The Magpie Knitter

Knitter on tour, part 3 (part 1!)

Posted by Jen on 05/21/2013

(Saturday was a really long day, involving visits to 10 LYSs. So, to avoid this post reaching novella status, I’ll be posting it in 2 parts – here’s the first half of Saturday).

Either I was wrong about traffic/navigation mishaps coming in threes (and instead, they come in fives), or two of mine from yesterday didn’t count.

The day started early. How early? My first thought, when my alarm went off at 5:30 am, was, “Do I really need to see more yarn?”

My second thought was, “Get it in gear, pussywillow. We’ve got a ferry to catch.”

‘Cause yeah – it’s yarn.

Why was I up at such a bleary-eyed hour? Two of the LYSs on the tour are so far to the north that you almost need to take your passport (for anyone wondering, the wait at customs to cross into Canada at around 9 am on a Saturday morning tends to be less than 5 minutes – I know because I saw the signs). While the LYS Tour runs from 10-8 on Thursday and Friday, it’s only 10-6 on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday I understand, but for Saturday, that’s kinda ridiculous. I know the extended hours during the week are supposed to be for people who work, but let’s be real – by the time people get off work, they have maybe 2 hours if they’re very lucky to try to hit some yarn stores, and they’ll only be able to get to any that are close to them. Saturday really needs extended hours (I know I won’t be the only one suggesting that to the tour organizers, so fingers crossed for next year), but since I only had 8 hours, I really needed to make sure I did as much traveling before the stores opened as I could. That meant heading north early in the morning and working my way back south.

On the drive up, I made the mistake of pissing off Wesley, my GPS. I pulled off the highway to get gas without telling him. As I was turning onto the Cook Rd exit, he informed me he was “recalculating” in his irritated British way, but I ignored him, pulled into the station, and gassed up. Getting back on the highway was a simple matter – exit gas station by turning right on a side road, turn right onto Cook Rd, turn right onto the I-5N on ramp. Not so fast, said Wesley – he wanted me to continue on that side road (crossing Cook Rd) for about a mile, do a U-turn in a roundabout, and then take a left onto Cook Rd. I ignored him and turned right onto Cook Rd. “Recalculating,” said Wesley – now he wanted me to pass the I-5N onramp, turn left onto I-5S, drive to the next exit, and turn around to get on I-5N. I ignored him again, and he finally gave up and directed me to Beach Basket Yarns & Gifts. Once there, I joked on Twitter about being afraid that he was plotting his revenge.

Don’t joke about a GPS plotting revenge. Just…don’t.

Beach Basket Yarns & Gifts, Birch Bay WA

I wasn’t the only one with the idea of starting in the north – there was quite a crowd of us by opening time. In fact, I chatted a bit with a couple groups, including a fellow LYS Tour blogger (you can check out her daily reports on the tour at f1bercat’s SlowKnitter, which I would highly recommend. Whereas my posts are more about the experience of traveling from yarn shop to yarn shop, her posts are much more in-depth reviews of each shop). We were destined to keep running into each other for the rest of the day.

I was reminded why I like Beach Basket – nice selection (I found something I had to have easily) and charming staff.

Wear On Earth, Lynden WA

This was a new stop on the tour, and I was rather intrigued to see them based on their write-up on the LYS Tour site. This was going to be the first combination consignment shop…

…yarn store I had ever visited (their motto: Save on clothes to splurge on yarn).

The yarn store part is tucked in the back…if you can call something the size of most full-sized LYS-only stores “tucked.” Took me a while to narrow the choices down in this place.

Stop #3 on my list for the day was Apple Yarns. Wesley got a bit of his own back here, and it was entirely my fault. I knew Apple Yarns had moved since the last LYS Tour…but I forgot to tell Wesley. So he took me to the old location. Fortunately, the new one is pretty close by, so I didn’t drive too far out of my way, but I know Wesley was snickering to himself. I figured maybe this was my actual 3rd navigation mishap – that clover leaf thing yesterday was more amusing than annoying.

Apple Yarns, Bellingham WA

If there’s a town that doesn’t get to complain about a yarn shortage, it’s Bellingham – Apple Yarns was one of 3 LYS I was visiting there. Once inside, I could easily see why they’d moved to this place – who wouldn’t want to knit a room full of that much natural light?

I also loved the quotes on the walls. I recognized some of them, but this one gave me a good (and slightly rueful) chuckle.

NW Handspun Yarns, Bellingham WA

Bellingham also gets lots of variety in what’s offered. NW Handspun Yarns is definitely the place to go if you’re a spinner; that’s what the upper floor is dedicated too.

But there’s plenty of interesting yarn (including handspun art yarn made by the staff) for sale on the first floor.

And I enjoy seeing what the tree looks like each year.

Mrs. Hudson’s Yarns and Teas, Bellingham WA

This was a new addition to the tour this year, so it was my first visit – and it was a bit tricky to find, tucked away with several other cute stores in a bit of an alley. I wonder how many LYS Tours can boast of two yarn and tea stores on their list. Apparently there’s a whole yarn and tea movement I’ve been unaware of until now.

I liked the Sherlock theme of the tea room.

And that was just half the day. Check back tomorrow for my continuing adventures…and learn how Wesley got his revenge…

Posted in Festivals and Gatherings, LYS | Tagged Apple Yarns, Beach Basket Yarns and Gifts, lys tour, LYS Tour 2013, Mrs. Hudson's Yarns and Teas, Northwest LYS Tour, Northwest LYS Tour 2013, NW Handspun Yarns, Wear On Earth | Leave a comment

Knitter on tour, part 2

Posted by Jen on 05/18/2013

If bad things happen in threes, I should be done with navigation difficulties for this LYS Tour.

On the surface, my plans for today weren’t all that ambitious – just 8 LYSs, 6 of them in Seattle. The hard part was that with Steve back at work, I also had to handle school drop off and pick up, which meant that in the middle of my touring, I was going to have to head back to the other side of the Sound to pick up the kids, and then head all the way back. But ya gotta do what ya gotta do when yarn’s involved.

The day started on a very sweet note – since Lexie was on vacation the week they did the Mother’s Day cards in her class, she did hers yesterday and I got it this morning. It had a tea theme, but the cutest part was the note inside the teapot card: “I love my Mom because…she knits me stuff.”

Seemed like the perfect note on which to head to Churchmouse Yarns & Teas.

Churchmouse Yarns & Teas, Bainbridge Island WA

I was there before opening, but wasn’t surprised to see the doors were already open with busy shoppers inside. Churchmouse was my shortest stop, because it’s the only one of the LYSs on the list that’s actually local to me.

From there I headed to the Bainbridge Island-Seattle ferry; I once accidentally (showed up at the wrong time) took this one the other direction, but never from the island, so that was fun. After having lived here for almost 2 years, I still get a kick out of riding the ferries. Once on dry land, it was back to touring.

Bad Woman Yarn, Seattle WA

This year, I made sure to put Bad Woman Yarn early in my schedule. Last year, I dashed in as they were packing up for the night, so I didn’t get to see their nice set up.

This time, I wanted to be able to actually look around in a leisurely manner – there’s quite a bit to see for a small store.

So Much Yarn, Seattle WA

So Much Yarn isn’t the prettiest on the outside…

…but they do have plenty of yarn!

I found a really sweet yarn in there with sparkles that I’m pretty sure Lexie’s going to love…even though I added some green to her favorite pink and purple combo.

Seattle Yarn, Seattle WA

My last stop for the first half of the day was at Seattle Yarn.

Inside I came across a nice surprise: Shannon Mullet-Bowlsby of Shibaguyz Designz was there with a new design collection and all the fun yarn he used. (Jason was there too, but of course, I missed him.) They’ll be there for the rest of the tour, if you want to check out some great designs and yarn. I snagged a couple skeins for some swatching – Jeffrey wants a zippered cardigan from it.

Oh, and there’s plenty of other yarns to check out too.

Then it was time to head back across the Sound to get the kids. This time, I ended up on the Fauntleroy-Southworth Ferry…and almost accidentally got off at Vashon Island. That route’s tricky, y’all.

As soon as the kids were home with Steve, it was back to it for me. In an attempt to dodge as much of Seattle’s nightmare rush hour traffic as possible, I opted to head to Serial Knitters in Kirkland first – it’s a bit more out of the way, so if I missed any yarn stores, I wanted them to be in Seattle (and this almost turned out to be a premonition). But the trip to Serial Knitters was quite smooth…except for one small misstep. I forgot that my GPS, Wesley, can’t handle this exit and flips out after sending me the wrong way. Unfortunately, although I love Serial Knitters, it’s far enough out of the way that I visit rarely, and I don’t remember the freak out until it’s too late. As usual, it took 3 of the 4 clover leaves on that exit to get me pointing the right direction.

Serial Knitters, Kirkland WA

But I made it.

Serial Knitters may be my favorite store on the tour (don’t tell the others…and come to think of it, don’t tell Serial Knitters about Makers Mercantile). I had a hard time picking something out, partly because there were so many happy knitters there (a frequent “problem”) and partly because of the selection. One thing I knew I was getting as soon as I saw it – a double Yarn Buddy!

Then it was off to Seattle again, and I ran into my second travel misadventure. I had planned pretty well for traffic…but you can’t really plan for the car that stalls on the floating bridge on 502. That back up slowed me down quite a bit.

Acorn Street Yarn, Seattle WA

I wasn’t too far behind when I got to Acorn Street…but finding parking was a bit tricky. I ended up several blocks away and up a hill. Walking down was a bit painful for my knees. Walking back up was worse. The sacrifices I make for yarn…

And to get to see the ladder and imagine having one in my future craft room…and having shelves of yarn stacked high enough to actually need a ladder…sigh…

It was as I was leaving Acorn Street that another yarn crawler gave me a warning about my planned final stop that, in retrospect, I didn’t give enough thought to…but that’s for later.

The Fiber Gallery, Seattle WA

I made things a bit tough on myself here; I forgot they had parking behind the store and ended up a couple blocks (and across a busy street with no crosswalks) away.

I couldn’t seem to settle on anything here for a while, and spent a bit of time chatting, although I was aware that time was ticking. It was about 7:30, and the tour ended at 8pm today.

I did finally make a selection and get moving…and that disregarded warning jumped up to bite me in the rear.

See, there’s a section of Seattle called Ballard. Ballard has a lot of people of Norwegian descent who are quite proud of their heritage – so much so, they throw an annual parade. And today was that day.

Guess where The Tea Cozy Yarn Shop, my planned final stop is located? In Ballard. On the parade route.

I ended up circling the blocked off streets, trying to find a spot I could squeeze into. Unfortunately, the streets were parked solid, turning them into one way roads (which got interesting anytime I met a car going the other way – which was frequently). Meanwhile, I was watching time ticking down on my dashboard clock.

Finally, I found a spot a good distance a way, 2 minutes before 8, and set off at a rapid walk. Halfway there, I finally admitted to myself that this was a futile gesture. The only shot I was going to get was going to be the outside shot…

The Tea Cozy Yarn Shop, Seattle WA

See that open door? So did I.

In fact, there were several knitters in there finishing up as I dashed in, out-of-breath and disheveled. One of the staff looked at me and said with a smile, “You made it.”

Yes. Yes I did.

I got my stamp. Not only that, but I got my door prize entry, looked around, bought some yarn, and even got a frequent buyer card…all while being given the impression that the staff had all the time in the world even if it was 5 minutes after closing when I showed up. Award for the Most Gracious LYS of 2013 goes to The Tea Cozy Yarn Shop.

LYS Tour stats (today):

LYSs visited: 8
Miles traveled round trip: 191.3
Time spent traveling and visiting LYSs: 11 hrs, 47 min
Ferries taken: 3
Yarn purchased: 18 skeins

LYS Tour stats (total):

LYS visited: 10 of 24
Miles traveled round trip: 316.3
Time spent traveling and visiting LYS: 15 hrs, 16 min
Ferries taken: 3
Yarn purchased: 28 skeins

Posted in Festivals and Gatherings, LYS | Tagged Acorn Street Shop, Bad Woman Yarn, Churchmouse Yarns & Teas, lys tour, LYS Tour 2013, Northwest LYS Tour, Northwest LYS Tour 2013, Seattle Yarns, Serial Knitters, Shibaguyz Designz, So Much Yarn, The Fiber Gallery, The Tea Cozy Yarn Shop | 3 Comments

Knitter on tour

Posted by Jen on 05/17/2013

The 2013 Northwest LYS Tour, that is. (Formerly the Puget Sound LYS Tour; apparently they’ve decided it needed a new name since 2 of the LYSs this year are almost in Canada, nowhere near the Sound!)

I love LYS tours. I love them so much that last year, I did 2 of them…on the same weekend. By the end, I’d visited 29 yarn stores, traveled more than 860 miles, spent almost 40 hours traveling and visiting LYSs, and took 7 ferry rides. It was crazy, it was exhausting, it was stressful…and it was some of the most fun I’ve ever had.

That said, I was pleased to see that this year, the South Sound Yarn Crawl and LYS Tour were on different weekends (whew!). I happily planned on doing both again…and then had to give the SSYC a miss when I ended up with other plans. I’m certainly not complaining, though.

The other plans ended up being welcoming my husband Steve home from a 8+ month deployment onboard USS JOHN C. STENNIS. I’ll take my husband over yarn any day (he might be surprised to hear that, but it’s true!).

We spent the first week of his post-deployment leave on vacation, and then the last several days just starting to ease Steve into the new household routine. But for his last day of leave (he’s back to work Friday), I really wanted to start the LYS Tour. I figured I’d leave him at home, take the kids to school, and be back in time to pick him and them up. But as we got to talking, he mentioned maybe heading down to Kent, WA to The Grape Adventure, a wine store with an awesome wine club (we had our last month’s selection to pick up). And maybe we could have lunch there too, he suggested. I reminded him about my LYS Tour plans, and then I looked at the map.

Darned if there wasn’t an LYS in Kent. It was on.

So, after dropping the kids off, we both headed south. For the first time (not on a ferry), I was actually getting to knit while traveling on a yarn crawl.

And that was because of my awesome designated driver (every serious knitter has one, Steve informed me).

Today was supposed to be gray and rainy and miserable…you certainly couldn’t tell that by our trip across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

The Knittery, Renton WA

Our first stop was a bit north of Kent at The Knittery. The Knittery was on the tour last year, so this was my second visit…which good, because I entirely forgot to take any pictures at the store, so I snagged last year’s indoor shot.

(No outdoor shot again – sorry, Knittery!)

I did take a shot of my haul, though.

That fun yarn is destined to be a new design – I’m thinking a summer shirt of some kind. Lexie has already agreed to wear it…naturally, since it’s pink and purple.

Makers Mercantile, Kent, WA

Then we turned back south to Kent for my first visit to Makers Mercantile. In retrospect, it’s embarrassing that we almost couldn’t find it in the business park. Why? Well, the outdoor shot required me to use the panoramic function on my camera.

It’s huge.

And that’s not even all of the indoor space – they have an enormous lounge with tables, chairs, and couches, as well as 3 separate classrooms. In the back, where the blue wall is? That’s the cafe. Despite the fact that we were heading to lunch from here, Steve almost lost the battle against some delicious baked goods.

Oh, and by the green wall?

Yeah. I heard angels singing.

It was lunchtime by then, so we zipped over to The Grape Adventure, which is a very short hop from Makers Mercantile. If you’re doing the LYS Tour and end up in Kent around noon, and you don’t feel like another fast food meal and/or you are at all interested in wine, I can’t recommend them enough.

Do yourself a favor – get the cheesy bread appetizer (it’s life changing. No, really). But don’t eat it all when it comes – save some. For your entree, get the steamed clams. When they arrive, dip the cheesy bread in the sauce with the clams. The 14 Hands Chardonnay is an excellent complement. You can thank me later.

Before we started eating, Steve and I did a time check. We had to be back home in time to pick Jeffrey up from school, and as the next closest LYS was in Seattle, that would be pushing it. Or…we could have a leisurely meal, enjoy each other’s company (alone for the first time since he got home), and then make a few fun stops for the DD on the way back. We chose the second option.

After loading up our wine, we headed to 7 Seas Brewing in Gig Harbor, WA. Or, at least, we tried to. I’d never been there before, but Steve had…and we were both quite surprised when he pulled up to the building to find…a distillery. Heritage Distilling Company, to be exact. I did tease Steve, a spirits drinker, about “accidentally” finding a distillery, but it turned out when we went in (after all, we were there…) that 7 Seas had moved after Steve deployed. So Steve got a bonus spirits tasting before we headed to brewery’s new taproom location.

Found it!

We enjoyed a taste of all the beers on tap and then decided to call it a day. Not a very successful one judging by the yarn crawling (2 out of 24 stores), but massively successful as a great day for a husband and wife to reconnect.

Cheers!

LYS Tour stats:

LYSs visited: 2
Miles traveled (round trip): 125 miles (LYSs only)
Time spent traveling and visiting LYSs: 3 hrs, 29 min
Ferries taken: 0
Yarn purchased: 10 skeins

Posted in Festivals and Gatherings, LYS | Tagged 7 Seas Brewing, Heritage Distilling Company, lys tour, LYS Tour 2013, Makers Mercantile, Northwest LYS Tour, Northwest LYS Tour 2013, The Grape Adventure, The Knittery, yarn crawl | 1 Comment

Magpie Knitter and Fledgling – a design partnership

Posted by Jen on 03/08/2013

It’s been hard to settle down to work these days. As the kids are getting older, they’re getting busier – both now play tennis (which means lessons 3 times a week, since they’re not in the same class), and Lexie’s still doing gymnastics twice a week along with preschool the other 3 days. She’s desperate to start dance lessons as well, but I’m holding her off until her dad gets home so I can split the chauffeur duties…or at least have someone else to do the work I can’t while driving them around, like cook dinner. And as of yet, we still don’t know when that will be; we think (hope!) the end is in sight, but we’re over 6 months in and we’re probably still looking at months more.

So my optimistic plans for this deployment have proven to be a bit unrealistic. Something had to give it, and it couldn’t be the kids, obviously. I’ve done what I’ve could where I could, but haven’t had much uninterrupted time (I did get a whole weekend off last month – my first of the deployment – to go to Madrona, which I’ll be posting about soon, but I opted to try to relax a bit when not in class).

The couple hours a day I do get are generally when Lexie is at school. Unfortunately, on Monday night, she spiked a fever of about 102. That meant no school on Tuesday. So I was prepared to spend the day trying to entertain a feverish and uncomfortable little girl.

Fortunately, her fever was down a bit, closer to 100, the next morning. And Lexie had already decided what we were going to do: we were going to design.

On Monday, looking for something new to do with Lexie, I’d printed out some of the fashion croquis I use to sketch designs. As someone who can screw up drawing a stick figure, this is a resource I’m so grateful for. This sketch, which became Little Miss Mopsey, never would have happened without them.

We’d started by organizing my box of 64 crayons. I’m not quite sure what’s up with Crayola and these randomly organized crayon boxes. I mean, the reason you buy such big boxes is to make sure you have the right shade of green and how can you find it if you can’t compare it to the other greens, all next to each other?

Yes, I’m a little Type A. And I’m doing my darnedest to pass that on to my offspring.

Lexie went to town with the croqui and the crayons and had a blast. So since she had to stay home on Tuesday, she wanted to design some more. Of course, Tuesday is normally one of my work days, so I mentally crossed that day off as one where I’d be getting any real work done. But it would be worth it for the fun girl-time with my daughter. So we formed “The Magpie Knitter and Fledgling” design team and started drawing.

Wow, was I wrong…about not getting work done. We’d set up our “design studio” in the dining room, and I needed to give Fledgling a good excuse before I was allowed to leave it. No goofing off in my seat either – any time I started catching up on Ravelry or Twitter I’d hear, “Mommy – aren’t you going to design with me?” I did finally convince her that the swatching I needed to do counted as design work, as long as I sat there with her and helped her pick colors out. I got more work done that morning than I do most days.

I was not wrong about the fun, though. We had a blast. Lexie and I talked about all the designs she drew and what she liked in clothing, and about putting colors together. I didn’t bother with explaining color theory (although someday I’ll pull out my color wheel) but if she asked, I’d give her a generic color (“orange”) and enjoyed watching her pick out a shade she thought worked with what she’d already colored. I loved seeing how fearless with color she was – it was downright inspiring.

So, of course, I had to give her the ability to expand her color palette. Besides, some friction had developed in the design partnership – Lexie was beginning to ask me for color suggestions just to shoot them down. I decided to dissolve the partnership while we were still speaking to each other, and we couldn’t split custody of the crayon box. So instead I hooked us each up with one of these:

I couldn’t leave Jeffrey out. He got his own tower as well, and as soon as he got home from school he hurried through his homework so he could join in the fun.

He started out with the croqui I’d already printed out, but then he wanted to do some boy designs. I had those too, so I printed several out for both kids, and Jeffrey went to work.

A couple days later, the kids are still designing. I love that they think what Mom does is so much fun…and they’ve inspired me to get cracking!

Posted in Design Process | Tagged color, croqui, design sketches, designing | 4 Comments

Finding comfort in crochet

Posted by Jen on 11/18/2012

It’s been a rough couple of days here. On Friday, I had to make the tough decision to put our 12-year-old calico girl, Miri, to sleep. The vet discovered lymphoma that had developed and spread very quickly, and she had crashed hard. Treatment was highly unlikely to help and more likely to hurt, and just letting her go would have meant death from dehydration since she wouldn’t drink. I couldn’t do that to her, so although Steve was asleep on the other side of the world, I had to make the call. The kids and I were there with her to say goodbye.

Saturday was stressful as well, although it was a much happier stress – Lexie was having her first large birthday party with friends. Until this year, a big party didn’t make much sense because she wasn’t in school and didn’t really have any friends outside our neighbors, but this year she had classmates in both school and gymnastics. So I had 19 kids at a local indoor play arena. Lots of other parents were there too, but I always stress about these types of gatherings, and normally I have Steve there to keep me on an even keel. Fortunately, the party was a rousing success.

(I had to cheat with that picture – that’s from the family gathering the weekend before…I remembered all the important stuff for the party, and forgot a camera.)

So today, what I needed most was to relax. I’ve got grading to do for designs, and I’m on a fair isle kick right now. In fact, I woke up last night with a design idea. And it’s going to be really cute. I’ve also gotten several skeins I’ve ordered recently for designing, and my hands are itching to get swatching.

But mentally, I wasn’t up to it. I wanted something simple, something comforting. So I picked up some crochet.

I have a young cousin who’s expecting, and ever since I heard the news I’ve been working on a set of bibs and cloths. I’ve got a sizable stash of Peaches and Creme from right before the mill was sold and have been waiting for some babies to use it on. One of the colorways I had was Gumdrop, and since we didn’t have a gender yet, it seemed like the perfect fun colorway to work with, especially since I had all the perfect coordinating solids.

So I sat down and started flipping through all the washcloth patterns I’ve saved on Ravelry and picked out the Simple Stripes Dishcloth. Then I grabbed the purple solid and some Gumdrop and started working my crochet hook.

A couple rows in, I knew it was working. I could feel my muscles relaxing and my breathing slowing. Tomorrow, I’ll get back at the designing. But today, I’m just going to crochet.

Posted in Crochet, Random Musings | Tagged baby stuff, crochet, peaches and creme, relaxing | 2 Comments

Getting from "Ooh, shiny!" to a design

Knitter on tour, part 3 (part 1!)

Knitter on tour, part 2

Knitter on tour

Magpie Knitter and Fledgling – a design partnership

Finding comfort in crochet

@MagpieKnitter

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