Thursday, May 11, 2017

Happy birthday Ravelry

May 2017 marks the 10th anniversary of Ravelry.

I know it's hard to believe. It's grown steadily from tens of members in the beginning to millions today.

Their blog post about their birthday can be found here

Do you utilize ravelry? What are your favorite parts?

I utilize it, but definitely not to its fullest.  I hunt for patterns.  I might see how yarns are used by others.  I check other people's projects.

I don't use the project page to my benefit or its fullest. I have not even used the stash section.  I try to keep my library up to date and fail.

Stash Dash by TheKnitGirllls

Ever since I heard about this event,  I have thought it was a great idea.  The basic idea is not to run thru your stash of yarn. The basic idea IS to finish wips, ufos, and things that are hibernating.   Rules for the way they run it can be found here from last year. The main rules stay the same.  

Sadly I don't get a lot of time to participate. I have a huge commitment each July that takes many, many hours for my church.  So I make my own time frame rules. I don't declare how much distance I'm working towards.  If I do, life conspires against me.  If I don't,  I have a better chance of time being available all over.

Check my list of wips from earlier this year.  I already know I have no chance of whipping through these. I started crochet dolls for my granddaughters birthday at the end of the month.  The girls are Star Wars fans and I'm doing Chewbacca and Yoda. There are also "Little Golden" books  with Star Wars themes to accompany.   And now to get to work on them.

Saturday, May 6, 2017

My LYS

Where do you look for YOUR local yarn shop?  As a little girl,  there was one place.  The yellow pages of the phone book.  Sadly I no longer get a phone book.  I miss it but can see how it's been mafe obsolete.

Today there are a plethora of options.   A few years ago, we got a Garmin gps.  In the search parameters you can put in yarn shop or knit shop and will give a list of shops in an ever widening circle from your location. Side note: it made every road trip much more pleasant by eliminating arguments. I wholeheartedly suggest getting a Garmin,  rand McNally gps, Google maps or Apple's gps.

You can Google this information. A little less reliable but not by much. 
I found the knitmap app for Android devices.  It's backed up by a website for those who can't download the app.  This relies on shop owners and customers to keep it up to date.  This is just for yarn and possibly fiber.  It covers major international cities as well.

There's also needle travel.  Needle travel is almost exactly like knitmap.  The big differences?  Needle travel covers quilting,  needlepoint,  cross stitch,  weaving,  and spinning in addition to knit/crochet.  Another difference is that the people who put this together call each shop to be sure it's still operating.  It's also a book (reminding me of a AAA travel book) and a website.   There is no app, but you can

A quick look at any/all of these resources gives me this list of shops.  Within 2 hours of driving i have this rich abundance of yarn shops.  For those I've visited,  so far, everyone in those shops has been kind and knowledgeable.

Little owls knit shop               
2209 paxton church rd         
Harrisburg                          
4120900

Knitter's dream
2340 mockingbird rd
HArrisburg
5997665

Tucker yarn
950 Hamilton St.
Allentown
6104341846

Knitter's edge
1001 w. Broad street
Bethlehem
6104199276

Stormy hill criations
52 York Street
Gettysburg
717-818-9691 or 717-225-0780

Lancaster yarn shop
3519 Old Philadelphia Pike,
Kitchen Kettle Village
Intercourse, PA 17534
7688007

String theory yarn shop
829 state st.
Suite 2003
Lemoyne
7751618

Ewebiquitous
39 e. Main street
Lititz
5688890

Ball & skein
2 e. 28tg division hwy
Lititz
6254371

Kraemer yarn shop
240  s. Main street
Nazareth

I know from research that most people don't have this abundance.  These people rely on big box craft stores or just plain big box stores or online ordering from a variety of websites. For them, I'm sorry. A big part of the experience is to touch and smell and see in a variety of lights the true colors.

Where is your local yarn shop?  What do you think of the things it offers?  How are the people?  Are they friendly and knowledgeable?  Where do you go for help if not there?

The closer it gets the further away it is

As I typed this title,  strains of the song "the closer you get" by the group Alabama  flickered through my mind.  It has very little to actually do with this post though.

With a wedding one week away and counting,  I've been hunting for the little things that are needed.  I lost a camera and have been hunting high and low.  There's a good camera for stills, but I thought it would be great to have video of the exchange of vows.  The only camera we have that can do it was missing. I have found it.

I  also found several wips that I really want done.  One is a design of my own for a crocodile stitch shawl. The yarn is patons lace in cream.

Another one is a flower sweater. The yarn is ella rae chunky acrylic/ alpaca blend.  Instead of the blue/beige ombre in the pattern, I'm choosing a golden yellow with dark brown  and gingerbread. I have an affinity for sunflowers. The yarn in the pattern is a fine weight but I zipped it up to a bulky weight.

The last one i found is Cancun Boxy Lace Top.  The yarn i chose is Tahki Stacy Charles mercerized cotton dk weight in shades of blues and greens.  I'm also making it longer than indicated. 
So as you can see,  I am closer to having no wips by virtue of frogging and dismantling the kits i made but have changed my mind about.   But I'm further away because I added 3 more.