On the Road

Big Knitter is attending a conference in Albuquerque for a couple of days. It's our first road trip since last August. 

It's cold here!

But I'm trying to keep warm by "poddin' around"...here and there...while he's in class...

My first stop was a new little fabric store on the NW side called Hip Stitch.

Wow they are super friendly and have some of the fabrics I love the most. (like Free Spirit, etc.)

And, I happened upon this:

It's a Gotta Have.

Weekend Sewing New From Heather Ross.

I spotted a little baby kimono in the back that jumped off of the page. (literally, I swear, honey, it did, I had no choice but to buy it!)

And of course, I needed a little piece of fabric for my first kimono:

"Starling", a pretty pink background for my soon-to-be-new granddaughter.

And I did actually look at the rest of the projects in the book (after I bought it) and pretty much loved them all.

I highly recommend this book! And I love Heather Ross' fabric anyway. In fact I just got this in the mail before we left for Albuquerque:

Purchased on Etsy, 7 fat quarters from A Fabric Outlet A Sewing And Quilting Boutique. Most of their fabrics are $7.49 / yd.

These 7 fat quarters were $15.75 plus, I think $3.75 for shipping. And a wonderful person named Deborah shipped pretty much instantly. Love it!

How 'bout some knitting?

Well, I am going to be brave and drive the motor home myself, (eeek!) to Village Wools and see their new location here on the NW side. 

They went ahead and moved a few years ago, from their little hole in the wall that I loved...I can't believe it's been so long since I've been here...time flies!

I'll report back on the new digs later. (That is, if I can find a Big Enough place to park...it's a little motor home, but since I'm not used to driving it, I will need a Big place to turn around! Watch out!)

The big knitter brought his Manor Care blanket with him to knit on. One of these days he will complete it. We call it that because he started in when my Dad was in the nursing home and he really only worked on it while we were there. 

Now, he brings it along rarely; it's a slow project, I guess.

Something an Oregon Duck Fan would love: Cascade 220 in green and yellow. And it's one of Big Knitter's "mystery stitches", as I call them, one strand at each end of the circular needle.

I almost hate to sign off, it's been so long since I blogged on BigKnitterLittleKnitter, but I have to if I'm ever going to get to Village Wools!

Finally, A Blog Entry!

The knitting slump is over! I have scaled the highest peak and planted my knitting needle triumphantly at the top! What a moment! Whew, that feels good! (ooh, oops would you look at the dust up there...oh, well, I'll get to that in a little while)
First I must bask in the glory.
Yeah, it's just a baby hat, but sheesh, it's been months or centuries since I've knitted. I'm happy to see something! And I do love this hat pattern. This is the third hat I've made from it. This time I used a lovely soft hand dyed wool from Blue Sky. It is so soft. Now I just have to do the little tassels.


It all started with our recent road trip...passed through Austin...and our happening upon a fab place called Hill Country Weavers (and which was just a hop skip and jump down the road from CraftORama, we got directions from the girl there, more about that later.) Anyway, if you do happen to be in Austin sometime, the big knitter and I highly recommend that you seek out Hill Country Weavers. And here's why! The big knitter's been sorta on a yarn buying break, due to the fact that he has about 10 blankets worth of yarn still waiting to be knit. (and storage of 2000-2500 yards of worsted weight yarn for each blanket is a bit problematic!) However, he couldn't resist the above finds. Blue Sky handpaints and a tweedy-looking alpaca/merino blend from The Fibre Company. Both in big-knitter-friendly-colors.

Hill Country Weavers is a place like no other. Located in a big old house on Congress street, each and every room is stuffed full of every kind of yarn you can imagine. And a room just full of books. Really a knitter's oasis. And the people are ultra friendly too.

And then the icing on the cake, literally, to the left next door, what could be better ... the Hey Cupcake stand!
and of course the cupcakes!
...which was great fun to buy and photograph. But once we had a minute to think about it, you know these aren't on any kind of cardio diet in the world. And we just couldn't bring ourselves to devour them even though we paid 2 bucks apiece for them. So we compromised and split the bottom half of one just so we could say we got cupcakes in Austin at Hey Cupcake!

And then there was CraftORama, a great little eclectic fabric/craft place up the road from Hill Country. Here's my haul for my little crafty thing I'm into right now:
The pattern for the tote bag is from Amy Butler and the other two are Favorite Things pattern designs. I'm gonna try the circle skirt for my granddaughter. CraftoRama has a bunch of Janome sewing machines and a big cutting table set up at one end of the store. Sewers and crafters can rent time on the machines and the sales staff share their technical assistance. They also provide basic tools like rulers, etc. And the fabric is fabulous! I asked if they were going to sell on line and the (very, very friendly) sales person said they are working on a web store. Can't wait!!
Here's a little bitty knitting kit I picked up also. Everybody needs a felted ant! Well, the actual purpose of our trip was to visit Big Bend National park, which is in far western Texas. We just got there in a roundabout way. And our last knitting related stop before heading on to Big Bend was to visit the Old Oaks ranch, which is outside Fredericksburg. What a lovely place, with the alpacas, the ranch, the sculpture garden and of course the store. I picked up a brand new project...braided wool rug made from roving. The roving is from Interlacements. Don't know when I will get started with this one, I'm thinking reading the detailed directions would be a good place to begin.The Old Oaks Ranch offers a multitude of fiber related classes and also a yoga class, what a great idea for knitters, spinners and weavers!

And oh, yeah, Now On To Big Bend..
Since the park is literally on the US/Mexico border, we got to see a bit of the Rio Grande river. We also learned some about life on the border and the many changes (not necessarily good ones) that have come about since the border closed in 2002. This cliff is on the Mexico side: And here's a cool sandy little path we hiked to the old hot springs: And some petroglyphs: The Rio Grande: And an unfortunate sign of the times: Most of the dirt roads in the park are not recommended for motorhomes, even little ones like ours, so we will have to return sometime with a Jeep or 4wd car so we can see more.
And lastly...

Back in the U.S., Back in the U.S, Back in the....

We had a great time in Canada and just the most lovely scenery. And some wonderful yarn stores. But, there's nothing like the feeling of coming "home" to the United States of America! Despite all its flaws (which maybe we'll have a chance to do something about next election...but that's another story), we really do live in an amazing country. It is my hope all of us could feel the same feeling every day that we felt when Customs officials said "welcome back!"

Anyway, a couple of yarn store stops happened in Seattle while we were waiting to get on the big cruise ship with our family. (To see photos of our cruise, etc., visit my bear store blog here)


First up was a place called So Much Yarn, a little alcove right in the middle of the city. Some lovely yarn and fun books. As soon as we got there, one of the sales ladys offered Big Knitter a seat on the couch at the back of the store! Wow! I couldn't resist telling them that he was a much Bigger Knitter than myself. (what I wanted to say, was, geesh, you just lost a big sale, but I refrained)

I found this...

...which I've been looking for ever since I got that really amazing organic cotton yarn from the Green Mountain Spinnery...thousands of miles and more days ago than I can remember. So now I'm ready to make the adorable kimono sweater.

Later, I asked Big Knittter if he felt discriminated against as a guy knitter?! His response: "Who cares, I'm just glad they had a bathroom." So that was that.


Next up was Tricoter, a high class knittin' joint located just north of the city center. What a great store if you like the most wonderful yarn. And who doesn't?

There was an amazing staff person (a guy) whose name I can't remember, who was just finishing up a lovely lace shawl. And I got interested in the beauty of that piece. It was gorgeous. (And he was getting ready to teach that shawl in an upcoming class at the store). Anyway, long story short, I got a basic primer on lace knitting from him and I got this:
And someday, I will make a shawl.

And the Big Knitter wasn't discriminated against for being a guy. He saw an incredible blanket with these huge cables in it, like 20- stitch cables all the way across the thing. It was a large throw size. And we found the pattern in one of Tricoter's own books. The saleslady who was helping Big Knitter showed us the cashmere yarn that it was made from. Some little balls of cashmere, 50 gm., using three strands held together. And all you needed was 66 of them for the blanket! And that would have cost just a little under a thousand dollars for the yarn!! No joke!


Oh, I also found some Socks That Rock yarn here:


Colorways Titania (greens) and Ruby Slippers (reds)


And that's it for our cross-country-and-back trip. And now it's off to home, back to reality, gotta pay the bills for this trip for awhile before we do any more stash enhancement. Next up, I will give a little update on my cabled sweater project, which is Almost Done!