into thin air

Literally. Eight days roadtripping from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Alamosa, Colorado & back, off the main roads. Multigenerational style. It was Roadside Attractions meets the Outdoor Southwest Experience, with enchiladas liberally applied along the way.

Tinkertown, New Mexico. Pure genius.

Alas not much in the way of yarn. I had this idea I'd run into little hidden yarn shops or ranches that sold local wool. I could have. But first, here's my posse: Do they look like they should be allowed near merino or hand painted wool of any weight?

close encounters of the fiber kind, part 1


Found in tiny Madrid NM.

While waitng for a sandwich at this cafe, I stuck my head into the Tapestry Gallery , in an old rail car from the Santa Fe line. Madrid is that kind of place. Inside, a nook of locally produced wool & yarns from Karakul sheep, dyed beautiful shades. One of the sons stuck his head in and yelled " Mom found yarn? Noooooooo."

It being the first full day of the trip and me being my delusional self, I felt sure that I'd a) remember the name & info from the woman who made the yarn because I read the label, like, twice and b) I'd be having lots of moments like this on the way and didn't want to spend all my fiber indulgence funds upfront. Can we blame the lack of oxygen at the elevation?

The sandwich was awesome, though.

So was this place, Bandelier National Park.

The journey, the lack of oxygen & the close encounters continue, next post.... for now I must get back to work, here at sea level.

all in a day's work

Some days are weirder than others, I tell you.

I've been working on a tourism gig, shooting assignments at locations to lure visitors to our state, showing people carefree and happy- while, of course, looking attractive in a real life kind of way. Can you tell how tough a gig this is for my subjects ? Yesterday was at an old-fashioned family run amusement park. It was charming, and nostalgic and a loooong day. We did rides, waterpark, arcade, 4 clothing changes and since I'd recruited sons & friends as models, there was some -uh- - human resources management . ("yes! You have to do the roller coaster. Again! I need bodies in those cars..and try to keep your eyes open!") And a little creepy - think of coming nose to nose with this as a toddler. Clown-phobia?

When I got home, I found our pet russian tortoise still ailing. The treatment recommended : a daily bath in tomato paste. I'm the only family member up for this project. We feel terribly guilty, this pet is supposed to live over 100 years and here we are knocking him off after only 15 or so. We ended up with him as a fluke but still, I hate to have a dead exotic reptile on my watch.

In knitting news, I was waiting for 15 minutes in public and pulled out my shrug in progress. A stranger commented"ooh, you must be a saint, knitting with such skinny yarn". Having been a Nice Jewish Girl all my life, I didn't know what to say. I'm pretty sure I'm not a sainthood nominee, but let's say IF I was, shouldn't it be for something better than merino fingering weight yarn?

buy more, whine less

...in which we discuss, yet again, the downside of not buying enough yarn for a project and what happens later.......

We can really keep this to a show & tell, I think. The show:

The tell: This is the arm of a shrug I'm knitting out of the softest, most wonderfully colored Cherry Tree Hill Farm supersock merino. The colorway is Wild Cherry. Both balls.
One is from the initial purchase, the other from a second source, different dye lot. I'd like to have a good reason that I didn't buy enough in the first place. But then, I didn't care about the dye lot issue because I thought I was making a Kiri shawl and figured it'd just have a darker coordinating outer edge.

The Kiri and I parted ways over incompatible social habits . I like to talk, she wants silence and undivided attention. So needy, that shawl.

So I started a shrug. I decided to change the yarn ball at a spot I designated the elbow, making it a 3/4 length sleeve. Until a jury of extended family decreed that the shrugee (my sister) would really like it better full length, flaunting the flared ribbing over her hand base. Did they care that this ruined my attempt to make the color change in a way that made design sense, or that it added 5 extra inches of knitting to my plan for each sleeve? Naw.

I hope that adding a matching color-morphing sleeve and a back, along with some coordinating ribbon woven through the eyelets that you can't quite see on each wrist, will somehow pull this together.

And if not, let's just be thankful that I'm not a perfectionist and this sister has the delightful habit of loving and appreciating all handmade gifts, especially those that are quirky in some way.

I'd have knit more this week but considering where I was and some of the company I was in, can you blame me?

the 20¢ solution

A brilliant suggestion by Jessica at Zarzuela solved my not-enough-yarn-to sew-up problem. Embroidery thread ! It comes in gazillion colors and best of all: 20¢. Who knew that anything cost 20¢ anymore?

I have to show the buttons, too:

The stats:
A 3-6 month size (really. I know it looks large. Lets just say she'll enjoy it for a long part of her babyhood) for a neighbor baby who'll be popping out any day.
pattern: a hoodless Daisy baby cardigan
yarn: Jaeger Baby Merino superwash. Love it.

Next up: I'm using the no-longer-a-Kiri yarn to make a funkier version of the Shimmer shrug for an end of August gift. I'm going to make it less elegant and more artsy.I hope my sister will appreciate this assessment of her shrugly needs. I'm shortening the sleeves, and foregoing the lozenge pattern on back - yeah, already learned my lesson about this variegated yarn and a lace pattern. I'm thinking maybe a row or two of a honeycomb stitch just to open it up a little. I've got about an inch of one sleeve going, but a nice car trip to the beach in Delaware this week should help.