The ONLY good thing about spending you whole life working 6 days a week, is how damn much you appreciate your one and only day off. Monday I had a knitting filled day from sun up to sun down. I spent all day in my p.j.s sitting on the couch knitting and watching movies. I decided the K1 P1 rib of Tempting II was so tedious that I would alternate each round with a row or two of the cotton cable. But the whole day was building up to the big yarn swap at Chicks with Sticks. It was AWESOME!!!!
The evening began with a delightful ride on the J train to get to the Bliss Bar. What made this ride particularly amusing was the 2 year old that kept pulling the next stop cable. His dad did not notice until the kid did it about 9 times in a row. It really didn’t matter because it was rush hour and someone wanted to get off at every stop anyway. It was just amusing watching the “when I pull this cord the red light comes on . . . cool”. Babies really are little scientists. The next delight on the J train was the park. I’ve never taken J train as early as I did on Monday, so it’s always been dark when I pass this park in Noe Valley. This time it was only 5:45 pm and I’ve never seen so many dogs out in my life. The canine to human ratio was 1 to 1. Pretty cool.
Next stop to whet my appetite and get me in the mood (as IF I need any help getting in the mood for free fiber), was the super cool Noe Knit. There I ran into fellow Chicks on their way to the yarn swap. It was supposed to begin at 7:30 pm, but by 6:50 the table, bench, side table and floor were already filling up.
(The summer knit book I had my eye on and lost to a lower number – damn!)
There’s Leslie (lucky #2) holding the $82 GIANT skein of cashmirino. That’s Kathy in the background (lucky #1) holding the pattern book I had my eye on – crap!
After a few rounds of picking, it was opened up to all the non yarn contributors. Look at Matthew in the background looking like he is mid pounce
Here’s my haul:
There’s 7 different colors of chenille that come to about 700 yards. I think I’m going to design a striped raglin 1/2 sleeve sweater with it. It may not come out that great, but I want to work more on my own sweater construction and design, and using some free yarn seems like a good idea.
The spool in the front is 150 yards of hand spun cotton. Any ideas you guys??? What can I do with 150 yards?
This is really thin, thread thin, yarn. I have three skeins of it. I have no idea what the yardage is. I’m going to do the ole’, count the wraps around an 18″ piece of cardboard to find out. I guess I’ll make some kind of lace shawl with it. Any suggestions???
Here’s a close up of some yummy chunky handspun I got. What to do, what to do.
I got 7 skeins of this thick, thin Bernat cotton n’ silk. I’m not sure I can wear lime green, and I don’t really know what to do with it, but I’m open to suggestions.
All in all, it was a fantastic night. I will really miss this group when I go home. It’s a great group of women (and men), and I love being around their energy. There’s something so amazing about being in a room full of knitters. It’s an energy and creative spirit that really feeds me. I could easily see myself being very happy to be around that every day.
