Weekend Knitting & Other Related Activities

This weekend was all about the knitting and the yarn. Even though RI seems to be having typhoon weather, I got out of bed at 8AM on Saturday to go to The Fabric Place in Warwick for their 25% off sale. As I was driving and cursing the trucks for spritzing my car with MORE rain, I decided that maybe this wasn't the best idea. Of course, that idea was pushed to the side when I thought about the yarn.

I picked up some needles, knitting accessories, and wonderful yarn. I bought Noro's Silk Garden Lite, some Cascade 220, Brown Sheep's Cotton Fleece, and some others. I would show pictures, but I spent today cleaning up my room, so I can repack everything I own into different boxes (don't ask, it makes sense, but yet at the same time it doesn't). At first I was amazed that all of my yarn fit into one 2x2x1 box and then I realized that I forgot about my four storage containers filled with yarn. To be honest, it kind of frightened me out of taking pictures of the yarn and then I became ashamed of my stash. I am planning one last hurrah in Boston and then I am closing up shop. Well, I am closing up shop until my Dad and I do the drive to Gainesville. Yarn bought on the way can be considered souvenirs and therefore not true yarn purchases. I know I should feel guilty about the yarn shopping, but once I get to Florida, my budget will be tighter (which is sad since a research assistant's salary is tiny enough as it is) and yarn purchases will be few and far between.

Besides purchasing yarn, I created an extensive chart of all my knitting needles. I used all those work-related Excel classes to organize my needles to great heights. These are my headers: needle type, US size, mm, length (inches), length (cm), company, brand, material, and number of needles. After I entered all of needles, I selected my headers, went to data, and clicked autofilter. Now I just select the arrow next to brand (for example), select addi turbo, and then just my addi turbo needles are shown. If I want to see all the needles again, I select the arrow next to brand and select all. You can select multiple arrows and really narrow your searches. Yeah, I am a dork, but now I know exactly what needles I have, what size, and what company.

I also found a really cute purse pattern from the latest Creative Knitting that I might knit up as a side project to my shawl. I realized that I need a fast project to break up the monotony of Twizzler. It is hard to stay inspired on Twizzler when it takes so long to see the patterns arise from the yarn. 401 stitches are a lot to knit. As you can see on the right, Twizzler is coming along, slowly yet surely. Who knows, maybe I will finish him by the end of the summer. Maybe I will use my brand new bed in Florida to block him!

-SAK

Knitting Television:
The Fellowship of the Ring (extended version...oh so good...much better than the theatre-movie version)
Arrested Development (Season One)