I wanted to note Bill’s latest book, Every Day Was Special. When Bill was fishing, every day really was special. He loved to fly fish more than just about anything in the world, with the exception of spending time with his kids and me. Well, usually me! Sometimes fishing won out.

Bill's newest fly fishing book. I'm so proud.

Yet I’m fairly obsessed with documenting each day and each new yarn. Thus, this listing. Okay, somewhat boring, yet think of it as a mantra for knitting. Ommmmm.

Day 12: Hearty and thick wool mystery yarn. I was in a white mood.

Day 13: I love Foxfire yarn, and this gorgeous aqua hand dyed Cormo/silk sport weight is de-lovely. I was in a foxy mood.

Day 14: Same yarn as 13, but a lovely rose color. Through rose-colored glasses, perhaps?

Day 15: Artfibers’ golden tussah silk. Yes, I was in a silky, slithery mood. Yes, it’s gorgeous fiber.

Day 16: Romney Ridge Farm—artisanal yarn from Maine. Wool, mohair, angora. A longing for the Pine Tree State prompted this day.

Day 17: Plymouth yarn’s luscious Baby Alpaca Grande. I felt pretty grand myself that night.

Day 18: Lisa Souza’s remarkable Flying Fish, perhaps my fave all-time yarn.

Day 19: Mirasol yarns merino/alpaca/silk. Just a yummy yarn that makes me feel good. It’s also good for the people of Peru it supports. Beginning a color poem.

Day 20: Marisol 2 in pretty, pretty blue.

Day 21: Marisol 3’s golden amber is gorgeous.

Day 22: Marisol 4’s purple brings this color poem to an end.

Day 23: Artfibers’ Bistro cotton and nylon, in their Spring Yarntasting Sampler. I love this. It makes me smile.

Day 24: Artfibers’ Chameleon nylon and viscose. It’s full of texture. I was feeling pretty textural, too.

Day 25: Artfibers’ Hana, pure, unadulterated silk. Divine.

Day 26: Dream in Color’s Classy (worsted). My Mother Earthy feelings sometimes come to the fore.

Whew! Well, that’s it for now.

Onward!

So here we have a compilation of days six through 11.

Day Six: Fun with Chenille—I love Colinette Yarns. Here’s a giant skein of chenille with yummy colors. I got it on sale several (embarassment!) years ago. I thoroughly loved knitting with it. It’s hand dyed, DK weight, 100% cotton. Slicker needles would have been better, the the bamboo works okay for a few rows. This is happy yarn.

Day Seven: String Theory—Oh, String Theory yarn is my downfall. Their colors are so divine and saturated and complex, that I love to knit with their yarn. Here’s their Merino DK in the color Teal. I knit a hat in this, and it was yumalicious. Loved knitting it for Knit a Year.

Day Eight: Frog Tree yarns alpaca in glorious orange. This is bulky weight. Grace, my basset, especially loves bulky yarn. She’s playing it cool here, but is about to steal my Knit a Year.

Day Nine: Looks like String Theory, but it’s not! I have been dying to try this yarn, and so I knit a few row in this project. Made me smile. It’s The Fibre Company‘s Road to China, Silken Jewels, made up of Baby Alpaca, Cashere, Camel and Silk. Aquamarine.

Day 10: Brown stuff. What we have here is some soft, yet hearty brown Worsted. I have no idea what this yarn consists of. I found it in one of my knitting bags, have no memory of whence it came, and am thoroughly enjoying the speculation about it. It could be Yak from Bijou Basin or bison from Buffalo Gold or merino from ??? Truly, I have no clue. But I like it.

Day 11: Hand dyed Big Loop by Interlacements. Again, a big, fat skein in my stash that I purchased (again) years ago on eBay. Knitting with the same bamboo sixes and – wow – what a pain. The yarn is 90% mohair – lovely and soft, not itchy – but difficult to knit on such “sticky” and rounded needles. It would do better on Addis.

Day Three:

Day Four: Sunday. While I don’t get to blog every day, I make sure to knit on my Knit a Year each day. That’s the fun of it. No matter how tired I am, I knit a few rows on the project. Today? Or should I say Tonight? My rows were a bit of a pain. I was busy all day, working, out to a movie and in late, but I was determined to knit my rows before midnight. I made it, but just. It was awfully close. I love the yarn—ArtFibers’ Sylph, a DK weight yarn made up of silk, mohair and wool.

ArtFibers is a fabulous shop in San Francisco and a rediscovered pleasure. The shop has a raft of special and wonderful yarns – silk, yak, cashmere, merino, cotton, bamboo, more. The prices are great. Did I mention the glorious colors?

Timeout: Watch Michael Jackson’s This Is It. I was awed, yet again, by the breadth and depth of his talent. Even if the documentary contains only rehearsal outtakes, what a show! The man was 50 years old when he died, and he sang and moved like a 20-year-old. His death, a waste. But you’ll thoroughly enjoy the film.

Day Five: Yesterday. I taught, so I arrived home at eight p.m….worked…ate, then went upstairs and experimented with this Isager yarn. It’s 50/50 Alpaca/Wool called Alpaca 2. Lovely and soft, it’s fingering weight, whereas the other yarns I’ve used in the project so far have been pretty much Worsted weight. The colors in the Isager yarns are gorgeous. I have several, which I plan to use over the next few nights. Happy.

I like how the yarn sits proudly next to the camel.

The photos don’t do the yarn justice, but I’ve been experimenting with my iPhone camera. Fun stuff.

And tomorrow, the winner will be…

The Knit a Year project is simply this:

Two rows…at least ten stitches a row…use 4mm needles (u.s. size 6)…a different yarn each day…leave the tail, so that at the end of the year, you have 365 tails or days.

The Web site for Knit a Year is here.

Wanna join in?

It’s easy as pie. Just email Beth Barlow. (Check out the bottom of the page.)

Why am I excited about Knit a Year? I guess it’s because I love fiber and yarn and knitting. I have a disturbingly large stash and lots of unique yarns. Knit a Year will be the ideal adventure for using those yarns.

And so I begin…

March 18, 2010…Day One of 365:

Find the needles – size 6 us. Got ‘em. Find the yarn. I dive into my skeins of stash. What to choose? Ahhhh.

The anchor for the project will be a skein of camel hair yarn. Not just any camel hair, but a skein hand carried from Mongolia to New Hampshire by my friend Sy Montgomery, who at the time was writing a book about the endangered Snow Leopard called Saving the Ghost of the Mountain. When I think that this skein was born in Mongolia, spun there, and traveled so far to be knit in New Hampshire, I get excited. Can I feel the hands, the touch of the spinner as I knit each stitch?

The camel hair is a rich caramel color and filled with life—springy, funky, gnarly…wonderful.

I cast on 18 stitches…for my 18 years with Bill.

I knit and knit and knit. Maybe four rows? I don’t count. I snip the yarn to make a lovely tail.

Day One is complete.

I wonder what yarn I’ll choose tonight.

When Bill and I first met some 18 years ago, Bill had never heard of garlic potatoes. Neither had I. But on special occasions—very special occasions—Bill would treat me to an Italian restaurant down the street. The little hole-in-the-wall place was a favorite of Bill’s, and so he was fairly grumpy when a chef named David transformed the restaurant a French-style eatery, David’s Bistro.

I always thought it an odd place, as it sat underneath a consignment shop and wore shag carpet on the ceiling. But the food…ah, the food at David’s was grand. We’d go there for New Year’s Eve, and that was where Bill gave me my blue-stone ring, his first promise of more than “just dating.”

One night, Bill ordered garlic potatoes with his…well, I can’t remember his main course, but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t stop talking about the potatoes. So enthused was Bill, he determined he’d recreate David’s garlic potatoes.

No, he didn’t ask David for the recipe.

No, he didn’t look the recipe up in a cookbook.

What he did was find his own way.

And, boy, his own way was something.

I never learned Bill’s recipe. Never thought I’d need to.

So today, our first Thanksgiving apart in many, many years, I celebrate Bill’s garlic potatoes. Like the man, they were unique and will never be served again.

Jimmy Beans Wool, a large LYS and Web presence, and Vogue Knitting have teamed up to create five $800 Beans for Brains scholarships. According to the Web site, “the Beans for Brains scholarship is a merit-based scholarship open to all students attending an accredited institution in the fall of 2010. Applicants must know how to knit or crochet, must provide an original pattern or a photo of a recent project from Vogue Knitting, and must be okay with Vogue publishing their photo in a future issue of Vogue Knitting Magazine.

The scholarships will be awarded for the 2010-2011 year. One award is guaranteed to go to a Reno/Tahoe area applicant, which is the location of Jimmy Beans Wool bricks-and-mortar store. The remaining four awards will go to an applicant in each of the four U.S. regions.

BTW – March 31, 2010 is the cutoff date for applications.

For more information on the scholarships, as well as an application, Click Here. There you can download the Beans for Brains application.

Be Sweet Magic Balls

Cottage industries make a big difference around the world. Be Sweet gives South African artisans (mostly women) “the confidence and the means to support themselves and their families in an otherwise economically depressed region.”

Be Sweet Shoppers

Be Sweet crafts marvelous bags and yarns to produce income for their families.

The MINKA cooperative is a micro industry composed of indigenous Bolivian Quechua and Aymara Indian woman. Organized by a group of Canadian volunteers, the Bolivian women knit beautiful sweaters to support their families and improve their quality of life.

Knitting a MINKA sweater

Now, Kim Cheeley has started Itty Bitty Witty Knitties, a wonderful line of cards with knitting and quilting swatches on the front of each card. A cottage industry, the swatches on the cards are “handmade by a group of about a dozen [Chinese] deaf women who participate in the vocational training programs of Bless China International (formerly known as Asia Project Grace) in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province in south-central China. The deaf women, “heretofore denied access to any education and unemployable due to their handicap, are now being taught Chinese sign language, live in comfortable apartments, make a living wage, and are provided with retirement funds and health insurance.” This is all through crafting the tiny swatches on these marvelous greeting cards.

The cards, which not only contain swatches, but either tiny clothespins or knitting needles, also offer funny and heartfelt sentiments.

Tell me, do you know any cottage industries or giving back involving knitting or crocheting? I’d love to hear and add it to this post.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and kind and joy-filled Holiday Season.

Delicious would be a word I’d use for some of the new and favorite yarns I brought home.  After all these years, I finally purchased a skein of Quiviut from Windy Valley Muskox. Along with the Smoke Rings cowl pattern, the grey/violet Quiviut made my day. Lisa Souza’s booth was a symphony of color and texture and wonderfulness. Her Poiple Baby Alpaca, with the most delightful bloom, was impossible to pass up. Over the years, I’ve purchased often from Lisa. She’s one of the most accomplished spinners and dyers out there. Her yarns always light my fire.

A new custom dyer and shop that sent me over the moon was StringTheory. I had to have two skeins of their Caper Sock, a mix of Cashmere, Superwash Merino and Nylon. The colors and blends shimmered and the quality of the yarn was exceptional. These gals know what they’re doing, and they do it well. Based in Blue Hill, Maine (a former stomping ground of mine), StringTheory happens to be Clara Parkes local yarn store. Lucky Clara.

Seriously, I felt as if I was on some Danish excursion as I drooled over the colors and quality of Isager yarns. In fact, I got an education in several other Danish designers and yarn companies. These included Vivian Hoxbro, imported by Harrisville Designs, and Kauni. Many of these yarns and designs were new to me, although they’re not new to the U.S.

For a $10 donation, I got a great knitting bag from Warm Up America. The organization really needs blankets. It’s such a worthy cause.

I love the Handknit Heroes (http://comicknits.com/) comic, which has marvelous knitting and crocheting superheroes. I also discovered The Knit Princess (http://www.knitprincess.com/)with her own comic.

A button from JustJul (the work is fantastic). Check out the store locator to find stores or online. I also got a set of square circulars from Stacy at The Fine Needle, and the Queenie Sisters‘ Prudence scarf added to my finds.

Speaking of Knitter’s Review’s Clara Parkes… Clara was signing her new book, The Knitter’s Book of Wool. A giant line formed, with Clara smiling and signing and chatting and signing some more. The book is getting much well-deserved attention. It’s quite fantastic, as are the patterns within it. I particularly covet Sivia Harding’s luscious shawl. Actually, I might have drooled on Clara, who was wearing it.

I’m always looking for unusual and interesting fibers. Why? I have no idea. I just love all the various fibers, particularly the natural ones.

I also stopped by the wonderful Bijou Basin Ranch booth home of wondrous yak fibers and yak people, Ellen and Carl Koop. I’ve knit with their yak/cormo and loved it. I keep trying to have them send me a yak. So far, no luck.

Seeing Ellen and Carl made me think of my friends at Buffalo Gold. Several yarn shops at Stitches sold their gorgeous buffalo yarn, but Cecil and Ron Miskin weren’t there. I missed them.

I’m sure I’m forgetting stuff. There was a lot to see and do and (especially) feel. I confess I longed for the critters, and I’m looking forward to another fiber festival soon so I can pet the goats and sheep and bunnies and lamas and more.

I also got this little fella, made out of a ball of string, at The Fine Needle. Isn’t he cute?

Bill and Vicki

Vicki’s husband, Bill Tapply, just lost his two-year battle with leukemia. During those two years, and for many previous years, they shared wonderful times and a great love.

Vicki will be back writing her blog in a week or so.