Knitting Shop Archaeology

Yesterday Kate spent much of the day up to her elbows in patterns. We have a room in the back which is called "the dressing room," not because anyone changes their clothes there, although Lisa tells me that was the original intent--that people would want to try on sweaters and there would be a room designated for the purpose. The room we call the dressing room is more where knitting projects and patterns go to die. It's also the room where we put everything we can't figure out where else to put. Some of the items we pulled out yesterday included:

*2 rolls of toilet paper, not brand new but half rolls, in two seperate places.

*A box of vacuum cleaner attachments to a vacuum I have never seen (and I've worked here for nearly 6 years!)

*A box of floppy disks (none of our computers have floppy disk drives.)

*A box with broken Christmas tree ornaments (owner? Jewish.)

*Two rubber band balls that were exactly the same size, which amazed Kate more than it should of.

*Knitting magazines from before the store opened, so where did they come from?

And, here's the best part, these are all things we couldn't bring ourselves to throw away!
Some of the better finds from yesterdays dig:

This is an actual issue of Knitter's Magazine from 1990. Inside there is a baby wearing the bunting, which seems to make much more sense to me. My question is: Did they know it was hilarious to put a cat in a baby bunting or were they being serious? Did they think, "You know, lots of knitters have cats. Women knit, and they love cats. This is a good marketing plan." or was it more, "That is the funniest thing I have ever seen! Oh my god! We have to put that on the cover! People will think we are soooo funny!"

Keeping with the kitty theme, and not to make Knitter's magazine feel alone in their crazy cat-ness we have this lovely pattern from Vogue:

Poor kid, where is he now?

And similar to cats, I guess, is babies:

So this is not such a bad pattern, it's really just the title that Kate cracked up over. For one, we were all remarkably impressed at the proper grammer used in the title. I feel like apostrophe usage has gone a bit haywire lately. No one seems to be sure where exactly they go (and if mine are screwy sometimes, it's okay, I know. I am guilty of it too). Really you have to hear Kate read the title, it's hilarious. Even funnier was when Max came in while we were marvelling over the pattern and the baby's skeptical look and pointed out that it had been published in Big Sandy, Texas. Having grown up in Texas nearby Big Sandy Max pointed out to us that Big Sandy was in fact a place where babies would indeed dress fancy. And, even better than Kate finding one copy of Baby's Dressin' Fancy? She found two.

And in case you were wishing you had something to lounge around in this summer, feel free to drop in a take a look at

This is an actual book, 120 pages, on how to make many different kinds of hammocks including a Twin Oaks hammock. And it's full of pictures of sexy men like the one on the cover. He's laid back, he's relaxin', he made that hammock! Don't we wish we had that guy around the house, or communal living area?

While in the dressing room, though, Kate also discovered some of the more wonderful sides of yarn shop hoarding:

*The fact that we have every single Rowan magazine and color card from the beginning of time.

*We have a wonderful stash of vintage knitting patterns and magazines from the 20's forward.

*We have every issue of Vogue Knitting (almost!) from the 60's forward and lots of Knitter's magazines.

*We have an extensive collection of Classic Elite patterns from the Kristin Nicholas heyday.

*And lots and lots of yarn. Old yarn, new yarn, discontinued yarn--we have lots.

*And this, over which I think we both totally freaked out:

One of the original owl cardigan patterns like the new one we have from Penny Straker.
Kate's going to try this version out and see if the armhole shaping is any different. We'll keep you posted.

And, the dressing room looks great now!