If mom is stopped by the police... Be surprised :)

 

An Update About the Awesomeness of Rhinebeck, a Week Late

Last weekend, I and my trusty car buddies Lsquared42 and Fiendishchef, hit the road at 5 AM from Massachusetts and made our way to Rhinebeck, NY for the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival. This was my first event of this sort and I have to say it was pretty awesome. Technically, the reason we went is that we are knitters and knitters need wool, so why not go to a wool fest to get wool. But I think the REAL reason I went was because of the food. I have been hearing about the food at Rhinebeck for 9 months since I joined my knitting group. I was so excited about the prospect of eating Apple Crisp and Maple Cotton Candy.And mannnnnnnnnnnn, was it good. The Apple Crisp was by far the best Apple Crisp I have ever had. I even ate a Lamb Hot Dog. But I didn't stop there -- Maple Cotton Candy, Pumpkin Fudge, my first taste of Venison Sausage, tons of different cheeses. It was amazing. I spent so much of my yarn budget on food. Too be very honest I cannot wait to go again JUST to eat more yummy festival food. So of the best quality festival food I've ever had. (See picture below, where I am enjoying a lamb hot dog)

I GUESSSSSSSSS, since I am a knitter and this is my knit blog I guess I better talk about the yarn and needles I bought. I have to say I was a bit overwhelmed by the yarn. It was just skein after skein and rack after rack. I felt like I HAD to buy something but I had the hardest time to commit. To be honest I ended up buying the skein I bought because Fiensdishchef said, "let's go back and get my mug then you can swing by and get that purple you liked." And so I said "okay" because I knew I wouldn't be able to pick something on my own. This "purple" we are referring to a a BIG ASS hunk o' merino wool from Creatively Dyed. It's some of the prettiest, softest and snuggly-ist, most expensive purple yarn ever.  Unfortunately, I could not find my real camera before I started working this stuff so you'll just have to settle for my overexposed and wrongly colored iPhone camera shots of it....

I started trying to make a sleeveless cardi with it but I am not one for gauging and there was no way I could make it with the 425 yards. I was gonna fall short so I had to rip this loverly beginning to a sleeve cardi...

Again the exposure is all wrong, there appears to be pinkish bits but it is really more of a greyish purple. I was depressed to rip these gorgeous cables but I think it will be nice to have a matching set of hat and mittens for my second New England winter. I started a third pair of Bella Mittens by Subliminal Rabbit. I made one of the first pair, and 2nd pair for my boss Chris (see below), and now this loverly purple will be MINE ALL MINE. I am almost finished with the first mit, I'll post next week.

The best purchase and also the most extravagant knitting related purchase ever. I have been in the market for a new SET of interchangeables for awhile and was damn near about to buy the nickle knit picks set but held off until "after Rhinebeck." BUT instead of spending $69.99 on a whole set, I bought a single size 10 24" hand blown glass needle. Its GORGEOUS but it is one one needle in a size I hardly use. BUT it was black and orange, and  y'all know how big black and orange are in our house between Tristan and me. 

These things are like knitting with buttah! As in the Barbara Streisand pronunciation of butter. They are amazing and I am so annoyed that I am knitting my mittens on non-glass needles right now because I don't know how I can ever not knit on glass again. It is so smooth and beautiful. I am completely in love with them both in look and function.

I have decided though that after I finish these mit I'll force myself to knit with size 10 for the rest of my life to justify the purchase of a $60 pair of needles. Or I'll just go to the guy's website glasspens.com and buy more in the sizes I use more frequently. 

That's it for me now, I'm tired. =)

I did end up getting a Sharmane sweater on sticks, but since I was having such a hard time deciding what to knit I put it to the ladies at the Taunton SnB to decide for me. And I apparently my reputation for being a girl from the LBC played into the group's decision because knittinginfinity posted this pattern from Knitty called Holla. Its just appropriately named, and offers everything I love in a sweater, cables, a hood, and loose fitting so as to not show of how far I let my tummy go. In a word, its perfect.

I have completed the back and am to the arm holes of the front now. Can't wait to get to those yummy cables. I have only taken pics of the finished back so far...

 Holla back..

 Holla back with Ronin for the block

I'm also making some Bella Mittens for my boss cause she is going on a trip to Europe soon and it will be cold. I just gotta get them finished this weekend. I have been slacking. That is it for today, just a quick post to get it off  my mind. 

And I did it again... I let another month go by with nary a post but the blog has been on my mind. I want to get back to blogging at least every week like I was in the beginning but baby steps. At least I didn't let another 4 months go by.

A lot has happened in the month since my last post. I applied to and got accepted to Bridgewater State University all since August 2nd. BSU is the school my husband teaches at, although they didn't know that when I applied. Nepotism was not an option on the application. But whatever I already have a degree, so why not let me in right? I will be studying Sociology and getting a foundation for my future endeavor of going to grad school to study Visual Sociology. I already have the visual background, my Film and Digital Media B.A. that is getting no action since I have been either an Office Manager or a Operations Manager since I left school. Maybe one day. I no longer have any particular dreams of getting back into the film business, although I always assumed I would. I also have no immediate desires to leave my current job because I love it so much. But I have always wanted to go to school to get my masters, and I do believe that it will be a great regret if I don't. So, I am laying the ground work now to hopefully not let myself down on that dream.

I have also "survived" my first Hurricane. By Hurricane, I mean Irene. And by "survive" I mean, the storm was not bad where we lived but we did get our power knocked out for 4 days. THAT SUCKED! No Xbox, no TV, no TRUEBLOOD or 24/7 Mayweather v. Ortiz. ARGH! We basically chilled in the living room, starring at each other and wrestling our cats. I worked on my charity blanket because it is just a diagonal garter stitch baby blanket. Easy to work on in the dark, or at least by candle light. Got further along that I would have expected to be by now.

Now I have to decide what my next SHARMANE project will be. I currently have a project on sticks for a friend that will be a swap but I have ages on that as she is also in no rush to complete. Just something we will casually work on for each other. But I told myself when I first joined the Taunton SnB in January that 2011 was the year I was going to make a sweater and somehow its has gotten to be September without me realizing. Can you believe it? 9 months since I moved to Massachusetts and it has just flown by. Every so often I wake up thinking I might still be trapped in the hell that is Texas (hell for me anyway) but then I am relieved to find that I am not and that there is an actual breeze blowing through my window. Part of me wants to make an easy sweater (go little) and part of me wants to overwhelm myself with a cabled hoodie like the Mariah or a crazy cables aran sweater like this website has to offer. I'll probably go the crazy aran route. It is almost winter after all. Stay tuned...

Has it really been 4 months since I last blogged?  Yes, I guess it has. Funny, I am more actively knitting now then I have been in ages and I am blogging less. How to catch up on everything I have knitted. Well, I'll make this post brief, this has been the year of baby blankets so let me start there. These are my first baby blankets that I did not improvise the pattern myself.

My best friend had her first child, Gabriella, in May of this year and back in February I started knitting this awesome blanket, and yes I will not be humble about this one cause I am very proud it, both for my yarn choice (Knit Pick Simply Cotton Organic) and the actual knitting. The ravelry pattern was great fun. It was one of my favorite projects I have ever made.

The second baby blanket I finished this year so far is for my new niece Mackenzie. I call this one Lil' Mac Blanket but I got the pattern from ravelry too. She was born last month but I just finished it a couple night ago cause I personally hate pink but I had to knit pink for Lil' Mac on account she is the first girl in a family of 5 boys. They are going to princess the hell out of her I suspect.

Okay that is it for now, but I'll be back with more updates. I'll just have to dig up what I have been doing lately.

A few weeks ago we took a tiny road trip up to Salem, MA which I have always wanted to go to on account of the witch trails BUUUUUUUT, my lovely ladies in the Taunton SnB group gave me the heads up about a little yarn shop in town called Seed Stitch Fine Yarn. So, I dragged my husband, our friends, and their little kids to the yarn shop and man oh man did I love it.

I have managed to go all of my 8 years of knitting without going into a yarn shop. Which is probably a good thing because REAL yarn is hella expensive. But just amazing. I ended up buying a skein of Madeline Tosh tosh sock in Napoli. It's beautiful in person, I wish my pic could really capture how many oranges are in this one skein. It will eventually turn in to a beanie for Tristan cause his favorite color is orange.



I also found these couple skeins of Cascade Yarns 220 Paints, Isle of Skye, which screamed out to me. I have attempted the My So Called Scarf pattern several times over the last few year and I just have not been happy with any colorway I have attempted. As soon as I saw this cascade yarn I knew it was my - My So Called Scarf. I already posted a pic of my WIP MSCS and I am so excited about this. I can't wait til I finish.
Unfortunately, that won't be any time soon on account I have 3 baby blankets in progress at the moment. One I definitely have to finish in the next month. The blanket I am making for my best friend's baby. They don't want to know the gender until birth so no cheesy boy-girl colors for this blanket. We went earth tones, and of course all natural. She doesn't want to see the blanket until its done so I won't be posting an in-progress pic here but I will say that Knit Picks Simply Cotton Organic worsted is delicious looking (you just want to eat it) and like butter to knit with. Its soooooo soft and squishy. I dig it. I wish I could post some pics but I can't risk it. Only half way there, so hopefully in another month (if my wrist tendinitis holds out) I will get this beautiful blanket posted.

This weekend looking forward to the Red Line Yarn Crawl, if I can make it. My first. I just can't spend much more money on yarn. Ouy!

I was on a roll for a minute there, blogging fairly often compared to the last few years and then I got a job. Blogging tends to stop when I work I guess. But I have been knitting with a vengeance as my name claims and meeting regularly with some funny ladies at the Taunton Stitch N' Bitch which has been a lot of fun. I seriously never expected to land a group AND enjoy them on my first try.

I don't have all my projects with picks handy at the moment but I thought I would at least drop a few pics to get another blog post off and then I will try my darnest to make up for lost posts this weekend.

A few weeks back I got it into my head to introduce a St. Patty's Day knit-a-long to the ladies at my group and some jumped on board with me. For a period of about two weeks in February I was a bit obsessed with knitting green but that seemed to die out on me. Even though I started four green things (one of which a surprised b-day scarf for my best friend that I have yet to finish and her bday is actually St. Patty's Day) I have only finished one of the four projects AND I realized that I messed up my color pattern on it and it will eventually have to be frogged about 2 inches so I can correct the color scheme. Or it will stay as it is forever mocking me for my lack of attention to detail. The first of these unfinished St. Patty's Day projects was a clover hat.

I didn't finish because I ran out of green and when I went to the store to get some more, I ended up buying a totally different green, which was inspired by one of the fun ladies at T SNB. She had this nice shimmery lime colored yarn that she was building a robot with SOOOOOO I bought that and began making this scarf for my own pattern but as I  meantion it is not done. This is a play on St. Patty's day both in color and pattern because not only is it green BUT it also contains a horseshoe cable pattern and horseshoes are supposedly lucky - so there you go a lucky little bday scarf if I get around to finishing it before her bday and have time to ship it across the country so she can wear it on her bday... UNLIKELY.

Then I started this other scarf KNOWING I should finish my BFFs scarf but this KnitPicks yarn called to me and wanted to be a geek scarf with stripes (I have no photo). But of course that is also not finished. But knitting the scarf made me want to make a geeky hat to match and that is when I started this hat...

So there are my adventures in knitting green last month. I, of course, have not touched a single green project IN th emonth of March. But I did start the baby blanket for my best friend's soon to be first born child. I am about 25% of the way done and have until May so at the moment that is my priority project. I have tried to knit only that for the last couple weeks. And with the exception of a scarf I started at the hair salon yesterday while I was getting my hair did...I have held to that rule. Check out these beautiful colors...

Oh yeah and since I mentioned it, I did get my hair did and here is what I did to it...

Turns out I wrote more than I was planning but I will still try to keep this blog beefy job or no job.