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I have enough yarn. For now.

For the second day in a row I have entered a LYS and thought, “There is nothing in here I really need/want.” On Thursday, in Knitty City, no less.

Don’t take that the wrong way. If you come to NYC and want to hit the yarn shops, Knitty City is a must see (and buy something.) And don’t think I left empty-handed, though two hanks of Claudia Hand-painted linen, a single set of Lantern Moon 4.5 mm/US #7’s and a bottle of unscented Eucalan, is fairly empty-handed for me.

Backing up, after I spent and hour and a half at the DVM yesterday re-registering the expired registration on my barely-used car—oddly, I was the only one in line constructively using the time to get some knitting done—I went all the way up to the Upper West Side to check out Knitty City. A busy shop. Lots of good yarn. Huge book and pattern section.

I probably would have spent more, but there were a few moments where I felt like I was in the staff’s way, like I feel at Met Food when stocking the shelves is more important than my actually buying toilet paper or canned tomatoes, but then I’m not used to busy yarn stores.

But yarn is not a necessity, nor is there only one option for buying it, and I do like to have my existence acknowledged once before I plop $90 of goods down on the counter.

Go to the men’s dress shirt section of the flagship Bloomingdales in Manhattan and three solicitous salespeople will mysteriously appear at your side the moment you even spy a low-end shirt you might think about buying. Higher prices should give you better service. And at Bloomie’s they do.

The woman behind the counter, the owner maybe, made me reconsider my leaning-negative first impression. She was pleasant and friendly, if not forward, which I appreciate, and tried to engage me.

Maybe it is just because this is the first LYS I’ve ever been to where no one asked if there was something they could help me find. Maybe this is the first store where they didn’t think I was going to shoplift something. Probably not. Perhaps this is the one shop where male knitters are common and don’t need minding (you know what I mean.)

I will go back. My impressions were probably clouded by the DMV. And I got a really good chocolate malt on Amsterdam Ave. practically across the street.

The Upper East Side

Where I went on Friday. I hit two LYS’s with plans for a third. I won’t name the first, but the elitism really put me off—me, the one who goes to Bloomingdales. The owner and staff were friendly and the yarns quite nice, but elitist. I bought yarn anyway. Really expensive yarn. It was my BD present (another one), and someone will get a really nice scarf.

I don’t like the Upper East Side. It makes me feel crass without feeling inferior.

The second shop, The Woolgather, was nice and attractive, with some good yarns and friendly staff, but not so much as to warrant the 45-minute trip from Boerum Hill (Brooklyn) to get there just to browse. If you’re on the East Side and north of 14th, it’s a good place to stop. Or if you need Addi circs or Crystal Palace straights, they have almost every size you could want.

New York was muggy and the next store on my list was ten blocks away and uphill, and the likelihood of seeing a yarn I could not live without was small, so I went home.

Practical Considerations

Every yarn that currently appeals to me is sport-weight or finer. Given the speed I knit and the expected number of stitches per inch, a little yarn will go a long way, and I have no little amount of yarn already. Every skein of lace-weight could represent another month or two of my life. When I saw some attractive Isager lace-weight at Knitty City, I did stop to think, “When will I get to that?” Then I bought the sport-weight linen I was already holding.

Vanna’s Choice is not Rose’s

First time the Little Monster has turned her nose up at yarn, even when waved in front of her nose. Others may disagree, and I respect that (somewhat), but I really dislike this yarn. Stiff, abrasive, worsted—okay, I’m not into worsted lately, but AARGH. Given an hour or so, one could saw through prison bars with this stuff. I’m no fan of Vanna, but I see her in a room with the manufacturers’ reps, presented with several bad options—steel wool, barbed wire, cotton— and she says “I choose that one”, pointing to the acrylic.

For some reason, I have not made it to Lion Brand Studios this week. There’s always tomorrow.

To be honest, at 6.00 mm or 6.5 mm instead of the recommended 5.5 mm, it is workable, if not delightful. The color is okay, too.

Hot, like July. And the poor cat still has her winter coat. As now do most of the chairs.

Let’s see if I can finish this before midnight.

Gratuitous Cat Photo

Rose with Felted Object (let’s leave it at that.)

Another Nine-day Weekend (aka The Spree)

I always take this week off from work. This is the week where I used to spend a lot of time pitying myself for having gotten older without actually having ever gotten cooler. Having survived being 50 without miraculously having been transformed into Sting, Annie Lennox or Madonna (she’s right behind me, you know), I’ve given up on cool. I’ve settled for having disposable income.

And dispose of it I have. In a long-needed spirit of adventure, I’m visiting most of the New York yarn shops I’ve never been to, many of which take me above 14th St. (inside NYC joke).

Yesterday, in the wonderful April heat, I walked over to 7th Ave in Park Slope and disposed of income in Stitch Therapy. I met Maxcine, the LYSO, who has some nice yarns and made me feel comfortable. Bought some yarn, too. I then walked two blocks away to FiberNotion, a cute, tiny, and stocked-to-the-gills store, with fabrics (mostly), beads, buttons, fiber, notions, etc. And she has darning eggs, one of which I have to go back for.

Today, sadly, I went to the closing sale of the Point, in the West Village. Well, the 30% off wasn’t sad, but it was such a nice shop, and if it had been local I would have been there much more often. I got there just before it opened this morning, and I have to say I didn’t think it was possible to get that many people into a LYS. period, much less one that small.

I could only take about 25 minutes of that many people in one space—and I had zeroed in immediately on my favorites—so I had an hour to kill before meeting J for lunch at Mesa Grill.

Mesa Grill has one of the best burgers in NYC, but if burgers aren’t your thing at least order something with fries, or make sure someone at your table does. We took my niece and her friend there for Saturday brunch last month; I had the blue corn waffles and half of her fries. She’s was a 23-year-old girl ; it’s not like she was going to eat them all herself. I say “was” because we share a birthday and she is now 24, though I doubt that has had any effect on her eating capacity yet. Give her a couple of decades.

Then we went to Habu. Fifteen blocks in the July-like heat—love it—on a full stomach, but sufficiently lubricated. What an odd little shop(?)! The sale items are in low baskets in the center of the floor. The regular-priced items are on the wall in an alcove around the corner. Got some nice lace-weight. J went with me and was glad he did, because I could not have described it to him, even without the margaritas.

I will definitely go back, because I forgot to look for the silk/stainless steel yarn, which, if nothing else, sounds butch.

Off to School Products,two blocks away. If you need or want or desire Karabella, this is the place to go. Which, fortunately, I did. She had Aurora 8 in black, which no one does. The shop also has a good selection of proprietary yarns (no labels). I picked up some yak/merino worsted and some cashmere, both reasonably priced, I think.

Then home for a nice nap.

More Gratuitous Cat Photos

Rose going to town in the yarn cabinet. I had taken the yarn bin out to rummage through it and she was there in a flash. The picture would be clearer if she hadn’t kept squirming and rolling herself in the lovely wool odor.

Probably not the best place to leave yarn to be photographed. Yes, that’s two skeins of Trekking Hand Art between two shades of Punta del Este Merinocash.

Really, anyone want to come over and knit? There is way too much yarn in this apartment.

Flamborough Pattern I

This is the stitch pattern for my gansey. Working on the round swatch.

Woohoo. Finished w/ 10 min to spare.

I have inventoried my stash. I have 396 balls, cakes, hanks or skeins of yarn—more, when you take into account the partial balls. Since I started knitting in the fall of 2005, I have acquired at least 527 of the same. On those I for which I know the price—only 238 of the 527—I have spent USD 2,432.33.

In the 527 balls, cakes, hanks or skeins there is represented 125 different varieties from 61 distinct makers.

I have 96 needle sets, comprised of 50 straights, 130 dpn’s, 36 circ’s and 11 crochet hooks. Most of these do not have price tags. For now I am holding off counting the notions.

I’ve done this in a MySQL database. I want to integrate it in the blog eventually.

My apologies to everyone I have ignored for the last year and more. I was bored with blogging and frustrated with my knitting and my job and somewhat depressed with my 50^th birthday coming up. I was feeling too exposed to be honest and too lazy to do anything about it.

Having been too isolated over the last year, I will try to be less so henceforth. I should probably try to lose the 15 pounds I gained since last December. And go to the gym. And drink less. And be nicer to people. And…

The old URI will not redirect to this blog; I’d rather be found the hard way.

Oh, my brand-new favorite yarn store: Seaport Yarn. And it’s only two blocks from my cubicle—three if you count the building I’m in.

I think that I’ve managed to move over everythning ove to the new address. If I have not, let me know. Let the spam begin.

So I’m not so into the Holidays—less so this year, this being the first time in over a decade where I’ve worked between Χmas and New Year’s.

Today, I took a day off. J & I need to find a console/buffet table for the living/dining room. It will be replacing the desk that is buried under all of my current knitting. J’s goal is for a piece of furniture that can store much of my knitting. Wish him luck.

I did get some knitting done in RI: one entire sock.

And I cast on for the second sock before we left for home.

The sock is loosely based on Nancy Bush’s Gentleman’s Half Hose in Ringwood Pattern from Knitting Vintage Socks. The yarn, Gems Opal, is thicker than the pattern calls for and I’ve reduced the number of stitches and substituted a Dutch heel and a French toe.

There are two problems with this sock. First, the foot is about ¾ in. too short, so I need to take out the toe and add six rounds in length. This is okay because the French toe doesn’t work very well with this sport-weight yarn. Second, and more problematic, this sock weighs 60 g; the skein weighs approximately 105 g and I have only one skein. I can’t decide whether to buy more of the same colour in a different dyelot or replace 7 or 8 g of the toe with a contrasting color that I already have, either red or purple.

Later. Time to get dressed for shopping.

Back to work tomorrow.

It was a slightly disappointing weekend, so I focused on finishing things and cleaning up. The weather was not permitting. Rain all day Saturday, high and gusting winds Sunday. I had no chance to wow bystanders with my biking outfit. I did eat, however.

I finished J’s hat, another disappointment.

It’s too big for J, whose head, while larger than mine, still does not have enough hair to make it work. On my head, it seems a bit too feminine too. Probably the purple. I did swatch; I just overestimated the size of his head. The yarn is Debbie Bliss aran cashmerino, which I find too thick for a decent masculine hat in that color.

I finally finished the chair cover I made to protect my clothing and head from my chair at work. Pictures later.

I finally altered the whippet coat I made last year. I kitchenered the front together and added a d-ring to replace the velcro. I hope it arrives in time. One more whippet coat to go. Btw, the front is on the left.

Today, I finally caulked around the air-conditioner boxes. I’ll cover the air-conditioners later this week.

Saturday, I went to the LYS to buy #7 dpn’s to finish J’s hat and left—shockingly—with only the dpn’s I came for. Today, because the hat didn’t work out and because I had nothing in the stash that met the new requirements—soft in grey and black—boring—I went back to the LYS and came back with ten skeins of yarn and two circs.

Upper left: five balls of Debbie Bliss dk merino in grey (2), black (2) and navy (1).
Upper right: the circs.
Below them, two former hanks of Reynolds Rapture, one of my favorite yarns, in off-white and pale green.
Lower left: three hanks of Koigu Kersti Merino Crêpe (one not shown), in a beautiful shade of blue—I bought it because it was pretty.
Below, the edge of the ever-present Feather & Fan.
Left: the whippet coat.

Dear Ms. Bliss:

Generally I like Debbie Bliss yarns, but Ms. Bliss needs to work on the quality control.

One: the only way to get a decent center-pull ball of yarn out of the Bliss line is to rewind it. Hours can be wasted trying to find the end inside that cinnamon-bun-shaped coil. If it’s any consolation, Rowan isn’t much better.

Two: See those knots? Both were within twelve feet of the end of the inside end of two different skeins. I know knots are inevitable, but that close to what should be the starting point?! See those bobbin lengths? Those are the leftovers. Cheap economizing on not cheap yarn.

Contemplating felting and winter soltice gifts.

I’ve posted a bit in the last day or so, so you might, if interested, want to scroll down from here.

So to prove I’m gay, or overpaid, and to restock my supply of sweaters without having to knit them, I went to Gerry’s on Bleeker—the sales guy was cute and tolerant of my trying on every sweater in the store and leaving it rumpled on the chair next to the counter—he told me to. After a while he started bring sweaters to me so I’d leave the others alone.

Sidetracked. Like I said, I went to Gerry’s on Bleeker an bought two sweaters that I could never knit and were not at all cheap. One was a brown Converse sweater by John Varvatos with a chunky zipper up the front. Young, but not ridiculous. This will be the inspiration for every sweater I ever knit for myself, should I ever do so. Slightly ribbed, which flatters my smallness, without making my shoulders look too narrow, as did half the sweaters in the shop. Raglan sleeves are not my friends. Neither are bright stripes across my middle. The other was an inside-out grey-ish, ribby, v-neck by NSF. Cute. I’d definitely lust after a (thin young) man in this sweater. Don’t ask what I paid.

In PTown last summer I saw a cashmere sweater over which I have kicked myself for not buying. I priced the yarn afterwards: 50% more to do it from scratch and months of labor, and I’d screw it up anyway.

iTunes

Apple upgraded iTunes and I’ve spend much of the last two days incorporating the new format into my life. I’ve scanned album covers (for private use only). I’ve confirmed that much of my music is typical of a gay man in his forties. I’ve bought new music.

Thirty seconds is not enough time to decide if one likes a piece of music enough to buy it.

On one hand, Apple should credit you when you buy an album after having bought a song or two from the album. On the other hand, I spend more for espresso. Or sweaters.

Old Music

On the subject of my music collection, there is too much Pet Shop Boys and I am tired of Jimmy Somerville. Early Madonna grates too. Anybody remember the soundtrack from The Lostboys? Keifer used to be so cute.

Erasure is so lame, but I’m listening to them. I’m so old.