If at First You Don't Succeed...

Easter is a time of rebirth, and those Jaywalkers I was working on? They've been reborn as...well, two skeins of yarn. Ripped them out, washed the yarn to get out the kinkiness and the accumulated dirt/skin oils from knitting them twice and let them air dry. Now I just need to find a pattern I like to re-knit them. Unfortunately the patterns I like don't include a separate stitch pattern section; ie. at the beginning of the pattern a quick little descrption of what the stitch pattern is, including what multiple of stitches the pattern needs. This is essential, considering chances are I'll have to size them up a bit. I think this means I should take a swing through the stacks tomorrow at work and grab the Walker Treasuries to come up with something myself.

In lieu of the Jaywalkers, I'm working on a pair of Regia Canadian Colour stripe socks, in shades of blue, beige and grey. They're nice, mindless knitting to do while I'm on the bus. I also found a number of lace knitting books that were recently donated to the library and checked them out, looking for any last patterns I want to use for the sampler scarf, or for its border. The one on Orenburg Lace shawls has given me an idea of how I can do the corners without trying to re-draft the pattern to turn a corner, even if the results likely won't be as pretty.

In other knitting news, I'm crossing my fingers that I have no sudden call-ins to work this weekend, and therefore can go to Toronto for the Downtown Knit Collective Knitter's Frolic, and a bit of a yarn crawl. I'm actually more interested in going to this than the Creative Sewing and Needlework Festival, even if I wasn't working every day of the CSNF.

For one, the CSNF website design team yet again didn't include instructions on how to get to the venue by public transit. For another, getting there is a giant pain in the ass--subway out as far as you can go, bus to the city limits, pay an extra fare when you get off, ride the bus for 45 minutes... All to go to something where there aren't really any classes I want to attend and when, considering my options locally, just going to the yarn stores in Toronto is enough of a treat? Yeah, I don't think so. I'll wait until the fall show, by which time it'll have been about 2.5 years since I've been to one.

However, it will be nice to have a yarn crawl. I haven't done one of those since I was in university and there are number of yarn stores to try that I haven't been to yet. I'll have to make up an itinerary. ;-) It also helps that I just finished doing my taxes and the government's going to be giving me some money back (even if much of that is going toward a new iPod, as I *whimper* dropped my iPod mini).

Whee, Toronto yarn stores, here I come!