Here’s my store thus far.  It’s not actually “open” yet, though, because I haven’t unpacked all my soaping stuff since the move.

Two: The new issue of Twist Collective is up.  There’s lots and lots of cute baby items.  But what really caught my eye (no big surprise) were the socks!  I immediately had to purchase the Netherfield pattern by Kristi Schueler.  They’re… BEES!  How cute!  (Not that bees typically fall under “cute” in my book, but the bee motif on the socks certainly does.)  I just got some US size 1 square needles over the weekend and I’ve been dying to cast on something with them.  Looks like the perfect project to me!

Three: Spinning/knitting with dog fur – creepy or cute?

The reason I bring this up is that over the weekend I was on the phone with my mom, and she and I had discussed in the past the fact that some people spin their dog or cat’s fur (blended with wool) and knit with it.  Being that spring-shedding season is right around the corner, she asked me if I wanted any fur from my dog, Kodi (who is now my parents’ dog, really).  He’s an Akita/Shepherd mix and has the downy Akita undercoat, so his fur is very fluffy.

I had to pause because I’m somewhat on the fence about spinning dog fur.  I guess there’s nothing creepy about it — especially if you have no qualms about spinning fur.  So long as it’s washed and carded/combed, what’s the difference?

Ultimately I told her yes, save me some Kodi-fur.  Reason being, Kodi will be 10 years old this May.  His muzzle is all gray now, and he’s slowing down with age.  It breaks my heart to think he might not be around too many more years.  So having a skein of yarn that is a small piece of him?  It’s a comfort to me.  While some people mind find that strange or creepy, I just don’t.

November 3, 2008

Heal the Election Wounds and Embrace Humanity with a Moebius
By Cat Bordhi

I awoke this morning realizing that publicly knitting a beautiful Moebius scarf as I begin to float (I live on an island), drive, and fly toward Stitches East on Tuesday would be a beautiful and profound public expression of my hopes and dreams for the world, as well as a symbol of the healing that our country will need after the election.

If you want to follow along, I recently made a Youtube video which will clearly teach you how to knit a Moebius whether you have my books or not.

So – here is why the Moebius is a perfect expression of the best of humanity, and the healing of the fractured country and world that I trust is coming:

1. The Moebius appears to have two surfaces and two edges – ie, polarities such as black and white, right and wrong, good and bad, Republican and Democrat – but when you follow the surface around you will run right into your starting point without ever having changed to the other “side.” For there isn’t one. Everything flows into itself. Polarities are an illusion. What lies beneath the apparent polarities is oneness, beauty, and grace. In a Moebius you can see it, hold it, be awed by it. Once the frenzy dies down, hopefully those with opposing views will slowly rediscover their common humanity.
2. Like the surface that flows into itself, so too does the Moebius’s single continuous edge – thus everything is recycled. In fact, I would not be the least bit surprised if the ultimate alternative energy involves a Moebius form or dynamic. By the way, the recycling symbols (2 are in common usage, one with a single twist, the other with 3) you see everywhere are actually Moebii (too hard to say Moebiuses – try it!). I think we are all hoping for significant and effective new discoveries in alternative energy – and the Moebius would be a great symbol for this global effort.
3. Once you complete the first ring (it takes 2 rings to make a round – watch the video) of your Moebius, you are in for smooth and happy sailing. All you have to do is to knit the stitch in front of you, then the next stitch in front of you, with not a care in the world for what came before or what has shifted into the “future”. You’ll look at the mysterious shape on your needles and wonder how “those stitches” can ever come to you … well, they will, without your needing to understand how. And they will all come in perfect sequence, resulting in a beautiful and graceful Moebius. The Moebius rewards your faith in its mystery with the easiest knitting you will ever do. And the result is always graceful – for this is the very nature of the Moebius. You can knit along while you watch the election results, while walking, while standing in line at the store, wherever you may find yourself during these days to come. You will be knitting the graceful healing and ease that I believe is flowing toward us, requiring only of us that we stay true to the powerful sense of loving kindness that resides in the center of every person. No one could ever possibly understand enough to make the healing happen, but if we all just knit the stitch before us, as they come, marveling at the innocence and sweetness of it all, with our oh so familiar continuous strand of yarn, the healing will happen. We need not understand either one fully – the Moebius or the world. They both operate with inherent grace.
4. I looked through my stash and chose a luminous yarn in deep watery colors from Blue Moon Fiber Arts – LSS (Luscious Single Silk), and did not realize until I looked at the label that the colorway is absolutely apropos: Lunasea. Tina no doubt named the colorway after the moon and the sea – and after lunacy. So let the lunacy of the election months give way to Lunasea – the grace of the moon, the sea, the Moebius, and the beautiful heart of humanity, of all people, the “us” and “them” who merge into one. I shall be winding the skein on the ferry tomorrow, then knitting all the way to Baltimore. I hope to see many, many of you there.

With love from Cat Bordhi

Note: If you alternate sets of knit and purl rounds, you will have purl ridges all around. Then your Moebius will not curl along the edges when you are done.

I’ve seen too many people hurt over this election.  Please let the healing begin, and no matter what the outcome after today, let’s get behind our new president and band together as Americans and support eachother to make this world a little brighter, better place.

Two: The 2nd anniversary kits are up for sale at The Loopy Ewe.  I placed my order this morning.  A TLE coffee mug?!  TOO CUTE!

Three: Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to my Secret Pal partner.  I’ll be e-mailing you later to thank you personally, and I’m sorry I haven’t written you sooner (life has been crazy).  Just look at this…

Go see the Flickr page for the image to see labels on exactly what each item is.  So many lovely scents… my favorite, lavender, along with some berry and mango scented items thrown in for variety.  Yum!  AND a fantastic Envirosax bag (::squee::) and as always, a wonderful personal note.  Seriously, ya’ll… I have the best secret pal ever.

Pattern: St. Louis Socks by Wendy Johnson
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight in “Pondscum”

In case you’re wondering, my “On the Needles” list (in the sidebar) grew today because I decided to force myself to gather up all my unfinished projects to start working through them.  I like having several projects going at once, but right now I have so many that it’s just ridiculous.  It’s overloading my mental-RAM.  Hopefully I can finish a few of the UFOs and then I can start my Christmas-knitting.

Last night I finished up my drop-stitch scarf, which was my oldest UFO (cast on back in January).  I just need to weave in the ends and wash/block it and it will be totally done.  (I’ll post pics soon.)  Tonight I think I’m going to tackle my Bombshell sweater and/or my Lunchtime @ Work socks, which are all but finished.  If I get those two things done, I’ll feel much better.  (*Ahem* Well, those and Nick’s socks, which he’s been buggin’ me about for quite some time…)

OH!  Check out my new Fiberspheres!  Nifty, eh?  These have become kind of a running joke at my LYS — “pink balls”! — but seriously, they’re a great tool.

I’m not sure if they show this on the website, but if you get two of them, you can either use them individually or hook them together, which is great for knitting socks two-at-a-time or for knitting projects where you’re holding two yarns together.

Finally, I’ll leave you today with an updated picture of my yarn and fiber/roving stash, which I recently reorganized.  If you’re especially curious, I labeled what everything is on the photo’s Flickr page.

Discuss.

ETA: Okay, now that I have had a chance to quickly peruse the patterns… Seascape is gorgeous and I’m guessing it’s going to be the “next big thing”. I want one! I don’t really have any babies to knit for, but Helena is adorable and I may just knit one anyway. THREE lovely sock patterns! I can’t decide if I like Spring Forward or Ziggy best. (But the Ziggy pattern is making me want to give the Noro sock yarn another chance…) Inverness looks like a nice relaxed-fit cardigan, which is definitely my style. Gigi is adorable, but definitely wouldn’t flatter my (current) figure. And finally BYOB [Bring Your Own Bag] is probably the niftiest market-bag design I’ve seen so far. I think I’d carry it for a beach bag too!

Whew! I already see my Ravelry queue growing…

Normally I go to my LYS on Saturdays, but occasionally I stop in during the week if I need to pick up an item or two. I stopped in last night to see if the Malabrigo Worsted they’d ordered had come in yet. I’ve never had the pleasure of knitting with Malabrigo Worsted. I do have a bit of their lace weight, and it is incredibly soft and luscious. So of course, I’ve been dying to get my paws on the worsted weight. I was so excited when I found out my LYS was going to start stocking it!

Admittedly, I was a little disappointed when I came in and saw that the Malabrigo wasn’t out on the shelves yet. But it certainly wasn’t a wasted trip (is a trip to a yarn shop ever really wasted, though?). I needed to pick up one more ball of Crystal Palace Kaya for a project I’m wanting to eventually work on. So I grabbed that.

But then Sharon told me that she had the Malabrigo in the back, and asked if I wanted to check it out. Oh, did I ever!

They got in so many beautiful shades. I had the worst time deciding which I wanted to buy. I felt bad because I think I ripped open 3 or 4 packages. Hopefully I didn’t make a big mess (sorry, Sharon!). I finally decided on the “Emerald”, which is really more of a deep teal, in my estimation. It’s gorgeous. I got 4 skeins, which are destined to be a Clapotis. (Or a “Cla-pootie” if you listen to Lime ‘n Violet, LOL — I can’t see the name “Clapotis” anymore without thinking of that!!)

Sadly, though, this morning I saw this via The Daily Chum, posted on the Malabrigo website:

Dear Customer,

We thank you for your continuing support and we hope to be up and running soon

At least it sounds as if no one was injured. How unfortunate though! And slightly ironic, that on the day I finally get to buy the yarn Ive been lusting after, that their mill catches fire. I hope that’s not a bad sign, or I might be banned from buying yarn! I think I’ll go home and hug my Malabrigo a bit tigher tonight.

• Worldwide Knit in Public Day will be celebrated in Nashville on June 14th at Centennial Park, beginning at 11 a.m.  You can find more details about the event here.  I’m really hoping to make it, providing the weather is nice.  If you come, be sure to look for me and say “hello”!
• The Middle Tennessee Sheep, Wool and Fiber Festival is coming up on May 23rd & 24th.  It’s taking place in Dickson, TN at the Dickson County fair grounds.  More information can be found at their site.  I was lucky enough to get a spot in their Beginning Spinning workshop on Saturday afternoon, and I can’t wait!  (Not to mention, I can’t wait to go ogle all the lovely roving the vendors will be selling…)

Speaking of spinning, I know several people have asked me how my spinning is coming along.  Truthfully I haven’t had the opportunity to do nearly as much as I’d like to.  In the short bits of free time I have here and there, it’s easy to pick up my knitting projects, but I really have to devote bigger blocks of time if I’m going to drag out my wheel.  It seems that I need to make time for spinning.

I did pick up some new roving last week from The Loopy Ewe:

This particular fiber comes from black Blue-Faced Leicester sheep, and then is overdyed with color.  It gives a really neat effect and I can’t wait to see how it spins up.

I also placed another order from The Woolery (where I purchased my wheel) today.  I got 2 more bobbins, a niddy-noddy, and the Ashford maintenance kit.  And I placed an order from Sakina Needles for some lovely Corriedale and BFL (TLE hasn’t had either of those fibers in stock reccently).

So, what have I actually spun…?  Not much.  Yet.

In a previous post, I showed the first singles I’d spun.  Here’s some more shots of the singles and 2-ply I made from that:

Then tonight I finished spinning my second single, a merino/colonial blend from CJ Kopec Creations:

Finally, here’s what I have on my wheel now.  I just started spinning this merino/tencel blend (also from CJ Kopec Creations) tonight:

This merino/tencel is by far the most challenging fiber I’ve spun so far.  The tencel just wants to separate from the merino.  It’s a real challenge!

I’m very glad I decided to order mostly BFL and corriedale (“easy” fibers) to spin next.  I think I need a lot more practice!

Then you need to go check out Crochet & Knit Giveaways.

The site is the creation of Marly of YarnThing and Brianna of The Crochet Side.  From their explanation of the site:

That new world, darlings, was a wonderland of goodie bags passed between the hands of fiber-artists, hobbyists and crafters. A world where we gave away extras of things we own, or patterns we created, or stitch markers we fought pesky wire and adornments to make, all so that we could give them away to people we knew–absolutely knew–would appreciate what we have to give.

Crochet & Knit Giveaways is that world.  It’s a great idea: individuals and businesses can promote their products and their websites by giving away the wonderful things they create, and fiber-loving consumers can give those people/businesses their feedback and at the same time have a chance of winning great prizes!  Who doesn’t love that!?

Borders was already full of knitters when I arrived.  I was thrilled to find familiar faces in the crowd — friends from sock club at the Neighborhood Knit Shop!  They even happened to have an extra seat for me in the second row of chairs.  We visited and of course worked on sock knitting.  I don’t think a single person in the crowd didn’t have needles in their hands.  It was great.

At one point, a woman approached me and asked, “Where do I know you from?”  I was startled for a second but then said, “Maybe Ravelry?”  Turns out it was Grandma Barb!  It was so nice to get to meet her.  It was also very weird to get recognized like that.

Stephanie gave a long talk that had everyone laughing nearly to the point of tears.  She’s truly the stand-up comedian of knitting.  (Who knew there could be such a thing?)  She also discussed some really fascinating research relating to how knitting helps relieve stress/trauma and how knitters and Buddhist Monks have super-powerful brains.  I’d love to relate it all here, but clearly I didn’t absorb quite as much of it as I wish I could have retained.  Hopefully she’ll talk about it on her blog, maybe after the tour is over.  It really was interesting.

Here’s a short clip from this evening, for those of you who couldn’t attend:

I also managed to get a ticket so I could have my book signed.

In hindsight, I really hope that I didn’t seem rude … or crazy.

I have this knack for becoming a complete moron when I meet famous people and people whom I admire.  (*ahem* We won’t discuss the time I met Hal Sparks…)

Stephanie was very nice and very patient, taking time to visit with each person in line.  She signed my book of course and posed for a picture.  In the photo, she’s holding my sock-project and I held the sock she’s currently working on.  I thought that was pretty cool of her.

Anyway, Stephanie, if for some crazy reason you stumble up on this blog post, thanks again — thanks for coming to Nashville, thanks for signing my book, thanks for the photo, and thanks for not thinking I was a total fruitcake!

Also, I finally made a new layout What d’ya think? It’s pretty plain, I know. It was my first try at making a widget-capable WordPress theme (which was a lot easier than I realized).

One fun little detail: If you refresh the page, you’ll see the header image changes. I’m hoping to get quite a few different images of my yarn stash and/or knitting projects up there. (Right now there’s only 6 photos that rotate through.)

When I transferred the database over, I somehow mucked up the comments table, so I gave up and deleted them all. (*sigh*) So send me some comment-love…!