Rediscovery

This weekend I took some time to explore the forgotten portions of my stash. I'm often rifling through the fingering weight baskets but it's rather less often that I look at the rest of the beautiful things I've picked up over time.

When I started buying yarn I knew nothing about fibre and little about what there was to like (or not) about yarn. Soon after I took a long trip out to the US and discovered a fantastic yarn shop - my lessons in yarn began there.

Initial purchases were often from the bargain bins - some perhaps a mistake, but others are clearly just waiting for the right project to come along. I've recently knit a very successful summer project and this heavy-worsted cotton feels like it fits right in with this trend:

Queensland Collection Pima Fresca in colourway Sapphire
from Natural Stitches, Pittsburgh

On a subsequent trip to the states my yarn purchases were more about buying good quantities of well-known American yarns to be able to knit a garment with sometime in the future when I'd got my brave up:

Dream in Colour Classy in colourway Midnight Derby
from Natural Stitches, Pittsburgh

More recently my yarn purchases are typically focussed on a specific project that I've deluded myself into thinking I will start right away. Strangely I'm often wrong...

Noro Kureyon in colourway 206.

In this case I was pretty sure this yarn was about to become an Entrelac Scarf. I'd never tried entrelac (I still haven't) and it seemed like a great project to learn a new skill. Soon after purchase doubts crept in and having rediscovered the yarn this weekend I'm now wondering about a Lanesplitter skirt instead.

How do you buy stash?

Shopping Goodies

On Sunday night whilst I waited for Hobnob to finish watching James Bond (yes, I know there's more than one; no, I don't know which one it was - they all look the same to me) I got a bit distracted by yarn.

Ruth had been knitting with some Fyberspates Ethereal (a 4ply cashmere/silk blend) on Saturday which she'd bought in the sale because of some very slight colour imperfections. I figured that although the sale would have changed by now I'd check it out anyway and see what was available. And so I found these:

Two skeins of undyed lace weight yarn - the one on the left is 100% baby alpaca, the one on the right is 80% merino and 20% angora. Both will undoubtedly be part of my next attempts at kool aid dying.

Moving on from the sale, I thought I'd take just a quick peek at what other yarns might be available... and ended up with these:

The one on the left is Faery Wings a 4-ply yarn composed of 67% silk, 23% kid mohair and 10% nylon; the one on the right is a Unicorn Club 4-ply yarn composed of 70% baby llama. 20% silk and 10% cashmere.

Together this all made for another very exciting parcel when it arrived at work yesterday:

Hurray for yarn!

Swap Shopping

The lovely Eskimimi has organised a knitting bloggers swap on Ravelry, and so I've been shopping...

£8.60 at Cocoon (plus about £3 for some new stitch markers for me, where do they all go?). And £12 at Fyberspates (and I was restrained and didn't buy anything for me at all).

At least as exciting as buying for me, I do hope my partner likes her treats. I've just a few more bits to get and then I can sit down and wrap them all as artfully as my talents allow!

Yummy Yarn

It's coming up for a year since I first discovered Eskimimi's blog, it's still fabulous and... as of today Eskimimi has launched her own hand-dyed yarn - it's awesome. She blogs about it here, and the shop is hosted by Etsy, here.

I've just bought this lovely yarn:

(image grabbed from Eskimimi's shop on Etsy)

Which is inspired by blue hydrangeas, the same flowers as in my wedding bouquet:

(photo by Tall Order Photography, flowers by Wedding Flowers by Catherine)

Love them both!

"God, that's Good!"

I've blogged about this before when I first heard, but I've once again been reminded about Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland film. Found these fantastic concept images via comingsoon.net via That's No Moon via Kards Unlimited. As an aside - I do like Kards Unlimited... if I was buying books over in the US they would be my first port of call, I've bought a few cute cards from them though and maybe I'll check their more oddball stuff out at least once more before I leave :)

Back to Tim Burton... whilst it may not be my nostrils "aquiver and tingling" I'm still quite excited about this film. And indeed, any Tim Burton really (especially if it included the ever-lovely Johnny Depp - that man should have a little "Eat Me" label all of his own).

(Image from ComingSoon.net - check it out on their site, these mini versions do not do them justice. Also, see more Alice in Wonderland concept art in their original post here and a slightly earlier post here)

And what a luscious green that is for the background - reminds me of the Burly Spun (in Kiwi) I've just cast on for my French Girl Knits cardigan (not the one in the any of the pictures on that page but if you click additional images, the one I'm knitting is the top-left image on the page labeled 5-8). Mmmm... yummy!

$85 for a charger??

The plastic covering over the wires in my Macbook charger has torn. Sometime between Hobnob arriving and him departing the tear has become more and more noticeable until last night I realised that the thing is about 30 seconds away from being two separate bits of plastic coating. Furthermore, my paranoia now prevents me from leaving the darn thing plugged in without my immediate supervision just in case the place burns down.

Decided to buy a replacement charger today on the way into CMU as Hobnob so wisely advised.

Slightly discouraged when the Apple Store on Walnut didn't open until 10am, but did get a chance to cast on a new knitting project (had to go back for a spare knitting needle when I realised I'd struggle to cast on over two needles if I needed one of them to do the cast on!) and to wake up a little more.

At a minute or so after ten I wandered into the store. I'd planned on finding the thing myself but the staff always seem to insist on helping you out so I let the bloke take it off the shelf for me. Got to the checkout to discover that the thing was almost $84.53 with tax - ouch! (So much ouch I had to go back to upgrade my wallet from the $65 I'd come out with).

Wonder what the profit is on those things? Pretty darned good I'd bet.

Geocaching Goodies!

Arrived today in the post. Looks pretty cool, the nanos are even smaller than those I have done before I think. Shall send them home with Hobnob when he visits :)


I had hoped to get the cache in Natural Stitches car park today and yet somehow this one still foils me. I was convinced it would turn out to be a galvanised plate but somehow this didn't seem the case - the thing seemed pretty firmly attached. Perhaps next time...

More knitting

Bit of a knit-tastic week :)

Having decided to frequent Natural Stitches as much a possible. Monday and Tuesday were my first yarn buying adventures. Over the weekend I spent some time checking out scarves on Ravelry, determined to find something sufficiently summery in the hope that I might finish it before I leave. And so, I settled upon this. Pattern chosen, and so on Monday I explored as much of the yarn at Natural Stitches as I could possibly take in and settled upon Kraemer's "Sterling Silk and Silver" (63% Superwash Merino, 20% Silk, 15% Nylon and 2% Silver) in Heavenly Blue. I was also really keen on the Imperial Blues but they seemed a little less summer. I'll have to find something else to do with this yarn before I buy some in that colourway :)

Starting the scarf was a bit painful. I think I must have cast on this project eight times before my fingers got the hang of it and I stopped making stupid mistakes. As of this morning I've completed sixteen rows.


But that's not all... nope! When browsing the 40% off section of Natural Stitches, I spotted Kollage's "Delicious", some hanks in a really nice turquoise blue and some in a turquoise/pink multiway. So, when I got home I logged into Ravelry and had a look to see what people had done with this stuff. Variety of things, but by far the most appealing was the ever-popular Clapotis. Tuesday evening came, and I found myself 7 hanks of the pink/turquoise colourway, named"Shock".


I'm still really tempted to buy the plain turquoise though... so many pretty yarns, not nearly enough time to knit them.

I think I've settled on 6mm needles for the Clapotis - so might cast that on tonight? Maybe.

The Problem of Self-Checkout

Well actually, self-checkouts have a number of problems - this one is unique to shopping in a country other than the usual one.

So, barcodes all scanned, time to do the veggies...

(Image from Wikipedia)

1) Press the loose items button.
2) Presented with an A-Z.
3) C for Courgette... no, wait it's not a courgette. Oh, crap what do they call it??
4) Think a bit.
5) Zucchini! That's the one. I'll have one of those.

In other shopping excitement, I have managed to track down paracetamol - turns out it's known as acetaminophen in the US. Clearly though, there's no fear of people overdosing on these things over here:


Yes, that's 100 paracetamol caplets at 500mg each. Can you imagine trying to buy that in the UK? They also come in rather larger packets - 500 paracetamol anyone?

And finally, I have bought a plantain. I've never bought a plantain before - I think I've only ever eaten plantain about twice. Still, yum yum - now what to do with it?

Natural Stitches

Visited Natural Stitches last night for their Ravelry group and to look around. Never did get round to exploring the shop but it was really nice to chat to folks and think about things that weren't work or food. Will have to make it a regular haunt for the three months I'm in Pittsburgh :o).

Anyway, I loved the shop and really appreciated the friendly welcome - if you're ever passing through Pittsburgh I highly recommend it.

The Strip

It's the weekend, so no CMU quirks today. Instead, I caught the bus to the Strip District. Didn't really take pictures of the Strip itself as it wasn't the kind of thing I could capture with a camera. Lots of food-type shops and stalls. Bought some Pad-Thai noodles for lunch for $2.50 (about £1.75 at the exchange rate I got) and a marshmallow pop (a stick of white chocolate covered marshmallows) as a treat for $2 :) What I didn't do was buy any vegetables or meat or fish or anything else useful which I really should have. On my way back I dropped into Giant Eagle but the veggies there were twice the price of those on the Strip - gah!

Anyway, no photos of shopping at the Strip, but some from the Society for Contemporary Craft which I visited whilst I was there. The Society is just off from 21st and Penn and is free! Hurrah for free things to do!

A fairly smallish exhibition space but I actually quite enjoyed my visit. The current exhibition is 'Beyond Shared Language: Contemporary Art and the Latin American Experience' which features work from a number of Latin American artists. My favourite set of pieces were the ones by Courtney Smith, who does magical things with old furniture. I really like this Cabinet Chandelier (although my picture of it is pretty awful):


Looking at the collection online, the Polly Blue Pell Mell looks even better in pieces :) Other things I quite liked were the pieces by Alejandro Aguilera - I think I like things that are really tangible (although I don't suppose they'd appreciate it if I started picking up these exhibits) and clever.


Slightly less 'likeable' but rather clever were the pieces by Elia Alba (whose work I could never have got a good photo of but check out the ones on her Exhibition page) and Tamara Kostianovsky. Elia's work made me feel uncomfortable, which is a good thing for an artist to do (as long as it's only the occasional one) and I likes the 'rawness' (hehe - but really all those pinks and reds) and the texture of what Tamara had done, very clever.


So there you go, I'm no art expert but I did enjoy the exhibits in the Society for Contemporary Craft - and the staff were friendly too :)

Oh, and I also discovered the first (for me, not historically or anything clever like that) of Pittsburgh's many bridges: 16th Street Bridge.

First Day at CMU

So, today was my first full day in Pittsburgh and my first day at Carnegie Mellon. The weather is a bit like Lancaster only more changeable. A colleague Jan described it as binary weather - everywhere else has two bits (four possible values) to describe the weather through the year whilst Pittsburgh has only one (two possible values). Though Spring and Fall the weather apparently just switches really quickly between Summer and Winter. Today certainly it's been partly warm (but grey) and muggy, and partly torrential rain. It's not been especially cold though so I think tomorrow I may leave the coat behind.

Here's a generic campus picture taken as I ate my lunch on the grass outside. I was surprised how busy campus got at roughly lunchtime, it had been much quieter as I passed through at 9am. By 1pm there was a BBQ, some volleyball and some lacrosse going on in addition to those folks just enjoying lunch or study outside.


I had a bit of a wander round in my lunchtime, mostly in the University Center. Managed to find the bookstore (which doesn't sell as many books as you might think), art store, post office, food court (no, really), FedEx, the games room, prayer room and probably some other stuff.

The campus seems to have a few cool little structures and other quirks, here's the first one I spotted today:


This is the Mobot Slalom Course used for an annual mobot (mobile robot) race. The record robot for this year finished in just over 30 seconds:


I left CMU at around 4pm feeling pretty sleepy but woke up a little outside. Having got back to my suite at the Shadyside Inn I figured I ought to go and buy some food somewhere so I was in a position to do some sort of tea. Went to Giant Eagle on Centre Ave and bought myself some bread, veggies, rice, butter, sandwich meat (bologna), crisps, granola, toothpaste, razors and shaving cream. That will do for now, but I did forget cooking oil so had to cook my stir-fried veggies in butter - oops. I also totally under-estimated how many veggies I wanted for tea, I think I was trying to compensate for the fact that I normally go way over :) Perhaps I can blame it on the strangeness of cooking for myself when I'm now fairly used to cooking for two (including one with a 'man' appetite).

And now it's 21:10 here in the US and gone 2am in the UK so I am definately close to my staying awake limit. Time to wash-up and then sleep.

More Sock Knitting (and Shopping)

Progressing slightly on the new socks and got a much better picture (thanks to Hobnob's ability to take photos that aren't blurred :)):


The photo shows the pattern off a little bit but I suspect it's just not very easy to see without wearing it on one's foot. The pattern is from knitty and is nice and easy - hurrah! The leg is 6 repeats of 11 rows - I've done three full repeats plus two rows at the moment so over half way down the leg. My calculations for ravelry still only make this around 10% of the pair :)

Also, I finished the previous pair of socks and wore them to work on Wednesday. Comfy :)


And finally, I've just bought lots of pretty sock yarns from p2tog. I've found some not-wool sock yarn for Hobnob too - he's chosen this pattern for his socks in Wendy Happy Virgo.

carcarcar!

I have a car (and also some insurance and breakdown cover and L-plates and screenwash)!

It's an exiting life :)

Truprint Offers - Cheap Photo Prints

Having realised that getting some prints done for my Queen's Guide exploration photos would be a good idea I thought I'd check out prices online. Having used Truprint before and not found anything new and cheap in a quick Google search I thought I'd check out the offer sites for some promo codes. Found two codes, both of which give you 50 prints at 1p each - bargain! I think I'll have a lot of photo uploading to do when I get home :o)

Sock-in-Progress: Day 9

Late night tonight but this is the sock at the end of Tuesday. Have *just* started on the toe decreases. See also my funky needle holder. Stops me losing that 5th needle (something I do over and over again), bought them online today and they were hand delivered! Very good service indeed from p2tog sock yarn store.

Sock-in-Progress: Day 8

I didn't think I'd done much today but the tape measure says I'm nearly there :o) Should be getting onto those decreases tomorrow I think.

In other knitty news... I have ebayed 10 balls of Patons Moonglow, sadly I then found a lovely pattern that calls for 11 balls. Plus I want 2 for a hat.

Timing is Everything

Today we've been into town to do some Christmas shopping. Well we went and I shopped. We get home and I'm wrapping presents when Hobnob announces that we should have crackers for the LuBBs curry tomorrow - why did this not occur to him earlier? Also he's forgotten to buy a present for his godson.

So now we must go shopping tomorrow.

Doh!

It seems there is more than one version of monopoly. The version I have received from my ebay seller is different to the one previously described to me by another seller and seems to have slightly better locations. I have updated the google map.

The changes to properties are:

Brown:
West Shore Road becomes Chambers Street

Orange:
Thistle Street becomes Gyle Avenue

Red:
Cortorphine Road becomes FountainBridge
Royal Mile becomes University of Edinburgh

Yellow:
Edinburgh Zoo becomes Charlotte Lane
Greenside Place becomes Royal Mile

Green:
Chambers Street becomes Leith Walk
St Andrews Sq becomes Rutland Court

Stations:
Edinburgh Airport becomes Haymarket Train Station

Edinburgh Train Tickets

Bought my train tickets for Edinburgh! I'm racing through the "To Do" list today :)