Saturday, April 22, 2006

I should really be shopping for Stila

So the news heard round the mu world is that Esteee Lauder finally sold Stila to Sun Capital. Unfortunately, that means no new stuff and existing stock will be diminished, if not returned to the warehouse. Instead of going to the pro store in Santa Clara this weekend (well, there is still the rest of today and tomorrow), I hit the Knit & Crochet Show at the Oakland Convention Center. I can tell I'm still a newbie knitter, especially when it comes to figuring out what sale yarns are good buys or not. I had a very good case of can't-pick-one-itis 'til I hit the Full Thread Ahead booth. The owner (posts as HoJo on the Knitter's Review Forums) had just finished knitting a pinwheel blanket in one hank of Cherry Tree Hill Twister in a green colorway. So pretty and nice feeling. She showed me a pastelish colorway (Waters below) in the yarn and I was hooked. Also saw and loved the Jewels colorway and a graduated blue (royal-dark) colorway and realized they'd make cool Clapotis. HoJo said at 560 yards, there wouldn't be enough yarn for a full sized one, so I said it would make for a great mini or scarf sized one. So ended buying the Waves and Jewels. Too bad I hadn't printed out the pinwheel blanket pattern beforehand (had seen lots of pics of it online) 'cause I hadn't realized I would need size 10 dpn's for the initial part. It would've been so convenient to buy it there, but I didn't think of asking about needle size then. In fact, the Cherry Tree Hill label didn't have the recommended needle size and I had to hunt for it online. I'll have to figure out where to buy it since my lys (local yarn store) is closed since they're manning their booth at the K&C show and the closest Michael's to me (Joann's too) has a pathetic to non-existent selections of dpn's. Drat. And after all that, I still haven't figured out what Cascade pima tencel colors to buy from the Webs sale.

Cherry Tree Hill Twister in Waters - slated for a pinwheel blanket

Cherry Tree Hill Twister in Jewels - mini-clapotis maybe?

DB Molly progress shot. Geez, I thought the stockinette body took forever, but slowly and surely I'm getting thru the ribbed edges. My alas! poor so-called scarf is frogged. I do like the pattern, really(!) and I love the colors, so I'll attempt this again later. Maybe after the pinwheel blanket...

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