Crisis Averted

Have you ever worked on a project and when you are almost finished you find yourself with too little yarn to complete the project? For the second time in less then a month we had a crisis. Mrs. Twisted is making a pair of cabled gloves with matching hat out of Blue Sky 100% Alpaca. This was a stash reduction project and good faith gesture to one of our friends is moving to Idaho. One small problem though; the pattern required more than the stash allowed. Hat, One glove almost complete sans cuff and one glove minus pinkie, thumb and cuff. Thank the grand plan that includes the Internet because I was able to find one skein of the same fiber in the same color lot six months later in a different LYS so she could finish this before Friday when we go to the going away party for this couple.

Crisis Averted, by the time I finished typing this she completed the gloves and Life is Good.

Almost feel like I need to buy a lotto ticket or something. Oh if you haven’t been to Purl Soho’s distribution warehouse in Costa Mesa then you should sneak over there during your lunch time or the next time you take a "cough cough" sick day. Monday to Friday mid morning until the UPS guy comes In the afternoon.

If you know me or have been reading my blog then you would know I would have a hard time going into a yarn store to buy one skein without getting something else if it just jumped out and said "Buy me!"

Besides the amazing color, and that it's 100% silk,
who could resist yarn called "Scarlett's Dark Secret?"
And no I have no project for this but I'm looking though our library
for some inspirational projects of 326 yards or less.....

Missing comments and "The Color Purple"

Hi all, I'm not talking about Oprah here at least not this time.

I just happened to click the "Moderate Comments" and noticed that I wasn't notified of some of the comments some of you lovely people made to my ramblings. I will have to check this as well as my e-mail for any future comments.

I remember one of our friends in the Bay Area who had the same issues a few months ago.

I wasn't ignoring you I just didn't know you had written anything. Thanks for the visit.

Attention all you lurkers:
Can you all do me a favor, it can even be anonymous if you like. Please let me know your fiber of choice and the colorway that tends to dominate your stash and or out number the other colors in your purchases. Are you a Green person or a Blue person or a Crimson sunset lover. I'm just an inquiring mind who wants to know

I have been drawn to hand dyed pure silk and silk blends lately. Purple or the purple variation colorway. But now leaning towards any deep rich color (Platinum to Tomato to Caribbean Teal).

I also buy fiber without a project in mind but it tends to inspire.




Someday it will be a lace stole.... Just a swatch to see the gauge and color

What a wonderful Year it has been!

To all you lurkers out there in internetland and a few of our friends who read this blog, one year ago today my beautiful bride and I were married. I want to wish you a happy anniversary and to say how much I love you.

My best friend and the love of my life. No matter what we do or where we go it's always better when we share it together. You make my heart race when we hold hands, you give me butterflies when we kiss and "it would be ungentlemanley for me to elaborate any further"......

We took Friday off from work and took the early boat to Catalina. Just a tip to all of you, go mid-week or at least Friday. We found a mini suite online with an ocean view two blocks from the water that was just perfect.

From the boat as we arrived in Avalon Harbor

This picture was taken from the balcony of the Casino

It has been a few years since I was here last but it was the first time

for Mrs. Twisted. The water was a beautiful as I remember and the weather was perfect.

We did the glass bottom boat tour on Friday and there were

only 7 people on the boat including the captain. Can you say off season Weekday?

We did find the only knitting store on the island. Three knitting books and two balls of Misti-Alpaca followed us home.

77 minutes each way on the boat was also a great time to knit in the ocean breeze with the woman of my dreams and the love of my life.

Heavenly Wood

Yes I consider myself a yarn snob and now I must include myself in the knitting needle snob club.
I have always loved the fine wood needles since I started less than a year ago. When this all started, the Mrs. had an assortment of aluminum, and plastic needles and I bought bamboo circulars for the first project but that quickly steam rolled out of control. We now have a huge assortment of almost everything available. I bought the new Lantern Moon Destiny Needles the first day they were available from a mail order warehouse that happened to be privy to advanced product. While writing this blog I summed the excel sheet and as of last week and we were at ummm 65 needles yes that is including double pointers separately. (yes I'm an engineer so I have excel sheets for the needle list and our entire yarn stash in nauseating detail, I know "get a life" but it has really helped when locating an additional ball of yarn of the same color and lot # we needed to complete a project that was bought 6 months earlier.)
I digressed from my original thought;
When I saw the new Knit picks Circular needles I thought we need these! Even though we already have most sizes and most lengths of Adi's alreday but the tip is just a bit too dull for my taste. The new Knit Picks modular circulars and they arrived last week, great product, nice smooth join and very sharp. I must say, very impressed but certain yarns just don’t work well with metal needles, pure Silk for one and cashmere and some cashmerinos. Like I said earlier, yarn snob and we love silk, just check the stash flickr and see all the Twisted Sisters, Alchemy and alpaca silk. Soooooooooo, I have been looking for what have been coined as the Stradivarius of knitting needles. If you haven’t had the pleasure to try them they are the most amazing needles on the face of the earth. Pricey? Like buying a Ferrari instead of the Toyota/Nissan. You both get to the same destination but one has a smile because he got to drive there and the other is just happy to reach his or her destination. Why would someone pay 3 or 4, 5 or even 6 times the price to knit on little wooden sticks? Two words Holz & Stein


The rosewood ones are like the smothest wood with the most amazing grain I have ever seen on rosewood. The ebony circulars are even better in my estimation. If you have used ebony circulars then you know. whese are like Adi Turbos they are so smooth with just the hint of friction that all of us wooden needle lover enjoy on slick fiber. The tips are sharp and the join on the circs are perfect. As they should be for the cost. I wish the Lantern moon were as nice.

Will I replace all my needles? Maybe if I win the loto but otherwise I will make more projects on the needles I have.

Look what the yarn stork brought today...

I ordered this over the weekend. A little sample of the various yarns from Knit Picks that I may want to use in the future. I love touching and generally just manhandling the fiberin the shops but it's hard to give it the once over when buying online. We all have the little test we do either smelling, touching my face etcetera to see if it passes the softness test. Then it must pass the swatch test after I get it home before I invest in mass quantities. Buying fiber online can be a crap shoot but so far the Knit Picks fiber is a great value. It's mostly merino wool, alpaca, and slik blends. Three Cashmere blends are in the bunch too and a couple Pima cotton. 16 yarns - 21 balls/hanks

Best of all We got the new knit picks interchangable needles too!!!!


Item No. Description Quantity
90245 Options Interchangeable
Nickel Plated Circular Needle Set 1
23925 Aubergine Telemark 1

23877 Bordeaux Swish Superwash 1

23868 Concord Grape Gloss 1

23455 Hollyberry Merino Style 1

23452 Tide Pool Merino Style 1

23660 Jewels Shadow 1

23486 Embers Andean Treasure 1

23664 Sweet Peas Gossamer 1

23846 Rocky Mountain Dusk Memories 2

23531 Lilac Elegance 1

23758 Winter Berry Decadence 1

23745 Lavender Ambrosia 1

23749 Cranberry Panache 1

80086 Jump Rings, 9mm, pkg of 100 2

80306 View Sizer 1

23609 Orchid ShineSport 2

23797 Crocus Shine Worsted 2

23831 Wedgewood Main Line 2

Just a few things that made me smile lately

A month or so ago we made a pact (the Mrs. And I). We kept seeing amusing or memorable things when we go for a drive so we agreed to take the camera with us to help capture the always entertaining surroundings of Southern California.

Question: Who would want to advertise they had these attributes?

answer: nobody smart or hung.

We love to stop and watch the sunset if we are close to the ocean.

Nothing better than the salty cool breeze and the majestic California coastal sunsets.

This was Saturday evening, south of Laguna Beach.

The sun begins to make the clouds look like Twice Baked cheddar potatoes

or fluffy pink cotton candy

The solitude of sunset

Another tourist on PCH

Can't be all bad when they have a baked potato with pat of melting butter on their plate can they? I don't like sour cream and chives either....

I am a creature of habit. I usually go to the local convenience store/gas station on Tuesday to buy my lotto-Mega tickets and what did I see at the register one single lonely bag of DARK Chocolate M&Ms.

If you know me, you know my favorite color is purple or variations of purple ( Magenta, Maroon, boysenberry etc) and my favorite candies are dark chocolate based. The planets aligned when M&Ms used purple wrappers for the new candy. If only they were peanut M&Ms. Dark chocolate is best when consumed with something salty.

Latest music news I started Guitar lessons last Monday with a new teacher I found on Craig's list, gotta love the internet, and broke out the acoustic guitar to practice. He is the only boy in the clan of three. I don't have cats so I name my Guitars are like children. Today I'll introduce Woody ( not very original but it fits. ) Old school guitar is good. I discovered if you practice or learn new music on the acoustic, it's so much easier to play the same notes on the electrics.

My first guitar a Taylor Big Baby

We have another reason to buy yarn

A very sweet lady friend of the Twisted just had a little baby girl and you know what that means? We have a source of inspiration to knit. Girls get to wear all the pretty fun clothes and now we have a reason to make the cutesy outfits. Since we learned of the birth last week Mrs. Twisted whiped this out from the "Debbie Bliss Baby Knits for Beginners" using some Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino I had bought last January when I found out of the anouncement.

Oh yeah she had to make the matching booties too...

Stash pics loaded

I took pics of about 75% of the stash last night and loaded them into the Flickr badge on the right side of the blog. Next is to load some discriptions and group by fiber/brand etc.