putting the knit in shizknitz

I have to mention that last week I started going through my not-so new book Weekend Knitting, and wanted to dive right into it! However, as a newbie, there are some issues associated with finding the right type of yarn to do these projects. The actual needles seem much more straight forward - kind of like a man - length of needle, needle size, is it round, crooked, to the left…….?

The yarn, on the other hand were a bigger challenge. I decided to speed demon my way to Jennifer Knits in Brentwood. I basically knew where it was, and had heard some raving reviews about the place. It was on a Tuesday, and full of ladies knitting and showing off the most beautiful items. I signed my name on the clipboard and looked around. There was amazing yarn that I had never seen before! However, I was on a time crunch and just needed to be pointed in the right direction. I waited, and waited, and finally a quarter til noon one of the associates was directed by Jennifer to help me. The associate didn’t exactly seem enthused, and turned out they didn’t have any of the yarn or needles I needed. I picked up 2 random balls of yarn so that I had something to work on that night at my first night of Stitch ‘n Bitch LA. I made a “Valentines” scarf in the end. < >

The next day, determined to work on some of these projects, I started searching for the actual items on Google. Duh, what a novel concept! We frequently search for the best prices, locate restaurants, find reviews and stalk people, but I had never thought of putting my “intangibles” with my “tangibles” together in this virtual setting.

Voila! I found what seemed like millions of different yarn shops online…. I found one called World Knit which had a huge assortment of this Cotton Chenille I needed, as well as every size, shape bamboo needle I needed and what Joann’s here in Santa Monica doesn’t carry (which is most of them). Then I turned to the sweater page…<> and needed to find this Morehouse Merino Wool in Bulky. I searched and searched and all I could come up with was their homepage, which doesn’t have an online ordering option. This meant, that I would have to call them. I don’t know what it is about calling a business, but in this day in age of virtual anonymity, I was dreading it. I like to pay my bills using the automatic system on the phone, using ATM machines, purchasing clothes on bananarepublic.com, chatting online - and as bubbly as I usually am, I don’t really care to call companies to place an order. I waited an entire day to do this. And boy, was I sorry I hadn’t called earlier. I had the nicest person on the phone to help me with my first-time wool purchase. This is a very novel concept considering signing up for knitting classes at Joann’s took a miracle. She walked me through the colors since I didn’t have a color palette, and when the skeins came in a longer length than what was in my book, she helped me work out how many skeins I needed. But the BEST part, was for Priority Shipping, they carged the flat rate of $4.85. No tax because they are located in NY and the package arrived ON TIME. Also to note that 6 skeins of this beautiful yarn cost them $9 to ship here. I have started on the sweater, and hopefully will have progress pics soon!