A new adventure in the Bag o' Crap

What was it, three years ago that I swore off the Bag o' Crap yarn sales? This was after I got burned by the Cherry Tree Hill annual sales of Bags 'o Crap. After purchasing their yarn grab bags to expand my stash on the cheap, they sent me two really lousy ones in a row. By that I mean that I got 5 pounds or so of yarn made of shredded Muppets. I still have that yarn and now believe that I will eventually use it to make stuffed animals for children.

And then last week came an ad for 2.5 pound Bag's o' Crap from Dontbuynewyarn.com. They are an offshoot of Cherry Tree Hill. The bag was advertised to contain over a kilogram of discontinued Classic Elite yarn for $25. At the retail price of Classic Elite, I thought I'd only need something like three good skeins that I can actually use to get my money's worth. So I threw caution to the wind and ordered one.

Today my Classic Elite Bag o' Crap arrived.I am impressed. Really. I like more than half of this stuff. Not all of it is labeled, but I seem to have gotten:

• Some patterns I am totally uninterested in.
• Two skeins of Minnie. This can make a nice scarf.
• Four skeins of LuLu. It sucks. Something had to.
• Two skeins of something I cannot identify. It's at least aran weight and 8 or 10 plies of several colors. But it's soft.
• Two skeins of a very springy 100% wool in a cream color. It says "Remateks" with the numbers 3238 and 7202. It's nice.
  
• 4 skeins of what I believe to be Bubbles in two colors. Not bad.
• Two skeins of BamBoo in pink. it's nice and I'll certainly do something with it.
  
• Two skeins of Fame in different colors.
• Two skeins of Classic Silk. This is the real highlight. I was already planning on getting more and doing a striped sweatshirt type thing out of it. Now I have a head start

International S n B

Early in my knitting career, I knitted with a great group of ladies in Wheaton, Illinois. This was even before I knitted with the girls in Tinley Park. Both groups, mind you, were made up of really great ladies, and I've remained friends with them even after moving away.

The Tinley Park groups is still fairly intact. However, the Wheaton group was flung to the four winds over the years. We're all over the place at this point. Except for last Sunday morning when we all shared the same space on the InterTubes.

On Sunday morning, the group met together on video chat. The Essing and Beeing took place with knitters signing in from three continents:

Merry Gentlemen from Maryland
Llunar Llama from the Chicago area
Theory of String from the Chicago area
French Kitten from rural France
ajs from Ohio
KnightthatsayKNIT from Misawa, Japan

Isn't technology grand?

At long last

Long before I ever learned to knit I had an affair with my one true love.

Clay.
I was a potter. I had my own wheel and kilns and everything. Then tragedy struck. I royally messed up my left arm. What happened was a work related injury that robbed me of use of three of my fingers for a couple of years. Eventually, I had surgery that fixed the problem but by then I'd moved into a condo and was back in school. I didn't have time for pottery after my hand and arm recovered. Luck for me, my dad was kind enough to keep my equipment in his basement.

Last year I moved into this house that has a barn in the backyard that is perfect for a small pottery studio. In a flurry of excitement, I drove the truckster back and forth to Chicago twice to get all my stuff. However, I discovered that my wheel, which was already second or third hand when I got it, was in pretty bad shape. I couldn't start throwing. Then I got pregnant. My return to pottery was delayed for another year.

Until today! My brand new pottery wheel came today!The new wheel is on the left. My old one, which can still be used in a limited fashion, is on the right.

I'm so tickled. Look for this to become a place for yarn and mud induced mishegas.

Knitting while sick

Well, maybe not sick. I don't have a germ. What I have is a lot of stitches in my bum. I had a hemorrhoidectomy on Monday, and yes, that's as nasty as it sounds. In truth, the condition that prompted the surgery was nastier. Suffice it to say, the recovery is not nice. Some of it, however, is fun. They gave me percocet. This is a pretty strong pain killer that renders me basically inert. All I can really do on it is lay about and knit. Only knit. No purling. No fanciness. During my recovery, I've worked on and finished these:They're plain old socks done in Three Irish Girls Kells Merino Sport in the special colorway for The Yarn Spot in Wheaton, MD.

Maryland Sheep and Wool

The largest sheep and wool festival in the country took place again this weekend near Baltimore. I went for my third year as a shopper, and Rock Creek Yarn made it's first appearance at the legendary event.

I have to show my haul, because it was great.
I wish I got a better picture, but the sun moved and my ability to concentrate is severely limited today. I'll tell you about why tomorrow. Today is about yarn. What we have here is a mill bag of Noro Cash Iroha in a lovely blue/black. It was half price. I hadn't planned on getting a mill bag of anything, but the loveliness of this yarn really jumped out at me. The other two skeins are my own, my love, my Precious, my Koigu.

Did you see it? Rock Creek Yarn was there! I didn't have my own booth, but Jolene at Cloverhill Yarn Shop brought almost 50 skeins of my yarn to her booth and nearly sold out! I'm so tickled.

Knitting blog week day 7: What a yarn

There’s one love that we all share: yarn. Blog about a particular yarn you have used in the past or own in your stash, or perhaps one that you covet from afar. If it is a yarn you have used you could show the project that you used it for, perhaps writing a mini ‘review’. Perhaps, instead, you pine for the feel of the almost mythical qiviut? You could explore and research the raw material and manufacturing process if you were feeling investigative.

Koigu.
Koiiiiiiguuuuuuu.....

I lurve lurve lurver it. It's soft, it's springy, it's fluffy, it's incredibly colorful. It's almost divine. Almost.

Of course, I'm talking about Koigu KPPPM. If you don't know about this legendary yarn, it's a 2-ply superwash merino fingering weight. What I know if this yarn is that it's dyed in the Toronto, Canada area. I have a book here about hand dyeing that indicates that the yarn is dyed in 500 gram skeins that are then split up into the 50 gram skeins we now pay upwards of $14.00 each for. From the pictures of the parent skeins, they appear to me to be hand painted with dye.
I love Koigu. A lot of people love the texture but in my opinion similar springy texture can be found in many hand dyed yarns like Rock Creek Yarn's Twisterino. It's the colorways I love. They all seem to be works of art. The colors are stunning, ranging from incredibly intense to beautify muted. Where running occurs, it's done in a way that looks great. Lastly, the color repeats are usually pretty short, keeping pooling and striping to a minimum.

I've made two pairs of socks from Koigu. I love the yarn, but it's far from perfect. First, the owners of yarn stores seem to have problems getting it, and that probably is the reason for the exorbitant price. Secondly, it's a very tender fiber. I guess the texture sacrifices durability. The socks wear through fast. FAST. But they're soooo pretty.
Despite the drawbacks, I do keep at least two skeins in my stash and do careful planning for what my precious skeins of Koigu will grow up to be. In fact, I bought 2 more today to replace the skeins I just used to knit these:They're Roza's Socks by Grumperina. And yes, I did just knit these in another yarn. They were done in Magic Loop on size 1 needles, and I used almost all of two skeins of Koigu that the Amazing E bought me after a big fight early in our marriage. I'm really glad that we don't get in fights like that anymore, but I miss the make up yarn.

Kitting blog week day 6: Revisit a past F/O

Bring the fortune and life of a past finished project up to the present. Document the current state and use of an object you have knitted or crocheted, whether it is the hat your sister wears to school almost every day, or a pair of socks you wore until they were full of hole. Or maybe that jumper that your did just didn’t like that much…

Alas, it's my deepest knitting regret.
It's the Fair Isle Sleeve Sweater from Vogue Knits. It was a very early project for me, and it's beautiful. Except that I hate the collar edging. I hate the collar so much I've worn the sweater once, and have never gotten around to taking that horrible crochet edge off my beautiful sweater. That project was a huge undertaking for me and it languishes in a storage bag. All because of the lousy clown collar. Poor thing.

Knitting blog week day 5: Location, Location, Location

Where do you like to indulge in your craft? Is your favourite arm chair your little knitting cubby area, or do you prefer to ‘knit in public’? Do you liek to crochet in the great outdoors, perhaps, or knit in the bath, or at the pub?

Forgive me for my boring life. I get a lot of my knitting done in front of the tv. Besides that, it's generally when I'm waiting around somewhere like at the pharmacy, in line and the store, or in the doctor's office. It makes me feel as if my tome is not wasted. That's it. Nothing interesting.

Knitting blog week day 4: A new skill

Is there a skill related to your hobby that you hope to learn one day? maybe you’re a crocheter who’d also like to knit? Maybe you’d like to learn to knit continental, knit backwards, try cables or attempt stranded colourwork.

A couple of years ago, I got to knit sitting next to the Yarn Harlot. I'm a fast knitter, but this lady is phenomenal. She calls her technique "Irish Cottage Knitting." The lady knits like she's on fire. I asked her to slow down so I could watch, and I have studied this video. However, I have not been able to reproduce the technique. And I want to.

Knitting blog week day 3: One Great Knitter

Write about a knitter whose work (whether because of project choice, photography, styling, scale of projects, stash, etc) you enjoy. If they have an enjoyable blog, you might find it a good opportunity to send a smile their way.

It's shameless. It's my secret. And it's out of the bag.

I heart Knifty Red. There. Now you know. I have a knitter's crush on her. She knits the coolest stuff, is very prolific, and takes awesome pictures for her blog.

Jeremy Clark-Erskine pleads guilty in U.S. Federal Court

Not everything in this account of yesterday's hearing makes sense, but the original article can be found at http://www.keci.com/pages/6916769.php?contentType=4&contentId=6006706.

The United States Attorney’s Office announced that during a federal court session in Missoula on April 27, 2010, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah C. Lynch, JEREMY CLARK-ERSKINE, a 36-year-old resident of Missoula and Indiana, pled guilty to forgery of a signature of a United States judge, false personation of a Social Security number, interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle, and aggravated identity theft. Sentencing has been set for July 21, 2010. He is currently detained.
In an Offer of Proof filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryan R. Whittaker, the government stated it would have proved at trial the following:
On August 11, 2009, CLARK-ERSKINE presented himself at the Montana Motor Vehicle Division in Missoula to obtain a Montana driver’s license in the name of Angus Jocko Ferguson. On the form, CLARK-ERSKINE falsely represented a social security account number as his own which he knew belonged to another individual.
The United States Attorney’s Office announced that during a federal court session in Missoula on April 27, 2010, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah C. Lynch, JEREMY CLARK-ERSKINE, a 36-year-old resident of Missoula and Indiana, pled guilty to forgery of a signature of a United States judge, false personation of a Social Security number, interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle, and aggravated identity theft. Sentencing has been set for July 21, 2010. He is currently detained.
In an Offer of Proof filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryan R. Whittaker, the government stated it would have proved at trial the following:
On August 11, 2009, CLARK-ERSKINE presented himself at the Montana Motor Vehicle Division in Missoula to obtain a Montana driver’s license in the name of Angus Jocko Ferguson. On the form, CLARK-ERSKINE falsely represented a social security account number as his own which he knew belonged to another individual.
On September 6, 2009, presenting himself as a Captain in the United States Army, CLARK-ERSKINE, attempted to gain entry onto Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls. At the time, CLARK-ERSKINE was driving a vehicle which had been reported stolen by Enterprise Rent-A-Car out of Chicago, Illinois.
Pursuant to a federal search warrant, law enforcement searched the car and recovered numerous fraudulent documents. Two of the documents included an “Entry” and “Judgment” purporting to be from the United States District Court, Southern District of Indiana. The documents bore a false case number and both documents contained the forged signature of the Chief Judge of the Southern District of Indiana. CLARK-ERSKINE had forged the signature on the documents for the purpose of authenticating them to use to obtain a new social security number for “Angus Jocko Ferguson” to replace the original (and now compromised) number issued to him under the name Michael Bruce Lafferty, later changed to Finn J. UiNeill in an attempt to protect his identity.
From September 9, 2009, to January 6, 2010, CLARK-ERSKINE unlawfully transported from one state to another a stolen 2010 Ford Mustang. He rented the vehicle on September 9, 2009, from Hertz Rental Car in Missoula with a rental agreement contract which only covered a one-day rental. He did not return the vehicle on September 10, 2009, but instead drove it from Montana to California. On January 6, 2010, the vehicle was recovered from CLARK-ERSKINE in Culver City, California. The original Montana license plates on the vehicle had been replaced with stolen Washington state licenses plates.
CLARK-ERSKINE faces possible penalties of 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and at least 3 years supervised release. In addition, CLARK-ERSKINE faces an additional mandatory two year imprisonment, consecutive to any other sentence, for aggravated identity theft.
The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Knitting blog week day 2: An inspriational pattern

Blog about a pattern or project which you aspire to. Whether it happens to be because the skills needed are ones which you have not yet acquired, or just because it seems like a huge undertaking of time and dedication, most people feel they still have something to aspire to in their craft. If you don’t feel like you have any left of the mountain of learning yet to climb, say so!

This subject is based on the premise that knitting takes a lot of skill, and that one's skill level determines what kind of knitting you can or should do. It's unfortunate that there are knitters who propagate this myth. Knitting is a very simple process that does not take a lot of skill to accomplish. There are only two stitches in all of knitting: the knit and the purl. If a knitter can do these two things, she can reproduce any pattern. I don't think any knitter should ever look at a beautiful project and think she lacks the skills to do it. That's just an incorrect way of looking at the problem.

The issue that complicates knitting is time and concentration. Complicated patterns simply require more time and concentration to reproduce. Having to look at a pattern for every single stitch requires a lot of concentration and patience and adds a huge amount of time to a project. The more experience you have at reading and following patterns, the easier this gets. However, whatever the pattern, you're still just doing knits and purls. My advice is never to tell yourself that you don't know how to do something in knitting. Instead, when considering the difficulty of a pattern, be honest with yourself about how much or little fun it will be to have to read the pattern while you're knitting and compare it to how much you would actually like to knit the project. That will tell you if you can do it.

Knitting blog week day 1: Staring out.

Today is day one of Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. Eskimimi Knits organized this week to help knitters share and discuss a number of yarny related subjects. As this blog purports to be about yarn induced mishegas, I feel the need to take part. Today's topic is how we got started with this obsession hobby.

How and when did you begin knitting/crocheting? was it a skill passed down through generations of your family, or something you learned from Knitting For Dummies? What or who made you pick up the needles/hook for the first time? Was it the celebrity knitting ‘trend’ or your great aunt Hilda?

I suppose my yarn issues began as the result of the perfect storm of all the mentioned factors. My grandma crocheted. A lot. And she had 5 granddaughters and attempted to teach us all the craft when we were small children. I believe three of us do still crochet. I will neither confirm nor deny whether I am one of the crocheters, but being around so many yarn fumes at a formative age definitely sowed the seeds of my current knitting vocation

As a result of grandma's encouragement to learn crafts, I have learned many. Just ask the Amazing E about that. I've got stuff for pottery, glass working, and yarn strewn about the house at all times. And that's just the crafts I do currently and regularly. It seems it was inevitable that I would eventually learn knitting. Knitting has a lot of benefits that my other crafts do not. It does not require expensive equipment nor indoor pyrotechnics to accomplish, for example.

I learned to knit on Christmas Day, 2004. Yep, all of my extensive knitting expertise has been acquired in the last 5 years. I learned from my sister, whom I will refer here to as "Cheeez." (She keeps rather anonymous on the Internet, and I'll respect that here.) Cheeez is a self-taught-from-a-book knitter. Anyway, Cheeez took me out to a LYS for the first time and helped me by my first nice yarn and pair of pointy sticks so I could make a scarf for my friend. Within a week, I had a scarf and a new hobby.

So thanks to my grandma and to Cheeez for getting me into yarn.

It turns out the answer was wool

You can't see in this picture, but the Amazing E was wearing very special socks. I gave him those blue ones I'd been working on.
He also gave me a kosher ketubah on our second wedding day last week on April 15, and I accepted it.

If the second anniversary is cotton...

What's the second wedding?

Elijah and I are getting married tomorrow. Yes, again. Our first wedding will always be our anniversary. It was the most lovely evening of my life, what with all the great food, music, and love going around. Our first wedding was everything I wanted my wedding to be. Almost. We had a Jewish wedding with a chuppah, a ketubah, seven blessings, and a broken glass. But for a technical reason it was not kosher. We knew that at the time. Our wedding was not binding in Jewish law. We were ready to commit to each other forever, but not ready to commit to a kosher life together.

Now we are. And tomorrow after morning minyan, our rabbi will marry us in a properly religious ceremony. It's such a good time to do this after just having lost our child and when we're about to start trying for another.

But I don't know what to get him.

Setting goals

I just feel the need. The need to commit to knitting goals for 2010. Why? Who knows. It's not like anything will happen if I throw them to the wind later and knit other stuff. But I feel the need.
This year, it is my goal to knit down my sock yarn stash and to knit my two Starmore kits. My sock yarn stash is not really that huge. (My personal sock yarn stash, that is. Technically, I have a nearly unlimited supply of sock yarn, but I'm not talking about that.) Knitting down the stash is really a moving target, since I am an infamous sock yarn impulse buyer. But I'm going to try to finish this year with almost no sock yarn left. There are good reasons. I started the year with almost no socks that did not have holes in them. My feet were cold last winter. I couldn't see my feet, but I know they were cold. That an the fact that I have sock yarn that's 4 years old that's been lonely and languishing in the stash. I should be fair and compassionate to that yarn and see that it grows up to be nice things. As for the Starmores, there is just no excuse for letting that stuff sit. It's a sin against knitting, and I intend to correct my ways.

I've gotten a good start on accomplishing the sock part of my goals. So far this year I've knit these:
This brown sock is the Pyroclastic Sock from Knitty.com in Panda Silk fingering weight. This guy is my generic top down sock done in Regia Bamboo. This is one of those poor yarns that languished in my stash for too long. I think it was in there for about four years, the poor thing. I should have knitted it sooner. Turns out that these are the most comfortable socks I own.
And this lovely thing is Roza's Socks in STR lightweight. I got the yarn last year from The Fold when they came to Maryland Sheep and Wool. This is currently my favorite sock pattern, and I'm making another pair in Koigu. Oooooooh. Koiguuuuuuu.

The Queen of Not Finishing Anything

Back in the days of no posting, I was doing a lot of knitting. I feel like a have a very good reason for the discrepancy. I was very pregnant. Not that I know how they relate, but it's a good excuse. I will also use that reason as an excuse for many, many other things. Like never posting a roundup of 2009 knitting.

This knitter cannot claim to have really finished that many projects last year. I nearly finished a number of projects, and actually completed a few. As you will see later, the fact that I did not completely follow through on very many knitting related things last year might have been a good thing. At any rate, in 2009 I actually finished:

1. Icarus Shawl
2. Aeolian Shawl
3. Baby Cables and Big Ones Too
4. Crusoe socks in their second iteration
5. Hedera Socks
6. Channukah Challenge socks
7. A Baby Surprise Jacket for Mandy's baby
8. February Lady Sweater

These are not that many projects, and I'm a little disappointed in that. In addition to these, I worked on a number of baby projects. I did the greater part of a baby blanket, a diaper cover, a Baby Surprise Jacket, and a jumper based on the jacket pattern, but I didn't get any of them done. They are all nearly done, needing only a few more hours of work. However, none of them where actually finished and usable in time for Baruch's birth. In some ways, (and here's where the sadness that hangs over this house comes in) it might be a good thing. None of them were finished for him. So now I have to decide whether they belong to Baruch and should go into his box of things, or if they just belong to my babies in general and will be finished for another baby.

My life of danger

Some time ago I knitted E a pair of wool socks. I did it partially out of generosity toward my new husband, and partially to prove to him all the time and money I would be spending over the course of the rest of our natural lives producing hand knitted socks is worth it. Well, my plot worked. He loved his socks and even worked on behalf of all knitters to try to convert others to wearing handmade socks. Until he lost one.

Since the loss of his sock, he's been bugging the heck out of me over his lack of hand knit socks. He's even complained publicly about how I had not made him more socks. Until a couple of weeks ago when I cast on this:
So I finished the first of a pair of new wool socks made especially for the Amazing E. There are two reasons why I avoid knitting socks for him. The first is that I am a selfish knitter. The second reason is more relevant to my point here; my husband has ridiculous feet. He wears a size 8 EEE. In other words, he has short, wide feet. It takes a lot of yarn to cover them. But I did break out a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock and knit him this sock and cast on the second.

Then today I realized something frightening. The unused half of the ball of yarn seemed light. Uh oh. I just went downstairs and weighed the finished sock. 48 grams. Yikes! I'll be cutting things pretty close.

Merry Gentlemen and the Amazing E versus Key West

Alright. So the title makes it sound way more exciting than it was. Last week E and I took a week long vacation to Key West, Florida. Reviving the time-tested tradition of going on holiday to recover from something bad seemed like a really good idea, and our friends and family agreed. So we got online and found a package we could afford, and off we went.

Key West is a great vacation spot. For real. Not only is it a chance to experience Caribbean Island life without a passport or anti-malarials, it seems to have some fun for everyone. There is beautiful blue water and some nice beaches on the southwest end...















Places of historical and literary significance...
















And kosher sealife that can be enjoyed with or without swim fins.















(That's a Jewfish, BTW)

All in all, we got some much needed rest in a beautiful place.

Now, I'm sure some are asking the big question. Did it have yarn? Yes, it did have yarn. I knitted most of a Mingus sock while I was there. To bad I didn't get a Yarn Harlot-esque beach picture of that. There was one yarn store on the island, and I spent a whopping $40.00 there. One one skein. In my defense, it was souvenir yarn and it was Tilli Tomas Rock Star in an excellent shade of red. To bad don't have a picture of that, either.

Back to work

Life here is some how continuing. Everything feels wrong and weird. We were so outrageously happy just a little while ago and then yesterday we buried our son. It's been devastating. I mean, what do you do when you become parents, and there's no child in your home? Someone is missing in this house, but we can't do anything about it but keep up hope for the future and keep our marriage strong. Elijah and I are zombies, barely keeping thoughts in our heads long enough to act on them. Despite all this, we keep getting up in the morning and going about our days however slowly and ineffectively we manage to move forward. Elijah is going back to work on Thursday. I'm starting to go about some of my normal routines of daily living, and today I'm working on getting Rock Creek Yarn back up and running after taking the winter off. Working should be good for me.

Some cool things with the yarn are happening around here. I've got two new sock yarns to introduce. And Rock Creek Yarn has been accepted to the Homespun Yarn Party next month, and we've been invited to come to a vendor's booth at Maryland Sheep and Wool this year (so I better get moving on that paperwork). One day soon I'm going to have to take yarn pictures, so I'll likely also get my 2009 FO's up here as well. On a brighter, sunnier day.