**The following post was written without the express written consent of my husband. He denies all content.

Happy Valentine’s Day! I won’t lie. This is quite possibly my least favorite holiday. It was alright in grade school. I liked the crafty part of making my own mailbox and then making and signing cards to give to all my class mates. I guess I always had a craft addiction. Other than gradeschool, I can’t remember ever looking forward to Valentine’s Day. In college I dated Phillip pretty much straight through all four years. We broke up and got back together several times. One of these was on Valentine’s Day. He dumped me. This could be one reason why this holiday isn’t my favorite. A few years later he never showed up for our date because his mother had reclaimed her car that he was using and taken it to Columbus to visit her father. (I try not to think this was because she hated me). He had no car and apparantly no access to a telephone to call me and let me know what was going on.

After we bought our first house, spending large quantities of money on this silly holiday sorta ceased. Every year I get a box of chocolates from Artfully Chocolate. Sometimes I knit him socks.  Sometimes we actually go out to dinner.  **Phillip has worked very hard to make V-Day lovely since our college days.*** This year we both realized yesterday that we hadn’t had time to go get cards. We had this realization as we were walking into Target. So we headed to the card section, picked out appropriate cards for each other, handed them over, read them and then put them back and moved on with the task at hand: finding an allergy cover for our new mattress. Really, why do we need to purchase, sign and seal cards for Valentine’s Day?

Tonight Phillip got reservations at Virtue Feed & Grain, which is really quite exciting. I love the decor and the beer cocktails. I have to decide whether it is appropriate to bring a small knitting project with me. Normally dinner out means knitting time but something about it being Valentine’s Day makes me think that I can’t bring knitting along…will have to ask the husband how he feels about this since he is buying dinner.

But really if this holiday is about love and showing love, I want to spend it with both my husband AND some wool. I will take any excuse for casting on a new project. Perhaps another pair of socks tonight…

If you don’t have a Valentine’s plans yet, check out the take home dinners prepared by our friends at Nickell’s and Scheffler. You can grab and take home petit beef filet with sauteed mushrooms and port wine sauce or a salmon roulade with leeks and spinach and a greek yogurt and dill sauce. And the chocolate cream pie with espresso brownie crust for two is a nice touch!

And just in case someone in your life hasn’t gotten you a Valentine’s Day gift yet or you want to spoil yourself with some yarn love, you might want to jump over here, to our newest club with shop favorite Neighborhood Fiber Co.

Need some inspiration? Check out our Valentine’s Day project recommendation: the Valentine Cardi from Spud and Chloe. Here are the project details:

Yarn: Spud & Chloë Fine (65 g/248 yds): 4 (4, 5, 5, 6, 6) hanks for finished measurements at bust: 32½ (36½, 40½, 44½, 48½, 52½)”

Needles: Size 5 (3.75 mm) 32″ or longer circular needle, or size needed to obtain gauge

Gauge: In Lacy Rib, 20 sts and 32 rows = 4″.

The socks that went to Prague are still working their way into a full pair of socks…I cast on in the airport, I think, and I am now on the homestretch of the second sock. Until these are done, I am refusing to start other projects. And there are so many that I want to move on to! So with the finish line in sight, I have started dragging the sock everywhere – including to my dental appointment this week. Based on this experience, here are a few tips for getting through a dental cleaning:

First, take the last appointment of the day. No extra poking and scraping will be done when everyone wants to get home.

Second, take your knitting with you. You are going to want something with very small pointy needles. Socks will do. Choose something that you can knit without looking at your needles.

Start knitting as soon as you hit the chair. This is going to really throw your dental hygienist. Or at least mine was completely baffled. No matter what she poked at, scraped at, or tortured me with, I didn’t stop stitching away. I got about an inch of sock done and my dental hygienist probably did the fastest cleaning she has ever done in her life. All in all, it was one of the most pleasant cleanings I have had in quite awhile.

Hilarious email from Marsha that arrived while I was away:

Well, you know those stupid commercials where the guy goes to the jewelry store and all the people are saying ‘ohhh, he went to Jared’s!!!’.  It was like that last night on my birthday but even better. I opened the gift from Phil and as soon as I saw the t-shirt I gasped ‘You went to Fibre space!!!!’.  He tricked me by wrapping it in a ginormous gift bag.  The t-shirt was cool enough, but then the gift certificate was even better.  From a man that knows I already have enough yarn to knit until I’m 200 years old — now that must be love.  and he accompanied it with a big box of assorted cupcakes too.  Yay! 

Sometimes being a knitter is pretty hilarious, particularly when you are getting to know someone new. At some point, they always ask, “so, what’s the most difficult thing you’ve ever made?” This question always sends me into a tailspin, trying desperately to locate my most complicated project ever! I often forget that someone who has never knitted a stitch is probably just as impressed by my first sweater that I have never worn, as the Estonian lace shawl that I am knitting for a wedding gift.

These conversations are generally with non-knitters, so I can’t just send them to my online Ravelry page, which is generally organized (though not quite as organized as my queue. I might be obsessed). No, I must instead send them into the depths of my poor flickr account, which really only serves as a place to hold some of my travel photos, and to feed images of projects into Ravelry. The problem here is that it’s not just projects. It’s also hundreds of pictures of yarn. Which leads to conversations like this one:

Bismark Hat by Kelbourne Woolens in Road to China Light. And me in my office looking silly.

Lesley: Well, here’s a hat I made recently

Friend: that hat is quite impressive.

Lesley: this is lace. It was a shawl for my sister’s wedding (this is me trying to impress my new friend with my fancy shawl)

I love that hat.

Friend: we drove from Virginia to upstate New York every summer…and one year I traveled with big needles and a ball of yarn. The project only lasted the length of the trip…two long car rides on either end of a week on Lake George.

Lesley: It’s a good travel project

I generally knit socks when I travel

Friend: the lace looks very delicate.

(Brief Pause)

Friend: You take pictures of yarn….just yarn. That’s funny.

SweetGeorgia Tough Love Sock in Pistachio. Also "just yarn."

Lesley: (oh crap, now they think I’m insane) Well, there is a reason…!

Friend: do tell

Lesley: There is a special social networking site for knitting and crochet

it’s called Ravelry

and you can list all the yarns you have so that it’s easier to pick projects

the site communicates with flickr, so all my photos are there

Friend: wow. a world I had no idea existed.

Lesley: yeah

knitters are silly

Friend: apparently.

Perhaps I should clean up my flickr account to avoid such future explanations? Probably not. There’s far too many interesting things on Ravelry to distract me.

Have you had a strange encounter of the knitting kind? Share it with us!

Pat sends us the most amazing notes, so I have to start sharing. Pat says,

Seldom do I go to Trivia games. However, my son’s team was going to be short so I went Tuesday night. The bonus (last) question – worth $100 was – “what do garter, cable, and moss have in common?  Only one team out of eight got the answer correct – our team! I couldn’t believe the question was sooooooo easy!  Everyone else tried to relate the terms to the environment.

Nemo doesn't seem to like the monkey on his back

Yesterday Nemo and I walked up King street to the bank with my friend Aimee. We stopped into the Dog Park, my favorite doggy food and toy supply store. I was hoping that she would have most of her winter coats in already since it is starting to get cold at night and Nemo hasn’t spent a winter with us yet and therefore, has no coat.  They had some of their coats in already but nothing that worked for Nemo. Then I spotted a table of hand knit sweaters.

Now generally speaking, I ignore hand knit things in retail stores. I always end up finding things wrong with them that would bother me. And as a knitter, everyone would ask if I made the sweater, and then I would have to admit that I didn’t. But this particular sweater..well it is Intarsia. And since I happen to think that Intarsia is the devil, I don’t feel bad purchasing something that has it, because I am officially done knitting Intarsia. Lucky for Nemo, the sweater came in his size. Unlucky for mom, the bind off is too tight and needs to be pulled out and redone and the tails aren’t woven in on any of the Intarsia. I suspect this is because the wool is a great sticky wonderful Peruvian wool that will just felt down a bit as it is worn and the tails will be fine, but the knitter in me is bothered by this and will have to fix it immediately.

Just like the last time a sweater was put on Nemo, he expressed his general discontent by smooshing his entire body up under his front legs. Eventually, he jumped into his window seat and tried to deal with the shame of wearing a sock monkey sweater. I am certain he will get over it. Later that day, we discovered that the hood falls down over his eyes when he goes down the stairs and renders him blind. Because he is an Iggy, he keeps trying to go down the stairs despite the lack of sight. (They have tiny brains. Very tiny brains.) As you can imagine, this didn’t turn out well. So I guess he can’t wear his sweater indoors.  Other than this particular problem, the tails and bind off, the sweater is worth every bit of the $38 dollars that I paid for it. There is no way that I would knit this sweater for a mere $38. Absolutely no way. So in the end, it was worth everything that I paid for it.

Nemo didn't bother to take the price tags off of his sweater.

There is an amazing new locally run site called DIY Del Ray that features do-it-yourself home projects as well as good finds, small space tips, etc. I know about it because a certain crafty customer happens to run the site. Well today our new house is the featured home and the post has some great shots of knitted and crocheted items too! Oh yeah, and this is her photo of my new yarn and shoe closet. Yes, before you ask, this is my ENTIRE stash. That is it. That is all I have. I will admit that a full two tubs are filled with sock yarn… And there is one tub not pictured here. so that is four total tubs and a three drawer white tupperware thingy. I might have a yarn purging problem. It doesn’t stick around long in my house.

I love to start new projects. I start them all the time. Finishing, not so much. Once I’ve figured out a pattern, I quickly become bored and want to move on to the next new thing. (Working at a yarn store full time is not a good way to cure this, in case you were wondering.)

Every now and then though I get on a finishing kick. For a while it was hats, but now it seems to be shawls. Maybe it’s the weather starting to get colder, or the days getting shorter, but I suddenly find myself picking up my unfinished shawl projects and getting them done. (Sorry, sweaters – maybe you’ll be next?)

There’s something really satisfying about a good shawl or wrap. You can knock out a respectably sized one in around 400 yards of just about any weight of yarn. You can go for a simple pattern or something impressively lacy. And when you’re done, you have pretty much the ultimate accessory. A shawl can double as a scarf or a hat. It looks good with jeans or dresses. It can go out on the town of an evening, or dress up a t-shirt during the day. And blocking a finished shawl is like getting to do magic – you can turn a shapeless lump of knitting into something amazing!

My Springtime Bandit. Yep, that's two different dye lots.

This week I finished my second Springtime Bandit (I keep knitting these in August despite the name) and have been wearing it pretty much constantly since – I knit this one in Dragonfly Fibers Blue Face Worsted and am really pleased with how it turned out. Bluefaced Leicester is not as soft a wool as Merino, but this yarn worked up to be wonderfully drapy and has great stitch definition. (My Merino version, on the other hand, is more of a fuzzy blob.)

I had a lot of fun knitting this since I got to teach a class on it at the same time – it’s so rewarding to watch someone realize that they can make something that looks really complex with just some simple increases and decreases. This is a great first lace shawl pattern and teaches you a lot about shawl construction – some of my students even decided to sign up for the advanced lace shawl class (I’m so proud of you all!)

Schieffelin Point Shawl photo - Kelbourne Woolens

Now I’m finishing up a Schieffelin Point Shawl that I started back in June – I’m knitting it in Fibre Company Acadia, a DK weight mix of Merino, alpaca, and silk. This is going to be soft and snuggly, perfect for the rainy weather we’re having.

This is a good easy knit – the whole body of the shawl is done in garter stitch and there are just a few increase rows to pay attention to, then you cast on a few extra stitches, knit the edging on to the rest of the shawl, and have less than 20 stitches to bind off!

Next I’ll finish the Bias I’m knitting for a friend’s birthday in Neighborhood Fiber Co. Penthouse Silk Fingering – this will be shimmery and elegant, just what I wanted! (The pattern is written as a scarf size but I cast on extra stitches to make it a nice-sized wrap.) This is one of those simple stitch patterns that would look good in any weight of yarn – I’m sure I’ll knit more of these.

And then… well, I really like shawl patterns. I have more shawls favorited on Ravelry than almost any other type of project (and that’s not even counting the ones in my queue.) Some shawls I’m excited about right now are Bois, with its beautiful border, and Pembroke Wrap, which would be fluffy, warm, and fun to knit in Imperial Stock Ranch pencil roving. I should probably make one of those Boneyard Shawls that Daphne’s got everyone doing, and I’ve really been wanting to knit Hawthorne, especially now that there’s a matching hat and mitts.

Oh wait, Springtime Bandit has a matching hat too…  uh oh. I think I’m in trouble.

Football season has almost officially started, and last Friday I got the chance to go to a preseason Steelers game at Fedex field. I was, of course, knitting. During half time, the stadium put a large message up on the jumbotron stating that we should report any inappropriate activity that could be ruining our enjoyment of the game. My husband turned to me and told me that he was going to report me. Why? Because I was knitting. Apparently this isn’t “appropriate” for a football game in his opinion. (Yet bouncing cheerleaders are?) For me, football season is the best knitting time. It is four hours every week of dedicated knitting time. So it has me thinking that I need a football season project…something that I only work on during the Steeler games. I could absolutely be finishing one of several black and gold projects that I have started in past seasons, but what is the fun in that. I am instead thinking that it would be an ideal time to dedicate to my holiday gifts. This means that I have only a couple more weeks to make my gift list and determine what I am knitting for whom and gather my materials together. If you are also a football watcher, let me know what you plan to work on during the season.

I have now been back from Seattle for one or two weeks, who knows. I have completely lost track of time lately. I don’t care to get on an airplane again for months.

Albers Cowl project on the ferry to Bainbridge Island

While in Seattle, I made a point of visiting a couple of yarn shops, of course. Mostly as an excuse to buy sock yarn…which I feel is the perfect thing to purchase while traveling. It fits well in a suitcase and there is usually some sort of locally dyed yarn to snatch up. My first yarn store pilgramage was in fact, quite a pilgrimage. We boarded a ferry and traveled across the water to Bainbridge Island to Churchmouse Yarns & Teas. The shop is another of the Brooklyn Tweed SHELTER stores, so I feel like we are sister shops in a way. I met all of their staff, including their wonderful owner Kit. The store is just lovely. It has soft lighting and huge comfy spaces. The fixtures are all wood and feel like furniture pieces. They have a fabulous selection of Habu Textiles and a great little display for this lady’s book..who may look familiar to some of you. Our shops couldn’t be more different in look and feel, but I just loved the place. I could spend a bit of time with a cup of tea in one of their comfy chairs with some knitting needles.

Olga's Book and Habu Textiles at Churchmouse Yarns & Teas

I picked up some Socks that Rock while I was there, of course. It is still my favorite sock yarn base. I have an entire collection of the yarn and eventually will actually knit socks with it. Because I fell down and had some sort of money spending accident at the Fleuvog store in Seattle, I now have three new pairs of shoes that show off hand knit socks quite well..so some motivation to start making some!

My yarn score at Fiber Gallery in their bright lounge and classroom space

My next yarn shop was the Fiber Gallery, which is just north of the city but a short car ride.  Loved this shop. Their inventory is rather similar to ours actually. They carry quite a bit of Blue Sky Alpacas, Spud and Chloe, Malabrigo, Madelinetosh, Berroco and Cascade. Even some of our smaller companies, like O-Wool, were represented there. I picked up these two skeins of sock yarn from Hazel Knits, a local company. Lovely stuff. The owner was marvelous. Definitely a must see when you are out that way.

While we were in Seattle for a wedding, we did manage to get quite a bit of sightseeing in. We did the “adult version” of the underground tour, which was spectacular. We had a cheesey guide who told silly stories, but seeing the underground of Seattle was really cool. If you aren’t aware, Seattle actually has an entire story of buildings under the sidewalks that they built on top of…it’s a little odd. While on the tour, we spotted this very yarn bombed park, which totally made my trip. Every tree and lamp post was covered in brightly covered wraps. Amazing.

Overall, the trip was really fab. I did get a lot of work done on our fall schedule too! So be sure to check it out. I am still adding thing today but a great deal of classes are already posted. I also managed to get my albers cowl almost entirely finished and will post pictures of that this week. But I think I did also purchase more yarn than I knitted with..which makes it seem like I moved backwards a bit.

Berroco Remix in Patina

So here is the main problem for me with any and all travel: decision making. It is the only time that I have to commit to one or two or even three specific projects. There won’t be any other options. Once we hit the airport, that’s it. I can’t decide that my gauge is wrong on the sweater and that I need new yarn. I can’t throw the sock project into a basket and start a different one out of boredom. Nope. I am stuck with the decisions that I made the night that I packed. On Wednesday morning I head off with the hubby to Seattle for a friend’s wedding. We will be gone for six days. If you take the number of days on vacation and divide by two, this is the number of projects that you can take with you. (i just made this up…play along). So that means that I get to take three projects! The first one will be a baby blanket project for a friend. She is in England so I wanted something to match her sheep and nature themed nursery that also had a nice “English tweed” look to it. I decided on this color from Berroco Remix (her nursery is all neutrals). The Remix gives me tweed with the softness and machine washability of cotton. Perfect! I am going to make her the Wool Leaves pattern from Jared Flood. (you could say that I am on a Jared Flood pattern kick lately) This is another one that we carry at the shop and the pattern is one that we use for our intro to lace class.

Photo by Jared Flood

This is going to be my “mindless” project. I have to have one of those. The problem with this one is that it is large…which makes me think that I should also take a mindless ribbed sock with me. Purse sized projects on key while on vacation. You never know where you will need a project to fit into a small purse. Luckily there is a lot of sock yarn in my stash that needs some attention (or even recognition of its mere existence or some memory of how it got there in the first place.) So I am thinking that a hank of sock yarn and some tiny needles will get thrown into the suitcase as project number two.

Now for the third project…I wanted to knit this from Teva Durham from the new Loop-d-Loop lace with Acadia from the Fibre Company. The problem is that I could not get gauge with the yarn. Not at all. And there isn’t another yarn jumping at me for the project. It’s like I decided that Acadia and this sweater were a match made in heaven and they quickly divorced and now I can’t possibly imagine them with anyone else. I don’t know what to do. So I am plotting something else entirely. The new Wool People magazine has me intrigued. I don’t think that an Olga B. pattern is vacation material even though I am in LOVE with her design in this magazine. (that is a LOT of cables) I am thinking that the Sullivan pattern would be lovely as my first Shelter sweater, but I also really wanted a pullover. It seems that I just don’t have enough pullovers in my life. So I guess before I leave, I will have to decide between the two…or throw a random third option into the mix.

Sullivan - Wool People / Brooklyn Tweed

Shadow - Wool People / Brooklyn Tweed

UPDATE: tragedy has struck and my yarn for the baby blanket did not arrive today. Now I have no idea what to do. I think I am headed home to gather a sweater out of my WIP bin and a hank of sock yarn and possibly some yarn for the Olga B. pattern…decisions decisions

Photo by KT Auleta, courtesy of Elle Magazine

I love that this Fall’s fashion is celebrating the hand made with more knit and crochet garments appearing on runways. But the newest line from Christopher Kane just doesn’t cut it for me. This article on Elle talks about how he is “taking the grandma out of crochet.” I thought that we had been taking the grandmother out of knitting and crocheting for years, but apparently not. C. Kane has done it for us and now crochet “suddenly got cool.” Ick.  This skirt, for example, is made from two giant granny squares sewn together on the side seams. Lesley, our resident crochet expert, reports that she knows for a fact that the same square appeared on the Hard Times horse about a year ago. (and she would probably know about that little incident…) I guess the Hard Times horse is very fashion forward..spotting a trend a full year before this designer.  It would take even a novice crocheter about 60 minutes to make this, and I am not even sure that this one uses a natural fibre yarn. It is a great deal at $1,300. I would happily make this custom for anyone who wants it for $1,300. I will even use a high quality merino. Could it at least be made of several smaller squares? Could it involve a better color palate? Throw me a bone?

Then his collection goes a step further. If it were the late 90′s and I was still in college, I might write a piece about how postmodern this one on the right is…a photo of a crocheted skirt on a skirt – something distinctly .hmm…. At least it is leather and not vinyl. But still. Why? It sells at Neiman Marcus for $2,555. Again, I would be happy to replicate for a REAL crochet skirt for that price, should someone want it.

So then take a look at the newest pattern from Spud and Chloe…a company whose primary mission is NOT fashion. But certainly, fashion plays a huge part in their work. The Seeing Stars Blanket is classic yet modern, full of mod colors, and unique in that it isn’t simply squares. The pieces are hexagons. I love it. I would totally wear a skirt made of these little dudes. I still wouldn’t pay $1,300 for it…but I would consider wearing it. Thank you Lindsay Ingram and Spud and Chloe for bringing us some true fashion

Seeing Stars pattern available at the shop

On the backside of our office door...right where I left them

So I may have scheduled too many things for this month. We closed on our new house last Friday, moved in on Sunday and then left for Mexico on Thursday. Yikes! In the rush to get us moved over to the new place, we may have forgotten some things. On Wednesday, I went back to the house to drop off my keys to the new owners (who we had been renting from for the last month) and to take out the garbage. Remember this blog post about the clues that a knitter lives in a house? See that photo there of the knitting needle organizer hanging behind the door? yeah…I may have left that! Thank goodness that I went back to double check. I must have hundreds of dollars in knitting needles in it. Not to mention, packing for Mexico would probably have been harder without all of my needles!

So for the trip, I wanted to take some old projects that I haven’t finished and some new ones to work on. But alas, space was tight. I decided to skip the sweater projects and focus on small items that I don’t mind getting sun screen on. I packed an old sock that still needs a friend – knitted in Schaefer Nichole (available at the shop). I grabbed another hank of sock yarn from my stash (something variegated that would be best for simple ribbing). I also packed up a lot of scrap yarns and the Albers Cowl pattern (seen here). Every since Ann Weaver visited this spring, I have wanted to make it. I have such an extensive collection of sock yarn scraps that I was able to pull together some pretty cool color combos. I hope to send some photos to the blog while I am gone!

Mary Fitzgerald was waiting outside our shop yesterday when Kel and I arrived to work shortly after 8 am with coffee in hand. We had a lot of paperwork to get caught up on from the trade show, and we knew that there were already boxes waiting for us. She was leaning over this hilariously painted car and working on something. At first, I thought she was writing me a ticket and then I realized that I knew her!

Photo by MFitzStudio

It turns out that she was working on a painting…one that she brought into the shop shortly after we opened at 10 am and handed off to me! It is the most amazing thing ever. Really…so amazing. I have already rushed it over to our framer up the street to be framed for my new house (which we move into on Sunday!)

Really, I have met the most amazing people through this shop. You all seem to have some secret hidden ability to that find out about after a few visits.

You can find Mary on facebook here.

Seattle Knitters made 'tree socks' for some local flora. Courtesy yarnbombing.com.

On Saturday, local knitters and crocheters have two opportunities to show their yarny pride: Worldwide Knit in Public Day (check out our post for project ideas) and International Yarn Bomb Day. WWKIP has been around for years (and is taking place at two different sites near us), but IYBD is new this year, and it needs you to make it a success!

What is yarn bombing? Simply put, it’s freeing some of your stitching to the world around you. Whether you tie a scarf around a tree or encase your entire fence in stitches, it’s a way to those around you know that there are knitters and crocheters in their midst.  Many of us have known about yarn bombing for a while, but it went mainstream this year, as evinced by articles in The New York Times and on the Huffington Post.

Of course, the DC area is ahead of the curve in this as in all things: the Hard Times Cafe near fibre space had its horse yarn bombed last May. Though Alexandria was moving into summer heat, the sneaky folks behind the project decorated the “Horse with No Name” with scarves, ear muffs, and other woolly treats.

Want inspiration for your stitch graffiti? Check out this Pinterst board of yarn bombing worldwide, and check out Stitch London’s pattern for a Floating Flutterguy – they want people everywhere to knit one and release it in their city. He’s cute – he’s quick to make – and he can satisfy both WWKIP and IYBD requirements in one fell swoop!  [Best of all, he'll reduce your stash.]