In which Swatchy gets some Canadian action

Crosspost with Travels With Swatchy:

This morning, after the kids were off to school, I went looking for Swatchy. I found him here, still sleeping at 9:30.



Poor l'il Swatchy. He was tuckered out, after a weekend beyond his wildest imaginings...

It all started so innocently. He climbed into the car and settled himself on the dashboard, perhaps thinking that this was going to be a wholesome weekend, seeing as he was traveling with a suburban, station-wagon-driving soccer mom.



The drive up was quick (relatively speaking) and uneventful. Swatchy enjoyed seeing the autumn foliage, and was fascinated by the gossip, although he tried not too look too interested.

He was happy to arrive at the hotel, quickly selecting a lovely color-coordinated skein of Black Bunny Fibers Canadian Luxury sock yarn to nestle down in for the night.



I think Swatchy figured, once everyone was in bed by 10:30 p.m., that his traveling companions were nice, if a bit sedate.

He was a good sport as we awoke early the next morning, bundling up and arriving at the show not long after the gates opened at 9 a.m.


He was quite excited to be hanging with knitting designer Laura Grutzeck; I heard Swatchy whisper excitedly to passersby, "See that lady with the pretty curly hair? She has a sweater in Vogue Knitting!" He found faithful traveling companion Jim to be delightful and eminently civilized, too.

Swatchy enjoyed seeing all sorts of beautiful fiber and yarn, and although he found the llamas and sheep a little intimidating, given how big they seemed to him, he quite enjoyed snuggling up to the bunnies, like this one:


(The bunny, on the other hand, disapproved.)

I was having a great time seeing old friends and making new ones, buying some roving, fondling the wools, but then I saw Swatchy surreptitiously yawn. I decided it was time for the big guns. So Swatchy got to meet Jess, of Ravelry fame:

and Clara Parkes, of Knitter's Review and book fame:


and Dr. Mel, of kilt-wearing fame:


I must say that Swatchy was very well-behaved and extremely polite to all the knitterati that he met, except when he mistakenly thought he heard Kristen Rengren



say that she knew a woman with Chronic Fatigue and it was all in her head, and then he threw himself at the table where she was book-signing, screaming stuff about "people who need to go to the CFIDS website before they start shooting their mouths off about stuff they know nothing about" until I was able to pull him off and tell him that she actually said "I know a woman with Chronic Fatigue and she has to stay in bed" and then he got all embarrassed and I had to leave the author's tent before Melanie Falick kicked the shite out of me.

At that point, I whisked Swatchy away, and we retired to our hotel room for a brief cooling-off period before dinner. Swatchy wasn't very impressed with our favorite Rhinebeck diner:


But he cheered up immensely when he met our dinner companions, including Mindy


(he was all over poor Mindy!); the wild and wooly Ali P (I need your blog link, Ali):


and last but not least, Vé-vé.



I think that those wild Canadian minxes were a terrible influence on Swatchy, because last night I went up to Little Miss's room to kiss her goodnight and I found this:


Oh, Swatchy, lolling in the hot tub with the Barbie twins? What have I done?!

Update today: some chunkier yarns

Even though I tend to specialize in finer-gauge yarns -- laceweights and sock yarns -- I know that sometimes it's nice to be able to whip up a project quickly. Now that it's mid-October, some of you may be thinking about holiday gift-knitting. So today's Black Bunny Fibers update consists of some chunky-weight yarns. I've got two new yarns that I'm hoping to add as regulars. The first is called Candy Stripe:


One of my yarn clubs tried it out and gave it high marks, liking the softness and the way that the plies take the color differently -- or not at all.


I've whipped up a scarf pattern, featuring a big cable running the length, and I'm offering it as a free pattern with the purchase of one or more skeins of Candy Stripe.


The second new base is called Bump, and it's 98% merino wool with a 2% nylon binder to give it some texture.


Bump is fun to knit with and you get results fast.


In fact, I was able to knit this slouchy hat in a night, and I'm offering this pattern free with purchase of one or more skeins of Bump:



(I will be wearing it at Rhinebeck if the weather requires it, so you can see it up close and in person.)

I also stumbled across a couple of skeins of a bulky, thick-n-thin yarn that I'm calling Cloud.


This yarn is discontinued, so I probably won't be able to get more of it, but it's very soft and extremely quick-knitting (maybe 2 stitches to the inch?) so you could definitely produce a very warm scarf in a very short period of time, enjoying the glorious colors and textures.


(Sorry -- no free pattern for discontinued yarns!) I'm sending a couple of skeins of each of these to Loop tomorrow if you want to stop by and see them in person.

I'll be off to Rhinebeck tomorrow, with faithful traveling companions Jim and Laura. Traveling with us will be the inimitable Swatchy, of Travels With Swatchy fame. Swatchy is a little shmoo who serves two purposes: he serves as stand-in for the lovely Knittah, who cannot travel very often or very far due to her disabling CFIDS (learn more about the disease here) and he thereby helps to raise awareness about CFIDS. You'll see lots more photos of Swatchy as he treks with us to Rhinebeck and back....but here is Swatchy, bonding with the BBF yarn until it's time to depart.



In fact, this particular Swatchy is made with some BBF yarn.... adding to his overall handsomeness, if I do say so myself. (Rest assured that I have checked Swatchy's ID to make sure he is over the age of consent, something I always do before crossing state lines.)

I'll try to update the blog over the weekend with some shots from Rhinebeck. The weather is supposed to be grim -- cold and rainy snowy? -- but I can't wait to be in the company of some of my favorite fiber friends. If you see me, please stop me and say hi. It always tickles me to no end to meet readers, especially the lurkers.