order for it. And while ordering the yarn, I noticed their list of upcoming classes. I thought I was safe, because I’d looked at the list on their webpage before I went and the only class I was interested in had already occurred. Well, they are offering it again in May, so I signed up. And then I had to buy yarn for it (although I may exchange it, because I bought it in haste and I’m not sure I want to use it now).

The class is pretty neat — it teaches the Magic Loop techinque for using super long circular needles to make items you’d normally use double-pointed needles for, like socks. I’d been eyeing the book for some time because I love my Addi’s and I was frustrated by the dpns when making my one and only pair of socks. And not only does it teach Magic Loop, it teaches you how to do it to make two socks at the same time. I’m savvy enough with patterns that I could probably figure it out on my own, but the class gives me an excuse to be social.

On Sunday, I went over to my friend Jen’s house to help her with some knitting issues. She’s a beginning knitter and trying a sweater from Knitty and is having major gauge issues. Because she doesn’t want to go out and buy yet another pair of needles and because her yarn is a little larger than was called for, she’s forging ahead, making a slightly smaller size of the sweater than she would if the gauge was perfect. This requires some flexibility in following the pattern. I think she’s up for it.

We also put together a box for a stash redistribution group I’m starting. I put in some needles and tools that I once thought I’d like (such as straight needles) and now find that I never use (I found Addis, who needs straights?!). I also tossed in some balls of yarns that I’d purchased as experiments, to work up swatches when deciding between yarns for a project and a couple of balls of yarn that I’d inherited from a friend’s mother but never used.

Jen also had some inherited yarn — a friend of a co-worker moved back to Australia and left her stash behind. Including some half-completed projects that were simply yanked off the needles and dumped as is. Jen put a few of these in the box. I relieved her of a bag of 20 balls of a red/white yarn that was in the early, early stages of becoming a raglan sweater. Then I remembered later that my husband hates red, so can’t make something for myself in it. I’ll post a photo later and you can give me some ideas.

We ripped out one project that we can only figure must have been a blender cozy (it was clearly supposed to be a cover for something tall and rectangular) that was made with Wool-Ease Thick&Quick in light grey. This yarn is my nemesis. I crocheted a hat and scarf for my sister’s boyfriend with it several years ago (in the light grey). I was most of the way through it when I realized that the gauge was far too tight (pattern be damned!) and so I ripped out what felt like 100 balls of it and redid it. Meaning I was left with far too much of it left over. And none of it was in their original balls, so I couldn’t return it. I’ve worked hard to reduce the number of balls of it that I have by making charity squares with it. But last time I went through my stash of balls I’m slowly making into charity squares, I still had tons of it. They’ll probably bury me with it!

I also saw the geek code thing at Knitty and was going to figure that out to post here, but I’ve rambled on long enough already.

Comments: 0 — Posted under: Almost Random

Time Off

On my flight back from Los Angeles, my seat room was very limited, so I had the choice of knitting or watching a movie on my laptop. I chose the movie.

Once home, I didn’t have the mental energy to sit down and chart out the rest of the sleeves for my sister’s sweater. So I looked through my projects. I worked on the Mouse Baby Blanket because that is the next upcoming deadline (where deadline is birth). I’m about 1/3 of the way through it now, most of the way into the 2nd row of blocks. I’ve had to weave in some of the ends, because it was just too much to manage 6+ balls of yarn and the dangling ends. But it’s looking good and I think my next few projects will be in cottons.

And then I hit a wall. I just didn’t feel like knitting (do I have to give up my TKGA membership?!). I’ve spent the last few evenings with the TV working on crosswords and logic puzzles. I may pick up needles again tonight.

Comments: 0 — Posted under: Almost Random

Change of Pace

While I’m here in Los Angeles for work, I’m visiting friends. Last night I visited Stitch Bitch. She recently posted about an Ott-Lite carrying case that she’d seen and asked if anyone had a pattern for it. Last night we made one.

She had a big pad of paper and we made a special run out to buy a square to draw lines and right angles. We scrutinized her B&W print out of the one she’d seen online and we tried to figure out how the given dimensions mapped to her light. In the end, we decided that the one sold online must be much more padded than simply using quilted fabric. It’s the only explanation for how much larger than the light it is. So her plan is to keep to their dimensions and make it with quilted fabric. Then she’ll get some 1/2-1 inch thick foam and cut out inserts to hold the light securely.

The plan is to have her mom make these for herself and another friend. She offered one to me, but I don’t currently have a light. Given my recent re-fascination with 3-D cross-stitch, I should probably get one finally (can’t see much use for it for yarn work). But I also think it might be fun to make the carrying case myself. I’ve asked her to stop at Kinko’s and make me a copy of the pattern. We’ll see how it pans out.

Comments: 0 — Posted under: Almost Random