The next time you see it, I will be wearing it at Stitches.

Thanks to Jamie at Urban Fauna Studio (booth #1036) and Krista from Pigeonroof Studios (booth #637), I am not just a Stitches West shopper, I am a seller! UFS has both my stitch markers and fiber, and Pigeonroof will have my stitch markers. Yay! I am really excited about this and plan to break some rules and snap some camera phone pics of my items on display. I am headed to stitches tomorrow and Saturday and will be helping out in the aforementioned booths so say hi if you see me. Also I will be doing a Hazel Rose loom demo on Saturday at 1 pm in the Demo area so come by if you want to see a little loom in action. I plan to tweet my adventures, so follow me for pics and updates.

Note to self: Go to Target tonight to stock up on “Adult Juice Boxes.”

It is my crazy notes on how many rows and increases remain. The eagle-eyed might also notice that for some reason I have indicated the time to increase with the letter d. Makes sense to me for some reason….

edit: I have been get a lot of inquiries about the yarn. It is Araucania Nature wool Chunky in color #129

A while ago CraftyGinger tagged me for a meme, and it is about time I participated:

Here’s how it goes – once you’re tagged write a short blog post about your favorite word, and what makes it your favorite. Of course you can have more than one! Be as long-winded as you like! Just make sure to copy & paste this text into your post, and tag four friends!

CraftyGinger chose a repectable word: luminous. Ever since I was tagged for this challenge a few weeks ago I have had the same word in my head. I tried to pick something literary, serious, insightful or at least descriptive, but I just keep coming back to the same word. Gravy.

Why would I claim that my favorite word is gravy?

• I like gravy. It is delicious. It is the dinner equivalent of the ever-famous dessert mainstay – icing.
• I am good at making gravy, and I make a lot of it. Ask anyone that has had Thanksgiving dinner with me. My grandma has had me in training my whole lfe
• I think everyone might like gravy. I have never heard someone say “I’ll have the chicken-fried steak, but hold the gravy.” But I am from Ohio. I actually don’t think I have heard anyone other than myself say “I’ll have the chicken-fried steak” since I moved to California. But that is not the point.
• I have absolutely no bad connotations or associations with gravy… Me and gravy = good times
• It makes an excellent pet name and currently holds the top spot and my most-likely-next-pet-name. Give it a try. “Graaaavvvyyy… Come here you little cutie!” Totally works.
• It can hold its own as a word… When used a slang, it means good. No one ever clenches their fists and shakes them at the sky wailing “Gravy!!” Instead it is only used when someone is pleased and smugly declares “gravy.”

So what is your favorite word? I am sending tags out to some of my commenters: 5thelementknitr, Amber, Kimchi, and Chris. but, of course if you don’t want to participate (sometimes memes stress me out) no hard feelings, let me know and I’ll tag differently :).

My Central Park Hoodie has a completed back, and I am working on one of the front pieces.

I accepted the fact that I am not a sock designer and ripped out this single sock that I designed myself.

It was too small for even me, and I somehow made the pattern almost impossible to size (and sock patterns without a S, M, and L size are one of my pet peeves). So the lovely STR will be reincarnated as a better fitting sock.

And I compeleted exactly half of a project by casting off one lonely sock.

Regia Canadian color #4733; 3 x 1 rib – my own pattern

And I do think the casting off was the best part. Why didn’t anyone tell me about the picot bind off featured in knitty? As a toe-up knitter, I was pretty happy to find these instructions and make a cute little bind off on these socks.

There. I have been knitting. Don’t forget about my contest – Midnight Pacific time tonight (sat june 10) is the cut off, so please tell me about your favorite knitting/crafting tool/material. I love reading all of the comments!

My Lunar Eclipse Merino Roving is currently featured on the front page of etsy, so hurry over there and look (This only lasts for about 24 hours, so it might be over by the time you take a look). Thanks to chucklescentral for adding me to his/her treasury list that eventually made the front page. I’ve been a member of etsy for a year and a half and this is the first time I have been on the front page and I’m pretty excited about it.

Oh and speaking of etsy, they have made a cool new little script that lets me show off the items in my shop. you may have noticed it in the sidebar on the right. I think it is pretty sharp. Etsy rocks.

So what have I been up to? This is what the Central park hoodie looks like at just over one ball in.

i blabbed about it over at the knitalong. long story short – love it, love the yarn. I’ve actually almost finished the entire back piece, but no updated photo yet.

also i joined the granny square knit along where I showed off some of my recent granny squares.

Man, these are fun. I still stand by my claim that they are the perfect use of acrylic yarn. And while we are on the topic of granny squares, partners for my granny-square swap-bot swap were assigned today. We ended up with over 20 participants, and I am already planning another swap. stay tuned.

The beginnings of my Central Park Hoodie out of Arucania Nature Wool just acquired at stitches west. First use of my lovely Zero Stitch Markers.

From previous experience, I have prepared myself to not get any of the free goodies the knitting train promises. They always run out by Emeryville where I get on. This year was no exception. We did get some kind of coupon-y thing that might turn itself into a free gift of some kind, but I am skeptical. (man, do I get irrationally upset about not getting free stuff….) We were able to get our hands on some raffle tickets, and though our group was pretty lucky last year (two or three winners, i can’t remember) I didn’t expect things to go as well as they did….. B won a GRAND PRIZE!! A gigantic tote bag FULL of books and kits. Thanks Chronicle books and Craft: magazine! It was really fantastic… and she was nice enough to share with all of us! I took custody of Cozy Crochet which has mostly basic crochet projects. I’ll pass it on when I have mastered the stuff inside.

On to the stitches marketplace! Prepare yourselves, for I exhibited an incredible amount of restraint.

I know you are thinking ‘this is what restraint looks like?’ Yes. This is restraint. click through for notes.

As planned, I bee-lined to the Blue Moon booth, but there was nothing I could do…. it was so picked over. There was no medium weight (my favorite) to be had, and I didn’t see any colors not represented on the website. So I decided that would be better off just ordering what I wanted online. Now I realize there is very little medium weight on the website. Anyone know what is up with that??

I made a pit stop at the Bay Area Co-Op booth to grab some sock patterns, and then I was off to the Brooks Farm booth. Really, they have the nicest yarns… And I resisted them all! I promised myself no single skeins since I wan tto be able to knit more than a scarf. And i have 1 hank of Brooks Farm from last year, so nothing from there for me.

A stop at the Carolina Homespun booth remided me that Morgaine is a really nice person. With a lot of nice stuff. I got two silk hankies for spinning (inspired by abby’s handwarmers). Somebody else was the real big spender there.

Off to the Webs booth, where i opened the flood gates. I got some Nature Wool that I keep putting in my shopping cart online. It is destined to become a Central Park Hoodie from Knitscene. And the thing that i am the most excited about, some Tofutsies sock yarn. They have 2.5% Chitin from crabs and shrimp! You can bet that when I finish these babies there will be photos of me taunting crabs on the beach with them.

I already started knitting a sock (yarn is double-stranded)

edit
I forgot to tell you about the lisa souza booth. I really enjoyed seeing lisa’s yarns in person. they wer etruly lovely and I chose a yellow and blue handpainted skien for myself. Then i discovered abby rummaging in a bin in fromt of the cash register. It was the “Heels and toes” discount bin. Mini skeins of yarn were priced by the ounce. I got a lovely color collection – maybe fr some striped socks. the two particularly big skeins might become a pair of anemoi mittens.

After the whirlwind of shopping was over, we hit the bar. This year we had stiff competition for seats from both fellow knitters, and families that were there for some sort of dance competition upstairs. But we squeezed in and had a few cocktails. It was there that I found out that Debbie won a door prize. You go girl! We were a lucky crowd.

I thoroughly enjoyed the train ride back. It was complete with cozied beverages for maximum relaxation.