The Incredible Kindness of Knitters!

I have been meaning to get a post up for days but I had hoped to have pictures to go with it. Since that doesn't seem to be happening any time soon, I figured I had better just go ahead and post. Hopefully, I will get some pictures next week.

If you have been a part of the knitting community, either in real life or online, for any length of time, you know that knitters are incredibly generous when it comes to charity. Just look at Kristy's Hat Quest for example. Kristy came in to our LYS Hooks & Needles in very early May and mentioned she was going to the Ukraine in September and needed (gasp!) 300 hats for the orphanage she was going to visit. It seemed nearly impossible at the time but between blogging and Ravelry, she already has over 260 hats in hand and more to come! Then, of course, there is the Yarn Harlot's campaign to raise money for Doctors without Borders through her group Tricoteuses Sans Frontières (Knitters without Borders). They have raised nearly half a million dollars since the start of the group! There are many other examples all over the web of knitters raising incredible amounts of money in rides to cure Aids, Breast Cancer Walks, and many other charities.

What you may not know about knitters is how incredibly generous they are among themselves. Of course, if your friend is short of yarn, or needs to borrow a stitch marker, or a darning needle, or someone has a deadline to finish umpty-jillion water bottle cozies, you are going to help out however you can. It's part of the definition of friend, isn't it? Then there are the folks who will willingly help out someone they may have met at their local yarn store. But I am talking about total strangers, who out of the blue, are totally willing to help out a fellow knitter.

You may or may not know that the latest "hot" yarn, at least from what I can see with the Loopy Groupies et al, is Wollmeise. This gorgeous yarn is dyed by Claudia, who lives in Germany. The Loopy Ewe is the only distributor in the US and let me tell you, it is nearly impossible to get your hands on some. Last week, Sheri (proprietress of the Loopy Ewe) posted over 300 skeins for sale at 9 pm CST and it was all sold out in under 5 minutes! Here's a link if you want to see some of the gorgeous colors. (Hmm, looks like you will have to scroll down and search for Wollmeise. Trust me, it's worth the time.)

Anyway, I digress. I have tried multiple times to get my little paws on some Wollmeise. The crazy thing is, I had never even seen it in person but had read so much about it that I knew I just had to have some. However, it seemed as though that was going to be an impossibility. I just don't have time to sit in front of a computer screen for hours, refreshing the page to see exactly when this yarn comes up so I can attempt to get some. Apparently, I was not the only one feeling kind of low after missing out yet again. TracyinMichigan (Ravelry link), who is the "mom" on the F5ing thread of the Loopy Groupies on Ravelry, started a thread to share the Wollmeise love. Wollmeise "virgins" posted their requests for Wollmeise on this thread and would receive a PM if someone wanted to help them out. Long story short, I am now the proud owner of two skeins of gorgeous, luscious Wollmeise! I received my yarn from two different ladies in Colorado who sold it to me for exactly what they paid for it, plus shipping! I eventually found out that between the two of them, they helped out 11 different knitters, none of whom they had ever even heard of before this thread. I know that many other generous knitters did the same thing. Can you believe that? Like I said, knitters are the most generous of folks.

PS Hopefully, I will have pictures of this luscious yarn to post next week. Right now, I need to catch some zzz's. Tomorrow I head up to Oroville to help out a friend who was burned out in the Palermo fires about 6 weeks ago. They just got power yesterday, and we will be hauling stuff to the dump to make room for the new triple wide she hopes to have in place in the not too distant future.

Water Bottles Need Love Too!

Well, maybe not love exactly but ... A friend of mine ran across this picture in my photostream

and found it rather strange. Actually, Keith, there was a very good reason for knitting a water bottle cozy. One of the gals I knit with at the Escalon library every Monday has a daughter who is going to the Netherlands to play in a soccer tournament. Each player is responsible for bringing enough small gifts to exchange with each member of one of the teams they play. Joy's daughter is taking water bottle cozies. They are done in patriotic colors and they keep the bottle from "sweating" all over whatever they are set down upon. That being said, Joy needed to come up with 17 of them! I don't know about you but knitting 17 of anything can get a wee bit monotonous. I told her that if she had some extra yarn, I would be happy to knit up a cover or two. Of course, if you have read much of this blog at all, I very seldom knit anything in plain stockinette or garter. Thus, the lacy water bottle cozy as well as this one based on the Odessa Hat pattern by Grumperina.

I just love that swirl pattern and it is so amazingly easy to do.

The hat is naturally going to Kristy's Hat Quest. The last I heard, Kristy now has 177 hats in hand. I received 3 more on Monday to go along with the Odessa hat and the group in Santa Fe, NM has at least 21 hats ready to ship on August 1 with more coming in all the time. The new goal is 400 hats so that once each child at the orphanage receives a hat, there will still be some available for new children arriving long after Kristy makes her way back home. The generousity of knitters is just amazing!

I finally finished! ....(clue #2)

Well, it's not much but it is some progress. Sooo, I am only 5 clues behind (Moni posted clue 7 today). Oh, yes, guess I should mention that I am talking about the Slow Bee Mystery Shawl. I don't yet have a picture of it as it is rather difficult to lay out but I may try and get one this weekend. I am not sure why they call this a Slow Bee Shawl. I figured they would be small clues for those of us whose life interferes with our knitting but .... Last night it took me nearly an hour to knit just 3 rows! And those were rows without beads. At the end of clue 2, there are already 347 stitches per row and this increases by 12 every 4th row! I am scared to figure out what the count is for the end of clue 7 and I am hearing rumors that there are 12 clues in all! Oh lordy, what have I got myself into? On a positive note, it is going to be absolutely stunning when it is done. I am using a pale gray laceweight (might be cobweb, actually) by Lane Borgosesia and putting on clear, silver lined beads. They look like little raindrops suspended in the shawl.

Although I have not been making much progress on my shawl, I have been busy. Not only did I take my mule packing course, but I helped out at another combined driving event this past weekend and I have been making lots of hats! Can't remember how many I have finished exactly but I think I have given Kristy eight already with two more ready to go after I show them off to my Monday knitting group. Here are some pictures of the last ones.



This hat is called Foliage. It is done with bulky weight yarn on size 10 needles and only uses about 80 yards. I really like it although it is naturally much too warm to wear here in California. Terrible picture of me but I wanted to show you what the lace looks like when it is stretched out.



How do you like my two versions of the Fake Isle hat? Hat #2 is the negative of Hat #1. Number two is now finished but I don't have a photo yet. I used Cascade Yarns for these hats: Cascade Heathers in a light mauve and Cascade Paints for the darker color. Both skeins had 220 yards on them and I still have tons left of each. Will have to figure out what new pattern I can make with these yarns.

For now though, I think I am done with hats for a while. I really need to make some progress on my shawl and I am still waiting for Jen to send back the sample I sent her of the Marvelous Mitts so I can make the second one in time for the Stanislaus County Fair. I finished the first Ankle Biter sock and need to get to the second one before second sock syndrome sets in. I am putting it off at the moment since the sock uses the same needles as the Marvellous Mitt and I reaaallly don't need to be buying any more needles!

I guess that's all for now. This Sunday, I will be trekking over to Lavender Hollow Farm in Escalon and meeting some of my knitting friends for tea and scones followed by knitting under the "Chicken Tree". No, there are no chickens roosting in it now but I guess they used to. It is a lovely big fruitless mulberry kind of tree whose outer branches hang down to the ground leaving a lovely shaded alcove underneath. The folks at Lavender Hollow have furnished this with chairs and a couple of love seats and we have reserved it for the knitters on Sunday afternoon. Ummm, lovely location, good friends, knitting and fantabulous lavender lemonade! What could be better?

ETA: Woo hoo! I have finished the first 5 rows of Clue 3 already. The rows go so much quicker when it is straight knitting with no beads. The only problem is I have to get up in about 6 hours to go to work and I haven't been to sleep yet. I'm blaming it on the heat. It has nothing to do with the knitting .... really.

Mystery Yarn

I bought some yarn a couple of weeks ago that I do not know very much about other than the fact that it is soft and very beautiful. Here is a picture of the two skeins that I purchased.



Isn't it gorgeous? I do have to admit that I do know a little about the yarn, just not the yardage or what might be blended with the main fiber. Can't remember, did I tell you about the Packing Class I was taking? as in mule packing? like in the old westerns? Anyway, it was a great class and, while I did not get to go on a trail ride with a pack string since I no longer own a horse, I can tie a pretty mean box hitch! Anyway, one of the classes was about dealing with other folks we might find on the trail. We had a backpacker talk to us about his perception of horses on the trail and then we met this fine fellow.



His name is Rubicon and he is a 3 yr old male llama. His owner, Lora Crawford, brought him along to tell us about using llamas as pack animals. Rubicon has never been out as a pack animal but he did condescend to wear his training saddle to show us how it fit.



Notice the mini van behind him? That is how he travels. I had the privilege of playing with Ruby while Lora answered numerous questions from the class and when it was time for him to go home, I got to load him. Just took him to the open door, told him to get in and voila! Up he stepped, bending his head down low and he was set. He travels in the back with no problems at all. Lora had just got back from a show in southern California the day before and they went in the mini van. Would love to see the looks they get on the highway.

Finally, I just have to show you his beautiful face. Don't you just love those eyebrows? That is Bernadette in the picture with him. She was a classmate of mine and it is her camera that provided these pictures.



Oh yeah, this post started out to be about the yarn, didn't it? Well, a couple of days after meeting Lora and Rubicon, I travelled down to her ranch in Turlock. Lora has 40 llamas there! The little guys who were 6 months old were just adorable! Anyway, each year she shears her llamas and sends the fleece off to a co-op who then combines the colors with fleeces from other llama ranches and spins it up. Then, after paying many dollars, she gets the yarn back in equal proportions to the amount of fleece she sent. Unfortunately, she doesn't know anything about yarn. She thinks it might be combined with another fiber to give it more elasticity but she doesn't know what and she doesn't know how much yardage is in a skein. Oh well, it will be an adventure to knit with it and see what I come up with. And, after all, we do want to support our local farmers, don't we?

And the winner is .... !

This is about to be the world's shortest blogpost since I have been up 22 hours already but I did promise to do the drawing on May 31 so here goes. After entering all the comment leavers (is that a word?) into a spreadsheet and using a random number generator plucked randomly off the web, the winner is .... Danielle!!! also known on her blog as GrannyDani. Danielle, please drop me a line at stlwatrs "at" hotmail "dot" com. You know the drill, replace the words in parentheses with the appropriate symbols. You now have your choice of either Mountain Colors Bearfoot, Muskat mercerized cotton or a skein of Lane Borgosesia Cashwool. Let me know which one you want and how we can connect and I will be glad to get that out to you.

Thank you everyone for not only leaving comments on my blog but for doing such a good job on the Hat Quest. We already have over 70 hats!! We are going to make the goal for sure. That is just too cool!

G'night for now. More to report soon, just need to get some pics for the post.

Finally back online!

Isn't it amazing how addictive the online community is? I was without a modem from Thursday till Tuesday and it made me nuts! How was I supposed to check up on the progress on Kristy's Hat Quest on Ravelry? Who posted a comment on my blog to enter the drawing? What was the Yarn Harlot up to? I am pretty sure I used to have a life once upon a time. When did I find time to watch TV? read books? clean house? (well, I never was much good at that one) I do still find time to talk to my daughter but that is mostly on the computer since she is in New Jersey. Who would ever have thought that we could communicate so easily with people all over the world who come together to discuss a common interest and help out friends in need? It is truly amazing!

I have slowed down somewhat on my hat knitting. Number 7 is just about in the bag and I am taking a short break to work on my true love, lace! Finally finished Clue 1 of the Slow Bee Mystery Shawl. I have no idea why it is called Slow Bee since the clues come out once a week and there is no hope in h--- that I can keep up but it is oh, so gorgeous. Don't yet have any pictures as I don't have a long enough cable on my circular needles to be able to spread it out but if you go take a look at the Ravelry group Slow Bee Mystery you can see some of the projects being shared there. I am doing mine in Lane Borgosesia Cashwool in a pale grey with silver lined beads. It is going to be stunning! I am just going to have to figure out somewhere posh to show it off. LOL

Have some other fun stuff I was doing yesterday but I hope to be able to get a picture or two to go with it so I will leave that for a later post. In the meantime, here are some of the hats I have done for Kristy's Hat Quest so far.


A simple 3 x 2 rib done on size 10 1/2 needles. I think the yarn is Teseo by di Ve. (I am so bad about keeping track of basic stuff like that.)



This purple and white yarn was part of a stash inherited by a friend of mine. She offered it to me and I decided to make a basketweave hat out of it. Just made the pattern up as I went along. If I remember correctly, it started out as k6,p6 for 6 rows and then reversed. Isn't it funny how the whole look of the striping changes when there are less stitches in the round?



I cheated on this one. This is a hat I knitted up last year just to try out the stitch. Once again, my memory isn't so good but I am pretty sure it is Elizabeth Zimmerman's Watch Cap in the Prime Rib or Brioche stitch. Amazingly(if I followed the directions) there are only 36 stitches cast on for this hat!



Last picture for now. I have no idea where I got this yarn or why since it is certainly not my normal cup of tea. However, it makes for a pretty cute hat! Colorful, at least.

Happy knitting all and don't forget to enter the drawing for the Mountain Colors Bearfoot or Muskat cotton by leaving a comment before May 30. I will draw on May 31, hopefully before I head off to an afternoon wedding. Talk to you soon.

The Quest is On!!

Wow, where does the time go? I cannot believe how much has happened since my last post just two short weeks ago. Remember me mentioning Kristy's plan to take hats to a Ukrainian orphanage? Well,things are spreading like wildfire. The quest is officially now called Kristy's Hat Quest on Ravelry and we are getting new members all the time. The group has only been up a few days and already we have members from all over the world. Most of these people have never heard of Kristy (or me for that matter) and yet they are stepping up to the plate and helping out with this great cause. There is a yarn shop in Maine that has a group of knitters gathering hats, a knitter in Norway who is sending a boxful and a loom knitter in England who is planning on sending some hats. Hooks & Needles Yarn Shop in Oakdale is the official yarn store of the quest and Kaylee is offering discounts on yarn or shipping depending on whether or not you are local to the shop. Kristy's friend RC is sponsoring a contest which will give you one entry for each hat you donate and that drawing will be in September some time. In the meantime, I figured I should get in on the action so ... for all of you who are knitting for the Hat Quest, leave a comment here on the blog letting me know you are doing so and I will have a random drawing on May 31 to determine a winner. The winner will have their choice of either a skein of Mountain Colors Bearfoot

or 550 yds of Muskat,

a mercerized cotton in fingering weight. I realize neither of these yarns is a hat yarn but I am using all my hat yarn up at the moment. I hope this small token of my appreciation will make someone happy.

For those of you who might be wondering: the Marvellous Mitt had a chat with Stephanie's travelling sock while we were at the Maker Faire.


It decided that maybe flying isn't so bad after all. Last week, it winged its way to New Jersey for Jen to try on. We don't want a repeat of the sock debacle! Everything is copasetic so the Mitt will hopefully be on its way home soon. I will knit up a mate for it and, before they travel back to New Jersey, they are going to be my very first ever fair entry! I have already entered them in the Stanislaus County Fair Home Arts division so now I have to get them done! Nothing like a deadline to give you incentive. It will be fun to see how they are received.

Lots to report!

Well, I have no pictures for this blog entry but so many things have happened since I last posted I figured I better not wait any longer or I would forget all of it. The most important thing is my friend Kristy is back! Not only in blogland but actually in person. She came to Girls Night Out on Wednesday for the first time in a long time and brought with her an important project. She is going to blog about it in more detail but unfortunately her internet is screwing up at the moment so here are the highlights.

She needs 300 hats by Sept 20!! Yep, that is 300, you saw correctly. She is going to the Ukraine to work at an orphanage for special needs kids who have absolutely nothing of their own. When she first took on the hat challenge, she needed about 160 hats from size infant to big enough to fit a 15 yr old. Since then, she found out that another orphanage is closing and will be consolidated in to the one she is visiting so there will be about 300 kids in all. Can you help? I have already given her two and am working on a third. Hats don't take long and it is for a great cause. Her blog is OK What Next Check it out and help if you can, okay?

Yesterday, Kristy and I went to the Maker Faire in San Mateo for the express purpose of seeing the Yarn Harlot She, as usual, did an amazing job of amusing several hundred knitters while also giving us scientific data on how knitting is good for you, not only emotionally but mentally building your brain. How cool is that! We were lucky enough to be seated in the first row and were then the first ones in line for her book signing. I took along the Marvellous Mitt to meet the travelling sock. Kristy has the picture, I will have to get it from her so I can post it on here soon. Afterwards, we wandered about the faire and saw some weird and wonderful things. Wonderful would be the demonstration on chocolate making from Scharffen Berger Chocolate followed by free samples. Weird .... well there were too many things to list. Let's start with a mention of people in little ... I don't know what they were but it was a parade of little cupcakes in a variety of flavors including one with giant size prozacs all over the top. There was a huge version of the old Mousetrap game, a robotic giraffe, some of the most off the wall attire you have ever seen and we didn't even get in to most of the buildings to see what else was there. However we did find an independent yarn dyer, Kelly from Ceallach Dyes, who uses solar power to set her dyes. We also found Allison from Imagiknits, the folks from Noe Knits and a couple of other places that had lovely yarn and roving to pet and fondle. I refrained from buying all but some Malabrigo that I bought and gave to Kristy for her hat project.

Last weekend was a totally non-knitting weekend but I had a ball! I went down to Ram Tap in Madera where I volunteered at my first ever CDE. A CDE is a combined driving event (with horses, not cars) that is based on three day eventing which you may have run across if you watch the Summer Olympics. On the first day they do dressage, meaning they have to perform a prescribed set of moves that is judged on accuracy, obedience of the horses, quality of gaits,etc. On Saturday, which is the first day I got there, they do marathon. They had a 14 minute trot section which covered several kilometres, followed by a walk section and a 10 minute halt which included a vet check to make sure the horses weren't overstressed. Then it was on to the hazards section. That was the most fun of all for the spectators. They had to go up hill and down dale, through lettered gates in prescribed patterns, splash through water hazards, weave through poles with balloons flying through them and make sure they didn't go off course during the process. I was lucky enough to pull a job as a score runner which meant I got to see all the hazards and goings on. On the final day, since they can't jump like in regular 3 day events, they do a cones course, which means driving through an obstacle course of cones with balls set on top of them. If the balls got knocked down they received penalty points. The width of the path between the cones varied for each entry depending on how wide the wheelbase of their cart was. My job on that day was cone setter. It was pretty amazing to watch the drivers maneuver their teams through the cones as there was only about 10 cms clearance on each side of the carriage. I got to see such a wide variety of horses that weekend, from tiny minis to a four in hand of Welsh ponies, to Friesians, Arabs, Morgans, and some breeds I had never even heard of. All in all, I had a great time and I am sure I will volunteer again.

Check these out!

I am so excited about these Marvelous Mitts! They are just gorgeous and so much fun to knit. I knitted them on size 1 and 2 needles even though the pattern calls for size 0 and I think they are still a little too snug. Sooooo, before I start on the second one, this little fella is going to take a trip to New Jersey so Jen can decide whether or not I should make them a tad bigger. She wants them snug and believe me, they feel wonderful on but they are a little too hard to get on and off for my liking. I know they will stretch a little bit but ... A friend of mine asked what I would do if they are too small, rip them out? She was being sarcastic and was totally shocked when I replied "Absolutely!" I guess that is the difference between being a process knitter and a project knitter. I love knitting these mitts and it will not bother me a bit to tear them out if that is what I need to do in order for them to be right. The thought absolutely horrifies her, she wants to get the project done and move on to something else. Oh well, different strokes for different folks.

I have also finished this fair isle hat since the picture was taken. You might remember from the last post that I said I was making 4 of them for Penwick Stable so here is number 1.

What else is on the needles? Well, I started a Beaufort hat designed by Angela Hahn. It will be for the charity project for my MJC knitting class. There is a new cancer center in Turlock and they say that their patients would really appreciate some hats. The yarn is nice and soft and the pattern makes it an interesting knit for me. Will post some pictures as soon as I get a chance.

I also started, would you believe it, another pair of socks! These ones, however, will definitely not be knee socks. Hopefully, they will not take the four months that Jen's did! I received some lovely yarn from the Loopy Ewe in a package called Don't Be Blue. It was kind of a consolation package for not being able to get into the Loopy Ewe sock club. I won't post pictures of it yet since it was a surprise package and I don't know if everyone has received theirs yet. I will say that the yarn is just wonderful and I can't wait to get my tootsies into the socks that I will make from it.

Good grief! Where does the time go?

Okay, I knew it had been a while since I posted a blog but three weeks??? What's up with that? The sad thing is I really can't come up with any reason for it to have taken me so long except that I was trying really hard to come up with a finished object to post pictures of and ... Tah Dah!! They are finally done! Oh yeah, guess I better show you a picture to prove it.

Socks, actual, honest-to-god, finished (except, in the interest of total honesty, the bind off on one sock) knee high socks for Jen. The pattern is Loopy Laces, designed by Wendy Johnson of Wendy Knits fame, and I got it at the Loopy Ewe. That is also where I got the super cute sock blockers. Isn't the cutout of Loopy cute?

I know what you are thinking ... those socks look really cute on sock blockers but ... do they actually fit anybody? Yes, they do! Here they are, modeled by moi(aren't those pulled up jeans the classiest? LOL).
If the bindoff goes over my big calves, hopefully Jen will have no problem with them. I progressively changed needle sizes to enlarge the calf since I didn't want to mess up the pattern and you can see where I switched to the size 4 needles. The yarnovers really show up there, don't they? Oops, so do the needles on the right hand sock (my right, not yours). Anyway, the pattern was great fun even though it doesn't really show up with this lovely variegated yarn. The main point of it was to keep me from going nuts just knitting round and round and round .... well you get the point. I don't know the name of the actual yarn since I got it in my Coffee Swap package from Gil, my swap partner in England. She got it at a fibre show from an indie dyer. The only things I know for sure are that it is 100% merino and also definitely not superwash! Good thing Jen takes better care of her laundry than I do.

Believe it or not, I have actually been knitting on other projects as well. Here is Brad (Kaylee's son) modeling the finished Fair Isle hat.
As you can see, it stretched out some during blocking. I sent it off to Jen for design approval but it is definitely tooooo big. Everyone at Penwick Stables loved the design so she is sending it back and I will be knitting a smaller version in a variety of color combinations involving black, red and white which are the stable colors. It's a fun knit and will be a handy in-between kind of project.

I finished block #2 of the Great American Afghan but I don't seem to have a picture of it yet. Still haven't finished the duplicate stitch and the socks for block #1 and now it is almost time to start #3. Yikes! Will I ever catch up? Also need to get to work on the Marvelous Mitts as well as figuring out what to do with all that sock yarn I bought at Stitches. Oh well, for now I think it is time for bed. I have been out and about all day and I am still sleep deprived from the last couple of days. Talk to you again soon. Hopefully, it won't take 3 weeks the next time.

Celtic Adventures

As some of you may have realised, or having read my blog from the beginning already known, I love all things Celtic and I love Renaissance type fairs. Today, I got to combine those two loves when I attended the 22nd annual Sonora Celtic Festival. It seemed a little strange that it was called the 22nd Annual Sonora Fair since every time I had attended it in the past, it had been held in Angels Camp! However, it turns out that Sonora is where it started and Sonora is apparently where it will continue from this year forward.

The Mother Lode Fairgrounds is considerably smaller than the one in Angels Camp but that was kind of nice. It made for a more compact setup with a lot less walking involved. It will take some time before folks figure out where everything is but from my point of view, that is not all bad. I actually had no problem at all getting a seat at the Black Irish Band and Tempest shows and let me tell you, this is not often the case. I think there were 10 bands performing in all, as well as 3 pipe bands performing on the grounds. There were English Country Dancers (the Merrye Prankstyrs) and I also watched some Irish and Scottish Dancing. I always love wandering around and looking at the handmade items from soap, to pottery, to ironware made by Michael the Blacksmith. There were also kilts, plenty of Celtic inspired jewelry, t-shirts, swords and bucklers (for both grownup kids and littl'uns), and music playing everywhere. Of course, all the bands had their CDs for sale but there was also a fellow playing the hammered dulcimer and another playing an instrument I had never seen before. I should have asked what it was. He used a bow like a violin but it had wooden keys that he pressed to change chords as well. Very strange looking it was but a lovely mournful sound it produced.

And of course, there were plenty of re-enactors. There were several modern clans in attendance but there were also plenty of guilds demonstrating everything from royalty, to ironwork, making of shields, and everything else. The demonstration I always like is done by Alex. I wish I knew his last name and guild affiliation. He puts on a demo where he gets dressed bit by bit in everything a Scot would have worn back in the 16th century. He explains that the kilt (which we all see the warriors wearing in every Scottish melodrama) would never have been worn in war as it was far too valuable. Sheep were not yet in Scotland and wool was very dear. Not only that, it might take your woman a year or two to weave that piece of fabric and woe betide the man who came home with a sword thrust thru it. Alex is one of the few people who can take history and make it interesting without going over the top to dumb it down and make it into "entertainment". Whenever possible, I try to catch his demonstrations at the smaller fairs.

Well, that's all for now. I will try to get some knitting pictures up this week. I finished the Fair Isle hat and also block number two of the Great American Afghan. Both of them need blocking to finish them off and I need to send the hat to New Jersey to have Jen determine any fit problems before I make more in the stable colors. Bye for now.

As promised, goodies from Stitches

Never let it be said that I don't honor my promises. I might be a little late but it does eventually get done. I had a wonderful time at Stitches. If you have never been and you get the opportunity, you have to jump on it! This was my second time and it was just as good or better than my first. I took 3 classes: Forgotten Meshes with Ruth Lantz, Celtic Cables with Melissa Leapman, and Russian Style Continental Knitting with Galeena Khmerleva (sp?) I would highly recommend any one of these instructors. Ruth has a 3 hr class just on cast ons and another class on various methods of binding off. They are definitely on my agenda as possibles for next year. Melissa was marvelous despite being sick as a dog and I absolutely love homework assignment number 3. As a matter of fact, I think it is going to end up being a square in my Great American Afghan. There are a couple of squares in the pattern that I am not that fond of so this will be a great substitute. I will try to get a picture once I finish it and block it. Galeena was a wonderful surprise. I had heard she was good and she was but I hadn't heard what a sly sense of humor she has. She was wonderful and I would love to take a lace class from her.

Okay, okay! Enough with the typing and on to the pictures. Market preview on Thursday night cost me a lot of money. So what else is new? My first purchase was at Woolstock, the same place where I found my wonderful Noro Kureyon last year. This year I found a bag of 10 balls of Muskat. They tell me it is a cotton but I can't read the label. It is absolutely gorgeous and even though I have no idea what it will become, I simply had to have it.
Don't you agree? It's just luscious!

Then it was on to Blue Moon Fiber Arts. They had a huge line of people buying Socks that Rock and I had to jump on that bandwagon too. After all, everybody who is everybody has knit with Socks that Rock, haven't they? I ended up with a heavyweight skein in a colorway called Rare Gems. Apparently, Rare Gems are colorways that don't meet the approval of the dyer and will, therefore, never be repeated. She may not have liked it but I sure do. What do you think?


For someone who claims she is not a sock knitter, I seem to have ended up with a lot of sock yarn. Ergo: this yummy sock yarn from Full Thread Ahead. Actually, that is its name, "Yummy", and it is a special edition colorway available only at Stitches this year.

It suits its name, don't you think? It wasn't until Sunday that I decided what to do with it. I recently bought a pattern called Marvelous Mitts by Karendipity who is on Etsy It calls for a solid color yarn knit with a variegated yarn as background to make these gorgeous Fair Isle fingerless mitts. I finally decided that a Royal Blue Koigu would really make them pop! Am I right?

The acquisition of sock yarn continued! I attended the student banquet on Saturday night and came home with two skeins which were donated by the sponsors of Stitches. Here is Wool in the Woods Cherub in the colorway Birches. I saw a sample of it knitted up into a sock and it really does look like birchbark.

And then there is Mountain Colors Bearfoot in the color Sunburst. Definitely out of my normal color selection but absolutely gorgeous!


Finally on Sunday I returned one last time to the Beehive. I kept finding myself at this shop all through the show and I knew I had to make a purchase there. After all, the shop is in Victoria BC, the Handmaiden yarn is dyed in Vancouver and the Fleece Artist yarn is dyed in Nova Scotia. Have I mentioned before that I am a Canadian? You see why I absolutely had to have some yarn from this shop. Here is Casbah, an 80% merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon blend. It is soooooo soft. Once again, I don't know what it is going to be but it feels sooo good it deserves two pictures.

The second one is probably closest to the actual color.

Incredibly, I didn't buy a single book or pattern this year. I guess that is because I already have so much on my plate already. But watch out next year!

My Cocoa Swap package came!

My swap partner Michelle spoiled me rotten. Here is what I found waiting on the doorstep for me yesterday. The first thing I saw when I opened the box was a sock pattern called Butterflies & Blossoms. It reminds me very much of spring. How did my partner know I just bought a whole lot of sock yarn at Stitches? Here is everything as it came out of the box. I was too excited to take pictures systematically as I opened things.

Can you see my new buddy Blue Beard? Here's a better picture of him sitting with my new hot chocolate mug.
Isn't he adorable? I just love him and so does everybody at Hooks & Needles Yarn Shop. Michelle also sent me gorgeous stitch markers and a nice spring like note card.

There was lots of hot chocolate, several flavors from Hershey and a can of Green & Black Organic Hot Chocolate that is made from bittersweet chocolate. I am really looking forward to trying that one.

I love wolves and here they are on a dark chocolate bar with cranberries and almonds, two of my favorites. There was also a very cute nail file.

And last, but by no means least, were the knitting goodies.

A cute little lamb measuring tape, Chibis (always very useful and I didn't have this size), stitch markers and ... Cherry Tree Hill Yarn in the absolute perfect colors for me! There was a lot of Cherry Tree Hill at Stitches but I didn't buy any. Maybe fate was trying to tell me I already had some coming. Thank you so much Michelle. This was an absolutely fabulous swap package. I hope your swap pal spoiled you rotten too.

Off to Stitches!

I can't believe it is finally here. Didn't sleep worth a darn last night worrying about whether I packed everything I needed for class and clothes. Got the car filled up, washed (it is now raining of course!), went to the laundromat to dry my clothes since my dryer decided that heat was an unnecessary extravagance and then went off to Girls Night Out to sort out my knitting bag, work on GAA and on the socks. Oh yes, I also made sure that my neighbor knows I am expecting my swap package so it won't have to sit on my porch and wait for me to come home.

I did promise to post pictures of Harry and also the wristwarmers so, better late than never, here they are.

Here is Harry holding the bag containing Emily's fox stitchmarkers.
and here's a picture of him all wide-eyed in his new home in Toronto. I hope he is staying warm!

Unfortunately, you can't see the Celtic knot on the picture of the wristwarmers. I guess I am going to have to knit a solid color pair so you can see the details.
Jen says she loves them and so does everyone else who has seen them. Hope they aren't getting any bright ideas that I might be making more to send back east!

Last but not least, here is the progress on the Great American Afghan, block #1. Already I am learning lots of new skills, not the least of which is duplicate stitch. By the time I finish all 20 letters (socks x 4) I should be an expert.

Okay, my snooze alarm has just gone off for the 3rd time so it is time to hit the shower and then hit the road. Hopefully, I will see some of you at Stitches. It is going to be a blast!

My swap partner got her package!

Was thrilled to receive a note from Emily today as she let me know she received her Mmm...Hot Cocoa swap package. Since I still haven't managed to post a picture of Harry, swing on over to her blog to check him out. She got a great picture of him and he is oh so cute even if I do say so myself.

Still waiting for my package :-( About a week and a half ago, my partner got in touch and said my buddy was almost finished but I haven't heard anything since. Hopefully he will arrive soon since I don't want him to have to wait on the porch while I am off at Stitches.

I am still working on the first square for the Great American Afghan Tink-a-long LOL the knitting itself went reasonably smoothly but duplicate stitch is something new to me and it is taking more concentration than expected. I only have 1 1/2 letters done with 18 1/2 more to go! Yikes. Will try to post a picture of the square when it is done. I am also working on Jen's socks. I have turned the heel on the second one and have two repeats of the pattern done on the leg. On the first one, I did 10 repeats on the leg, went up a needle size, did 5 more repeats and need to go up in needle size again to finish it off. It's a knee sock so the increase in needle size is to make it fit over the calf. Hope it works. At least I shouldn't suffer from second sock syndrome since they are both in progress at the same time, right?

Time to get to the laundry and do some housework. I spent the last two days in San Francisco and am heading to Stitches on Thursday so I suppose I should work part of the time even though this is my vacation week. Take care everyone, have a great week.

Ta da!

Well, it was supposed to be Ta Da! with pictures but the camera is not cooperating. Since my last post worrying about all the WIPs not making any progress, I have actually finished two, count 'em two, projects. Harry the Hedgehog went into the mail yesterday, heading for a climate completely foreign to him. Snow is not something we find down here although it is not all that far away. On the same day I completed Harry, I also completed Jen's wristwarmers. They too went in the mail yesterday, along with a bunch of horse stuff, clothes etc to the tune of 40 pounds!! Yikes, I knew that box was heavy but ... I mailed two items yesterday and it cost me over $60. Oh well, job security, right?

Those two items were both finished on Thursday so on Friday I got brave and ripped out about 15 rows on the sock with the too short gusset. Got the gusset finished yesterday and started the short rows this morning to turn the heel but I have mangled something, not sure what. My plan for today is to figure out the problem, fix it, then finish at least as far as the heel flap before switching over to the first square of the Great American Afghan. Yessss, you knew I would have to join in on that as well, didn't you? For right now, I am watching the store for Kaylee while she attends her son's soccer game. Time to get to work. Hopefully, I will be able to update this post with pictures later today once Kaylee arrives. Have a great weekend!

WIPs, WIPs and more WIPs

And not a finished object in sight, sigh.... I decided it was time to take stock of just what I had on the needles and to try to figure out just why I wasn't making any progress on anything. Of course, the fact that I was sick for nearly 3 weeks and that work has been crazy since before Christmas might have something to do with it but I think the following pictures might be more to the truth of it.

First off, I have Jen's socks The pattern is Loopy Laces designed by Wendy Johnson and the yarn is from the Coffee Swap 3 package I got from Gil This particular sock is waiting for a needle that I ordered from KnitPicks on a friends order. The order seems to be lost so currently the sock is in limbo. Why am I waiting on another needle? I wanted to do knee socks so I needed to increase the diameter of the sock in order to fit over the calf. I didn't want to change the pattern so ... Larger needle, larger diameter, right? Hopefully it will work out. The second sock is also in limbo at the moment because I got over cocky and figured I could knit while watching TV. I did the increases for the gusset but when I looked at the pattern again for the heel turn directions I discovered I had increased on every row instead of every other row for the gusset. Haven't yet been brave enough to just rip back to the appropriate spot and I am too lazy to tink back that many rows. Jen just may get these socks sometime in July at this rate. Hopefully, she will think they were worth the wait.

My Spring Shawl Surprice designed by Lul is languishing on Clue 1 while others have already completed Clue 5. Why, you ask? I have a couple of errors in a complex row and all I need to do is tink back one whole row and start over but there are a few other projects that have taken priority. Not to worry, I will eventually get back to it but for my current lace fix there is ....

Secret of the Stole II. I thought I was going to keep up on this one. I was actually several rows in to Clue 2 when I discover a dropped stitch about 10 rows back. Kaylee from Hooks and Needles Yarn Shop is convinced I can just drop down a section of stitches and reknit that section back up again. I haven't felt clearheaded enough to do that yet so this project sits in timeout as well. (Did I mention I have been working 10 hour days and that my day starts at 1 am? That explains the lack of clearheadedness if you know what I mean.)

The project voted most likely to actually reach the finished state sometime in the near future is a pair of wristwarmers for Jen. In fact, she was asking about a projected finish date when I talked to her yesterday since "my arms are cold out here Mom!" You can't really see the details in the picture due to a combination of flash and the color pattern but there is a lovely Celtic knot on the back of the wrist. The second one is now several rows farther along than shown in the picture. I think I am about halfway through the knot. Since I have a limited amount of this yarn, I am waiting to see how the second one turns out before finishing off the first one. Thank goodness for KnitPicks options. I can just leave the first one on the cable while using the size 4 tips for the second project.

Oops, can't forget Harry the Hedgehog. He is for my Cocoa Swap partner. We have to make a Winter Blah Buster Buddy for our partner and I think he will fill the bill. He has been the quickest project so far. I started him last Tuesday and felted him last night. Now my only worry is whether he will dry in time to be stuffed and mailed off next week.

Then there is Jeannie. This is a gorgeous pattern but my lavender yarn just doesn't want to play. I have been having a terrible time finding out what this yarn wants to be. It is lovely to knit with but I just haven't found the right project. The unfortunate thing is that it is supposed to be for a birthday present the end of this month but I don't think it is going to happen. Anyone have any suggestions? It is a lovely merino laceweight hand dyed by Royal Hare in Santa Rosa, CA.

This gorgeous Panda cotton is just waiting to be made into a herringbone dishcloth. Oh, and the Lily Chin Mock Cable scarf has been my in car project since last March. And there is the top down raglan I am supposed to be working on and .... Well, you get the picture. It is time to get my buns (or fingers I guess it should be) in gear and finish some of these darn works in progress. After all, Kaylee is starting a KAL for the Great American Afghan soon. I can't skip that bandwagon, can I? Hmm, I wonder what color scheme I should use ....