My Life in Stitches: I Love Yarn Day

Today is I Love Yarn Day. Normally, I’m not a fan of random holidays, but this one is right up my alley.

Over the years, not only has my love for yarn grown, but I've turned into a bonafide yarn snob (and trust me, my stash confirms that). 

I think the thing I love the most about yarn is the possibilities. A 400-yard skein of fingering weight yarn can become a scarf, or a pair of socks, and in some cases, decoration (Don't act like I'm the only one who strategically places yarn in view simply because it's pretty). And now that cooler weather has settled in, I love yarn even more.

I tried to think of something to celebrate this holiday that didn't involve me going to a yarn shop. As much as I would love to go yarn shopping, I just did some yarn shopping last week. I decided to highlight some of my favorites from my stash. Also, this will remind me that I have some great yarn in my stash and curb my desire to buy more.

I bought this friend, Malabrigo Sock, colorway Stonechat, in St. Louis last year at a shop called Knitorious. The color just spoke to me. I have this slated to become a Woodland Shawl. I love the name. Stonechat. 

Yes, this yarn is pink, but I had a very good reason to buy it. One, it's Miss Babs and two, the colorway is called Jane Austen. One of my favorite things to do is to knit and watch Pride & Prejudice (Colin Firth version, please). Jane doesn't know what she wants to be yet, but you must allow me to say how much I ardently admire and love it.

So I have no idea why this colorway struck me, but for about a month, I was totally obsessed with it. It's Lorna's Laces, Cornelia colorway. I have no idea what to make with it, but it's a cheery addition to my normal grey and purple stash. This yarn was home decor for a while before I actually put it in the bin. 

How do you plan to celebrate I Love Yarn Day?

My Life In Stitches: New Cool Knitting Stuff

This month I’ve come across some new cool knitting things. I guess I’ve spent too much time on Raverly. With my last blog post of the month, I want to share some of those things with you.

We Are So Very Pretty colorway

Yarn

Nerd Girl Yarns. I have a friend who loves Firefly, so when I came across Nerd Girl Yarns, I couldn’t wait to share it with her. Nerd Girl Yarns names their colorways with lines from Firefly. I read the names to my friend, and she knew exactly what episode they came from. Beyond the moment of bonding I had with my friend, the colorways are lovely. Nerd Girl Yarns is on my yarn bucket list.

Techniques

Lifted Increase. This week, I learned how to knit a lifted increase. It was pretty simple once I practiced a little. I needed to learn it for the Skew socks I’m working on. Here is a video.

Overdying yarn. I think most knitters have a skein or two of yarn that captured our attention in the skein but ending up being not so exciting in the cake. I have a skein of purple sock yarn like that. I made a pair of socks, but didn’t like the color pattern. So I, being the geek that I am, researched overdying yarn. It was way more simple than I thought. I’ll be making my attempt next week.

Miss Terry by Kyla Hurst

Patterns

Miss Terry. What a cool name! My lovely knitting friend, Jill hipped me to this pattern. It is so me. I love working on lace and I have plenty of DK in my stash to work with. Can’t wait to start this. Isn't it every girl's dream to wear herself?

Raverly Groups

For the Love of Darcy. For those who don’t know, I am a huge Jane Austen fan. And once again, my knitting friend Jill suggested the Raverly group, For the Love of Darcy (Pride and Prejudice is my favorite Jane Austen book). Right now, there’s a discussion of which Darcy (Firth or Macfadyen) looked better wet. Hilarious!

What cool new knitting stuff have you come across?

Birth-month Celebration: Caribbean Festival and Jane Austen Book Fair

At the beginning of this month, I posted my plans to celebrate my birth-month. I’ve done two of the things on my list so far, one good, one bad.

Greeter at the door

The first was the Caribbean Festival in Bladensburg, MD. It’s not so much that this event was bad, it was just too small. I’d walked through all the venders in five minutes. There were bands performing, which made it a little better. I think the biggest problem with the event was me. I’d had a particularly rough day and just couldn’t change the direction of my emotions to enjoy the event. I did, however, bought a pina colada snow cone (it’s been years since I had one of those), so the event wasn’t a total loss.

Used book sale

This past weekend, I attended a book fair hosted Jane Austen Society of North America’s Metropolitan DC chapter. The event was great. The event featured six different authors who’ve written Jane Austen themed books. The authors included: Sandy Lerner (writing as Ava Farmer), Janet Mullany, Catherine Reef, Lori Smith (I already had a book by her), Margaret C. Sullivan, Diana Peterfreund, and Amy Corwin. Each author read a passage (or two) from their books and there was a short Q&A session at the end. The event also included a book signing, a used book table and refreshments. We were even greeted by a woman dressed in period clothing. Very cool.

Author chats and book signings

I really enjoyed myself.  It was nice to pick up some more Austen-themed books for my collection, but it was also nice to talk to the authors. Janet Mullany, Diana Peterfrund and Lori Smith had some very encouraging words for me as a writer, something I sorely needed. I learned that all of Jane Austen’s novels were self-published except Pride and Prejudice. I didn’t know that.

This was a great event for my birth-month celebration. I will certainly be hoping there will be another one of these next year. Nothing better than a perpetual birth-month celebration.

Happy Birth-month To Me

I have a friend named Kim and our birthdays are in the same month. I found out that we shared a birth month because she was celebrating her birthday…for the entire month. I thought this idea was genius and decided to do the same.

I’ve been celebrating my birth month for a couple of years now. My celebration isn’t elaborate (who can afford that?). I normally just pick things, preferably free things, to do throughout the month of June. I pick things that I love to do and make me feel the most like me. Besides, I need to celebrate me. Sounds very selfish, but I’ve recently realized that I don’t do enough to recharge my batteries. I don’t do things that I enjoy often enough. Here’s the perfect time to have some fun.

Tomorrow begins my birth-month and I already have a few things on my calendar (but I’m always open for more).

Here is my celebration plans so far:

June 2^nd-Caribbean Heritage Festival, Bladensburg Waterfront Park. Bladensburg, MD http://thecaribbeancouncil.org/

• I’m Caribbean by proxy. I love my husband and love his Caribbean culture (that he has not lost) and I love being his wife. I’m looking forward to hopefully eating some meat patties and windin’ my body. 

June 9^th-Jane Austen Society Book Fair, Walt Whitman High School, Bethesda, MD http://www.jasnamd.org/news.htm

• I screamed when I came across this event. Yes, the event mostly features authors who have written Jane Austen themed books, but who cares. It will be interesting to hear other people’s thoughts about Miss Austen.

June 13^th-The Art of Video Games, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art, Washington, DC http://www.americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2012/games/

• This outing is fifty percent for me and fifty percent for me. I’ve been to most of the Smithsonian museums and I knew I wanted to see some art for my birth-month. This kills two birds with once stone, since I can check out the other exhibits while my sons geek out over the video game exhibit. 

June 14^th- Lesole’s Dance Project, Millennium Sound Stage, Kennedy Center. Washington DC. http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/artists/?entity_id=17355&source_type=B

• I love great art performances. It doesn’t matter what kind of art. Since I’m a visual person, I love watching dance performances. Hopefully, I can get my friend Kim the dancer and my daughter to go with me.

June 18^th-The National Museum of the Marine Corps, Triangle, VA. http://www.usmcmuseum.org/index.asp

• Every time I drive past the National Museum of the Marine Corps, I vow to go one day. Besides, military life is my life. I’m a proud Army wife.

Also included in my celebration (but I’m not sure what day I’m going):

A trip to Fibre Space, my local yarn store, Alexandria, VA http://www.fibrespace.com/ I still have a gift certificate I got for Christmas. I don’t know why I’ve held on to it so long, but I’m spending it on for my birth-month.

There are my birth-month plans. Unfortunately, I’m missing a very important thing that I enjoy: MUSIC! I don’t have any musical events on my calendar. If you know of anything (preferable free), let me know. I would like to catch a classical music performance or attend a night of worship.

I’m so excited about my celebration. Happy birth-month to me!