My Overstuffed Room

Die Already!!!!!

I am very serious about this, notice the FIVE exclamation points in the title.  After taking a mini-break due to children being home on Easter break and the general business of life, I was prepared to share a post about the progress of my latest knitting projects.

Like my sKnitches socks.  Done!  I have a matching pair of socks for me!

Or my top down wrap cardigan.  The sleeves are finished but the endless knitting the of body of the sweater is only noticeable in a parallel universe.  Yeah, when I said that I had five more inches of length to knit on the body I didn't take into account that fact that I am tall (close to 5'11" without shoes) and need to knit a longer sweater.  Oh joy.

What do you do when a yarn shop is going out of business?  I liken it to a death in the family.  Or to the car accident you can't help but slow down and take a look at.   Well I've been to the 'viewing'  THREE times now.  I said my goodbyes in an appropriate stash-enhancing way and was prepared to move (knit) on.  How many times can a person be expected to carefully sort through shelves of excellent yarn that is practically being given away?  I am wrung out.  Enough already.  I said what I thought were my final goodbyes (and so did Mollie)  last Friday, yes Good Friday, and I thought that was it.

Not quite. 

The final, for good, official funeral is Wednesday and everything is at least 75% off.  It's a Field of Dreams for knitters.  Of course I will go.  Of course I will be there waiting for the door to open.  Of course I will not take the Anti-Knitter with me. I can't not go.  Could you?

It's the least I can do. 

To show my respects.

Runs with scissors

I cut the sock in half.

See?

Maybe I should back up and explain.

Here is another pair of socks for my undeserving husband.  (He doesn't treat his handknit socks well.) 

I knit these ages ago, way way before he demonstrated his irreverence for handknit socks.  Originally they were both knit without a ribbed cuff.

But husband didn't like the way that they didn't stay up on his leg.  Go figure.  I then painstaking frogged the seed stitch border and part of the leg of the sock.  It took forever and I can't begin to go into how tedious it was unpicking the seed stitch border in the opposite direction.  After doing one sock, I decided to give the socks an extended vacation in the bottom of one of my knitting baskets. 

I cleaned out that basket today and found the socks and decided that their time had come.  Once again the thought of unpicking the seed stitch just about did me in when I remembered that there was another way.  I've read on other blogs about cutting through the offending area, picking up the live stitches and reknitting.  It was the perfect solution for these socks.

Out came the scissors:

Cutting through the sock was not as mentally hard to do as I thought it would be.  In fact it was kind of fun.  I know, I'm just walking on the wild side of life, scissors in hand.

And then, live stitches and no seed stitch border!

With enough yarn (hopefully) to knit back up the cuff.

So far I've spent only a fraction of the time on this sock that I spent just unpicking the cuff on the other.

And if you are colorblind and squinting, they'll match

Whoo hoo!  Look at my socks:

The fact that they are two different socks from two different pairs is completely irrelevant.  I love them.  Where are my Birkenstock sandals?  Spring is practically here and nothing looks better than handknit socks with sandals, which yes, I do wear.  My husband thinks the look is more geriatric than funky and he would prefer not to be seen with me when I wear the combo, to which I always point out the socks aren't white, duh.  That would look bad.

This was the one I have been working on the longest, my Santa Fe sock, notice the Kitchenered toe:

And this is the one that made me cheat on the Santa Fes, the totally wonderful Sknitches sock in the Banana Split colorway (another Kitchenered toe):

I am knitting both pairs of socks in my generic sock pattern.  The sknitches are on size 2 needles.  I love size 2 needles so much more than size 1 (which the Santa Fe socks are on).  It is only with socks could the sentence "the knitting is flying on the size 2s" make sense.  The size 1 needles in bamboo are way too bendy for me, I am considering trying another type of needle in the future, but at this point, I have them in bamboo so I am using them.  I liked the look of the harmony needles at Knitpicks, but I wonder if they are bendy too.

I already have the second sknitches sock cast on, it only took me two tries to get the stripes to line up.

I hate having to frog back, it is so demoralizing, but these socks are totally worth it.  I completely get the idea of taking time to make something right, but every time I am forced to frog I can't help thinking about what a waste of good knitting it is. 

And finally, lest you think that I spend my days knitting only socks here is my top-down wrap cardigan.

I am finally finished with the increases and am just knitting the rest of the body for about 5 more inches, then it will be time for the sleeves.  I have a love-hate thing going on with this sweater.  I love it, I can't wait to wear it, but every row just takes FOREVER since every row is the total number of stitches to wrap around me.  And now that I have only about five more inches to go, it seems to go so slowly and the socks seem so much more enticing.

Mollie Made Me Do It

It was a very simple request to a friend.  Hold back information.  Don't tell me.  Keep me in the dark.

A yarn shop is going out of business and is having the usual mega-going out of business sale.  I've know about it for a while and visited them a couple of weeks ago when everything was 25% off . 

Hello, my name is Suzanne, I have no yarn hoarding issues but in case of a nuclear winter I will be warm and cozy in my studio. 

I decided that I didn't want to know when the store dropped the prices again and knowing this Mollie consciencously forwarded me the email that Leap Day was THE DAY.  Cruel, cruel Mollie.

That was torture.  I broke easily.

I found myself driving up to Doylestown on Friday with the Anti-Knitter in tow.

All of the women in the shop found the Anti-Knitter extremely charming.  He had them all fooled, although he did stay in his stroller without complaining for almost an hour.  Yes, I did bribe him with food, hot tea in a sippy cup and my cell phone.

I learned something very important - I am no different from most knitters in that I am completely powerless in the face of a complete store-wide 50% off sale, as evidenced by the number of knitters in the store while I was there.

Everything was 50% off.  Every single skein of really beautiful yarn, every book, every accessory, every pair of needles.  That slightly anxious feeling that you are feeling right now just thinking about the magnitude of the sale is completely normal.  It is what made me drive to the store on Friday.

I am working on a series of bags right now and picked up a lot of Grayson E handles.

The beautiful yarn in the shop?  I can still hear it calling to me.