What I Learned From Knitting by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

My review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
Another wonderful book from Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Wonderful tid-bits about knitting, some that make you laugh, others make you contemplate and others you just relate to.

If your a knitter, it’s worth picking up a copy and reading. I love the small format of the book as well.

View all my reviews.

A few months ago, I took advantage of the local yarn store’s closing sale. When I got home with my bounty of yarn, I stuffed a few of balls of yarn into a plastic storage bin in my office. Problem was, the bin wasn’t big enough for all of it.

This weekend we did a major cleaning and overhaul of my office. I finally made it through several boxes that had been stalking me for years. When we were done, I turned around to see the coffee table empty inside and the lightbulb went off to put the yarn in there. It all fit, looks wonderful and when I want some, all I have to do is grab a suction cup, pull up the glass and take out the one piece.

As a newer knitter, I didn’t really get this whole concept of stash. As a person on a limited budget and lots of interests, I also decided that a stash is something I’ll try in the future.

When I got new that the local yarn store was closing, which I’m really bummed about, I realized if I was ever to create a stash this would be as good of a time as any. I shopped frugally still, I went in looking at each yarn with the idea of how I would use it. If I couldn’t come up with a good need, or if it needed 8 balls to make it, I passed. Below is a slideshow of all the goodness in my new stash.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

I’ve been working on this scarf for a while. Well I should better put when I pick up my knitting every few months I do a few more rows of this. I finally loosened my insane grip on the stitches and now can knit faster. Because of that the stitch is becoming apparent. I’m going to keep going until I get to the end of the ball of yarn. It’s going to be a long narrow scarf.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve been attended knitting. Tonight I made it along with Kelly, Kathy, Pam, Fran, Barbara and a new person Lorraine. It was a lot of fun. Kelly picked up Panera and then for a treat Saranac Pumpkin Ale.

She watched the WLTV episode on beers too and was interested in possibly a pumpkin flavored beer. Neither of us are big beer drinkers, wine is our preferred choice. But the pumpkin ale wasn’t too bad.

I got through a row of cables on my fetchings. I even taught some knitting tonight! I showed Kathy how to do a cable cast on. We had a great time, munching on french baguette too.

Goal for tomorrow, wake up with the alarm. Simple as that.

Kelly and I got together to knit at Panera. I had tried toe-up socks once before and I did not get how to do short-rowing. We decided to take the challenge together. We’re using Wendy Johnson’s toe-up sock instructions from Knitty.

We both got soups and broke out the yarn. Had some hot drinks later on as the night got cold. We did make some progress, as usual I knit so tight my socks could pass for being water-proof, and Kelly knits quick and loosely, so she was almost done with her toe. We had a good time catching up and are determined to get this right by the other foot.