Heading West

I am so excited. Stitches West Starts tomorrow in Santa Clara, California. I plan for this event way in advance, like in September. As soon as the classes are posted, I pour over the list of instructors and class titles. Sometimes, I go for the famous knitting 'rock star' teachers (or at least famous in the knitting world). Other times, I take in a new skill or technique. This time I am taking a class because it involves dyeing- so it's the fun and messy aspect that appeals to me. I cannot wait to get my hands in some dye!!!

I also cannot wait to meet up with my friends from California. We shop, we eat, we tell stories, we eat, we shop, we get goofy....you get the idea. It's like a giant fiber pajama party.

Here are the things I have been working on this week. I finished the Autumn Flutters shawlette:

It has a semi-circular construction, which is helpful for wearing on the shoulders and wrapping around the neck. This is my first ruffly garment. I am not so sure about the ruffllage. Since it lays flat as opposed to a bozo ruffle, it is staying for now.

I think I want to search for a spiraling shawl pin to keep it in place. Spirals look like they grab the knitted fabric and won't wiggle their way loose. I have seen some on the internet like this one (made from precious metal clay):

And this one by Rosemary Hill (of sterling silver):

I started on a no brainer lace scarf:

It is called the Foreign Correspondent's Scarf. It is going to be for airplane and hotel knitting at stitches. I know I won't have enough brain cells going to handle anything more complicated. The yarn fumes can get to you!

The hooking continues. I am still chugging along on the locker hooked rug project:

Jeni asked if I am using roving. The answer is yes. I am using whatever happened to be hanging around. The brown and grey rovings are of unknown breed origins. The orange and red are Corriedale pencil rovings that I dyed. I think I am going to skip the red. It pops too much against the other colors.

Here is one more fun link that I found that I have to share: a random lace chart generator. You plug in your numbers of your parameters and it spits out a random lace knitting chart. Crazy cool, huh? You can also plan it to make mirror images. I have been 'stalking' a crazy lace group on Ravelry and this tool is right up their alley. This definitely needs more exploration.