burnt offering, maybe?

O Wild & Wooly Knitting Spirit,

I beseech thee, accept my humble apologies. I cannot make the offerings of my time as I give so willingly in colder weather. May it please you that my warm weather activities involve getting my tush off a seat and using my hands to do things that leave no room for pointy sticks? Verily I have sat and knitted all winter on Sunday mornings while drinking coffee. And many evenings while watching movies. And other times that you may have toted on your cosmic stitch counter (or do you forget to turn the little wheel every few rows, too?).

I have served up knitting happy hours to increase your minions. While snow fell, I have sacrificed the hours, nay, the days looking at yarn on ebay, reading knit blogs till my eyes crossed and my fingers began a Clapotis of their own will.

But now the sun warms us and my hands are holding kayak paddles, or bicycle handles, or weeds, or sculling water. The yarn grows gritty with beach sand. Though I try to knit in a wet bathing suit, it pleaseth neither of us. May it please you that accordingly, my body switcheth from bulky to sportweight? No, I thought you care not about that one.

Rewardeth my cool weather allegiance with knowledge of a good yarn sale now, so I may plan for a return, via luxurious wool purchase, to your flock of the faithful. And, as long as you're at it- send me one more blogline subscriber, so I can round subscribers up to 30 by my birthday this Friday. Lo the subscribers total is verily less than my years, but it'd sootheth my ego when looking at stats.

return from limbo

Limbo: the week between school ending & summer activities starting. I work - well, normally you'd call it that- out of a home office. Which means this week, I call it SURRENDER. We hit the road to hang out on the beach in Delaware, one of my favorite spots on earth. With some of my favorite people: my parents, a niece & nephew. Sun, sand, crashing waves and the annoying habits in close quarters cherished company of family.

I finished the back of my simple sleeveless tank, and am loving this yarn. That 1% stretch gives it a jellyfish-like quality, you can mush it into any shape without distorting it. And its soft and airy while looking nubbly. Here's the see-through view:
That nubbly quality made me worry that the cable up the front will look like a big vertical sneeze, but so far, a couple of twists in, its looking well defined. I'll show it next time.

I'd have knitted more on the beach but a tetherball pinky injury slowed me down. Remind me that I stink at all activities with the word "ball" in them, please! That didn't stymie me. I read a whole book one day. And we amuse ourselves endlessly together.

What did stymie me: my niece, seen here at solataire, watching me knit and saying "oh, I can see you wrapping that yarn around. I don't knit like that, I knit like Granma".

This stopped me cold. My mom is an amazing knitter. She's fast, she twitches her index finger like a bobbin, you barely see it move, over the needle points. When I was a kid I thought it was magic that knitted fabric appeared, like she was waving her finger as a wand. But many people do that. The truly amazing part is she knits ambidextrously, knitting across and purling back without turning the needles and knitting around. And not just in stockinette, in any stitch combo. Without looking. I have tried, and tried, but I can't do this. No matter how hard I stare. It makes the hair thats still inside my scalp tingle. I'm sure its good for your left-to-right brain but you try it.

And if you can do it, don't tell me. That goes double if you're good at beach tetherball.

how hot was it?

Too hot. We who live on the shore take pride in being cold at night well into July. We act humble about cool breezes while others sweat just a couple of miles away inland. We keep a poker face at discussions of central air conditioners or really efficient fans. We don't need such things. And we try not to brag about it.

Think again this week. It was hotter than all of last summer. It was too hot to eat. It was too hot to knit. That hot.

You couldn't have found a crankier bunch than in our sticky abode. Not even a breeze on the beach last night, till the cold came in and chilled us all back to (our version of) normal. In an amazing science discovery, I opened the bread drawer this morning and found a loaf so molded from the past days' heat & humidity that it was actually fermenting. It was generating heat. The whole drawer was 10 degrees warmer than the rest of the room. Eeeeuw. Can we lay off the fossil fuels and heat with bread mold? Grant money anyone?

In knitting news- or non-knitting news- Saturday was World KIP day. New Haven this time of year is one happenin' place.
I was on the Green for the big drumming events as part of the Arts & Ideas Festival, with plans to swing over to the Harborfest and then to visit the local KIP'ers a few blocks away. But between the dancing precision drum corps, the salsa dancers, the african djembes, those huge Japanese drums, and the costumes, we never saw a knitter.

green thing

What is it about this time of year? Just when the weather screams "Go to the beach!" I'm overloaded with stuff: meetings (professional, community, neighborhood...you name it, its having a meeting this week), jobs & end-of-school and general life goings-on. Knitting & gardening, well... not so much progress. Here at chez sheep shots this seasonal transition time is never easy.

In all this busy-ness I realized something. I will knit wherever, no second thoughts, in anonymous public. Since I travel to locations (mostly by car, for the day) for my work I often take the knitting bag along in case I get to my destination early, or end up at a lunch break in a restaurant alone. Strangers around? No problem. But I don't like to knit at meetings of groups I belong to, unless its a very small group & everyone knows me well. Its like some weird shyness seizes me.

So, lets just say if I got over this, I'd have logged enough knitting time recently to have made some real progress in my green cabled tank, which I'm shaping a little so it won't be baggy on me. But I haven't , so I didn't. Instead of the ribbon yarn the pattern calls for I'm using the Classic Elite Star which isn't all that appealing as a skein. Its 99% cotton and 1 % spandex. You'd be surprised how stretchy 1% makes it. It knits into a nice soft cottony boucle, like this:


Twice recently strangers have commented that they liked the color, both times telling me "Its the hot color this summer!" which I'm sure is a compliment. Instead they saw fear in my eyes when I made a grimace-y smile to thank them. Panic. I'm not that up on things! Too much fashion pressure!

Longfellow slept here?

Actually he didn't. But my in-law's house sits on Minnehaha Creek, which leads to Lake Nokomis and I can't help thinking of the Hiawatha poem when we're there. You can drive on Hiawatha to get to Nokomis, in your Winnebago. Wearing Cherokee jeans. I could go on.
I was there, in Minnesota, last weekend. I finished the clapotis in my first 10 minutes of knitting, and was glad to have it in the chill. My sister-in-law lavished such compliments on me -uh, I mean it- that I will make her one. I'd enjoy knitting another clapotis, everytime I got to a drop the stitches row I felt a tingle of entertainment that the knitting was performing for me, instead the other way around. The details:

• pattern: Clapotis designed by Kate Gilbert , who must be very very clever.
  
• yarn: ggh Safari, a mostly linen yarn, on size 5 needles.
  
• adaptations: The pattern repeats were increased in width and length by about 30% to have it come out close to the designed dimensions. Although it stretches........

I made a stop at Linden Hill Yarns in hip Minneapolis to get a new project underway for the rest of the visit and plane ride home. I was in town for a funeral, an unplanned trip. The owner, Jan, and the knitters-at-the-table were friendly and so very patient when the frazzled part of the weekend hijacked the decision lobe of my brain. I was struck dumb with indecision over which cottony yarn to buy for a tank top with cable.

The Rowan Calmer on the counter was all but paid for when I was seized by doubt - the pale tasteful lavendar might look gray in certain light and that wasn't what I wanted. I dithered around, deciding & undeciding. Just before I made us all insane, I noticed a table-knitter working with some Classic Elite Star. I'd overlooked this yarn, not imagining how it'd knit up.
I wasn't sure about the color until Jan told me it was called granny smith green. Clearly this marketing approach works on me: Named for a fruit I like? Why, sure I'll buy it! I've never knit with a 99% cotton 1% spandex before but the stretch is nice, and should cut down on the sag factor of the finished piece.

Next post, show & tell of the stretchy green apple yarn in progress. I'll leave you with some uptown Minneapolis color:

this, that & some sheep

First up the book swap : we have a go! The blogless Susanne will soon be cabling with Alice Starmore. In 4-7 days, I'm told. Her copy of Scarf Style is heading to my happy home. I recommend this swap thing. I gave a thought to Ann's suggestion that Starmore is a keeper for my library. Flipping through the harbor scenes and remembering all the times I'd considered knitting the fishermen's guernseys, and what yarn I'd considered........... Nah. Off it went.

Life has been getting in the way of my knitting. Which, truly, is better than the reverse. But, still. My Clapotis has maybe 20 minutes of knitting left to go on it. Sadly, it'll be making its debut at the funeral of someone I'm going to miss very much, my mother-in-law. I don't want to say more except, if you smoke? And you enjoy it even though you know its not good for you? And its really hard to quit so you put it off for the month, or the year, or the decade? Just quit now.




I've made valiant efforts to get yarn for a new project - something sleeveless and cottony- but the weirdly limited hours of yarn stores are thwarting me. (ooh, thwart, a candidate for the Nake-Id word list ) . I've been thwarted three times since Friday.
Hello - leisure time activity? Need to have the stores open more leisure time hours. Its a thought!

dyeing to share

Overheard, whispered frantically, unaware of me listening:

"Before you go in there - Mom's getting freaky! First, she buys kool-aid. Then she sticks wool in it. And now..she's cooking it. In.... the microwave!"

Yes, its true. I've never purchased kool-aid for drinking. Forcing them to drink natural fruit juice. The cruelty! The freakiness!

It was easy, it was fun , not messy at all, and smelled fruity. First, what was once a skein of Brown Sheep in a natural whitish with gray became this in Berry Blue. (its wet here, don't worry, it lightens up). A second skein failed to get discernibly green when dyed in Arctic Green Apple. The Arctic flavors, it turns out, are all opaque & frosty looking so maybe that's the problem. The second time around, in 2 parts Watermelon Kiwi and 1 part Berry Blue, a happy ending.


I'm now one toe away from the slippery slope of buying a bunch of natural wool on ebay , dyeing it and taking a table to the nearby Saturday morning farm market later this summer. I was telling this to my friend who, instead of saying how utterly ridiculous this would be, said hey, cool, I'll help. I told her she's an enabler.

Dyeing aside, I started to figure out that I wanted to knit with it. Maybe a scarf or shawl? I keep noticing scarves I like on other blogs from the Scarf Style book, which brings me to propose a

Book Swap

My copy of Alice Starmore's Fishermen's Knits is unloved. I bought it when I was on a guernsey/gansey kick years ago , then never found anything in it that called to me. I guess the three patterns I'd been fixated on at the time were enough. This has nice photos and much beautiful multiple cabling but I never could commit to a knit. True, it made me want to sail to the pub and share a pint with the fishermen but that's not the point, is it?

Wanna swap? Your copy of Scarf Style for my copy of Starmore's Fishermen's Knits. If you want to see some action from this book, take a gecko at Wendy's Inishmore Challenge, flying on her needles as we speak.

If you're interested, email me at ezisusATsnetDOTnet, and we'll exchange delivery addresses.

Please pass the word on this, I really like the two dozen of you friends who visit me but maybe you don't want to swap.....

project(ing)

Two whole weekend days ahead to get projects underway.
Here's a Sheep Shots Partial Project Picture.
I promise I won't keep aliterating but I might mis-use the word hank lower down. Just warning you.

The Brown Fleece you see is in one of four tin flower window boxes that are plunk in the middle of the living room, along with eight brackets. We've been tripping over them there since I didn't hang them last weekend. In one, the Brown Sheep natural that I'm thinking of dyeing.

Earlier, I was doing a photo favor for an artist friend. As she was watching me, I was whining to explaining to her about not having enough time for kool aid dyeing , I just couldn't rationalize it because the first step, of winding the skeins into big loops (hanks?) seemed too much given the to-do list. She's a friend who just loooves a project. She looked here, decided I should be dyeing whole sweaters (yes plural) worth of yarn next, and immediately unwound and hanked the first one for me. It made me unreasonably happy for the rest of the afternoon.

So I just need to get the photo work (at least 4 hours worth) promised out to Fed Ex, the window boxes hung & planted , the weeds pulled the social events attended and its Kool-Aid time for me. But first, off to yoga. Later!

an avatar & an omen

av·a·tar (v-tär)

n.

1. The incarnation of a Hindu deity, especially Vishnu, in human or animal form.

2. An embodiment, as of a quality or concept; an archetype:

3. A temporary manifestation or aspect of a continuing entity

Yeah, this is a good representation of me this week. Nothing too awful, just issues with work, not enough hours, and a teenaged son who's dicovering a social life. I scored a trifecta of things I don't like last Saturday: a trip to the mall (see: teenage son , above), playing outfield with a not-so-softball, and seeing a super-duper action film. eeeuw. Feh.

Being the optimist that I am, I'll look at the positives. I'm progressing on my Clapotis. I'm on the Enough Already With the Straight Repeats section. I'm sure you've been there. Close to decreasing to the end. Having come this far, I don't want to err on the skimpy side. She Shuns Short Shawls. So I keep on adding just one more full width repeat.

This frees me up to think whats next . Whatever it is, it'll use thicker yarn than the linen. Which doesn't split - gotta give it that. See? told you I'm positive.

I'm still pondering koolaid dye, while telling myself No, don't go there. Too many other projects going, none of which involve mounds of wet yarn to hang up at the end. But I've found samples, so I know what flavors to buy!

Yet still, at the chinese grocery, by the register, incongruously cozied up to candy jars filled with dried scallops & dried shrimp (are these a snack? I never see anyone buy them) and cryptic herbal supplements, is a little box of unsweetened koolaid packets. An omen, yes?

about the process

The indigo dyeing experience didn't go as planned but my yarn, now restored to its old non-slimey dry self, looks wonderful. Its not indigo, its not even a color I can name. It has a pearlescence, some sea colors, and some of the original yellow. I love it. All not-enough-to-make-anything-I-can-think-of 130 yards of it.

But here's the thing: I really enjoyed the process of watching it become what it is. I'm not ready to go mix me a batch of indigo but you may catch me in the Kool-Aid aisle of the local supermarket, I've got a couple skeins of old natural gray-ish Brown Sheep that could use new hues. Then I could make myself a long skinnier color block version of Wavy, as I did last year for a gift to sister Marla. (That link is to her website , not her modeling the Wavy but just take my word, its worth making).

This enjoying the process came into question the other night, too. I was knitting away after dinner with friends. That shlurping sound you hear? My Clapotis sucking in every yard of Safari in the state. Every week I call Yarn to hold yet another skein. Guess I might have figured that a project needing 600 yds of worsted weight on size 8 needles would need a whole lot more of skinny linen blend on size 5's. Duh! I won't bother with a photo, just picture it at 70% complete. So, anyway, I'm knitting on it, commenting that I'm never going to get this thing finished with such skinny yarn, and my friend says" Well, why would you want to finish?' I gave him a look and he says" But you enjoy knitting it so much, why would you want to come to the end of it?"

Hmmm. I'm still thinking.

Lastly , about this process thing. Now that its spring, I've resumed an old favorite morning hike. We keep finding these cairns at a particular point in the trail. Its a well-used trail, its not like anyone needs to remember their way. Its got to be for the joy of piling stones.

alternatively titled edition

/Welcome to She Shleps to Sheep Show

It was a chilly rainy Saturday. I stuck to my plans to attend the CT Sheep & Wool Festival, despite the weather and the last minute addition of two sons to the traveling party. By noon my sister and I were in Tolland CT watching a a soggy sheepdog trial. We conceded this wasn't going to be the spring outing we'd imagined, and headed for the barns, soaked boys in tow.

Ok, I'll get this out now. Spinning doesn't do anything for me. Not literally, I mean, it creates yarn for me to knit. But as an activity? Nah. As a spectator sport? Even less. I liked looking at all the spinners' bright handknit socks as they pumped away.

I loved this indigo demo, by Meg Grossman, who teaches classes in natural dyes but alas has no web presence. Here's what most of the dyed pieces looked like drying.
Indigo is a plant based dye that's curiously yellow in dilution but turns blue when oxygen interacts with the dyed surface. I can hear all the scientist knitbloggers shaking their heads at this inept description so settle for You can see this white wool yarn thats been soaking for ten minutes turn indigo blue magically, as it hits the air. Right before your eye! It keeps changing as it dries and settles.

a visual :
I'd followed the invitation to bring yarn to throw in her dyepot, surrendering a skein of Brown Sheep worsted in light yellow that I've had around for ages. Meg is so kind, she acted enthused about what shade I might end up with, and helped me tie parts with string to create some space dying. Really, the woman had been standing there demo'ing in the damp for hours and she still got excited with us. 

Even my sons got into it, and they'd already hit the eyeball rolling stage of the day. After ten minutes in the dye pot, Meg noticed the yarn was behaving badly, getting slimey. She fished it out and put it in a vinegar dilution to regain its acidity, saying something must have coated the yarn or been in it , and exactly how old is it anyway? I had to use fingers and toes to calculate so you know, maybe there was just a bit of accumulated dust & oil messing up my dye job. I took it home , its drying in a big spaghetti-like half-dyed mess now. I'll show it in a future entry if it survives.

What else turned my head? Some funky goat yarns but I can't imagine what I'd do with them, some baby alpaca worsted that I hope I remember. I like to buy only when I have an immediate project in mind. Weird, huh? Here's what I almost bought, I loved her needle cases and her website doesn't do 'em justice. The vintage-y looking upholstery fabric and unusual buttons are just what I've been wishing for. I made loud Mothers Day hints.

As we were leaving, I think I spied a group of New Haven SnB'ers but my sons had really had enough, so out we boogied. Baa-bye!

my own private maryland

Last week we made the long drive to Maryland. Too early for the big sheep & wool shindig, right on time to celebrate Passover with my family. A good non-leavened time was had by all. Lest you think we're deprived by dietary restrictions this week, dessert Saturday night:


The drive down was late night, giving me me hours to knit by the light of the passenger reading bulb. Normally I'd do a lot of the driving but when I muttered something like "I really need new glasses, I can't see a friggin' thing on this highway", it gave Dave the jolt he needed to keep awake at the wheel.
Much has been said of Clapotis and I'll add this - ideal car knitting. No measurements to be made, a repeat easy enough to memorize without looking at quease-inducing charts. Mesmerizing, really.
Around midnight, I started obsessing. I went from concerns of knitting a combat fatigue colored shawl to the fact that this yarn is skinny with no fuzz, and I'm knitting on size 5us needles. Maybe my fabric is too stiff? And my gauge is smaller than the pattern - will I have a small, tight, stiff, linen army scarf ? Will it take me forever to finish something I hate? I thought of that roadside commuter billboard 'If you were knitting worsted, you'd be finishing by now".

After about 100 miles of trying to do mental gauge-adjusting math, I just figured I'd do a few extra repeats of the increases.The next morning it looked like this.

And after the drive home, it looked like this

Worries be gone. The extra increases gave me dimension. The dropped stitches gave me drape and brought back the colors I liked in the first place. Switching to aluminum needles made this Safari linen so much easier to knit than the grabby plastic I started on. Placing it next to beach glass and rocks - well, thats just a cheap trick to think nature instead of military. I'll have to carry them with me whenever I wear it.

end & begin

Its not just the 2 way zipper that I love about my finished Ribby Cardi. It fits just right. Thanks to using the medium/large size number of stitches but the smallest size lengths, I was able to hit my oxymoronic large (12-14) petite size. yee ha! It looks better on, than hanging in a tree.
For the record, my stats:

• design - Ribby Cardi by Chicknits genius Bonne Marie Burns
• yarn - Cascade 220, 2 skeins for sleeves & collar and 3 skeins for body, with decent amount to spare for future accent use. Very economical.
• needles- knitting it all on size 5 us needles came close to gauge. I knit loosely.
• a side story - I love knitting with this yarn but it stinks when wet. I mean stinks, not that lovely sheepy wet wool smell. When it was blocking, first we all thought there was an especially odoriferous low tide. When a member of the household discovered it was the wrong time for that, hearty accusations of gastric distress followed. I'm being polite here, you know what we said. Then I sniffed out my drying Cardi.

The sporty stripes went to my head . Early this morning I agreed with my 11 year old son that we should ride bikes to the center of town for breakfast. The new sweater held up fine on the 10+ mile roundtrip. Me, on the other hand - lets say one major uphill got steeper and longer since last fall.

Back home I immediately cast on. I have this thing that when I finish knitting a project, I like to start a new one as soon as I can. Don't make that finger in a circle next to your head gesture at me. My friend Nancy is a psych nurse, she asserts we all have a little OCD . That's mine. OK, and maybe that thing about keeping my purse off the floor.

I am pleased that the GGH Safari mostly-linen yarn softens as you work it but alarmed that if you squint, my nice blend of greens, chartreuse and gray seem to be good ol' army camouflage as a fabric. This is freaking me out a little. I'm going to give it a few more inches before I get truly disturbed.

What am I making ? I found this pattern online for a scarfy-shawl thing with dropped stitches and an odd French name. I wonder if anyone has already knit it........

little things

Work is busy enough for two people. This is positive - I like what I do, and I like getting paid. I feel good buzzing around even if it'll be twelve straight days before I take a whole one off. That pretty much sums up freelancing. Part of my cheerful buzz (aside from the coffee) is the little things.

Witness these supermarket cheapies,
they've stayed alive for 2 weeks - and, notice whats going on? That's sun coming in on them. Spring light!
Then, I discovered bloglines. Yeah, I know I should have known about it already. I no longer need to randomly click on blogs, just to end up to re-reading old posts.

Next, there's this almost complete, mostly seamed Cardi. It is designed so nicely that even though I generally suck at finishing neatly, and even though I'm sewing on this after 11 pm or around 6 am (not my optimum hours of operation), it is coming together beautifully. These are the arm/shoulder seams, with some sleeve flopped in. And there's the friendly folks at zipperstop, who have sent my way a custom length, burnt orange zipper that opens on both ends, for a very reasonable price, to sew into my satisyingly seamed sweater.

Lastly, this programming bauble. I mean, how poetic is this - thanks to my work, I have literally hundreds of photos online and in my computer but this is the one it selects for me.

lost in translation

My new yarn.

Here's what their website from Germany says:

Linen in a knit does not fill out and is thus ideally suited for fashionable escapades with air between the stitches. Worked with one, two or even three threads, they always give rise to intriguing patterns. A tremendous challenge for every fashionable knitter with ambition.

Escapades? Fashionable? Wow. I hope I can live up to it.

bear with us, again

It was another Knitting Happy Hour here on Sunday


and we were back to work on the wine and chips knitting for The Mother Bear Project

I highly recommend the combination of friends, wine, snacks, and knitting for a good cause. < True, this mixture is likely to slow down your knitting progress. If you're us, I mean, and you like to talk and laugh. A lot.

Nevertheless we have legs
>

We have face


and ear shaping


Finally tally, four bears finished, a dozen more almost there, unanimous agreement this is worth doing again in May. Stay tuned.

Disclaimer: I'm really not a teddy bear kind of person, but there's something about these that fascinate me. They take on personality. One minute they're a floppy strip of knitting with yarn ends all over, the next you're thinking about what mood the little guys are in. (or maybe its the refreshments?). You may have to knit one yourself to see.

ta da

The answer to the last post: my entry in the

The Eli Whitney Museum celebrates inventing and creativity and looking at the world in a different way. Its really a very cool place - part museum, part crazy workshop. The challenge was to make the pencil the object, not the servant, of your art.

There's an exhibit, and a party with silent auction of the artwork to benefit the museum. If all goes as normal, I'll get very very nervous right before it, imagining people walking by my piece saying" eeew, how stuuupid! why'd she do that?".

Don't know if I met the challenge but I enjoyed the process. Oh, by the way? Its really hard to knit on pencils!

ps . If you can think of a good title for this 28" tall piece, tell me quick! I need to deliver it tomorrow and so far its "untitled".

glad you're asking

Why am I doing this?

And what does it have to do with Leonardo Da Vinci ?

I'll explain in a couple of days. (and its not an April Fools).

birdbrained

With my RibbyCardi sleeves on their last few inches, I see rigorous blocking ahead. I usually wait till I've got the whole sweater finished & sewn, then do a light block. But look at this, if my arms were Olive Oyl's, or, say, the size of your average banana, I'd be fine.

I'm trying to be all zen about having to wait out the blocked pieces drying, and appreciate the process. But really? I want something new on the needles. I've been ogling yarn online. I was in the mood for a real yarn store. I figured I'd head out with my boys in the afternoon , and work a yarn shop into the day.

I know better than to tell 11 & 14 year old guys that's what the day holds.

I had a Plan.
It started with outdoor activity, y'know, for getting out ya-ya's.

Then the Plan kicked in. Admire my brilliance if you can.


1. Feeding - we go eat at a cafe that just happens to be located on the same block as a yarn store and an exotic bird store. A subdivision of Feeding is Bribery, and this cafe just happens to sell old-fashioned candy like those multicolored buttons on paper. I will sink this low to insure myself some time undisturbed in the yarn store. Check, lunches eaten, candy puchased, all goes flawlessly. I am thinking I have a good hour ahead in the yarn store. Undisturbed.
   


2. Diversion- we are suckers for animals. The guys run into the bird store, I head for the yarn store. Its more crowded than I'd hoped. I spend 10 minutes looking over the sale stuff, and have just settled in front of a wall of unaffordable but beautiful Mountain Colors and Collinette. I can finally see true-life hues, on touchable fibers, not the monitor version.........and then I hear it. Commotion by the front of the store. I try not to look. "Mom, Mom, Ma, you gotta come " - they're jostling each other and the cluster of knitters by the table. They get louder. By now everyone is swiveling their heads around to find the parent of these hoodlums disturbing the knitterly peace. "You gotta come, they're GIVING AWAY DOVES" . I reply in my best knitting store whisper " No! no more pets, especially not doves." Which only makes them repeat louder. By now one of the store owners has joined us , eyeing the 11 year old's hand clenching a strip of candy buttons in a sticky looking way. "No really Mom, you gotta see them, they're FREE, we'll take care of them, C'MON you have to come, DOVES...FOR FREE!"

Next door, I find this weird training session going on. We go home. No yarn.
Also, no doves.

dimanche is for strolling

I'm back from Montreal to testify that, should you ever need a destination for a long walk in the Plateau Mont Royal neighborhood, the yarn store Magasin de Fibre LB is your choice. Just don't do it on Sunday. Or else, like me, you'll be standing with your nose pressed against the window, wondering why its the only shop on the block with no hours listed next to the word dimanche.

Honestly? I was relieved . This place sells yarn by the pound. You choose your fibers and colors, and they ply it right there. Just for you. Imagine the possibilities! But looking at the hundreds of cones on shelves- and I mean hundreds- I realized the combined effort of translating the only-in-french words, and the meters-to -yards, and the $CD to $USD all while making a color/fiber/plying decision would cause my brain to explode, splattering all the lovely fibres and causing an international KNITTING RELATED INCIDENT.

Instead we reversed our stroll and had a springtime sidewalk Montreal treat: sugar on snow. The propietor ladles hot maple syrup on ice and as it turns to taffy , you roll it up as a strip onto your stick. mmm-hmmm.



Anyway, I really didn't need any yarn, because Mason-Dixon Ann has got me fixated on this cotton Blue Heron yarn, in Old Gold,

as my next purchase, when I am ready to take the Clapotis shawl onto my needles for spring.