In a few short hours, I'm hopping a plane to Boulder (well, Denver, then hopping a bus to Boulder, if we're quibbling), where I'll meet up with Kristi for Friday's six hour roadtrip to Taos (note to all of you - say a prayer for Kristi tomorrow and thank some deity that you're not her, because I can get a leeeettle wacky when confined to a small space for many hours. There are frequently showtunes involved.)
The parallel obligatory shop news: Obviously, the shop won't be shipping until I get back (Wednesday). Trust me, you wouldn't want Travis packing up your order - it'd have peanut butter and jelly stains on it. (My husband does not do well fending for himself in the kitchen. It's not that he can't cook - he just doesn't want to.)
Taos Woolgoers: Find me, I have stuff to give away. I'll be wearing a white t-shirt with my shop logo on it. No, seriously. A homemade self-promotion t-shirt. Hot. Want to hear the best part? Unless she balks (and that would be okay too because who would blame her?) Kristi will be wearing one too. So yeah, say a prayer for her on Saturday as well. Poor kid. She's going to regret (n)ever talking to me on the phone.
There's going to be a lot of food and sunsets. I love Taos. I LOVE it.
I've knit! I have so far accomplished two pair of socks and one hat, and I've started a pair of Noro Silk Garden sock yarn socks. I'm doing them largely out of curiosity - everyone loves the yarn even though it, by all accounts, pretty much sucks, by usual standards. (Among other complaints, I've heard scratchy, twisty, tangly, and knotty.) So far I'm okay with the stuff - you do have to knit it right on top of the ball though - pull out more than a foot of yarn and you're on the one-way express to Tanglewood.
I also have two new patterns which are, for now, exclusive only to certain club members. I'll just wait until they're released to the public to post photos and that whole thing here, though. (If you're really dying of curiousity, they're in my Ravelry designer profile.)
And the latest batch of yarn should be arriving at Loopy headquarters any day now. It's my cashmere blend sportweight, and (this sounds obnoxious but here goes because obnoxious is okay as long as you acknowledge it first) I'm REALLY happy with the dyework this time around. I wasn't entirely sure I was happy with the first run I did - some of the colors were too close to solid (rather than shaded solid) for my liking, as I was adjusting to dyeing more skeins at a time than I was used to. I'm getting much more adept at that, and it's definitely smoothing out, as I get the results I'm actually going for. That's a nice thing as an artist, to kind of know what you're doing....
Back to the knitting....there's all this "I have FOs!" rambling I keep doing, with no pictures. I'll show you one of them - I love it! I finished my Habitat hat:
Things I love:
The pattern is amazing
The yarn is amazing
The softness is delicious
Things I'm not so sure about:
The fit. My gauge was iffy, and I made the small, but it's still crazy long - like, it bunches up at the base of my neck, and also resembles a chemo cap. Which, when combined with my freshly shorn hair (not pictured, and oh yeah by the way I cut all my hair off) REALLY resembles a chemo cap when worn. Not that I'm all "Ew, I don't want to look like that!" - if you've experienced this you know - like, you kind of get that eye from people when you wear a hat with your hair tucked up in it, that "Oh no, it must be so awful to....or wait, maybe she's just got her hair tucked up? Am I looking at her like I feel sorry for her? I've been staring for like 30 seconds now - oh crap, look away!" I see that thought process sometimes when I wear long knit hats with my short hair. All this is to basically make the point that when I block this hat (which I'm sure I'll do someday) I'm going to full it just a tiny bit to get it to shrink up and in.
The Pattern:
Jared's Habitat
The Yarn:
My own handspun cormo/angora blend. (To those with allergies: do not touch my head!! Actually, to pretty much anybody: do not touch my head. It's a little weird to go around touching peoples' heads. And it makes you look strange to passersby.) I picked up this fiber at last year's SAFF and it's absolute heaven, smooshy and squishy and soft.
Definitely my favorite hat.
Have a good however-long-it-is-before-I-post-again!!
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