Daily Dose of Fiber – DC edition

Yesterday Kris and I steered the minivan south and went to Our Nation’s Capital (nod to Jeff) to visit our Friend in Fiber (and many other subjects), DAVE.  Dave graduated from Gettysburg a year ago May and has been teaching high school biology in Teach for America this past year.  We had a perfectly lovely day – quick trip to the local farmer’s market, jaunt to LYS#1 (A Tangled Skein in Hyattsville, MD), fabulous Eithiopian lunch at Dukem with a knitter-friend of Dave’s, LYS#2 (Looped in Dupont Circle), a swing by Teaism for Salty Oat cookies, then back to Dave’s for a coffee/cookie/knitting session on his roof with a killer view of the city.  It was so nice to catch up with him and find out how life is going for a recent graduate who took on one of the most challenging jobs possible.  Thanks for hosting us and showing us such a great time, Dave!  We’ll be back -perhaps for the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef display at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History later this fall?!

Miraculously, I didn’t buy any yarn.  I looked long and hard at the sock yarns at A Tangled Skein and found many yarns I almost bought, but none of them were available in a color that made me swoon, so I resisted.  I also spent a bit of time looking through two interesting books I’ve read about but haven’t yet seen in person:

• Around the World in Knitted Socks – I was especially intrigued by the Italian socks (Rav link), which feature the cuff edge and toe knit the typical way, but the rest of the sock is knit flat and long-wise in a wavy pattern.  Could be a good project for my beloved Felici yarn.  I was also taken with the English pattern, It’s Tea Time (Rav link).  Look at the detail around the gusset decrease.  Pretty!

 

• New England Knits – There has been a ton of blog chatter about this book, and with good reason.  I want to make the sweater on the cover one day.  There are many other enticing patterns in the book, too.  This is such a FALL knitting book – good timing for its publication!

 

Looped just opened two weeks ago and they are still getting yarn in.  They only had 3 types of sock yarn: Koigu (nope, can’t knit socks with that anymore – way too weak), Berroco Sock (nice basic yarn), and Alpaca Sox (I could have bought a skein if I’d been a little more in love with a color).  But we had a great time looking at many other Berroco and Rowan yarns we hadn’t seen in person before.  They had a fair bit of Malabrigo (including the new Twist variety).  Dave bought some Malabrigo for a hat project and some Soak samples to try.  I got a big bottle of Citrus Soak (I’m almost out).  Here are our purchases:

The Salty Oat cookies were really, really good.  Think “kettle corn concept applied to cookie format” and you’re halfway there.  I understand that knockoff recipes are online, and I just might have to try one.  I recommend swinging by Teaism for a bag of these if you’re in the neighborhood.

Great company, great day.  Thanks, Dave and Kris!