Becca's Blog

OK, I get it now.

I understand what the big deal is about Stitches. It's a massive yarn crawl in one building. You get to be with your people, and see in person (and touch) products that otherwise might only be available to you online. So it's a huge shopping buzz combined with rubbing elbows with similarly yarn-obsessed folks. I had a great time and I did a little damage, purchase-wise.

Here are the knitting buddies I saw at the marketplace on Saturday:

• Petra, my Temescal bag teacher from Knit-One-One
• Maia of Tactile Fibers
• Feralknitter Janine
• Angelina from Ravelry, whom I got to know at our newly formed East Bay LGBT knit night.
• Christina in her booth but she was busy with customers, so I didn't go say hello.
• Jocelyn at the Nine Rubies booth
• Hollis at the Full Thread Ahead booth (and her delightful family)
• Nathania and Elinor at the Purlescence booth

Here are the knitting luminaries I gushed at:

• Cheryl Oberle
• Jess and Casey of Ravelry

Here is what I drooled over but didn't buy:

• Shelridge Farm kits, for hats and sweaters
• Blue Moon Fiber Arts worsted
• A sweater's worth of Hemp for Knitting
• California cashmere
• silk-blend laceweight everywhere, but especially at the Redfish Dyeworks booth
• Habu everything
• Alpaca everywhere

Here's what I missed:

• Stopping in Lisa Souza's booth (d'oh!)
• Seeing Wondermike at the Article Pract booth
• Seeing Yarnagogo Rachael, who must have been there at the same time.
• Seeing Stash and Burn Nicole and Jenny, whom I totally would have gushed over.

Here's what I did:

• Took a one-hour marketplace class on buttonholes with Beth Whitesell, which was a good review, but what I really need is the "buttonholes 201" class. This was not $35 worth of instruction, in my book. And if the regular sessions are subsidized by the revenue generated by the marketplace, I think they should be relatively cheap, not as wickedly expensive as they are.
  
• Filled out my Ravelry passport, which took me into booths that I wouldn't have otherwise set foot in. I don't know where the the Ravelry folks came up with the idea, but it was a brilliant one, from both marketing and customer perspectives.
• Chatted with the folks selling the Fiber Spheres, because I was very curious about their development process. Also curious about who bought them. I saw people leaving with them, a bit to my surprise. I saw just one person carrying that stylish but very expensive rucksack-style project tote/purse.
• Took the Amtrak train from Berkeley to Santa Clara and back (not the Stitch and Ride special, just the regularly scheduled Capitol Corridor train), which was the perfect way to get there. No driving stress and extra knitting time--and knitters to chat with, including a chance meeting with an old acquaintance. One of those "small world" moments...

I will save my little haul for a post tomorrow, with photos. Must go to work now, sigh.

Another thought about stash, this one selfish.

While I was winding some of the Brooks Farm Acero I snarfed up at Stitches West (a full Stitches post is percolating in my brain, and maybe I'll finish it tonight), I had a second, less morbid but no prettier thought about my stash. I thought: If I give in to temptation and cast on for the scarves that this yarn deserves to be, it would be kind of like marking my territory. Then it couldn't be given away in the event of my untimely retirement from knitting--it would be mine forever.

So big-hearted of me...

Awesome time-wasting toy for the color-obsessed.

One of my colleagues tipped me off to a new interactive color picker from Adobe, called Kuler. This Flash-based tool (you need Flash 9) lets you experiment with different color combinations based on classic rules, and look at (and vote on) palettes that other users have uploaded. I'll probably work with it a little bit when I finalize the colors for the yoke of my lopi-esque pullover.

My stash seeks stasis.

This took a lot of yarn, and it will take more by the time I'm finished:
(Temescal bag, pre-handles and pre-felting.)

This is a lot of new yarn.
I have plans for it, but until it's knit up, by me it's stash. (I'm a recent convert to Stash and Burn; I've been listening to all the back podcasts, and I'm newly stash-conscious. And the weird disconnect between "stash yarn" and "project yarn" in Ravelry prompts me to clarify my position.)

It's going to become a pair of log cabin baby blankets, for the spring twins. I actually got this pattern after hearing about it on an old Stash and Burn episode. I'd like to swatch (especially so I can wash and dry some swatches and see if they'll hold up to the dryer), but I feel that currently I have too many things on the needles.

I had a morbid thought yesterday morning: If I had a catastrophic injury tomorrow and for some reason could never play with yarn again, my stash might be given away, but my WIPs would probably get thrown away. So a) I'd better finish what I've got on my plate; and b) I had better get cracking on that living will. Beware: If you've ever left a comment on this blog, you may inherit one of my WIPs in the event of my untimely retirement from knitting.  You could rip and reknit it, just don't let the yarn go to waste....

This isn't weird, is it?

I mean, recycling is cool, not hoarder-type nutty, right?

If only I actually needed a yarn bra. Actually I have some cotton yarn that looks like it will probably need a little support when it starts moving around, so these might end up actually being more than detritus in my knitting gadgets drawer.

And actually, I think this deserves a Knitting Scouts "MacGyver" badge.

A little aesthete from early days.

God, I must have driven my mother crazy. In fact, I know I did, she hardly made it a secret. I didn't like ham; it was too salty. I didn't like the sandwiches she made me because I didn't like mayonnaise and the store-brand baloney was too strong-flavored (I didn't tell her this, I just dumped my lunch at school). The stewed prunes I was forced to eat for breakfast most mornings as a cure for stomach problems were a constant source of misery--certainly for me, probably for her also.

But no one could accuse me of being a picky eater or having a delicate constitution. I inherited my dad's love of meat (especially fried, as in chicken) and junk food, and I always cleaned my plate. I liked most foods, but I had a few strong taste preferences at an age when I clearly was not supposed to have opinions of any kind.

The thing that's bringing this back to me now is my distaste for mealy, yucky, poor-quality citrus fruit. I didn't like oranges as a kid, and the abundance of pith plus the woody, tasteless ends of oranges that have been frozen are the reason why. Now I like the smell and taste of oranges, but I'll still pick off as much of the white stuff as I can manage, and the frozen ones are gross. (Now that I'm an adult, I don't have to eat them, or prunes either. Ever again.) Also, I know something that my mother didn't seem to: The thin-skinned ones are more flavorful, in addition to having less of the bitter, spongy white stuff to deal with.

I've been trying to eat more whole, fresh fruit (I guess that would count as a resolution), including at least one piece of citrus a day. Síle brought over some Satsuma tangerines a few weeks ago, which were awesome. Seedless, easy to peel, and wonderfully fragrant and juicy. Inspired by them, I bought a little crate of those "Cuties" California clementines, and they have been a disappointment. I wonder whether they are bred to have loose skin, because they certainly do. And I think the loose rind contributes to them drying out and getting moldy fairly quickly.

I just peeled two of them, looking for a decent segment or two, with no luck. So I gathered up most of the rest and dumped them in the compost bin. If the remaining two aren't good, I'll dump them, too.