Hi! Remember me?

So, back in April when I moved the videocast over to it's own blog, I fully intended to leave this one up and to continue to blog here about my own personal knitting and fiber and life stuff. Heh. That worked well, eh?

Sorry.

Really didn't mean to leave you hanging like that.

If anyone is still checking in here after four months of radio silence, I'm happy to tell you that I am going to begin blogging here again, f'realz. Not sure if it is the impending change of seasons or what, but I'm feeling that old familiar feeling of wanting to blog again, to get back into a routine (in general, really, not just in the blogosphere). Not sure how often I'll be able to post, but I'll try to make it regular.

A few things that have been going on in my life since you heard from me last...

 I went to Spring Fling in April, where I got to hang out with Steve from Dramatic Knits...

 ...and with Stacy from Tempted Yarns.

 In June, the kids and I spent a week in Florida visiting my mom and stepdad...

 ...and spent lots of time on the beach and in the sun.

 ...and I endured the after effects of a really ill-fated decision to try platinum highlights (this was after they were "fixed" but still...ugh...)

 It got hot and we all had to find ways to stay cool. Muffin's favorite way has been to sprawl on the wood floors like this.

In July, I got a new tattoo!

 And at the beginning of August, we went to NC to welcome our oldest home from his seven months in Afghanistan!

Then I got to spend the next weekend back in NC, taking my grandson to visit with his dad for a few days. First time they saw each other since January. What a happy day!

And of course, there has been a lot of dyeing for the shop, and a LOT of knitting!

Bakersfield

 Plain ribbed socks out of some of my hand-dyed yarn...

 Springtime Bandit out of some of my handspun...

 Flutter-by Socks out of a colorway called Tiny Umbrellas!

 The Arcadian Shawl, which was my first Camp Loopy project. I finished my second project, too, but the third has done me in. I'm a Camp Loopy drop out!

And I've done a bit of designing, too!

The Twistygoo hat...a free pattern downloadable on Ravelry. :)

I'll stop there. I've got more to share, but it can wait! I will say I have a couple more patterns in the works...a sock pattern that is out to test knitters right now, a shawl pattern I need to edit and get out to testers, and another sock pattern that I'm still knitting and writing up. So, yeay!

And we started our 12th homeschooling year on Monday, definitely a harbinger of fall!

All you wanted to know about flax but were afraid to ask...

...or perhaps never even thought about?

This past Saturday, Kevin, Emma and I went to the Stahlstown Flax Scutching Festival. Kevin's been to this one before with his antique farm equipment group, but I'd never gone, as it always falls on the same weekend as the Pittsburgh Irish Festival, and that's where Emma and I usually go to get our annual Gaelic Storm fix. This year, we opted out of the Irish Festival and headed out early Saturday to check out the festival of flax. It's a small festival, easy to see all there is to see in just a couple of hours, but it was pretty neat. In addition to being a beautiful day to be up in the mountains, there were buckwheat pancakes & sausage to be had, as well as several vendors selling all sorts of crafts, as well as some selling honey and maple products. (Mmm...maple candy. I love maple candy. Reminds me of my childhood.)

The centerpiece of the festival, however, is the flax demonstration. Apparently it is a very well known festival for this very reason, attracting people from all over the country and beyond, which seems odd considering how small Stahlstown is.

I admit, I was curious about how flax was historically processed into thread and then fabric. I knew very little about spinning plant fibers, and nothing about flax. I can't say that now, though! And I have a little pictorial essay to share my new found knowledge with you!

The gentleman who gave the presentation here is holding the flax as it appears when it is harvested, which is done by pulling it from the ground by its roots. The roots contain some of the finest flax fibers, so to cut it off above the ground would mean losing valuable fiber.

The first step in processing the flax then takes place out in the field where it is retted, or laid in the sun and turned over periodically so that bacteria that live inside the flax can begin to break down the woody part of the plant, thus helping to free the flax fibers.

The second step is breaking, which I didn't get to photograph. It's done on large frame-like tool with long wooden teeth between which the flax stalks are beaten. That breaks up the woody part of the flax even further and removes it from the flax fibers.

Once the fibers are free of the woody part of the plant, the third step is the scutching, which is what this girl is doing. It's basically beating the flax with that paddle to remove the more coarse fibers. This results in a tangle of the coarse fibers, which are called "tow," resembling the hair of small blond children, hence the term "tow-headed." The tow was used for a variety of things, including cleaning gun barrels and for insulation in homes.The tow could also be spun and made into coarse fabric used for sacks and other non-garments.

The next step before the flax can be spun is to remove even more of the coarse fibers by hackling (or heckling...depending on whether you are using the German or Scottish version of the word, I think). Hackles, or heckles, are those iron teeth sticking up like a big brush and the fibers are combed through it, producing more tow.

Finally, the spinning! Unlike spinning wool, in which you generally hold the fiber in your hand, the flax fibers are held on a distaff while they are being spun.

Also unlike wool, flax fibers do not have scales, therefore in order to get the fibers to hold together as they are being spun, the spinner must wet his or her fingers and the moisture then helps form the spun strand. That's what the little suspended water bowl on the side of the spinning wheel is for.

The ultimate goal for the fiber is to be spun into linen thread, which can then be woven into fiber. Initially it is spun onto a bobbin on the spinning wheel, then the thread is transferred from that bobbin to a longer bobbin that goes inside the shuttle used in weaving on the loom. This is accomplished by use of a much larger wheel, the walking wheel. Apparently it was possible to spin directly using the walking wheel, but it looked like that would have been a major pain, considering how often the drive band slipped off!

Thread being transferred to the longer spindle for the shuttle.

Finally the thread is used for both warp and weft on the loom and woven into linen cloth. Sometimes they would warp the loom with linen thread and weave with wool, resulting in a rather coarse fabric they termed linsey-woolsey. The very last step was for the fabric to be put through a linen press, but I wasn't able to get a picture of that, either.

So...cool, eh? They were selling various flax/linen souvenirs, and I asked if they had any of the prepared flax fiber for sale, as I'd have liked to have brought some home to try and spin it. Alas, they did not. It's hard to come by and they only have enough on hand for the demonstrations. I wasn't the only person who asked about it, though, I was told...so maybe in the future I'll get lucky?

Interestingly, when I was a kid, my mother's aunt gave me a bundle of flax fiber. It looked and felt much like a long, golden pony tail that got lopped off of someone's head. That both fascinated me and kind of creeped me out. I had that flax for many years, but my mom finally decided it should be thrown out because she was afraid it would attract bugs. I don't know if it would have or not, but I really kind of wish I still had it now. :}

Weekend highlight...

Hello you big hunka man, you...may I leap across the table and sit on your lap?

Ok, if you are not a UFC fan, then the man in this picture will likely not mean anything to you. However, I am a UFC fan, and Brock Lesnar is one of my favorite fighters EV-AR! He is the current heavyweight champ, and he is just a big mass of fighting awesomeness. And I got to meet him, in person, for about 15 seconds. He was signing autographs at the Vitamin Shoppe booth at the Arnold Sports Festival this past weekend. I didn't know he was going to be there until Saturday morning when I was reading Facebook updates and saw it mentioned. I squeed. A bonafide squee of delight. I was going to meet Brock Lesnar and I didn't care how long it took. In fact, it took nearly an hour of standing in line in sardine-like conditions in the Expo hall. (Holy cow, that place was packed!)

So when it was my turn, I got up there and said, "Hi!" and he's like, "Hi..." and he shook my hand. (OMG!! Brock TOUCHED me with the SAME HAND he's used to pound the crap outta guys!!! How awesome is that?? ROFL!) Then I handed him my Festival program (because it hadn't dawned on me that the point of the thing was that he was autographing things and I really didn't come prepared for that...my only other option would have been to have given him a random body part to sign, and that's always awkward for everyone) and I said, "Lisa!" and he looked at me questioningly and asked, "Is that who you want me to make it out to?" "Yes!" Oh, I'm so bad at meeting famous people...I babble. And babble I did. I think I said something to the effect of how exciting it was to meet him and could I get a couple pictures with him, and he was quite gracious and posed. And yes, that seems to be his standard fan-photo pose...though it kinda looks like he's thinking about punching me in the head. Hahaha! Anyway, it's a pretty crappy-quality picture, but I ♥ it and will treasure it forever and ever. ;)

What you need to know about me is that I am not the stalk-the-famous-person type. Not really. There was that one incident many years ago when I followed Madeleine L'Engle to the bathroom after a reading she did, in order to get her autograph, but her assistant told me to follow them...it wasn't really stalking. So hush. No, I think it's cool to see famous people in person, but to go up and make a big, gushy deal out of talking to them and getting a picture and whatnot? That's not really me. There are not many people I'd expend energy to get up close and personal with. But, dude...Brock is one of them. And it's funny because his personality when he's "on" leading up to fights and particularly after his last fight? Really obnoxious. He's one of those guys fans either love or hate. I think he's freakin' awesome. ;)

Oh, a side note. Arnold himself was there, making appearances throughout the weekend. He was escorted all the time by his posse of body guards. When we were standing and waiting for my friend Justin's kickboxing match to happen, Arnold showed up at the area just over from us for some sort of presentation they were doing for something. And dude! Arnold Schwarzennager is way shorter than you'd think! The Terminator should not be as small as he looks in person! LOL He's just a regular-sized guy! And also? It is just not right that they were repeatedly referring to him as the "Govenator." Really? Really? Good grief! But then the jiu jutsu refs all had shirts on that said "Refinator" to identify them. :::sigh::: (I've got some pics I took of Arnold from a distance...not sure if they turned out or not yet, though...haven't had a chance to get them off the camera yet. Will add one if there are any worth adding. Because I know you're dying to see a craptastic photo of the Govenator. Ahem.)

Fall cleaning...

This picture is apropos of nothing I've written in this blog entry. I just wanted to share it because it is of my friend Sho-Sho, who WON her first kickboxing fight last weekend! How freakin' cool is that? She's awesome! Loved watching her fight and celebrating the win with her! And thanks to our other friend Hannah for taking the picture because I was a total photo slacker.

Yep, it's that time of year again. The time when I start to feel the urge to clean house, both literally and virtually. Some people do spring cleaning; I do fall cleaning. (With my mom coming to visit in early October, the importance of fall cleaning cannot be overstated. Ahem.)

I wanted to get the big cleaning jobs done over the summer months, namely the basement. Ugh. The basement. But did I? Did I use those three, long summer months for that good purpose? No. No I did not. And now I'm kicking myself. Alas, it will get done. Oh yes it will. It WILL get done.

Last evening as I was waiting for a friend at a coffee shop, I used my time to make a master list and I decided today to try and tackle at least five things on that list every day. Maybe not finish all five, but I would at least make progress on them. Today, pretty good...I got four of the five finished and did a couple more. If I can just keep that momentum going, I'll be golden!

As for my virtual housecleaning, I decided to clean up the blog a bit today. Gone is the Tour de Fleece '09 button. I'm not sure if I ever shared my TdF results here, but I did indeed accomplish my spinning goals in July, spinning up two different yarns to match the albums Team BKG were using for their TdF theme. I never bothered to download whatever button they had for the winners, though. But I know I was a winner, and that's what matters, right? ;)

I'm not sure if getting rid of the TdF button counts as cleaning, though, since I replaced it with the Facebook badge. Not sure if I like that there or not. We'll see.

Then there was my summer reading list, which is also gone. It was an ambitious list. A little too ambitious, as many of my lists are. But I did get some reading done this summer, reading that I enjoyed. The three titles I finished this summer were:

• The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, by Joshilyn Jackson
  
• The Witch of Portobello, by Paulo Coehlo
  
• Dead to Me, by Anton Strout

I loved Joshilyn's book. I love all of her books. She is incredible with the words and the stories. Can't sing her praises nearly enough. I also really enjoyed Anton Strout's book. Very quirky genre, but a lot of fun to read. Loved the humor that is infused throughout. Sadly, though, I was not impressed with the Coehlo book. The Alchemist remains my favorite of all his books I've read. Most others have paled in comparison. Witch just didn't really do much for me. 

I did start to read The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell, but I didn't get far. I find the older I get, the less tolerance I have for books that seem to be one thing but are really just a venue for the author to spew his or her crankiness and cynicism. This is why I've stopped reading Anne Lamott's non-fiction. (Issues, baby...let 'em go!) Admittedly, I didn't get far enough into Shipmates to know for sure that was what was going on, but having read a couple other of Vowell's books, I'm pretty sure it was, and I just wasn't in the mood for it. Life's too short. 

I also started Strout's second book, Deader Still, a sequel to his first. Again, really fun read. I started it on our Chicago trip a few weeks ago and in fact spent all my airport and plane time on the trip home reading it. (I didn't knit a stitch! You know it had to be a good book!) But since getting home, I haven't had time to sit with it, so it remains unfinished. 

Did I say Chicago? Great! How about another picture then!

My great kids on our first day in the Windy (and hot and humid) City after we spent a few hours in the Shedd Aquarium. Chicago was such a cool city! I'll have to share more pictures from the trip soon.

And while the Ravelry work-in-progress widget isn't something I clean up here on the blog, I'll direct you to note that I have finished a few things, hence bringing the number of current projects down to seven. I finished the design project hat I was working on. I'm so anxious to release that, but I wanted to do matching mitts and haven't had time to work those out completely yet. I also finished my crocheted Noro granny square afghan. It's blocking now, so pictures will be forthcoming soon. I really love how it turned out! I'm finishing up my daughter's pillow project now, and then I have to do a special project that I won't even be listing on Ravelry for a while due to its secret nature. But then I'll get back to the WIP list. 

Ok...one more picture before I go, just because blog entries need pictures...

Our tomatoes all died off this year due to the blight, so I was in heaven yesterday when my friend Myrna shared some of her tomato abundance with me. I enjoyed the first of her tomatoes this morning in the form of a tomato and herb omelet. Mmm. And that scone there on the plate? That is one of the best cinnamon chip scones I've ever made! 

Two-thirds...

...of the summer is already gone. I'm tempted to say that it seems to have gone by quickly, but it really hasn't. I don't mean that in a bad way. It's just been a really nicely paced summer for me. I think the fact that it has been unseasonably cooler than usual has helped me enjoy it more than usual. And, oddly, I think my active efforts at gardening this year have made me more aware of time passing more slowly. After all, it takes time for things to grow, and when you're the one who's planted them, you take note of how long they're taking to produce the fruits of your labors!

This past week was the kids' week away at camp. I had a grand set of plans for how I would spend the week and all that I'd get done while I was home alone. Yeah. Well, things didn't really go according to plan. I did get to have fun on Monday...

 

My friend Angela and I went kayaking! (She took this picture.) It was a perfect day for it. Beautiful, sunny, in the upper 70's. I got a little sunburn, the kind that doesn't really hurt but makes you feel all healthy and glowy, even though you know you're doing bad things to your skin. It was a 7.5 mile trip and took us about 4 hours to complete. I have a bunch of my own pictures from the trip, too. I'll try to add a few here in the coming days, but until then, you can check them all out here, if you're so inclined. 

Aside from kayaking, I enjoyed a couple days of quality time with the grandson. Have I mentioned how much I love that little boy? I was worried that he'd be bored here without his aunt and uncle to keep him occupied, but he was precious and was perfectly happy to play with me instead, or to play near me on his own, as long as I was in the room. I forgot how little privacy you have with a four year old around, but that was a small price to pay for having such a good time with him.

I also spent the week doing an inordinate amount of laundry. I'm trying to figure this out. I did ALL of the laundry before the kids left for camp, so that they had clothes to pack. And then with them gone, that cut our dirty-laundry-producing capacity in half, right? So you'd think there should have only been half as much laundry to do this week. But you'd be wrong! There was still a lot of laundry, and I got it all done, including a backlog of old sheets and towels that I don't use much and my son's blue sleeping bag that has been sitting down there waiting to be washed for probably close to two years. (We own a lot of sleeping bags, so he had one for camp without his.)

What didn't get done this week? I did no spinning. I hardly did any knitting. I didn't read any books or magazines (though I tried one night). I did not get my car aligned. I did not make much progress on planning our school year. But I did get to the gym, I did hit several new high scores in Typing Mania on Facebook, and I did download a bunch of really old, obscure country songs that I remember from my childhood (I've been in a really weird music mood lately), including this one...remember it?

All in all, it was really a good week. Relaxing. Happy. 

And now we're resume our regular lives. :)

Where'd the week go?

Seriously! It was here a minute ago! Huh. 

Well...this was our second week of summer vacation, and much like the first, I seem to have gotten very little of importance accomplished. This trend must change. Soon. I'm just sayin'.

There was some knitting, of course (but no pictures of it yet because it is all uninteresting to look at right now), and the normal house stuff, and one day I really went all domestic and baked scones not once but twice (cinnamon chip scones in the morning, cheddar dill scones for dinner). And there was the gym...I even sparred two nights and the second night I kick-sparred for the first time. Boo-yah! That was fun! And it counts as something important! LOL

Oh, we had wildlife going on here this week! Can't remember if I mentioned that my bird feeders have been getting ransacked a lot, so I finally took them down. Kevin suspected a bear. I thought it was probably deer. Turns out, it was most likely this guy...

...here he is tearing apart our recycling on Monday night. It's bad enough to have a raccoon around, but to have an evil, laser-eyed raccoon...that's far worse, don't you think? About five minutes after he scurried off, an opossum showed up to mess with the recycling some more! Crazy!

But the raccoon had friends, and the whole bunch showed up on the front porch a little later the same night and helped themselves to the bag of bird food I hadn't put away...

Can you see all three of them? One is behind the bird food bag, the other is behind the post. They could have cared less that I was a mere three feet away (inside, safely behind the storm door), sticking my hand with the camera outside to take pictures. I've since removed the bird food from the porch and after one more night when they met with disappointment at the lack of a buffet, they don't seem to have returned.

Let's see...what else? Oh, Kevin and I celebrated our 16th anniversary on Friday! Sixteen years...it seems simultaneously like a long time and not very long at all, you know? We went out to dinner on Saturday night to mark the occasion. 

Then today was an active day. After church, the four of us headed out to Boyce Park for an orienteering event being put on by the Western Pennsylvania Orienteering Club which, before yesterday, I didn't even know existed. I also didn't know that this particular flavor of orienteering (as opposed to the orienteering my husband has done with the Boy Scouts) is actually a competitive sport in some parts of the world, like Norway. Who knew? Not me! 

Here's the hubby and the girlie at the beginning of our course. We did the beginner course. He's showing her how to use the map and compass...

The kids and I took turns navigating to the check points. I was the only one who got us off track and we had to backtrack to find a check point we'd missed. Here's Christopher punching our control card at one of the check points. They were all marked with those cool, triangular box things (which they referred to as flags).

Then here is photographic evidence that Kevin and I actually went out and did a recreational activity together, as it happens so infrequently. Our chosen forms of recreation just don't overlap all that much (me - concerts, the gym, knitting; him - tractors, tractors, tractors). LOL

And yes, Kevin's shirt says, "I do everything the voices (in my wife's head) tell me to." He said the lady who was at the register at Home Depot this afternoon was a little offended by the shirt and asked him if his wife knew he was wearing it. "She bought it for me!" he said. She was apparently not amused. LOL 

Later today, Kevin decided to give Emma grass-mowing lessons. She's driven tractors before, but she was totally freaking out over having to do it on our hill in the back yard. Granted, it feels more slopey than it really is when you're on the tractor, but there's no way the tractor is going to roll or anything. He finally persuaded her to give it a try, and she did pretty well...

...that's my girl! And those are our big gardens down below her. The main one is on the left there, with most of the veggies in it, and on the right, in a smaller patch, is where the potatoes, sweet potatoes and some peppers are planted. So far, everything seems to be doing well. I've been diligent about going down to check on stuff, and Kevin and the kids have been keeping after the weeds and such. My little salad garden has been yielding onions and radishes, and this week I should be able to pick the first of our lettuce and spinach! And one of my cherry tomato plants has three baby tomatoes on it already! I'm so excited. 

Ok, I promise the next post will have some knitting in it. Really. With at least one picture.

Sunny, with a chance of yarn...and flowers!

And let's face it, here in my world, there is always a good chance of yarn! ;) Flowers? Not so much, but I seem to be getting lucky right now.

Let's start with yarn, because that is always a very good place to start, no? Yes! There's been some spinning happening. First, this...

This the second half of some Yarn Love top I bought at Spring Fling (this colorway is Jewels of Autumn, but it doesn't seem to be in stock at TLE right now). It was dyed with beautiful, big color segments (I kept meaning to take a picture of the roving before it was spun, but I forgot). After spinning the first half, I tried to Navajo ply it (which is a 3-ply technique using only one strand of singles...I think it is also referred to as "chain plying" because it resembles the chain stitch in crochet).

Because of the big color blocks, I thought it would yield a lovely yarn with gently changing colors. As it turned out, I'd somewhat overspun it (having just come off spinning all that yellow merino/bamboo, which needed way more twist than this wool), and ended up wasting several yards in a big tangled mess trying to N-ply, so I opted for Plan B - my usual 2-ply. I intentionally spun the second half with less twist so I could give the N-plying another try. While this plying technique still didn't come easily to me, I had a better time of it and managed to do it that way. Here is the result...

The two skeins on the right are the original skeins done as a 2-ply. The two on the left are the latest skeins, Navajo-plied. See the difference? The N-plied skeins have larger segments of color, whereas in the 2-ply, the colors are much more mixed up and slightly murky. (Sorry, there is bad lighting in this picture, but you can see the general difference I'm talking about.) And now I'm just not sure which I like better! I thought I'd like the N-plies better than the 2-plies, but they are so different, that I just don't know. Since this turned into a major experiment anyway, I've decided to knit two hats out of these...one of N-ply, one of 2-ply, just to see how different they will look.

Seriously, this is the the fun part (and sometimes the frustrating part) of spinning...you can start with fiber that has colors that look one way -- bright or vibrant or heavy on a certain color -- and end up with yarn that looks completely different. It's an adventure, to be sure. ;)

I've moved on to a new spinning project. I was organizing my roving stash (which is growing...oh my...it is growing) the other day and happened upon a box with about 14 ounces of BFL in a raspberry-ish colorway from Briar Rose Fibers. Since I'm heading to the Great Lakes Fiber Show in OH this weekend, where Chris from BRF will have a booth, I thought I'd spin this in honor of finally getting to meet this wonderfully talented dyer. It started off looking like this...

And the singles on the bobbin is now looking like this...

Pretty, no? But isn't it amazing how much it changes from the original form to the spun form? And then when it is plied, it changes again? Or maybe I'm just easily amused. LOL I don't care...it makes me very happy.

Well, this post is already pretty long, so I think I'll save the flower portion for tomorrow! I'll just leave you with this...

Wow...

...bad blogging week! Sorry 'bout that!

Happy to report that my restless funk from Sunday passed, for the most part. It's still been a weird week. But it's FRIDAY now, thank goodness, so I'm just chalking it up to full moon-induced hormone imbalances. LOL It's as good an excuse as anything else, right?

Ok, so, I feel like I probably took pictures of something blog-worthy this week, but I can't remember what and I haven't the gumption right this moment to check my camera, so this will be a picture-less post. How about I just tell you the noteworthy things I can think of? Ok? Ok!

Big news! I've picked my February Lady Sweater back up and am successfully knitting the second sleeve, which I previously started knitting inside out (twice), which caused the sweater to go into a six-month time out. I'd really like to wear this puppy before it gets too warm. The Elsbeth Lavold Silky Wool is light enough to make it a good spring sweater, even if the color (a rusty red) is much more amenable to fall. 

At any rate, I tried it on before starting the sleeve, just wanting to make sure it still fit ok, as 3/4 of my current wardrobe is in a pile to go to Goodwill at the moment because it's all too big. (Yeah. That's a mixed blessing. And the fact that my Lotus Blossom Tank that I knit last summer is among the woefully too-big? That's really painful. I can't bring myself to give that away just yet, even though it is beyond any hope of being able to be worn.) Thankfully, the FLS started out a little snug due to the the gauge difference of the Silky Wool and the yarn the pattern called for. I was good with that, though, as it is also fairly stretchy and I wanted it a little more fitted than baggy. But it fits like a dream now, which makes me even more anxious to get it done. 

I also decided, in trying it on, that I am only going to do short sleeves that will end just above the elbow. My one finished sleeve now ends just below the elbow and looks stupid, so I knew I needed to do something else with it, but rather than knit them long or even to the 3/4 length called for, I'm going to do short. Short just feels right.  

My other impetus for picking it back up this week is that I am going to the Homespun Yarn Party in Maryland this weekend, and I'd like to be able to wear it there. This is a total spur-of-the-moment road trip. Cosy will have a booth there, along with a bunch of other local, independent dyers/spinners, so there should be a huge amount of unique fiber-y goods to be had. It is a four-hour drive from here, and while I'm not against an eight-hour round trip to go to an event that lasts only five hours (I've done it before, I'm kinda crazy like that), I managed to bribe the husband with the promise of American history so that he'd a) go with me and b) drive, giving me 8+ hours of in-car knitting time. :) 

So we'll be going on Saturday to Mount Vernon (neither of us have been there before, and Cheryl has made it sound wonderfully interesting in her blog!), spend the night in Annapolis and then he'll drop me at the yarn event Sunday then we'll come home. It should be a nice little getaway for the two of us...we don't get to do that very often. Not sure how he'll spend his time while I'm at the yarn party...I doubt he'll go to it with me, though it would probably be to his benefit to do so as I'd be less likely to spend as much if he was there looking over my shoulder. LOL ;) 

Ok...so, that's all the news that is new here for the moment. Hopefully next week's blog posts will be more plentiful than this week's have been. I should have some nice pictures to share from our trip, too! Have a great weekend, everyone!

What is a knitter to do?

Imagine this if you will: a certain knitter is getting ready to go on a wintry, outdoor adventure for the afternoon. She's gathering the clothes that will keep her warm and dry. Wool socks? Check. Long underwear? Check. Hat? Hat?? No check!

After digging a little more into the recesses of her drawers, she unearths a creamy, cabled hat. Old, store-bought, acrylic and snagged. Yikes. She recalls wearing that in, what? Junior high? (The fact that it is still in her possession is rather shocking, frankly. She doesn't put it back in the drawer but instead adds it to the Goodwill pile in the corner.) That will not do. She digs more, but to no avail, which brings us to this important question: How is it that someone who has knit umpteen hats does not actually have a hat of her own to wear when she needs one? That is a rather ironic conundrum, don't you think? The knitter's version of the shoemaker's children going barefoot, or whatever that saying is.

This was my story yesterday, as I prepared to head out for an afternoon of snowshoeing with my friend Myrna. So, what is a knitter to do in this circumstance?

The knitter asks her friend if she minds driving, hits the stash and finds what she needs to knit a hat in the car on the hour-long drive to their snowshoeing destination, of course! LOL

As it turned out, even choosing the bulkiest wool I could had on hand for a hat (Ellyn Cooper Woolly Bear -- which, by the way? Never, EVER have I had a hank of Ellyn Cooper yarn that did not tangle profusely when trying to wind it into a ball. Never. No matter what care I take with it, it tangles. And the fact that I was in a hurry yesterday only assured that there would be sufficient tangles to add frustration to the task.), using US 10.5 needles, I only managed to get the hat about 2/3 knit on the way there. Oh well. I tried!

The thing is...I really hate wearing hats anyway, which explains why I don't have any hats of my own. I knit them for others. But me? No thanks. The tight fit of the standard winter cap on my head is So. Not. Attractive. I keep meaning to knit myself a slouchy hat or beret, because I think I could like one of those, but I have yet to do so.

As it turned out, it wasn't a particularly cold day yesterday. Snowy, yes...

but I had a long scarf that I wrapped around my head and neck, and a hood on my jacket, and that served to keep me quite warm and dry.

Me and Myrna, waiting to get started!

It was such a beautiful day in the Laurel Mountains. We'd gotten a good five inches of snow overnight at our house, but there was at least a fresh foot of powdery goodness on the ground at Koozer State Park where we were. Absolutely stunning.


I'd never snowshoed before, but it turns out it was a lot of fun! And I much prefer it to skiing at this point in life. This was a short trip just for beginners, so we didn't go far, but it was good to get the feel of it. It really is little more than walking, just easier in the deep snow with the snowshoes on. And about those shoes...who knew that snowshoes no longer resemble over sized tennis rackets? Srsly!
Anyway, I did end up finishing the hat in short order on the drive home, and while it is pretty (totally love the colors), I know I'll never wear it, so it becomes my January charity hat.

(I have enough yarn left over to probably make myself a pair of mitts from it, so I'll still get to enjoy this colorway again!)

And while I know that knitting this hat technically violates January-is-for-finishing mandate, since I cast on and finished it in the same day, it had no long-lasting effect on the WIP number, so it's all good. Right? LOL

PS - Lest I be remiss, let me just add: YES!!! The Steelers are going to the Super Bowl! That was one freakin' excellent game last night, except for that horrible McGahee-Clark head-to-head clash near the end. That hurt just hearing it. But Polamalu? How fabulous is he? OMG! That interception and ensuing touchdown? Even my husband yelled on that one, and he's usually the quiet one when we watch games. So...yeah! :)