September Sockdown socks!

Before the weekend: New pups and new projects

This weekend we are headed up north to hang out with the Clan, my husband's mom's family. I would never call my family a clan - we are more of a loose tribe at best - but the Clan like to gather and do stuff together. I'm not sure who will be at the cabin this weekend, but it will probably three or four times the relatives that I could muster from my side of the family! I will be packing knitting projects shortly.

I started the Equinox lace t-shirt earlier this week. It is proceeding well and although the yarn is splitty as heck, drapes nicely and feels good to knit. I've decided I need to pack a more portable, basic knit, too. I have a couple balls of pink Maizy that could be something. Footies or socks? The corn fiber is combined with 18% elastic, so socks could work, but I would have to swatch tonight. I'd be better off with a scarf or simple shawl. Another Dandy Neckerchief? I do lurve that pattern! I have a couple skeins of a lilac sage cotton/wool that would look could be a Springtime Bandit or maybe a Friday scarflet... OK, I will have to swatch tonight!

While we are out of town, J&J will be house and dog and puppy sitting. Yep, they agreed to sleep over and watch Harley and Machi, and since I agreed to foster without really thinking about our calendar, they also get to hang with Drew and Simon, a combined 6lbs of terrier-chihuahua pup. Yes, they are kinda ugly. I am hoping they are just a little worse for wear from the shelter, and that some generous helpings of love and kibble will help that fill out. Drew (below right) is a sweetheart, spunky and cuddly.


Simon, who outweighs his brother by almost a pound, has obviously been the watchful older brother. He's a little anxious and needs to mellow out. He's learning his name, and learning to jump around less, and relaxes more quickly on my lap after just a few days. I'm sure he'll be fine!

I hope J&J also be fine with a household of pups - they currently own one cat. I have written two full pages of doggy instructions, though, so hopefully all will go well. Pinch sitter Shamrock will be bringing former fosters Cal and Finn to hang out Saturday afternoon, as J&J have an all-day commitment. That will a full house: only 60 lbs of dog, but 24 legs! I wonder if Cal and Finn will remember their puppy days here, when they weighed only 1.5 lbs each and lived in my bathtub with their sister Erie? I'm sure Harley will remember them. Harley loves his puppies.

So, what have I been knitting? I knit two more bibs for my cousin's twin boys, but couldn't get them in the mail in time for her shower last weekend. I will knit a few more bibs and send out a half dozen.

I finished a Sweet Lily shawl with my leftover Harmony. This is a great shawl, knit in wedges. IK gives directions to design your own wedge shawl; I plan to experiment with some of my favorite lace patterns and do another shawl. I'm on a lace jag, what can I say!?

I completely frogged my huge Fiddlesticks "Peacock Feathers" shawl, that I knit to about row 250 of the edging chart before determining that no, I didn't have enough yarn. I was knitting on US4s, I'll drop to US2s and restart, because it's a lovely pattern and I really want to finish it. It's not vacation knitting, however. I have another Fiddlesticks kit that might do the trick.

So many options, so little time to plan! Hopefully I will find a good project and be able to post it next week. Happy Fourth of July weekend!

Not knitting baby things

I should be knitting baby things. There are babies due all over the place, and I enjoy knitting baby things, generally, but I am not knitting baby things.

Instead I have been knitting lace. First I decided to knit two divinely blue balls of mystery yarn, which is probably cotton of some sort but since the labels are no where to be found, I can't be sure. It's very soft and splitty, and wanted to be a simple but interesting narrow scarf for summer wear.

I browsed through my scarf patterns, and found Meandering Vines, which is very pretty and surprisingly simple. I edited it, removing some stitches and adding a 3-stitch i-cord edging from the leafy scarf in Scarf Style. I also used an i-cord for the edging, and ended up doing a wacky purled i-cord for the cast off to match. I was afraid I wouldn't have enough yarn, but I ended up using only 1.5 balls of my mystery yarn.

When this was done, I looked through my baby patterns, and tried to get excited about doing a baby-sized Lackadaisical cap, but I couldn't work up any enthusiasm. I went to my stash and pulled out a huge ball of red laceweight, and decided to knit Annis, the Knitty bonus pattern that came out last week.

The thought of casting on 363 stitches was daunting, because I didn't think a long-tail would work, nor would a backward-loop cast on. A knitted-on cast on seemed the way to go. I did a couple swatches to confirm, because I really hate the knitted-on cast on. The swatches confirmed my gauge and that my other cast-on options weren't stretchy enough. Drats.

After the beastly cast on, however, the pattern was quite slick. The nupps weren't too painful, and even an error in row 13 only slowed me down a little (I used the photos and stitch count to figure out that  the YO symbols on either side of the s2kp decrease were missing).

I'm down to the last 3 rows of the chart, then the short rows start. It's very pretty!

Who is the patron saint of yarn stashing!?

I want to thank the proper saint for my miraculous yarn find on Saturday.

I have had Percy all but finished - 10 rows left - and had been planning on going back to Depth of Field to look for a similar ball of Harmony. I bought the first ball last fall or summer, but wasn't too worried about a perfect match - I figured I only had an inch to go, and with the wide gradations of color, a close relation was all I needed.

Saturday I tossed my almost-finished shawl, along with the color and dye lot info, into the back seat of my car Knatasha, thinking I might have time to swing by Borealis Yarns.

I didn't, really. I pulled up to Borealis at 5:10pm, could see the lights were on, and saw someone go in. I hopped out and crossed the street to read the "Hours" sign. Closed at 5. I stood for a moment, uncertain, and unwilling to be one of those customers who ignores a closed sign. A woman came out, and said "They said I could go in if I knew exactly what I needed." Aha! I knew exactly what I needed. I went in.

"I heard I could come in if I knew exactly what I needed," I announced as I came in. A nice young woman asked, "What do you need?" I told her, and she walked over to the cube of Harmony and plucked a ball of the top. "That looks like it..." I murmured, because again, I did not really expect to find a matching ball a year later and city away from where I bought the first.  I read off my color and dye lot, and patron-saint-of-stashing be praised, the ball was indeed Color 1, Dye lot AC01!

How crazy is that?!

I finished Percy on Sunday afternoon. I knit to the end of the first ball, which ended in a cool green, and started the new ball, which started with a warm green - although I can't really see the difference in the shawl.

I started blocking, and was very happy with how it looks and how big it will be, but had to stop and watch Lost. I will block it tonight if time allows!

Puppyless again

Jack-the-bear went to his new family today, and he may be the most loved puppy in the world. His new owners are a great, especially his new best girl, Sophie. I don't often feel like fostering shelter pups can change the world, but tonight I know saw a little girl's dreams come true.

Now to put away the pee pads, clean up all the chewed up toilet paper and unstuffed toy fluff in the bathroom, put away the puppy toys, clean and stow the kennel, and pay attention to my human family, because I couldn't foster without their tolerance and assistance.

Extra love to Harley, too, best foster dog brother ever. He's so good with puppies - maybe because he was a rescue himself, maybe because he's still a puppy himself. I know he will be giving me sad looks for the next week. Someday he will get a puppy of his own.

Festival of Yarn

I truly appreciate the local wool festival organizers in my county. A wool festival on Mothers' Day Weekend is an absolute guarantee that I will get my favorite gift, yarn, for Mothers' Day. Thank you, clever wool festival organizers!

My first stop was Enchanted Meadows. I love their alpaca. Love it. I bought a skein of blueberry alpaca from them last year, and knit a hat. And gloves. And a neckerchief. It was the endless ball of blueberry softness, but it was also a mystery ball: I lost the tag shortly after winding it into a yummy yarn cake. Luckily, I recognized Mr. Enchanted Meadows and his humongous skeins of yarn in the first building I entered at the festival, so getting another endless skein was first order of the day. I left it to my boys to pick a color for me as a gift. There were lovely reds, purples, blues, greens, even orange skeins. My colorblind son and his conservative father picked out... brown. I will be knitting hats for the boys, I guess.

They also picked up a smooshy skein of angora, about 80 yards worth, from HoneyGold Acres. It's lovely, really - incredibly soft, undyed... and makes me break out in a minor rash.

So far, the yarn purchasing was not going well. Time to take things into my own hands! I stopped at one stall and fell in love with naturally dyed corriedale. It was a lavender purple blend that I was pretty sure would match the lavender alpaca gloves I knit from last year's festival yarn purchase. I took a card, in case I stumbled upon the same vendor that sold me my lavender alpaca.

I walked through a lot of yarn, touching and crooning along the way, and ended up at a stall called Corny Goodness. The colors of their yarn were fantastic - true color wheel yellows, oranges, blues, greens, and purples. I don't even like orange, and their orange yarn was drool-worthy. It was 100% corn, too. I chatted with the vendors ,a husband and wife just starting out in the yarn business. Paul told me that corn yarn won't stain, won't fade, and won't shrink. It feels like a stiff cotton. I bought two shades - Blue Eyes Dark and Spruce Medium - that I will use to knit baby hats and booties for my cousin's twins, due in September.

I passed by the stalls with commercial yarn, and looked for the indie spinners and dyers. I had to pass up lots of wonderful stuff! I usually don't look at needles or knitting accessories, but a young woman knitting a sock on short black dpns caught my eye. The needles were carbon and a pleasure to use - warm to the touch, with a light weight that felt nice in my hands. I knit a couple round on 0s, then tried to bend the free needle. It didn't give a bit!

Since I am a loose knitter, I am always downsizing two or more needle sizes to get gauge. That means a sock knit on 2s or 3s has to be knit on 0s or 1s for me - or smaller. I special ordered five 5" 00s; I should get them next week.

I finally wrapped up my festival buying with the lavender-purple corriedale I had found early in my browsing. I had $16 in my pocket, and although the first two skeins were $19, the next was... $16! Perfection This yarn is slightly thick-thin, with a soft halo. It should make a lovely hat.

My latest project is designing a cap using an entrelac base. I like the geometry of it until I get to the top - I'm having trouble ending my cap! I've done two prototypes, now for some research and experiments with different decreases to make the stitches move where I want them to!

Harvest Wool Festival

I spent a few hours this morning at the count sheep and wool festival. This was my second festival, and my second go at photo contest coordinator. I am not usually a solo volunteer - I will chaperon, I do my Boy Scout stuff, but it was a stretch for me to volunteer for the photo contest last year. As I recall, I volunteered to make sure I would remember to go to the festival - I had forgot about it the year before.

Last year I was pretty anonymous, didn't know what I was doing, wasn't prepared - but had fun anyway. I loved the photos, loved the people. When wonderful Winnie, she-who-coordinates, asked me to do it again, I said I would.

This year, I am Photography Contest Coordinator, according to the website and in the printed festival guide. Woohoo! I was better prepared, with markers, construction paper, scissors, pens, and tape, plus voting instructions and posters inviting people to view and vote. I was even able to answer questions from lost people who wandered by.

There were sixteen photos throughout five divisions, and they were all great. The photographers were charming and lovely people, and they totally made me want to move to a farm and get a a pack o' sheep or alpacas.

It's a people's choice photo contest, so after I posted the photos, I had to convince people to vote. I tried several tactics, but found this to be most effective:

"Would you like vote for a photo in our photo contest? It's people's choice, so if you don't vote, no one wins."

I don't know why this worked, but it did. Being merely polite didn't suffice, but making a vaguely dire prediction got a chuckle and usually a few minutes of viewing and voting.

Note to self: next year, bring posters for each division. And more tape. And clamps. And coffee.

I can't report on the awesomeness of the yarn yet - I had no time to browse, as today was Meet & Greet from noon to 2. Boomer and Bear were stars (a sure sign I am becoming immune to puppy cuteness: I had no idea they would be so popular). Several families fell in love with the foster pups. It's hard to pick one family over another, but when I stopped worrying and just thought about it, the choices were obvious. Bear will go to a sincere family with a sweet nine-year-old girl who has begged for a dog for about four years. Boomer will go to a starry-eyed young couple who want a dog to go hiking and boating and fishing, although I think his sweet kisses were a deciding factor, also.

Tomorrow, Mothers' Day, my wonderful boys will take me back to the festival so I can buy me some alpaca (mmm, alpaca) and tally votes for the photo contest, hang the ribbons, etc. I will try not to spend more than 3 hours there... but I'm making no promises.