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On The Road Again

Sorry, no pictures with this entry.

I've had a job change recently and am now traveling a good bit for work and I'm not at home. I'm in Indianapolis, Indiana and I don't have my camera with me. I love the new job. I've taken a position with a company that I worked for in the past. I always liked working for this company and saw a job posting on their website that I thought was a good fit. I applied and was hired. Last week was my first week back and I felt like I had gone "home" (even though I wasn't home, I was in Philadelphia).

On the knitting side. I've been working on my Christmas grab bag gift and it is going well. I really am happy with the way it is turning out. Sorry, I won't be able to post pictures of it until after Christmas, so you have a long wait to see it. I am working on another pair of Wendy's toe-up socks that I'm making out of Austerman Step. The colorway is shades of brown and off white and I'm making these socks for DH. I also started a pair of Bayerische socks and only have the ribbing done on one of them. I'll post pictures when there is something to look at. I'm making them out of Louet Gems in cream that I purchased from the Loopy Ewe. You should check out their site sometime. They have great sock yarn that I don't see in the yarn shops that I visit. Their prices are reasonable and their shipping service is very fast. They always personalize your order and put in a nice personal note and some little freebies.

I had a nice surprise waiting for me when I arrive home last weekend. DD ordered a pair of handmade glass circular knitting needles and had them sent to my house for me. They are really lovely! I can't wait to knit with them. I'm thinking that a lace project will need to be started this weekend so that I can try them out. We saw these needles at MDSW but I didn't purchase a pair, I just coveted them. Now I have a pair of my very own.

DD's birthday was Monday and she, her hubby and the girls stopped over to visit. We went to the mountains for Memorial Day weekend (a yearly occurrence) and I stopped at Reiland's Farm and Shop to pick up some fiber as an addition to DD's birthday gift (see my post from May 07 for the rest of the birthday present details). DS turned 21 years old yesterday (yep, their birthday's are 2 days apart). He also received his birthday present from Reiland's. He was with me when I went to the shop and picked out some nice llama yarn spun from the fiber of Penny and Danaka. I love the fact that you get to know the name of the llama that gave up their fiber for your knitting pleasure. He has enough off white llama to make a vest.

Happy Birthday DD and DS!!

It was a GREAT weekend!

This past weekend my sister, daughter and I went to Maryland Sheep and Wool. It was absolutely great! The weather was perfect, it got a bit cool in the afternoon but it was dry.

(Please feel free to click on any of the pictures for a closer look.)

My sister picked me up Friday and when she arrived she had a surprise gift for me. Nope, it wasn't my birthday or any other occasion for a gift, it was a totally impromptu gift (my favorite kind).

Here is what she brought me. I think he is absolutely adorable!

It's a wall plaque and was the perfect thing to start off the weekend. I decided that it needed to head to Maryland with us. We left my house and picked up my daughter then headed south. When we got into our hotel room we found a place of prominence for our mascot.

On Saturday morning we went over to West Friendship to the Howard County Fairground. We got to the festival sometime around 9:30. It's amazing how many people have a fondness for fiber. The parking lot was filling quickly when we arrived, but there seemed to be plenty of available parking. The people who run the festival certainly seem to have their act together when it comes to handling hordes of people.
There were plenty of vendors and we spent the day browsing all of the fabulous fiber, yarn and everything else. I picked up some fiber for spinning. I bought 4 ounces of a lovely sea foam colored wool, silk and angora blend. I'd love to spin this to a lace weight yarn and knit a shawl.

I bought 2 pounds of a wool/silk roving in a grape, blue, gray colorway that I am going to split with my dd; a pound for each of us. Oh, what is dd going to do with a pound of roving? I did my birthday shopping for her while we were at MDSW and she has a new Ashford Kiwi on which she can learn to spin. Happy Birthday DD!!! Her birthday is at the end of the month and I thought this would be a great way to usher in a new decade for her. I bought some sock yarn for the stash (I know, sock yarn doesn't count as stash) and 4 balls of Jameison Cob Web weight wool in and off white color. It was a great day for a bunch of fiber enthusiasts!! Next year we have to figure out how to get Em to come with us!

DH and I went to the mountains the weekend before MDSW and DD and her girls came up to join us on Saturday. I got a good bit of spinning done on Saturday. I plyed 620 yards of the Red Swirl Colonial roving that I picked up a while ago.

It looks like a fingering weight yarn. I still have another 1/2 a pound to spin. I think it might have to be used to make a vest.

DD and I got some knitting done in the evening. I finished knitting my Early Spring socks that I made out of Crystal Palace Panda Cotton in Periwinkle.

Pap-Pap took Anna outside to swing for a while. It was a bit chilly out on Saturday for Claire to play outside.

On Sunday it was warmer out, thee weather was gorgeous, and we went for a walk to a place where they are digging for fill. There were a lot of rocks to climb on!!

We all hung out for a while to enjoy the nice weather......

Then we packed up and left for home.

A good time was had by all!

You've Got to Watch This

We were watching PBS a while back and saw this on Nature. I thought it was pretty amazing and hilarious. I found this video of the PBS Nature show on You Tube and thought I'd share. Enjoy !



How did you like the Flamingo Mating Dance?

On the knitting front ...
I'm still working on the socks I started last week. I ran into a little problem with them. I never swatch socks and when I tried one almost finished sock on, it was too tight. I frogged it and started over on a slightly larger sock. I should have known better. They are Jaywalkers and the pattern is stated that they are not as stretchy as other patterns. I just look at it this way, I get twice as much knitting pleasure from my yarn.

My yarn for my Christmas grab bag gift arrived today. I can't wait to get started!

He Did It!

My son finished his first ever sock! It took him a long while but he stuck to it and finished it. The pattern is from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks, Simple Ribbed Socks, and the yarn is Lorna Laces Shephard Sock. ...Now all he needs is another sock to go along with it and he'll have a pair.

DD and her hubby purchsed a new, new to them anyhow, house yesterday. It's an older home with a lot a character and a lot more room than their current home.

They seem pretty nervously excited about it (and I'm excited for them) They've listed their current home and hopefully it won't take long to sell. I'll keep my fingers crossed for them.

The house needs some work but it's not nearly as rough as our house was when we moved into it. It's a structurly sound house with lots of space and a large yard for the girls to play in. It's close to a park, schools and a library and is on a cul-de-sac so there won't be much traffic whizing past the house. I guess people in our family don't have a problem with taking an older home and fixing it up. Remodeling must be in our blood. I also think that I have some patio furniture that would be great on that porch!

I went to visit my sister yesterday and took her a belated Birthday present, more sock yarn and a few of other sock knitting related items. She is on her second pair of socks and they look great! I've been enticing her with sock yarn and I think the sock addiction is taking hold.
I hope she can go to Knitter's Fantasy with my daughter and me in April, I think it will be another great chance to inhance the stash (I'm sure we will be able to find sock yarn there).

The sun is shinning, the birds are singing and I can hear children riding big wheels down the street (I think it's big wheels, do kids still ride those?) I think I'll go outside and enjoy some fresh air.

If you're reading this, then I'm a real person...

I logged in to Blogger to catch you up on what has been going went on in February and noticed a big red Warning on the top of the page. My blog has been locked by Blogger's spam-prevention robots. I'll be able to publish this post when/if my blog is unlocked and the kind people at Blogger have decided that I'm a real person. Ya gotta love Internet related spam ... spam e-mails (I really don't have any use for Vi@gra or Ci@llis, don't care if they are giving it away, I still don't want any), spam comments, spam,spam,spam,spam and eggs!

Back to the subject at hand. When I last visited here, I mentioned that I was ready to steek the two Norweigan sweaters that I was (notice the was) knitting for my Granddaughters. Well, I steeked! ... and I sewed the sleeves in, knit the neck band and button bands and all of the other finishing stuff that needed done. The girls and their parents came over for dinner on the Sunday after Valentine's day and I gave the girls their sweaters.

Here are my 2 cuties modeling their new sweaters. It's really a blast to have little granddaughters to make cute things for! ... and it's really a blast to have grandchildren, period!
The steeking wasn't nearly as scary to do as it was thinking about. You just have to make sure that you don't cut through the machine stitching. I loved making these sweaters this way and would do it again. ...But, the next time that I decide to make matching sweaters, I hope I pick a less time intensive pattern. My DH kept telling me that the girls would be married before their sweaters were done. Heck, they aren't even engaged yet!

On February 10th DD, a very good friend of mine, and I went to Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet. It was a blast! I love looking at all of the things that the vendors bring, adding to my stash, and being in good company. The friend of mine who came with me is someone that I spent a great deal of time with in Jr. High School (back then we called it Junior High School, not Middle School) and through our High School years. After High School our lives went in different directions and we lost track of each other for many years. We ran into each other a few days before Pgh K and C (at a funeral, not a good venue for catching up on too many years) we swapped contact information and made arrangements to go to Pgh K and C. She met me at my house that morning and I drove the hour to our destination. I could hardly drive for all the talking we were doing. It was hard to pay attention to the road, not to mention that I had no idea where I was going while trying to cram 30 years into an hour. Sometimes, after a long time of not seeing a childhood friend, when you see each other you don't have much to talk about, sorta like time has made you strangers ... this was definately NOT the case. It just felt (to me, anyhow) like we were still back in High School. Time had passed, but the friendship still remains. .... Besides, we're both knitters! DD said that it was fun to be around us and watch us try to catch up with each other.

I finally finished my Icarus shawl. I don't remember when I started it but I know it was on the needles on July 4th, 2006. I had been kinda picking at it now and then with no real deadline planned.
It doesn't look very good with my black, red and gold skirt that I have on in the picture but that's what I had on for church today and when we got home I got DH to take a picture of Icarus for me. This was the first lace weight yarn that I've used. I guess I knit lace before since the Christening gown (see Flicker badge in the side bar) was 27 inches of lace for the skirt. The lace weight yarn took a bit of getting used to and I used Addi Turbo size 3 needles. They seemed to be not quite pointy enough to do the yarn manipulations. I'm going to have to give the new Addi Lace needles a try sometime. I've picked up a set of Knit Picks Options and the points on them may be better to use for lace knitting. I bought 2 hanks of Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud and used them to make Icarus. This is a lovely yarn for this pattern. It didn't look like much while I was knitting it but when I blocked it... wow! Everything fell into place and the design popped out! I was truly impressed. I bought the yarn that I used a long time ago and when I was getting to the end I really began to wonder what I would run out of first, pattern or yarn. I knew that getting more of the same yarn in the same dye lot would be impossible since I didn't have that ball band to let me know what the dye lot was. Casting off had me watching the yarn disappear after every stitch. When I was done, I had this much yarn left.... Whew! That was close!

DH and I went up to the mountains last weekend. There was18 inches of snow up there! We kinda knew what we were getting into before we left. You don't go north of Interstate 80 in February without watching the weather reports. We got to the cabin at 6:30 PM and spent the next hour shoveling out the driveway so that we could get the truck close enough to unpack. There were many inches of snow, then a layer of icy crust and then another 5 inches of snow on top of that. It was funny to try to walk. Sometimes I would be able to actually stay on top of the icy crust and not sink to the ground, other times... Ya just never knew what would happen when you tried to take a step.
DH shoveled a path to the wood pile and the privy. We played cards listened to the radio (no TV at the camp, and that's not a bad thing) and I got some knitting done.

On Sat. morning we went out to get water (there's no running water at the camp either, hence the title "camp" and the need for a privy) and it was very icy at the spring. The water was running though, which was a very good thing! It was beautiful with the sun shinning on the snow.

I worked on these socks while we were in the mountains for the weekend. They were made using Wendy's generic Toe up pattern ( I really like this pattern, you've gotta check it out!) I used a skein of Austerman's Step, mit Aloe Vera und Johoba, on size one Knit Picks dpn. They were a really fast knit. I finished them Thursday evening and DH wore them to work on Friday. He really seems to like his hand knit socks! I think it's really cute!

Since DH's socks are finished, I decided to start these......

The yarn is also Austerman's Step and the colorway is from a very pale green to a mossy green to a brighter minty green with little purple flecks in it. The colorway is 07. I love the color of the yarn but don't think I have much to wear it with. That's okay, I'll wear them anyhow (or find a top to go with them). I've rented a movie for this evening and these should be perfect to go along with it.

Ready to Steek!

I haven't updated for a while so I thought I'd catch up. Not a lot has been going on. I figure it must be the good old winter slow time. I finally finished

knitting all of the sleeves, all 4 of them for the Norwegian sweaters that I've been knitting for my grand daughters. I have the ends woven in on all but 1 of the sleeves. I'm planning to have them finished for Valentine's Day. That gives me a date to shoot for. This is the last picture I'll take of the sweaters before I steek them. I've never done this before and I have to admit, It REALLY makes me nervous to think about taking scissors to them. I keep telling myself the I really don't have a choice if I ever hope to see the sweaters on the girls. Sorry for the dark pictures but I had to take them inside at night. There's not a lot of daylight around here after I get home from work.

I've been working on my Icarus shawl and am on the last half of the last chart. It shouldn't take too much time to finish it off. Since knitted lace doesn't look like much till it's blocked, I'll take pictures and post them when I'm done.


I also finished a pair of socks using Knit Picks Simple Stripes and Wendy's generic toe up sock pattern. I really like toe up socks better than top down. It took me a while to get the short rows right and Wendy's new detailed directions are great. They describe the short rows very clearly! Knitting socks with this pattern seemed to go really qickly. I was able to do a sock in about 2 or 3 evenings after work. Yea, working does bit into your knitting time but it also helps to fund the habit. I love this colorway, I'd tell you the name of it but I can't find the yarn band and I couldn't find the same yarn on Knit Picks site. I think these socks will look good with jeans.

DH and I went to the mountains, Tionesta, a couple of weekends ago and of course I
visited the
Reiland Farm and Shoppe. I picked up some wool/mohair roving for my sister-in-law to try. She has a spinning wheel and hasn't been having a lot of luck spinning. This is the same roving I used when I learned to spin and I thought the my sister-in-law might have an easier time spinning with it. I also found some 100% mohair pencil roving while I was there and picked up some to try spinning lace weight yarn. We'll see how it goes, I'll be sure to let you know. I'd love to knit a lace scarf out of handspun.

I've been spinning some Colonial Wool that I picked up a while back. The roving color
is called "Red Swirl" and has lots of colors in it. I have 1 bobin full at this point and have about 3/4 of a pound more to spin. Someday I'm going to have to knit something with my hand spun yarn. I don't have anything planned for it yet. If you have any suggestions I'd be happy to hear them.