I've mentioned before that I use Denise needles, particularly for Moebius scarves, and really like them. In all my tidying up and sorting of needles, I discovered that I've lost one US 11 tip. I've looked in every project bag, turned my knitting accessories bin upside down, and moved furniture looking for this tip. It's gone.
When I took Cat Bordhi's suggestion and bought the Denise needles and long cables for Moebius scarves, I looked all over the net and asked several people for recommendations. Based on this, I bought everything Denise made from The Patchwork Frog all at once. I got the basic set, the companion cable set, the three long cables, and the US 15 and 19 tips. The transaction was quick and graceful and the shipping was practically instantaneous (although this wasn't exactly surprising, as we're on opposite sides of Los Angeles County). The needles were all I expected and more and everyone was happy.
Then I lost the tip. The Denise company doesn't sell the individual pairs of tips separately, I discovered. What to do? Remembering how well the original purchase had gone, I sent a forlorn yet hopeful e-mail to The Patchwork Frog. She replied immediately, offering to take a pair of tips out of one of the sets she had in stock and send it to me, while ordering a replacement from the company. Doing this means that she now has a set in stock that she can't sell until the replacement tips arrive. She's willing to do that, rather than make me wait for the replacement tips to get to her.
That's a lot of stock to tie up for a $4 pair of tips and she doesn't know me at all. We had one transaction ages ago, is all. Yet she's more than willing to go to such lengths for me. Folks, this is what customer service is all about. Let's reward it and shop at The Patchwork Frog.
I'm just a customer, by the way, and have no other relationship with her. She, I, and over nine million people live in this county, so we're not what anyone would call neighbors, even. I've never met her in person and probably never will, but I recommend her highly.
Showing posts with label Needles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Needles. Show all posts
21 February 2008
17 February 2008
Sorting Needles
I've been tidying up my rolling bin full of knitting needles and other accessories. I got pretty much everything but the needles done and finally gave in to the inevitable. I have too many needles. I had too many before my mom died and I inherited hers. I'll probably still buy more needles for specific projects.
Among the circular needles my mom had were two with metal cables. Fans of Elizabeth Zimmerman may recall her writing about the first time she saw and, briefly, used a circular needle. That needle had a braided metal cable, as I recall, and one strand of the braid had broken and would snag the yarn, but still the needle was regarded as a wonderful tool that EZ wanted. My mom's two needles are in extremely good condition, a beautiful bit of knitting history.
She also had some 14" plastic single-point needles in US 2 or 3, which probably date from the '40s. A lot of knitting back then used much lighter yarns and much higher stitch counts than we do now. I think of worsted weight as being pretty standard for sweaters, but then it was sport or fingering weight.
She kept up with the times, though. There are a lot of larger needles, including circulars. I remember using a one-piece nylon circular in about a US 13 to knit a top-down raglan sweater in coral Spinnerin Frostlon. It had a vee neck and was a perfect color match to a straight skirt I had. That was when I was in high school. I also remember knitting a lace shell in avocado at about the same time.
My mom knitted a lot of slippers from a pattern popular in the '50s. They used a US10½ needle and two strands of worsted weight yarn in the adult size. Smaller sizes used lighter yarn and smaller needles. They were really simple and I, too, knitted a fair number of them. I could probably reconstruct the pattern without much effort. Anyway, she still had three or four pairs of 10-inch US 10½ needles, the ones we used for these.
Obviously there's been a lot of nostalgia involved in this needle sorting. It's been thirteen months since she died and I still miss her acutely. The probate closed last week, incidentally. It had been complicated by one particular asset that we had a little trouble getting transferred or it would have been done last year.
Another reason I have too many needles is that I have a personal quirk that I like to have complete sets of things that come in sets. I bought the larger tips and longer cables that weren't included in the KnitPicks Options and Harmony sets, for example, and I'll probably finish out the 16" circular needle set one of these days (I'm missing US 6, 7, and 9, which were out of stock earlier). I also really like sets that come with nifty storage systems for all the components, like the Options interchangeable circular needles. Fortunately my quirk is controllable and I can limit it to inexpensive sets. About the most expensive knitting set I have is the Weldon's Magazine facsimile set, all twelve volumes of it, and I bought at least half of those as Interweave Press brought them out.
Among the circular needles my mom had were two with metal cables. Fans of Elizabeth Zimmerman may recall her writing about the first time she saw and, briefly, used a circular needle. That needle had a braided metal cable, as I recall, and one strand of the braid had broken and would snag the yarn, but still the needle was regarded as a wonderful tool that EZ wanted. My mom's two needles are in extremely good condition, a beautiful bit of knitting history.
She also had some 14" plastic single-point needles in US 2 or 3, which probably date from the '40s. A lot of knitting back then used much lighter yarns and much higher stitch counts than we do now. I think of worsted weight as being pretty standard for sweaters, but then it was sport or fingering weight.
She kept up with the times, though. There are a lot of larger needles, including circulars. I remember using a one-piece nylon circular in about a US 13 to knit a top-down raglan sweater in coral Spinnerin Frostlon. It had a vee neck and was a perfect color match to a straight skirt I had. That was when I was in high school. I also remember knitting a lace shell in avocado at about the same time.
My mom knitted a lot of slippers from a pattern popular in the '50s. They used a US10½ needle and two strands of worsted weight yarn in the adult size. Smaller sizes used lighter yarn and smaller needles. They were really simple and I, too, knitted a fair number of them. I could probably reconstruct the pattern without much effort. Anyway, she still had three or four pairs of 10-inch US 10½ needles, the ones we used for these.
Obviously there's been a lot of nostalgia involved in this needle sorting. It's been thirteen months since she died and I still miss her acutely. The probate closed last week, incidentally. It had been complicated by one particular asset that we had a little trouble getting transferred or it would have been done last year.
Another reason I have too many needles is that I have a personal quirk that I like to have complete sets of things that come in sets. I bought the larger tips and longer cables that weren't included in the KnitPicks Options and Harmony sets, for example, and I'll probably finish out the 16" circular needle set one of these days (I'm missing US 6, 7, and 9, which were out of stock earlier). I also really like sets that come with nifty storage systems for all the components, like the Options interchangeable circular needles. Fortunately my quirk is controllable and I can limit it to inexpensive sets. About the most expensive knitting set I have is the Weldon's Magazine facsimile set, all twelve volumes of it, and I bought at least half of those as Interweave Press brought them out.
13 September 2007
I Have An LYS!
Late Saturday afternoon I discovered that there's an actual, local yarn shop in Lancaster. It's really new, not even a month old. I went by on Sunday (it was closed, of course) and peered in the windows; they had Sirdar and Noro patterns in their display, which was a good sign. Then I actually went by on Monday, after finishing for the day at my mom’s house and dropping fourteen boxes of stuff off at the thrift store she volunteered at. We're getting close to being done clearing out the house, which is fortunate because I sold the house last week (before we listed it or otherwise put it on the market; this is the second house I've done that with). The buyers are taking some of the furniture and may buy even more.
It was even better than I thought it might be. Misti Baby Alpaca, Blue Heron rayon, Rio De La Plata kettle-dyed merino, Noro, Cascade, Sirdar, Gedifra, and so on. Not a lot of the really high-end stuff, but this is Lancaster and, as the owners said, expensive yarn is not what anyone would expect to move well. They can special-order, of course. They had every Clover bamboo needle made and some lovely wooden needles.
I didn’t buy a single thing. I was mightily tempted, but I just couldn’t decide on anything. Too much choice, I guess. I think I’m going to get a couple of skeins of purple Baby Alpaca for a scarf for my sister-in-law. Just touching that yarn made me long to own it, I tell you. I can hardly bear to send the baby alpaca scarves on to their owners, I love it so much.
My good friend Pat’s daughter, in South Dakota, is going to have a baby in the spring and I got four skeins (a mile of yarn) of Knit Picks white fingering-weight merino wool to knit a lace christening shawl (traditionally this gets used for the christening and then gets put away until the kid’s wedding, when the bride wears it). Right now I’m knitting a Forest Canopy lace shawl in lace-weight alpaca and silk yarn, on US 5 needles. Lovely, but slow, slow, slow. I'll be so glad to be knitting fingering weight on US 7s or so.
Speaking of Knit Picks and needles, their new wooden needles are really nifty. They're laminated from layers of dyed birch and then turned; this is a very common way to make fancy pens and other doodads. These needles have the same sharp tip and long taper that the metal ones do. They're quite reasonably priced, just a bit more than the metal version, and I've got the interchangeable points sitting in my shopping cart, but I can't quite bring myself to order them yet. You know, Knit Picks may have very reasonable prices for their yarns, but they sure seem to get a lot of money from me. I'm such a sucker for pretty bright-colored yarn and accessories.
Part of the reason I'm hesitating on the needle order is that I just got a Cuisinart panini and sandwich grill. Cooks Illustrated rated this as the best panini grill a couple of years ago. I got it from Amazon and I just love it. I haven't made anything much more exciting than ham and cheese sandwiches but I have great plans. Let me share one of my few household hints, which I rarely do. When you make a grilled cheese sandwich, put a very thin layer of French's bright yellow mustard on one of the slices of bread. This should be as thin a layer as you can manage. The sandwich won't taste mustardy, but it'll have a little extra tang that will really pick up the flavor.
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