The key to a great yarn sale: muscle

Yesterday was the start of the two-day semi-annual blowout sale at Three Bags Full (3BF). As you may recall (or perhaps you'd managed to forget -- I apologize if I've just unlocked a Pandora's box of painful memories), Piggy participated in both the 2008 Labour Day and the Boxing Day (well, mid-January 2009, actually..time is a nebulous concept, after all) events.

And I do mean events. A commitment of at least three hours was required for participation, no matter how well-researched and compact your shopping list was. Also required -- at least for a truly happy result -- a highly developed sense of patience. And a knitting project. Preferably on circulars, as personal space was at a premium. And blood spilling onto your undyed cashmere is never a good thing.

I rather enjoyed the whole-song-and-dance these sales entailed, to be honest. I didn't mind showing up an hour or two before opening to secure a premium spot at the head of the queue -- pretty much everyone there was friendly, chatty and -- most gratifyingly -- understood why you would stand outside in the cold rain of a Vancouver January for two hours waiting to buy yarn.

I also didn't have too much of a problem with the jostling once inside the shop; only in extreme cases was there any tension between shoppers. Besides, I have a rather sharp set of elbows honed through months of backpacking through India; and I'm not afraid to use them.

I will admit that the waiting in line to pay did get a tad tedious; but really, it wasn't so bad: there were plenty of people to chat with about knitting, not to mention the opportunity to add to your shopping basket. And hey, how bad can life be when you're about to save up to 70% on beautiful yarn, and shop staff are giving you delicious mini cupcakes?

All that said...yesterday's experience was oh so much nicer. For this year, the ladies at 3BF were joined by a temporary staff member.


That, piggies, is a bouncer. At the door to a yarn shop. How freaking cool is that? (I'm afraid I did not catch this godsend's name...I believe he is the husband of the lovely Jamie, aka sparklefaerie.)

Yep, when the doors opened at 11 am, only 20 shoppers were allowed in. Piggy was among them, as were a few of my peeps:

megknitficent, chrissythegreat, our new friend, 3BF sale-virgin Christina, and MsTing at the front of the line.

And everyone else.

It made such a difference...space to actually move about freely, and a very short wait to pay. And as a shopper left, a new one was let in.

Room to move!

I was out the door by 11:25! And...wait for it...I pretty much stuck to my plan, which was to pick up the yarn for my partner in the Ravelry Blue Sky Alpacas Swap; and to not buy anything else that wasn't at least 50% off.

Here's the haul (minus the swap yarn, of course!):

Five skeins of Sublime Soya Cotton

One skein of black Malabrigo Sock

One skein Misti Alpaca Lace

One skein Indigo Moon Bombyx Silk

All at 50% off. Oh, and I also picked up a copy of More Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch, at 70% off.

I paid in cash, piggies. And spent less than I even dreamed of, much less expected.

Which was handy, since as soon as we left @3BF, we headed to the grand opening of Baaad Anna's. Where Piggy's plan fell apart, just a wee bit.

But that's a story for another day.

Gibsons Festival Roundup, part 2: Piggy parts with her cash

I know what you're thinking. And you'd be wrong. It was a rather restrained Piggy who took in the festival's Merchant Mall this year. I had a plan, and I stuck to it. The important bit, at least. And, in my defence, all my shopping was done before my car got towed to the mechanic. Well, almost all of it.

The plan itself was simple: I would spend the first day "pre-shopping" -- getting a feel for what was available, making note of what I wanted, then whittling down the list to what I really, really wanted. Then, the next day, I'd go to the bank machine, take out my pre-determined limit (I'll fess up now and say it was a generous $200) and return to the mall to buy only the items on my list. No returning to the bank machine, no use of cheques or debit cards. And no returning to the mall the following day.

I didn't exactly stick to the list, and I did go back to the mall, but I stayed within my pre-set limit, so I'm calling it a win.

Wanna see the goods? Of course you do! First off, something I picked out but didn't buy:


Misti Alpaca Hand Paint Sock, in all of Piggy's favourite colours: green, purple and hot pink.


This lovely was a gift from whengaiasmiles, who stayed with me at my mum's place during the festival.

Ok, now onto the spending! Bet you'll never guess the first item on my list. It's not Mmmmalabrigo. And it's not hot Piggy pink.

I surprised myself, actually. No, it's not a full bag of Noro, or great whacks of mohair (which is very pretty, of course, but too itchy for Piggy). And it's not yellow.

Wait for it...



You'll be surprised...



Because it's not even yarn.


I'm serious:


Superwash Blue Faced Leicester from Knitopia. It is so soft and squishy and beautiful and I'm in love.

So, it might be a good idea to learn how to use my spinning wheel, eh? It's been collecting dust for a year now. (I think it needs a name...suggestions welcome.)

I did, of course, buy some yarn, too.

Including five skeins of Unwind Yarns from the always-energetic (even when commuting daily from Coquitlam) Shannon, who's even busier than usual now that her Shiraz Fingering is featured in the latest edition of Twist Collective.


From left to right, those are Shiraz Fingering in Pine Treat, Cabernet Sauvignon Fingering in Splootch, Zinfandel Sock in Beach Glass and two skeins of Merlot Fingering, in Gerbera (my final purchase -- Shannon practically gave it to me to cheer me up after the Green Bomber was towed) and Joy. Janet Armstrong, if you're there, please note that three of these colourways contain yellow!

Now I have absolutely no excuses not to knit socks...Shannon even threw in a copy of her Ferngully Lace Socks pattern (Ravelry link).

Right next door to Shannon and her crew at Unwind Yarns was the Twist of Fate booth. Erynn made it up to Gibsons again this year, despite having the pressure of the upcoming grand opening of her new location in Kamloops this weekend.

Erynn had sooooo many things I wanted to buy, but in the end, I settled on this one gorgeous skein:


Fleece Artist Suri Blue Lace in Piggy pink. Erynn picked it out...she knows what her customers like. :-)

And that's it for fibre. But I did pick up a few buttons from Wendy the Button Lady:


I chose the maple leaves for my nieces in England; not sure how I'll use them yet. The sheep...well, no plans at all for them; they were just too cute to pass up.

Here's the whole haul:


Not too shabby. But not crazy insane, either. There were so many more things on my short list that just couldn't make the cut.

After all, the Three Bags Full sale starts tomorrow. As does Baaad Anna's grand opening.

Gibsons Festival Roundup, part 1

Once again, Piggy is late with a promised post. I'd ask you to forgive me, but really, if you've landed here at Flying Pig Knits randomly, you weren't expecting anything, and if you're a regular visitor, you know better than to expect me to meet a knitting-related deadline.

Anyhoo. I returned home yesterday from Gibsons. A few days later than planned, due to an unplanned -- and quite frankly unwanted -- bit of exploration into some of Gibsons' local services. Of the automotive towing and repair variety. More on that later.

First, the fun stuff. I visit Gibsons fairly regularly, as my mother lives there, but this particular visit was to take in the 10th annual Gibsons Landing Fibre Arts Festival.* The festival bills itself as "celebrating everything fibre", and they mean it: there were workshops in basketry, wood turning, quilting, sewing, rug hooking, weaving, dyeing, spinning, sewing, driftwood furniture making...and knitting.

I took two one-day workshops with Janet Armstrong: Free Form Knitting and Mitred Modules. Both were great fun, and I even managed to get a bit of knitting done by the end of each day:


That's the start of a mitred module sampler on the left, and my bit of free form knitting on the right.

Despite my rather meagre output (allow me to remind you that Piggy is a slow knitter, especially when surrounded by excellent company, as was the case at Gibsons, which attracts some lovely students -- and instructors -- from all over the place), I really enjoyed both workshops; particularly the free form knitting one, which, despite being all garter stitch, all the time, was rather challenging for Piggy.

I like to think of myself as a free thinker, but when it comes to knitting, Piggy is a slave to the pattern. Free form knitting -- start with a basic shape, then building onto it by picking up stitches, increases and decreases, short rows, etc., check out a piece of Janet's work here -- didn't really fit into my rigid ideas of what knitting is. Not that it's all loosey-goosey; as Janet explained, it's a good idea to start with some sort of plan when you want to come up with something more than a test swatch.

The other challenge: knitting with yellow yarn. I don't really do that, except for the odd bit of knitting for yet-to-be-born babies of unknown sex. It's not that I hate yellow; I think many yellows -- although not, perhaps, that shade in my swatch above that might be charitably labelled mustard, or more accurately, baby poo -- are beautiful. But even the pretty ones make Piggy look like death warmed over.

At the beginning of class I rather rashly announced my goal to challenge myself by knitting with colours I normally avoided, namely yellow. So there was no way to get around selecting several shades of yellow from among the dozens of tiny balls of yarn the class arranged into a colour wheel. My distress was mitigated somewhat by my decision to go with purple -- yellow's complement -- rather than the oranges that would make an analagous palette.

My resulting swatch is nothing spectacular -- and I've decided not to build upon it further -- but I do plan to try some more free form knitting in future.

I also have some ideas for incorporating the mitred modules (nothing as spectacular as this piece of knitting from Janet)...but you know me: don't expect anything soon!

Next post: Piggy's haul from the festival's Merchant Mall!


* Full disclosure: my mother is chair of the festival.

Nothing to see here

This will not be the picture-heavy post I promised yesterday. Not because I'm ashamed to show you the evidence of the crazy Stash-Enhancement eXpedition-ing I took part in at the Gibsons Landing Fibre Arts Festival merchant mall yesterday. Because there isn't any.

Because I didn't buy anything.

Oh, there's plenty of fabulous stuff to buy, but Pre-Process Piggy deciding to engage in a day of pre-shopping yesterday. I am, after all, currently unemployed, and must therefore keep the expenditures down. Frugality does not come naturally to yarnpiggy. So I decided to really look through the market carefully yesterday, when I had a good chunk of time to spend, and to visit the bank machine today -- once only -- after making a final list.

I'm not entirely confident this plan will be successful (there really is a lot of stuff I want -- let's face it, need doesn't really figure into it) but I figure it's good to have goals, no? With luck, there won't be too many photos of new additions to the stash to show you tomorrow. I promise to post everything I buy. (Eeeek.)

I hope I'll also have some photos from the workshop I'm taking today: Free-form knitting with Janet Armstrong, from Vernon. I'm a tad nervous, because Piggy isn't naturally a free-form kind of girl. I need to work on being as spontaneous and free with the stitches as I am with the spending...

The year of the Ishbel

No, I haven't quietly completed an Ishbel on the sly. But I can start one now, thanks to Devon, aka MusiKnitter (Ravelry link), my wonderful spoiler in the Malabrigo Swap. She sent me the incredibly popular pattern for Ysolda Teague's lovely scarf/shawl:


Also, another pattern from my wishlist: Gridiron Socks, from Anne Hanson.

But I don't have to race to knit up an Ishbel, because Devon also knit one for me!


Isn't it gorgeous? That's Malabrigo Lace, of course, the lovely Azul Profundo colourway. Soooo soft and luscious!

Ishbel has made her way into several packages this month; we Mal Junkies have knitted and received so many that Round 7 has been unofficially dubbed the "year of the Ishbel".

Of course, this being a Mal swap, there was oh so much more in the package:


Notions...some lovely buttons from my etsy wishlist, SOAK, stitchmarkers and "handmade by" tags for my knitted gifts (oh, the pressure! LOL).


Woot! Indian-themed items! A book about Bollywood (a true Piggy obsession), Indian tobacco-leaf & sandalwood soap and Tulsi chai.


Then there was -- and I do mean was -- the box of honey-almond-cardamom salted caramels. Deeee-vine. And the yummy dark chocolate, which I've actually managed to not eat since I picked up the package on Monday.

Only because I left it behind when I headed up to Gibsons yesterday.


Here's the whole kit and kaboodle, complete with the skein of Malabrigo Sock in my favourite colourway, Solis; and a very sweet flying pig charm, which you can barely see here. Sorry 'bout that.

Who's a lucky Piggy, eh? Many, many thanks to Devon and all the Mal Gals who make this such a wonderful swap.

More from Gibsons tomorrow night. It will probably be another photo-heavy post, as the merchant mall opens for the first time tomorrow. Eeeek! :-)

When it rains, it pours (yarn!)

My, my. All of a sudden I have quite a few things to blog about. Unfortunately none of them is a new dream job, a winning lottery ticket or the successful end to my search for a billionaire octogenarian with a dodgy ticker and no dependents who wishes to marry me for my incredible prowess in the S.E.X.-ing department. (That's Stash Enhancement eXpedition, for those not in the know).

Nevertheless, there is stuff to talk about. Let's start with a little post-Sock Summit report, shall we?

Piggy, as you know, wasn't at Sock Summit. Instead, she lives vicariously through three friends who attended, including one in particular who made a bit of a name for herself.


"Veil Girl", aka megknitficent, aka my yarny friend Meg. Here she is at the Terminal City Yarn Wranglers meetup on Sunday with her project-Piggy-doesn't-speak-about. Which was knitted on by just about anyone who's anyone in the knitting world today at SS09, as you can see from Meg's report here. (Do me a favour and go there when you're finished here; Piggy's pretty sure you'll forget all about her once you're over there. She's a delicate soul, is Piggy.)

Anyhoo. Meg kindly brought her haul from the Sock Summit Marketplace with her. In her new Namaste bag (the latest model, Hermosa -- Piggy wants!). It's a nice, big bag...


...and holds a good deal of yarn.


More than that, even.

So many skeins, in fact, that nellum thought Meg might not miss one if it went to live with her.




But nellum is delusional.

Meg also picked up some rather appropriate stitchmarkers.


There's a few of them in the set, which is a good thing, since the project-Piggy-doesn't-speak-about needs a fair few.

After we finished trying to steal admiring Meg's haul, MrsQuimby showed us the small portion of her Summit shopping she brought to the meetup.


These were also suitably appreciated by all, particularly beentsy and nellum.



MrsQ also showed us her first-ever toe-up sock, knitted in a class at Sock Summit:


It was all very exciting.

Piggy had her own bit of excitement, however:


It's knid of hard to tell from the photo, but I broke out the Kitchener stitch for the first time ever on Sunday. (Much thanks to damselfly, who patiently helped me figure it out. She's got a great tutorial on her blog, too.)

Well, I think that's enough for one post, don't you? More soon. I'm off to Gibsons this evening for the Gibsons Landing Fibre Arts Festival. See you there?

And the winner is...

I've just paid a visit to random.org to punch in the numbers for the Flying Pig Knits Blogiversary Comment Contest, and the wise random number generator got to work and picked...


Lucky number 7, a.k.a. AmyB!

Amy, I've sent you an e-mail asking for your snail mail address; I'll have your prize (I still haven't figured out what it is; but I'll post a pic as soon as I've decided what I can bear to part with!) in the post to you by Sunday.

Thanks to everyone for leaving a comment, and for visiting the blog. :o)

My yarny pal went to Sock Summit, and all I got was...

...this freakin' fantabulous skein of Piggy-Pink Perfection!


Is that a thing of beauty, or what?

Many thanks to MrsQuimby, who brought this treasure -- Miss Babs' perfectly named "Yummy" Sock Yarn in the Sinderella colourway -- home for me in return for airport drop-off and pick-up drives.

Oh, and a welcome addition to Piggy's Tickle Trunk (have I blogged about the Tickle Trunk yet?) -- a nifty crochet hook and knitting needle in one:


In matching Piggy hot pink, of course; that MrsQ knows me well. As do both megknitficent and moon-brain, with whom MrsQ consulted. So thanks to you guys, too! :-)

Ummm...so, I guess I should really get back to the socks, eh?


* Pssst...entered my blogiversary comment contest yet? Get in there!

Cast on, knit 10 rows, frog; repeat...

I must say I'm rather pleased my latest wee project is a secret one, piggies. Because it means I can't share evidence of my uncanny ability to mess up even the simplest of patterns at least three times before getting the thing done.

One thing I can show you: a luscious new skein of Mmmmal from The Fiber Fix, a lovely new online shop run by the lovely NessaRenee.


Her last skein of Silky in Matisse Blue. Isn't it gorgeous? Malabrigo really nailed this one; the colour really lives up to its namesake.

I can't show you the rest of the order (you must have guessed there be more, or you haven't been around here much!), as it consists of the same thing my secret spoilee will be receiving. You'll just have to wait. :-)

I'm off to the airport: MrsQuimby is arriving home from Sock Summit! I can't wait to hear some of her stories. :-)

A year of blogging (and a wee bit of knitting)

Today is my blogiversary. I'm rather pleased, and quite surprised, that I'm still blogging a whole year on.

Pleased because I've managed, with one or two small lapses, to post regularly, to enjoy it, and to have met some nice people along the way.

Surprised because while there has certainly been some non-fibre-related content now and then, I've managed to blog about knitting for an entire year without actually accomplishing much. That list of Finished Objects to the right is rather meagre.

In fact, of the three projects that I wrote about in that very first post, I've managed to complete only the amigurumi piggy. Addison's cardi -- meant to be a shower present -- is languishing in my bag of WIPs, a few inches further along, but still missing its sleeves. Addison had his first birthday in May. And the Tofu-nky Baby Kimono...well, it's exactly as it appeared one year ago today: cast on, and that's it. I haven't bothered to frog it, however; I'm going to get to it...eventually.

Well, I am the Queen of the Pre-Process Knitters, after all.

So perhaps it's fitting that for today's blogiversary post I have nothing to show you. I am working on a wee project, but it's a secret one, for my partner in the Malabrigo Swap.

Instead, may I present to you my polar opposite, Alyria:


Alyria is sooooo not a Pre-Process Knitter (or crocheter). This girl churns projects out like there's no tomorrow. She picks up new skills like Piggy picks up Ben & Jerry's: frequently and with great gusto.

That's Alyria on Thursday with a few of her insanely large collection of crocheted granny squares. She learned to crochet a couple of weeks ago. Piggy, who learned how to crochet last September, has yet to figure out how to make a granny square.

But it's worse, piggies, much worse.


That's Alyria's first sock. She completed her first pair of socks a couple of months ago. (Let's try to forget about that toddler-sized one that's been living chez Piggy for months now, shall we?) Start-to-finish: one week. Boyfriend-sized socks, piggies!

If she weren't so darn cute, I'm pretty sure I'd have to kill her.

Comment Contest

Don't forget to leave a comment after this post for a chance to win something from Piggy's stash.

H is for Highly Strung

Or possibly for hate. As in, Piggy hates intarsia (or intarsia hates Piggy?).

As promised, evidence of my failure to heed instructions to twist the yarns loosely:


And just in case that isn't clear enough...


And I is for Inconsistency: had I mananaged to yank on the yarns with equal vigour throughout, I could pretend I was aiming for the puffy-decal effect à la t-shirts from the early 1980s. Alas, no; as the sharp-eyed among you will notice, the middle bar of that H is nicely flat.

With some luck, blocking might reduce the horror. We'll see.

B is For...

Blogiversary! I almost missed it (surprise, surprise!). Saturday marks one year of Flying Pig Knits. To celebrate: an impromptu giveaway! Something from the stash...no idea what yet, but hey, that just fits with the style of things chez Piggy, no?

Leave me a comment below this post by next Thursday, August 13; I'll select a winner using a random number generator on Friday, August 14.

T is For...

Thanks! To everyone for their birthday wishes. :-)

Der frühe Vogel kauft das Garn (Happy Birthday to me!)

I remember very little of my high school German, so hopefully the title above isn't something embarrassing or nonsensical. It's meant to be a slight adaptation of an old chestnut: the early bird buys the yarn.

As many of you figured out, the package with the German airmail sticker I showed you yesterday contained yarn. Special yarn for a special occasion, in fact: Piggy's birthday. And not just any birthday; the tenth anniversary of my 28th birthday.*

It's a bit of an inside joke, really; my friend Michelle decided, as many of us do, that she didn't want to get any older. She would hold on to 29 forever. Michelle's birthday is July 2 -- 16 days plus one year before mine. I decided I would never be older than Michelle, so I'm 28 forever. Our friend Kyla even got in on the action, and remains 27.

Anyhoo. For this momentous day, I gave myself the gift of Wollmeise. My first-ever Wollmeise.

For those who don't know about this stuff, acquiring it is something of a procedure. Stalking the Wollmeise's online shop is involved. She updates it once a week, except when she doesn't. Usually around 9-10 a.m. German time. That's 1-2 a.m. here in Vancouver.

And when the shop is updated...well, it's a bit like Sock Summit registration writ small. Yarnies scoop up whatever's available in a full-on feeding frenzy. It makes an elann.com sale look like a special on rotten eggs.

You don't need to actually like any of the available colourways; you can always hit the Wollmeiseholics Anonymous group on Ravelry and trade them (If you're an evil yarny, you might try to sell it on eBay, but the Wollmeise has cottoned onto those types, and cuts them off).

That is, assuming you a) log onto the site right as it is updated; b) manage to get something in your cart; c) fend off multiple error messages as the server threatens to crash; and d) complete your purchase.

And I did it. Not only did I make a purchase, I got stuff I love! Two skeins of 100% superwash wool:





Are those gorgeous, or what? My camera can't begin to capture just how vibrant the colours are; it's what Wollmeise yarn is famous for.

On top is Sündig und Verrucht, which the Wollmeiseholics' page translates as "sinful and wicked"; the Wollmeise site translates it as "sinful and profiligate", which I prefer. It's a combination of black and the most electric purple ever. Swoon!

And below is Fuchsia, which speaks for itself. Simply gorgeous.

Plans for it? Nope. Other than rolling around in it. But not until this heat wave is over; this Piggy, unlike her four-legged bretheren, can and does sweat above 25 Celsius.

Gratuitous Wollmeise picture:





Nom, nom NOM!

*That makes me 37, not 38 -- don't forget to count the first time!