another busy saturday part II: ysolda at the point

after visiting with nana, c and i drove home to give the car to the next work shift who was driving out to park slope to shop at the coop. after they left we got ready for our next event: Q and A with ysolda teague at the point. we arrived at 6:30 pm to find the store quite full, but we managed to snag two nice seats in the front on the side. c was happy because i bought her a black cherry soda (while i had a really yummy jasmine tea) and a chocolate brownie cake with chopped dates. she worked on her socks and i worked on my "serviette" while ysolda talked. ysolda had a very nice display up of her work and answered questions about her knitting beginnings, her design process, impressions of other designers, and thoughts about where she might like to see herself in the future. i enjoyed hearing about how she taught herself to knit from books and patterns, and not from a friend or family member (though she did mention that her mother and grandfather both knitted, and that she has some beautiful shetland wool given to her by her grandfather). She also just really enjoys traveling and staying with new friends and meeting fellow knitters and designers, and she doesn't have time to knit others' patterns as she is too busy designing her own! She also mentioned that her blog really is a key to meeting people and creating work and travel opportunities. below you can listen to her expound on her knitting technique.


i had fun trying on her liesl sample, which i would like to knit, and c had fun talking to mousie, who she would like to knit. sadly, i didn't get a picture of mousie! we'll just have to make her.

knitting "serviettes"

m, c and i went up to knitty city yesterday so i could touch and smell the sea silk yarn they had there. m and i found we really like the seaweed odor! (well, to put it more poetically . . the aroma of the seashore . . ) while there, c took a liking to some sugar and cream yarn, country sage ombre. we aren't supposed to be buying more yarn! our stash is taking over our lives in this small apartment . . but the price was right and it was very pretty and so we came away with five skeins. (ah hem.) i made her promise to start knitting the napkins she wants to make with it right away . . (oh la la les serviettes). . so here she is in bed with needles flying as i write . .

yarn store run

i've been trying to get to downtown yarns at avenue a between third and fourth streets for a week now. m. and c. came with me to pick out yarn for m's friend's birthday present. i'm making her the ballet top from teva durham's loop d loop book. it was a tough choice and took me awhile with m. getting a bit impatient but i finally settled on two skeins of ty dy's bluish purplish cotton mix along with two skeins of frog tree's pima silk in a kind of sky/wedgewood blue. one of these days i'm going to do a project with mission falls cotton, and manos cotton. probably not at the same time . . ha ha. m. couldn't pass up a skein of kid seta in a gorgeous blue. the store had some beautiful mohair scarves in a simple garter stitch on display and m. is inspired to create one for herself. i also picked up a skein of a deep blue in malabrigo cotton for k. to make herself a pair of long fingerless gloves to accompany her new york jedi costume (she's at the "clone wars" tonight with some other jedi friends). blue seems a bit popular today.
as you can see i couldn't pass up a pair of smooth empress bamboo knitting needles in their warm leather brown case.
and c. had fun replacing the grasshoppers in their wooly web home from which they had fallen.