When self-striping yarn isn't enough

In case you hadn't noticed, I like stripes. My old friend Michael Dean used to joke about how I should open a store that sells nothing but striped clothing and call it Totally Tania.

This is how my Noro Kureyon afghan version #2 is coming along.

I liked the old one okay, but it got boring. Then I realized how much more exciting it could be if I striped the [already-self-striping] yarns together! .. And I could have more control. And more to fuss over with the color combining. I actually haven't interrupted the yarns' own color sequences as much as I normally do. I'm trying my best to just trust them. This is some real progress for me.

I've got about one foot left to go on the second segment. I realized this afghan is starting to look just like the color palettes I used to make for the Hypnogenic Screen Saver.

Last week I went to the TKGA and CGOA show/conference at the Mariott in Oakland. I took a teachers' workshop there and it was ok. Not really worth going on about. Let's just say that the most important thing I learned in that class was that I already know a whole bunch. I had more fun in the vendors' hall. A guy (named Maat, I think) from Carolina Homespun showed me how to use a drop spindle. I liked it. So I bought this one.

I got to mess around with a knitting machine at the booth of the Machine Knitters Guild of the San Francisco Bay Area. It was fun. Oh, and I won a door prize! Many of the vendors were in a jovial mood and smelled like alcohol (champagne?). I also bought some fingering weight 100% cashmere and some addi turbo US #6 lace needles for my Shetland Triangle that I started today.

The cashmere came from Argosy. It is the Zen 2-ply.

The whole transaction was very pleasant and surprisingly affordable. I would definitely buy from them again. The woman also told me about a software program called Knitware that I'd like to check out some day.