Category: Knitting

Filler Post

So….what do you blog about when you have spent the last week getting to this point on a new sweater project:

Meet Rogue. If you think it doesn’t look like much in the picture, well it doesn’t look like much in real life either. This has been one of THOSE weeks at work, and I haven’t gotten much knitting done.

We have a house full of new dogs. We are dog sitting for a friend who is taking her male Kerry blue terrier to the Eukanuba dog show this week, and have her two female terriers here. I took pictures of Kiara and Bianca, but honestly, not being their mother, I admit that I can’t always tell them apart. Riley is used to having them around and knows they always go home eventually, so isn’t too worried. The cats, having a much shorter attention span, are pretty certain we’ve done something totally dumb and brought two new dogs here to stay. Willie, ever the adventurer, hasn’t retreated, but is a bit wary. He also just boxed Kiara in the nose a bit ago, so she is learning that cats are not necessarily just for chasing. Lucy is being her usual cowardly self, and we have the upstairs blocked off with a baby gate so she has a safe haven. Here they are, obviously making themselves at home.

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Competition in the Knitting Doctor world!

Go here and meet Kristen. Another knitting doctor (well, doctor-to-be). Woo Hoo! We’re taking over the blogging world! Here’s to knitting in class!

Gauge Wars…

Or, The Revenge of the Knitting Goddess

I spoke too soon. I believe I’ve used the word hubris in this blog before. After knitting a few inches of Rogue, I measured. My gauge was not the required 4.5 inches per inch, but more like 4, or even a bit less. Even accounting for the difference after washing, this was going to be way off. The only thing I can figure is that I was very excited about starting this sweater, and that I knitted my first swatch very tightly in my excitement. This has happened to me before. Most notably, when I went to Wintergrass, which is Tacoma’s annual bluegrass festival (which is coming up, by the way!!), I found that I knit very tightly while listening to wild bluegrass fiddle music. Who knew?

I stared at this, and stared at it. I briefly considered making a live animal offering to the Knitting Goddess if she would change what I was measuring. The cats were starting to get nervous.

“Take Lucy”, Willie said, “she’s older and prettier. The Knitting Goddess will like her better.”

That’s Willie. He doesn’t make many blog appearances, but I tricked him into the photo shoot by telling him it was suppertime.

I considered finishing the sweater as is, and hope it would fit someone. With my new measurements, it would have to be Bigfoot, and I don’t think he would appreciate a pink hooded sweater.

I did a new swatch; it works perfectly, this time on size 6 needles, instead of size 7. You have no idea of the variety of ways the “f” word can be used to apply to knitting.

So I ripped the whole flipping thing out. If you have made Rogue, and if you have followed the pattern suggestion to do a twisted stockinette stitch hem, you know how much fun starting this over is, especially on a size smaller needle than the main pattern needle size. I am already getting my money’s worth out of this yarn.

I’m not saying nothin’ else about gauge until I’m at least six inches into this sweater, and maybe not then.

As consolation, this is what the Pacific Northwest looked like this morning. We’ve been getting snow and storm warnings this week. They were wrong, I guess.

Gauge Wizard

I have finally started a new knitting project! For my next trick, I will knit Rogue. I bought the yarn for this several months ago, and it has been aging like fine wine in my stash until now. It is from Beaverslide Dry Goods, a small ranch in Montana that raises and shears Rambouillet sheep. The colors are every bit as lovely as portrayed on their web site, and the yarn is lofty, sheepy, wonderful stuff.

I got gauge on the first try, a feat that excites me to no end. Those of you who have knit this sweater know that it is knit partly in the round, and partly back and forth, making for some interesting gauge problems. I have finally come to the conclusion (after a long period of obstinance) that knitting a gauge swatch really does eliminate at least some of the fitting headaches that go along with knitting sweaters.

Just for the record, I am using Denise circular needles, and I got gauge with a size 7, both in the round and flat. I would not have believed that my gauge was the same for both styles if I hadn’t tried. It was a tiny bit off just off the needles, but settled into the perfect stitch and row gauge once dunked in water…this yarn blooms like crazy. At first I thought the fabric would be a little board-like at the necessary gauge, but again, after a bath it is just perfect.

I’m using the fisherman weight, in the color Snowberry. Here are some photos. I didn’t want to knit two separate swatches, so first did several inches flat, then switched to in-the-round on the same needles. Instead of turning the work at the end of the row, I just pushed the whole thing back, like doing I-cord, and started the next row as if to knit in the round. I think this is an Elizabeth Zimmerman technique, though I don’t have any of her books so am not 100% sure of that one.

The finished swatch:

Continue reading “Gauge Wizard”

2004 Roundup

Before I get to the Roundup, however, check out the Yarn Harlot. Her post from yesterday articulated what I think a lot of us feel. But $10,879 in less than 24 hours?? This is an amazing, lovely thing. I sent my entire family and several friends an email that challenged them to give up their “wants” as well for the next week and donate the money to Doctors Without Borders, and referred them to Stephanie for inspiration and prodding. She said it much better than I can.

2004 was a good year on the knitting front for me. The best thing I did was to start a blog. After a few posts of “see what yarn I bought today”, I quickly realized that I better start knitting or nobody would come back to see what I was up to. This is not to say that I have quit shopping (I have not totally lost my mind), but the blog has kept me working on projects instead of letting them languish forever.  It also makes me rip stuff out and do it better so I don’t have to show pictures of total crap.

Here is a list of what I finished this year:

An Aran baby blanket for John’s grandson Sam, AKA “cutest baby in the world”.

A vintage style matinee coat for my great niece, also born this year.

John’s sweater. I may be most proud of this one, as it took me the longest to finish.

The fizzy orange creamsicle scarf.

That damned ice blue sweater.

A goofball bucket hat.

The Audrey sweater.

Montego Bay socks.

Eggplant Hat.

I found a few more projects that I finished early on this year that I never put in the gallery until now.

I knit a hat for John.

And a simple shawl for me.

Now that I have it all in one place, it looks like a lot more knitting than I really thought I had done. One of my goals this year is to use up some of my yarn stash. I have a huge collection of sock yarn, as well as bags of yarn purchased to complete at least five or six sweaters. OK, maybe more. I would like to practice some of the finishing techniques so that my sweaters turn out looking a little more professionally done, and less like I drank a fifth of bourbon while sailing through the buttonbands.

And speaking of buttonbands, I am nearly done with the lavender sweater. I have finished the collar and the buttonband, and am in the middle of the buttonhole band. Then it will get the pee-wadding blocked out of it and be ready to wear.

Here you go:

And here is what the buttons look like. Of course, they won’t all be crowded up at the top of the sweater like that.

I am still working on the Birch shawl, though somewhat sporadically. And a pair of striped socks. Once I finish this sweater, I’ll show pictures of my progress on those two. I’m getting a terrible urge to start a new project as well, so I better finish this one soon!

My Desk

In keeping with the latest trend, here are a few pictures of my office.  This is the “bonus room” of our house, and is a balcony room overlooking the main living area.  It has a spectacular view out over the lake, and serves as a writing room, work office, and the knitting room.

Here is what one of the desks looks like:

My other desk is an ancient oak rolltop.  I haven’t been able to get the top down over all the crap for decades.

If you were wondering, “Is that a crown on her desk?”, why yes, it is a crown!

A friend gave me this crown, clearly realizing my royal potential.  I wore it to the hospital all day on Halloween this year.  Most of the patients loved it; a few were clearly confused as to why the Queen was visiting them in the hospital and asking them how their breathing was doing.

In case anybody in knitblog world thinks they have the most books, you are dead wrong.  Here are five of my bookshelves:

There are three more of those ceiling high bookcases in the lower level of my house.  And books in stacks all over the floor as well. Even if they had been able to fit in my office, I’d have been afraid to have that much weight all in one balcony room!  Every so often my husband has a meltdown and insists that we weed out some crap and give it away.  When this happens, I spend an agonizing several days going through all the books to find ones that I can get rid of.  I almost always find at least one little box that I can part with.

There is knitting going on in this house, and actually out of the house as well.  Remember this?

I’ve used up one whole ball of yarn, and spliced in the second ball (of three) while at the theater last night, matching the stripes perfectly, I might add.  We went to Noises Off, at the Seattle Rep.  If you live in the area, go see this; it is very well done. On a much sadder note, Tacoma Actors Guild folded last night due to financial difficulties.  They were the only professional theater group in Tacoma, and have done some fine work over the years.  We were at their last performance Wednesday night; of course we didn’t know it was the last one.  Here’s hoping that some huge corporation bails them out and fills their Christmas stocking with a wad of cash.

Purple Thing

After some serious dithering, the sleeves are done and are on the blocking board.  The fronts and back shoulder seams have been matched up, and I’m just waiting for the sleeves to dry so I can set them in.  Then a little seaming party, a few bands, buttons, and voila! A sweater!

Oh my god.  Buttons.  I forgot to buy buttons for this thing.  I’m thinking something really girly and elegant. Another shopping opportunity.  I just happen to have a gift certificate to the Weaving Works in Seattle, and we just happen to be making a trip to the city later today.  Who the hell goes to a yarn store and just buys buttons?

The consensus on the bands, by the way, is seed stitch.  I will try that first and see what it looks like.

Here are the sleeves:

I am one of the apparently few knitters who like the sewing and finishing part.  I look at all those pieces and think “wow” I knit all that!  Helping them all get put together in the right configuration is fun for me.  Even sewing in yarn ends in not onerous.  That moment when the last stray end is hidden, and the last button secured, is wonderful.  Even if it is the middle of the night I want to get up and parade around the house in my finished work of art.

Don’t be sending me all your unfinished sweaters just yet.  I don’t find the finishing THAT much fun.

The dithering on the sleeves was the result of my apparent inability to remember which decreases are paired with which, and which ones go on which side of the piece.  The knit side increases I have finally committed to memory, but the last 18 rows of the sleeve caps required a decrease on every row.  I am just not a fan of purl side decreases.  I haven’t done them very often, so they don’t look as neat as they should.  Then I just plain followed my scribbled instructions wrong, so had to rip back about three times to get it right.

For the record, and if I write it down here, I might have a prayer of remembering it the next time I have to do it.

On the KNIT side, the decrease that goes on the right side of the work, that is left-leaning, is a SSK.  The left side of the sleeve gets a right-leaning increase, a K2tog.

On the PURL side, it gets a little dicier.  After trying a few things, here is what looks best to me.
On the right side, the left-leaning one, is a SSP.  Slip the next two stitches, one at a time, as if to knit.  Return them in their now-turned configuration to the left needle.  Now purl into the FARSIDE (the back leg) of the stitches, purling them together.

The left side of the sleeve as you are looking at it gets a right leaning decrease.  The book that I looked this up in said to just P2tog, but I like how it looks on the public side better if you P2tog through the back loops.

I have to say, it takes a bit of practice to do the through the back loop ones without stretching the stitches way out.

I will leave you with a couple of pictures that make me happy.  We have had the same angel on our Christmas tree since we were married.  Here’s old Gabe:

And here are the Three Wise Guys:

If I could find the rest of the nativity scene that matched them I would buy it in a minute!

I’m off to finish my Christmas shopping.  Who am I kidding?  I’m off to START my Christmas shopping.  Where the hell is the challenge in getting ready for Christmas in October??

Back to the Purple Sweater

I am near the end of the sleeve misery.  I haven’t quite figured out why people who love to knit, and spend every spare moment either knitting, thinking about knitting, or shopping for the next knitting project hate to knit sleeves.  My theory is that you knit the sleeves last, so you are good and sick of the whole project by the time you get to that last row.

Anyway, I need some opinions about the button bands and the neckband.  This is a pattern that I designed with Sweater Wizard software, so I am the boss of my knitting on this project.  For those of you who have forgotten what the purple sweater looks like (because I’ve been doing it for so freaking long), it is a plain hip length cardigan, knit  in stockinette stitch, with a wide lace border on the bottom hem and sleeves.  At one point I thought about doing seed stitch bands, but now I’m thinking about a 1 by 1 plain ribbing for the bands.

I know, I know.  I should try both and see which one I like best.  And it certainly may come to that.  What do you all think?  Do you have a preference?  Here are a few old pictures to get your mind around what this sweater looks like.

The polls are open.  One hopes that this vote won’t be as controversial as the November elections.
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Many thanks for all the anniversary wishes!  My husband would personally like to thank everyone who commented on how handsome he is in his tuxedo.  He is not so impressed by those of you who commented on Eric the Chef.  I believe he thinks that some of you are shallow and featherbrained for drooling over a handsome man just because he’s cute and has a French accent.  In case anyone is really wondering, it was only a temporary insanity on my part.  How could I even for a nanosecond think of trading in a man who gets up every morning and makes me coffee and breakfast, and who is at this moment cooking me something to eat out of the Cordon Bleu cookbook while I “work” on my blog?  And no, he’s not for rent!

Ramen Noodles

No, this has not become a fast-food blog.  Though ramen noodles do have their advantages.  I did a fair amount of knitting on the lavender sleeve this week.  Unfortunately “work” does not always translate to “progress”.  I mentioned in my previous post that the armhole on the finished and blocked body is a little bigger than the pattern measurements.  I will have to change the sleeve dimensions a little to make the sleeve cap fit into the armhole.  Then I decided I want the sleeves just a little bit longer than the original pattern (I have gorilla-length arms).  Sweater Wizard makes it possible to change every single dimension in the pattern on the schematic picture of the sweater; when you hit “enter” it changes the pattern instructions accordingly.  I love this software!  The original pattern instructions for the sleeve instructions were something like “increase every 4 rows 18 times, then every 6 rows 6 times”.  The new instructions were to “increase every 4 rows 25 times”, then go to the every 6 rows part.  I had just finished all the increases using the previous set of instructions, and briefly considered just doing more “every 6 row” increases, but figured I would end up with a sleeve that dragged to my knees.  So I ripped it out back to the every 4 rows part and am ready to go again.  You still with me??  Here is the ramen noodles part:

I rolled some of it back up before I took the picture, but 30-some rows of ripped out cotton yarn looks like purple ramen noodles to me.  The good news is that I didn’t wait to decide to change this until I had finished both sleeves.  Now I just have to remember what I did when I get to the second one.

Here is the non-knitting picture of the day:

My Christmas cacti appear to be confused about the season.
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You might have noticed a new link over in the Webrings and Buttons section on the left.  I decided in a moment of temporary insanity to participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short).  This group of truly berserk people commit every November to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  This started in 1999, and this year so far there are over 39,000 people who have signed up. I didn’t decide to do this until the last couple of days in October, so I’m a bit behind on my word count.  50,000 words in 30 days means about 1667 words a day.  As I’ve never written a novel before, this should be highly entertaining.  I did convince my husband that I needed a laptop computer in order to complete this task.  I will never hear the end of it if I don’t get to 50,000 words.  If you join and start writing tonight, you only have to do 2083 words a day to get there…any takers??

I’m Depressed

The votes are in.  Kerry/Edwards won by a huge margin in the election held right here at Knitting Doctor.  The turnout wasn’t huge, but the mandate was clear:  15 for K/E, 6 for B/C.  That means Kerry got somewhere around 70% of the popular vote.

Too bad the real world doesn’t mirror knitting blogs.  Clearly, knit bloggers, and knit blog readers, are smarter than the average American.

I’m looking forward to 2008.  Once W. screws things up even more that he already has, voters will most certainly put an intelligent woman or man in the White House.  Until then, we all can take comfort in the fact that America has endured worse.

Now back to our regularly scheduled knitting blog.

I finally got the body of the purple sweater blocked.  Here is a picture of the pinning ceremony.  You can see my handy-dandy steamer in the background, waiting for its turn.  Take note of my lovely home-made blocking board.

And here everything is ready to get steamed:

The lace detail:

Here’s where I am on the first sleeve.  After I blocked and measured the back pieces, the armhole is a bit larger than the measurements given in the pattern, so I will need to adjust the sleeve width a bit to match.  Last time I knit a sweater, I didn’t take this into consideration;  this error led to an awful lot of swearing in the Knitting Doctor household.

In case you thought I am hiding the green striped socks from you, here are a couple of pictures.  I finished the short row heel and am on my way up the cuff.  This turned out better than I expected.  It looks a little big on my foot because it is intended for my Bigfooted husband.  He refused to model because he was too busy sobbing over election results.

I’m off to watch the concession speech.

Sleeve Island

I want to know if it’s OK to drink beverages with little paper umbrellas while vacationing on Sleeve Island. Though now that I think about that, maybe it’s not such a great idea. We were invited to a party last night and I took my knitting bag along, as it was about an hour’s drive from home. We got there about 2 hours before the party started (don’t ask; it’s a really long story, and it’s NOT my fault). The hosts were nice enough to let us in anyway and give us something to drink. I really wasn’t going to bring my knitting in to the party until the sister of the hostess arrived (also about 2 hours early, but then she was family). She promptly brought out her knitting and stated that she just couldn’t sit still without it. So I went out and got my purple sweater and worked on the sleeve. She very politely commented that working on knitted lace while drinking bourbon and watching a World Series game might not be a good plan. Well what the hell did she know? I just ignored her and kept knitting until I realized that I just had seriously f***ed things up. I finished the row anyway (never stop in the middle of a row, you know) and put it away until tonight. After looking at it awhile, I decided that I just needed to go back to the beginning of the row I had been working on. Then I realized that, in my bourbon-induced knitting zeal, I had done one whole repeat more of the lace pattern than what I needed to. I started to rip back the whole repeat, lost count, and just ripped the whole thing out. During tonight’s World Series game, I redid the lace border for the first sleeve. It turned out fine, which leads me to believe that it was the bourbon that was the problem, and not the excitement of the game.

I’m done with the back and both front pieces. I was too lazy to take a good picture; here’s a pile of knitted pieces;

And the sleeve, after the ripping and re-knitting:

Ack. Short Rows.

I know learning new things is good for me. It’s supposed to stretch my brain and keep my mind nimble. My green striped sock pattern is a toe-up version with a short row heel. I have never tried this before, and I’m beginning to see why. Now, I like the idea of doing the socks from the toe up. You can just knit till your yarn is half gone without doing all that guessing as to whether there will be enough to get the second sock done. I keep reminding myself that I wasn’t so hot at doing flap heels and gussets either, the first several times I did it. I’ve only ripped this sucker back once so far, but we shall see. It’s really not a difficult concept once you try it and just follow the freaking directions. Here are some pictures:

Let me tell you, I’m not feeling very guru-ish right at the moment, despite what this quiz says.

You appear to be a Knitting Guru. You love knitting
and do it all the time. While finishing a piece
is the plan, you still love the process, and
can’t imagine a day going by without giving
some time to your yarn. Packing for vacation
involves leaving ample space for the stash and
supplies. It can be hard to tell where the yarn
ends and you begin.
http://marniemaclean.com

What Kind of Knitter Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

If I sound cranky, I’m not really. It’s actually fun to do something new, even if it is a bit fidgety at first.

I promised Norma a picture from my yard the next time the sun was shining. I figured I better not wait till April to do this, so here’s one with the sun NOT shining. This is from our back deck.

Note that there is actually some blue sky there!

Crochet Lady

No, this blog isn’t going to morph into The Crocheting Doctor. I had one of those moments at work this past week that reminds me why I will always love being a physician. I had admitted an elderly lady with dementia to the hospital earlier in the week with a diagnosis of “altered mental status”. Basically she was sent in for placement in a nursing home because they couldn’t take care of her at the facility she was in. Always the optimist, I tinkered with her medications and stopped some sedating drugs she was on, and the next thing I knew, she was awake and alert. She was still quite demented, mind you, but now very alert and interactive. One of the staff had mentioned that she was once a knitter, so I asked her about it. She looked at me and promptly said, “No, crochet.” The next day I took her some leftover yarn (the leftover balls from this) and a crochet hook. When I took it out of the bag, she didn’t even wait for me to explain. Her eyes lit up and she took it out of my hands and just started in. I checked back periodically through the day, thinking she might need a bit of help. She never did get past that first row, but she crocheted one heck of a long blue chain. The yarn and hook were discharged happily from the hospital with her.

Many thanks to everyone who left birthday wishes. I had to work, but my guy cooked me a wonderful dinner when I got home. He’s upstairs making Ethiopian Doro Wat tonight. I have no idea what inspired this, but I’m not about to complain.

Just so I don’t get kicked out of the Knitting Kitty ring, here are some pictures of Lucy. Lucy found a pile of old papers that were slated for the shredder earlier this week. Note how she looks so freaking innocent in this one.

A while later I found her under the pile. This photo didn’t quite capture all the little shredded bits around her. I guess she was just trying to help.

You might wonder why there are rarely pictures of Willie. Will thinks he’s a dog, and doesn’t usually stay in one place long enough for pictures.

I have been slogging along on my three little projects, making slow but steady progress. Just because it’s so damned purty, here is a picture of Birch:

This yarn is pretty fidgety to knit with, but I adore this color. It’s finally getting to the point where I can see some progress! Oooooh! Little Birch leaves!

Wall of Yarn

My favorite part of the San Francisco trip was the little foray out to ArtFibers.  All I can say is that it is probably a good thing for the sake of my credit card bill that I don’t live near this place.  (Yes, I know they ship, but it ain’t the same…)

For those of you who have never been there, here is the Wall of Yarn:

I sat through FOUR whole days of medical conference just waiting for the chance to get done and go to this place.  I learned many new things, and didn’t fall asleep once, thanks to my trusty knitting project.  The conference had perhaps 400 attendees, pretty well mixed half and half, men and women.   (Oh, I remember the good old days, when I was one of a minority of women physicians!  “Lady Doctors”, we were called way back then.)  I was the only person knitting, although there was one other woman doing needlepoint.  I found it rather amusing that the only people that commented on my knitting were a couple of men sitting near me that said some favorable things.

Here’s what I worked on:

I figure I’m about a third done with this.  It was great conference knitting, with those miles of stockinette that I didn’t have to pay any attention to.

Oh, I suppose you want to know what yarn I came home with??

The ribbon yarn in both of these pictures is called “Houdini”.  The first one really is as red as it looks.  The red shiny stuff with it is Baccarat, which is a nylon sequin ribbon novelty yarn.  The red combo will be a long skinny scarf.

The other combo is the Houdini ribbon in a fall color blend, along with Kyoto, a silk/mohair/wool blend in a lovely gold color.  This will be a wide rectangular shawl.   The women in the store are unbelievably helpful in assisting you with pattern and color suggestions.  I sort of had an idea what I wanted for a pattern for this, and the woman helping me sat right down and hand wrote a pattern for this yarn combo that I think will be perfect.

I’ve decided that as an incentive to finish that Birch shawl, I will NOT start either one of these until I finish that one.  I tried to work on it while watching the VP debate last night, but got a little worked up and lost track of where I was.  Maybe I won’t really try to finish it till after the election.

Busy, Busy,

Doing stuff other than knitting, unfortunately. We’ve had a houseful of visiting relatives the past 2 weeks. It reminds me of when we lived in Montana for a bunch of years. We used to say there were two seasons; winter and visiting relatives. I’ve also had one of those weeks at work where I look back and realize that all I’ve done for the past seven days is work, eat, and sleep. I have done a little knitting, but not so as you’d notice from these pictures.

First the lavender sweater:

I couldn’t get it to quit rolling around and be quiet for a decent picture.

Then the Birch shawl. This is a bit more painstaking to knit. Not difficult, just one of those “pay-attention” projects. Note the dental floss lifeline at the end of the last repeat.

And the striped socks. These don’t look like I’ve done much since the last pictures, because, well, I haven’t done much since then.

The good news is that tomorrow is Friday for me. And we are leaving the next day for a week. I have a medical conference to attend for three days, and we’ll play a little bit as well. The meeting will provide me with three whole days to sit in a chair in a conference room and KNIT! Lovely! I used to feel self-conscious about knitting in conferences. I’ve found that honestly nobody gives a rat’s ass if I knit or not, and it keeps me awake and attentive. I’ve decided that it’s probably less distracting than if I was snoring loudly during a lecture. The meeting is in San Francisco; anybody know any good yarn shops there??

I probably won’t get a chance to blog again until I get back. Have a good week, everybody!

You Can Do It At a Trot,

You can do it at a gallop.  You can do it real slow so your heart don’t palpitate.  Just don’t be late, do the Puyallup.

Yes ma’am, we went to the Puyallup State Fair this year; complete with three small children in tow.  For those of you not fortunate enough to live in this heaven we call Western Washington, Puyallup is pronounced “pew-al-up”, sort of rhymes with gallop.  This and other unusual place names is how we tell locals from out-of-staters.  Sequim is another good test;  locals know to say “squim”, the furriners say “see-quim”.   Some people mistakenly think we keep these unusual names to honor our local native people.  Wrong, so wrong.   We do it so we know who the visitors are.

If you live around here, every year in mid-September that silly song runs through your head non-stop.  And you just have to go.  There are cows, chickens, rides, deep-fried Twinkies (really!).  There are more varieties of fancy pigeons than you would ever believe.  There are 4-H girls and boys showing their horses and pigs.  I had a whole conversation with some very cute noisy geese with huge orange bills.  I forget what variety they were.  The only sheep I saw were in the children’s petting barn; I think the main sheep showing events are next week (yes, the fair goes on for weeks).

We ate, we petted, we admired, we saw the lady doing cowgirl rope tricks.  Any other time of year this would have been unbelievably corny.  I spent serious time in the craft pavilion admiring the many lovely quilts and knitted items.  And watched the end of the fastest fingers contest.  There were about ten women entered; they each got a ball of yarn and a crochet hook, and were timed to see who could crochet the fastest.  Here are a few of the knitted things:

I dared John’s son George to ride the Extreme Scream with me.  I would have one piece of advice:  pee before you try this.  You get shot straight up in the air at about a million miles an hour, then dropped like a rock.

I don’t look nearly as terrified in this picture as I really was.

As this is a KNITTING blog, here is another finished project.  I have had the yarn and pattern to make fruit hats for John’s grandchildren for a long time.  While we were hanging out here this week, I started and finished an eggplant hat for Penelope.  It started out as a blackberry hat, but the little bobbley things were just looking too weird for me.  The yarn is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran.

Yes, that’s me in those fashionable slippers and robe behind her.  We were all still in our jammies waiting for pancakes when I took these pictures.  More pictures here.

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If you haven’t already checked this out, sign up for Bloglines.  It saves a ton of time if you surf through a bunch of blogs every day.  Kerstin and Wendy led me to this one.  That little sign-up button in the upper left of the page will subscribe you to my blog and let you know when I’ve updated.  Cool, huh?