Crazy Busy Day

But I wanted to post photos of the YOTH (Yarn On The House) yarn that I bought at the Eastside Knitters Guild meeting last night.

I woke up, or rather was woken by the phone at 7 am.  I was called in to substitute for the Spanish teacher at Skeinherder's school.  By the time I had showered, eaten some yogurt, and headed out through a surprising amount of morning traffic (though I didn't need to take the freeway to this school), I was 15 minutes late.  Ugh!  but I can only go when they call, if they call me late, I can't get to the school on time.

I supervised (I can't really say I taught) a Spanish 1A class.  I have never taken Spanish, but, since I grew up in So. California, I know a bit.  Ha ha ha and if I get stuck, I just switch to French.

After the first class, I had a 3 hour break.  I went to the cafeteria, and with 3 cups of coffee, I spent the rest of the morning knitting a sweater for my soon-to-be new great-niece.

Then I taught 2 more beginning Spanish classes, and one advanced class.  The students were great, and I discovered that I actually know more Spanish than I thought.

I rushed home to take photos of the YOTH yarn for the blog, ate an early dinner, and headed out to BC to tutor two new students.  I didn't finish that until 9 pm.  Wow, it is almost 1 am, and I am so tired.

But back to the YOTH yarn.  I bought the fingering weight since I hope to make socks from one of the skeins.

I haven't knit any socks for Doc this year, and he does love hand knit socks.  I thought this beautiful dark gray would make a lovely pair for him.

The other skein of fingering I bought is a greenish gray.  I plan to donate this to Gryffindor for the HPKCHC.  This yarn can only be bought at Tolt, so this rare yarn would make a nice prize.

I wish I had knitted my stash down more, because I wanted to buy some of the Big Sister yarn, too.  Big Sister is a Sport Weight yarn.  Oh well, if I am good, maybe I can buy more this summer... or on the North Puget Sound Yarn Crawl.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with 80% merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon

Imperial Yarn, The Olympic Sweater, and Tolt Yarn and Wool

Hello:

I had such a great day today.  I picked up Skeinherder at about 9:30 this morning, there was just a bit of snow falling mixed with the drizzling rain on the Plateau, and we headed east to Tolt Yarn and Wool in Carnation, WA.  Skeinherder is about half way there for me, so it was a quick drive up the hill and through the woods  and across a river (ha ha ha first, I had to drive around a lake to get to Skeinherder's house).

When we arrived at the yarn shop, it was not crowded, probably because it was about 10 am.  We were able to find street parking right across from the shop.

We wanted to get there early to shop while things were quiet.  We had plans to meet up with BlueBerryMary, Puzan, and JitteryKnitter for lunch at the mexican restaurant nearby, and then listen to the Imperial Yarn presentation at 2 pm. 

There was a "yarn tasting" table set up with the different weights of Imperial Yarn.

They have a lovely light sport weight that tempted me, but I ended up buying 2 skeins of their worsted weight.  They also have great pattern support.  I don't have photos of the patterns, but there was a sweater everyone was gaga over, and another poncho that was gorgeous. 

Tolt has a nice amount of Imperial Yarn regularly in their store in quite a few colors,

They had extra for the event, and were offering 10% off.

They had 3 drawings for yarn and a pattern, and then a Big Drawing at the end for a sweater's worth of yarn. 

We left before the last drawing, so I am keeping my fingers crossed!! 

We had a nice lunch and came back to find the store quite a bit more crowded.

We snagged chairs near the screen, and began to knit while we waited for the talk to begin.  I brought the Eastside Hat that I am test knitting for VanesaPolo.  And, just in time! people gathered in the back of this lovely store to hear Jeanne Carver tell us about the ranch, the wool, the yarn, and the Olympic Sweater.  It was a full crowd.

The slide show was stunning.  Jeanne speaks eloquently about their commitment to the land, the animals and sustainability.  She talked about salmon streams, and no-tilt farming, and what has happened to wool production in the United States.  I can not tell you how inspiring this was.  She played the video the Ralph Lauren company produced about the making of the Sweater. 

Then she brought out the sweater knit with yarn made from wool from her ranch in Oregon, spun at Kraemer Yarns in Pennsylvania, dyed at Longview Yarns in North Carolina, and sewn at Ball of Cotton in California.

Whatever you might think about the sweater's design, it has helped to shine a light on the fact that there IS a yarn industry in the United States.  The yarn is wonderful.  And we should do what we can to support and encourage more yarn production right here at home.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with Imperial Yarn.

Power Outage Postpones Post

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Well, last night 4 of us die hard Eastside Stitchers showed up at Crossroads for a bit of fiber fun before the Thanksgiving craziness started.  While were were stitching, I got a text from one of my neighbors asking me how long the power had been out.  WHAT?  I texted the Doc, and he said we still had power.  When I got home, after Crossroads closed at 9, I saw that our power was still on, but the rest of our street was OUT!  ha ha ha ha  The power grid in our neighborhood is so weird.  Although we still had power, our cable was out, so no internet.  Then, about 11:00 pm, our power went out, too.  It was back on when I woke up, and the clocks were all behind about 2 hours.  So, I assume it came back on at about 2 am.  Anyway, who actually showed up to knit on Wednesday, and what were they knitting?

CathieC brought her MacArthur Park Poncho.  She has finished swatching and has started the actual poncho.

Skeinherder brought her stocking ornaments (here is a slightly blurry photo)

Skeinherder also brought her newest project, a lovely cowl  (sorry, I forget the name).  She bought the pattern and yarn at Tolt Yarn and Wool last Sunday, and cast on immediately... all 400 provisional crocheted stitches!

Wireknitter brought an Entrelac Cap she was knitting in a beautiful variegated yarn.

She also brought her beautiful Windward.  Wireknitter decided to add a bit of a border to lessen the stockinette rolling, and has some ends to weave in.  Stitch Night is a perfect place for weaving in.  All the chat keeps your mind off how boring it is.

I brought the last two rows of my newest afghan, the one I am making for my OWL in HPKCHC.  I didn't take photos of my own work, but as I hope to have it all finished tomorrow, I will try to post some photos of the whole thing then.

Hope all of you had a wonderful day today.  We ate too much, then went to the movies (at Crossroads, of course!) to see Catching Fire.  It was even better than The Hunger Games.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with two kinds of pie.