Stitch n Bitch – The Lyf So Short

Li'l Monkey Blanket — Li’l Monkey Blanket in all its glory

Here’s the Li’l Monkey in its completed state, all seamed up and featuring three monkey faces (one boy, one girl, and one unisex/transgender, a.k.a. “Sock Monkey Classic”).

Here’s a close-up of the girl monkey face (note the badly executed black and white “ribbon” near her right ear — because she’s fancy):

Here’s a close-up of the boy monkey face (note the bow tie). Apparently, he’s dressed for the Sock Monkey Ball (or about to get beaten up at Sock Monkey Elementary):

And here’s my unisex monkey face (a.k.a. “Sock Monkey Classic”):

Believe me, these faces are not as creepy in person as they are in these photos. You’ll just have to take my word for it since the photography gods are not working in my favor today. This is actually quite a cute blanket.

For this project, I used Rowan Cashsoft Chunky (red, color 709), two strands of Suss Love (ivory) and two strands of Schachenmayr Punto (marled gray, color 90). Unfortunately, the Suss Love, although usually a wonderful yarn, does not work very well in granny squares; it unravelled when I laundered it and I had to recreate the white centers of a couple of the granny squares. An interesting experiment in crochet repair, especially given my limited crochet experience. But I think I made it work — fingers crossed!

Black Sheep Knittery, a much-beloved knitting store in Hollywood, is closing. Rumor has it that the owner is growing tired of her commute and wants to relocate closer to home. Apparently, she already has a new site picked out.

Here in the Los Angeles area, we are spoiled for choice when it comes to yarn shops. Here’s the link to the LA Stitch ‘n’ Bitch (are we allowed to use that term anymore? what’s up with that law suit?) list of local yarn shops. Go ahead, look. I’ll be here when you get back…

However, with all this choice comes competition, and what with the cooling off of the Stitch ‘n’ Bitch trend and the approach of the hot Southern California summer, it’s sad to see a yarn store go away, even though it looks like it will be back soon. More than one of those shops on that list is experiencing difficulties and is planning on downsizing or going out of business. I suppose it was inevitable that the knitting craze was bound to taper off, but I am going to adopt an uncharacteristically optimistic attitude and predict that knitting is here to stay.

Although I am sad to see Black Sheep go, I must say that the deals were fantastic! I doubt that I will ever see deals this good again in my lifetime. No exaggeration–all yarn was 75% off. That’s lower than wholesale, folks. My only regret is that I didn’t realize sooner that this sale was the real deal.

Still, I got some amazing deals (more below) and here are a couple photos to give you an idea of the place. This shot was taken from the loft, where I was almost buried in lovely, luxurious bulky Rowan and Debbie Bliss. Mmmmmmm….. bulky yarn…..

And here’s another showing my roommate packing up all our yarn purchases in these amazing IKEA vinyl bags we just bought the other day:

Check out those groovy lampshades! This sale was so amazing, that I went on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, each day vowing it would be my last visit. On Saturday, I ran into the amazing Ellen Bloom of LA is my Beat.

Here are all my purchases arrayed on my sofa and trunk:

This should keep me off the streets for quite some time. And I just got my stash organized and cataloged in my characteristically geeky way–whatever shall I do? Unfortunately, I must go now! More to come soon….

Update 01/24/10: all the links in this post appear to be dead now; I’m not surprised about the Black Sheep Knittery link, of course, but the Stitch n Bitch LA link is something of a surprise. I guess the SnB trend really is over.