Sunday, September 29, 2013

It was a dark and stormy day........

On Friday, we took off for OFF. (Oregon flock and fiber). We took our time getting down there, stopping at Twisted in Portland (awesome yarn store if you're ever there), and fabric depot (also in Portland).

Fabric depot is a HUGE fabric store, like, if they don't have it, you don't need it kinda huge. I didn't succumb, I mean, buy anything......this time.

After the depot, we went off to our hotel, only to find the weather report had declined into "crazed weatherman, sky is falling" mode. Seems there was a bit of a typhoon, left over from hitting japan, coming right towards OUR fiber festival. Being the hardy northwesterners we are (and not minding a bit of wet wool), we decided to go the next day and make the best of it.

Well, it WAS windy and rainy, and some of the vendors gave up before they started, but the tents outside were dry and there were plenty of inside folks and critters to look at.

I only came home with one thing......It's a miss babs "kit" to make leftie, a cute little project I've been wanting to do for a while.....

 
I won't start on it right away (Christmas knitting, ya know), but it's nice to know it will be there when I'm ready.
 
We also made some new friends.....
 
Pam's new bestie, mr poofy pants

These guys wanted to come home with us, they really did.
We were good, though, and left the critters where they belonged, although I think I want a Siamese angora bunny, just sayin'.
 
We managed to get out of there before the weather got REALLY bad, and a good time was had by all.
What more could you ask for?
 
Next week....more blankie and some Christmas knitting....wahoo!!
 

Sunday, September 22, 2013

off to OFF and switching gears......

On Friday, we'll be packing up the car and taking off to OFF. (Oregon flock and fiber).
It should be a fantastic time. The vendor list alone is enough to make any knitter weep with anticipation, over 130, just sayin'.
Next week, there will be a full report. I have to remember to take the camera, or better yet, take pictures.
Needless to say, I'll probably be sleeping in on sunday!

In other news, I decided to take a week or so off from knitting man Christmas socks, and to change direction a bit on my sock yarn leftovers. Remember all those hexipuffs I've made? Well.....I decided I didn't want to sew them all together and switched projects entirely to THIS

 
So, now I'm dismantling the hexis and making this little blankie, which will actually be a BIG
 blankie eventually. It's kinda fun to see the different yarns, some of which are mine and some gifted from friends. It makes me think "this was a pair of socks, or this was a sweater".  I'll be plugging away on this for a while. When I get bored, I'll go back to the man-socks, and the pair of bugga gloves I need to knit for Christmas.
 
This week, the camp loopy yarn arrived too...If you finish all 3 challenges with camp loopy, you get a free skein of yarn. This year, it was lorna's laces soulemate. I chose this colorful blue and white. No idea what I'll make with it, but I do like the blue.
 
 
Next week, more blankie (it's supposed to rain anyway), and a report from OFF. I think I need to rest up for all the potential yarny awesomness!
 

Sunday, September 15, 2013

secret christmas knitting.....

nothing to see here.....
I've just been working on some secret Christmas knitting.....socks if you must know....great big man-socks, and, honestly, they're kinda boring. I have one done and I'll start the second this week. It's supposed to rain anyway....

The man-socks have slowed me down a bit and I'm just not feeling the knitting mojo right now. I'm hoping my trip to OFF (Oregon flock and fiber) at the end of the month will give my inspiration a kick in the behind. With nearly 130 vendors, it looks to be quite the experience! That ought to keep me going all winter.

The loopy ewe summer camp yarn should be available in a couple of weeks, and I'm looking forward to that. In the past, it's been wollemeise, and dream in color smooshy with cashmere, so I can hardly wait to see what they have in store for us this time around. They really seem to like the Shalimar breathless there, and a nice skein of that would be fine by me.

I'll leave you with "cat in a box". We had to find her a bigger box, since she's growing like a bad weed. Goofy cat.

Sunday, September 01, 2013

Paying it forward....

this week, there were more than a few rainy days....They were spent running errands and working on this little project.
Now, it's not particularly my cup of tea, but it was easy......
It came about because one of my pilates clients asked if I could finish this for a friend of hers. The friend apparently was determined to do it, but couldn't figure it out and really wanted the little scarf.
1x1 rib, with 7 different colors, just knit until you run out and start the next one.....it's all done except a couple of ends to weave in.
she offered  to pay me for doing it, but meh......it wasn't THAT hard.

I also finished the Christmas gloves, no pic. I don't know if I'm happy about them or not. The lorna's laces solemate seems to stretch a bit as you work with it, and I think they came out a bit big. I used the smallest needles, size 0......I'll give them to her anyway, but I also have some nice bugga leftovers and I think I'll end up making another pair.
Also started working on some man-socks (a Christmas present too), but didn't get too far. I'm using the solemate for those too....we'll see.

This week, working outside until we can't anymore (it'll  happen soon enough). I'll probably work on the socks a bit and gift the scarf when my client comes back on Wednesday.
We're also going to the fair on Friday......look at the critters and have some lunch. There's just nothing cuter than a baby pigmy goat!!