Emergency Knitting!

I went to Columbus last weekend to go to a housewarming party at The Crocheter and her partner's new home. They used to live in Philadelphia and now it's a 10 hour drive.

Anyway. I learned to knit on size 15 needles using fun fur type yarns. It hid my mistakes and knit up really quickly (though was super expensive). Once I started really knitting I would use smaller yarn and smaller needles and it would take me SO long to finish something. Anyway, I have this really warped sense of timing with knitting projects.

Recently I found this interesting furry style yarn, Bliss by Carons, for $2 a skein from a super mega Rag Shop sale. Since I needed a cute and furry scarf to begin the winter with, I decided to do the Snuggly Neck Warmer from Knit Scarves! This is basically a garter stitch scarf with a hole in the middle to slide your scarf through. Forgetting how quickly garter stitch fun fur scarves knit up, I managed to finish my scarf by the time my ride got to Columbus.

This was devastating, knowing that I was going to have to endure an 8 hour return trip with no knitting. I made a big stink with people asking if I could go to a yarn store sometime. Those plans fell through and I was thoroughly depressed about it, especially since I had been told about a new store that had recently opened called "Wholly Craft!" during their party. I just like saying the name. No one could confirm whether they had yarn but I thought it was worth a shot when I saw it, literally as we were driving out of town. Turns out it is a store that sells some handmade crafts and also THRIFT STORE CRAFT SUPPLIES. Including a few baskets of old acrylic yarn probably from estate sales and pre-balled. Oh, the sexiness of $3.00 for 5 balls of yarn! Oh the joy of $1.50 size 9 needles! Oh the miracle of a knitting book from the 70s for $2!

Needless to say, I had an interesting and occupying project for my 8 hours. I did this vertical striped hat shaped in short rows. I will post progress photos, right now it looks like half a hallowig.

Brian was really enthusiastic about the pattern book. There are some crazy AWFUL poncho designs and also a pair of socks with knitted on shoes. Seriously.

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I love the Knitting Curmudgeon! She is fantastic. Not only snarky but good knits and you can't beat that.

The best blog thing I've read recently, though, has to be the bitchy comments about Crochet in a recent post, with defensive comments by the designer. Holy shit.

"Crochet that isn't too tacky. A novel idea, but impossible."