This is what happens when you cast virtue aside and wantonly flaunt your credit card at Blue Moon Fiber Arts and Crown Mountain Farms, and maybe a couple of other madams vendors at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival. It’s not quite Rhinebeck (I missed my Spiders, the fried artichokes, and the sheepdogs especially, although there were some beautiful Irish Wolfhounds having their own convention at the other end of the fairgrounds), but I did get to do these things for the first time:

1. meet up with Katherine in person
2. pet a baby camel and a Wensleydale ram
3. load up on Sock Hop

Speaking of which, let’s identify the lovelies above. From left to right: Sock Hop in Secret Agent Man and I Got You Babe; Socks That Rock Lightweight in Rare Gems and Blue Brick Wall; Sporfarms Merino/Silk in Frostberries; Sock Hop in two shades of My Boyfriend’s Back. I tried to stick to my goal of not buying yarn I don’t have a pattern in mind for. The two pairings of Sock Hop will become not socks but Elizabeth Zimmermann baby sweaters — maybe Baby Surprise Jackets, maybe Bog Jackets, perhaps Baby Surplice Jackets. I love garter stitch to show off handspun that’s plied this way, and I think some subtle stripes in these closely related colorways will be pretty on babies. What babies, you might ask? It’s true that I’m still finishing up some knits for the most recent crop. Bran new baby Flynn across the street has two hats ready for him, and I’m trying to get his little baby pod zippered and seamed this week. Wee Jordan hasn’t received her February Sweater yet because we haven’t managed to connect with her parents, but it probably won’t fit until next month anyway. The fact is, my friends and relations seem to be taking a breather from the baby manufacturing. It’s like half time. It’s like the last wave has receded and pulled all the little pebbles dancing down the beach after it, but a larger wave is building. The babies are coming, I just know it. This is what happens two or three years after a wagonload of your friends have gotten married, and I aim to be prepared. Armed with my Sock Hop haul, I can garter stitch away on little projects to my heart’s content and store up ickle sweaters like so many squirrel nuts.

The lovely Sporfarms merino/silk was a souvenir for Katrin, who couldn’t come with me to OFFF because she had to work. And the Socks That Rock? Lord knows there’s plenty of that in the stash, thoroughly marinated and aged to perfection, but I liked these two skeins together so much that I couldn’t resist them. The Rare Gems are mistakes or experiments that aren’t replicated, and mostly I don’t find them too attractive. But this one looks like sunset over the desert, and I thought it was particularly harmonious against the blues of Blue Brick Wall. I was thinking of Kate Gilbert’s Syncopated Caps when I picked them up, but then I started to think of interesting designs for syncopated kneesocks. I hereby vow to knit a second Drunken Bear kneesock — and a second Pomatomus — before I cast on a new pair, but I’m looking forward to them.

And now to go knit like a fiend and finish up Star Wars Hat the Second and Wine and Roses Mitt the Second so they can go to their new homes this week. Sorry the posts have been thin on the ground of late; I’ll try not to let the week get away from me this time!

For a knitting blog, this one has been pretty pathetic with the content of late. I am knitting, I am. I just can’t show you much of the Shibui project, and the little boy sweater I’ve been cooking up needs a good stiff blocking before it will lie still for photography. In desperation, I offer you a scintillating glimpse of… stockinet and 2×2 ribbing!

This, friends, is the better part of a Frost Flowers sleeve. More mindless knitting can scarcely be conceived of, but it’s about what I’ve been good for this week under the dread thumb of the virus. I was afraid this Trendsetter Spiral (and I hereby swear it’s the last time you’ll see me knit with such unnatural fiber – I trusted Norah Gaughan, but now I think her patrons told her she had to do something with this yarn and she just gave the salute and did the best she could. If I hadn’t been so wet behind the ears as a knitter when I took this project on, I would have substituted a decent cotton at least.) was going to look like a pox victim knit up, but I’ve decided it’s more like the hide of some desert-dwelling feline. The African Plastic Sand Leopard, recently extinct and known to Western science only through the appearance of its skin in ceremonial robes among the native tribal elders.

But hey, check out those surprise flowers that suddenly popped up in my garden! I’ve been so tickled all year to see what my new yard is going to do next. I’ve added almost nothing to it because every month brings something unexpected sprouting up just where I’d thought about putting some new plant or other. Who knew I was the owner of a foxglove and a calla lily?

I’m also the owner of some fabulous discount Rowan Plaid in Soft Kelp:

I’m thinking Leaf Lace Pullover ala Teva Durham. I loved knitting with Rowan Plaid so much during the construction of Lightning and my very first sweater for my mom that I had to spring for some more at half price. And a skein of sock yarn, because who can resist discount sock yarn? I love you, Webs. In the interest of full disclosure, this is not my own stash enhancement of late. On the whole, I’ve been pretty good, considering that I work in a yarn store and they give me a wicked discount. Last night I caved and came home with a skein of Artyarns Supermerino 4 in colorway 139, the most enchanting mix of sky blues and grass greens. It was new in the store and I could tell that it wanted so badly to be a wee baby hat for our neighbors’ firstborn, due in September. I had to take pity on it and give it what it wanted. And then there was Habu bamboo laceweight. Oh, the happy knitter born into an era where technology makes such treasure possible. Get thee to Knit/Purl, on foot or online (it might not be up on the site until Monday or Tuesday), if you don’t have easy access to Habu itself. It’s new, it’s fabulous, you’ll wonder where it’s been all your lace-knitting life. I brought home a skein of shimmery, sleek charcoal, 515 yards for the absurdly reasonable price of $15 and a nickel. It’s so pretty I almost don’t trust myself to photograph it. I want to mail it off to Jared so it can have its portrait taken properly, but I know he’d never give it back. Victorian Lace Today, here I come!

I never showed you the fruits of my (admittedly selective) Habu pillaging! It was my first visit to the famous New York fiber lair, and I went in with a certain regimen of mental training behind me. I’ve been psyching myself up for this one for a long time. I knew I was going to be waylaid by sensual delights and my personal pitfall: stuff you can’t get anywhere else. The thing is, a lot of Habu’s products are intriguing, but flummoxing. (I gawp at the names alone.) What exactly am I going to make out of that nifty paper “yarn” — wouldn’t wearing it be a little like dumpster-diving in one of those big mobile shredders? And how exactly do you wash it? Or that stainless steel and silk combination — a versatile chapeau cum pasta strainer? Or those cobwebs of luxury fiber that look so fine you might not be able to feel a single strand between your fingers — a negligee for Titania’s booty calls to Oberon?

I was determined to stay practical, Dear Readers. No impulse purchases. Nothing I couldn’t immediately imagine a good use for. So this is the lot… if only I’d written down exactly what it is, because the chatty ladies behind the curtain operating the super-sweet fiber-related power tools don’t give you any kind of a ball band or tag once you’ve told them how many ounces of this, that, and the other thing you’d like. I believe that what I have is this — counterclockwise from top left:

1. a-145 kasuri cotton: 10/2 sumi cotton tegasuri

It’s laceweight cotton, in a colorway that seems to be titled “wine” on Habu’s website, but I’ll be calling it Japanese maple, for reasons obvious in this picture. I think I have three ounces, which I shall knit on largish needles into a very light and airy summer pullover of my own design. Stay tuned, although I may or may not get to it this summer…

2. a-174: 1/8.5 cotton gima
According to the website, gima means “fake linen” (only the Japanese could have a word for this) — it really does look like their linen paper yarns, but it seems sturdier. And cotton is pretty practical. My colorway is #53, “oak”, but it looks like butternut squash to me. Four ounces, I’m pretty sure, will make me two gen-yoo-wine Mason-Dixon curtains for the corner of the basement we’re sprucing up and officizing.

3. a-34: 2/26 cashmere

Cashmere, bay-bee! And it was (and I quote from the ballband) !!! 15% OFF !!! SALE YARN — w00t! (okay, the w00t is mine). I never buy cashmere, but $11.48 for 202 yards wasn’t going to break the bank, even with New York City sales tax added on. I figure I’ve got enough for some scrummy Wine and Roses Mitts from the Winter ’06 Interweave — although “mitts” hardly seems the right term for these delicate and ladylike confections. And these are deeply practical: if they prevent chilblains next winter, it’ll be $11.48 well spent indeed. Heck, it’ll be worth it if I run out of yarn and have to buy a second ball at full price.

I don’t get to cast on any of these right away, alas. I’m busy with ShibuiKnits projects I can’t yet show you, and with a little sweater I’m designing for my friend Abbie to knit for her small nephew. I’m thinking my own small cousin will be the recipient of the prototype, which should make for some truly adorable pictures next winter — my cousins could compete for Cutest Little Boys on the Planet. I’m also itching to cast on for a long-stashed summer sweater, and I’m cooking up a design challenge for myself that I’ll tell you about this weekend.

I know you’re all waiting for pictures of the finished Fishtrap Aran. And since I’m the kind of person who can’t stand suspense, I’ll relieve your minds by revealing that the 30″ zipper turned out to be just fine. I was saved from more ripping and gnashing of teeth. But it’s taking me an age to sew on the darn facings by hand, and I still need to attach i-cord to conceal the zipper from the outside before I’ll consider it really done.

So this post is the equivalent of those old cartoons where the action pauses and there are birds tweeting and maybe some classical music and it says INTERLUDE across the screen.

I give you the beginnings of the Elizabeth Zimmermann Rorschach Jacket:

It begins with a gigantic cast on for the center front and back and works out to the side seam and the sleeve, with some nifty miters along the way. The side seam stitches are live and hanging out on spare needles; I’ll graft them together when the sleeve is complete, pick up stitches along the bottom for the hem, and voila, half a sweater. Then I make the right half, add some buttons and button tabs, slap a belt on it, and Bob’s your uncle. (Where the heck does that saying come from, anyway? Seriously, I want to know.)

In other news, we don’t believe in dieting here at Blue Garter. Especially when there’s a chance of snagging a whole sweater’s-worth of beautiful and DISCONTINUED yarn. So when Knit/Purl had a President’s Day sale, I found I couldn’t resist Rowan Yorkshire Tweed Aran at 40% off.

If Mr. Garter is very good and wears his Fishtrap Aran every day for the rest of the year frequently, he may be lucky enough to get a Seamless Hybrid out of this plummy goodness.