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By Melissa, August 22, 2009 8:52 pm

I *may* have brought home a few things from Sock Summit.

Continue reading '*Possible* Confession'»

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By Melissa, August 14, 2009 12:36 am

The Madre and I flew in to Portland Tuesday night from SF so we could spend all day Wednesday before Sock Summit exploring. What a great city! We hit Voodoo Donuts (of course), Chinatown, Washington Park, Portland’s Rose Garden and had a FABULOUS dinner. Check it out! (Warning: excessive number of rose photos included)

Then…oh then…was Sock Summit.

How do you describe such an awesome experience? I’m still not sure I can. I made great new friends, learned so much, met amazing people and to top it all off, I got to share it all with The Madre. Here are a few of my favorite pics.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that I have no pictures of the Marketplace or of any purchases. Well, that would be because (1) I was too busy buying things to take any pictures of the awesome Marketplace and (2) I bought so much stuff that I had to have it shipped all home and it should be here on Monday. Stay tuned…

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By Melissa, April 9, 2009 6:46 pm

This past weekend I found myself rather south of the Twin Cities and jumped at the chance to check out The Yarn Garage.  What a fantastic store!!

It took everything I had not to buy everything in sight.  The Canadian was a great sport and didn’t even say anything when I walked out with 5 new skeins for no reason other than I HAD TO HAVE THEM.

Can you blame me?

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By Melissa, April 4, 2009 7:39 pm

Today I took the Paint A Wool Skein class at the Weavers Guild.  Aimee Radman is a great teacher and it was a really fun class.

We mixed enough colors to paint two skeins.  The hardest part was waiting for the colors to set and yarns to cool before the final rinse.

The colors really blossomed beautifully after finishing.

What a great class!

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By Melissa, March 26, 2009 9:23 pm

The past few weeks I have been a spinning maniac.  It all started when I picked up some beautiful fleece at The Fiber Studio to finish out my last two weeks of Spinning for Knitters at the Weaver’s Guild.

Kitties, of course, were very interested.

Those bobbins look a lot smaller than they really are – it took forever to fill them up!

The first yarn I spun was so irregular and nubby and the twist was all over the place.  I call it the Unintentional Bouclé.

It’s amazing what a little lot of practice can do.

This skein is ginormous (compared to the 10 yard skein I had spun before this).

Here’s my haul for four weeks of class…not too shabby!

And of course, a kitty approval bonus!

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By Melissa, March 13, 2009 8:46 pm

Over the weekend I drove up to Coon Rapids to check out a new-to-me yarn store, All About Yarn.  It’s a great store with really friendly staff and lots of fun knitters to chat with.  I was on the hunt for yarn for Vivian and o w l s and despite the numerous temptations, I managed to stick to my shopping list and picked up some beautiful Berroco Comfort for Vivian in Copen Blue.

On my way back to the car, however, I noticed a cute little bead store in the same plaza.  There, I was not so good at sticking to my shopping list (maybe because I never had one for beads…).  I bought some beads, fixings, and a splurged a little on a beautiful painted metal pendant.  I had a great evening of playing with wire and pretty beads – hooray for instant gratification!

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By Melissa, March 3, 2009 8:23 pm

Yesterday was my second day of Spinning for Knitters that I’m taking through the Weavers Guild at the Textile Center.  Our teacher, Nancy Preckshot, is a great teacher with a wealth of spinning knowledge, but also enough patience to deal with us bumbling newbies.  It definitely took me awhile to figure what I was doing, and even then the going was pretty rough.  But amazingly, by the end of our first 3 hour class, I had yarn!

Granted, it’s probably some of the gnarliest yarn you’ve ever seen, but it’s yarn nonetheless!!

Nancy encouraged us to take a wheel home with us for the duration of the class so we can continue practicing at home.

She also sent us home with 5 oz. of brightly colored fleece to practice with.  No big surprise that mine is purple and turquoise, I’m sure.

Celeste approves of the gnarly yarn (or maybe it’s just the dangly woolly bits…)

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By Melissa, February 19, 2009 11:09 pm

I’ve had this urge to knit something with Misti Alpaca’s Hand Paint Chunky since I stumbled upon it’s colorful yumminess a few months back at LYS.  I finally gave in last night and of course had to knit up a few swatches to test it out.

I love this yarn already.  It’s so soft and fun to knit.  And because I can never leave well enough alone, I decided to knit it double stranded to make it even more squishy wonderful.

I have this idea in my head of recreating one of my favorite “hand-knit” store bought sweaters that I’ve worn to excessive pilling.  An ambitious dream, for sure, but one I may have to tackle.  Once I save up enough to buy another 8 skeins, that is.

In the meantime, I’ll do some more swatching, start sketching out my design, and continue to fend off alpaca-loving kitties from my precious yarn.

I told her that’s what she’d get if she kept chewing on my swatch, but did she listen?  Of course not.

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By Melissa, February 16, 2009 9:54 pm

Yes, I have a shibori scarf as my desktop and a small hank of Manos Silk Blend hanging on my monitor.

Don’t judge me.