Heirlooms
Kate blogged about knitting objects and whether or not we create them to be heirlooms and I left her a comment about my family's tradition when it comes to our Christmas stockings. We all have striped, fair isle stockings knit for us, with our names and various characters embellishing them. She emailed asking for photos, and while I don't have any recent, I do have some that were taken in 1982.
Photos link to flickr, where you can see bigger photos of them.
In these photos I am almost 19 months old there. Note that one stocking is a different color, this one was knit earlier [it's my mom's]. The other three are the same color, and my younger sister [born in 1983] was early enough that they were made with leftover yarn from the previous three. TheBoy's will likely be a very different shade than mine, and he should have it for this Christmas since we'll be married. These are hardcore acrylic, which is likely for the best in this case. They all have three trees on the top stripe and two candles on the second stripe but they each have one of three different single objects on the 3rd stripe. A wreath, reindeer or santa face. They also have sequins and beads that you can't see in these photos. I have such fond memories of these stockings and fully intend to take up as the family stocking knitter when my mom decides she's had enough. I'm not entirely sure where the patterns came from, but I'll bet my mom will likely email me to let me know.
Bay Area Part the First: The Fiber
This is a picture heavy one.
A big part of the reason for the timing of my trip south was to be able to attend Stitches West. I have been purchasing much less than normal in terms of fiber for the past few months to prepare for this. Armed with some saved monies, and a vague plan, I set out. I didn't really plan to hit any shops, instead saving my funds for Stitches, but on Thursday my doppleganger suggested that we hit Article Pract in Oakland. On our way there we had a run-in with a loud-mouthed idiot, because it takes time to remove one's crutches from the back seat in order to get out of the car. Apparently, this woman felt that TheAmpuT should be magical and just hop out instantaneously. Luckily, her nine year old son didn't really catch the string of expletives that was exchanged and we were able to go on our merry way without too much pause.
Article Pract was nice enough although the customer service was not the greatest. Mostly the folks working seemed to have a bored disinterest in the folks in the store, which doesn't bother me while browsing, but it did mean that I spent a lot of time standing at the counter waiting to be checked out. At any rate, I walked out of there with this:
Two ounces of 50/50 tussah/cashmere blend hand-dyed by Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks in Peacock Plume.
Later that day, at Paper Source, I picked up these:
Clips in the shape of sheeps! I'm going to make photo holders with them, I believe.
I know, I know.
I need to write all about my trip, at least the condensed version, but for now I need to post this:
I am seriously remiss in posting about receiving the second package from my spin to knit buddy http://naturespirit.livejournal.com/
140 yards handspun Cormo dyed with koolaid. The pale blue puff is some carded, dyed cormo and the crimpy white is unprocessed cormo. The green is ingeo. She also sent a new bobbin for Gert.
I didn't take a photo of the bobbin because by the time I got around to taking a photo of the rest of the package, it was already on my wheel and partly full of something else.
This was an interesting swap. I'm really sad that those folks running the swap never posted a list of those folks participating because I really ended up feeling like I was in a very private thing instead of something that should have been shared with a greater community. Never fear, I did suggest this to them for the next time a book comes out and they decide to run a swap in conjunction. Apart from that, it was fun. And my last swap for quite awhile unless something really really good comes along. Right now I'm far too swamped [and broke] from wedding hoopla to spend much time doing anything other than wedding. And here, I'll leave you with a teaser image from my trip:
Click to biggerize! The SF Skyline taken from the Golden Gate Bridge