Stillwater

I'm telling you, it totally pays to take chances. I won SweetGeorgia's birthday contest. The prize, beautiful sock yarn in a new colorway, Stillwater. Here's the pic she sent me (you can see this photo and the other new colorways she just whipped up on her site):



The winning comment:

The best thing about turning 30 is knowing better but doing it anyway. You have the experience and the youth to still get crazy every so often.

Happy birthday! As far as I can tell, it only seems to get better...I'll let you know if anything changes when I hit 40. :-)

I will have to find a sock pattern that is worthy of this yarn. I'll have to wait and see how it knits up, but it may be best to just go with a plain stockinette pattern...We'll see.

Since you guys approved of the Dream Swatch headwrap in the solid color, it has been coming along quite nicely. Its actually an easy pattern to memorize and the yarn feels absolutely wonderful. My only complaint is that there are knots in the yarn every so often. Of course, they seem to coincide with the drop stitches so I've had to go back and undo a few rows so I don't wind up with weird weaving in issues later.



Its definitely growing on me.

And more yarn, I got my one skein pal's package yesterday, KnitPicks Gossamer yarn in Leprechaun. (Sorry I didn't take a photo but you can look it up on the KnitPicks site.)

ssslow progresss

We were out of town the last few days. I got a chance to see Trillian and some friends. We had a great time hanging out in VA for a long weekend. I took a couple of projects with me and worked on hubby's sweater and the crocheted baby blanket. No pics of that, just a few more inches of ribbing and a few more rounds on the blanket so not really worthy of photographing at this point. I'm trying to remain faithful to a few projects at a time in order to get my WIPs under control. I'm also hoping that this will help curb my desire for new yarn since I can't start new projects. Mostly.

I did start the one skein project for my secret pal. I bought this really pretty bamboo yarn and am making the Dream Swatch head wrap. I figure she could also use it as a belt if she wanted or let her daughter have it, or frog it and make something else. I've seen lots of recommendations for home decor projects but I really think that the gift should be for the person in question, not for the house. (I know that I don't usually like gifts for the house as gifts for me unless I specifically asked for said gifts.) The pattern isn't hard but the elongated stitches are a little hard to keep under control. I'm also thinking that the solid color perhaps does not lend itself to the additional interest of the variegated yarn used in the pattern. I'll keep going and see how I feel about it after a few more repeats. What do you think?



As for the crazy title, look what we saw outside our pool shed the day before we left town:





Its a rat snake, generally non-aggressive and not venomous. Its got great coloring and we were a little sad that we didn't see it when we came home. This makes the third type of snake we have come across since living here (the other two being a legless lizard and a black racer that managed to get into the house).

Funny story

First, I won't bore you with progress pics of the crochet blanket and the ribbing. With my wrist issues, everything is moving slowly. Thanks to all of you for your concern and suggestions for making my wrist feel better. I have actually had problems with my joints (wrists, ankles, shoulders and occasionally knees) for years. Since I'm not particularly athletic, it is not usually a problem. However, being the copious note-taker that I am, in college I often had swollen wrist issues. Once it got so bad that the doctor thought he was going to have to use a syringe to draw out the excess fluid. (Luckily, its not that bad now.) When I finally learned to swim in college, I always pulled to one side because my right shoulder would "click" and hurt after a while. It turned out that the force of the strokes was pulling my shoulder out of the joint, causing the clicking sound and making me sore. Needless to say, I don't swim very much.

Now that I have grossed you out, here is a picture of my doggies. They are too cute as they patiently watch me pouring out their food and waiting for their "eat" command.



Last night, Genny (the GSD mix) was apparently spooked by something before bed time. Normally, she crawls under our bed to sleep but she kept pacing. She even wriggled out of her collar and ran out of the room and started going through the house. I thought she was looking for hubby since he was in the second bathroom. When he came out of the bathroom, she still wouldn't lay by the bed or under it (her favorite place). We walked through the house with her, tried letting her out again (she sometimes "forgets" to go because she gets distracted in the yard), and she just ran back into her crate, panting hard. We got down on the floor and called her into our room (her crate is in another room). She stayed by the door. We looked at her from across the room, with our heads looking out from under the bed. She finally came to us, crawling under the bed to where we were. She looked at me and just started licking my face for a while.

Now, this may not seem particularly funny to you but keep in mind this process took over 30 minutes so it was after midnight, we were on the floor in our PJs, calling in soothing voices to get our dog to lay down under the bed, the whole time Cam (the greyhound) just lay on his bed looking like we were interrupting his rest. It suddenly struck me as ridiculous at the time. She finally settled down but I was half-asleep all night listening for her panting or other signs of distress. I didn't sleep well but Genny appears just fine today. It would really make things easier if they could just tell you what was wrong.

The dark side beckoned...

I did most of the ribbing in the picture in one sitting. Again, it doesn't look like much but keep in mind the first inch or so is on size 3 needles and then I moved up to the size 4 for the rest.



As much as I appreciate the speed that I get from the Addis, it seems to hurt my hand to hold the metal needles for so long. In addition, after a few hours of ribbing my right wrist was killing me. Apparently I am not one of those knitters who totally relaxes when she knits. I seem to tense up my arms and back after I've been knitting a while. Before I taught myself to knit Continental, my lower right back (lat muscle) would hurt after a few hours of knitting. Now that I'm not throwing, my wrist hurts. It hurt so much that anything other than minimal movement forward or backward caused great pain. So what did I do? (Let's face it, I have to do something with my hands when I'm watching TV.) I followed the call of the siren, I picked up a *crochet* WIP.

(moment of silence while you digest that)

Here is a baby blanket I started well over a year ago. The pattern is from a collection that I picked up many years ago. (If someone is interested, I can dig up the specs.)



Pretty, no? Of course, the baby for whom this was intended is way too old now but I can finish it and wait to gift it to someone else. Since I move my right wrist more (small circles), it did help to stretch it out and alleviate some of the swelling.

I also got my order of hemp/cotton from Hemp Traders (via a yarn coop). I don't think I like it very much. The yarn looked much smoother in the photos so I'm a little disappointed. It is not plied very tightly and looks like it would lose some of its "fluff" (not sure what the technical term is, "slubs"?) over time. It also has some VM, which isn't a big deal but not great for the summer cardi I was hoping to get out of the yarn. Here's the swatch:



Its growing on me a little but I'm not sure if its enough to want to keep it. Since I purchased this yarn through a coop, I can't return it. I'm thinking I might swap it.

To leave you with a little yarnography, here's the new hemp yarn from Elann that I ordered in Desert Sand and Antique Blue. So yummy...

Progress report

Sorry, but this will be a picture free report today. I've been working on hubby's sweater. Since a picture of about 2 inches of ribbing is not so exciting, I'll wait until its further along to post a pic.

I was going to do the bottom for the Alene camisole in the round without the open front as in the original pattern. Once I started thinking about it, I decided I didn't like the idea but still didn't like the open front. In keeping with the flirty lace, I've decided to do the bottom so that there are openings on the sides; less obvious than an opening down the front but in keeping with the attitude of the pattern. I'll post when I have at least one pattern repeat. I think I figured out the math to make it work but I've been wrong before.

I still haven't started the shrug for my MIL and we're going to see them this weekend so I better get cracking. No joke, when she has called she asked how its coming along--definitely need to have something in hand for the weekend. Yeah, just what you want to see more stockinette stitch--almost as racy as the ribbing.

Despite the current WIPs, I want to start new ones. However, hubby is actually starting to question my sanity in getting so much yarn so I need to start churning out some FOs. Oh yeah, did I mention I succumbed and bought more yarn? I got the new Elann Canapone 100% hemp yarn in Warm Sand and Antique Blue. I *really* need to stop buying yarn (I know, I've stated this before). My current stash (in the plastic bins) is starting to spill out. Some of it is old acrylic yarn for baby blankets so I need to either make some blankets or give it away. I'll have to catalogue my stash in the near future, but on a day when hubby won't see...He normally doesn't care about my yarn spending but since I mentioned wanting to attend Stitches East, he's been a little twitchy...