the thing itself and not the myth

This weekend I went to the Rat City bout, which was enough social action to get me through the rest of the weekend.

Rat Bastard, at halftime:

For actual bout photos, watch Adam’s Flickr page, because I am sure it’s just a matter of time before he has some up. And his will actually be good, whereas mine suck.

The good change from last season was that the food was provided by Skillet. I’ve been hearing about them for ages, but I’ve never been able to get to a location. All that changed this weekend and I got to have POUTINE and ROLLER DERBY both. *Awesome*.

The bad change is that the bout was at Hangar 30, which some of you might know as the location of the library book sale. It’s fine for that purpose, but for derby? WAY TOO SMALL. They used to bout at Hangar 27, but the city wants to turn that into a private facility, basically, screwing over all the community groups who use it. RCRG did a fantastic job maximizing the space in Hangar 30, but it’s really horribly small, and the loss in particular of the majority of the floor seating is tragic. It also means that the bout sold out wicked fast, and that the league lost a lot of money on the missing seats. It totally blows.

So, I did that, and then I spent the rest of the weekend knitting. I was supposed to go to Honk Fest on Sunday, but it rained. Boo. Anyway. Knitting & general yarn porn after the jump.

I have been buying a lot of yarn lately. I think I have one more order coming (just one skein), and when I finish Salt Chestnuts I’m allowed to get yarn for the Celtic Icon Hoodie. But aside from that I should probably slow down a little.

Malabrigo Silky Merino, because I wanted to try it. Probably it’ll be a scarf & hat set. SO SOFT.

And some Noro for armwarmers, plus Noro sock, because there was a sale and I have been kind of obsessed with trying it.

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I do save money in notions, though. Daiso is the best for household things you can reappropriate for knitting, and basically everything is $1.50! Here’s hairbands as stitch markers, and the holder? Is a pill case. How cute is that?

Plus, nearly every time I go I wind up getting one or two bento bags, because they make the perfect project bags:

Clockwise, starting with the red, they are holding: Embossed Leaves socks, Spirogyra armwarmers, the Great Knee Sock Experiment, and the Gred & Forge socks. So clearly even though I am buying crazy amounts of yarn (for me) I am actually using it. So that’s good!

Sometimes I even finish things! First off, the Nutkin socks. I did them toe-up. I can’t remember if that’s how the pattern is written or just how I did them. The pattern is wicked easy to remember, but it biases. In the photo you can see it spiraling in. This time I flipped the chart for the second sock, but the next time I knit them, I’ll flip the chart for each panel and see if that combats the biasing.

Second, the Kaylee socks, designed by the much-missed Momma Monkey. This pattern is easily the most fun I have ever had knitting socks, even though I totally failed to memorize it. I’m sure I will knit them again. Totally satisfying!

And that’s all the news that’s fit to knit.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 9:46 am and is filed under derby, knitting, photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.