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!

Saturday is International Knit in Public Day!

Who knew?

Well putting aside the fact that I feel horribly out of the loop about it, we ought to do something to further the visibility of our craft. How about meeting up in Rittenhouse Square tomorrow afternoon? Bring a blanket and some knitting, a thermos of iced tea (or something stronger?) and some treats and we'll have a Rosie's knitting circle in the out-of-doors! Whoo-hoo!

Maybe we'll have some give-a-ways...

How psyched am I?

So some of you may know that we here at Rosie's are in the midst of a flurry of planning for the first annual "Socksational July." What is socksational July you may ask? We aren't entirely sure yet, BUT! I do know that there will be mad sales on all existing sock yarn (to make way for the INSANE amounts of sock yarn we are getting for fall), new patterns, a sock race on our Knitting Circle blog, sock workshops all month long and other fun and games. I am thinking of sock picnics in Rittenhouse Square, a design contest...you got any ideas? I have always thought that socks were the best summer knitting ever, and what better time to get a jump start on Holiday gift knitting? Everyone likes getting handknit socks, even people who live in Florida (and I know that from personal experience, wool and kneesocks no less!).

Today the first Socksational item arrived in the shop, COOKIE A PATTERNS!

Kate and I made googly eyes at Cookie at TNNA last weekend and then schemed in the bathroom about how we were going to invite her to dinner and then we wussed out at the last minute. She is so super cool and we were intimidated. But who wouldn't be? Look at these awesome patterns:

We have all nine of her patterns available in the shop, come 'n' get 'em!

PS, my personal July sock goal? Knit a second sock for once.

The Daily Candy

How neat is this?
http://www.dailycandy.com/article.jsp?ArticleId=30919&city=13
The bags are up at our website here.

O, Canada

Those Canadians really know their yarns and we have some goodies to prove it.

First, a lovely alpaca/shetland laceweight for shawls arrived Barb at Wild Geese Fibers in lovely Saskatchewan:

Each one has a natural undyed color of alpaca making up 90% of the fiber content and 10% of a dyed shetland wool, giving the yarn body and loft. Above is a natural white with a seafoam color of shetland.
Above is a natural, rich brown (my photo doesn't do it justice) with a bright pink shetland giving the yarn a warm sitting in front of a fireplace drinking cocoa feel. I know it's 80 degrees out.

This one is my absolute favorite. It's a natural black (which is really just super dooper dark brown) alpaca with a crazy tealy blue shetland. It's such a deep lovely color. Again, my flash has ruined it.
Next up, we just got a bunch of beautiful yarns from Handmaiden. 4 new colors of Seasilk, great beach knitting but also these new colors of Mini Maiden a lace/sport weight 50/50 wool and silk that is hands down on of the best on the market. The sheen is unbelievable, I can't imagine that the blend is really 50/50. The feel makes it seem like there has to be more silk in it! It's really pretty spectacular.

We also got a new summery yarn from Handmaiden called Flaxen. It's 65% Silk and 35% Linen in super soft and subtle hand-dyed colors. We were thinking, obviously, Clapotis for summer or some other similar wrap for chilly boardwalk evenings. I only have one picture of it though because my camera decided it was done working for the day.

Koigu Mill Ends

Anyone who gets here to help me shelve the new Koigu gets first pick at the 5 bags of Koigu mill ends!!

Very Belated Maryland Sheep and Wool

Well, I know, I promised pictures from Maryland and the scoop. It's a bit late but I've been doing a lot of catching up around here from all the things that didn't get done last week because we were gearing up for the trip. It only took 5 days for things to get back to normal.

I apologize in advance for not having more pictures to show you but I really am horrible with a camera and unlike the great bloggers out there I never stop and think, "Oh! I should take a picture of this for the blog!" Instead I only took pictures of the sheep dog trials. And Lisa only took pictures of her kids. So now you know where our hearts truly lie.

I should have taken a picture of the mobs of people on the sidewalk in front of Rosie's at 7:15 in the morning. There were a lot of folks here and everyone was very punctual (yeah!). There was coffee out on the sidewalk, and tea, and lovely boxed breakfasts from Picnic who do a great job every year bringing us the food, even though we are often late with the final count. Everyone got on their buses, with only a few snags (note: next year ALL the buses are leaving at 7:30!) and we were off, leaving poor Judy behind to tidy up the shop because she is really a better person than the rest of us, go Judy! (and THANK YOU!!). We raffled off exciting prizes on the bus and people seemed to really enjoy getting free knitting related stuff, imagine that! We raffled off books, yarn, Rosie's gift certificates--all kinds of fun stuff. Good times were had by all, until we got the phone call. I got a phone call from Lisa, just as we were pulling off the highway, who had gotten a phone call from (I think) Wendy saying that the Koigu people weren't there. Maie had broken her ankle, which we knew, but Taiu was still hoping to come to MS&W, but unfortunately was unable to make it. I braced myself to make the announcement on the nifty bus microphone and surprisingly it went over okay. Not one person rioted, which was secretly what I was thinking may happen. Whew!

Everything continued without incident until we were on the road up to the festival when a small car decided it would be a really good idea to pull out in front of a charter bus, running us off the road momentarily but we were fine--three cheers for Tropiano bus drivers!!

We arrived safely and everyone scattered to SHOP! My purchases were minimal this year. Some socks that rock, but only 2 skeins, and some superwash merino from Brooks Farm. So soft, so lovely. And then there was the food. I ate a lot. It was good. That's all I'm saying.

The ribbon chips were the winner this year. They were cool, right? Maybe I'm just easily amused. All in all it was a great time, and the border collies enjoyed it too.

Note: for normal pictures from MS&W that aren't all of animals go to Carol. She's better at this than me!

Public Service

I know you are all thinking that this is going to be a Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival entry but it's not. That's gotten bumped to tomorrow's list of things to do, partly due to the fact that I left the stinkin' camera at home like a space cadet. It happens. No, today's post is for the greater knitting good of all humankind.
As you may know, we here at Rosies are hosting a Charlotte's Web Knit-A-Long (KAL). There has been much confusion and ripping and some crying at kitchen tables over the, um, lax instructions. So here is my attempt to clarify what is supposed to happen for all of you Charlotte's Webbers out there.

The chart on the back of the single pattern is incomplete. If you have the book you are in buisness--the entire chart is there so this only applies to those of you agonizing over the chart on the leaflet pattern. The motif repeat is the shaded area on the chart. Think of the beginning of the shaded area as the first * of an instruction that would be worded, "repeat from * to * to the last _ number of stitches." The end of the shaded area is the second of those *'s. The motif repeat is not, in my mind, the same thing as the shawl repeat. This means that there are a certain number of rows that repeat themselves to allow you to add additonal motif repeats to the shawl. The shawl's repeat happens from row 11 to row 25. Essentially, once you have the beginning set up you repeat rows 11-25 on the chart OVER AND OVER again along with the mantra of the motif repeat across each of the corresponding rows. So row 11 is THE SAME THING as row 27. And row 13 is THE SAME THING as row 29 is THE SAME THING as row45, etc. You are just adding two additional mantras of "*knit one, yarn over, ssk, yo, [sl1, k2tog, psso], yo, k2tog, yo*" for every shawl repeat.
Here is my advice to you: Get a pencil and a piece of paper (or sit at a computer) and write it out from row 11 to row 25 using the *'s where the shaded area is on the motif repeat and put each row on an index card (Judy's brilliant idea) labled 1, 2, 3, etc. or a, b, c, etc or however you want and put the pattern away until you get to the end of the shawl. I can't write it out here because it's a copyright infringment but row 11 should look like this:
k2, yo, *k2, yo, ssk, k1, k2tog, yo, k1* repeat from * to * to last stitch, k1, yo, k2.
Good luck.

Only a few days left....

'til Maryland Sheep & Wool! It's starting to hit me how soon it is, and I'm getting more and more excited. (If you haven't signed up yet, as of 7 pm Wednesday night, we have about 5 seats left. Call the shop ASAP if you are interested, at 215-977-9276.)




From your pals at Rosie's, who've been to more than a few fiber festivals, here's our list of tips for newbies:

1. Be on time. Rumor has it that a gung-ho bus captain (ahem, me) left at the appointed time even though a passenger wasn't back. We have only a limited amount of time and the buses sometimes have engagements that begin after we return, so we have to be sticklers about departure times. We also have had people tell us it can take a while to find a parking lot that is open at 7 or 7:30 a.m., so if you are driving, plan on leaving yourself some extra time to find a spot.

2. If you have any food issues, be sure to bring some of your own. You'll find lots of lamb, and more fried stuff than you'd believe possible



but not so much in the way of, say, fruit or veg. Plus, the lines are often long and who wants to spend an hour waiting for a fried lamb-kebob when there's yarn and rovings to fondle? Water bottles are also good to pack.

3. Sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen. Also a sunhat wouldn't hurt.

4. Dress in layers. It can get stifling hot in some of the "barns" when they fill up with people, and it might be a little cool in the morning.

5. Possible things you might wish to bring: an extra tote bag, chapstick, your checkbook (ha!), a pad and paper, a list of yardages/gauges for potential projects, tissues, handi-wipes, any medication you need, some advil or tylenol just in case, some knitting or reading material for the bus, camera and extra batteries and/or film.

6. Meet up with some of your favorite knitbloggers at 1 p.m. (Saturday and Sunday) in the grassy field next to the big building in the back where the Koigu ladies usually are.

7. For the particularly anal-retentive prepared, visit the official vendor list, print out a map and circle your must-see destinations.

8. And the cardinal rule of the Rosie's Maryland bus: No. Livestock.
We mean it. No matter how fluffy the bunny or wooly the lamb, no matter how much that alpaca bats its eyelashes at you,



we will not transport livestock across state lines.

Have a wonderful time! Can't wait to see you there.

Stacy and the Bee

Spring has sprung all over lately, and this morning it was VERY apparent. A gi-normous bumble bee ambled in and went straight for the Koigu. We watched for a while as he flitted from bin to bin, trying desperately to get nectar from all the bright colors. Stacy finally (and bravely) cornered him in the window, where he was checking out the koigu "flowers" Wendy made for the window, and set him free.

If I were a bee, I'd go for the Koigu too.

Charlotte's Web KAL

So, I didn't think it was going to happen, but it is! No one had called to sign up for it but this week we have had a flurry of Charlotte's Web activity and the Knit-A-Long is on. It's tonight from 5-7, and every friday night until we are done. Come on by any friday evening and join in.

I've already got my colors picked out:

Soysilk and the needles

I couldn't resist it. The violent shocking horrible purple, it called to me even in my sleep. I dislike purple in most cases. I find it too whimsical for the kind of person I like to think I am. But this purple, the most horrible amazing purple, I NEEEEDED it.

So I got some and cast on for the Swallowtail Shawl from the Fall 2006 Interweave Knits.

Looks good, no? I love it. It's wonderful and I don't even have to concentrate because someone else has already figured out the pattern. How wonderful. I sometimes have this thing where I think if I am going to spend the time to knit something I may as well design it myself but I needed a well deserved break--and Wendy egged me on Saturday. You may have noticed from the picture that I am in fact using mismatched old ratty straight needles. It's true. I was having a throwback moment to those days before I have all the lovely needles at my fingertips, when the only needles I had were my grandmother and great grandmother's hand-me-downs in an old Folger's can. All mismatched and warped and bent. Ah, the old days. Now there are so many different needles on the market the mind reels. I don't even know what I like anymore. How can I? As soon as I think I have found the greatest needle ever and started collecting something even better comes along. My poor Crystal Palace circulars, once they were my treasured needles and now they are dusty and neglected in the bottom of the needle box of doom (that tangled box I rummage through to find the right size). Then I moved onto the Inox coated aluminum, then onto the addi turbos and now I am having a quiet love affair with the Lantern Moon needles, not the straight ones, just the circulars and particularly the double points. They are the perfect double point, except for the awful packaging, but it has everything to do with displaying them and nothing to do with knitting. I did manage to knit up to the point you see in the photo on those mismatched and bent straight needles and then I gave in. I switched to the lantern moon rosewood. So much better.

Elizabeth Zimmerman fans,

Your attention please.

Has anyone noticed that there is a wrap version of the "Baby Surprise Jacket" in the new Vouge Knitting for Summer 2007? Meg Swansen found the notes for this adorable version in her mother's journals, unpublished and overlooked all these years. How cool is that? Very cool.

Conjoined Creations

So yesterday was a long day in the sometimes dreary world of retail. It mostly gets that way when it's really nice out and I'm in. But we got to have the door open for most of the day, which was almost as good as actually being outside, especially when all the leaves and dust from the street would blow in the door. Then it was really like being outside, in a less fun way with a lot of sweeping.

But! My day got brighter when a giant box arrived from UPS. My first response, "ugh." My second? "Cottage Creations!" These are the people who made lighthearted fun of us all during TNNA in San Diego in...whenever that was. (Brain is fried, I gave up the caffeine. Why? I'm an idiot apparently.) We, especially I, spent a lot of time in their booth and by a lot of time I mean multiple days for long stretches of time. They have a range of about 5 billion colors all of which you can get in Dark, Mid, Light and Pale. So multiply 5 billion by 4 and that's really how many they have. Then you can also have them make you custom multi colors out of any of those 20 billion colors. So then it just becomes too many colors to even imagine. You can see why I spent so much time there. And here is what came of it:
100% soy silk in a lace weight in all these lovely colors:

And as if that wasn't enough they also custom dye soy roving with any of the 20 billion colors in any combination. We got some Soy silk roving and also some Optim (which is merino wool where the staple length has somehow been stretched giving it even more lustre.)

As Promised

I said I'd do something about knitting, with pictures, and here it is: from the first session of the Entrelac Sock Class a week and a half ago. Everyone--really, everyone--was wearing wonderful handknit stuff. Unfortunately, all of the pictures were blurry except this one of Sherry wearing Geyl and Jim wearing a sweater he designed.

So you should just imagine Wendy in her turtleneck-with-sleeves (sleeves-with-turtleneck?) from Wrap Style, Karen in the Half-Square Shawl, Barb with an Alligator Wrap, and Christina wearing--hey, Chris, what is that scarf? I can tell it's Noro, but I can't see any more than that.

The cast-on is definitely the trickiest part. We tried a couple variations. Eventually, everyone got it, and repeated it enough times to feel like they'd still know how to do it when they got to the second sock.

Working the entrelac was no big deal--working entrelac never is. It's easier in the round, because you don't have to worry about side triangles. This particular pattern has a couple unusual characteristics: in most entrelac, the first stitch of every row is slipped, but not here. Eunny Jang, the designer, says that the slipped stitches decrease elasticity. A couple people experimented with doing it either way and they found no difference. The slipped stitches make it easier to pick up the right number when starting the next block, though, and working all the stitches (rather than slipping them) seems to lead to gaps along the picked-up edge. So some people are choosing to slip them anyway.

Second, on each round, the stitches for the first block are picked up in the reverse direction as all the other blocks. That is, if the whole round is going to be full of blocks picked up purlwise, the first block is picked up knitwise. And vice versa. This seems to be a function of where the yarn ends up at the end of the previous tier, and facilitates carrying the yarn up the inside of the sock rather than cutting and rejoining it every time. That's a worthwhile change, though a little confusing at first.

From here, it should be smooth sailing for all until the heel begins.

Here's a picture of Wendy's toe and Courtney's. They've both got the same Koigu multi. Wendy's olive solid is Reynolds' Sea Wool, and Courtney's mustard is a solid Koigu.

Stay tuned for more!

Help Wanted

Exciting opportunity for employment in the yarn industry. Seeking individual with strong knitting skills and excellent customer-service skills for job with Philadelphia yarn distributor. Half-time, full-time, or something in between; not evenings or weekends. Cheerful, detail-oriented, reliable, and/or physically strong all pluses. In addition to customer service (primarily phone), responsibilities will include shipping; bookkeeping; and designing handknits.

Send resume to fairmountDOTfibersATgmailDOTcom, or Fairmount Fibers, 915 N. 28th St., Philadelphia, PA 19130.

The sooner the better.

New Autumn House Sock Yarn

We have new colors of the Autumn House sock yarn, in some new colorways that we've never had before. Some of them are a little brighter, some our old favorites.

They also have a new sock yarn, Specks and Spatters, which is the same gauge and available in the same colors but has little slubs of color for extra kick!

Very cool.

Cranky

Let me preface this by saying that it's not much about knitting. But because I'm still thinking about this episode a day later, and because it ties in to some themes that have come up for discussion before, I'm going ahead anyway.

A customer (let's call her "Customer A") was in the shop browsing, choosing some yarn, looking through some books. A second customer (let's call her "Customer B") came in to look for some buttons.

Customer B wasn't sure whether I was the same person who'd helped her pick out the yarn on her last visit (I wasn't). She asked my name, and I said, "Lisa." She looked more closely at me and asked my last name. I said, "Myers." "Oh!" she said. "You wrote the book! I've seen it in the library."

"Yes," I said, "that was me."

"You have a Ph.D. in English!"

"Yes," I said, "I do." It's difficult to know what else to say to a comment like that.

"Wow. A Ph.D. That's hard."

Now, at this point, I'm frankly groping. On the one hand, she's correct; graduate school is incredibly difficult and the achievement of completing a doctorate is one I'm proud of. On the other hand, I was raised to be modest, and I'm just not comfortable saying something like, "Yes, it was, and I worked like a dog to do it." Also, I'm not sure that it's more difficult than lots of other things--like owning one's own business, or giving birth, or writing a book--not to mention any of the very difficult things I have no firsthand knowledge of, like running a marathon or having a life-threatening illness or being a nun.

But while I was struggling for a reply, Customer A chimed in, "Well, but it's not like math."

Take a moment to consider your own response--spoken or unspoken--to that.

I'm afraid you can't compare your response to mine, because I said nothing at all. I was completely stuck. And frankly, it wasn't the rudeness of it that hit me first. It was the hypothetical Barbie-style sexism of it. (Remember the talking Barbie doll that was re-designed after people protested that one of her sentences was "Math is hard"?) Do we still all assume that math and science are inherently more difficult than the humanities? Or are they just assumed to be more difficult for women?

In a comment on a post not that long ago, I was taken to task for belittling women's achievements by claiming that knitting is easy. I disputed the specific accusation (there's easy knitting and there's hard knitting, and I don't think saying "We're all smart enough to do this" is dismissive of the effort involved in it), but I'm right there with the overall point: many girls are taught that modesty is becoming, and this can lead to an unwillingness to claim credit when we deserve it.

And I guess I'd have to say that the score was Sexism 2, Feminism 0 here yesterday--once because I couldn't find a way to acknowledge my achievement without feeling like I was bragging, and once because I couldn't say, "Hey, you don't really think advanced math is harder than advanced literary studies, do you?"

Why am I blogging about this, which has so little to do with knitting? Because I feel bad about not being able to speak up yesterday--and about hiding my silence behind some phony idea that, as a shopowner, I'm prohibited from saying anything critical or unpleasant to a customer. I also think that's why some people around here didn't want me to blog about it: the point is not the anonymity of the customer(s), but the taboo against saying anything negative to or about any customer, ever. It's fascinating to me the way traditional retail policy dovetails with a traditionally "feminine" upbringing.

Sorry, no tidy insightful conclusion is forthcoming. But I promise that the next post will have knitting, and pictures.

March Newletter

Our March newsletter is available online here!

So much new stuff, I'm gonna plotz.

Okay, I come in this morning, and even though I was warned by Courtney's post yesterday, I see this:


bags and bags of new Koigu. I want to strip down and roll in it naked, but out of consideration for our customers, not to mention that pesky L&I inspector, I'll hold back.

I also found this:

bags of Rowan's new Bamboo Tape, in the most luscious spring colors. Okay, some All-Seasons Cotton sneaked in that photo but you can see a bee-yootiful indigo-purpley color on the right.

They tried to disguise this bin of new Reynolds Soft Sea Wool



by putting it on a shelf with the sock yarns, but I am too slick for them. This is a lovely new 7-to-an-inch wool, and we also have a great book that is all sock patterns to go with (including some patterns for men). Here's a link to our website if you can't stand it and want to buy some.

And we also have the 3 new RYC books with lots of Martin Storey patterns: Coast, Mother and Baby, and Nature.

Keep in mind that I've only been in the shop about twenty minutes. There's no telling what else I'll find as the day wears on. So stop by and see us this weekend!

Once more, with feeling...

So the other day when we got in 20 dyelots of Koigu we were totally excited.

Imagine how we felt when 30 more showed up at lunch time.

.