7.15.2007

A New Knitter is Born

The trip to Heritage Spinning and Weaving was a resounding success. My small friend the Fabulous Miss H. (not so small anymore, she's 11) and her mom (still a non-knitter) took the ride up there with me. H. has been asking me if I'd teach her to knit for a couple of years, but we live so far apart that it never seemed practical. She has become quite the little Googler these days, so I'm confident we can find online sources together if she gets stuck.
She picked out 2 colors of Lamb's Pride Bulky, a pale pink and a magenta, to make the hat that HSW teaches in their beginning knitting class. It's knit flat and sewn, but demonstrates garter, stockinette, ribbing and decreasing while producing something functional at the end. She's quite pleased. I demonstrated the long-tail cast on to her and she picked it right up. Then, we learned the knit stitch, so she is working on many rows of garter stitch until the next time we meet. She is knitting slowly and carefully and it is working out well.
For myself, I found some issues of KnitScene that I'd been searching for and Interweave Felt which isn't supposedly available until Tuesday. I also jumped on the SoySilk Tofutsies bandwagon. I got 2 skeins, one in lime/white and one in raspberry/white.

I was also able to make some progress on my latest Monkey sock while supervising the fabulous Miss H.


All in all, a successful trip.

7.14.2007

I'm In!

Woo Hoo! Thursday evening, I got my invite to Ravelry. How exciting is that?? Jess and Casey really have a great vision with this community. It's still in the beta stages, but they are still accepting volunteers. I don't remember how long ago I registered--maybe a month? If you see me over there, 'friend' me! I've been slowly adding information to my stash, my queue, my library and my patterns. What a wonderful resource this will be after I finally get all of my info entered. That, or I'll scare the crap out of myself when I see the actual size of my stash.
Today I'm off to Heritage Spinning and Weaving in Lake Orion, MI. What started out as a spinning and weaving store has morphed into a very cool yarn store as well. Joan and her staff are some of the nicest people; I'm just sad that they're so far away. About an hour and a half from here, but I have a birthday coupon burning a hole in my checkbook and I get to visit with a good friend who lives on that side of town. I'll try to post pictures of the loot! ;)