crawling for yarn

while i was learning how to knit and crochet during our months of lockdown in 2020, i learned about an annual event that was held throughout l.a. county, and it was called the l.a. yarn crawl.  a bunch of independently owned yarn stores picked a weekend that they would offer fun stuff like free patterns and specials on yarn and needles and accessories and all kinds of stuff like that.  they also had a passport that you could print at home or pick up at any of the shops, and you would get it stamped at each shop you visited.  once you were done with it, you'd fill out your contact information and leave it at any of the shops and you'd be entered into a raffle for a gift basket that they assembled.

i'm reading this as i type it and yes, i do realize how nerdy it all sounds.  but i don't care.  i'm still so stoked that i finally powered through and learned how to knit and crochet after years of trying and failing, and you know i like to have all the fun stuff.  and so when i realized that there were three of the participating shops close to home, i decided that i was gonna go and have some dorky, yarny fun.

my first stop was at the yarnaholic store.  i think they had started out as an online only shop, and eventually found a tiny space to open a brick & mortar store that they'd stocked and opened to the public just a week or two before yarn crawl weekend.

the ladies in the shop were really friendly and welcoming, and were pretty excited to welcome customers into their new space.  i had a couple of patterns saved that i wanted to find yarn for, so i picked up a couple of skeins here for one of them and then hopped in the car to move on to the next stop.

phebie's needle art is located in the packing house in the claremont village - just up the stairs from the claremont chefs academy that i used to take the bean to for classes (and where she had one of her birthday parties).  i never knew it was there - but then again, i never paid attention to yarn stores before either.

and inside i caught a glimpse of the gift basket that they had put together for their raffle.

when i got to the last shop in my circuit, i found that i was going to get one extra stamp in my passport because the yarnover truck was parked out front.  bonus!

buku yarns is a cute little shop in la verne, tucked in a corner of the same shopping center where my barre studio used to be.  it's really close to the house, which is awesome and dangerous at the same time.

and since it's the closest one to me, that's where i left my passport for the gift basket raffle.  it was definitely a long shot, but i figured if there was any chance that i might win (i didn't, heh) it would be the easiest shop to get to.  

here's my haul from the crawl - so soft and pretty and colorful!

and that's a wrap on my very first l.a. yarn crawl.  i have a pretty crazy amount of yarn and patterns to work through, but maybe by the time the 2023 crawl happens i'll be ready.

maybe.  probably not, but a girl can dream.

the quietest week of the year

the week between christmas and new year's was pretty quiet for the most part.  the day after christmas was particularly lovely and relaxing, as i threw on the new hello kitty sweatshirt i'd received in our family gift exchange:

and then i realized that it was the perfect time for me to finally cast on a knitting project that i'd meant to start in the fall, only i had zero time for it.  it was so nice to sit on the couch and just work on the colorful cardigan in the softest, prettiest yarn i've worked with thus far.

we had lots of leftovers from christmas dinner, which made for an extra tasty lunch that i shared with the bean.  of course, teddy was nearby and hoping we'd drop a little morsel on the floor for him (we may have.  okay, we definitely did).

on another day we met up with one of the bean's most favorite friends in the whole world for a quick lunch.

and we managed to get our dance girlfriends together for a post-christmas cookie party.  i got to throw together a hot cocoa board which went over pretty well, i thought.

there were cookies to decorate, and we spread out all of our bracelet making supplies for the girls to make new pretties to wear.  and of course, we got them together for the annual photo - with the old lady grinning in the background.

we squeezed in one last trip to disneyland for 2021, timing our arrival for dinner at the plaza inn before hopping over to california adventure to use up our last few sip & savor tabs at the festival of holidays for dessert.

and then we crossed the esplanade again to catch the fireworks show at disneyland, something we'd been wanting to do for weeks.  it was a great way to close out our year at the 'land.

the next day, the hub and i unboxed our new mattress.  exciting stuff, i tell ya.

when i got the peloton in august, i'd set a goal to make sure i joined the century club before the end of the year.  and i'd timed my peloton classes so that i was doing my 100th ride on new year's eve.  BOOM.

with the old lady feeling a bit under the weather and no other plans for the evening, we rang in 2022 quietly - just the dogs and the three of us.

but that's okay.  there's lots for us to look forward to in the new year, and with the holiday season behind us all of our attention is on the big wedding.  it's coming up really fast, and it'll be here before we know it.

current WIP count = 3

i still find it pretty amusing that after years of turning my nose up at knitting/crocheting, i'm completely obsessed.  and look, all it took was a global pandemic!  whee!

the blanket that i started working on while on our colorado road trip is...still in progress.

i love working with that yarn - it's a "velvet" and it's super duper soft.  but it's one of those things that takes a good bit of time - the finished product is supposed to be somewhere around 50" or so long, and it's kind of slow going.  i go back to it every few days, but i've been sprinkling in smaller patterns that are more of an instant gratification kind of deal.  like this one - while we're in the dead of summer with temperatures in the high 90s, i decided to make myself a scarf using this fun, chunky yarn:

i wasn't used to working with a jumbo sized needle, which had me working really slowly at first.  and actually, my first attempt at this simple scarf was kind of a mess.  my stitches were all uneven, the edges were all wonky, it was just all bad.

so i ripped it apart before i got too far into it - i think the term knitters use for this is "frogging," for the fun noise the yarn makes as you tear those stitches apart.  i started over from the beginning, took my time and things were better the second time around.

by the next morning, i'd gone through both skeins of yarn that were called for and i was done.  yay!  it's my first completed wearable project!

next, i decided to try my hand at a simple crocheted circle to use as a coaster.  i was about this far into it when the hub walked by and snickered as he said "oh wow...we're living in my great grandmother's house."  hmph.

i shifted gears again for the next pattern - a basic crocheted beanie.  it looks pretty weird at this stage:

but then you sew the short ends together into a tube, add some ribbing stitches at the bottom and close the top and you end up with this!

i don't think i ever shared the first floppy sun hat that i made a couple of months ago, mostly because while it turned out pretty cute i'd misjudged the sizing and it ended up too small for my big ol' head.  and so i decided i'd try to redeem myself with a different hat pattern - this time, for a crushable, packable fedora.  i got started with the top of the hat while listening to the new CD from the chicks - yes, i said a CD.  i bought a physical CD.  oy.

by later that evening i was done with the bucket portion of the hat.

i did finish this hat too, but somehow i managed to screw up the sizing again and now it's a little too big.  i don't have any pictures, but the hub has been sporting it around the house, which is really funny.

now i'm working on something totally new - a beach coverup/wrap.  it uses this pretty, soft variegated yarn that fades into different shades of the same color as you work with it.

i was working on the back panel and had just finished this section, after which i had to do a color change.  and as i counted the stitches according to the pattern i was using, i realized that somehow i'd managed to screw this up too.  it was supposed to measure about 50" across...and i was a good 15" short.  dang it.

i kind of wanted to cry, because it seemed like it had taken forever to get to this point.  but actually, it had only been a few hours of stitching this up, and i guess i should be glad i figured it out before i really got too far into it.  and so i was "frogging" again, this time winding the yarn into a ball that would be easier to work with than the way the skein was wound when i bought it.

i've already gotten a good start on redoing that portion of my coverup, and this time i'm feeling more confident and my stitches are starting to look a lot prettier.  even the old lady let out an "ooooohhh" when i showed her what the finished product was going to look like.  i can't wait to see how this turns out.

along with my road trip blanket and the cardigan i'm still knitting that i started about three months ago, that makes three different works in progress ("WIP" - another knitting term!) that i've got going at the same time.  i get bored when the project takes too long, but i try to go back to those unfinished ones in between these smaller pieces.

good lord.  what have i become??