Tea Cozy and a Trip to ImagiKnit

Here it is, the finished tea cozy that I made from a smallish skein of Yarn Rescue's handpainted yarn.

I felted it just enough that the stitches would hold together. Then after forming it around the tea pot and letting it dry (never a problem in my neck of the woods--it's a rather dry climate!), I positioned it on the teapot, pinned markings for myself, took it off, and then used my slicer/dicer wheel to cut the general outline (the rows make a perfect demarcation for straightness--a bonus with stitch definition). Then with scissors I completed the cutouts and used embroidery floss to finish the edges just in case. Funny how a needlework badge earned in Girl Scouts in 1972 could leave me with such a clear memory of the stitch needed (not that I did it perfectly, but I knew how to do it!). However, I am going to go over the spout stitches a little more to even them out.

Now I have a qualm: I think I made this out of the wrong color yarn! It's going to get tea stained, right? And at best it can be hand-washed, right? Sigh. But the pattern is basically a keeper (with more yarn, a higher top closing over the lid will be nice), and there's plenty of dark wool in the world!

So on Sunday I got the bug--Habu Textiles, and the Kushu-Kushu scarf. This is what comes of browsing through other people's knitting blogs--the next big obsession. Well, from reading about this amazing Japanese company, and their designers of really different knitted art (clothing that is art--it's truly different, I think--using wool, cotton, linen, pineapple fiber [fique i think it's called], mohair, paper, steel!), I decided that I just have to try my hand(s) at this yarn with stainless steel in it. Sounds like chain mail, no? But I've touched an item made with it, and it isn't stiff at all, though it does hold a shape more firmly than something knitted with regular yarn. Here, take a look at the scarf done in this "fiber":
(Thanks Olgajazzy for this illustration and many more at her flickr site.)










Thus was born my search for a LYS that was 1. open on Monday 2. a purveyor of Habu Textiles 3. reasonably nearby. I live in the vast metropolis known as the San Francisco Bay Area, and nearly all the suburban yarn shops are closed on Mondays. Learn something new every day! The few that were not closed didn't even carry any Habu, let alone the steel silk "yarn." So, being on vacation and all, having the freedom to do anything I wanted, I got directions to ImagiKnit in the City (what we all call San Francisco, and don't ever call it "Frisco"!).

My thinking went like this: Theirs is always one of the hugest and coolest displays at Stitches West. They carry lots of yarns that are not typical, such as Be Sweet. They are in The City as opposed to The Suburbs, so their foot traffic can support a store open 7 days a week. It was truly open, as opposed to the 90% of other LYSes. [I guess at this point I should refer to it as a DYS]. I could use an adventure. So I got direx, hopped in the little car, and cranked up the Sirius Channel 10. Drove 45 minutes and RIGHT TO IT (with great directions off their website) at a time when traffic was reasonably light. Found parking exactly across the street. OK, this was meant to be.

Digression: I walked in and couldn't take it all in. First the scent of clean sheep (at first it was startling and I started to find it stinky, but then a few seconds later, it was just homey and inviting). Then, a room full to the high ceilings it seemed with shelves full of yarns. Someone very kindly pointed out the system--start at the door on your right with fingering weight, go around the room counterclockwise with it ending on chunky to my left by the door. Oh, and just animal fibers and mixed in this room. Then, the next room (there's more? OMG!), same sizing arrangement for plant and synthetic fibers. The feeling was something I can't describe without resorting to cliches involving kids/candystores/pigs/manure/etc. Add to that antique furniture fixtures and knitted items FOR SALE (which isn't done much around these parts). And cool global-market looking accoutrements of various kinds.

Back to the tale. A kind young man asked me if I was looking for something specific, well, yes I was: Habu Textiles. He smiled sadly (I bet he's heard that a few times!) and said, "We are totally sold out, but I think we have a shipment coming in a month." He offered to check and came back verifying that indeed nothing would arrive soon, as it is all being produced in Japan, shipped to the US (slow boat?), and all I could imagine was a lot of Japanese textile worker bees frantically running machinery to keep up with the American hunger for their products. So . . . I was in SF without finding the yarn I sought.

But, knitting trouper that I am, I realized that no yarn shop excursion is without merit, so I perused, and absorbed, and fondled (the yarns, people, the yarns). I was thorough! I found some barn red tweed on sale--two skeins please, for a scarf Bells has advertised on her blog--so handsome. It's from the Yarn Harlot.














The red is not showing up as deep and dark as it truly is--it's not a pinky red at all. Ah well. See how I'm taming my yarn skein in a Kleenex box? I read about it at 3:30 a.m. when I couldn't sleep the other night in the Readers Digest Knitter's Handbook (which I "settled" for since the Vogue compendium was a bit too dear for my wallet). This book is full of great information!

I also got some chunky Stonechat (Manos del Uruguay) because I am just in love with the color combo and it looks perfect for autumn. Question: What is a stonechat??

So ends my tale of the trip to ImagiKnit, a fun day but a bust on the kushu-kushu scarf materials.

Never fear! I found it yesterday (when the LYSes all opened up) at Knitting Arts. They seem to have better connections with the sales rep because they were not out of ANYTHING. I got the silk stainless steel/merino cones in kit form with instructions, and I plan to start it very soon. 8^) I also got yarn and the pattern for a felted scarf that uses beads or wooden balls rubber-banded in spots (mostly on the ends, I think) to create a bumpy texture, sort of like bobble-knit. I'd noticed these scarves at Stitches West and thought the idea was cool, but I was seeing so much at the time that I just put it on the back burner until now. It'll be a three shaded gray tweed scarf, light to medium to dark, with the "bobbles" on the front parts. Sweet! And wouldn't a hat done in a similar bobble be pretty cute?

In other news . . .
Thanks for so many thoughtful responses to yesterday's post, both in your comments and emails. I love not feeling depressed, but it is a fact of my life that sometimes I will. I wish none of us had this propensity, this "industrial action at the serotonin factory," as Ginger-Nut calls it. But failing that, well, let's find out what works and keep at it!

PS If you've got a minute, visit yarnagogo who has been recovering from unpleasant surgery and is one of the most fabulous, funny bloggers I've ever read. She's a great writer, and seems to like company. You will enjoy her posts, and man, can she knit. I'm jealous!

What's This About a Black Dog???

If you noticed a new button here on my blog, in the right column, featuring the gorgeous Winston Churchill, you may be wondering, "WTF?" No, I doubt that Winston ever knitted, but he did coin the term "the black dog" to describe his struggles with major depression.

The rainbow button links you to Pierre the Yarn Snob's blog, in which she (Ginger_Nut) (Pierre being her gorgeous little Papillon dog, I believe) comments on dealing with the depression that sometimes bites her in the butt. From her posts and comments others have made linking to her post, or on their own blogs, it becomes clear that many of us are savaged by that black beast.

While I am keeping "it" kenneled with some excellent medications (probably necessary for a lifetime, given my own and my family's history), I admire those who can deal with episodes of depression pharmaceutically and then go off them and continue life. If another depression hits, they know they have the meds to return to for help. I may one day do this as an experiment.

All this is just preamble to say that knitting is truly my therapy: just what Ginger_Nut and others have said, and why the Winston Churchill button shows him dangling needles and yarn. He SHOULD have tried knitting! Not saying that every time I want to hibernate, I get out the needles instead. But it is a better alternative and keeps my hands busy.

When I knit, I am doing something that feels good (with few negative repercussions unless I get sore hands or a kink in my neck!), which results in something I am proud of, and which I can give to someone. Generosity being another fundamental part of my personality (as is depression, as is obsessing), well, this just seems so much more constructive and healthy! So I take up my needles proudly, and with them, I salute you all, depression-copers or not, and then I tackle my next row!

One more thing: I myself deal with mood disorders of the depressive type, but in my family tree, (which, as a friend also says of hers, is a nut tree!) other versions of mood disorders have sprouted, particularly "milder" (hah!) forms of manic-depressive illness. (Living in the 21st century is a huge gift to present generations. I only have to look at those in my parents' generations to see that the extremely negative cultural attitudes and the few medications available made it impossible really to transcend the disorder. The resulting debris of those lives is sometimes heartbreaking, and the limits of relationship virtually impossible to change or ameliorate. At least with us, there is the strong possibility to tackle things head-on and thus to work on the problems it can create in a relationship.)

In that regard, I am recommending a website about bipolar illness, by Julie Fast, an author and someone who copes frankly with her own bipolar (also known as manic-depression) symptoms. While her writings may not seem entirely relevant if you deal with depression, those on how to work with depression are very helpful, and several of her books or columns are focused on specific strategies. She has just won a major award for her writing about bp and has a book slated to come out next spring called Getting Things Done When You're Depressed: 50 Tips and Tricks.

I am pre-ordering the book because I need some real strategies. My tendencies toward holing up and becoming nonsocial are hard to combat. During the school year, when it strikes, I can even do my job relatively well (and I know that's something to be grateful for!), and yet when I'm done, it's as if I've given it all away, so I shut down and don't want to communicate with anyone. The phone rings--tell them I'm not home. My DH wants to go for a walk--no thanks, I'm exhausted. In the car with one of the kids, I don't say a word. I become a "veg," and while that feels good at some level (particularly in the refueling that I need under all circumstances in order to be able to be sociable again the next day), it takes its toll on relationships. Wanting to stay under the covers is not a way to live a life!

There's another whole set of problems that "dog" me in this state, including but not limited to overwhelming feelings of guilt, being "sure" that I know what someone else thinks/feels about something I've said or done, waking up in the middle of the night to a judgmental reckoning of everything I've ever done that I'm ashamed of, you get the picture. No way to live.

OK, I know this was a heavy post. Now, it's time to go take photos of some of those new projects and FOs that I'm busy with--and tomorrow, I'll post them, and tell you about my sneak-trip to San Francisco yesterday, to ImagiKnit.

And meantime, happy knitting, and I do mean HAPPY! 8^)
~Stacie

Knitting Neurotically, Felting Fanatically

Yep, I've been knitting purses and things, felting them, finishing up those pink booties (they need some adornments now--but what?), and otherwise indulging in my obsession.

That's because school meetings start up 8/20 and that means . . . the end of the summer. As I typed that, I sighed this h-u-g-e sigh.

I love my job, (or should I say "jobS" since I also have dept. chair duties?), and I always look forward to getting another year going, meeting my new students. I like my colleagues and the daily interactions--we have a great campus, and a great middle school community. I've even been getting a little "wiggy" this summer, as my sister would say, being home so much and getting hermit-ty.

But ah, the free time. The long stretches of unscheduled time. The perpetual feeling of Saturday mornings, and never a Sunday-Syndrome day. (Do you get this too? During the school year, by midday Sunday, I start feeling a little sad about how it's all coming to an end, how I didn't finish x, y, and z that I had hoped to, etc.) And I love not wearing a watch.

Ah well. Enough belly-aching, as my dad would say.

It's taking up valuable knitting time!! Before I go though . . .

Here are some pics--a purse (the Sophie Bag I recently mentioned),
















the freeform "bag" that told me it wanted to be a tea cozy when it grows up (so I felted it too, and now I can make it a tea cozy),














And the most recent WIP:
another Sophie Bag in a similar scheme with a few improvements (mine, not the pattern's!)--I learned some things after the first go-round














Here are the mostly-done baby booties (slippers, really, for my 21-month old niece).