Bits and Pieces
Sunday, March 4th, 2007
I had a day of this and that. I started with more sleeping in, a wonderful thing indeed.
Then I went to Threadbear Fiberarts to teach the second session of my Cushy Blankie class, a class for relatively new knitters to learn new skills. We spent time learning about the structure of knitted fabric, so they would be less afraid of normal “hiccups.”
They then learned how to fix several sorts of mistakes, how to hide yarn ends several ways, how to count rows in knit (stockinette), purl (reverse stockinette) and garter fabric. We made the stitches run down on purpose and then fixed the run. We noticed that wool does not want to run unless we stretch or pull on the fabric, even if the needle is no longer holding the loops. It’s powerful stuff and I got nice thank-you’s and even a hug from my students on the way out.
Threadbear was having a major spring sale, and the place was hopping. A lot of folks from out of town carpooled and made a day of it, so each car seemed to have three or four folks unload and go into the shop. I was pleased to see them have such a successful sale.
As for me, I got two skeins of yellow Bingo on sale for bed socks for Eric (my brother). Fortunately for me, I’ll buy the yarn and Diana (his wife, my sister-in-love) will knit them. We all benefit. I also got one hank of Cascade Pastaza (wool/llama bulky singles yarn, great for winter footie/slippers) in turquoise, also on sale for me.
And I bought three skeins of Malabrigo merino singles worsted-weight yarn, two in multiple reds and one in a sort of grass green with a touch of a blue cast to it. Those three were not on sale though I say that yarn is always a great price… they go to Diana as a thank you for the work she has been doing for me. The reds are so that she can make herself a Kristi Comfort Wrap (she sure has made a lot of them for me and others). The green is for her to make lovely things for others, as she enjoys doing.
I went home, thinking I’d take a minute and go pick up my yarn-winding helper but I had not made solid plans with her so she was not home. Cool. Brian was recording so I went up to the bedroom and knit while I chatted on the phone with Diana for a bit. Then downstairs to make some of my famous Tapioca-Coconut pudding and a good cup of tea. The problem with tapioca pudding is that you finish making it and then you have to wait for it to set up in the refrigerator. This particular recipe just is not good warm, unfortunately. So right now I’m waiting impatiently for the refrigerator to do its job.
While waiting, I spilled a little bit of my tea into the corner of my keyboard. I usually plug in a full-sized split keyboard to the laptop when I’m at home. Right now I am typing on the laptop’s internal keyboard and hoping that the keyboard will come back to life when it dries out. Otherwise my tea addiction just cost me a keyboard. Sigh…
Brian is editing music files now rather than recording, so I think I’ll go do some yarn winding now. It’s a little noisy so I can’t do it when he has the microphone plugged in. I don’t love winding, but I have yarn to wind and I am selling yarn faster than ever before so I need to stay on top of it. I will need another good long day in the dye studio soon.
Off to wind yarn. And then to eat pudding. This is the life!
