Category: Knitting

Nothing To See Here…

Angie, move along. I’m just not posting any baby-knitting related photos. If you need something to do while you’re waiting for me to finish it, go here. My husband sent me this link, it’s a terrific time-waster. It also might be a little politically or socially incorrect at times, so I’m not going to take any responsibility for any of you who might be easily offended.

The Big Pink Thing that I can’t show photos of is coming along. It’s huge at this point. I have 512 stitches on the needles, and 20 rows left, then the bind off. Not only that, the rows increase in length from here on out. Terrific. Next time any one of you guys has a baby, you’re getting a gift card to Babies-R-Us.

Since I can’t show photos of what I’m knitting, you all get food. Here’s the sauerkraut in action. The second time around, we had it with pork chops and noodles. I soaked the kraut in water after rinsing well, and it was much less salty this time.

And here’s my breakfast today. I know you all are sitting on the edge of your chairs wondering what I have for breakfast. When I’m working, it’s two hard boiled eggs and a thing of yogurt. I can pack it up and take it with me, eating it later when I actually get to work. I am not a morning person (there’s a news flash for those of you in my family), so I have trouble eating anything until I’ve been up awhile. I’m not really a fully-functional human until about 10 AM, and some would argue not even then. My husband, a confirmed morning person, learned a long time ago not to shake me awake at 7 AM asking “honey, honey, it’s a beautiful day, do you want to get up and go do something??” Honey, honey, shake me again, you might lose an arm.

Ahem. Right. Breakfast. Here’s what I had.

This was actually yesterday, but you get the idea. Tea, in one of my favorite teapots, and toast with Nutella spread. Where has this stuff been all my life? This is actually a fancy-schmancy gourmet version that we got at the Pike’s Place market, but it’s the same thing. Costco now has Nutella in huge jars, so I should be set for awhile.

We’re off on another adventure soon. We are going to Puerto Vallarta tomorrow for a week, and since our flight leaves at some ungodly hour of the morning (see note above about me not being a morning person), my sweetiepie got us a hotel room close to the airport for tonight. Of course I have all the knitting lined up, and I do know where my sunglasses* are, but other than that I haven’t even started packing. I better get a move on. We’re taking the Mac Air, of course, so I might get to post while I’m there. I plan on doing very little except hanging out by the pool and knitting Big Pink.

Adios for now!

*I find it amusing that sunglass sales in the Pacific Northwest are actually rather high, considering how rarely the sun shines here. My theory is that we lose them during the long rainy stretches, so we buy a lot more than say, Floridians.

Year Of The Blog

I hear by declare this the Year Of The Blog. Don’t get me wrong, I love Ravelry, but one of its major impacts has  been a sharp decline in knit/fiber bloggers and blog posts. I can’t imagine the Internet without Ravelry, BUT. There are some big advantages of active, creative bloggers writing regularly. Having a relatively close group of blog friends is a little like having a small wine party or tea party in your living room, sharing knitting or spinning. Ravelry is more like a huge convention center full of knitters and spinners, all jumbled up and bumping into each other. I have also noted that forum threads tend to degenerate into nasty name-calling much more frequently than you’d ever see on a blog. Most of the Ravelers are very polite, friendly people, mind you, but even the most innocent sounding threads can take a nose-dive to drama in zero-to-sixty seconds flat. Sometimes I can see it coming, sometimes not. It’s a little like watching a car wreck.

Ahem. Anyway. I’m not about to give up Ravelry. But this is the year I’m going to try to blog more, and to try to comment more. There you have it. I don’t promise to blog every day, but I’m going to try to show up here more often.

A couple posts ago I promised you photos of knitting-related acquisitions, and a peek at what I got for Christmas. Here you go.

A Tom Bihn knitting bag! I’m so excited. I’ve wanted one of these forever. I actually bought this for myself with a little Christmas bonus I had. Note Big Pink peeking out. Here’s another look:

Big Pink removed so I don’t give anything away. This has lots of space, is sturdy, and you can customize it with a bunch of little bags that clip to the inside.

And why do you suppose I was shopping on the Tom Bihn website in the first place? Because this is what my sweetie pie got me for Christmas:

It’s a Mac Air! Oh my. I adore this. But I needed a case for it. Ergo Tom Bihn.

It’s perfect. It’s his Ristretto bag, and has a nice padded compartment for the laptop, and plenty of pockets and space for other stuff. I could even stuff a sock in progress in here for travel.

And just so I can show that I really do knit, here’s the dog mittens I mentioned in the prior post. In case you all forgot, I started these eons ago, dragged them out this fall, decided they were too small, and ripped half a mitten out. Here’s where I am.

I’m about half done with the first mitten (again). Just because I always get asked, the pattern is Dog Mittens, by Jorid Linvik. Here’s a Ravelry link, and here’s her pattern shop link.

So, there I go, making New Year’s Resolutions that I said I wasn’t going to do. What plans do you have for your blog this year?

New Year Fiber Resolutions

I hope your NYE was swell and fabulous! Ours certainly was. We had a little pre-dinner cocktail party in the lobby of the Westin Seattle while we were all (10 of us) waiting for our rooms. While we were there, we tried to scope out the best possible party to crash after dinner. The hotel lobby was jam packed with people coming and going, many with cases of booze, platters of delicious looking things, and coolers full of who-knows-what. It seems that this place is a happening joint on NYE. We are probably 8 blocks or so south of the Space Needle, and we all had high-floor rooms facing the Needle, important for the fireworks that took place later.

After we got settled into our rooms, we went across the street to the Icon Grill restaurant for a lovely dinner. The place was bustling, and nicely decorated for the holidays, adding to the festive spirit. After dinner, being the old farts wild partiers that we all are, we went back to our respective rooms with plans for naps and to meet at about 11PM for the fireworks show. The latter was pretty spectacular. At exactly midnight, the Space Needle lit up like a Roman candle for eight minutes, accompanied by an enthusiastic musical show. We had little food nibbles that everybody brought, along with a variety of sparkling beverages. We all managed to stay up and talk for another hour, then gave it up and called it done for the old year.

This morning we’re having breakfast up the street, then back home to get those black eyed peas done for luck.

Here are some photos from the evening:

Now for those resolutions. I’m terrible at NY resolutions. They don’t usually last a month around here. So I’m not doing any craft resolutions, except one. I’m going to try to do a new set of fiber-yarn goals at the beginning of each month. I did sign up for the 11 mittens in 2011 challenge on Ravelry, but I have no real illusions that this will last. My goals for January? Here they are:

Finish at least two spindle spinning projects that are languishing, a blue/black merino/bamboo blend that just needs plying, and some merino silk that has been on the spindle since last summer.

Finish the Big Pink Baby Thing.

Finish the pair of socks on the needles, an embarrassingly aged project.

Work on the True Blood Faery sweater. I’d like to finish the bodice section by the end of the month.

Finish the mittens (dog mittens) that have been on the needles since last year, and start the first pair for 2011.

There you go. Have a great weekend!

How Do You Know When It’s Done?

Sauerkraut, that is.

The correct answer, of course, is “when you have to hold your breath walking through the garage because of the stench”. It reached that point last week, but I put off dealing with it until today. It’s an icky, rainy day in the northwest, too nasty to do much else, so I figured I might as well put this in jars and in the refrigerator. At first I thought I’d put this up in quart jars, but it appears to be the wrong time of year to buy canning jars around here. Currently John is out foraging for a gallon glass jug, but here’s the interim solution:

I’m pretty sure that storing this stuff in plastic will doom the plastic containers to smell like sauerkraut forever, but so be it. I never really talked about what you do with this stuff once you get it in your crock. Periodically during the brining process, oh, about once a week when I remembered, I took the rock out, then scooped out some of the nasty liquid on top, along with whatever yucky stuff had started to grow, then the plate. I mixed the kraut up a bit, added a bit more fresh brine, mixed again, then washed the plate and the rock and replaced. I haven’t tasted it yet, since I’m a bit of a stickler about food poisoning, so I’ll plan on heating it up as I use it. It looks and smells like a fine batch of kraut, however. It’s just that a gallon or so of it is a bit overwhelming all at once. Tonight’s dinner is sausages and kraut, I’ll report back if we survive.

OK, John just sent me a photo from Target. John and Tar-zhay save the day!

On the knitting front, I’m still working on the Passionately Pink Surprise Baby Present. (I’m going to have to pick a name and stick to it at some point.) I better get on it, since the recipient was born earlier today! I have a new grand-niece, Rowan Annabelle! I don’t have a photo yet, but I hear tell she is gorgeous.

I hope everyone’s holiday season is going well. We had a fairly low key weekend, since I had to work. I was pretty grumpy about the whole thing, but to put a positive spin on it, at least I have a job and don’t have to live in a box under the bridge. Where the hell would I ever keep all the yarn?

We did have the annual Solstice friends and neighbors gathering this year. It was quite a festive event. I made cassoulet, which I’ve never done before. Rather than putting up a billion photos here, I’ll just link the Picasa photo album that John put together. Let’s just say that our coronaries all probably took a hit from the duck fat and sausage load.

Well, the guy with the kraut jar is home, so I’m off to finish that project. Next time, maybe some actual knitting!

Progress, I Guess…

Because I’m knitting a Startling Pink Secret Project which I can’t show photos of on the blog, I decided to drag out one of the UFO’s from my short list of remaining UFO projects. Here’s the original list of all of them that I put together earlier this year:

1) True Blood Faery sweater

2) Crazy King Cole Mohair thing, um, stole RIP

3) Wollmeise Squashed Frog Socks Finished

4) Grey Ribbed Peace Fleece Socks with red accents RIP

5) Frootloops Morning Glory Stole

6) Puppy Mittens

7) Evenstar Shawl

8 ) Baktus Shawlette Finished

9) Euroflax Linen Facecloth Finished

10) Spirit In The Sky Beret Finished

11) Startling Pink Secret Project (new)

12) Brown Sanguine Gryphon socks (relatively new)

Six projects remain. I should renumber them so the UFO’s are on the top of the list.

1) True Blood Faery sweater

2) Frootloops Morning Glory Stole

3) Puppy Mittens

4) Evenstar Shawl

5) Startling Pink Secret Project (new)

6) Brown Sanguine Gryphon socks (relatively new)

7) Crazy King Cole Mohair thing, um, stole RIP

8 ) Wollmeise Squashed Frog Socks Finished

9) Grey Ribbed Peace Fleece Socks with red accents RIP

10 ) Baktus Shawlette Finished

11) Euroflax Linen Facecloth Finished

12) Spirit In The Sky Beret Finished

There, that makes me happier. Anyway, what was I saying?? Oh, yes, knitting. I dragged out the Puppy Mittens.

These were originally intended to be John’s, a nice little cozy pair of mittens to wear at the dog park. I stuffed the whole mess into a bag last spring when I got tired of them. Here they are again.

I finally had to face the reason that they got stuffed into a bag and hidden away in my office.

I have rather skinny hands. John’s hands are relatively small for a guy, but not this small. Damn damn damn.

Out they came. Here they are, restarted on larger needles.

I should be able to tell for sure in another inch or so if they’ll fit. If not, they’ll be mine, and I’ll make him different mittens. I better get busy. It’s just damned cold and icky outside, and supposed to get colder yet as the week goes on. I’d be embarrassed to have to wear store-bought mittens.

Lookie Here!

It’s Knitting! On a knitting blog, no less. First up is the True Blood Faery Ring sweater. After the cable set-up dust-up, I’ve managed to get a few inches of that cable section done finally.

Sorry for the crappy photos. It would appear that we’ve entered the grey and gloomy season around here. Try clicking on them, but the lighting is just so lousy that it might not help. Notice that pesky seed stitch out there under the armpits, where it belongs.

The Major has more or less shamed me into hauling this out and working on it in earnest. She suggested that we ought to get our butts in gear and finish these, and I think she outranks me, so here we go. She has the body and part of both sleeves done, and if she keeps it up will be done with hers by Thanksgiving, if not sooner. I also pulled out the buttons to show someone this past week, and that got me all excited about this project again. Here they are, in case you forgot.

Yes, they really do have little fairies on them. I think I spent more on the buttons than I did on the yarn.

Here’s the sock in progress.

That’s the first of the pair, the yarn is Sanguine Gryphon Little Traveller yarn, the color name is Penny Pot, NJ.

I also forgot to show you a shopping acquisition from this month. This was my birthday present to myself. During the birthday trip to Seattle, we took the ferry across to Bainbridge Island for a day, and had lunch and did a little window shopping. There is a nice little yarn store there, Churchmouse Yarns, and they happen to be one of the handful of shops that is carrying Jared Flood’s Shelter yarn. I’ve been drooling over photos of it since it appeared in stores, but wasn’t about to plunk down a lot of cash for it until I could see it, since it’s fairly spendy. Well, I saw, I squooshed, then I plunked.

Oh yeah. It really is that pretty. I bought four skeins of this in Button Jar (isn’t that a great name?), and the pattern for Terra. Now I just need to finish the other two shawls in the UFO pile before I can cast on for this.

I’m off to take care of some business. I’m back to work tomorrow for a seven day stretch, so who knows how much knitting or blogging might happen. We’ll see!

FO!

This was absolutely the easiest FO in the world! All I had to do was let Dorothy and her husband stay here one night earlier this summer. As a “hostess” gift, she brought this. I’ve been quite remiss in posting about it!

Isn’t that gorgeous? The photo does not do justice to Dorothy’s perfect stitches. Click on it to get a better look. Of course the color is all off. It’s really more of a wine-colored red, not as orangey red as that looks on my monitor. The shawl pattern is Hidcote Garden Shawl, by Miriam Felton, the yarn is an unknown lace from Dorothy’s stash. Whatever it is, I adore it. Thanks, Dorothy! I like the pattern enough that I could see knitting one myself. Though maybe my plan should be to pack up all the lace yarn, send it to Dorothy, and then just invite her down for weekend visits.

Here’s another FO, this time my own. No, it’s not knitting. I’m still working on all the same stuff. Though I have actually been very slowly making progress on that True Blood Faery albatross. I can actually almost see little cables starting to appear, it just doesn’t look like it in a photo. No, this FO is of the spinning variety.

The fiber is from Spunky Eclectic, a merino-tencel blend. The official color name was “Walking on the Sun”. Every time I would spin, all I could think about was that goofy 80’s song “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina & the Waves. I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I decided to change it. I think it looks like a Tequila Sunrise, and I like that song much better, so there you have it. You have to put up with some crappy ads to get to that song by the way, but it’s worth it to watch Glenn Frey sing for a few minutes. Ahem. Yes, well, back to the fiber. It’s spindle-spun, on my Bosworth midi spindle. It’s not washed yet, but I figured I better get a photo up while I was thinking about it.

I ran across this rather grisly news story when bouncing around the internet this week. This is enough to get me to make plans to do a major dredging in the house. We did just that a few years back, hauling carloads of stuff to Goodwill and the local garbage dump. Somehow it always finds its way back in, though. We’re getting to that age where the reality is that someday in the not-too distant future we’ll need and want to downsize to a smaller place. I’m thinking it would be less painful to get rid of stuff in small increments rather than all at once when we are ready  to move. Don’t worry, I’m not starting with the fiber and yarn stash just yet, though. I’m not that crazy.

Next time, I promise a photo or two of my own knitting!

Why Yes,

I am a bit of an obsessive-compulsive nerd. Why do you ask?? Click on those to get a better close-up idea of the nerdiness.

I’m at the point in the knitting of the True Blood Albatross Faery Ring sweater where I get to stop knitting mindless stockinette and start the cable charts for the bodice. There are four different cable charts, so I got out graph paper and pencil this morning and came up with this to help keep track of which cable goes where. Here’s the knitting so far.

The color’s really all wrong there. It’s not that pink, it’s more of a bloody red. I have two more rows of stockinette stitch, then I can set up the cables and go to town. This should be a lot more fun and less of an Albatross at this point.

I have one last photo from the Great Knitting Doctor Family Reunion & Train Trip of 2010. I mentioned that we found a yarn shop in Fergus Falls, MN. It was actually surprisingly well-stocked for a shop in a town that size.

I’m off to find the cable needle and my little box of stitch markers!

A Little Bit of Everything

First up, spinning!

Here are all the spindles in Spindle Jail. I finally came up with a way to store my spindles that keeps them safe from nosy cats. I actually had asked John to build me something to hang them, and he came home from Target with this.

It’s simply a wire mesh basket. I cut the price tag off, turned it upside down, and voilá, a Spindle Jail. Low tech, but it works. Smart man, that one. He came home with two of these, figuring I’d add to the collection at some point. Very smart man.

There’s been a lot of spinning going on for the Tour de Fleece.

And I’m still working on the never ending pile of Corriedale. In a moment of insanity, I bought 3 pounds of this stuff with the plan to make sweater yarn. I’m almost through the first pound. Since I plan to spin all the singles before I ply it, I needed to figure out some way to store the singles so I could reuse bobbins. I have a bunch of bobbins for my wheel, but not enough to keep spinning 3 pounds of wool. Bobbins are expensive, so I found these. Here they are in action.

Click on that last one to see how pretty my singles are!

Next up, knitting! Yes, I’m still knitting around here, though there’s been damn little of it since the Tour started. I actually finished something.

Project Details:

Started: Oh good grief. I’m pretty sure I didn’t record the date. I finished the last pair of socks in December of last year, for pete’s sake, so I probably started these right away. ETA: not true, apparently. According to Ravelry, I started these in September of 2009. Yup, here we are. I started a second pair, since the pair on the needles was on very sharp Signature dpns that I didn’t think would get through airport security. Incidentally, those were the only pair I knit on those needles. Unlike every other human being who has knit with the Signatures, I didn’t like them, and sold them to Major Knitter.

Finished: This past Thursday, the 15th.

Pattern: Same old pattern, same old plain socks.

Yarn: Wollmeise, purchased before the Wollmeise became really really famous. The color name is Löwenzahn, though John renamed this Squashed Frog. I like Squashed Frog better, since every time I type Löwenzahn, I have to do a Google search for how to do diacritical marks on a Mac.

Needles: 2.25mm Pony Pearl dpns

For: Me

What I Learned: Buy yarn when you see it. This stuff has gotten impossible to get. It is good sock yarn, but not worth stalking shop updates like a madwoman. I still have 3 skeins of this left, so I’m good for awhile. Maybe the furor will have died down by the time I’ve used all of it. It’s superwash wool, but has no nylon, so I added Wooly Nylon to the heels and toes for a little better wear.

For the record, that makes one more project done from the UFO pile. I was very transiently down to 4 projects. It’s back up to 5, since I have to have a sock going. Here’s the new one, started yesterday:

The yarn is from Sanguine Gryphon, her Little Traveller sock yarn. The color name is Penny Pot, NJ. This is really, really nice stuff. I (ahem) might have a few other skeins in the stash. The needles are new also. I caved and bought a set of the Blackthorn needles, size 2.oomm. So far I like them. They are wickedly sharp. That photo is a bit fuzzy, click on it to make it bigger (but just as fuzzy), or go to their website to look at them.

That’s enough for one day. I’m off to hang out with the spinning wheel.

UFO-WIP Progress

I’ve done a little more work on that UFO/WIP pile.

The whole pile, for your reference:

And The List:

1) True Blood Faery sweater

2) Crazy King Cole Mohair thing, um, stole RIP

3) Wollmeise Squashed Frog Socks

4) Grey Ribbed Peace Fleece Socks with red accents RIP

5) Frootloops Morning Glory Stole

6) Puppy Mittens

7) Evenstar Shawl

8 ) Baktus Shawlette Finished

9) Euroflax Linen Facecloth Finished

10) Spirit In The Sky Beret Finished

First up, #2 on the list.

This is really pretty stuff, but it just wasn’t working. The yarn is King Cole Luxury Mohair, color Biaritz, which is gorgeous. I started this a really loooooonggggg time ago, and just picked up needles and cast on for a garter stitch stole thing. This yarn deserves better, I just don’t know what. I do know that I have no plans to rip mohair anytime again in the near future. If it hadn’t have been 7AM, I’d have considered whiskey. I’m thinking that a feather and fan stole might show this yarn off to better advantage, but for now it’s back in the stash. RIP!

Next is some lovely Peace Fleece.

This was a misguided attempt to use leftovers. I had the Ukrainian Red leftover from a hat that I made a friend, and a couple of skeins of Negotiation Grey from John’s sweater. I decided I would make some heavy weight socks, with the red for cuffs, heels, and toes. I started the ribbing, and hated how it was working out, and it has been in the UFO pile for over two years. I pulled it out of the box yesterday and knit a row and gave up. It needs to be on smaller needles, and wasn’t working with a 2 by 2 rib. Then I tried to find the rest of the grey, and it’s disappeared into the stash somewhere. If you’ve seen my stash, you well know that this is a serious problem. There is no way I will ever find it.  The only way I ever find anything in my stash is if I put it into numbered boxes and record the item in my Mac Bento database. If I just jam something into a box to get it off the floor, thinking I’ll remember where it is, I am totally screwed.  So this one bit the dust as well. The red yarn is in a numbered box, and it’s recorded, so if I ever find the grey yarn, I might resurrect this. For now, it’s gone. RIP!

That leaves me with 5 active projects, which is a lot more manageable. I’d like to get one of those shawls off the list, and then I’ll be at the perfect WIP number: 1 sweater-like project, 1 sock project, 1 lace project, and 1 other small interesting project.

Have a happy Summer Solstice! It’s 51 degrees here, overcast and grey, and forecast to be drizzly all day. Ick. We might break out the gin and tonics tonight anyway, even if the weather’s not cooperating.

And one last item. I have been getting a ton of spam comments lately. My spam filter picks them up and puts them in a holding cell, and usually I scan through them to make sure a real comment wasn’t tagged by mistake. There were so many of them when I signed in this morning that I just deleted them. If you have left a real comment, and it’s not showing up, try again, or email me at loretteireneatcomcastdotnet to let me know.

And Another UFO Becomes an FO!

For those of you keeping track, I’m trying to whittle down the UFO pile into something more manageable this summer. Here’s a list of what I started with, and a photo or two of the whole pile.

1) True Blood Faery sweater

2) Crazy King Cole Mohair thing, um, stole

3) Wollmeise Squashed Frog Socks

4) Grey Ribbed Peace Fleece Socks with red accents

5) Frootloops Morning Glory Stole

6) Puppy Mittens

7) Evenstar Shawl

8 ) Baktus Shawlette

9) Euroflax Linen Facecloth

10) Spirit In The Sky Beret

I think that’s it. The crossed through stuff is finished finished finished. There are a couple of things in that mess that will eventually get frogged and repurposed, but I think eventually most of it will be finished finished finished as well.

And here’s the last finished finished finished thing:

Spirit In The Sky Beret

Project Details:

Started: Hmmm. This is the second go-around for this yarn. It started as a pair of socks way back when in 2007. I took it with me to a knitting retreat in Idaho, and left the second skein of yarn under the bed or something when I left. It hung around as a half-knit single sock for awhile, since I was pretty sure that as soon as I ripped it out that I’d find the other skein. I finally ripped and started this in April 2008.

Finished: Last week.

Pattern: Here.

Yarn: Sock Hop sock yarn, color Spirit In The Sky. One of my favorite oldies songs, by Norman Greenbaum. Of course you can’t get this anymore. If you could, I’d have finished the socks, now wouldn’t have I?

Needles: Size 3.0 double points

For: ?? It doesn’t quite fit me, and I’m just not a beret person, really. It’s a little small for me, and will probably fit a kid in the family. It depends on who gets here first to claim it.

What I learned: Keep track of your yarn while on vacation. I’d have knit this to fit me if I hadn’t been worrying about running out of yarn. The pattern is pretty easy, but I’d be a little nervous knitting it with just one skein of Koigu, which is what the pattern calls for. If you want a slouchier beret, you might need a little more yarn. I thought about doing stripes, but I like what the orange yarn does all by itself, so a kid hat it will be.

And just because I want to, here’s a pretty flower photo I snapped today.

And I can’t for the life of me figure out why that smiley thing is in front of the Baktus shawl instead of a number 8, but I can’t get rid of it, so I guess it stays.

ETA: I fixed the smiley face, thanks to Chris!  8)

Lunchtime Knitting

Just because I can.

This is another UFO out of that big UFO pile I showed you a couple weeks ago. It’s a washcloth, so you’d think it wouldn’t have taken me two years or more to finish the thing, wouldn’t you? I picked it out of the pile after the Baktus was finished as an easy one to get done. I’m on the last pattern repeat, then a simple garter border, and it’s done.

And done will be done, even if it’s only a washcloth.

By the way, John reminded me that I never shared our Williamsburg photos with you. He put together a Picasa photo album, if anybody is interested!

More Williamsburg!

We’re still here on vacation, and I’ve managed to take hundreds of photos. There is a ton of stuff to see and do here, and we’re making a grand attempt to take it all in. Today is our last full day here, then we drive back to the DC area for a day, then home.

I did manage to find the yarn shop, and even bought a couple of things. Now there’s a surprise!

I also found some lovely sheep. These are in Colonial Williamsburg. They keep them in the pastures around the old reconstructed town. They shear them every year, and you can buy their wool in the shops. John drew the line at me buying a fleece and trying to stuff it into the overhead bin on the plane, so I settled for some finished wool. I’ll show photos of the loot in a different post when I photograph them. The sheep are Leicester Longwool, an 18th century breed from England.

This next photo might be familiar to those of you in the medical profession who use digoxin in your practice. This stuff (foxglove) grows all over the place here.

The nice thing about having a timeshare is that we have a kitchen. Even I can get tired of eating out for every meal. We tend to have lunch out, then cook dinner at “home”. That way we can have wine with dinner and nobody has to be the designated driver. Here I am stirring the stew pot.

Notice that like any good Colonial woman, I’m doing two domestic chores at once.

Speaking of spinning, I found the weaving and spinning cottage in Williamsburg yesterday. John gets the award of the week for standing patiently while I took photos and asked the very knowledgeable women every question I could think of.

The last place we toured yesterday was the Decorative Arts Museum, which has a fabulous collection of Colonial (and some later periods) furniture, pottery, quilts, and other household decorative items. I could have spent days there alone. The museum is on the site of the former Public Hospital, which was an insane asylum in Colonial times. A corner of the museum has a display of some of the items from the hospital. Here is John, demonstrating that perhaps I have driven him crazy after all.

Today we take the ferry across the James to the Smithfield area. It’s supposed to be hot and humid. The weather here makes me appreciate the Pacific Northwest. If I don’t melt in the heat, I’ll be back again with more photos next time!

WIPs and UFOs in Abundance!

OK, I finally got all the WIPs and UFOs out and lined up for a photo shoot. Here’s a photo of the whole mess.

There are ten unfinished projects in that pile. Let me show you a photo of everything out of the bags.

This is rather unsettling for someone who insists that three WIPs is my comfort zone. I clearly need to get to work and get some weeding out done. Rather than overwhelm you with descriptions of all of these at once, I’ll do them one at a time.

First up is the Lacy Baktus.

I’m about half done with this. This is pretty much mindless knitting, as long as I remember to keep track of what row of the pattern I’m on. I started this one back in February. Let’s see how much of this I can get done between now and the next post, shall we?

Sunbreak

We’ve had another of those weird spring days here. Cold, pouring rain, grey, and then all of a sudden, bright and sunny. That didn’t last, but it got me outside with the camera to try to get a decent photo of the color of my Evenstar shawl. This will have to do, since it’s pouring rain again. At least it’s raining in the front yard. The sun is still shining in the back yard. Weird.

That’s the best it’s going to get. The inside photos of this color just look pale grey-blue. In real life, it’s a pale clear aquamarine color. The yarn is a cashmere silk 2-ply light laceweight from Colourmart, for those of you not keeping up.

Oh, good, now it’s a downpour out back too, that was worrying me.

I never did show any photos of our trip out to Whidbey Island for the spin-in and visit with Dorothy. Here are a couple of Deception Pass, probably the most photographed spot in Washington. Click these to embiggen.

Here’s John, as usual, not following directions:

And here are a couple from the spinning day:

There were some serious opportunities for fiber stash enhancement, and I did not pass many of them by unheeded. Here’s one, already on the spindle.

This is a blend of deep red, blue and purple wool, along with some firestar sparkly stuff. There’s about three ounces of it total, and I think it will be a light fingering when I’m done with it. We’ll see. I think that would make a pretty little neck thing, either a scarf or a cowl.

I’ve been spending much of the last few days that I’ve had off trying to organize my fiber office. Fiber Office, that sounds sort of official, doesn’t it? Much better than the Pit of Despair, which is what it usually looks like. Now that it’s a bit more organized, I have discovered that I have way too many WIPS and UFO’s than my usual comfort zone allows. I really need to get knitting on some of them. Hopefully you all will see some progress soon on things.

One last thing. I’ve been looking at my blog stats. The funniest three search strings that got people here lately are “big stonking circular shawl”, “clean knitters stories”, and “goofy knitting”. I’m not making that up. I’m off to knit…

ETA: “pee blog knit”. One silly person actually got to my blog by typing that into Google. If you’re that person, please comment and explain exactly what you were looking for.