VKL Was AWESOME! True Story

Whew!  It's been a while since I've caught up with the blog.  Sorry!  I've been inordinately busy the past couple of weeks and I haven't had time to read blogs, either.  Expect a slew of comments on old posts sometime soon.

I'll do a catch-up post on my own stuff, but this post is all about the FABULOUS time I had at Vogue Knitting Live on Friday!!!

As some of you may recall, I had been waffling about whether to make the trek up to LA or not, but after a won a free class of my choice from a blog tour I was SO IN!!!  I quickly signed up for a custom knitting design class from Josh Bennett on Friday afternoon and then waited patiently for several weeks for the event to arrive.

Let me tell you: it was SO WORTH IT.  Here's the skinny:

The Class
The program told me that my class was being held in Classroom 511.  So...up on the 5th floor of the hotel.  I thought it was a little odd that they had groups of classrooms on the upper floors of the hotel, but I headed up to find it.  Boy did I feel like a hick when I realized that it was just a hotel room with the bed removed!  (DUH!)  They had set up four skinny tables for the 10 students, leaving a tiny sliver of room in the front for Josh to do his thing.  It ended up being quite lovely though because it was much more casual this way.  No one had trouble seeing or hearing what was being demonstrated, and we all felt comfortable introducing ourselves and asking questions.

 Josh Bennett is a WONDERFUL teacher.  He took us through all the steps of designing a sweater.  I mean, we actually designed an entire sweater in class!  He had worksheets with typical sweater instructions written out, with blanks for the stitch or row counts, and another sheet with the equations needed to figure out the correct numbers.  We took the measurements of a volunteer and used those numbers to fill in the blanks in our worksheets.  Along the way, Josh gave examples, answered questions, told stories, and showed samples.  I was excited to see that he had brought in samples of most of his sweaters, and tear sheets of his other designs.  He was kind enough to stay behind after class and answer more questions and even agreed to take a picture with me.  He totally demystified sleeve cap shaping for me and I was able to apply what I learned to the sweater I'm modifying for my brother.  Score!!!

The Marketplace
I wasn't sure what to expect from the marketplace going in.  I had looked over the list of vendors and most of them seemed to be other LYSes in SoCal, not a bunch of indie dyers like you seem to find at larger venues like Stitches or Rhinebeck.  I also knew that all of the fashion shows, book signings, and prize drawings were happening on Saturday and Sunday so I would miss out on those.  But this was my first knitting event, so I was still excited to go.

It turned out to be fantastic fun!  My first stop was to see Michelle Miller of Fickle Knitter Design.  She had her own booth with samples and copies of her first book, Leaves: Fickle Knitter Design, Volume 1.  I have been reading Michelle's blog for years now and I love her designs, especially her one-skein shawlettes.  It was super cool to finally meet her in person and have her sign my copy of the book.  She even gave me a fun tote bag to carry the rest of my marketplace purchases.  Thanks, Michelle!

My next stop was RedFish Dyeworks, right around the corner from Fickle Knitter.  Holy cow, people!  The colors!  I don't think I have ever seen so many beautiful colors on such beautiful yarns, arranged in a perfect rainbow of glittering skeins.  Every time I picked up one gorgeous skein, I traded it for the one right next to it, and so on and so on.  Eventually I settled on the three skeins shown here.  I am so glad they have a website I can order from because I'm already kicking myself for not getting more.  I had been saving up my yarn money for a couple of months, so I splurged on some luxuries: The purple skein is 400 yds of a silk/cashmere blend, the gold skein is 800yds of a silk/camel blend, and the variegated skein in the center is 450 yds of 100% silk.  For people who like knitting lace, this stuff is to die for, and very reasonably priced.

After that, I headed over to the Knitters Brewing Co. booth.  They have some fabulous hand-dyed sock yarn, gorgeous patterns and kits, and a really fun podcast called Yarn on Tap that I highly recommend checking out.  I may even have agreed to be interviewed for an upcoming episode!  I had a lot of fun hanging out with Wendy, Kelie, and Rebecca.  We swapped Rav names and I even got a super special handmade stitch marker from Kelie, along with a Sockaholic tattoo!  So much fun.  They promised to come down to San Diego to visit me at the shop soon, so I'm looking forward to that.

Of course I had to take advantage of being able to scope out their lovely sock yarn in person.  I picked up a fabulous Bridge of Roses sock kit in the Greyhound colorway.  I didn't even realize until just now that it includes a cute little stitch marker!  How awesome is that?!?  But why stop at just one kit?  I also picked up a skein of their Sockaholic sock yarn in the Jungle Juice colorway, and now I'm kicking myself for not getting two.  It would be perfect for the Kitman Figueroa mystery KAL I signed up for!  I'll just have to place another order with them and maybe pick up some more Chia Goo needles as well. The cables and tips on these needles are perfect for socks.

Other highlights of the marketplace included meeting Shannon Okey at the Cooperative Press/Bijou Basin booth, chatting with the folks at Namaste and letting them know how much I love their bags (I have several), seeing Amy Singer, Cookie A, and Vickie Howell (I shared an elevator with her and she said she liked my bag), meeting StevenBe of the Yarn Garage (all the way from my home town of Minneapolis!), checking out the carbon fiber needles at Blackthorn Needles, meeting Linda Morse of String from NYC (she wrote the book Luxury Knitting, which first introduced me to luxury fibers when I was a new knitter and didn't know what was "good" and what wasn't), lusting over the quiviut yarns at Windy Valley Muskox (Oh my god!  The samples!), sampling the new Lacey scent from Soak (loved it!), and generally just being with all of these other, happy knitters.  It was so much fun!

I drove home afterwards exhausted but happy, having met a lot of wonderful people both in my class (Hi Sandra and Amanda!) and in the marketplace (Hi Michelle, Wendy, Kelie and Rebecca!), and with new techniques, knowledge and yarn that all made me excited to knit some more.  Now that I've been bitten by the knitting convention bug, I'll be trying to make my way to more shows in the future.  It would be even more fun with some travel companions.  Interweave Knit Lab and Stitches West are right around the corner...how 'bout it, Peter?  Can you take a week off school??? ;-)

Ups and Downs

Here in Land of the Lost: The Polka Years, life continues with its ups and downs. 

Up: Not taking any classes this fall = saving money and more time to knit!

Up: Wrapping up work in the psychology research lab = more time to knit!

Down: No school = once again looking for a full-time job, without much success yet.  (If you happen to know of any market research firms in the San Diego area who are hiring right now, let me know, will ya?)

Up: More free time = more shifts at the yarn shop during the week. 

Up: More free time = going to the gym more.

Down: Going to the gym more = plantar fasciitis developing in both feet.

Up: Taking the (free!) sewing class this semester through the adult continuing ed program at the local community college. 

Up: Flexible schedule = tagging along with The Brain as he travels to conferences during the year.  Reno, Miami...I forget where else.  But it will be fun.  Plus, there is always more time for KNITTING!!! 

Up: Actual proof of knitting!  Here is the very end of a sample project (green) and the beginnings of a requested sweater for my brother (purple). 

Up: I am also putting together a magic loop class to teach at the yarn shop, so I'm working on writing up a simple hat pattern to use as a sample.

Up: New yarn!  Gorgeous merino/silk laceweight from The Woolen Rabbit yarn club.  I love the deep, rich blend of black and blue in the "Ink" colorway.  This is the second shipment of this new club and I have been 100% pleased so far.  I have been in a few other yarn clubs before and was supremely disappointed by them, but I love The Woolen Rabbit and the Shakespeare in Lace clubs.  I have to save up my sample knitting money to join them, but they are well worth it!

24 Hour Polka People

Yesterday was a looooong day at the shop. Saturdays are normally pretty busy, but this one was unusually so. During the past couple of weeks we have been flooded with people who need help with their projects, but yesterday we were flooded with people who wanted their yarn wound. I was cranking away at that ball winder for HOURS. People were waiting in a line three deep to have their yarn wound, rather than go home and do it themselves or bring the yarn back on a slower day. It was a little ridiculous.

I like winding yarn. Truly, I do. And I'm happy to do it for you if you come into the shop. It's part of the job but it can also be meditative and sometimes it's fun to watch the colors stream off the swift and onto the ball winder. But here's a tip from the friendly girl at your local yarn shop, who is always happy to see you (really!) and help you choose yarn or fix your project:

Please, for the love of god, when the store is packed with people and several of them are waiting to get their yarn wound, and I have just finished winding your four skeins of Malabrigo Lace, do not say: "Thanks! I have a ball winder and swift at home but it's just so much easier when someone else does it for me!"

I would rather not know. I would rather think that I just saved you hours of tangled agony as you tried to wind the yarn yourself by hand. Really and truly, keep your mouth shut. It would be a mercy.

Speaking of mercy, the asshats across the canyon have finally turned off their polka music after 17 straight hours of hell. What started as a seemingly innocent party yesterday evening morphed into an increasingly humorous few hours of drunk Mexican polka karaoke. (I kid you not. Polkaoke, anyone?) But as it stretched well into the wee hours, I was starting to get angry. Party central is two blocks over and that damn tuba could reach me through our closed windows and doors and my high-tech hot pink earplugs. I finally called the cops at 9:30 this morning. They said they had already received noise complaints about that location but no one had been able to get out there yet. Seriously? The music plays for SEVENTEEN HOURS and the cops, who are 6 blocks away, btw, cannot get over there to tell them to shut it?

I don't know what's worse: the fact that I was kept awake all night by polka music, or the fact that I have morphed into the kind of person who calls the cops at 9:30 in the morning (!!!) when the music is too loud. In my defense, I was already exhausted by winding all that yarn yesterday so the sleepless night didn't help.

Also: I'm still knitting. I'm just really bad at taking photos of it in a timely manner. Plus some of it is top-secret so I can't show you anyway. (Do I sound like a badass secret knitting agent yet?) But here are photos of some socks I completed recently:


Purple socks: Twisted Flower Socks, by Cookie A
Yarn: The Woolen Rabbit Pandora, part of the 2011 yarn club










Orange Socks: Vilai, by Cookie A
Yarn: Malabrigo Sock in Terracota

OK, I know it looks like I have cankles but I DO NOT. It's just the angle of the camera. Or something. Use your imagination.

Houston, We Have a Doorbell!

Apartment Update

Things have settled down a lot here in the jungle. The major things have been taken care of. I totally pulled on my Big Girl Pants (tm) and called Landlord Man to tell him that the carpet still smelled and I was waking up with headaches. Apparently the smell-hating force is strong in me because two days later we had brand new, non-stanky carpet in the bedroom. It is SOOOOOO much better now.



The new carpet doesn't quite match the old carpet but I could care less. I'm so happy to have new carpet that I don't really care. Just add it to the list of quirks in this place. Carpet Man noticed that there is a seam running down the middle of our living room. He offered to bring a strip of the new carpet in to replace it. Thus ensued a comical back-and-forth between us wherein I kept insisting that the strip wouldn't match the old carpet, and he would say things like, "Yes. Is the same." while pointing to the new, mis-matched carpet he had just installed. I finally told him to check with Landlord Man and waved him out the door.

(The following photo was manipulated with Photoshop. I did not actually let him "fix" the seam in the living room carpet.)




















Other delightful "quirks" about our new place:

The backsplash in the bathroom isn't actually attached to the wall. I found this out the first time I cleaned the bathroom. Apparently propping pieces of granite against a wall is good enough.





















The deadbolt on the back door does not quite match up to its hole in the door frame. This means that the door isn't locked at all, even if you think it is.




















Everywhere you look there are screws holding things together. That's all well and good, but these screws were only sunk halfway in. Putting in a window? Who has time to sink the screws? Halfway is good enough! Hanging a curtain rod? Leave the screws sticking out! It's easier to remove them later! Installing sliding closet doors? You didn't want to open those, did you?

We also seem to live next door to a compound for shrieking children, overseen by an old Mexican woman who loves her polka.




















And then there is the monster in the canyon. Every so often, and usually at night, our house is visited by a snarling, growling creature thrashing around in the underbrush. It's all very Lost.




















Other things are bustling along here as well. I have completed my top-secret project and have been back to working on things I can actually talk about. I have a backlog of FOs that need to be photographed, so I may have a marathon FO post coming soon.

Whee! Fun Knitterly Things!

Dudes, you know how when people win something they always say things like, "I never win anything!", which is probably true for most people and it generally is true for me, too. But I guess I can't claim to be unlucky in this regard anymore because after winning the skein of Smooshy from Kristen I also won...

...a class at Vogue Knitting Live in September! There was a blog tour thing with a different designer giving away a class each day. I was the lucky recipient of a class from Carol Sulcoski's blog. Carol, as you may know, is the author of the very helpful book Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn, a book which helped many a sock knitter figure out just what the heck to do with their beautiful skeins of sock yarn that looked great wound up but fell down flat when knitted.

I had been debating about whether or not to go to VKL. We Unemployeds really don't have money to drop on classes. And if I splurged on a class I would have to give up my right to cry "Unemployed!" as an excuse not to do other things, like buy that stupid mouth guard so I stop grinding my teeth at night. (I am wise beyond my years, truly.) But now I get to take a class (my first knitting class!) and stick around for the marketplace so I'll be sure to let you know what I find. I decided to take a Friday afternoon design class with Josh Bennett. I have always liked his designs, and I have never done any designing myself so I'm sure I'll learn a lot.

The other fun news I have is the new book that finally arrived in the mail: Knit, Swirl by Sandra McIver. The patterns looked interesting and I almost bought the book at the LYS in St. Paul when I was back visiting the fam a few weeks ago, but the hefty price tag held me off. Fortunately, I checked in on Knit Picks' summer book sale where it is being offered at 40% off so I snagged a copy. And let me tell you: I LOVE IT. I can totally see myself making several patterns from this book. The information that she provides about this unique construction method is so fascinating and I can't wait to start knitting one of the sweaters just so I can try it on. It is a beautiful book, with great photography, clear instructions, and a wonderful presentation. She even gives helpful hints on techniques both in the book and on her website. Highly recommended.

I'll be back shortly with a post about real-life stuff but I wanted to get this one out there.

Help a Knitter Out, Will Ya?

Now that things are starting to settle down here in the jungle, I have been able to get back to other things, like knitting! Yay! I'm working on a mystery project right now so I don't have a whole lot to blog about, but I did get a special piece of mail on moving day to share with you:


















This is a skein of Dream in Color Smooshy in the colorway Wisterious, and I love it! The fabulous Kristen from the Learner's Per-Knit blog sent it my way after I won a blogiversary drawing on her blog. You may remember that her blog post is partly responsible for me getting back to it myself. This skein of yarn dropped through the mail slot on my moving day and it was quickly stuck into a box, sealed up, and remained there until I was unpacking my office the other day. It was a nice surprise because I had forgotten all about it in the midst of all the other drama at the time.

If you don't read Kristen's blog, you really should. She creates wonderful knits and I always like keeping up with what's going on in her life.

So here's where the help comes in. Kristen put up a blog post today in which she talks about her mother's bout with cancer and upcoming laryngectomy. Kristen could really use some of the fabled knitterly generosity and is asking for help knitting/crocheting/sewing some stoma covers for her mother to use following surgery. She includes a link to a website with several patterns for how to make these items, and they look quite quick and easy.

If that's not enough to get your needles clacking, Kristen is also offering a drawing for a beautiful skein of Wollmeise and the sock pattern of your choice. Because Kristen is a bloggy friend of mine, I'm going to send her another little something to raffle off to participants, too. So go! Check out her blog, whip up some quick little projects (great stashbuster!) and get your name in the drawing for some great yarny prizes!!!