November 2005 Archives

New FTA holiday hours- just in case you need another ball of yarn or needles (not as odd as it sounds)

Please note that we are expanding our hours for the holiday season. We will now open at 10 (instead of 11) and close on Friday at 8 and Saturday at 6.

(Sundays are still normal hours)

Don't know how to get here?

Map to Full Thread Ahead

There ya go!

To recap- Full Thread Ahead holiday hours are:
M-Th 10 am-7pm
Fri 10 am -8 pm
Sat 10 am -6 pm
Sun 11am-5pm

The shop, which is by no means small, carries lots of interesting yarns like Southwest Trading Co, Cherry Tree Hill, Curious Creek, and Tahki/Stacy Charles. Our standard worsted is Cascade 220 and not Brown Sheep.
We also just got our Inox circulars in.

Note, we are open Sundays and Mondays, in comparison to the other shops which are closed those days. If you have something you're looking for, give us a call 650 948 9036. Lastly, Monday nights are knit night and many experienced knitters with different interests can probably help you or recommend a good screech alternative- we are definitely "your kind of people". Helpers also available during business hours.

K. End of the retail plugging. Just wanted to FYI.

Where I am in crunch mode. In addition, I spent about $20 yesterday on Cold-Eeze, Zicam, and Breathe Right Mentholated Strips to stave off a cold. I slept a bit more along with another blanket (this makes it three) and a hot water bottle. Stop laughing at me. I wab nob so habby (I was not so happy). Much better now, though. I shopped it off this morning at the mall when I went in to return clothes and to buy new stuff. Goodness knows when I'll get to the mall again and be in a buying mood.

Yet, haha! I have been saving up lots of good stuff for this post! Ok, I admit I'm too lazy at this moment (and sleepy) to post pictures of the several projects I'm working on but we'll just say that one's a sample for the shop, one is for my mom, and one is for the "felting monster" (aka agitating washing machine) which lives in the second story of the shop. We just about hit one month at the store and we're making a lot of progress. Other than my inventory blunder which took me 5 minutes to make and ohhhh, 15 times that to fix.

For actual post content, I give you an inkling of what my credit card has been doing. Is it bad to buy a book just for the short-row diagrams? Nooooooo. Of course not!

Knit Stitch Dictionary: ISBN 4834723402
The title roughly translate as: The foundation of knitting - An intelligible big character and an intelligible big illustration explain

Entire Flickr Set

www.flickr.com

To come: What have I been working on, what other books did I purchase, and possibly a whack to the head from ya'll if I whine about school anymore.

And oh, survey says: Zicam or Cold-eeze works well (or a combo thereof). Breathe Right menthol strips doesn't clean my pores like biore. Which it should for $6...

P.S. And the potter scarf which I may need to rip out because it is far too wide for my tastes. Think I should ask Norma and Stephanie, our cold weather knitters to tell me if the neck needs to be covered? Hm. Me: wearing down coat, wool sweater, and long sleeve t inside the house. Them: heaters. Clearly, they are smarter than I.

Little Trellis is just about on the way to my nephew and I do hope they get along. It isn't just the size- about half a year ago, he didn't like to have clothes pulled over his head so I made a cardigan. I hope that he still prefers them. Yes, he's not one year old yet but definitely knows he doesn't like it when clothes are shoved over his head. Can't say I blame him; his hair tufts out plenty as it is.

Quick snaps because I've really seen enough of a sweater that I can't fit into:

Blue Buttons for a boy. If he doesn't fit into it, it may become a family "heirloom" with button colors redone if the next child is a niece.

The back looks mostly the same as the front.

A funny thing happened today. I saw a toddler with a cabled sweater (swear to Harlot ) in almost exactly the same cable patterns. It was a pullover and had some more cabling on the sides. Half a second's look did determine that while especially cute, it was probably not hand knit, because it the cables were "flat". Have you noticed how nicely handknit cables pop yet the machine knit cables are a bit smooshed-like?

So you think you want to hit the Black Friday, day after Thanksgiving, sales with so-called SUPER SUPER deals?

Well here's a few tips and Miss Shopping Queen is also going to advise you
* Do your homework via Google or the newspaper. Know what is on sale and for how much at each store.
* Prioritize what you do want. Go to one sale, not three.
* Pick the store that has the must-have item you want and get there way early OR
* Pick the store with the most items you think you'll buy.
* Or, pick the store which has it for a higher price, but still on sale. If Walmart is going to sell the gameboy advance for $50 and CompUSA will have it for $60, go to CompUSA first thing in the morning to avoid the wait at Walmart and possible sell-out. Then you will be walking out the store while the people at Walmart are coming in to get the sold out item.
* Divide and Conquer. Team up with another couple or your spouse and hit two different stores at once. Girls go to Walmart, Guys go to Best Buy (or reverse, I'm equal opportunity) Charge those cell phones.
* Pick out a specific item for a specific person to avoid "deal hungry buying"
* Consider how good the deal is. Would you rather sleep in (gosh, after 5am!) and not save that $10 for whatever toy which was so hot yesterday but not hot next week?
* Remember that children are fickle. What is hot today may not be hot next week. To get around this, you can either make the big ticket purchase now and give it to your child on a "early Christmas" (Saturday after Black Friday) and tuck a small ticket item away for Xmas or you can wait and hope your child/giftee does not change their mind, then repeat "it is okay to return things, even if it was a long wait in line" many many times.

DollarHacker � How to shop on Black Friday.

Here's the little Trellis pre-blocking. I haven't put the buttons in yet.

Betcha thought I might never finish it, did ya? I hope my little nephew hasn't gotten to be a big nephew. Or at least not too big for a 1 year old's sweater.

Trellis was knit in Cotton Rich instead of Rowan All Season's cotton. It took me about 6.5 skeins of Cotton Rich, but I also had a nice pile of ends which looked like 0.5 skein... It was an enjoyable knit but I think I'd pop for Rowan Calmer next time. Cotton Rich, which is a blend, does shed if you have somewhat moist hands. Still, each piece of Trellis took about a skein of Cotton Rich and I pretty much made gauge (like a bandit!) which was unbelievable considering I knit it on #7's and my right hand tensions the yarn pretty tight.

Why do I mention that the right hand results in tight knitting? Well, I'm now working on a Harry Potter Scarf with the yarn held Continental Style in my left hand. I'm trying to train myself not to do the "grip of death, doom, and despair". At least on my left hand. Normally, I knit English and throw the yarn with my right pointer finger, so I like the yarn snugly wrapped. It feels like it will fall off otherwise. But hey, this is a great opportunity to do miles of knit stitch and I totally know that if I don't finish in time for the upcoming Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire there will be another Potter movie coming along soon. The tension looks a bit uneven so it is good I'm practicing- like a newbie, I am! Trying to knit with my left hand!

It is in the Gryffindor colors with Jaeger Matchmaker DK (changing gauge! Blasphemy!) on 12" 3.6mm Clover circular (labeled #5 and purchased at imagiknit)

I'm known as a shopping queen and our clique's techie goto person. Still, there's plenty of great answers on the web for questions like "What's a good e-mail client" 'n such.

Here's a great I Want to list that I really suggest you bookmark, now. Not only do you not have to wait for me to answer your e-mail, this is a pretty decent list of up to date tools. I use a lot of the tools on the list and am looking forward to trying some of the new ones.

Now, if you want to talk shopping, well, that's enough fodder for another blog. Etsy will tide you crafty types over for a bit.

Tada! Last night was knit night and we all wandered about the store exclaiming the miracle of how lovely the shop is and stuffed to the gills in only four days. The hard work really paid off!