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Stitches West 2011

This weekend was Stitches West, and as usual, my mom and I headed down there for two days of wandering around the market, buying stuff. No, we don’t bother with classes, we’re in it for Stuff Acquisition. Friday, we drove down with my aunt as well and stopped at Kinokinuya in San Jose as well (and we got caught in Friday commute traffic coming back up). Saturday it was just my mom and I and we also stopped for In-N-Out burgers.

Here’s what I got:

Oh DEAR that is a lot of yarn.

From left to right: Sanguine Gryphon Skinny Bugga! in Ruddy Daggerwing, Sanguine Gryphon Bugga! in Lubber Grasshopper, Wool Candy in Capsicum (?), Skinny Bugga! in Boxelder Beetle, Bugga! in Pink Dragonfly, Creatively Dyed Yarn Sami in Falling Springs (the picture does not do this yarn justice – it’s a deep magenta that glows in the sunlight), Miss Babs Yummy Sock yarn in Indigo Bunting, Sanguine Gryphon  Eidos in Antlia, Eidos in Hydra.

Yeah yeah, six skeins of Sanguine Gryphon, whatever. 😉

It’s a favorite, what can I say? Their booth was really great, and it was so nice to see all the yarn displayed in real life as I have only ordered the yarn from the internets before.

Incidentally, I finished my Brandywine shawl out of Skinny Bugga! and wore it on Day 1. It got a ton of compliments and there were many grabby knitter hands feeling it up, haha! As one lady said, “It’s the knitter’s handshake!” …heh.

It’s awesome.

I only did one mod and it’s not really a mod – for the main chart I did 18 repeats instead of 15, simply because I wanted to use as much of the yarn as possible. And I wound up with very little, so it worked out great.

Anyway, here’s the other stuff I got, mostly a ton of patterns!

Don’t you just LOVE that sweater on the newest Norah Gaughan collection? I sure do. I will have to figure out what I want to make it with. However there are a couple of patterns in the other Berroco booklets I got that I want to make first – they will be totally doable on the knitting machine, as will the White Lies Designs t-shirt pattern in the first pattern photo.

Tonight I cast on for the Bellingrath shawl above, though not in Stitches yarn – in Madelinetosh Sock that I got recently (Christmas-time-ish, I think). Not sure yet what I am going to do with all that gratuitous Bugga up there, but I am sure it will be awesome.

And now I can’t buy yarn for ages. (Except I totally ordered new Felici from Knitpicks today as I needed some needles. Whatevs. Shut up. I had an extra paycheck with overtime on it.)

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Warm Wrists, Warm Weather

The weather has been heating up here lately, much to my dismay. If ever there was a person who loathed hot weather, it is me. Where is my delicious fall weather? Why isn’t it in the 50s and 60s? I mean, my air conditioner is on right now. It’s probably about 85 out there. You know how people get seasonal depression in the winter due to lack of sun and vitamin D? I get that in the summer due to too much sun and lack of layers to be worn. I’m definitely a homebody who likes to cozy up under a grey sky. Sheesh.

Anyway, so despite all that, I did go to the reservoir this morning with my dad for some sun and fresh air. So, points for me!

I actually finished a long languishing project:

Yep, those are my King George mitts, knit in Malabrigo sock (love. it.) over a period of something like a year. Oy vey, self! Once I cracked down and remembered what the eff I was doing, it only took about two evening in front of the TV to finish up the second mitt.

They feature a turned hem, the King Charles Brocade lace panel from the Harmony guides lace book, a thumb gusset and 1×1 ribbing on the thumb and finger openings. I was thinking of writing up a pattern for them, but they actually need some work because the panel isn’t quite centered and I had forgotten what I did in the length of time between mitt #1 and mitt #2, and frankly I’m pretty sick of them so I don’t think it’s going to happen.

Aside from being so tired of them, I do like how they turned out – that Malabrigo sock sure is great, as though we all needed any reminding about that one.

Next up: I have Wollmeise in my hot little hands for the very first time!

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Adventures in Sac and an FO

Yesterday I headed up to Sacramento (explain to me again why I don’t live there? I like it so much more than the Bay Area. Oh right, I bought a house here. Sigh.) to help celebrate Malvina’s belated 30th birthday. As usual, we would be heading out to Chevy’s on the River for dinner, but I showed up early because traffic on Fridays is always a big fat suck and also I made her a coconut cake that needed to be refrigerated. So anyway, I got there around lunch time and we went shopping for Felicia’s wedding present at various places (Ikea, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond – which I always call Bath & Bodyworks to my eternal annoyance).

We decided that we were officially old because we were getting excited about kitchen tools. Case in point, here is what I picked up for myself at Ikea and Target with some birthday money:

I feel a little strange about this turn of events; not long ago I would have bought DVDs or something. But the fact of the matter is, I keep sending tea spoons and measuring spoons down the garbage disposal so I needed some more of those. I’m also turning into a cake-baking freakazoid, so I was in the market for a serving spatula thing and a better froster-er. And that stirrer thing on the right? I just wanted it. I think it will be great for the spaghetti sauce I make, and other things I cook. And I’ve been needing a rolling pin for quite some time; now I can make tortillas and sugar cookies.

(I also bought myself some Wii Points and shall shortly commence downloading such old school classics as Street Fighter II and Super Mario World, and possibly World of Goo, which is new WiiWare. Lest you think I have completely lost my mind and don’t continue to love things that are completely frivolous.)

Anyway, so after a successful shopping trip, we went back to Malvina’s house where Sam mixed us a cocktail of something with Bailey’s and chocolate, and then later after the rest of her friends arrived we headed over to Chevy’s.

For Malvina’s birthday I got her a copy of Little Women and Werewolves (hah!) and knit her some socks:

(“will be mad” is an in-joke.)

I actually finished this pair of socks in about 2 weeks. It is a midyear miracle! These are, as noted, Oolong Socks by Mona Schmidt (rav link), available via Twist Collective (link). I couldn’t post about them before as they were a gift. But they have gone off to their new home where I hope they will be worn a lot.

It wouldn’t be a Melissa knit if there weren’t some mods:

  1. I knit the leg chart (A, I think) twice instead of three times.
  2. Used my own heel turn instructions because I either read the pattern’s wrong or it was actually written incorrectly.

And that’s it, which for me is pretty amazing.

Tonight we’re going into the city to our friend Jen’s birthday party at the beach house where she lives. Should be fun! I think I need to take a nap first though. *is old now*