Buttons, Leaflets, Yarn, and Men Selling Crafting Supplies

My mom, stepdad, and I occasionally like to go to the Long Beach Outdoor Antique Market that happens every third Sunday of the month.  It is kind of like a swap meet, except there are a lot more things that are genuinely old. Yesterday it was just my mom and I out in the sunny day looking for our version of a great find.

One booth had a selection of old dilapidated tools in every size and shape imaginable. Another had a collection of various salt shakers ranging from the 40's to the 60's. One of my mom's favorite sellers is a booth where anything on the table to $5. Walking down the center aisle we come to a booth that sells nothing but prints from books, back when most things were illustrated. The farther back into the sale you go the newer things get until by the end some of the booths look straight out of the swap meet.

Many of the booths are a hodgepodge of things and of course there are those people trying to trick and deceive. One sign said "Fat quarters. Civil War. $8." We took a feel of the fabric and knew instantly they were modern fabrics. The sign doesn't say they actually are from the Civil War, but the implication is there. Tricky aren't they?

My mom loves dolls. She loves buying them, selling them, but most of all, repairing them. She is usually hunting for doll related things and I hunt for knitting related items. On this day we found a large sink sized basin full of buttons. "Fill a box for $3. Two boxes for $5." Score! A set of new buttons alone is usually at or more than $3, and many of these buttons were fun vintage styles. We spent quite some time having fun riffling through their bin picking out buttons. I picked out some sets I might be able to use for sweaters and my mom picked out the teeny tiny ones to use for dolls.

My collection. I love the navy blue/white ones. 

They would look so cute on a little sailor sweater!

Of course what I'm usually looking for is vintage yarn or needles. I've gotten lucky a couple of times at thrift stores, and on a previous visit to the Outdoor Antique Market I found a few balls of Knit Picks. Yesterday I spotted a small bin on the ground with knitting needles poking out. The bin contained a decent stack of vintage pattern books, mostly for crochet doilies, some vintage circular knitting needles, and a few balls of vintage 100% virgin wool sock yarn.

Using a technique I learned from watching too many episodes of American Pickers I picked out a set of the circular knitting needles, the navy blue sock yarn, and a couple of the leaflets. This is called bundling, and means that you get things for cheaper than they would otherwise have been. The seller gave me the lot for $3. I was all ready to practice bargaining and then he gave me such a low price!

I chose a leaflet from the early 60's called Bernat Raglans and a Doilies booklet from 1956. When I showed my mom the Raglans leaflet she said, "Don't tell me, um, 62?" She was one year off, 1961. One of the raglans is made of mohair and she told me about how she and her friends all had to have one of those sweaters when she was in middle school. These kinds of things are great for inspiration and I have a feeling my little collection of vintage leaflets will keep growing.

Raglan sweater 1961.

 

Doily from 1956. Gotta love the drawing!

I am very excited about the yarn. A lot of vintage yarn is acrylic, because it was the cool new thing when they started making it. Finding vintage yarn that is 100% wool is a real treasure. Not only that, the yarn is soft and the two balls means there will be enough for a pair of socks.

These kinds of days, where the sun is brilliant and the sky turns a richer blue, the days I get to spend with my mom, these are the days to remember.

Good Consumer. Good.

I feel like this post needs a kind of disclaimer because I am writing in a different style this time. I love snark, wit, and sarcasm and occasionally attempt to put it in my writing. This entry is an exploration of that tone. I'm not entirely sure if I will write more posts this way or even that I needed this disclaimer. Perhaps I'm just avoiding writing the actual post.

...

As a person moves beyond the first stages of learning how to knit they usually begin to be either a product knitter or a process knitter. In other words, they knit because they are product whores or because they enjoy the zen meditation state they fall into as they knit.

The images of these two types of knitters is not without their bias. A product knitter, I imagine, is the kind of consumer that capitalism happily produces, the person who lusts after what they cannot have and who works tirelessly to obtain ever increasing amounts of stuff. This person is the good consumer who, capitalism tells us, keeps our economy going.

The process knitter, on the other hand, sits on the floor in lotus pose calmly knitting through everything and doesn't care if mistakes are made or if the cat starts eating the sweater. This knitter uses good materials to enjoy the process ever more and is occasionally surprised that a finished object occurs at the end of knitting.

My current project has convinced me that I fall squarely into the product camp. I want it like a good consumer wants black friday to hurry up and get here already.

I know that I am a product knitter because I do not enjoy knitting this thing. I made a scarf for a friend some time ago out of a mystery yarn in my stash which I'm sure some well meaning person gifted to me. It is a purple worsted weight acrylic boucle. This means that its a pretty color, kind of lumpy, and splits like a needle going through fabric.

I didn't particularly enjoy knitting the scarf either, but I am trying to use up my stash because I'm poor and buying yarn when I already have lots seems silly. I designed a large reversible cable to go down the middle of the scarf. Why did I try to make a cable, something that needs good stitch definition, in a yarn like boucle that has almost no stitch definition? Because apparently I like to torture myself.

And not just on the one project. My dear friend asked for a matching hat for her coming November birthday. "Of course I'll knit you a hat to match your scarf! I'd love to. I have more of the same yarn too!" Great.

Since the scarf had a cable, the hat needs cables as well, because I need continuity or my brain will explode. That leaves me at today, knitting cables with a yarn I already know won't show cables very well and wishing the stitch definition on the hat was better.

Today I am a product knitter. People ask me why I knit. Sometimes I give them the product answer. I like to knit because of the things I can make. They are unlike anything store bought. They are my own creation. Something I give them the process answer. I like the feel of knitting. I like knowing how the decisions I make about my knitting will affect the finished object. Sometimes, it calms me down. This product/ process debate is really all just a cover up for the fact that I don't know why I am knitter.

I don't know why I am knitting a cabled hat in purple acrylic boucle worsted weight yarn, except that I want it. Except that my friend has been such a good friend to me for so many years. Except that every stitch is totally worth it.

In which I encounter a caracal and discover a new yarn shop.

There are two yarn shops that are close to me in Long Beach. One has recently closed its doors and while I have heard they have plans of reopening, who knows when that will actually happen or where they will be. This has left me with one local yarn store which, while a decent store for various reasons, is not the yarn store of my dreams. Many of the people who work there are haughty and I usually can't wait to get out of there. I go only when I desperately need something I know they will have.

This, combined with the opportunity to drive south for over an hour and a half on a day trip meant that I got to stop by Clever Knits, a cute yarn store in Vista, CA. But why was I on a day trip in the first place?

This weekend Terri and I celebrated our 2 years together. We drove down to Escondido yesterday to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park (formerly known as the Wild Animal Park). It was a roaringly fun day exploring the park and seeing all the animals. My favorite memory is seeing the animal encounter with the Caracal.

Animal encounters are where they actually have the animals outside their enclosures. The one we saw was just outside on a grassy area. One trainer had the caracal, named Carlton, on a leash and in her other hand was what looked like an oversized cat toy on an really long rope. Just as we got there she started moving the cat toy all over the place and Carlton would run and jump and did some back flips too. It was really an awesome sight to see. When he caught the toy he just sat down and held it in his mouth for a long time as if to say, "Got it! Mine. All mine. Got it."

Before we set out on our adventure I did a little searching on the Internet to see if there would be any yarn shops that we could stop at on our way back. First, I wanted to stop because I am tired of my local yarn store's attitude. Second, one of the best ways for knitters to commemorate a trip is to buy yarn there. And this being a special day celebrating a special occasion, I felt justified in adding to my stash.

I could not be happier with my decision to stop at Clever Knits. The store, like many yarn shops, is rather small. But I have never had a better experience at a yarn store. I felt welcome, appreciated, and valued. I wasn't rushed and I wasn't hassled. No one stared at me.

The woman behind the counter I later found out was the owner's mother. A short haired slender lady with metal rimmed glasses she simply stated to feel free to ask any questions if I needed help. The center of the room is dominated with two sitting areas, one with a couch and several cozy looking chairs in fresh chic prints and the other a long table, perfect for laying out large projects or taking a class. Along one wall was a bookshelf that I simply didn't look into because I knew I would want one of everything, a small basket of five or six bolts of fabric in adorable and modern prints, a wall of hanging patterns, and a notions corner with lantern moon needles that, when I saw them, I almost drooled.

Really, I needed a bib to be in this place because the other wall was covered in yarn. And not just any yarn, yarns I have heard knitters talk about on the internet but that I had never actually seen or touched. There was Malabrigo, unfortunately only in a lime green color or I probably would have bought some. Trekking XXL in one of my favorite dark turquoise colors that faded to black and back again. There were others too, like delicious cashmere and silk blends. The shop also carried a line of organic wool yarns that I had not seen before. Not to be too out in the stratosphere, there was also a large selection of the ever useful Cascade 220.

I decided to go with a ball of sock yarn that is dyed by a local hand dyer. I have been drooling over hand dyed yarns over the Internet and ruining perfectly good keyboards for some time. Apparently the theme of this post is drool. I love supporting local businesses as well as local artists. It helps me make living in a big city not feel so big. The yarn also earned "+2 buy me" because it is various gradations of my current favorite color.

Success.