Today I am in San Francisco, and it is AMAZING. I would say that even if I hadn't been to Artfibers, which rocked unbelievably. Sadly, I have only seen non-yarn humans since being there, and haven't been able to convey the utter joy. But you all know! It was SO GREAT. They have a "yarn-tasting lounge" where you can knit up swatches of anything you like. *sigh*

Pictures of yarn TK.

Katje asked what I'd been knitting on Percocet, so I thought I'd post a picture:

It's been *so wonderful* today to lie on the couch and knit. I'm not sure when I've enjoying knitting more! Of course, everything today has been like that. I had the best hot shower I've ever had, and the best cup of coffee, and the best kiss from my husband -- it's been a superlative day all around.

I guess the trick is to have every day feel this way, but *without* having a kidney stone and two nights in the hospital first. I'll work on that!

His spring 2007 presentation was a haunting 30-minute film by the artist Anthony Goicolea, called “The Septembrists.” It was set in some bizarre, rural tailoring-fetish commune, like a blend of an Amish community and a military academy. In a series of vignettes, a dormitory full of young men arise, pick their own cotton to make and sew clothes, go octopus fishing at night to extract the inky dye, and perform ritual baptisms — all the while scrupulously dressed to the nines in tailored gauze and broadcloth.

I want to watch.

Actually, maybe I should see if that video's on the web somewhere, duh!

Because I have one! A loom!

On the Spinners and Weavers Housecleaning Pages, I saw an ad for a 22" Harrisville floor loom for *$250*. That is stupid cheap. And the weaver selling it was on Long Island.

It only took a *month* for us to work out a plan for me to get out there and pick it up. {snerk} I finally signed up with Zipcar, and Francis and I took a drive.

It was a lovely day for it; I loooooove driving, so felt especialy bouncy about getting on the road. And I had DJ Francis along--what's not to like? Coming back we saw a phenomenal sunset:

We were a little stressed on the return trip, since Francis had to be somewhere at 7:30. But we made it to the studio, and when the freight elevator turned out to NOT be running? What did Francis do? HE CARRIED THE LOOM UP THREE FLIGHTS OF STAIRS.

I knew that boy was a keeper.

Updates on weaving progress TK.

Here's the evidence:

I'm really very pleased with it. Mary helped with the design; I had known I wanted to use the green and the black wool on the black silk, but it looked a little Muppet-y when I laid that out. It was her idea to add the light yellow and the tiny amount of electric blue, and those really make the piece. It turned out much nicer than it was when I first conceived it!

If anyone in the city needs an acupuncturist, be sure to let me know. She rocks beyond all belief.

I've been doing a lot of posting over at Miles of Yarn, so if you've been wanting to hear what's going on with me, the action is all over there.

But I have been doing a tiny bit of crafting. I thought I'd show off the latest thing I made, a t-shirt to wear to yoga class (and just around):

The design was made with bleach pen, following an outline on the shirt. Next time I might use a stencil, although following an outline did work pretty well. I'm pleased with the effect.

I've also cut and recolored my hair since the last time I posted a picture around these parts! I'm liking the pink.

Soon: New glasses.

I've been sewing lots, though, doing t-shirt surgery and making skirts and learning how to use a serger. Just seems like I'm not so yarn-y lately.

I just bought Adele P. Margolis's terrific-looking sewing guide, The Dressmaking Book, which was published in 1967. Here's the fantastic back-cover copy, which I can only hope she wasn't responsible for:

What woman has not yearned to make herself as attractive as possible? What woman has not sought some means of expressing her creative talents? What woman doesn't love to feel she has made a great saving on some item, be it fur coat or bargain basement trinket? Where but in home sewing can she achieve all three--beauty, creativity, frugality?

Ah, the past. I raise a glass to the thought of my achieving these virtues by reading this book!

This year, we discovered that five years of constant wear has taken its toll on the scarf. There might even have been some moth-depradation involved, too. But there are a few tiny holes in the scarf, and looked at dispassionately, it's starting to look kind of beaten-up. So I've been looking for a yarn with which to make a replacement scarf. Recently I found the perfect thing!

yarnmarket.com sells Cherry Tree Hill merino boucle that is incredibly gorgeous. Here's the color I picked, peacock.

I don't have a digital camera with me at the moment, but I'm several inches into the scarf, and I'm really enjoying the yarn. It's nubbly and cozy and fun. I learned something from the former scarf, too: the last scarf was made in seed stitch, because I wanted the fabric to seem plusher. In fact, though, it was impossible to tell that I'd knitted it in seed stitch, and it was a terrible pain in the butt. This scarf I'm knitting in garter stitch.

I've been buying lots of fabric at Fabric Mart. They are the best! They ship right away, and they've got terrific prices. I'm nearly as in love with them as Paron (and Paron Annex) in Manhattan.

Erin over at Dress a Day has been posting fabulous stuff -- if you sew and like vintage, you should check her out.

I've got a late nights at the copy desk this week, so it'll be a bit before I can make up any muslins, but I'm very excited to get tracing and cutting and sewing.

One particular thing I've got to get better about is having travel knitting ready to go. I had gotten used to doing most of my knitting in a fixed location, and so it didn't really matter if projects were portable. What I'm finding now is that I most often want to knit on the subway, so it makes a big difference to my eventual output if I have travel projects available. My hat was knitted relatively quickly, and just recently I knocked out a baby hat in two days (though it still needs its details added on -- it's the Little Devil Hat from Kittyville.

I've finally started reading knitting blogs and knitting magazines again, and the urge to start new projects is growing strong. I love seeing what everyone else is up to! I even have some spinning projects in mind (for eventual knitting).

I went with a couple of projects in mind, and actually came away with yarn for them. I'd like to make myself a fall/winter sweater that will get lots of wear (which means that it needs to go with much of my wardrobe). This made thinking about yarn choices tricky. I needed the yarn to be durable, and somewhat neutral. On the other hand, I wanted it to be soft enough and interesting enough that I'd actually want to knit an entire Rose-sized sweater out of it. Francis pointed out that a whole sweater in gray or black would probably not get finished. I found a pattern I really liked in the Green Mountain Spinnery book, for the Wildflower Sweater (I'll check the exact pattern name when I get home); it's a cropped cardigan with slightly inset sleeves. I looked everywhere for a tweedy, neutral yarn, which you'd think would be easy-as-pie to find at Rhinebeck, right? Everywhere there was plain yarn, everywhere there was fancy handpainted yarn. Eventually, though, I was at the Green Mountain Spinnery booth, and there is where I found just the right yarn, though it wasn't what they'd originally had in mind for the sweater at all. It's their tweed two-ply, which they don't sell through stores and don't normally take to shows, so I felt especially pleased to get it. (Picture to come -- the color is called chestnut, and it's a tweed that includes dark gray, dark red, brown, and flecks of blue, and is somehow much prettier than the sum of those colors.)

I also bought yarn for a hat/mitten set from them, in Mountain Mohair; Francis helped me pick the unusual color combo. And I finally indulged in a big skein of mohair/silk/wool blend yarn from Brooks Farm. It's already halfway to being a scarf.

The best thing about this trip to Rhinebeck is that I wasn't attending as a yarn store owner. I didn't have to only look at yarns that I might be able to carry at the store. I didn't have to pick up skeins of yarn and think, "Will other people want to buy this? I think this is a good price, but how much is the discount? How much can I charge?" I didn't have to think to myself, "Oh, rats, I'll never have time to knit this up if it's not a store sample." I felt FREE. The best example was that Brooks Farm skein. They don't sell to stores; they feel they wouldn't be able to keep up with demand, and they don't want to be in that position. I think that's reasonable of them. But that means I haven't bought their yarn in the two years that I've been seeing it, even though it's absolutely gorgeous, and very well priced for the product. It was a delight to be in their booth, looking at all the lovely skeins, thinking, "I get to pick one!"

Lamb kebobs and fresh apple cider were a pretty good reason to make the trip, too. Yum.

----

Friends of Yarnivore:

I’m writing to you with sad news. After giving the matter a great deal of thought, I have decided to close the doors on Yarnivore.

Some of you who have become closer friends over the last year have been aware that my mother has been ill, and that I found that very difficult this summer. In general, the last few months have been very hard on me, and I have come to feel that I will be better off personally if I do not also have to maintain the yarn store. Of course I am sad, but I think this is the right decision for me.

I’m going to have a small going-out-business sale to help recoup my investments, and I’d love to see you. Right now I have sweater quantities of most of the yarns I have carried, as well as needles and bags and spindles and books and magazines, and to start out, everything in the store is 30% off. I’ll be here this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Below are the hours I’ll be here. If these aren’t convenient for you, please drop me a line and let me know, since I may be able to meet you here some other time.

Friday, September 16th: 12-9pm
Saturday, September 17th: 12-6pm
Sunday, September 18th: 2-6pm

Thanks for your support over the last year. I’ll let you know next week what I still have in stock, and what hours I’ll be in the space. I hope to see many of you soon.

My personal plans are to do freelance copyediting, and perhaps to teach some knitting classes from home after I’ve had a break from the yarn store.

Love to you all,

Rose

Yarnivore is at 325 Gold Street, near the intersection of Flatbush and Myrtle.

Sigh. I didn't think so. Well, that's okay! I've already made my excuses, and now here I am making good on my promise to post cute sheep pictures.

The festival was wonderful, as always. There was wool aplenty; I saw fleeces, roving, yarn, and, of course, a lot of lovely fiber still on the hoof. These little guys are too small to be shorn, but they're big enough to come to the fair!

The teensy lamb being held in arms is a Soay, a rare-breed sheep that is especially unusual because it sheds its fleece instead of needing to be shorn. The wool is soft, even though it isn't very fine, and it's not very greasy. I'd be interested in spinning some, if I get a chance; I didn't see any for sale at the festival. This little guy was less than two weeks old, and his human mom said he was "all tuckered out from the long day" he'd had.

I went to see the display of handmade items with low expectations this year. While I've seen some technically good work, I haven't seen a lot that is particularly creative at this kind of fiber show. There's something about the earnestness of being at a county fair/4-H kind of event that I think inpires craftspeople to submit their most straightforward efforts. Also, while cabled sweaters and lace shawls are usually well executed, other things, like felted items, are sometimes clumsily done. I find myself thinking, "Well, I'm happy for you that you made that, but what made you want to submit it to be judged?" Very little of the work in the room tends to be daring at all.

Imagine my delight when I saw the following piece: attractive, well made, depicting a nude, and best of all, honored by a first-place ribbon! Terrific.

When my little gang showed up at Mary's house at stupid o'clock to get going on our drive to Maryland, she surprised us by presenting us with bags and t-shirts! She'd sewn the bags, then silk-screened the bags and t-shirts with a logo she'd designed, which featured the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, and the Chrysler Building, interspersed with a sheep and a llama. Below them was the legend "NYC to Maryland, May 7-8, 2005" We were beside ourselves. The second day of the festival we all wore our t-shirts, and we were like a girl gang from the city, there to bring home all the wool. This last picture was taken just before we left for home.

It was a fantastic weekend. One highlight that I don't have my own pictures of was meeting up with some other bloggers! But those are all over the web. There's a bunch about the blogger meetup in a nifty article over at the summer issue of Spun. Now that I've actually posted to the blog, next up is updating the blogroll! I'm doing that right away, though!