Danger!

Not too long ago a new LYS moved into the area: Looped Yarn Works. Yesterday I visited it for the second time and took pictures. This is a dangerous place for me because it's a seven-minute walk from my apartment and is directly across the street from a bus stop on my route home. DC has a terrible dearth of yarn shops, so it's kind of a miracle that it's here at all, much less so close to where I live. 

The staff are fantastic: willing to give you a tour if it's your first time, eager to talk about your project and which yarns might be best, and even offering to wind your yarn for you. 

Looped!

It's on the second floor and easy to miss, but so worth the trip.

Oh happy, happy place.

They carry all my favorite yarns.

Of course I couldn't make it out of there without a purchase.

I am entertaining the possibility of teaching myself to knit socks. We'll see. For now I'm sticking to crochet.

My flirtation with crazy continues

I think I found my new long-term weaving project, and it is this:

That's somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 warp ends. Of embroidery thread. Yum.

A sock in a day

This weekend I tried out a new sock pattern and WOW was it fast. I had a sock made in under a day. And it fits! And the heel doesn't sag! Perhaps I need to make a bunch of these for Christmas. If only I knew people's shoe sizes ... hint hint.

Baby blanket: done!

I managed to finish the baby blanket three days ahead of schedule, which was a definite relief. The baby shower was yesterday, but the mom-to-be is so popular that with all the socializing there just wasn't time for her to open presents. So, no photo of her with the blanket. But that's ok...The Husband took some shots with our camera, so these are much better quality than I usually post (I love my Blackberry but it's not so great with close-up shots).

Should be big enough to snuggle under

Close-up

The lovely trim that took two weeks to complete!

Hyperbolic coral reef

This weekend we took a brief respite from the insane crowds and the Rally to Restore Sanity and headed to the National Museum of Natural History to check out the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef exhibit. It was pretty spectacular. I had meant to participate and send in a piece of reef of my own, but apparently something shiny distracted me from that mission and I forgot all about it. I was so impressed by this exhibit! It was about six times bigger than I was expecting. And I was also heartened by the number of people there who were either crocheters or impressed by the talent of the people who made this thing.  It's in DC through April and then moves to NYC. Check it out!!

 

This one was my very favorite

These last few are from the toxic coral reef, which was made out of video tape and all kinds of plastic