We had a lot of fun at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I only wound up buying one thing, and it wasn't even yarn! There was just SOOOOOO much yarn it was hard to even choose. And if I bought something from one of the first booths, what if I found something I wanted more at another booth? And worse, what if I ran out of money before I got there? My friend Kimberly did buy me some pretty green sock yarn from Miss Babs as part of my birthday present. I don't know what pattern I'll use for them, but it will probably be from the toe up sock book.
We saw a bunch of animals -- bunnies, goats, alpaca, llamas, and, of course, sheep.
The best part of all, though, was this one booth where a lady let Kimberly and I try out the spinning wheel. It was a lot more difficult than it looked! The peddling part was ok, but you had to make sure the wheel when in one direction only. If you slowed down too much, it might start going the wrong way. I don't think that happened to Kimberly, but it certainly happened to me! The drafting part was pretty hard, too. You're supposed to pull out a little bit of the fiber at a time, but it just wasn't coming out that easily! The lady made it look soooooo simple, but we didn't have much luck with that. I took a little video of Kimberly spinning, though.
There was also a really funny bleating sheep in one of the animal buildings. My husband apparently had a perfect voice tone to antagonize the sheep. Paul would baaa and then the sheep would freak out and baaa more! I took video of that, too. It was hilarious!
I've been working pretty steadily on my Mr Greenjeans sweater. It's turning out lovely, although I'm afraid the bottom will look stretched rather than hanging freely. I have large hips, you see. It makes me think I should have not gone down a needle size for my ribbing, but I'm certainly not brave enough to rip out 9 inches of ribbing and cables for my own vanity, especially when I'm down to 2 or 3 repeats until I bind off the bottom!! Then there will be the sleeves and the edging. The only way to make things better that I see is to lose some inches on these hips!!
You can see my lovely ribbing although it's grown significantly since this picture was taken.
I've also started another pair of socks, my first from the toe up. And my first with a pattern. It's hard not to have firsts when you're only on your third pair of socks, though, right? For my birthday last week, my friend gave me Wendy D. Johnson's book Toe Up Socks for Every Body. It's got a ton of cute socks assuming you like lace, cables and colorwork!
I had this great sock weight blue yarn with sparkles in it, so I decided to find a pattern that I thought would look nice in sparkles. I picked Crocus because it seemed pretty and not too too fussy for the pattern to out shine the sparkles or vice versa. Now, not being a lace person and having only made two pairs of socks, I figured sock patterns must use sock yarn, right? It wasn't until I got to the first row of the pattern when I realized that my toe might even be too big for my husband that I checked the pattern information. I had been so concerned with getting the toe up magic loop stuff working that I completely skipped the part where the pattern was done in lace weight on size 0s! 0s!! I don't even like using 3s which is what I was using with my lovely blue sparkle yarn!
There I was at a crossroads. Do I try to continue or do I sack it all, stick my brand new book with the pile of other pattern books and get back to working on my sweater? I decided to undo the rows until I had the right number of stitckes for the small sock and see if that might fit my foot. I tried it on before even starting the pattern, and it seemed to be fine. Possibly a tad loose, but tolerable.
I went on to the lace pattern and completed my first run of the 16 line pattern from the chart (a big first) and everything is looking really good together! The pattern is visable, the yarn is sparkley, and it seems to be fitting my foot pretty well. What do you think?
In other news, Maryland Sheep and Wool is TOMORROW!!! I'm soooo excited!! I've been waiting for this since we decided to move to Maryland last April. I don't even know what to expect, but I'm sure it will be fantastic all the same. I've convinced my husband to go with me, and tonight we'll be staying with a friend who lives a tad closer to the Howard County Fairgrounds than we do. Then we'll all make our way out tomorrow morning for yarny fun!
It's been so nice out these last two weeks. I can't believe it's April what with temps reaching 90 degrees here. Maybe in Memphis, but I didn't think it was supposed to be like this in Maryland. Except for today. Today was gloomy and cold and wet. I accomplished nothing today on account of that. I probably needed the extra sleep, though.
Sunday, we drove back from Memphis. It's about a 900 mile trip from there to our house, but we had to go by the airport in DC to pick up our other car. It was a major trek, and it was the first time Paul and I had done it all at one time. It was also the first time since we met 4 years ago that I drove most of the way on any trip.
I didn't get much knitting done while we were out of town. I did work on Sock 2 the whole trip down there, though, and managed to graft the toe and weave in the ends while waiting at the airport for out ride. Yay pair of socks!
Beyond that, I only managed one repeat on Mr Greenjeans during the next 4 days. I haven't even picked up the needles since we got home, either. We were so busy yesterday after getting home at 5a, getting up at 10a, and Paul still having the day off for traveling.
My yarn had some fun while I was out of town, though. We stayed with friends Thursday before checking into the hotel for a wedding.
I forgot that my friend’s cat has the ability to find yarn inside a block of concrete. The cat had been locked up while we were at the house Thursday, so I didn’t have the yarn-hunting reminder of her trying to get into my purse or anything while we were sitting around. I’d gotten my sweater out to work on but nearly fell asleep instead. I thought nothing of leaving it on the table when we went to dinner since I do that all the time at home and have nothing to worry about.
When we returned from dinner, it was a disaster area. She’d gotten the yarn attached to my project as unwound as possible before managing to get into our luggage bag which had to have included partially unzipping it to get to the full ball of yarn. The yarn was completely upended, wrapped around table and chair legs in the kitchen and in a total state of yarnsplosion in the living room. I re-wound it but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to use it because of the number of places she tugged splits into it. And if stealing my yarn wasn’t bad enough, which she was getting the yarn out of our bag, she also decided to eat part of my flip flop!!
In spite of how my yarn wound up, or unwound up, I'm sure it would have been hilarious to see video of the cat going about her fun.
Last night, I finished the leg on Sock 2. Since I was working on the leg, I didn't really need my sock book to do anything. Until this morning when I wanted to start on the heel flap.
I was going to finish the pair of socks before starting on something else. I knew I had the book at the yarn store on Friday when I started Sock 2. I was pretty sure I'd left with it and that I had it on Saturday at my friend's house. I was hoping, though, that it was at the yarn store since my friend lives an hour away and happens to be out of town through Sunday. Sadly, it was not at the yarn store so I'm not sure how to finish my sock just yet!
Instead, I went ahead and bought yarn for my sweater. I'll be making Mr Greenjeans out of a lovely green Berroco Vintage.
I have gotten the white shrug finished and blocked. I even made it up to my friend's house this past Saturday. Thanks to my knitting error, it fits her perfectly. She let me do a little photoshoot, so here are my finished pictures.
