• Disapproval
• 4

Disapproval rock disapproves of my decision to abandon you.  Well, he seems to disapprove of most everything.  I think the trick will be carefully framing your questions to him as he doesn’t seem to have much of a range of expression.  He may be my new mascot.

 

• Abandonment
• 5

You have been abandoned.  The sock, The Boy, and I have run off to the beach and left you.  I’m sure once you see the beach you’ll understand my decision.

The sock will be back to report on his feelings about this experience soon.  In the meantime, I’m going to go see which rocks are best suited for clambering over.  It’s an important question.  I intend to dedicate substantial time to determining the answer.  Don’t wait up.  Also, send a sunhat.

• Souvenir
• 7

I tend to bring back somewhat non-traditional goodies from my various excursions.  I don’t have much use for tshirts.  I am always drawn to pretty drawings of the places I go, but I never manage to get them framed and hung.  Pretty much if it’s meant to be sold as a souvenir, I’m not so interested.  Two of my very favorite possessions in the whole world are the tiny little salt pot we brought back from Bulgaria, the sea glass we brought back from Maine, and the stick we brought back from Nova Scotia.  That stick is on the ‘grab when packing the car to flee the hurricane list’ (granted, an unlikely situation in Ohio, but you never know).

I’m continuing the tradition with what I bring home from this trip.

That’s 19 yards of beautiful buttery soft gray/beige linen (as a side note, 19 yards of fabric is freaking heavy…and huge…I had no idea), a whack of very expensive buttons (but they were oh so perfect for the project), and that fabric string stuff (which I have now learned is called twill tape). All from Britex, which was more than a bit overwhelming.

These will all be magically combined (once I’m home…I did not bring a sewing machine on the trip) to become new duvet covers and pillows.  I’ve been wanting linen ones forever, but I can’t justify the cost.  Making them myself isn’t exactly cheap, but it’s a bit less, and I’ll get exactly what I want.

I’ll be detailing the making (likely at nauseating length…I’m bad at sewing but good at spatial reasoning and crackerjack at origami, so I’m thinking it shouldn’t be too hard) once I’m home.  Well, once I’m home and back from TNNA and have gotten over the trip funk.  But I have a suspicion this will be one hell of a souvenir.

• Step 1, Establish Camp
• 10

I’ve arrived in San Francisco and located our lodgings.  They are more or less at the top of the steepest hill ever.  That makes going other places (they’re all down hill) easy, and walking back from them a bit grueling.  I’ve also secured provisions in what was quite possibly the most harrowing grocery store/parking garage experience ever.  I am beginning to miss parking lots.  Large, free, easily-navigable parking lots.  But I’m the stoic and valiant type (ahem. No. This is a total lie. I am the whiny type who feels it is very very important everyone in earshot know about my blister, but I’ll manage).  I am even (very slightly) oriented–I found the nearest bookstore–and don’t feel (completely) lost at all times.

That means it’s time to go out wandering about and get properly lost again.  Today’s goals are Artfibers (because holy wow do they look cool) and Britex Fabrics (because I really want to make new duvet covers, and I have a suspicion that’s the place to start).  I’m doing them both today because they seem to be more or less in the same place, and I figure the yarn store (an environment in which I feel quite comfortable) will be good cushioning for the fabric store (where I feel consistently confused and more than a bit overwhelmed).  And yes, I will take the camera and report back with details!

• Double-Sided Buttons
• 3

It’s not often you get to take out your pliers for your knitting.  That’s a shame.  I like my pliers, and I want to use them more often.  I found a way to sneak them into Knitter’s Curiosity Cabinet, Volume II as part of the Vanessa antiopa Cowl.  (That pattern is part of the knit along that’s going on now, so if you want to get your pliers out too, feel free to join us.)

I used my pliers to make double-sided buttons.  You can see here how I used three of them to hold the cowl together.

This is actually a really nifty technique to have up your sleeve.  You know how some bits of knitting (especially shawls and cowls) sometimes cry out for a way to hold them in place?  But maybe you don’t want to commit to anything so permanent as a sewn on button?  Well this is a great way to handle it.  Double-sided buttons let you hold your fabric together wherever you’d like with no commitment (and no sewing on of buttons…a task I always find unreasonably daunting).

The instructions are in the book and in in the individual pattern, but it’s handy enough that I wanted to share it here too.  I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking.

Supplies.

Grab your ring.

Twist it open.

Load your buttons.

Twist it closed.

All done!

Try making a set of these to hold together your favorite bit of knitting.  It works with a series of small buttons like these, or you could try it with one larger button as a statement piece.  If the backside of your knitting won’t show, you could even do one large, flashy button for the outside, and a smaller one (remember, at least one of the buttons has to be able to fit through the fabric) on the inside.

If you find yourself making double-sided buttons, I’d love to see them in the knit along thread for this project!