Inspiration Saturday: My wheels are spinning (or they will be)

You know how when you first get a new crafty thing you have all of these ideas about what you're going to do with it?  And you think that you'll start first thing tomorrow, you can barely contain your excitement.  Then tomorrow comes and you figure you should really finish what you're working on now.  Then the next day maybe you have to go to work, then the next you just don't have time for anything, until all of the days pile up and before you know it it's been a month.  Or ten.

I really hope it's not just me that has this problem.

I'm trying not to think about how many months I let pass between a Ravelry friend so generously gifting me her spinning wheel to be my first.  Instead, I'm focusing on the fact that I didn't let it become a full year.  And telling myself that I've been busy with other crafty things, like learning to sew and knitting my Twist of Death, another project that I completed less than a year after buying the yarn.

Tomorrow I'm going to the first of three sessions in an introduction to wheel spinning class at Hill Country Weavers.  I probably could have ambled along on my own and figured it out, but this way I'll have some help and a jumpstart to get really spinning by the end of the month.  Huzzah!

That means that soon I shall hopefully transfer some of my fiber stash into handspun stash in Ravelry:

How could I possibly resist this fiber dyed after red velvet cake for Yarnorama's anniversary?

My plan for this braid has always been to spin it into singles and then ply it with a bright pink thread.

Malabrigo makes such gorgeously soft yarn, I can only imagine what their roving will produce.

This was sent to me by someone in New Zealand.  It travelled such a long way, it deserves to fulfill it's destiny.

Speaking of travels, Woolen Diversions is back from her honeymoon and has lots of gorgeous pictures to share for the next few weeks of her Inspiration Saturday posts, so don't forget to check those out.

WIP Wednesday: Crawl in progress

I can't give you details on the knitting I'm doing for the holiday season, but I can give you lots of colorful details about what I've added to my stash so far because of this year's Crawl:

1. From Hill Country Weavers: Yarn Carnival Highwire 3-ply in Amaranthine
2. From Tinsmith's Wife: Malabrigo Worsted in Nostalgia
3. From Yarnivore: Frabjous Fibers Wonderland Yarns Cheshire Cat Fingering Multi-Pack of 10 1-oz skeins in Dark Rainbow
4. From The Yarn Barn: Lone Star Arts Armadillo in Ellie Avery
5. From her studio: Alisha Goes Around Panoply of Peacocks Fingering in Macedonia
6. From Lucky Ewe: Vice Paradigm in Serendipity
7. From Old Oaks Ranch: Henry's Attic Prime Alpaca in Bare and Black
8. From The Knitting Nest: Trekking XXL in 550 (aww, no name)
9. From Gauge: Little Green Finch Plumage Ltd in a nameless one-of-a-kind colorway I'm calling Cranberry Orange and Theodora's Pearls Theodora's Saphhire in Chartreuse Spritz

I have plans for a few of the skeins.  The Alisha Goes Around has been on my radar for a while now to create the Twist Pullover.  This is actually the colorway used in the sample that made the cover of Knit Wear, though it appears darker in the magazine.  I've nearly bought the yarn several times before, in yarn stores or at fiber festivals, but being in her studio, it seemed like I might as well take the plunge now.

The Wonderland Yarns were a revelation.  They are a new yarn which debuted at TNNA this summer, and I'm in love.  The colors were all so gorgeous, I couldn't decide on one for a full skein, so I splurged on the entire rainbow of smaller skeins.  I'm thinking that this is going to make a glorious technicolor Mini Mania.

The others, well, they were just too pretty to leave behind, and many of them were part of the selection of 25% off yarns that can be used to make the patterns that each store handed out.  That's how I ended up with two skeins of the Malabrigo.  Such a good price, I might as well see if I can make a medium-sized project like a shrug.  And I have so much black and white alpaca, I think that will supply several projects.  Some of the bare yarn might even get dyed.

So there are the results of my Crawl in progress, more to come this weekend!  And more WIP Wednesday posts are at Tami's Amis.

Froyo files: No time to say hello, goodbye

I can't make this an FO Friday post because my swap package hasn't been received, but to keep the alliteration flowing, let's go with froyo from last Friday.

There used to be three frozen yogurt places in Kyle, but by the time I made it to the one on the other side of the highway, Blizz was closed.  This time, I barely caught another frozen yogurt place before it stopped swirling.  But the good news this time is that Eat Ban Mi isn't closing completely, they just don't have frozen yogurt anymore.

Mom and I walked up South Congress from Hill Country Weavers' annual warehouse sale last Friday to try them out.  It was a little bit of a hike, considering the normal acceptable distance not requiring reparking in Texas is a few hundred yards, but in that area it's usually safer to just keep the car where it is if you can find a legal place to leave it.

Considering they were in their final days of frozen yogurt, it's not surprising that one of their machines was already out of service, and their fruit selection was almost non-existent.  They also had that pet peeve of mine, the hosted sampling.  I'm going to say it again: if the server/cashier has to pull the samples, why is it called self-serve, and why not just put the machines behind the counter to begin with and do what ice cream parlors do?  Then controlling sampling would be matter of fact.  Speaking of which, we're just a few steps from Amy's Ice Creams and Big Top Candy Shop, so that may be another reason why this frozen yogurt opportunity has been passed up by so many along SoCo.

I will say that what I did try was pretty good.  The Taro was not the best I've had, but the Blueberry was delicious, and the Lychee was very tasty.  I threw in a few lonely blackberries, like the last puppies in the shelter waiting to be adopted.  Because I had chatted with them on Twitter, I got a discount on my meager bowl, though the cashier had to ask about it.

As I said, there's no more froyo at Eat Ban Mi, but they do have sandwiches, spring rolls, vermicelli bowls, and pho.  None of which I tried, so I can't help anyone out there with a review.  Personally, there are too many other places between the yarn and there that I could eat instead, like the parking lot of food trailers just across the street.  But for those who live in the area it might be worth a try, especially since they have online ordering.

Farewell to another frozen yogurt option in Austin.  We hardly knew ye, but we'll comfort ourselves with those you've left behind.  And in this case, cold comfort is a good, creamy thing.

How I Crawled: day two

The second day of the Crawl got off to an inauspiciously late start when we hit major traffic on the way to Yarnorama.  We had managed to come up behind some kind of accident, and got to sit there, inching forward for about an hour while it was cleared.  But eventually we made it to the oasis of fiber and yarn on the deserted highway towards Houston.

And thus, day two (again, a slideshow of all pics is attached to my Examiner article):

• Yarnorama: I found a braid of light green roving in a silk blend that I think is destined to be plied with a bright pink thread.  And there was some bulky Araucania on sale, so I had to.
• Hill Country Weavers: This was not my fault.  When you find locally-dyed awesomeness like Alisha Goes Around in the sale section, you have to get it.  The dark forest green is gorgeous, and I think I was influenced by the cloudiness of the day in the amount of gray I bought.  The Alpaca Sox also came from the sale bin.  The roving I have no excuses for, I was just really in the mood for spinning stash.
• Gauge: Not only was Dizzy Lettuce there with her lovelies, but a new dyeing artist, Green Finch, covered a table in the back room.  I ended up with a skein of bamboo in a shiny silver gray.  I think the stitch definition of the yarn demands some sort of cable, probably in mitts.
• Happy Ewe: You have to love a store where the owner's favorite color is hot pink.  Well, I do anyway.  I ended up with another color changing sock yarn, this one from Mille Colori, but it took forever to decide what would come home with me, they had a lot of nice yarns.  Including some possum yarn, which sparked an interesting dilemma for a vegetarian on the Crawl, who apparently was concerned with how humanely the fiber was obtained.

Pit stops were made at the Tea Embassy, because I'm currently in a tea-themed swap and I wanted to get my spoilee a special local blend, and at The Yogurt Spot, because they have the most amazing Taro Tart flavor ever.

And there you have it, two days packed full of broken budget promises and soft, squishy yarn in a variety of colors.  Next month: a fiber festival!

Life after the Crawl

What was that I said about not going crazy and buying 'all the yarnz'?

To be fair, I was doing quite well for most of the first day.  I made it out of Tinsmith's Wife in Comfort with just a single, beautiful skein of Miss Babs.  But I was broken by the trunk show of Vice Yarns at Lucky Ewe in Gruene.  And then the clearance section of Hill Country Weavers on day two just had too many deals to pass up.

I'll have all the fiberific details later this week, breaking down each store's gift and what I bought there.  Plus, I just found out that I won one of the store drawings, so maybe there will be even more to share!

Countdown to the Crawl: T-minus 1 day

There are mere hours, rather than days, to wait until the trek of ten yarn stores begins.  The Google routes have been calculated, the outfits have been matched, and the final temptation has been avoided.

On the first Thursday of every month, Hill Country Weavers has a sale.  And I usually write about it for Examiner.  If you think getting an e-mail about a yarn sale is hard to give into, try writing 200 words about how awesome that sale is.  It's a good thing I don't live closer to SoCo, otherwise I would have a real problem.

For the past month or so, I've consciously made the effort not to buy yarn, 'saving' myself and my budget for the Crawl.  Hopefully this will not result in a binge of purchasing, like someone who skips breakfast only to cave into something huge and horrible for them at lunch because they are so hungry, and end up with a stomach-ache.  I don't want a stash-ache.

And so, despite having valiantly not bought any yarn at 20% off today in the sale, I'm not going to gorge myself in the next two days.  But I will be doing some serious skein snacking.

(Man, the food metaphor has me hungry, time for dessert!)

I don't need more yarn/But there's a sale!

Having made a gigantic purchase of this new laptop less than a week ago, I'm a little gun-shy about whipping out the wallet for anything else.  But like other budget-conscious phases, it's being tested by a yarn sale.

Hill Country Weavers is having another First Thursday sale, as they do every month when businesses along South Congress stay open late.  Every month, I also write about it for Examiner.  And every month, I'm tempted to take advantage of the sale with a purchase of my own.

This month, the deal is a fourth off of yarn that contains fiber either from plants or made in a plant.  Any percentage applies, even just the scant 10% of nylon that is in many of my favorite fingering weight sock yarns.  In particular, I'm thinking of the Alisha Goes Around that is used in the Twist Pullover we already know I love.

Sometimes being able to make the connection between a sale and a queued pattern is dangerous.  Curse my deal-seeking synapses!

The family that knits together...

My mom was the one who taught me to knit, when my college's Stitch 'n Bitch group got me interested.  I think a lot of knitters learn this way, having the craft passed down to them by a parent or grandparent. But what if it's the parent that wants to learn?

Hill Country Weavers is having a series of classes called K1P2 Kids Learn and Parents Too!  For more information, head on over to my Examiner article...