Last Thursday was Thanksgiving here in the US, so I was in Fort Wayne (Indiana) for the holiday. I had planned on just staying for a couple days, but once the Simply Socks Yarn Co. announced that the Yarn Harlot would be in town for some workshops and a lecture, I decided I could extend my visit long enough to go the lecture. As she was speaking on Saturday evening, it gave me a chance to finally go to the store and check out all their yarns in person. I'd been wanting to do this for a long time, but the shop is only open on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and I never seemed to be there when the shop was open.
I got to the shop about 90 minutes before closing time, hoping to be able to take a couple laps around before I had to make any decisions. The shop is in a building that had been a post office when I lived in the neighborhood more than 20 years ago. It still had all the glazed tiles on the walls and the terazzo flooring at the front where the service windows once were, but all the interior walls had been removed and replaced with colorful, squishy, glorious yarn! Right up front was a great big selection of Madelinetosh yarns, in the DK and the sock yarn and Alchemy, Dream in Color and Three Irish Girls on the left. There were so many, many yarns I wanted, but I managed to exercise a little restraint and only bought one skein of Lorna's Laces sock and one of Black Trillium Fibres Merillon sock. Any others I want I can order online now that I've felt it up in person.
I had been hoping to complete my Rafters cardigan in time to wear it at the lecture, but, sadly, it wasn't even close. A week ago, I thought I might be able to knit up the sleeves and button band in time. I was so wrong! I only managed to get about 1/3 of the sleeves done (both sleeves at the same time), and it wouldn't have mattered if I'd gotten the button band done since I didn't even have any buttons. I just really wanted to have a show-offy sweater to wear to meet the Yarn Harlot. I ended up wearing my Zori cardigan and getting lots of compliments on it from all the nice knitters who were in attendance. One person even went so far as to say she wanted to make it for herself, as she liked the traveling stitches in the yoke. I'm glad to hear it - there are only 5 Ravelry project pages for it, so it'll be nice to have another one out there in the world.
After I finished up at the yarn shop, I went down a couple doors to a little coffee shop that's in an old converted firehouse. I needed to kill a little time before the lecture, and I wasn't the only knitter with that idea - I met some women from Anderson and from Indianapolis who had come up for the day. I made a little more progress on the sleeves of my cardigan and had a nice chat with Luke the Barista about how many people had paid to go to IPFW to hear a lady talk about knitting. He was completely astonished that so many people would come from so far for such a thing. But when I brought up how far people will travel for gaming cons and stuff like that, it seemed to make sense to him. This was something the Yarn Harlot touched on in her speech too, which was in turns enlightening, touching and hilarious and to which I can't do justice here. Let me just say that if you have the chance to go to one of her appearances or take one of her workshops, do it. You won't be sorry. There is a reason she makes her living doing this: she is good at what she does.
And on that note, I'll consider this post finished. I've nearly finished the Scylla socks, but I'll leave the details until next time. Until then, Friends.
P.S. When I wrote this post, I thought I had a whole lot of photos to support the text, even one of myself that I liked with the Yarn Harlot. Sadly, I had a Windows 8-related problem importing the pics and may or may not be able to recover them. If I can get them, I'll post them, otherwise, y'all are just going to have to trust me when I tell you I had good photos.
I got to the shop about 90 minutes before closing time, hoping to be able to take a couple laps around before I had to make any decisions. The shop is in a building that had been a post office when I lived in the neighborhood more than 20 years ago. It still had all the glazed tiles on the walls and the terazzo flooring at the front where the service windows once were, but all the interior walls had been removed and replaced with colorful, squishy, glorious yarn! Right up front was a great big selection of Madelinetosh yarns, in the DK and the sock yarn and Alchemy, Dream in Color and Three Irish Girls on the left. There were so many, many yarns I wanted, but I managed to exercise a little restraint and only bought one skein of Lorna's Laces sock and one of Black Trillium Fibres Merillon sock. Any others I want I can order online now that I've felt it up in person.
I had been hoping to complete my Rafters cardigan in time to wear it at the lecture, but, sadly, it wasn't even close. A week ago, I thought I might be able to knit up the sleeves and button band in time. I was so wrong! I only managed to get about 1/3 of the sleeves done (both sleeves at the same time), and it wouldn't have mattered if I'd gotten the button band done since I didn't even have any buttons. I just really wanted to have a show-offy sweater to wear to meet the Yarn Harlot. I ended up wearing my Zori cardigan and getting lots of compliments on it from all the nice knitters who were in attendance. One person even went so far as to say she wanted to make it for herself, as she liked the traveling stitches in the yoke. I'm glad to hear it - there are only 5 Ravelry project pages for it, so it'll be nice to have another one out there in the world.
After I finished up at the yarn shop, I went down a couple doors to a little coffee shop that's in an old converted firehouse. I needed to kill a little time before the lecture, and I wasn't the only knitter with that idea - I met some women from Anderson and from Indianapolis who had come up for the day. I made a little more progress on the sleeves of my cardigan and had a nice chat with Luke the Barista about how many people had paid to go to IPFW to hear a lady talk about knitting. He was completely astonished that so many people would come from so far for such a thing. But when I brought up how far people will travel for gaming cons and stuff like that, it seemed to make sense to him. This was something the Yarn Harlot touched on in her speech too, which was in turns enlightening, touching and hilarious and to which I can't do justice here. Let me just say that if you have the chance to go to one of her appearances or take one of her workshops, do it. You won't be sorry. There is a reason she makes her living doing this: she is good at what she does.
And on that note, I'll consider this post finished. I've nearly finished the Scylla socks, but I'll leave the details until next time. Until then, Friends.
P.S. When I wrote this post, I thought I had a whole lot of photos to support the text, even one of myself that I liked with the Yarn Harlot. Sadly, I had a Windows 8-related problem importing the pics and may or may not be able to recover them. If I can get them, I'll post them, otherwise, y'all are just going to have to trust me when I tell you I had good photos.
