stash, knit, repeat

It’s not usually a struggle for me, deciding what to talk about here. It’s a knitting blog, and I’m always (always) knitting, so… there ya go.

But there’s something in the room, now. Or rather, not in the room, and it’s getting in the way of my Rhinebeck post. I went. I had fun with new friends and old.

I bought yarn. A lot of yarn. Did I need a lot of yarn? Well, no, not really. Had I budgeted for a lot of yarn? You bet. And it was all lovely, every last yard.

(It will all be up on Ravelry over the next few days, if you’re curious.) And I made immense progress on the Tangled Yoke, and I finished Waterlily, and I have a gorgeous sock on the needles. But I can’t just post a chipper “oh my god it was so fun and I can’t wait for next year and I saw these 8 million people and here are some links to their blogs” post. I just can’t. It would be false. So instead, here’s an actual honest-to-goodness update on my life.

The day I left for Rhinebeck, I had a miscarriage. I was somewhere between 9 and 11 weeks pregnant, the dates are unclear. The week before, I’d seen a happy wiggling little proto-kid, steady heartbeat and all.

I’m really glad I went to Rhinebeck. It was really fun, I can’t wait for next year, and I did meet and spend time with some fabulous people. I’m excited about the knitting I’m doing right now, and excited about what I’m going to knit next, but I would feel like an ass if I just launched into all of that without a word. I have to be honest in this space, even if I’m usually pretty narrow in scope. So. There you have it. If I was oblivious to you at the festival, if I seemed sad or unfriendly, it wasn’t anything you did. It’s just where I was, this weekend.

Quite aside from me needing some time away from Monterey and the problems associated with it, Rhinebeck was the perfect place for me to go. There was something very healing and satisfying about spending an entire weekend devoted to a very creative endeavor that I also fully and completely control. If a sweater is not perfect, I can rip it out and re-do. I can very carefully choose exactly the right yarn, exactly the right buttons, exactly the right pattern. I can obsess over every stitch, fix mistakes as often as necessary, and wind up with a perfect object that will last a hundred years. So very, very unlike parenting. I craved the predictability, the control.

I’m absolutely going back, and I hope to see you there (and here) lots more in the future.

My in-laws leave tomorrow, so hopefully my online life will return to normal soon. Until then, here’s the sad and happy and elated story of my weekend.

On Saturday night, I was all set to steek the ladybug sweater. The hems are sewn, everything is blocked, it all looks adorable. I even knit a swatch, so that I could practice my stitching and steeking.

I daydreamed about showing the cute finished set to the knitters I was meeting at Stitches the next day. I plugged in my mother’s old sewing machine, got it threaded with some help (okay, I watched my m-i-l do it :), turned it on, and stepped on the foot pedal…

…nothing. Some time in the last 5 years, the machine has stopped functioning. So the ladybug sweater is on hold until my wonderful friend in San Jose loans me her machine. So very sad! Since the knitting for the ladybug sweater is done, though, I cast on for something new–the Peapod Baby Set (link in the sidebar) by Kate Gilbert. I’m doing it in the recommended Cotton Cashmere, and even in the pictured green. I finished most of the hat on the drive back from Stitches and it’s blocking now–totally adorable.

Stitches was simply amazing. My class with Lily Chin on short-row bust darts was one of the coolest experiences ever. There’s no mystery to the process anymore, and I feel totally capable of modifying any pattern I knit to fit me perfectly. I really just can’t describe it–take a class from her any way you can, you won’t regret it.

But you really just care about the loot, right? :)

The shopping was less overwhelming on Sunday, and I definitely found myself able to purchase a good deal more than I could on Friday. I stayed with a luxury fiber theme. This is 11 hanks of Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca Silk, in a gorgeous navy-violet color. This is the first sweater-yarn I’ve ever purchased without a specific sweater planned. I feel like I’ve crossed some kind of barrier and it will only get easier to buy yarn from here on out, and soon I’ll be hiding it in the cupboards.

400-odd yards of Jade Sapphire Cashmere-Silk, in the Forest Glen colorway. Definitely going to wind up as a simple scarf, maybe something like the Chevron that’s going around the blogs?

One solitary hank of Fiesta La Luz, stunning turquoise color. I bought it to get over a discount threshold and wound up getting this for around $3. I have NO idea what I can get out of 200-ish yards of this stuff. Maybe I’ll just ball it up and take a yarn portrait, a la Brooklyn Tweed, and then pet it until it disintigrates?

I stopped by the Habu booth and couldn’t resist this wool-linen blend. The color and feel are so perfect. This is the second sweater-yarn I’ve bought without a pattern in mind. Maybe a tank, something long and reasonably figure-skimming but drapey? We’ll see!

This is the first yarn I’ve ever purchased that I’m honestly not sure I could knit. Women’s size 6 thin wedding band included for scale. It’s 100% silk, it feels like slipping into cool water, smells like tea, and is the most amazing indigo color I’ve ever seen. It’s seriously as thin as thread. It’s my “dream yarn”. Maybe I’ll knit with it, maybe I won’t. But I couldn’t leave it behind.

So that’s the haul! Quite a bit to knit through, eh? I love each and every bit of it, though. And now I have to share my triumph with you, even if it feels like boasting. I wore my Forest Path Stole to Stitches, and got many nice compliments on it. It’s always really special to hear nice things about my knits from knitters, who really know the effort involved.

But one compliment in particular on Sunday sent me flying through the roof–I don’t think my feet touched the ground for the rest of the day. I brought my copy of Victorian Lace Today to the XRX booth to get it signed, and after Ms. Sowerby signed my copy, she noticed the shawl. She exclaimed over it (!), pulled over another person in the booth and showed it off to her (!!), asked where the pattern was so that she could knit it herself and made a note (!!!), complimented me on it again (!!!!), and moved on to the next woman in line. I was beside myself and I’m sure my face was a rather fetching shade of red to go with the cream shawl. I had to ask my friend later if it had really happened, and thinking about it still brings a goofy smile to my face.

Well, that’s enough rambling. Hope you all had a great weekend, and happy knitting to you!

As I dropped my husband off at work this morning, I remarked to him that it was probably pretty crazy to drive 1.5 hours just for some yarn shopping. “The thing I don’t understand,” he replied, “is that you’re taking a class at this Stitches thing on Sunday, and you can shop then. Why do the extra driving today?”

I told him that I was worried I wouldn’t have time to shop at all on Sunday, between the two classes I was taking and a lunch date with other knitters. But the truth was that I was terrified there wouldn’t be any yarn left on Sunday. No special yarn, anyway. No yarn that was worthy of my first knitting convention. What if I got to the market at 2:30 on Sunday (it closes at 4:00) and the only stuff remaining was yarn my LYS had in stock? The horror! I understand that my fear was completely irrational. Intellectually, I knew there was no reason to be afraid of a yarn shortage. And yet, I couldn’t help myself.

So, I made the long drive up the 101, radio soothing me with NPR while the baby slept in his carseat. It was a perfect California day, snow-capped mountaintops wreathed with fluffy white clouds, a crystal blue sky overhead. The sun was shining. I’d shop for an hour, I figured, then meet my friend in San Jose for lunch. Rationally, I poked fun at myself. How big and special could a knitting convention possibly be, after all?

Well. The Santa Clara convention center is HUGE, people. And my first tip that my expectations were about to be trampled like a muddy piece of paper was that the normal parking for the convention center was full. FULL. At 10:15am on the first day. I was shunted into overflow parking, and figured there must be another event going on. No bother. Then I noticed that in every car around me, the woman driving was wearing something hand-knit. ALL of the cars headed into the overflow lot were knitters. I am pretty confident there were thousands of people there. Certainly there were hundreds of cars. Each one carried her knitting bag and wore or carried a piece of their craft, it seemed. (Right. Note to self: Wear Forest Path Stole on Sunday.)

Beginning to be daunted, I got baby into his stroller, picked up my own knitting bag, and set out on the walk to the convention center. The line for tickets was long, but since I was taking a class I simply got my badge and went into the Market. Three thoughts immediately went through my mind.

Oh my god.

OH MY GOD.

I need a bigger budget for Rhinebeck.

I was overwhelmed (the exhibit immediately opposite the entrance was Jane Sowerby (!!!) with her samples from Victorian Lace Today). She was chatting with knitters and signing books. A little bit of panic set in. I think I let out a shrill little giggle. I gave Jacob some Cheerios, looked at my shopping list (Handmaiden Sea Silk, DK weight for the Debbie Bliss Cable and Rib jacket, Astrakhan for the Slimline Jacket), and set out into the throngs. And it really was throngs. There were so many people I sometimes had trouble winding the Maclaren through them. (For the uninitiated, that’s a mighty tiny stroller.) As I walked through, I saw booth after booth after booth of gorgeous fiber. Yarn, raw fiber, tapestries, hand-painted, every weight, configuration, fiber imaginable. Buttons, hand-carved knitting tools, jewelry, bags and bags and bags. Books. Patterns. And everywhere, more yarn, each more tempting than the last. After about five minutes, a few more thoughts forcibly pushed their way into my brain.

I might not make that 12:00 lunch date.

No *way* am I spending my Stitches budget on Debbie Bliss I can get locally.

I wonder if I will even be able to *find* the Handmaiden before Jacob flips out?

In the hour and a half before Jacob flipped out, I think I saw perhaps 1/3 of the market. I spent 60% of my budget on three items. I didn’t even get *near* the Blue Moon Fiber Arts booth. The line there was completely ridiculous. I didn’t find the Handmaiden.

But. Uh. I chose quality over quantity.

Handpainted Claudia lace-weight silk, color “Ink”. 1100 yards. 10:30 in the morning on the first day and I got the last hank.

Three ounces of overdyed 100% cashmere laceweight from Springtide Farm in Maine. The color is a devil to capture. It’s more muted than the above picture: Turquoise over Taupe. It is the softest thing I have ever felt. I want to wrap it around my neck and never take it off.

And oh, baby. Three hanks of Pure and Simple, and one of Rock Star. For this. The short-sleeved version, although I’m going to lengthen them a bit. I’ve been able to ignore this yarn before because I’ve only seen it online. And silk is nice, yeah, but it’s expensive and I’ve seen some fairly ugly Simple Knitted Bodices. But in person…

…the colors. The beads. My understanding of the necessity of negative ease, with heavy silk. I just couldn’t walk away. I would have fought someone for this yarn. Luckily, I didn’t have to. Several vendors carried it.

And by the time I’d bought the cashmere, Jacob was really done. So we went to the car and I brought out the yarn, petting it a little before heading to my lunch date. I was only a half-hour late, after all.