Why I love my SnB

Written on January 22, 2011

Why I love my SnB

I used to be a lonely knitter.  I’d go to my DH’s (dear husband) musical performances at a local coffee shop toting around my latest WIP (work in progress).  Sometimes people would stop and ask what I was making, sometimes they would stop to tell me it was pretty, and sometimes they would stop to ask why in the God’s Great name I would knit.  Eventually, it did get lonely.  I can only talk to my DH about the amazingness of wool so many times before he stabs me with one of my own needles..  At work, I’m sure that people avoided me for fear that I’d make the touch my current project.  Thinking back to when I crocheted, I remember looking through the first Stitch N Bitch book and reading about actual knitting circles; groups of crafty people who would get together and were not afraid of scaring anyone away with their kookiness.  I then went to the only place I could be kooky and not care of what people thought of me, the internet.  www.Stitchnbitch.org had a list of groups organized by country and state.  There were no local groups near me; the closest one was over an hour away.  I eventually mustered up some ‘balls’(yarn pun totally there on purpose) and registered a Stitch N Bitch group on the official website and started a facebook group called Manhattan SnB.  Now, I’ve made my group open to all kinds of kooky craftiness.  I also cross-stitch, crochet, make hemp/macramé things, and I’m into beading.  There are two knitting regulars including myself, several who are new to knitting (I call them my ‘bitches’ if I’m the one who taught them to knit), a few who crochet, and a few others who do other kinds of crafts.  There is one member who tats!  Other members of the facebook group are yarn and/or fiber companies, with a few yarn stores mixed in there.  So, why am I advertising my own SnB group on my blog?  Because I love them; I love meeting new people (even though I am really shy at first), I love teaching someone to knit, I love talking about different fibers and not getting that “oh God, this chick is crazy” look.  Making friends this way has made going to fiber festivals more fun.  Heck, it’s even made going out for coffee more fun. 

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to double the amount of members on the facebook group, Manhattan SnB.  We’re currently at 25 members.  How am I going to accomplish that?  First off, my friend Angela has made a sign to put at our table when KIPing (Knitting In Public) together.  That way people know we are an ‘open to the public’ group, not just two crazy people getting coffee.  She is also working on business cards we can leave in strategic places like in the knitting books at the library, hehehe.  I have also taken on two new knitting students.  Well, it’s really more like .5 students.  One of them watched me knit and just picked it up.  I loaned her a few books and off she went.  The second student is being taught by the first student but they are both coming to me when they hit a brick wall.  So now I’m out of ideas on how to make the group bigger.  This is where I’m going to rely on my lovely darling readers, if I have any.  I’m open to any and all suggestions.  One of Angela’s suggestions was to try to knit at different places each week.  Maybe try a different coffee shop or book store, or maybe even a restaurant or bar.  Some of my other ideas are t-shirts, advertising ‘yarn shop hops’, and having a table at the farmers market in the summer.  We’ll just have to wait and see what happens, because "Knit Happens".

Progress Knitter

Written on January 21, 2011

Progress Knitter

So, I’ve come to realize that I’m a ‘progress knitter’ not an ‘end product knitter’.  I knit for the sake of knitting no matter what my knitted item will be once it comes off my needles.  As long as the process of making the item is entertaining and the yarn is yummy then who cares what it is exactly that I’m making.  Knowing that about me, I have a little secret to share with you.  I started yet another project last night.  It was amazing!  I was just looking through some pattern books I got on my last yarn adventure in Wichita and I decided that I could make the “Morning Frost Wrap” from the Stitch Nation collection 1 leaflet.  However I didn’t have the right yarn, it called for three skeins of Stitch Nation Bamboo Ewe.  So playing around with my stash I found some cotton/acrylic yarn in a pretty lavender color.  I have two skeins and two random balls in the same dye lot.  I’m just going to cross my fingers that I have enough.  This yarn is pretty interesting though.  It’s Redheart’s Carefree Cotton Blend, it’s not as fuzzy as the bamboo ewe but it has a luster to it.  The light catches where I ssk or k2tog.  So I think this will be beautiful once it’s done . . . if I finish it. 

Another amazing thing about being able to knit up this project is that it calls for size 9 (5.5mm) needles.  I have one pair of straights that are old, cheap, and one is kind of bent ever so slightly.  I actually swatched (really I did!) this project on these needles.  The “stopper” on the end of one of the needles is kind of lose or something, because it made weird rattling noises with each movement.  Which got me kind of excited; I’ll have to get new needles before I start this project!  But then I remembered that I really don’t like using straights anyway.  So over to the hanging circular organizer I went where I found several size 9 needles.  I picked out the shortest one which happened to be a pair my Grandma Reeves gave to me.  About a year after I’d learned to knit, I was sitting in my parents’ home showing of my new hobby.  My mom had already pulled out her old knitting needles and given them to me.  So my Grandma, following suit, also gave me a bag of needles.  All circular needles, all very old, most of them in the original packaging.  This is where I learned that not only did have a Great Great Aunt Bessie who knitted, but she also owned and operated a knitting store!  They were all metal needles and most of them had a metal cable connecting them, some of them had a plastic tube.  I have no clue how old these needles are, none of the packaging has dates on them.  I would guess from the 50’s, maybe late 40’s.  The particular pair of size 9 that I am using for this project was made by Boye with “smooth joints” and “concave points”.  

They are awesome, just so you know.  The needle portions are super, super smooth and polished to a shine like a mirror.  The yarn just glides around them easily but my stitches don’t fall off.  My Great Great Aunt penciled in the price in the right top corner, she sold these needles for $1.75.  So now, as I knit away I think of my Aunt and all the things I’m going to ask my Grandma regarding her the next time my Grandma and I sit and knit together.

Yarn Snob

Written on January 20, 2011

Yarn Snob

So I used to be a yarn snob.  I also used to be a ‘non-knitter’ but that has obviously changed.  When I was a kid I learned how to crochet.  At that time I only had access to yarn at Wal-Mart.  I lived in the world of Redheart acrylic.  Once I became a knitter, I became a yarn snob.  Anything that was 50% acrylic or more I would turn my nose up at.  Shortly after learning to knit I got into felting.  I decided that if I made a mistake, felting my project would be the best way to hide mistakes.  At 100% wool, Lambs Pride’s stock went up because I made myself two new belts, a few purses, and several small felted bags that were supposed to be purses (that I don’t know what I’ll do with now).  I noticed that all the good looking knit projects in magazines were done in wool, or silk, or bamboo.  Soon I was living my life looking through ‘fancy yarn’ colored glasses.  Not even a year into my new life as a knitter, I decided to make a baby blanket.  I found a pattern that used this hand painted yarn, sock yarn, with two strings held together.  It looked so cool!  I went to my LYS, looked around for a while (at this time I didn’t realize it was sock yarn I was looking for, just shows you how well I read directions before starting a project).  I asked the owner about the yarn and she took me right to it.  $25 per hank.  I needed 16, that’s SIXTEEN hanks.  Woolly Shit!  Needless to say, I didn’t make that blanket.  But I did have my mom teach me the pattern for her Broomstick Lace baby blankets.

She taught me how to make them over the phone.  I had a HUGE knitting needle; 35mm, and a size J crochet hook.  Now all I needed was yarn.  She said the words “Redheart Super Saver” and my excitement diminished just a bit.  But I didn’t give up, no way, José.   So off to Hobby Lobby I went, there I found super soft 100% acrylic yarn.  Who knew there was acrylic that was amazingly soft!  It wasn’t Redheart but it was the same ply and weight.  Apparently the yarn Gods decided to change how they made acrylic yarn since the 80s’ because I found lots of soft, fun colored, amazing yarn.  Some of it was even made out of recycled pop bottles, how cool is that?  The mom to be didn’t know if they were having a boy or a girl but she did tell me that they were decorating everything yellow.  So the yarn I purchased was a light lemony color.  I think I spent a total of $45 dollars.  That included four huge skeins of yarn, the largest knitting needle I could find, and a crochet hook.  After I finished that blanket, I was over my hatred of acrylic yarn.  However, to this day I detest light lemony yellow colored yarn. 

Now, most acrylic yarn still looks cheap to me.  But the quality of the yarn is amazing.  For baby blankets, it’s perfect.  It’s durable, washable, and super long lasting.  And I’m finding more and more projects that I like that are made with acrylic yarns.  My latest “have to get a subscription to this” magazine is Knitting Today.  This version of the magazine has only been out for three or four months but in each issue there are some projects made with cheaper yarn and some projects made with middle of the road yarn and some that are of high end yarn.  That makes me happy.  Don’t get me wrong, I like looking (looking being the key word here) at overly glossy super model types wearing the latest trendy knitted thing practicing bedroom eyes.  But, that knitted trendy thing won’t look good on my anti-model body type.  So here’s my big shot out to Knitting Today. . Thanks for keeping me in budget!