We Take Manhattan

In all the excitement over the new kitten (her name is Hazel and so far we have learned that she might like yarn, which is good because we have a lot of yarn), our LYS visits in NYC (are you down with the lingo?) have gone undocumented. Yesterday we hit four knitting stores in Manhattan:

1. School Products, where we each got some amazing Koigu sock yarn. I remain puzzled about the name, as they really do sell only yarn. They seem to have good deals on higher-end fibers. I have really only shopped extensively for sock yarn and worsted weight wool & alpaca, so I can't tell you how good the deals are. They did have gray worsted-weight superwash wool for $12/lb. It's also available on their web site. Koigu is more or less the only sock yarn they have, but if you're just going to carry one, that's a good choice. I haven't shopped very much for Koigu, but it is really delightful: soft, squishy, and spun really well. We were the only people in the store, which was actually pretty spacious for a Manhattan shop.
   
2. Yarn Connection, which was okay--they had some reasonably priced cotton that Lilyriver briefly considered for a tank top, though she ultimately decided against it. Very limited sock yarn selection--looked like maybe they were a little low on stock? Business seemed pretty slow.
   
3. Knitty City, which was our favorite. They had a lot of sock yarn: Claudia Handpainted, a little Koigu, a few colors of Lorna's, Louet Gems, a limited selection of Regia & Trekking--all for the typical retail prices. I didn't buy anything, though I was very much tempted by the Claudia Handpainted in "Stormy Day." The shop looks like it has a lot of customers and a lively group of employees teaching classes.
   
4. Yarn Company, which did not appear to have sock yarn. We didn't have time to ask them if this was really true or if we just missed something, but in the words of the immortal Keanu Reeves...Whoa. Okay, I totally should have known; they don't have any on their web site. There weren't too many people in the shop except a clique-ish group of women knitting around a table, and they ignored us--if it's important to you to get a "Hello" when you walk in the door, this might not be the place for you.
   

We also hit a really excellent used bookstore. Lilyriver found five volumes of Va. Woolf's diaries and I got a couple of novels I'd been wanting to read (Grendel and The Thin Place). So, in short, we came back with some sock yarn (and a little lace weight) and books, neither of which we have room for. After this whirlwind shopping tour, we had an excellent dinner with Susan, who kindly agreed to meet up with us after a long day at work.

We missed Seaport Yarns and PURL Soho, both of which were farther south in Manhattan than we wanted to go. PURL, especially, is supposed to be great, and their web site promises a fine selection of Lorna's Laces.

I do not need, nor should I buy, anymore yarn for a long time, but if I did...I probably wouldn't make a point of getting it from a LYS. It's sacrilege, I know, and I do understand the value of supporting local businesses and microcommunities, etc., etc., but you really can't beat the selection you can find online--and I really enjoy bargain hunting.

Labyrinth.

Well, Reader, there has been knitting, but there has not been productive knitting--at least by me. Lilyriver finished her lovely shawl and should make an appearance with it on soon enough. The lace scarf, I'm sorry to say, is going back in my box until I can give it my full attention. Ready, set, May 25.

As soon as my camera battery has been replaced, I'll post pictures of the haul Lilyriver and I got from my grandmother's craft stash. I am pretty pumped about using her needles, especially some of the lovely wooden ones. We also took home her beautiful hardwood lingerie chest, and it's the nicest thing we currently have in our apartment...so we're using it to store yarn.

Learning that my classes today were cancelled, I decided not to get a jumpstart on the papers looming like vultures over my head and instead learn how to make short-row heels. Seven hours later (the seven hours, I'll note, includes frequent yarn-browsing breaks), I have a short-row heeled sock. I do not have a picture of it because my camera battery is dead. I do not have joy coming off me in waves because the heel is full of holes. I'm itching, itching to rip it out and do the usual flap-gusset heel, even though I know I'll never get the short-row business down if I give up now. My short-row heel isn't hideous, and may, with a few clever picked up stitches, be serviceable, but it's not as pretty as all the ones I looked at on Flickr. Mine has this problem and this* problem. The latter problem is fixable through picked up stitches. The former really isn't. It's gotta come out. The only thing that I need to decide is what I'm going to replace it with.

But see, what's killing me is that I've already done the heel three times. For my first two tries, I used two different tutorials and couldn't quite make heads or tails of them. For my third try, I used this one by cosmicpluto, and I know--I know--that there's nothing wrong with the tutorial.

But no, I'll persevere. I'll rip it out a do it a fourth time. But not today. Dear god, not today.

*The other thing that makes me sad about that green patterned sock is that it's yet another discontinued Knit Picks Simple Stripe yarn that I covet. Covet, covet, covet.

Yarn yearnings: YThe yaccidental yconsumer.

Through various accidents of fate, I have wound up with:

1. 1 ball Regia Canadian Colors Eclipse (#4745).
2. 2+ hanks Lorna's Laces Motherlode.

You may notice that neither colorway are ones I identified as having wanted in my previous yarn post. The LL came from a blog sale, and I got a great deal; the Regia from eBay, when I resolved that I would get the Canadian Colors Brasil--but the only seller listing it couldn't find her last ball, so I agreed to let her substitute the Eclipse instead.

No more yarn, seriously. No more yarn.

P.S. I finished a sock this morning. I swear the yarn is getting used. Just...not as quickly as I acquire it. Get ready for A Summer of Crafting Mania! (TM).

P.P.S. Don't tell my mom, but I switched scarf patterns. She totally looked! (It's genetic.) Also I decided I didn't like the Knitty pattern after all.

Conform. Consume. Obey

I feel like I'd be a better person if I patronized one charming vendor instead of hunting for "bargains" on eBay, but part of the fun of yarn-buying is the thrill of the hunt. Without further ado, the sock yarns I'd love to buy if I were independently wealthy and/or could knit fast enough to justify adding to my stash:

1. Regia Canadian Colors in Brasil (#4741) or Canadian Colors Fashion Collection in Winnipeg (#4734). Yes, this is yarn from a German company made in Italy in colors inspired by Canada. Or, in the case of the 4741, yarn inspired by Brazil from a German company made in Italy in a line made for the Canadian market.
   
2. Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, in Vera, Watercolor, Baltic Sea, Aslan, Gold Hill, Pioneer, or Argyle. I am really enamored of LL's colorways--you can look for yourself if you'd like. They're a gold standard, as far as I can tell. People have all kinds of pooling problems with this yarn and bitch about it constantly (not so much in the link I sent you to, just wanted to give you an idea of what pooling is). I'm not sure I care overmuch about that; it's kind of a neat effect. What stands between me and LL bliss is the roughly $9/hank price tag (it takes two hanks for socks), which, again, I can't really justify. People do talk about this yarn like it'll cure cancer, though.
   
3. Opal Feelings #1704.
4. Opal Hundertwasser #1432, Der Blaue Mond--this looks especially great knit sideways, and I'd really like to give my sideways pattern a go. The pattern I have is an Opal one, I think, and it's in German, meaning that I could chalk up the knitting as a learning experience vital to my scholastic career. That totally justifies the $14-$20 price tag, excluding shipping, right? Right?
5. Knit Picks Simple Stripes in Vineyard. This yarn has been discontinued; a helpful lady at Knit Picks tells me that they stopped using one particular factory in Italy and thus haven't been able to offer striped yarn since. I'm really annoyed because someone was offering two skeins on the Destash blog for $4 (including postage!), but they got snapped up before I even saw they were there. I hope people don't mind that I'm creepily linking to pictures on their blogs....
   
6. Everything in kaleido's Etsy shop! I'm working on a sock in this right now to take my mind off the Almost Argyle Almost Disaster sock. Downside: handwash only.
   

Turning over a new leaf.

Quick post of the sock work-in-progress, which I've been messing with whilst I make a dent in my Urania reading. One advantage of a giant book is that it'll stay open on its own. I am not reading or knitting very efficiently, but at least I've turned the heel correctly and begun the long, slow march towards toe decreases.

Lilyriver will post later about our visit to our local yarn shop ("LYS" in knitting blog parlance, apparently; one learns so many things on the internet) so she could get yarn for a shrug. I did not need yarn of any kind, but I got some anyway. I am now on a yarn freeze, for real*. It's called Tofutsies, which I'm sure we can all agree is totally appalling (I'd be happier with "Tofoot," I think), and it's made out of wool, soy, cotton, and crab shells, of all things. I think I'll give this a go next because I'm really excited about the texture. With all of those things in it, you wouldn't think it would be as soft and slick as it is.

*Well, unless I find some Lorna's Laces at a bargain price.

Needle in the hay

Did I learn my lesson posting about all my unfinished sock projects? The lesson about how I should frigging stop buying yarn? No I did not. Another eBay non-steal: three skeins of Lion Brand organic cotton in Cypress. Lilyriver's love of organic food has spread to my yarn. What does "organic" cotton even mean? I mean, yes, I can read what Lion Brand says that it means, but while reading up a bit about this, I found someone making an apt comparison between Lion Brand and Wal-Mart, and we know that Wal-Mart lies. This does not prevent me from shopping at Wal-Mart, that steel-toed boot of oppression on the neck of--well, you name it, Wal-Mart's there. Something tells me Lion Brand's Yarn Empire might be more of a Barbie shoe. This metaphor has gotten away from me.

What's attractive to me about the LB organic yarn is, of course, the color palette; I've been crushing hard on earth tones lately (forays into Kool-Aid notwithstanding), and I love the idea that this color was produced in the growing process. As far as colors go, the real winner in that line is Bark, in terms of saturation and loveliness, but I think Cypress will suit the washcloth project I have in mind. --Oh, drat. I just saw the care instructions. Hand wash only. fjdlasjf;ldjasl;j

Secrets and expiation.

At right are the dark secrets of my soul: unfinished sock pairs. My collection drives Lilyriver crazy. And I understand this, I really do.

And I'll come totally clean: the two socks on the far right and the bright blue sock won't ever have mates. The bright blue sock is obviously deformed. The yarn is a Jawoll cotton blend, and it's light and nice, so I might reclaim it. The yarn of the other two, however, really isn't. It's Lion Brand Wool-Ease worsted, which I was horrified to find is 80% acrylic. It's way too heavy for ordinary use and doesn't breathe well. Also, I pillaged the yarn to make mittens. I do, however, intend to finish the other three pairs. I have two of the one, but I still need to weave in the yarn ends and block them. I am most excited about the beige tweed socks. I cannot think of an appropriate joke to mitigate the effect of revealing that I am excited by beige tweed socks. The yarn, however, is a fingering weight (I think?) Phildar Preface, and it's quite soft and (I hope) eminently wearable. With that sock, I finally got my pattern modifications down. --I'll take a moment to note that my yarn supplier for the finishable socks is Judy at www.doublediamondknits.com.

You have to be a sock knitter to understand some of the astoundingly awful sock yarn on the market. Logically, you know and I know that multi-colored stripes are usually ugly. But I, with an all too easily accessible PayPal account and an itchy mouse finger, look at this stuff online and think: self-patterning yarn? What is this miracle? I must have some! Two balls! Twelve balls! But I'm not going to lie: I have no perspective when it comes to yarn. In sock yarn, I've got some brown Phildar Preface waiting for me, and, from knitpicks.com, some green and some reddish brown tweed. I will come for you, yarn, and it will be glooooooorious.

Quote of the day, from Lilyriver, opening a package of knitting supplies sent from home: "I remember these needles! They're like old friends."

Tell us how you really feel.

Subtlety in crafting: Anti-Hummer T-shirt.

Some versions of...beads that I like, I guess.

While not engaged, or especially interested, in making beaded jewelry myself, I really like online window shopping for beads. There is, admittedly, very little I won't online window shop. Like an ill-fated crow, I am often distracted by bright, shiny things.

Brown-veined sea green gaspetite turquoise--I love the smoothness of the beads, and the color is fantastic. Personally, I'm not sure that I would wear jewelry made out of these beads, unless they were about half the size, but I wouldn't mind having one on my desk. To look at for zen moments or some shit.

Gray blue sponge coral rondelles--These I would definitely wear--I love everything about them: color, shape, irregularity, porousness. They look like especially nice chunks of concrete. They're utterly fascinating. I keep revising what I say about them and failing to note it adequately. It is a lucky thing that I never fancied myself a poet.

Flat turquoise briolettes--Lilyriver has been doing a lot with briolettes lately, and I've really liked the pieces she's made. What's striking to me about these beads is how the briolette shape gets streamlined and abstracted in the flattening. These are postmodern beads, man. Deep.

Bonus Ripley's Believe It or Not!: Pink coral nuggets--These look like diseased gum tissue. Gross. Gross. Gross.

You've earned it. [See details inside.]

While searching Etsy for black teardrop earrings--one for each man I shot in Reno just to watch him die--I found some other earrings made out of millefiori beads. I'm not usually a floral person, but I am attracted to the sort of mod-ish shapes and colors and also, as always, proliferation and multiplication. I was able, luckily, to find these, which allow me to both memorialize my kills and express my newfound love of tiny flowers.

Right now I am full of Lilyriver's handmade spinach risotto.