So that hat, it's still not working, but I have another idea that I really think will work this time. I just need to re-work the lower portions of the chart. I should note that I'm not re-knitting an entire hat here, but I've just been re-knitting the decrease portion. Furthermore I've been just re-knitting the top 5-10 rows of the decrease portion for the last five or six tries. But for my next attempt I need to re-knit the whole crown (still not the whole hat) so I'm putting the project in the time-out closet until this weekend when I can sit down and focus on try 13.

After fussing with the hat last night I was so fed up I spun instead of knitting:

This white will (hopefully) combine with some blue I dyed from the same fiber, and make Ysolda's Verity hat. There's a really solid chance this hat will be my quick knitting fix as soon as the yarn is dry, because even my attempts at getting a quick knitting fix are being foiled right now, allow me to demonstrate:

The sleeves for the sweater I'm knitting need two needles, size 7dpns for the cuff (I don't own any, they were "borrowed" by a "friend" who I haven't spoken to in months now) and size 8dpns (which are in the closet with the hat I'm not speaking to)

But it's ok, because I have cashmere. Which will become bronte's mitts(on ravelry):

The good news is the pattern calls for over 300 yards because it's written holding a sock yarn and a fuzzy yarn double. So I can totally knit these to full length with just my cashmere. The bad news is I want smaller needles then the pattern calls for because I'm not holding any yarn double. And my size 3dpns? They're in a sock project right now.

The sock project in question could be a quick fix, after all the second sock just needed a gusset and toe. So after being foiled by Bronte's mitts this morning i snipped the contrasting heel yarn and picked up some gusset stitches. When I knit down to the bottom of the heel I discovered a slight problem. I've knit the flap, but I haven't turned the heel yet. So now I'm going to have to re-join the yarn, turn the heel, and pick those stitches up again.

It's ok, maybe I'll try these icewine mittens, which I got yarn for at the sheep and wool festival. But the pattern calls for worsted weight yarn on size 2 needles (those are some DENSE mittens) And the yarn I got is sport weight yarn, so I need to re-work the chart to add a touch of width. It's no longer a quick fix when you need to re-work an entire mitten chart.

I know all knitters go through this once in awhile, this thing where nothing works out the way you expect. I guess I should just be glad that (most) of my problems are showing up at the beginning of a project and not at the very end after I've put in lots of hard work, right?

I'm beginning to get frustrated with a cabled hat I'm designing (hopefully to self-publish!)  I've now knit the cable 11 times.  I really think I've learned something these last 2 times though, and hopefully 12th time's the charm (I said that about 3rd, 5th, and 9th times though...)

I kinda wish I'd taken pictures of each try, since each one has been a little different, it would have made an interesting sequence (hint, each one has not been better then the last, although the two most recent have been the best so far)  It helped a lot after the 8th try when I realized I had a whole extra cable cross in every repeat...

Urgh, wish me luck!  The finished project looks so good in my head, now it's a matter of getting it there in real life.

I had a great day at the VT sheep and wool festival on Saturday. It was a rainy day with a lot of drizzle and more then a little all out rain but my friend and I had pretty good timing and managed to be in buildings already any time we heard the rain begin.

The festival was at the tunbridge fairgrounds this year, which were beautiful (in a misty, and muddy, sort of way)

The vendors were almost all indoors (I felt really sorry for the few who had only their pop-up tents to keep them dry) And the animals were all in nice dry barns. I had a giant maple creemee in spite of the cold (they were only serving one sized creemee, huge) And I pet a cashmere goat! (and picked up the farmer's card, in case someday I want a cashmere goat of my own) It was wet, so I didn't take many pictures, but I did get my camera out for the Ravelry meetup in the evening:

We got a picture of everyone wearing handmade garments:

and of everyone's hand-knit socks:

Overall it was a wonderful day in spite of the rain. And it encouraged me to finally finish spinning the cashmere I picked up at the NH sheep and wool festival this spring:

Here it's hanging to dry after I set the twist. Cashmere can bloom a lot during the setting of the twist, which also causes the yarn strand to be shorter. I measured the length of the skeins after setting the twist to make sure I knew my yardage, and a good thing too! my niddy-noddy is 72" around, but these skeins post-twist-setting were only 62" around! So I have just 176 yards of fingering weight cashmere. I'm going to find a lovely, lacy pattern for fingerless gloves for this (I think)

And from the festival I picked up 3 skeins of sock yarn (I'm thinking colorwork with the blue and green ones) plus two skeins of sport weight coopworth (also thinking colorwork, apparently I want to start some colorwork projects) plus some pretty mill ends mystery fiber (it's really soft and nicely springy)



After spinning I made tries number 7 and 8 on a cabled hat pattern I'm trying to design. The pattern is so clear in my head, but getting the cables to do what I want is becoming frustrating...

Sunday was actually a nice day (what is that burning ball of brightness in the sky called? sun?) So I went out into my garden to do some cleanup. I've pulled all the dead plants (and weeds) from the squash, broccoli, lettuce and tomato beds, and I pulled 2 rows of corn stalks (some of which I bunched up for decoration around the outside of my home) Bonuses of the winter cleanup were finding a domesticated strawberry plant in the squash bed, along with bajillions of little tiny garlic bulbs. I think this is a nice side effect of dumping the kitchen compost right into the garden!

I finished up to the armscye shaping of the body of the 2nd rogue sweater I'm knitting this morning on the bus. Now I need to knit 2 sleeves, I'm going to do this in the round instead of flat and then join them and work all the sleeve cap and shoulder shaping at once.

Unfortunately for my ride home, I don't have my DPNs so I can't start the sleeves. And because the sweater is in its own, big, knitting bag I don't even have a backup knitting project (I always carry a backup, for reasons just such as this!) With no DPNs and no backup project I have Nothing. To. Knit. on the bus ride home.

I know, I'm scared too.

I go through spells where I don't feel like I'm a "real" designer. Mostly this happens when I'm not actively communicating with anyone about anything upcoming. It's bad enough when that's because I'm just not working on anything of my own (which is fine sometimes) but it gets much worse when I'm working on several things, but it's all just me, and nothing's been submitted yet, and I'm working in a vacuum, and what if it all gets rejected because everyone thinks I'm a hack? I wonder if this feeling will go away when I have more then 1 knitty pattern and 5 self-designed patterns, but I suspect it won't.

Waiting is another whole kind of hard. Right now I'm waiting to hear back on 4 different designs submitted to 4 different places (these are the worst). I'm waiting on a 5th project where I've done everything I can and it's out of my hands now. I'm waiting on some yarn that needs to arrive for a 6th different project. And I suppose I could say I'm waiting for myself to finish knitting a 7th (and 8th that hasn't been started yet) projects so that I can get them moved on to the next steps.

Waiting, ick.

I had a great weekend.  Saturday was a perfectly beautiful fall day, the kind of day that gets me raving like a lunatic about that peticular shade of blue sky that I swear only happens on fall days when the trees are red and there are no clouds.  We spent the morning running errands around town, including introducing ourselves at a new dairy farm - this one sells milk year round (the milk from our neighbors is wonderful, but his two milkers dry up soon, and we don't want to go back to store bought milk)  Neil impressed me by cleaning the chimney himself (we may have the easiest-to-clean chimney ever)  Then I joined Neil on a trip into the big city where we walked up and down church street and I was shocked by the number of "new" stores on that street.  I guess I really haven't been into Burlington in quite a while.

Sunday was the complete opposite, rainy, dreary, chilly.  That morning I declared that I would do nothing but sit on the couch and knit.  And yet, by the end of the day I'd also baked cookies, frozen corn, and made and frozen pesto.  I would sit for awhile, but then I'd get antsy and need to DO SOMETHING.  Then I'd try to sit again, but the laziness kept wearing off.  I did get quite a bit of knitting done.

The shawl for my mom is moving along.  It looks like a white lumpy mass (all lace is lumpy and shapeless, no real surprise)  I'm already into the edging chart, but since the "edging" takes up 45-65% of the yarn I suspect I'm only about halfway done.  About 10 rows back I counted and had 345 stitches in a row - and each one is a little longer then the one before it...

The closeup is the best shot, trust me.  Also, look at the cute little nupps!  (those are the rounded clumps of stitches, they're so fun to work)

I also worked on the endless blanket, I've finished the 7th row!  This means I'm now 11.2% done (I was about 10% done at the end of the 6th row...)

See how it stretches on forever?  That's exactly how it feels when I'm knitting on it, in a good way of course...

We've been having some of the warmest sunniest weather (that's only a little bit of an exaggeration) since May this week - which is odd since it's the first day of autumn.  Maybe the fact that it was 60 overnight (craziness) is why I've been feeling rather un-inspired to work on any projects in the evening.  Not that I'm uninspired overall, I feel a bit like I have designs falling out of my ears the last few weeks, it's actually getting the knitting done that keeps holding me up.

Of course what that means is I'm making regular progress on the easier things.  The square sock blanket has become my evening knitting of choice for the last week.  And at about 3.5 squares a night I estimate it'll only be another 416 nights before I finish it (not including knitting on the edging)  So, given my habit of stuffing a project to the back of the closet for months at a time I predict this blanket will be done in (if I'm lucky) 3 years.  Wheee........

It's tricky when you're busy, and don't have internet at home, to keep up to date on everything. So here's a rapid-fire summary:

On the farm:
The tomatoes all died of blight. They went from healthy to dead over the course of a week. The first 4 days just the bottom leaves were brown, then in 2 days the entire plants died. It was sad to watch and I'm feeling very defeated in the garden. Luckily it's just the dried beans, cabbage and winter squash waiting left, so they can handle my moping and ignoring them for awhile.

Mama blackbeard still has all 11 babies. I haven't got a clue how she keeps track of them all. We have a wanderlust chicken, I'm pretty sure she's not nesting, but she's also not coming in to sleep at night. I don't know if she survived the weekend or not.

Weekend:
We went to NH to visit my family. Good times and good cake were had by all (my birthday and my future brother in law's birthday were both last week)

We went on several very nice hikes, and Neil seems to have managed to wash himself carefully enough after a walk through a patch of poison ivy that so far he doesn't have a rash.

Knitting:
Beginning of last week I finally finished Neil's sweater, this one was almost a year in the making (with lots of closet time)

I re-knit the yoke 3 times and it's still not perfect, but it's pretty good and Neil really likes it and I really like that he wears it so much.

End of last week I finished some crazy cabled blue socks

The Ornette pattern from Cookie A. Brilliant.

And I cast on for a lace shawl

It's getting bigger quickly. This one is for mom!

And I'm working on a sweater

It'll be the second rogue I've knit, and I almost never knit the same pattern twice. But I've learned so much about knitting since my first rogue. This one is for a friend who provided the yarn as well as a lot of comfort and understanding to me late last fall.

And I have this strange urge to cast on about 3 different sock patterns. This always happens when one sock pattern gets finished. Socks want to breed like rabbits, but my hands only knit so fast.

I also have 3 other sweaters I want to knit, and yarn for 2 of them in my stash. The next two will probably be Ruby Red and Wisteria which are ready to go as soon as I figure out how to extend the day (currently I'm trying the "sleeping less" approach)

I also have the yarn for OWLS...

I really want to knit Luminen, but I need to find the yarn first, and with property taxes due next month there really isn't any yarn money in the budget. Clearly this is why I have a stash. Of course my stash could keep me knitting for over a year, but I haven't got enough of any one color for Luminen.

And in the stash world - I did get yarn money for my birthday! And I got more sock yarn. Don't ask about the Luminen yarn I just mentioned wanting. It'll just have to wait. Clearly I have enough other projects to keep me going for awhile anyway.

So in summary, the summer gardening push is winding down which is good because I have a serious case of startitis going on. And it's monday. At least that means lots of bus knitting time ahead.

Yesterday I wasn't feeling very well so I took a sick day.  It was pretty productive as sick days go, though.  I sat on the couch with my book (Omnivore's Dilemma - highly recommended)  and my knitting.


Chapeau Marnier from Knitty.  I knit it out of the handspun I was spinning during the Tour de Fleece.  It's perfect for handspun, it's pretty, but not too complicated.  I have 30 or 40 yards left too, enough for either a very small project like wrist warmers, or maybe a few squares in the never-ending sock yarn blanket.  The yarn is an alpaca/bamboo blend, so it's drape-y more then stretchy, but for a fitted hat this doesn't matter too much - and it means that this hat has exactly zero itch!


I really love how the ribbon finishes the project so nicely.  I kinda wanted a chocolate brown ribbon, but the burgundy one was already in my ribbon stash and it matches the yarn so well!

In the afternoon I was feeling a little better.  Also I had just finished reading about an experiment done on two blackberry patches grown in the same soil and sunlight one with conventional growing practices and one with organic growing practices.  Turns out the organic blackberries had more micronutrients (flavonoids etc...) then the conventional ones.  The people who did the study were still looking into exactly why.

Anyway, all this reminded me that I had a quart of wild blackberries that had gotten shoved to the back of the fridge a week and a half ago.  (bad sign, right?  blackberries really don't last that long) but when I pulled the container out I discovered only a handful of moldy berries.  Some more were soft, but for pie, who cares?  So I made pie.


I even baked the crust first, because the berries were very juicy.


And I made a lattice work pie.  Usually I just cheat and mix the dough right in the pie dish, and squish it down into the dish rather then rolling it out.  But this time I decided to roll out the crust, and since I was doing that anyway, why not really do it up fancy?  This pie has a touch of ginger in it.  Cinnamon is common for fruit pies but I find ginger once in awhile keeps things interesting.


And I had extra crust, so I made some raisin custardy tartlets.  I had a recipe in mind, but pretty much just made these up.  A handful of raisins in each, then I mixed an egg, a handful of sugar, a dollop of molasses, a squirt of lemon juice, and pinch of cinnamon.  They worked out perfectly, I ate two as soon as they cooled and only barely held off on eating the third so Neil could try it.

Oh, and our best mama blackbeard has been rescued from the woods (rescued is my term, she was quite cranky to be removed from her carefully secluded nest)  This time she hatched ELEVEN (that's 11) baby chickens.  I tried to take pictures with the good camera, but somehow the files went corrupt.  No kidding.  The pictures I took before (pie pictures) worked out and the pictures I took after (hat pictures) all worked.  But the chicken pictures didn't just come out blurry, but the computer couldn't read the files.  And then I put the chip in the camera, and it can't read them either.  And then I tried to take a picture with my camera phone this morning, and that died while I was trying.  So now i'm formulating a claim about mama blackbeard being impossible to photo like some kind of mythical chicken-beast.  It's the only logical explanation, right?

And I am feeling better today, so that's nice.  Hopefully Neil and I can find a nice place to camp this weekend.

Over the weekend it got chilly, and it was 41 when I woke up this morning!  The weather people promise it will warm up again, but I don't really mind the crispness in the air - I like autumn.  Last night I made bread again:

I love when it comes out this perfectly (hint: it doesn't always - last time was tasty but it was also only half this size and a bit dense)  I used the aramanth again - the flavor is wonderful.

I also made a delicious dish that I'm calling (from now on) VT harvest curry.  The original recipe is called Country Captain in the newer Joy of Cooking model, and while I'm sure that version is quite tasty I've never made it.  The recipe calls for a lot of different ingredients and spices (raisins, onion, garlic, tomatoes, nutmeg, cloves, brown sugar, etc...)  Which all get simmered together.  Reading through the list I realized that everything except the tomatoes was already in a jar of my chutney.  So rather then all that crazy chopping, simmering, and stirring my version goes something along the lines of "Brown chicken, dump in jar of chutney and chopped tomatoes (fresh or canned) simmer just until soft"  It's so quick and so delicious.  The original recipe also doesn't have apples in it, which is a huge oversight in my opinion, because my way is great!  We ate it too quickly for me to take a picture.

I "finished" Neil's sweater a second time.  And for a second time I got to the end and realized I'd screwed up the neck shaping.  Last time I didn't decrease enough, this time I decreased too much, too quickly.  I'm going to have to rip it out again.  I'm trying to resist the urge to stuff it back into the closet.  I know Neil really wants to actually wear it this season...

I am on a finishing roll! It helps that I'm focusing on projects that I started early last spring and then stuffed in my closet for various reasons. Finishing a project goes much faster when it's already 85% done...



This one is Eleonora from Knitting Nonstop. The yarn is Jewel sock yarn from Mocha's Fiber Designs. I got it at NH Sheep and Wool this spring and haven't stopped talking about it since. It was THE YARN that I was looking for. It met every requirement I wanted, and I snapped it up so fast I amazed even myself.

As usual I changed a few things. I knit the cuffs single stranded on size 3 needles instead of holding the yarn double and using size 4's. I really wanted the lace to be light and airy and not too heavy for the light weight fabric. Because of these changes I followed the size small cuff directions, then changed down to the XS for the sleeves. That's because this is technically a shrug - which means it's just a set of sleeves and the back of a sweater. Since there's no front I didn't have to make any accommodations for my bust.



I'm not normally a shrug person. You might have noticed - I tend to make my tops hip length. I don't like to tuck things in and I don't like to have my midriff show. But this one called to me as soon as I saw it. That's not unusual, but when I see a pattern, like it, and find myself thinking about it still days later I know I need to go buy the pattern. So I did. I feel only a little odd wearing it, so hopefully I'll adjust as I wear it more.



Right, modifications: After the sleeve was done I changed the back a bit. I increased an inch along the bottom edge to make it a touch longer (and slightly less shrug-like) After finishing the second sleeve the lace around the body is knit on. I added 4 sets of short rows along the lower edge (two from armpit to armpit, and another two along just the lowest center quarter) So the lace is a little more then an inch longer at the bottom then at the top - again this is to make it slightly less shrug-like. The best part was, when I finished with the knitting I only had 4 ends to weave in! Just 4 ends and no seaming at all. Fabulous!



I really like the little points on the sleeves, although that is only due to the way I blocked the lace out and has nothing to do with the pattern...

Also, look! See my calla lily?? I'm so proud, I grew it myself. It's in a clay pot sunk into the garden, and the real challenge comes this winter when I have to move it inside and nurse it though the winter until it can go out again. And it's not like a dahlia or gladiolus that come inside dormant, I have to keep it alive...

Next up is the sweater for Neil that I "finished" last spring only to discover I'd completely screwed up the yoke shaping. COMPLETELY. I didn't decrease fast enough and I didn't decrease enough. It fit him fine to just above the armpits, then it got all baggy and wrinkly and the collar was twice as big as needed. Last night I ripped out 20% of the sweater and I've started re-knitting it. Ripping that much sweater (especially man-size 46" chest sweater [Neil likes his sweaters to be big]) hurts, but it's worse having it stare at me, completed but unwearable, every time I looked in my closet.

Just busy!

Last weekend (I keep doing this, it's friday again already?!)  One of my good friends came up for a visit.  It was lots of fun, we had knitting time (one of my favorite kinds of time) and boating time, and swimming time, and pretty much had a very relaxing weekend.  She took lots of pretty pictures of vermont (another thing I love to do!)  Although some of my favorite photos were of the immature loon and its parent:



Although the photo of the mama hen who somehow managed to get her baby up on the pearch are pretty fabulous too:



That pearch is over 4ft off the ground, there are some in between things for jumping on, but I had no idea a baby chicken could jump 2 or more feet at a time and land on a perch!

This weekend there's a sterling college reunion (which I'm really looking forward too!)  and a LOT of veggies to put up.  I picked 16 ears of corn from my garden yesterday (some are a bit small, but with the beginning of the growing season the way it was the plants are small too) and we've got 2 or 3 quarts of beens to freeze between the purple beans in my garden and the green and yellow ones from the CSA.  We got a lot of brocolli this week too which I might freeze, my fridge barely shuts properly right now there's so many veggies stuffed in it - and the corn and big summer squashes are living on the counter!

Oh and yarn:

I have more!  This lovely batch is from Knitpicks (the green in front is gloss sock, the mossy green/dark brown in back are classic wool of the andes worsted, and the tan/chocolate brown on the side are stroll sport) and they're all destined for new designs!  I'm quite excited!  I love knitpicks - their yarns are very nice and very reasonably priced.  The Gloss has lovely sheen and is very smooth - wonderful to knit with!  I'm also really excited about their stroll (used to be essential) coming in other sizes then just plain sock yarn - the socks I've made with it in the past have held up really well to wear and tear - which is really important in a sock!

I also made bread Wednesday evening.  It was the one evening of the week when it cooled off below 60 - I'm glad I grabbed the chance to bake while I had it!  Anyway, I added some aramanth flour to the dough and it was delicious!  I picked it up because I wanted to try something new and the bag said it added a nice malty flavor to bread - and I like malty flavors!
I've slowly grown to baking bread by feel.  I used to follow the recipe exactly, then I started changing or substituting 1 or 2 things, now I don't even bother pulling out the recipe book.  Making bread goes something like this:
Mix some yeast in warm water with a touch of sugar in my bread bowl.  Is it foaming? check.
Ingredient checklist (in my head) fat? flour? liquid? salt?  Mix it together and start kneeding until it feels right.
For a single sandwich sized loaf I generally start with 2ish tsp yeast in 1/4c of water.  Generally I want at least 1 but not more then 5 Tbsp oil (yes, it is that flexible, depending on how rustic/soft you want your bread)  Then I add the flour - 2 heaping handfuls of flour and 1 of something else.  Each handful being somwhere between 1/2 and 1C flour and something else can be almost anything - rolled oats, oat flour, rice flour, cornmeal, sunflower/flax/sesame seeds, strange grains flour, etc...  And the bulk of the bread needs to be between 2/3 and 3/4 real flour when I'm all done (for the gluten!)
Once the fat and flour are in (sometimes I add an egg with the fat, if i feel like it) I'll sprinkle in some salt (I really can't say how much, and under-salting things is one error I still make regularly)  The poor yeast cells should always be buffered from the salt addition by flour/oil/egg/something.
Then I add some more liquid - milk, whey if I've made cheese recently, beer, water if I have nothing else.  Then I just keep adding flour until it's bread-like.  I suspect I end up with somewhere between 4-5 cups of flour and enough liquid for it to stick together the way bread dough should.  It takes a bit to get it right, but I really enjoy just throwing together some bread based on my whims!

Oh, and now that I finally have pictures up feel free to go back and see a photo of me trying to eat a smore half the size of my head - it's pretty funny...

Not last weekend but the one before (boy this post is late)  I went to the first annual VT knit and fiber camp!  Putting the event together started through a ravelry group, but our fearless organizer posted fliers around the state as well.  The idea behind it was that while there are lots of great knitting events, retreats, classes, conventions out there they all cost money - more money then some of us can really justify (it would seriously cut into my yarn budget) 



VT knit and fiber camp was a simple get together of like minded knitters at Kettle Pond right here in VT.  We had a pot luck the first evening, and otherwise everyone brought their own food, camping gear, etc although there was still plenty of sharing going on the rest of the weekend!  The $12.50 fee covered two nights in some really nice lean-tos and s'mores the second evening.  I tried a variation on the classic s'more - this one uses cookies instead of graham crackers, reeses peanut butter cups instead of plain chocolate, and a GIANT marshmellow.  It was delicious, but horribly sticky... 



We had a yarn swap table for people who brought yarn they were willing to trade, and one person brought the leftover stock from a relative's out of business yarn store - so we had a huge table of 40% off yarn and needles as well!



There weren't a lot of plans for the weekend.  We had cabling and spinning demos - but mostly we had an entire weekend of sitting around the campfire with our knitting and spinning where we talked about yarn, fiber, gauge, works in progress, each other's socks (sock summit came up) and no one felt bad for not doing chores, and no one rolled their eyes at us about our stashes, and no one's face glazed over when someone started discussing the merits of certain kinds of knitting needles over other kinds (I passed around my signature knitting needles - everyone loved them and totally understood how awesome they were)  Good times all weekend.  I can't wait for next year!

I've been working on several different design deadlines and it's been taking up a lot of my extra time.  But it's been fun!  In my free knitting time I've been working on this project:

Yes, the plain stockinette shrug (eleonora) came out of time out in the back of my closet.  It was exactly the right kind of knitting for the knitting camp that I went to last weekend (more on that when I have time to write the post, it was awesome!)

But I had a moment where my knitting got the better of me when beginning the second cuff.  If you don't like knitting babble, you can just stop reading now...
I knit the size small cuff and the XS cuff and then up sized the the small size for the body of this shrug in the first sleeve, so now I have to make the second cuff match.  I checked the decreases from the first cuff, checked that math and figured reversing it should work for the second cuff.  I worked my increases.  But instead of the 72 sts I thought I needed I had 78.  Since I figured I could drop one stitch at 6 of the knit front and back places in the previous row without too much of a hole developing since the cuff is lacey anyway, right?  So I did that on the next round (which also had some increases in it) and suddenly I was 8 stitches too short.  Checking the pattern again I realized I that on the middle step I WAS supposed to have 78 sts.  I ended up ripping out 4 rows to fix my 2 rows worth of mistakes, and finished up the hour a full row behind where I'd started. 
Then I (clearly not learning) thought I could knit the lace without a beginning of round marker.  My attempt went something like this knit 3 rounds, rip 2, knit 4 rounds, tink back 3.  Knit 2 rounds, tink 2 rounds.  Finally I realized how much time my stubbornness was wasting and placed a marker for the beginning of the round.  If I don't screw up again this afternoon I should have the second cuff finished!  Then I just have to knit the collar - that'll be a whole different adventure since I really should have at least a 24 inch circular for this step - but I think I'm going to try to make due with my 5 DPNs...
Wish me luck!

I wish I was at Sock Summit.  But I haven't the money - and even people with the money had trouble registering.  Too bad.  There's going to be a sock museam, a sock hop, the setting of a knitting world record, the mayor of Portland even proclaimed this to be sock knitting week.  Crazy, huh?

But I am knitting some pretty awesome socks right now:

I dug the second one out of the closet after I finished a sweater last night.  It's blocking right now, and then there will be pictures!

I said goodbye to my mystery project this afternoon.  It was hard letting it go, but I'm excited to see what happens next!  Also I finished a sweater this morning.  I have to sew on the collar and weave in the ends, then there will be pictures!

This weekend the music festival was wonderful (and exhausting)  Neil and I ended up being the trash and recycling volunteers.  This meant instead of 4 solid hours of volunteer work followed by freedom we were both on duty and off duty all the time.  It was fun because it meant that we could listen to whatever shows we wanted and hard work because it meant I couldn't just find another barrel any time I noticed a full trash or recycling can.  The smoothie vendor did give us a free smoothie though!  And Neil got to drive the golf cart buggy thingies which made him very happy.

I think Neil is starting to absorb knitting knowledge through osmosis (diffusion actually, since it's not water)  He's not interested in learning to knit - but the other day a random passerby commented "knitting?  cool, but it's the wrong season."  After they'd moved on he gave me a confused look and asked how there could be a wrong season for knitting?  Also, once the mystery project was done and blocked I had it ready to go, but Neil asked to see it again because "after it's blocked is when it's really finished."  And honestly, I'd never expect a non-knitter to understand the difference between a completely finished but not washed and laid flat item - and one that's exactly the same but washed and laid flat to dry (except with lace, that difference is obvious) 
It's like when I discovered that he knew not to put my bras through the dryer.  It's not that I don't think he can learn these things, but that I barely know that's a bad idea myself!  He might be much more observant then I am...

New stuff In My Life.  Neil's talking about going back to school!  It's very super exciting and a wee bit scary all at once (at least for me)  He's talking about doing an EDP (external degree program) through Johnson state (so convenient having a college pretty much at the end of our road)  And he's looking at psychology (more power to him, I dislike psychology)  Right now he's filling out forms for the college, for VSAC, and talking with Laraway before making this decision.  He's hoping they'll have input on part time vs full time and what they can do to help him out.  So good luck to Neil for all his exciting and tricky conversations today!

This saturday we're going to the champlain valley folk festival.  I'm very excitied.  I'm also excitied because my secret knitting project is so close to done!  See?

No?  Oh well.   Let's just say it's so close to done that I'm bringing a second project to the festival this weekend because I don't want to run out of things to knit!

The yarn for my deadline project has finally arrived! Hooray! Now I'm going to have a little knitting race with myself.

Sorry, I can't give you a better picture. But isn't my new project bag nice?

And we still have no news on potential new baby chickens. Since I don't remember exactly which day she started nesting I'm not too worried. And since the first mama hen was on the nest for about 48 hours after the first baby hatched I just have to accept that if she's still out there she'll come home when she's ready.

My plans for this weekend involve a LOT of knitting. Maybe some canoeing (Neil can do the paddling) and definitely a trip to the yarn store (because I don't own all the needles in the world yet) Oh, and I need to re-rack my apple/tart cherry wine so the big glass jug will be available for something new! Wine making doesn't take much active time, just lots of patience.

Next week I have a DNA conference in Burlington for three days. It's always fun to hear the latest new techniques, and this conference tends to have a lot more discussion rather then just the speaker speaking, which adds to the interest. Three days of conference knitting should be good for my project too.

In an effort not to be bored I was crazily productive over the weekend. I made some feta (needs to age for 2 weeks), baked some bread (note to self, flour is important for gluten), started a new batch of wine (apple/tart cherry) I finally have all the perennials IN the ground and not just sitting on top of it. I put stakes in for my tomatoes and sugar snap peas (I used some of the millions of shoots the hardwood stumps are sending out, thanks for the idea Mom!) I took all the animals to the vets. I was very productive!

I finished the other two skirts. These are the three skirts that I picked up fabric for at the quilting store last week. The major lesson with these skirts is: If I don't know exactly what I'm doing I should pick up 3/4 to 1 yard of fabric, not 1/2 to 3/4 yards.
The brown gradient on in the center would've fit perfectly if the waistband was 1-2 inches wide instead of 2-3 since I only had 3/4 of a yard. But I'm still really proud of it. I like how the waistband fades from lightest in the front to darkest in the back. And I like my solution for not having the seams stand out in a bad way.
The blue one with the lace is a 12 gore skirt (meaning it's made of 12 wedges that are narrow at the waist and get wider) gored skirts can flair out a lot, but I kept this one more tame as it's meant to be an office skirt. The lace at the bottom and the white ribbon that I turned into a waistband are from my stash (why yes, I have a sewing stash as well as a knitting stash. Is there a problem with that?) I ended up picking up an extra 1/4 of a yard to make this fit nicely (so 3/4 of a yard total). Luckily no one had decided to use all the bolt of fabric for the backing of a quilt or anything.
The last one makes me feel like I'm wearing a chocolate layer cake - in a good way. I knew I wanted it tiered with elastic at the top. But I didn't want to buy yet more fabric and I only had a 1/2 yard of this brown. And then I realized I had some perfect light pink floaty fabric in my stash that matched the tiny pink dots in the pattern of the brown fabric. One of the trickiest things for me (in sewing) is having randomly, but evenly bunched fabric. I'm much better and even, spaced, pleats. I think I did pretty well on these layers and I LOVE this skirt (it may be my favorite).


All in all three really pretty skirts that are exactly what I wanted. And I spent $17.98 total, for three skirts - I win! If I'd had to buy zippers and elastic and lace trim it would have been more, but probably not more then $25 total. Now I just need it to be warm enough to wear my cute skirts and not my nice clean sweaters.

Oh yes, I also did some mending and washing of the woolens. You can probably imagine this is no small task in my house. Usually mending and washing happens when I put them away for the summer, but this year I did the mending and washing and I'm still wearing them, but it was time.

It's like a where's waldo in my living room. But I'm not sure if you're looking for all the woolens or looking for the living room beneath them... I washed 5 sweaters, 4 hats, 3 vests, 3 scarves, 2 mittens, and 1 jacket (not hand knit, but still 100% wool) Not pictured is Neil's india sweater which needed major reconstructive surgery on the cuffs.

I had a reason behind doing this all at once. My awesome front loading washing machine has a spin-only option. So after hand washing all these things I can just put them in the machine and it wrings 90% of the water out. WONDERFUL. But the machine is smart and carefully balances the load by tumbling it a bit first, so it doesn't walk away (or break) during the high spin speeds. We've tried putting just 1 thing in the machine once. It spend 30 minutes before it (somehow, I don't know how) got the item balanced against the door so it was mostly centered with itself for the spin. The machine may be smarter then me. Now I make sure it has enough in it to balance easily before spinning the water out.