La Petite Corolla: A Eulogy

[insert sound of bugle playing Taps]


How can I put into words this feeling of tremendous loss? Haiku, of course!

The squealing of brakes.

"Oh, s**t is that a Beemer?"

Metal on metal.

Is anyone hurt?

What in the hell just happened?
(It was a Volvo.)

No one was injured.

Broken headlights on the street.

Cars blocking traffic.

I watch with sadness.

As the tow truck hoists my car,

The Corolla limps

They called with the news.
Too much damage to repair.
The car is totaled.

A tremendous loss.
Hearts and head lights are broken.
It was much too soon.

I recall the days
Such a dependable ride.
Good times, yes...good times.

So long, 44!

That pretty much says it all! Tomorrow is the big 4-5. Eeeee!

Rather than whine about the fact that I'm getting older, I shall celebrate the added gray hairs, the reading glasses, the extra few pounds. Bring on the birthday and many more!

Yarn Shop Crawl 2009: A Blogumentary

You didn't think that was all that I got while at Stitches, did you?

On Saturday, we took a break from the Stitches South classes/market and embarked on a local yarn shop crawl. If you look up local yarn shops in the Atlanta area, the list is rather daunting. My suggestion to you, should you decided to crawl, is to call each shop you plan on visiting. You'll save precious time by calling ahead for shop location and hours--some shops had extended hours because of Stitches.

The weather was perfect!


Liana took to the helm and guided us about town in style.


Stop 1: Strings and Strands
This was a nice little shop, but was a bit hard to find. She had a great selection in her sale bins and had some lovely custom yarn that appeared to be dyed/spun specially for her shop.


Stop 2: Only Ewe and Cotton Too!
The bonus here was that the yarn shop was also a bead shop. Two evils under one roof!


Purchase: Shibui sock yarn for socks from the "Knit 1 Below" book.
This shop also had a booth at the market. Even so, a couple skiens of ShiBui sock yarn reached out and grabbed ahold of me. What's a girl to do? This yarn is going to make KILLER socks!


Stop 3: LUNCH! Azio's
By this time we were all getting a bit hungry. We asked the guy at Only Ewe for a lunch recommendation and he directed us down the street to this little place. We never would have found it on our own. The food was inexpensive, plentiful and best of all, delicious! I recommend the pesto and penne. So good!


Stop 4: Cast On Cottage
After lunch we were energized once again and made our way to the Cast on Cottage. What an amazing shop! It really is a cottage. And it's not just yarn. They also carry needlepoint supplies. Walking around the shop made me weak! Every time I turned a corner there was another little room filled with fiber wonders. Heaven!


Stop 5: Knitch
I've found that you could have two yarn shops side by side (wouldn't that totally rock?) and they would be completely different. You'd think that after visiting 3 yarn shops that we would have seen it all. Au contraire. Knitch is more like a yarn boutique. It's tucked away in an alley and you could very well miss it if you're not paying attention. Just make sure you don't miss it! This yarn shop is an experience!


As I was walking around absorbing all the colors and textures, I heard the door open and the clicking of dainty toe nails on hard wood flooring. Could it be? Yarn shop dogs? Yep! Meet Tank and Olive! What an added bonus!


Purchase: Shepherd's wool for the February Lady Cardigan
Have you ever touched this yarn? For the love of everything wooly, go find some and rub on it! It's life-changing...well, that may be a bit of a stretch. It will, however, change how you feel about wool. Oh...and it's shockingly inexpensive. I don't recall what I paid, but it was very reasonable.


Purchase: Alpaca silk blend fiber
Since the Shepherd's wool was so reasonable, I couldn't resist snatching up a couple ounces of this to-die-for alpaca silk blend combed top. This is another good "rub on it" fiber. But what's not to love about alpaca and silk? Completely yummy. I have no idea what it will become after it becomes yarn, but I can guarantee that it will be soft enough to wear next to the skin. Undies, perhaps? (Ok, seriously, it's late, I'm getting punchy.)


Stop 6: Dinner at Pozole's
The kind folks at Knitch offered a couple suggestions for dinner and we voted for Mexican. We had no idea that we were in for "REAL" Mexican. Delicious! What a great spot to hang out. If I lived in that neighborhood, Pozole's would be my regular hang out. Good food, cold beer, great prices.


By the time we finished dinner we were pretty fried. It was a long, but fun day of exploring. We got back to the hotel, admired our purchases, and CRASHED! The day was a complete success.

Have I mentioned that Karen and I are meeting in Chicago for Stitches Midwest in September? What have I done?

I've increased the fiber in my diet

To say that I've increased the fiber in my diet is an understatement. I just got home from Stitches South in Atlanta. It was amazing!

(Note: If you are allergic to wool, you may want to quit reading and go get a snack.)

Day 1 - We arrived at the convention center, checked in and grabbed a quick lunch. I attended a class on Japanese short rows taught by Susanna Hansson, it was life-changing! (Maybe not life changing but maybe more like technique-changing.) The market opened at 5pm for a 'preview' for those who were registered for classes. I thought I had prepared myself for the sensory overload, nope. I walked around on a meandering route, not really sure where to begin. I stumbled upon the Creatively Dyed booth and was able to get my bearings. Diane greated me with a huge smile and hug! I bought this:



8 ounces of some of the most amazing spinning fiber I've touched. It's SeaWool and is 70% wool, 30% seacell. The colorway was killer and it was the last one. It took me a long time to decide on the purchase. It wasn't easy parting with the cash I'd been stashing away since October.

By this time the market was about to close. I met up with Liana and Martha, we had a nice dinner and then crashed at the hotel.

Day 2 - I'm not going to give you an hour by hour recap of the weekend. I pretty much figure that the only reason you've read this far is because you want to see what else I bought. Let me just say this, after that first purchase at Creatively Dyed, it got easier to part with my cash stash.


Next purchase: a sweater's worth of Kauni. I've been lusting (yes lusting) after this yarn for several years ever since I had seen Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's blog about a sweater she knit out out of it. I know, I know! I live in Nashville, why in the hell did I buy wool? Some things just can't be helped. Let's not dwell on this...shall we move on?





Then it was back to Creatively Dyed for this: Beaches sock yarn. This is amazing. It looks kind of strange in a hank like this, but knitted up, it creates the most stunning pattern. She rocks!



Shopping was interrupted for a class on traditional knitting stitches and then I dodged back into the market for a little something for my spinning wheel from Susan Preuss of Basket Artistry.



Day 3 - YARN SHOP CRAWL! So much happened on during the yarn shop crawl that I'm going to save it for the next post. I hope that's ok, but I don't want to go overboard. (As if...)


Day 4 - The last day. I had another wonderful class on how to calculate the patterning on hand dyed yarn and then it was one last trip to the market. I had one more stop to make--Lisa Souza! I made two purchases. The first was a fiber batt that I'd been eyeing all weekend. A super fine merino in chocolate with sparkles. Can you understand why I had to have it? Chocolate? Sparkles? Fiber? (Duh!) The other is a 1500-yard skein of baby alpaca lace weight. (Yikes! Lace!)



Then we drove home. So, here I am, totally exhausted, wondering what project I'll start first and admiring what a lovely job the elves did mowing my lawn. I got it so rough!

In Stitches!

So, did you notice the countdown clock? Look slightly to your right. Notice something different? It's not counting down anymore! That means I'M AT STITCHES SOUTH!!

We got here yesterday around lunch time. We checked in, grabbed a quick lunch and then it was class time. I took a really interesting class on Japanese short rows. They are magic! (I'll post photos later.) Then we spent the evening at the Market. I can't even describe how overwhelming it was to see all that yarn, fiber, gadgets, buttons, jewelry, and baskets! I can't send photos of the Market because photography is not allowed.

It's too bad LeAnn and Debby aren't here with us! We toasted you last night at dinner. We miss you!!

Karen, I got the brochure for Stitches Midwest. I don't care what it takes, WE ARE GOING! Have a yard sale, auction off a kidney, whatever it takes.

I need to cut this short and get going for the day. I'm in the hotel lobby (only place with wifi) and am surrounded by a middle school concert band. Ah, band trips! I remember those days.

Don't look, it's not pretty...

Warning

This blog may contain crude indecent language and graphic violence. If you're easily offended by explicit photographs of knitting gone wrong, you should log off the internet and go to your safe place...now.

Saturday. For those of you who lurk on Facebook or Twitter, you know that Zack had a double header yesterday. It was a beautiful day for baseball and it gave me an opportunity to knit for 4 straight hours, guilt-free.
But we're not here to discuss baseball.

We're here to discuss this:
Do you see it? Right smack-dab in the middle of the photograph. About 12 rows down. Maybe the arrow will help:
You were warned.


I found this little misplaced decrease at about 7pm last night. I tried ripping out just that portion of the sweater. I've done this before with great success, but never when I've had decreases, YOs and K2TOGs going on. To make this even worse, this is the decrease in the front of the cardigan.

I got to the misplaced decrease and was able to reroute the wayward stitch. Knitting back up through the pattern was a bitch not fun and it looked like hell crap when I got back to the top. So I swore like a knitter who won't let a stupid @#$&^*ing pile of lime green yarn get the best of her on a Saturday night sailor, pulled out the needles and ripped back to the YO/K2TOG row. The yarn in my lap resembled green ramen noodles. Man, I was pissed mildly upset.

Sunday. It's all better now. I'm happy with my decision to rip and reknit. I'm not going to beat myself up any more. It's a new day and I have a lot of knitting to do. (Please ignore the dog hair on the sofa...I do.)

Upcoming events:

Stitches South 2009 (in Atlanta). I'm driving down with Liana and Martha on Thursday morning, which is why I want to get this cardigan finished. We'll be there through Sunday. My expectations are pretty high. If I have the opportunity, I'll blog. If not, I'll update via Twitter.

The Tennessee Fiber Festival is coming up in May at the Dickson County Fairgrounds. I'm teaching a finishing class. My first foray into the teaching aspect of knitting. Whee!! I enjoy a well-finished handknit so this class will be fun. (I'm starting to get nervous...but a couple of friends have agreed to let me practice on them.) Come on out to the festival if you're nearby!

Later, folks! I have a lot of knitting to get done today.

In Which There are 10 Days Left

Whoa! Only 10 days left until Stitches South 2009!

That means I have less than 10 days to:

• finish knitting my Sitcom Chic sweater (in lime green)
• weave in the rest of the ends on my cabaret raglan
• find the ultimate knitting project to take with me
• find a back-up ultimate knitting project in case the ultimate knitting project ticks me off
• plot my plan of attack for the market floor
• buy a few more travel space bags (I plan on bringing back some stash enhancements)
• decide on the perfect project for which to buy souvenir yarn (no snowglobe for this gal!)
• figure out if I should "tweet" or "plurk" while at Stitches (sounds like maybe I should take some Rolaids, too)
• pack

The toughest thing I'm working on right now is trying to decide on the souvenir project. There are so many lovely patterns out there that trying to come up with "the one" is proving difficult, if not impossible. I'm working on a top 10 (or 11) list. What should I knit? Clapotis? Cable Down Raglan? Central Park Hoodie? They are all on my list. And they're are pretty heavy contenders. Then there's the February Lady cardigan, Mr. Green Jeans, Hey Teach...maybe a lace shawl? See what I mean? The possibilities are endless.

So you see, I'm planning on buy some serious yarn. It's been a long time since I've made a major yarn purchase and I've been saving up for this for months. I'm going to do it right.

Go big or go home!