splityarn

the church of knitting

Our beloved Yarn Harlot came to Austin and the knitters came out in droves. When I first heard that the talk had been moved to the Church next door to the yarn shop it made perfect sense. Hill Country Weavers, while yarny and wonderful, doesn't have the required open spaces for this kind of gathering. I parked my car, walked up to the side door of the church and started looking around for where the stairs to the basement would be (I'm from Canada, I forgot that Texas doesn't have basements.) Surely we'd be in an annex of some sort. You know, the place where they have the ROTC pancake breakfasts, where the Girl Guides gather for meetings, where the Sunday School kids go before the heavy sermon starts. Um, no. Dudes....she spoke IN THE CHURCH. On the pulpit and everything! Waaaaaay cool.

Everyone was enrapt in the pews, knitting, with Yarn Harlot books tucked into the pew racks with the bibles. If church was like this every week? I'd totally go. (Try not to notice the weird trees set up all around Stephanie. It was like they were preparing to decorate for Christmas and abandoned the idea mid setup. Something about vacation bible school, but whatever, it was odd.)

Stephanie was signing books in small groups in the garage beside HCW, so there was plenty of time to shop, shmooze and talk knitting. When it was my turn, I was happy to learn that Stephanie knew who I was so I didn't have to feel like a dope by introducing myself as "Caro Splityarn." Seriously, yesterday was like none of us had real last names, we were all, "Christine Big Pink Cookie," "Julia Yarnmaven," and "Katy Blogless." After we got some pictures with the sock, Stephanie had to take a quick break to do something Very Important (HCW generously provided us all with beer and she'd been in the garage for over an hour at that point.) She zipped out of the garage and we all stood waiting, camera in hand for her return. It seemed as though the thought hit us all at once. She totally left the sock unattended! The dozen or so of us in there took turns fondling and petting the sock and many, MANY pictures were taken. Sorry Steph, we couldn't resist! That sock saw some good times!

Afterwards we headed down to Guero's for some adult beverages and a debrief of the days activities. "Frozen, with salt please, and omgdidyoubuysomeoftheZephyr?" So. Much. Fun. Many thanks to all of the San Antonio gang (Janna, Mary, Susan and your crew,) the Houston knitters (Staci, Kelp and more,) the Austin folks (Abbe, Kristin, Sarah, Tina, et al,) Alicia, Hill Country Weavers and Stephanie. It was a spectacular day that I'd happily repeat.

quilty eye candy

  Safety for Birds 
  Originally uploaded by Nin(j)a.

Over a year ago I started the Quilts and Quilting group on flickr. At the time when you did a search for quilt groups or even quilt tags there was almost nothing. Since then there's been a myriad of fantastic talents who have added their photos to the pool. I thought I might add to Eye Candy Friday by highlighting some of my recent favourites from the pool (seeing as I haven't time to do any quilting myself.) Some are tiny, some minimalist, some are still WIPs, but they're all quite amazing. It can be very inspirational trolling through the pool.

All you Austin Yarn Harlot types, see you tomorrow! (Did you RSVP with HCW yet? How 'bout for the after party at Guero's?)

5 ways to procrastinate

I'm up to my eyeballs in prep for the DIY show (although I did manage to procrastinate update the shop with heaps of mini wallets) so there's no better time than now to answer the call of the yarnmaven. Julia is doing a "10 days of Yarn Harlot" countdown that's been an enjoyable read this week. I've been giggling my way through the mornings rereading some of the older posts. (Is anyone else as excited as I am that the Yarn Harlot is coming to Austin and a bzillion knitters will all converge in one place?)

5 Things always in my purse wristlet:

1. lip balm
2. miniwallet
3. a wee black comb like my dad used to carry
4. blank index cards for note taking
5. extra fine point pen

5 Things always in my wallet:

1. green card (it's not really green)
2. driver's license
3. health insurance card
4. credit card
5. some combination of these cards: Costco, NG House frequent flyer card, Splityarn business cards

5 Things always in my refrigerator:

1. half & half for the husband to keep his coffee sanity
2. spray butta
3. soy sauce
4. fish sauce
5. hot sauce

5 Things always in my closet:

1. black shirt
2. black skirt
3. black cardigan
4. black boots
5. cat hair (the other 4 are magnets for this one, sometimes it comes with a cat attached)

5 Things always in my car:

1. cell phone charger
2. cassette player to mp3 converter thingy
3. survival blanket (this was way more important when driving back and forth between Pemberton and Whistler. In Texas? Not so much. At least I took the snow shovel out.)
4. ice scraper
5. canadian coins. I think I need to reevaluate the importance of those last three. Surprisingly I haven't found any Canadian Tire money.

5 Things always on my desk:

1. Thread bits
2. Rotary cutting mat
3. random sewing WIPs
4. one of the cats
5. coaster

behold the humble paper clip

I'm a resourceful woman. Having worked in an environment where buying new pencils midseason could get you into budget trouble, I learned to scavenge and make do. Given a situation where the tools I need are unavailable, I'll find something to make it work. A MacGyver in training if you will. Like today. Today I forgot to throw my knitting finishing kit (a change purse with a tapestry needle, a yarn threader and a yarn cutter) in my bag before I went to work. I had 8 rows left on the first Crape Myrtle* sock that I knew I'd be able to finish before lunch time. Gah! How can I Kitchener stitch the toes together without a needle? I've made a paper clip into a crochet hook before, but this was something new.

And whaddya know, apparently paper clips can work for this too!

*I found a better tree to show the colours

summer blooms

In Texas right now the Crape Myrtle trees are in full bloom. They're a lovely combination of dark pink, green and brown and they are everywhere. You can't drive down any street in Austin without seeing a myriad of these trees in all sizes. Seemingly inspired by the colours around me I dug out some Lorna's Laces I bought at HCW a few months ago and cast on for a new sock. The green in the socks is spare, but I'm enjoying the brown and dark pinks. The pattern is the Oak Ribbed Sock from the Nancy Bush book Knitting Vintage Socks, but I think I'll christen this one the Crape Myrtle sock.

Orangina you glad I didn't say FO?

The garbage trucks in our neighbourhood come around incredibly early in the morning. As in, 6:30 AM rumbling and creaking down the street early. So when I realized at 6:28 the other morning that we forgot to put the can out at the curb for the 2nd consecutive week, I shot out of bed as though out of a cannon. I threw my pants on backwards, my shirt on inside out and swore aloud a lot. I ran barefoot out into the street (to the delight of my neighbour walking her dog,) but I got the container out in time. I came back into the house, heart racing and jacked up with energy. With that much adrenaline pumping there was no way I could go back to sleep so I picked up Orangina and finished her by 9:00. Thank you City of Austin!

The project details:

Pattern: Orangina, design by Glampyre
Yarn: Rowan 4 ply Cotton in black, bought from Jannette's Rare Yarns on eBay.
Needles: Size 3 bamboo
Started: August 2005
Completed: July 2006
Modifications: I have a larger rack than most so I knit a few extra repeats of the lace pattern to allow for a better drape off the front porch (ifyouknowwhatImean.) As I was joining the front and back to knit the ribbing in the round, I knit 2 together on each side at the seamlines for a tighter join and to get the right amount of stitches for the 3x3 ribbing. When I bound off I used a size 6 needle to keep the ribbing nice and stretchy.
Final Verdict: It's a keeper! I've already worn it twice.

lookit Pa! I'm'onna be on tha Tee Vee

Orangina is off the needles (!) and most of my current sewing WIPs are incredibly close to the finish line. I'm hoping to complete as many as I can this week because my time will not be my own over the next month. As soon as my recently ordered fabric arrives at the house I'll be preparing 3 sewing projects for...(drumroll please)...the taping of three episodes of Uncommon Threads for the DIY network!

I'd love to pretend to be all cool about it, but truthfully I'm super psyched. Textile Fetish Jennifer, our pal Marisa and I are flying to Los Angeles in early August for the show. Our episodes are part of season 2 and won't air for a while yet, but meanwhile I'll be DVR'ing season 1 to see what I'm in for.

Now if I can only wrangle that book deal…

a happy Canada Day indeed

I was going to write a diatribe about the challenges we had getting an Air Conditioning company to fix the duct problem in the kitchen (you know, that *thing* I asked you not to mention in all the pictures) but you know what? It's a boring story and most likely you'd rather just look at the pictures.

We subbed out the electrical, the drywall and the plumbing, but everything else in this kitchen renovation was done by me. I did the painting, tiling, cabinet building and installation, countertops, sink installation and a lot of swearing. The cabinets, sink and faucet are from IKEA, the appliances from Sears and the floor tiles from Home Depot. I still have to do the subway tile backsplash but for all intents and purposes the kitchen is complete as of this afternoon.

Did someone say it's time for a beer?