flyinmysoup

this brilliant idea came from one of the girls at the Bo Peep's knit night. we were talking about reading and knitting at the same time and she mentioned wanting a music stand to hold the book with.  there are music stands in my apartment people (cause the fella plays the....TUBA?!?!?!). i ran home to give it a whirl, and it works beautifully.

i am quickly becoming an advocate for knitting while studying. i'm back to classes after a bit of a hiatus, and i've been knitting while reading the class work and what not. it helps me focus so much. i'm honestly a little amazed.

here's my plain old stockinette stitch toe up sock-studying. i traded in the Dale Falk i'd picked up for the failed Norwegian Stockings *sob* for a couple skeins of Dale Baby Ull...mmm. it';s a delicious yarn, i tell you. i';m going to have to pick some more up i can already tell! i so want to love toe-up socks, but i can't find a heel that doesn't drive me mad. this version is a bit better than the short row heel with no heel flap, but i don't know...anyone have a toe up pattern with a heel more like a cuff down version? gah.

i've started the Myster Stole 2 over.  i screwed up clue 3 somewhere along the line and, since i was already on the fence about whether or not i liked the effect the 3.5mm needles and the Skacel Merino Lace made, i ripped it out.  My LYS was lovely about exchanging the needles for 3.25 mm ones (admitedly, they would've been crazy not to--Bryspun circs to Addi's equals about $8).  i'm not very far in yet (no pics for a day or two) and i'm really pleased with how all the stockinette looks now--still open, but not crazily so. 
i thought that i would share two of my most favorite new knitting hints and tricks.  i came acrossed these in my browsing of the web, so someone else thought of them before me;  i'm just passing on the goodness!  First, if you use any of the interchangable needle sets that tighten up with the little "key" thing (i know of the KnitPicks Options set and the Boye Needlemaster set), it is super easy to add a life-line to your work.  just thread your life-line yarn through the little key hole as shown, and then work a row.  there you go!  all safe and secure now. of course, it does snag stitch markers, too.  i would put the life line in on a plain (or at least the closest thing to plain) row and then just add the markers back on the next row. 

Next tip, and this one is good for knitters AND spinners.  if you're working with a really fine yarn/ fiber, ya know, one that catches on every little minute piece of loose skin, exfoliate your hands first with this:  mix together some salt or sugar and olive oil in your hand and scrub scrub scrub.  rinse the goo off, and your hands are as soft and smooth as a baby's butt.  i have eczema on my hands, and that can make laceweights a pain in the ass.  this helps soooo much!

the fella got off of work early today, so we decided to go check out another LYS that we'd never been to before.  (i'd thought that it was a good drive away, but it's not too far!)  i must say, i think that this store was awsome.  It's called Stitches and Scones, and it may just turn into my favored LYS while we are still in this area.  everyone was super helpful and friendly.  granted, i do have one of the coolest accessories for starting up conversations at LYS--a guy who knits.  it's pretty fabulous when a staff member comes over to G and quietly tells him there are couches if he wants to sit down to wait for me, and he says "oh!  actually, i knit too!"  it's so the best. anyhow, the people were nice, the selection was awesome, and they have a really cool incentive/discount program--the sell a bag with there shop logo to you for $15, and then every time you come in and buy something, if you have the bag, you save 10%.  how cool is that?  and who couldn't use more project bags?

That said, let me offer forth my opinion (and this is just based on my experiances at the named shops--take it with a grain of salt) of the Indianapolis area LYS G and i have been to.  Sure, the now defunct Bo Peep's was super friendly, but they really didn't have all that great a selection. 

Mass Ave Knit Shop is just huge, has lots of yarn (however, there seems to be A LOT of novelty shite), and is overall pretty friendly.  it is at times, however, rather lousey with the cliques.  G and i have been going there for close to two years now, so we're pretty well recognized, but it was rather interesting with some of the staff for a while.  the owner, Susan, is a freakin' doll though. 

The Knit Shop, a fancy botique-style store right on 82nd street, is full of high-end yarns, but some of the staff make me want to pull out my freakin' hair.  it was here that one of the works informed me that i was S.O.L. if i wanted lace weight yarn that wasn't mohair.  HA!  the owner has a couple Pomeranians that run all over the shop, too, which for me isn't a problem, but i'm not allergic to dogs. 

The Golden Thimble in Broadripple has a lot of yarn in a tiny tiny space, but no one has ever been nice to us when we've gone there.  they eye us suspiciously as we walk around and everything.  also, they have a minimum purchase price for credit cards which is posted NO where that i saw.  i wanted a set of needles and had to buy (oh i know twist my arm) a skein of yarn to meet the price requirement.  not a big deal, but i would have liked some warning.  That's all the shops i've been to around here.  if anyone knows of any i missed, let me know cause i'd like to check them out!

so, you wanna see the yarn i picked up from Stitches and Scones?  they had Rowan Cork on their sale wall--40% off--so i picked up 3 skiens of the "Sour" colorway for a scarf.  more on the scarf as it develops.  i've got a bitchin' design in my head, and we'll see if i can translate it to 3-d real life shit.

in previous posts, i talked about dealing with the really long chart for parts 3 and 4 of the Heere Be Dragon Shawl, but i didn't really expound on it. missalicefaye posted a comment that asked about my solution (thanks for the kick in the pants, btw ;) ), and i thought it high time that i blogged about it!
first, let me tell you that, when i work on a chart that doesn't have a vertical pattern repeat (ie, a set number of rows that repeat over and over) i like to mark off completed rows on the chart with a highlighter. because this no-repeating is true of the HBDS, my chart holder didn't need to be metal for the use of magnets (my prefered method with repeating patterns). so, i went to Joann's and picked up a sheet of foam board. this is the tag that's on the back of the board, for reference.
then i scored the board horizontally (long way) in the middle, cutting through only 1 layer of the paper covering.
this makes the board fold in half and stand up like so. this arrangement worked great for the three pages of chart in part 3, but the board was too short for the four pages of chart of step 4. so, i cut an approximately 9" wide piece off the back part of the board and affixed it to the front. voila! a chart holder for a really long pattern for under $2...rock.

yeah, i'm probably way too excited about this, by the by.