Field Trip
It’s a Major Award! I won it!
I am sitting here at Friday Night knitting waiting on all of my knitters to show up. Good thing I got this new keyboard for my iPad…I can sit here and kill time pretending I am writing a script or something while I enjoy my tasty adult beverage.
My friend Ashley had hit me up on twitter and asked why I hadn’t talked about my award. A few posts back I had mentioned that I had won first place in a Flickr photo contest for Yarn Crawl L.A. After kicking around a few emails, I coordinated with the Yarn Crawl folks to pick up my prize at one of my local LYS’s. Ashley had also won one of the Yarn Crawl drawings, but had coordinated to pick it up at a different yarn store…so you know what that means…two yarn stores is twice the fun!
On a Wednesday afternoon, Ashley and I headed to pick up our stuff. First we stopped at the yarn shop closest to us. I picked up my prize and, luckily for me, was the first person to do so and got my choice of color. Gray. Of course, it’s always gray.
But here is the rub. My ‘major award’ was a set of 16″ Clover circular needles and a Rowan Kid Silk Haze scarf kit.
I’m allergic to mohair.
You can’t really see it, but I am holding my yarn with salad tongs. Thanks Ash for the suggestion!
It is so damn beautiful, but I can’t do anything with it unless I want to suffer horribly.
They handed it to me in a cute little mesh bag and I tried my hardest to not touch it at all. It was really hard, but I avoided all actual contact with it.
We walked down to the local Porto’s and had some lunch. We sat outside to knit and eat. Inside, on the opposite side of the glass, were two older women who were admiring our knitting. They had finally gotten Ashley’s attention and decided to start asking her questions about her sweater… through the glass. It was amazing. I am not sure if they understood that I had absolutely no idea what they were saying. I’m not sure Ashley knew what they were trying to say either.
Lunch.
From there we headed to our next shop where Ashley picked up the knitting bag she had won and I sat on the floor agonizing over their signature yarn. If I couldn’t knit my prize yarn, I think I need to compensate by inflating my stash with yarn I CAN knit with.
I ended up buying the skeins on the left and in the center.
Just another Wednesday…
Well, it’s Wednesday. What does that mean exactly? For me, it means that today is the day I go pick up my prize.
Yeah, I kinda won this contest. It was a photo contest for Yarn Crawl Los Angeles 2013 and I somehow won 1st place. I’m not really sure how, because I’m no photographer. I just have a love of fairy lights and yarn.
Yarn bombing outside of Gather DTLA.
Anyway, I had originally planned to pick up my “major award” after lunch with some old work friends today, but that was rescheduled, which then left my day free for doing whatever I needed before my parents arrive in town tomorrow. So, like a responsible adult, I’ve planned to go yarning with my friends this afternoon and blow off all preparing the house for my parents visit. Maybe if I feel so inclined, I may try and do some sewing because…oh yeah…I told myself I was going to finish that project before they got to town too. Oops. Heck, I probably should have been dressed an hour ago, but instead I am sitting here knitting, writing, and playing some tunes while I enjoy my coffee.
Yes, this is indeed what I look like this morning.
Yarn Crawl LA, Day 3 (the photo edition)
Outside Alamitos Bay Yarn Company. Still pinned!
Feather yarn inside L’Atelier.
The floor inside L’Atelier.
I bumped into Doctor Gemma at Wildfiber!
Turkish Delight at Zoe Zeynep Knit Studio on Melrose.
Yarn Crawl LA, Day 2 (the photo edition)
Phebie’s NeedleArt in Claremont.
Our Chucks.
Just outside Phebie’s.
Colors 91711.
Ash getting her passport pinned to her shirt so she doesn’t lose it…again…at The purlSide.
Outside Compatto. We squeaked in right before closing time to get our stamps.
The alley behind Knit Culture.
The owner of Gather DTLA handed us her dog.
Yarn bombing outside Gather DTLA.
Inside Gather DTLA.
Yarn Crawl LA 2013, Day 1 (the photo edition)
Our first stop to pick up our passport and bag…The Knot Garden.
Court and Ash outside A Close Knit Circle.
Ang, me, Ash and Court inside Abuelita’s in Pasadena.
Ash and Court inside The Yarnover Truck.
Inside Unwind in Burbank.
Yarn Crawl LA 2013
You guys….YOU GUYS! Yarn Crawl LA was amazing!
3 days, 32 stores (2 were visited twice)! I feel like this was some sort of Olympic sized yarn event…and it was so much fun!
My Yarn Crawl La Passport.
I didn’t go into this with any real yarn “wish list”, so that helped me to keep to a budget. I ended up with quite a haul though! The good thing is that, while I am stashing yarn, I have a purpose in mind for most of it.
The contents of my yarn crawl bag.
We met some really great people and got to explore quite a few stores we had never been to before. It was definitely an adventure! I am hoping it helps inspire me to get over my knitting funk.
I have a ton of pictures…so be prepared for more photo heavy posts!
Stitches West 2013, The Haul
I almost forgot to post a picture of the haul from Stitches this year! This picture represents *most* of what we purchased during our weekend.
The Haul.
And a few other pics of our weekend, just because.
Dr. Gemma interviewing folks for her podcast.
The wheels at the Carolina Homespun Booth.
I showed restraint. I am no longer allowed to bring dirty fleece into the house after that last incident. But…look! It has my name!
Court and I…with some cheese.
The “butt” of jokes…
There is a long running thing in my family that when my mother comes to visit, she and I will eventually get into an argument about my butt.
It started when the kids were smaller. My mother, being the type of Grandma that likes to take mass quantities of photos of her grandchildren…and is also a scrapbooker…would follow them around, snapping pics left and right. Of course, with Facebook being a thing that my mom is into, those pictures would all end up on the Internet.
See, she tried capturing the kids’ at eye level…taking pictures of them walking along side me…FROM BEHIND. Yup. Facebook peppered with pictures of my kids’ adorable little heads…ruined by my ass.
Of course, when I would bring it up and ask her not to post them, she would snap back about how terribly vain I am (which is not a word I think anyone else on the planet might ever use to describe me, and funny coming from the woman to couldn’t leave the house without lipstick on…even if she was going to the dentist).
This is sure to upset her.
Here is picture of me from behind taken by Courtney. I am posting it of my own free will.
This is a sweater that I tried on at the Carolina Homespun booth by designer Sandra McIver from her book “knit, Swirl!”. I walked past her a million times while on the Stitches West floor and every time I had made a comment about how these sweaters looked nice on every single person trying them on, despite body shape. I thought about giving these sweaters a go…and Courtney was kind enough to stop me and make sure I actually tried them on.
This picture actually got me to buy the book. I’ll have to make one soon, or at least before the next time my mom comes to town.
Silent Movie Time?
Let me explain.
At Stitches West I took all kinds of video…imagine my surprise when I got home and all of that video had no audio. I couldn’t figure out what happened. I joked that I should edit it together and we could throw in some audio all MST3K style…Courtney said I should try and see if I could make it black and white and play some funny music behind it.
So this morning I sat here editing it, in complete silence. I went into my resources to see if I could find some funny music to throw behind it and, somehow…and I have no idea how it happened, I seem to have been able to retrieve the audio (but only for the edited clip).
I have a reputation of having some sort of mutant superpower that effects electronics.
Well, here it is! Video of me opening one of my birthday gifts from my knit group!
I also got some fun things from my friend Ash!
Tardis Needle Gauge and a felted steak!
The “L” Word
I thought I had a plan. I sat here, days before Stitches West, flipping through Ravelry patterns in my queue and making a list of things I wanted to make and what supplies I needed. I had a whittled it down to a short list of yarn weights and yardages. I was so very organized and ready for just about anything until…
I believe we were on the convention center floor when it happened. Courtney looked at me, and in a tone that clearly conveyed she was unsure that what she was about to say was a good idea, she said “I think I want to get a loom.”
My brain exploded and started leaking out of my ears.
That was all she had to say. I completely went into that “state”…the state I was in my very first year of Stitches when one of my friends from the AV suggested I get a dirty fleece. That story is still told to this day…of me walking out of the showroom, eyes like saucers, talking so fast that no one could understand me. I had gone off the rails.
It was happening again. Saucer eyed…Courtney could tell that Stacy went “bye-bye”.
I think there might have been nodding…and telling her what an amazing idea it was…and that she should definitely get one…AND I MUST HAVE ONE TOO. Yup. It was all over for me.
Then I had apparently mentioned it to David…and he went off the rails too.
Saturday morning it all went down. After David (who had a vendor badge) went ahead of us for some recon on the Slipped Stitch Studios TARDIS project bags, and I had successfully acquired one of those bags and won a smaller project bag at their booth, we made a bee line to Purlescence. David got there before us and was already on the floor practicing on the display loom. We sat and watched, and then all three of us pulled the trigger.
Now, I had done a little bit of Internet research the night before…and figured out what came in the loom and tried to figure out what type of reed I needed to weave fingering weight yarn. Of course, we are a hive brain and I know I wasn’t the only one that had this idea. When we asked the awesome folks at Purlescence to hold the looms for us to pick up later, I asked for a 12 dent reed.
They held it for me, but it was the only one they had. Luckily, there were other booths that had them too, because I felt like an asshole blurting out the 12 dent reed request as they were putting the looms aside for us, and I know that Court and I both have enough fingering weight yarn to choke a small third world country.
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