This is the second year for the Stitches show here in Pasadena. About 20 years ago they had the show in Burbank, that was my entry back into the knitting world after a long hiatus. That show went away, clearly the organizers realize that having a presence in SoCal is important.
It was a much bigger and better show this year. They claim to be about all fiberarts, but knitting is still king. There were some booths that had quilting or weaving, but most of the vendors were all about the knitting. If they want to be multi-craftual- they have to work harder next year.
My big purchase was a new swift. I’ve been using the old fashioned clamp on a table kind for almost 20 years. I even had to replace some of the twine at some point. So The Oregan Woodworker was there selling their handmade table swifts. I have seen this style of swift, I love supporting a small company. So here we are, out of the bag. Oh yes, it comes with it’s only handmade bag.
Putting it together. Each one is made by hand. When putting the pieces together, I am told to match the dots. The dots are simply marked with a sharpie. Did I say each one is handmade?
Here it is, assembled and on the table. I’m not sure why I chose this setting for my pegs, this will lead to problems…
Can you see the problem? The skein isn’t taut enough, foolish me, I didn’t rectify that until a little latter, but then it was too late.
I started winding a ball. So far so good, but then, it wasn’t good, the yarn kept getting tangled. The free end got caught in the middle.
So I moved the pegs and pulled the skein tighter. But the yarn was already tangled, so it wasn’t smooth sailing.
This is as far as I got, you can see the rest of the skein in the background. That part ended up a mess in the trash. Btw, I don’t need a lot of this to finish my shawl, and I don’t think I’ll be keeping the rest of this ball. It will go into a donation pile very soon.
A friend is now in the yarn dying business, so I bought a skein from her. The only yarn I bought.
I started making the ball. Another problem, once again, it’s not the swift, but when I put this skein on the swift I noticed that there were some kinks. Yes indeed there were kinks. I ended up having to cut the yarn, at that point I couldn’t put it back on the ball winder.
Here we have the ball, you can see I finished winding it by hand.
I did buy a pattern. I have to say, if they didn’t have a sample of the sweater there is no way I’d buy this pattern. This is the one of two images. It doesn’t show much, the other is the back of the sweater, which I will not be making, since it’s open lace. If you are selling patterns, get better pictures. Sure, she probably has nice images on Ravelry. I was told to leave Ravelry – it’s no longer about knitting its about politics. So I buy patterns elsewhere and at shows, lucky for this designer, this booth had knit up some of her projects, otherwise, I wouldn’t buy based on this picture.
As to yarn, I’m going to New Zealand, I’m taking the pattern and knitting needles with me, I’ll buy the yarn there.
Leah