Dad and I had a blast at the Stitch ‘N’ Pitch event a couple of weekends ago. I got to sit next to a guy that wanted to actually talk about the game — the WHOLE GAME! Sadly, I didn’t get as much accomplished as I had hoped. I did add several rows to my crochet sunhat and a few rows to my alpaca scarf. I was bummed that there were going to be no “goodie bags” this year (as I didn’t even know about the event to go last year). Fortunately, since it takes Dad so long to get around, we got there really early and I got one of the leftover bags from last year. Yay! We got a copy of the Fall Interweave Knits, a nice purple Rockies cap and free yarn from Knit Knack. If only the darned Rockies would have won. Hrmph.

Well, I don’t know if it will be done by the end of the Summer Kal-Cal, but I’m finally making headway on my Market Bag. I’ll try to remember to snap some progress pics tomorrow and post them. I’ve done about a dozen of the 70 rows of knit stitch I need to do (after finishing the Intarsia arrows) until I reach the top of the bag. Then I need to make the handles, felt it and I’m all done. I looked all over town (even the army surplus store in Arvada) for the slide buckles the pattern calls for. I even was willing to use something similar, but just couldn’t find anything local. I finally ordered some online from a place called Creative Designworks. The site actually sells supplies to make pet collars. Shipping was included and they took Paypal. Hopefully they will arrive soon (at least by the time I get to making the handles).

To help out keeping track of where I am row-wise, I purchased the Clover row counter I’ve been wanting at Hobby Lobby. I’ve been waiting for what seems like weeks for Needlework stuff to be on sale so that I could get it. I splurged on the more expensive one because it has a lock button. One is supposed to wear it around one’s neck, but I put a keyring on it and attached it to the beginning row marker. Hopefully, I’ll remember to add a row as I move the marker (that’s the plan, anyway).

Speaking of Hobby Lobby, they are so stuck in the 20th century. Why in the heck would that company invest in a new cash register system, but still not take advantage of technology that uses the bar codes? Everything is still priced with price tags, all merchandise is rung up one at a time by hand and now they have to pick an appropriate department for each item. Cashiers keep asking which department you got stuff in (if they don’t know). Also, it’s getting old “reminding” the poor cashiers that certain items are on sale. If they would utilize freaking scanners and a computer database, they would have all that information at their fingertips. It’s one of the reasons that their checkout lines get so long. More than once I’ve dumped items at the front and just left rather than dealing with the checkout hassle. Lame.

Speaking of lame, I can’t remember if I already posted this, but the Hobby Lobby on Monaco/Mississippi no longer has a fabric department. What did they do with the extra space when they remodeled? Added more gaudy home decor crap. Like the world needs more of that junk.

OK, I’m super tired and can’t keep my eyes open (now who is lame?). Off to bed.

Tonight I’m bringing Dad along to the Colorado Rockies Stitch N’ Pitch℠ event. We’ve had some heavy duty rain this week, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the rains hold off and the skies remain clear this evening. I need to pick Dad up in an hour and a half and still haven’t decided what project to bring yet! LOL

I joined the Summer KAL-CAL in hopes of getting my butt in gear to learn to knit socks. Once again, the aforementioned events put a crimp in that plan, too. I’ll at least have a couple of bags done by the September 2nd deadline (I hope). I’m jumping on the bandwagon, I know, but I’m making market bags so that I can reduce the amount of plastic bags I use and help reduce trash, as well. I hate how much trash Marcus and I generate. If nothing else, less trips to the trash dumpster would be a definite plus.

Well, I’d better get my butt in gear and get stuff ready to go. Go Rockies!

It is called Mixed Martial Arts and Crafts. MUST. HAVE. THIS. SHIRT! Isn’t it awesome?

I also noticed that I picked up a corner stitch in the wrong whole when I picked up the stitches around the bottom. How in the heck did I manage that?

Man, it’s a good thing this this is going to be felted.

I think I’m going to step away for a few hours, run to the store, do some housework and work on my GAA* square. Maybe a little later it will feel like cooperating.

*Great American Afghan

Of course, Marcus wasn’t home when it arrived and I wanted to wind so badly. I’m really bad at remembering to ask to have hanks wound when I purchase them and they’re absolutely everywhere. I mounted it to the bench in the craft room, put a skein around the back of a chair and away I went. It didn’t go so well - darned chair is too heavy to turn.

I explained the dilemma when Marcus got home that evening and he offered to hold some while I wound. He makes a better swift than the chair, but still couldn’t keep up with the winder. I’ve been putting it off, but if I’m going to make use of this winder, I’m going to have to make a swift (no way I’m paying $80+ for the umbrella kind). I found a site with instructions to create your own, so tomorrow I’m off to buy wood. I’ve got a couple of modifications in mind, so we’ll see if the hardware stores carry what I think I need, or else I’ll have to take a trek to the woodworker store.

I’ve redone the bottom three different times. First, I was doing something really funky when I turned the rows and they were impossible to pick up stitches from. Second time things were going well until I had decided I was going to knit a few rows one morning when I got home from a 12-hour shift with only 4 hours sleep the day before and ended up doing the rows backwards and no longer had solid stockinette. Being tired and cranky, instead of just putting it down and taking out the 4 messed up rows when I was fresh, I had a tantrum and frogged it all. *sigh* This third time, I see a blatant error — a stitch that I somehow managed to twist or something in about row 8. I’m doing my best to ignore it (since it’s going to be felted for goodness sakes) and I just picked up the stitches for the sides.

I decided to be clever and use a crochet hook to help me pick the stitches up faster since I’ve already wasted a month getting to this point. Well, I managed to twist every single one and have to untwist on the needle as I knit. Yeah, that is saving me oodles of time. Oh, well…knitting is fun and relaxing…right?

In other sad news, I’m already behind on the Afghan KAL. We’re three weeks in and I’m still on my first square. C’est la vie. At this rate, I ought to finish in about two years. LOL

I got my Ravelry t-shirt I ordered in the mail today. It’s so pretty, but the neck is cut a little tight. We’ll see if it feels better after washing.

As if I don’t have enough WIPs, I joined the Great American Afghan KAL at Purls last week. The afghan consists of 25 squares and the goal is to knit one a week so that it’ll be ready to put together by Thanksgiving. Well, me being a relatively new knitter and work totally sucking much donkey butt lately has already put a crimp in that plan. I cast on last Saturday and ended up frogging my square (hrmph, six rows) yesterday. I totally jacked something up trying to knit with little to no sleep. Stupid. So, today we cast on square 2 and I have no square one yet. *sigh*

I’ve also become rather addicted to making other felted things. I found a pattern on Ravelry for a Noni Green Earth Grocery Bag that I just have to make. I picked up the pattern during a stop today in The Knitting Habitat (they’re having their 2nd Anniversary sale this weekend) and then toodled down to my most favorite shop Purls of Wisdom down in Parker to get the yarn and to visit with Jenn. When I had finished my purchase, she found it absolutely hilarious that I asked for a plastic bag to take home the yarn for a “green” bag.

So, I need to put a little kibosh to the rampant yarn (and other item) buying I’ve been doing lately. When I’m down and trying to avoid dealing with things, I tend to participate in retail therapy and I’ve been buying A LOT of stuff lately. Time to get my butt in gear, deal with the things that are bothering me and get back to actually crafting instead of just planning and buying. That said, I’m going to go cast on my grocery bag.

Since I had just purchased the pattern for Noni’s Medallion Travel Bag (It’s under Fall 2007 - I would link to the pattern itself, but their stupid site is all javascript), wouldn’t it be great to make said bag from a skein of yarn purchased at each shop I visited? I even made myself a Google map of all the shops close to our destinations.

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans.

The first shop we visited was Knitorious in Southern St. Louis, MO, picked because it was very close to Ted Drewes Frozen Custard (on historic Route 66) and a Lion’s Choice (home of the most wonderful roast beef sandwiches ever). The women I met in this shop were so nice (fellow Ravelers) and even encouraged Marcus to go hang out on the couch in the back while I browsed around. Since I was fairly low on funds and the govt. rebate check had yet to be direct deposited to the old bank account, I decided to go with Cascade 220 for the bag. I wish I had had it in my budget to buy some local yarn — there was a particularly pretty green sock yarn from the St. Louis area I wanted &mash; but it was not meant to be this time around. I figured the Cascade was a safe choice because just about everyone carries it, right? I decided that I was going to go with a yellow/black color scheme for the bag and found the most beautiful shade of yellow (7828). I even decided that it was OK if I couldn’t find all the same color lot, it would add character.

The second place we hit was called Knitty Couture. The owner was really nice, but I really wasn’t impressed with the store. I’m starting to learn that if stores tout themselves as “Premier”, “Modern” or “Hip”, then they’re going to be too foofy and have too narrow a selection for my tastes. It’s just not a climate I feel comfortable in. That being said, she did have some Cascade 220, but of course not the yellow I wanted. This should’ve been the first sign that things were not going to go as planned. I broke down against my better judgment and bought a skein of black. The owner made some comment about buying a yarn I could’ve bought at home. Once again, not the point of the bag. Hmph.

Even though there were a couple of other places I wanted to hit in the St. Louis area, time just wouldn’t allow it on this trip. Believe me, I was really bummed. I didn’t even make it to The Loopy Ewe or Myers House, two places I really wanted to go.

We took off for Indianapolis and made it to see the Yarn Harlot about five minutes late (why can’t every state have a 75mph speed limit?). There was a store North of there I wanted to go to, but didn’t have time. After breakfast and on our way to Louisville, KY, I stopped in at a place close to the Indianapolis Apple Store we visited called Knit Stop. It was a nice looking store, but no Cascade. Also, since not a single employee said boo to me, I left empty-handed (it’s a personal policy of mine - if you can’t at least say hello, I guess you don’t want my money). The next stop was Mass Ave Knit Shop. They had Cascade (not the yellow, but a hank of black). I was even contemplating a skein of alpaca I was fancying. Once again, though, two times around the store and not one person in there uttered a peep to me. It really is a pet peeve of mine and may sound lame, I admit, but I was really put off and once again left empty handed.

The final shop of the day was Grinny Possum in Jeffersonville, IN (right across the state line from Louisville). The woman that owned the shop was most friendly and I really did want to purchase something there, but alas, no Cascade 220 in any color and nothing else that I just had to have. Then we ended up lost in icky downtown Louisville during rush hour on Derby weekend because I wrote down the wrong address for the Apple Store in Louisville that morning in the hotel. I’ll be honest, this day of our vacation put a really bad gloom on me. I was at at the point where I wished I didn’t have to go to Tennessee and could just go home. I knew the next two days would offer absolutely no chance of getting anything for my bag. Clarksville doesn’t have a proper yarn store and we wouldn’t have time to get down to Nashville. The quilt store they have had a small selection of yarn (some Cascade but neither of the colors I chose) and I broke down in a moment of weakness and spent $8 on a skein of 100% acrylic that I probably could’ve paid $2 for anywhere else. Don’t know what I’m going to do with that.

I’ll be honest, by the time we got to Kansas City Friday to spend our last night on the road, I was literally in tears. Leaving late from his mom’s coupled with the bad weather meant a no go on the yarn shop I wanted to hit in Charleston, Mo. I think I need 12 skeins for this stupid bag and so far I’d found 2. Yeah, great. Going back to work and all the stupid drama going on there looming in my near future only made me feel worse. I hadn’t had a vacation in 4 years and this one, with the exception of Tuesday (St. Louis, Ted Drews, seeing the Yarn Harlot), was pretty much sucking some major butt.

Thankfully, Saturday kind of saved the week from being a total loss. Since it was already apparent that we weren’t going to make it back to Denver in time for me to go to Movie Night with some women from my SnB, I told Marcus we could go ahead and find the Apple Store in Kansas City, Mo. First we had a really yummy breakfast at a Bob Evans Restaurant (they have some really good food) and the area where the Apple store was was really cool. While there, I went ahead and looked up the addresses of a couple of knit shops in the immediate area on a Mac and programmed the Garmin. One store, The Studio, was quite close. I met a lovely fellow Raveler that worked there who, in addition to knowing yarn, could speak to Marcus about computers. Anybody that notices the character on his hat is Tux the Linux mascot and not just a cute little penguin is okay in Marcus’ book. I got a skein of black Cascade and some really neat green yarn that is to be my first pair of socks soon.

Finally, I hit Misknits on our way our of town. *sigh* No Cascade and the women there were really nice. Again, wanted to buy something but couldn’t find something I had to have. I was also not feeling very well and just wanted to hit the road. I don’t think the morning coffee I had liked me very well. I had to laugh, though, because the women in the shop were obviously (to me) having a SnB and talking about Ravelry and such. When we got to the car, Marcus says, “Is Ravelry all you knitting types can talk about?”

Anyway, we drove through Kansas and by the time we were anywhere close to where other knit shops were on my list, it was after 5pm and no chance any of them would be open by the time we found them. I was really bummed about the whole bag project being a total fiasco.

Well, I’ve decided it will still be a bag from many stores. I’ll keep my eye out for those two colors as I hit different shops, both in metro Denver and elsewhere. Eventually I’ll acquire enough to make my bag, it just won’t be a memento from this particular trip as I had planned.