PARTY OVER HERE, PARTY OVER THERE!

My invitation to Ravelry finally arrived. And I've wasted an unbelievable amount of a beautiful Saturday afternoon getting acquainted with the website. All I can say is "Wow!"

I don't know whether I will ever record the whole stash. There are times when a person would prefer not to admit to other people the full sum of his or her weakness. "Know thyself" does not apply to the stash in my world.

And really - I can't imagine the time it would take to record it; time that could better be spent knitting.

I really like the future projects list. I always find things I would like to make and never note them anywhere. I think this will be a tremendously helpful function.

On the knitting front, our local guild had its first meeting of the year with Galina Alexandrovna Khmeleva as the keynote speaker.



A few members of the guild also spent a chilly Saturday morning knitting and spinning at one of the local farmers' market.





On the homefront, we need a new furnace - the new one should be installed during the beginning of October. I thought we'd be regretting the lack of heating capability when we had a cold spell last week and the temperature got down into the 30's overnight but luckily that weather did not last. We are back to mid-July-like temperatures.

In the meantime, I feel oddly deprived as I have no camera - the in-laws borrowed it for a trip. We had to give them a diagram as to which buttons to push (and more importantly, which not to push). Makes me wonder where technology will be when I'm their age - and will any grandchildren/grandnieces/grandnephews find themselves thinking that the simplest electronic toys are beyond my understanding?

There's More Than Just Tulips There

I nearly forgot to share with you a place I discovered while in Michigan this past July.

What with 20 people all together for a week and 8 of that number being rambunctious children you can imagine how a girl who is used to living only with DH and 2 cats needs to escape for a bit of quiet time.

I managed to leave while others went to the lakeshore and I headed to the city of Holland where I found this gem of a shop. Friends of Wool. If you're ever in the area, stop by. The staff is friendly, the selection interesting, and they've got locally made fiber.





On the knitting front, I finished a baby blanket that got set aside for some reason - probably a victim of startitis. Pictures to come when the perfect storm occurs - I get home early enough to take pictures and the weather/lighting cooperates. (Maybe this weekend.) The Landscape Shawl continues on...and on...but only because I keep ripping back. Of course I've got more projects on the needles, but those are for another day.

What Happens to the Stash?

My parents have a cabinet full of toys in their home. These are toys that my siblings and I played with years ago. (Now don't be impertinent enough to ask how many years ago. Long enough ago that these toys have celebrated the big Three O - and then some.) There are Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, and, since I have 3 brothers, there are a plethora - or entire platoons - of green army men. When one of my now-20-something-year-old nephews was about 4 or 5 years old, he asked my mom, "Grandma, who gets the army men when you die?" Along these same lines, Maureen left me a comment about my last post that set me to thinking.

What happens to your stash when you pass on to that perfect LYS in the sky? What if your family doesn't realize the riches you have in the stash?! Do the chills run up and down your spine, too, when you ponder this? Will the non-knitters realize the true value of the treasure trove the knitter left behind - the sumptuous richness of cashmere, the steady softness of merino, the lustrous silk? Will they appreciate the difference between Kidsilk Haze and yarns like Red Heart?

And what about the professionals who deal with estate planning? Have they ever had a client who had a stash - estate planning for the fiber enthusiast? Would they suggest that the knitter leave specific instructions..."In the event of my death, do not open the upstairs closet door unless in the presence of a member of my local knitters' guild or one of my knitting friends...?" Are there wealthy knitters who leave 12 million in trust for the continued care of their stash, in the style of Leona Helmsley?

Ooohh, imagine the stash you'd acquire if you had that kind of money.

Hmm? What? Sorry - guess I drifted off there for a minute. A girl can dream, can't she?

Number 14304

That's my number on the Ravelry list.

Sigh.

The good news is the last time I looked, I think there were over 8,000 people ahead of me in line.

There are now only 2,829 people ahead of me.

Considering I signed up at the beginning of July, that's not bad.

But will I ever be ready to flash the stash? I don't know that I can be that honest with the world, much less myself.

And Jean's worried about six bins? I won't tell you how many bins I've got in my walk-in closet. You know, 5th Amendment right to not incriminate myself and all that. Let's just say that the majority of my estate when I pass on will be fiber. Let's hope any heirs are worthy of the stash.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

Well, sort of.

I returned home on July 6th. After 1 week of catching up at work, DH and I were off for a week of frolicking with my immediate family in celebration of my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. We “children” had rented a large house (we had to have space to sleep 20). The family spent the week reacquainting ourselves with the area in Michigan where we used to live between 1968 and 1974. We stayed right on Lake Michigan - the sunsets!





A few weeks ago I went down to the market at Stitches to see Franklin. It’s very interesting to watch Franklin as he works – he makes a connection with each knitter in front of his lens. While I was there, Sally Melville and Beth Brown Reinsel stopped by to participate in Franklin's project. Even though photos were prohibited at the event, I took a chance in order to photograph Franklin at work.









On the knitting front, the Landscape Shawl has been giving me problems - well, maybe I'm my worst own enemy. The pattern is deceptively simple - which means I don't pay as much attention as I should. I've ripped back on this one more than I did on Hazel Carter's Violets By The River (and that's A LOT of ripping!).

As for the purple Fiddlesticks laceweight, I'm tempted to not go any further on the MS3 and instead begin The Song of Hiawatha Lace Stole. I have a feeling that the MS3 will languish in the WIPs pile because I don't like how the pattern ended and this stole would have been for me. I have a couple more choices of patterns. I'd like to start on something this week, so I need to make up my mind.

In the meantime, I would like to start on sweaters for my 3 nieces - who have specifically requested "sweaters like Mrs. Weasley knit" in Grffyndor maroon with the initial of their first names in Gryffndor gold. I don't like to knit on deadlines - why add stress to an enjoyable part of my life? - but I would like to get these done for Christmas. I picked up the Charmed Knits book at Stitches and was going to use one of the sweater patterns, but I want to make the sweaters in the round, so I think I'm going to use a raglan pattern I have and just duplicate stitch their initials onto the finished sweaters. We'll see - famous last words and all that...

The U.K., Part II

Next stop - London.



This trip was much more fibre-related than when I was in London 2 years ago with DH. Then we hit all the tourist sights (the Tate Modern, London Tower, St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, the Old Bailey, Buckingham Palace, etc.) This time, the tourist activities took a backseat to checking out the LYS and meeting other knitters.

We took a train to Bristol to visit the Get Knitted shop.





I stopped by Stash...







and Loop...







and I Knit London...





I did purchase some items from each shop.
(Act surprised, OK?).

From Get Knitted, sock yarn and scarf yarn.





I picked up this Fiddlesticks laceweight at Stash. Whether this will continue to be used to knit the Mystery Stole 3 is up in the air at this point. I really didn't like the last clue, the wing. This has been set aside until I resolve the inner debate.



From I Knit London, I purchased some wool for a child's sweater.



One thing I enjoyed about each of these shops was that each one carries yarns that the others do not.

I met wonderful fellow knitters at 2 knitting groups. The first group meets at the Starbucks near the Golders Green tube station.







The second group was the Liberty ladies, who were temporarily displaced to the café at Waterstone’s.






Yvonne modeled her beautiful creation (and look at that gorgeous shawl pin).



Thanks for the companionship and chats, ladies! All of you who were at the knitting groups, please give a shout out to me in the comments, as during traveling I misplaced your contact information!

Non-knitting activities included touring the V&A...



the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London (no pictures because none were allowed - and as there were soldiers with actual machine guns, I figured I should comply with the rules)...

and the War Cabinet rooms, where I learned that Churchill’s attitude towards his books was the same as mine is towards my stash. To paraphrase him – “If you cannot use all of your skeins of yarn at any rate…fondle them, peer at them, pick them up where you will, then set them back on the shelf with your own hands.”

We were in the country during some historic events. We left York the day it began to rain and flood Yorkshire. We went through Glasgow the day before the bombing at the airport. We arrived in London after the failed attempts to detonate car bombs and we were in the UK during the end of Tony Blair's and the beginning of Gordon Brown's reign as P.M. In spite of these events, I can't wait to return to the U.K. Although if events in November, 2008 are similar to those from November of 2000 and 2004, I may not just visit, but may emigrate to the U.K.