Long time between posts

I haven't blogged in a couple of months, because my fibering habits have been altered.  On April 12, my mother fell and damaged her spine.  She is now a quadriplegic, and is coming home from the rehabilitation center after being in hospitals and rehab for 12 weeks.  John and I have been back and forth to Missouri for me to be with her at the hospital and rehab, so my knitting is not of the complicated or time-consuming nature. I now am carrying mindless knitting with me, and doing it while waiting for therapy to get over, or while sitting in her hospital room chatting.

There are a couple of exceptions to this.  I have been carrying along with me the Tree of Life afghan.  It was a Knitting Paradise knit-along, and I couldn't resist.  It actually knit fairly quickly, and the pattern was intuitive once I learned to read the vines and leaves.  It was supposed to be a crib blanket, but it's big enough for a full-sized afghan.  I haven't decided what to do with it yet.  Maybe someday I'll adapt the pattern and knit a bedspread with it.  It was that much fun!

I also finished (finally!) a pair of socks using Liat Gat's toe-up heel gusset that allows you to add extra room in the instep.  That's really important to me, because my instep is so high that I can't get my foot into a short-row heel.  I always carry socks with me for waiting room knitting. The socks were made with one ball of Opal ZwergerGarn 4ply (462 yards is a lot of sock!)  I did a 3-1 rib all the way up the leg, adding 4 stitches of increase every 1-2 inches.  There was still yarn left when I got most of the way to my knee, but by then I was so tired of the sock, I just quit!

I made a prayer shawl for my mother after she was hospitalized.  Now I have orders for 2 more for her favorite nurses aides that have been really kind to her, and will be making shawlettes for 2 more of them.  Those are the kind of knitting I can do on the 12 hour drive from Cheyenne to Lake of the Ozarks, which John and I have made 4 times since April 15.  More knitting!

Coriander hat

My friend Gerry (gerryart.blogspot.com -- look her up, you'll get inspired!) sported me to the pattern for a knitalong, the Coriander Hat.  The design is by Carol Feller (littlefellers on Ravelry) and it was a ton of fun.  I knit it in alpaca because I love how alpaca feels.  The stitch definition might not be what it could be in a less fuzzy fiber, but it is so soft and warm, I couldn't resist.  The design was really intuitive once I plodded along deliberately through the first set of patterns after the setup.  By the time I got done, it was pretty natural and knitted up fast.  It only took me 2 or 3 evenings between my other hats, my thrummed slippers, and my Wedding Shawl lace project.

Introducing : The Coriander Hat    Thanks Gerry !!!!

It's not knitting, but it certainly is beautiful ....

The sunrise view from the deck of our new condo at the Lake of the Ozarks.  We bought it to have a place in Missouri when we're ready to retire, so that we can be closer to parents, sibling and kids.  I'm also pleased that we will have a place close enough to Jeff City that I can drive up for Knit Nite!  I spent the weekend sitting inside the patio door, spinning and knitting and looking out over the bluffs.

SuperBowl shopping trip

Went clearance shopping at my LYS.   She has a clearance sale on Super Bowl Sunday afternoon.  I picked up a bag of 13 balls of Wool of the Andes worsted weight in various colors for $10, a Lantern Moon knitting bag for $12.50, a few stitching projects, and the book Power Cables.  I also threw a beanbag at a TossAcross board to see what % discount for regular prices items.  I was a weenie, I only hit 10%, so I bought another set of Addi Turbo circs in size 8.  My philosophy of life is: You can never be too skinny, have too many silk blouses, or too many sets of size 8 circs!

Maybe I'll use these to do dishes .... naaah!

I made several new knitting friends on my field trip, and one of them had a really great dishcloth pattern on Ravelry under her handle, shyannlindy.  I did a couple, and then, being me, had to mess with it to see how the formula works out for smaller cloths.  It worked so well that I am likely to try it out with more stitches and make a table-topper for my round dining table.

The larger cloths are made with the original pattern of 20 cast-on stitches, the smaller pink is with 17 cast-ons and 7 wedges instead of 6, and the peach and mint with 14 cast-on stitches.  These are such mindless knitting that they have become addictive, and I'm having to physically restrain myself from grabbing cotton yarn while I watch TV!  But I have to, because I have so much beautiful roving to spin up and so much yarn stashed to do other fun and interesting projects, and I can't stop on these.  But they would be nice hostess gifts to knit up while you sit and visit with friends.

Tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday, and one of my LYS proprietors opens and runs special sales.  It is the only Sunday all year that she opens, and she has a football for you to throw at a target to see what percentage off you get on your purchase.  I'm a terrible thrower, so I'll have to post later about how that came out!

Field trip !!!!!!!

Yesterday was a great day for a field trip.  It was sunny and pleasant weather for the 90 minute drive from Cheyenne to Mitchell, Nebraska (outside Scottsbluff.)  When you're in Scottsbluff, you're close to the Oregon Trail, Chimney Rock, and Brown Sheep Company yarn factory.  Brown Sheep is the only mass-produced yarn made 100% domestically.  Fallout from the 2012 Summer Olympics has turned into a business boon for them:  After the hubbub about USA Olympic team uniforms being made in China, Ralph Lauren (who has the contract for USA Olympics) contacted them for wool for the 2014 Winter Olympic uniforms.

The tour was absolutely fascinating.  The Brown family, who started the company, still run it 50 or 60 years later, and plan to for another generation.  They have introduced some devices that save energy and water, and those have now been presented to the industry.  The whole production line was amazing.  Watching the machines draft the roving before it goes into the spinners was insane!

Keep an eye out for Brown Sheep boucle yarn, being introduced this year.  I got to handle a skein (but not knit with it, drat the luck!)  I really liked the feel of it.  I usually don't like knitting with boucles, because they are generally acrylics and get very "splitty."  Because this is wool, it holds to itself rather than splitting, which gives a lot more integrity to the finished product.  I think it is premiering in 24 or 26 colors soon.

And now to the best part of the day -- the factory store!  They have a store that sells mill ends and seconds for bargain prices.  So let's go shopping!

I got 8 skeins (2 pounds) of their machine-dyed worsted for $13/pound, in a scrumptious teal that is my favorite color.  Their hand-dyed yarns are $26 per pound.  So I got 4 skeins of Legacy Lace and 4 skeins of  superwash worsted for about $50. 

Then I hit the jackpot.  At the end of the tour, they have huge cartons of roving that didn't get used in wool runs. Think about the cartons that Baskin-Robbins uses in their coolers, then picture them standing chest-high and an arm's-stretch across.  Then imagine them heaped over with roving, and you have the sight my eyes feasted on.  Then think about $6.50/pound for the roving, and imagine me diving in with both arms!  Here's what I came away with, for about $25.

There is about 1.5 pounds of the teal, about 1.6 pounds of the heathered greys, about .6 pounds of the camel, and I just grabbed the other colors for fun!

At the end of my shopping spree, the total added up to just over $100.  (I personally think I exercised a great deal of restraint!)  So, the moral of the story is this:  For an interesting day and the pot of gold (or wool!) at the end of the tour, make a side-trip off of I-80 to Scottsbluff Nebraska, to Brown Sheep.

Too busy knitting to post about knitting!

The holidays have been a time of busy-ness coupled with hustle and bustle.  I decided at Thanksgiving that I was going to knit each of my girls and their guy something for Christmas, so I got busy.  Liz got a green Homespun yarn slouch hat and Josh an orange acrylic yarn hat (orange being the only color one should knit in for Josh!)  Courtney got a pair of socks in bamboo and elastic  (Knit One Purl Too yarn, I think) and Chris now has a watch cap in Red Heart Team Colors yarn blue/red, which are Ole Miss colors (his alma mater.)  Kyle now has a pair of mittens in acrylic yarn (Loops and Threads Charisma) that can wash easily if they get dirty while performing all those homeowner chores that he will have now that they bought a house, and Hilary has the fingerless mitts and hat set pictured below.  The pattern is called Architecture, so it was appropriate for her.  Thankfully, everyone seemed to like their presents, or they have good manners!  Courtney put on her socks immediately and wore them all evening and the next morning, and all the others immediately modeled their gifts.  The hat may not be right for Hilary, who doesn't really wear hats, but I think she liked the fingerless mitts.

And if all those items weren't enough to keep me busy knitting, my prayer shawl group agreed to do some knitting for the St. Joseph Childrens Home and the Boys and Girls Club of Cheyenne.  The Childrens Home needed about 30 older boys caps/hats, so I got into the stash of Red Heart that my mom gave me when she quit knitting, and produced about 15 hats in varying sizes and boy-friendly colors.  When our group's organizer contacted the Boys and Girls Club to see if they had a specific need, the director said, "Oh, it would be great if you could make hats for all our kids!" When asked how many that was, she said, "About 160"  I nearly choked when I heard that!  But now that the Childrens Home hats are done, I guess I'll get started on the B/G Club hats.  This will give me the chance to do some hat patterns that I've been looking at for a while, mostly earflap hats.  So if I don't appear here for a while, it just means that I'm snowed under (figuratively) in hats.  And I have resolved to knit something for myself in the New Year.  More on that later.