New Hampshire Sheep and Wool and... Knitalong!

Sunday Chris and I drove up to New Hampshire, where, like last year, we parked along the highway in a "Park and Ride" lot and biked the 14 miles to the Hopkinton Fairgrounds for the Sheep and Wool festival (Chris likes to get photos while biking like the one above). The day was perfect... I delivered my small chocolate brown fleece (the random gift discussed a few weeks ago) to the Zeilinger Wool Co., who will process it and send me the roving in a few months. Hooray! Look how nice the Zeilinger lady was.
We ate buffalo cheesesteak sandwiches, lay in the sun and watched the sheepdogs (in another life we have sheepdogs instead of huge white lazy indoor cats), and did a little shopping. Okay, I ended up with a lot of yarn, but from only two booths! I was very focused! I even avoided blatant Grellow yarns, lovely ones!


That's 13 skeins of worsted weight creme-colored merino from Greenwood Hill Farm, producers of the very best merino I have ever used, one skein of their DK weight 2-ply in silver, and 5 skeins of 2-ply worsted from Zeilinger Wool Co. that was on sale for $1 an ounce. I have plans to make myself a warm wooly cardigan out of those skeins. The pattern in the middle is also from Greenwood Hill.

And I HAVE been knitting stuff. For instance... Here's progress on Chris' Lochinver from Fishermen's Sweaters. A brown tube of slightly varried textures. Not thrilling to view, but fun to knit.


And...

Hannah and I have started a knitalong, a two-person knitalong, making a mitered dishcloth each from Sugar & Creme SELF STRIPING cotton. We did not know of its existence until Saturday's trip to JoAnn fabrics and Savers. Neither of us has knit a miter. It's TIME.

Savers? It was good, really good. Hannah has organized photos. I, as yet, do not. I do have this one, however:

Strong

Yesterday my Dud raced in a 25K in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He did it with his arms.

I love my parents so much. What more can I say?

New York CITY!!!

This is how exciting it was for mom, even just to be on the bus the first day. When I lived in New York I eschewed the bus as being slow and unbearably frustrating in traffic. Now I appreciate watching New York pass by as I look out the window.

Okay, so Beth looks a little confused, but I think it's the result of the amazing feast before us: Chicken and waffles and sweet potato pancakes, along with grits (cropped out of the photo, sorry) and bloody marys at Melba's in Harlem. Melba herself let us in and greeted everyone. I was kind of starstruck and made my usual ridiculous blissed out face (remember the Norah Gaughan picture with me? Wow).

During our miles and miles of walking, we encountered the Hydroponic Coral Reef in the Broadway Windows at 10th and Broadway, which is, interestingly, an NYU dorm building where I lived my freshman year and ALMOST DID NOT MAKE IT. I am not one for dorm living... I moved out to an apartment in Sunnyside, Queens for the rest of my years in NYC.

And yes, there was some knitting... I got quite a bit of sock done while waiting for a salad at a small cafe in Soho. Oh! Oh! And I'm wearing the Tempest sweater that I've been wearing for months but haven't been able to post photos of! See how nice it looks in the wild? Anyway, for this lunch experience the three Weavers ordered three salads, which took 45 minutes to come from the kitchen, despite the fact that there were only two other customers in the joint. Oh, and one of the salads was not the salad we ordered. But they were so delicious that it was okay, just sort of sad, performance-wise, for the cafe.

Yes, there is some new yarn. Yes, I have been knitting other stuff around here, and some will be revealed soon. Meantime, I'm TIRED! I'll likely be at New Hampshire Sheep and Wool this coming Sunday, so shoot me an email if you'll be there!

And the next weekend Chris and I will be in Brimfield, MA for THE SHOW. It's our first time. I mean, wow. Wow.

Because all I do is work really hard at New Job and write patterns lately...

the Lauren Jacket pattern is up and for sale! See the button to your right!

IMPORTANT NOTE: When I wrote up the pattern summary for Ravelry, I forgot to list the sizes! Hopefully this will be fixed soon.

** Sizes range from 32 to 54 inch bust!** Woohooo!

It's a very thorough, talkative pattern, based on measurements more than stitch counts. I've done a lot of thinking about how to instruct you to make the best-fitting jacket you can. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! ENJOY!


P.S. I was in NYC this past weekend, so I can chat about that in my next post. I was with my mom and Beth theotherweaver, so there was epic shopping. See how Beth rocks the Grellow?

I didn't let her keep it, but I might just make her one.

SURPRISE!!!

Check out Knitty!

You know you want one!

P.S. I am working on the pattern for Lauren, and hope to finish it tonight. I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing what others do with it!

Isn't it time for some really GOOD photos?

I finished this one the other night... my latest design! It was inspired by and made on commission for a friend of mine from New Job. She loves my handknits so much she wanted one for herself; she gave me creative license, but we worked together from the sketch to the fitting phase. She's petite like I am, but shorter, so the sleeves will be full-length on her.

After taking a small-scale poll, it seems there is a lot of interest in the pattern. It's easy, but has some neat design tricks, too. I WILL be writing up the pattern, which will be available for purchase for $3 through Ravelry or right here on the blog. I like to do patterns for free, but the math involved in sizing things for a wide range, as well as some alternate options I'm going to add (thanks, hannabirke, for the more ease in the bust alternate suggestion), well, it feels a little like work. Just a little.

Weekend of Wonder

For the first time, I went to see the finish of the Boston Marathon. The best part? The handcycles. This is what my Dud does... I just had to call him and tell him when the first few went by. The handcycles and wheelchair were very spaced out and were the first finishers, so the crowd went nuts every time anyone came into view.

On the phone my Dud let me know that he just filled out his entry forms for a 25K he'll do with his handcycle. Wow.

I did this on the sidelines:

I have an excuse, however... I twisted an ankle pretty badly walking from Rondo's Diner back to work last Friday with a bag of cheeseburgers. We wrapped it up and did a serious bike ride in the Nashoba Valley on Saturday, but I've been taking it easy since then in anticipation of my trip to NYC this weekend with Mom and Little Sister for a binge of shopping and eating and walking around. I have a very, very hard time being still. It took remarkable willpower to not go to the gym today.

Knitting? Of course, it's almost Mother's Day, so it's socks. I've chosen my yarns from my stash based on Project Spectrum this year.

First, some self-striping Lovesticks in After Dinner Mint:

And some completed ones in Sport Weight Yarntini, color Chocolatini, with contrasting toes from some leftover Spunky Eclectic Super Sport.

New sweater design and blocked lace to come!