Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Do you know these people?

If you are an Elannite, or, as Betsy calls us, an Elannimal, you probably know these people:




Baby has not knitted anything yet, but I maintain this is just because she's been too busy eating, pooping, and sleeping.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

LYS goes to hell

This is actually only partly about the LYS. It is also about my own stupidity, and also about that I have a user pic! Finally!

That is a Gryffin holding a ball of yarn. If you do not think it looks like a ball of yarn, then I invite you to argue with the Gryffin. Personally, if something with toenails like that tells me he is holding a ball of yarn I will believe it, even if that "Ball of Yarn" smells like Limburger cheese, but hey, your results may vary...

(Copyright free clipart by the way - I am totally pure on this one.)

Now about my own stupidity...I must remember that no matter how many times you walk past the sock yarn display in the local yarn store, New Yarn Will Not Appear Now if I were the sort of person who could multiply loaves and fishes, ok, maybe, but I am not. I am lucky if I can find what was there to begin with.

I must say that what was there to begin with was more than they had when I started knitting. There was some Regia Stretch, and some Trekking, and some Step, and one skein of Adirondack, and a bunch of Colinette...except that the Colinette, the salesgirl was honest enough to tell me, is really only enough to make a pair of socks if you make them short. Otherwise you need two balls. Well, it wasn't for me and I did not want to take chances.

I had intended to dye my own for this sock exigency, in fact, and dye I did. I had a partial skein of KP essentials BARE and I dyed it with purple Koolaide, and it almost worked...I should have used a little more water. I should not have added the turquoise. Well, I can always try to overdye it.

So then I put 8 packets of cherry in the water, and put a four ounce skein of yarn in. In the past, when there has been a lot of cherry and not so much yarn I have gotten a sort of burgundy. In this case, apparantly, I needed more than 8 packets. I got very nice red yarn. Electric red. NEON red, if there is such a thing. The person this yarn is for does not like bright colors. This is why I was in Smiley's yesterday. This is why I was in LYS today. I was seeking the perfect answer to a simple question.

It is far too late for the simple answer, which would have been to have ordered the yarn from my friend's favorite dyer.

Well, eventually I will make a decision. But I can tell you right now, the decision was not in favor of the Colinette.

I have to say, though, that this LYS is going to the dogs. Very Upscale store, very upscale clientele, for the most part, and very pricey yarns. Why are they letting them hang from hooks in the walls with strands hanging down from them? Why are they piling yarn in plastic bags here and there, instead of using the shelves I know used to be there? Why did it seem so DARK?

When I feel that something is messy people, believe me, it is long past time to do something about it...