Busy, Busy, Busy
I haven’t had time to blog because of a HUGE project I’ve been working on. It’s a fabric memorial quilt/banner for a folk festival I go to over Mother’s Day weekend. Finished size is around six feet wide by four feet high. I have been doing little else but it when home for the last two weeks. Pictured below is it finished. It was a IMMENSE HIT! I had tones of folks thanking me for doing it, and one widow cried as she talked to me about it, she was so pleased there will always be a memorial of her husband at the festival.


But, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been knitting. My best friend has a second pair of socks, and a third has been started for her!

I also finished the first pair of Rocking Sock Club socks, and have started the second pair which came last week. The new socks are in a new yarn, that has SILK in it. Sheer bliss to knit with – I haven’t quite decided about the pattern – I’ve reached the heel, and it’s different from any I’ve done before, and is going to require more brainpower doing it then I have for knitting at the moment, so they are waiting. They can be regular socks, or knee highs. I’ve decided on knee highs, as I don’t have any handknit ones, and I’ve often wished I did. (There’s a lovely pair in the Summer ’07 Interweave Knits calling to me. . . .)

Meanwhile the Diamond Fantasy Shawl in the Claudia Handpainted silk is knitting along nicely. I think I’m finishing repeat number 8 of the 10 suggested for a shawl. The yarn continues to be sheer heaven to knit with, and I love my colorway more and more as the shawl grows!

I did make it to Maryland Sheep and Wool. It’s the first time I’ve been on a Saturday in over five years – and in the morning (we were there at 9 a.m.!) and it’s much more crowded than Sunday. We had somewhere to be in the afternoon/evening, so we didn’t stay all that long (four hours?). But being seduced by Socks that Rock I stood in line for twenty minutes to LOOK at and choose the various colors this only vendor had (found out she once worked with Blue Moon Fibers, and has exclusive access to selling them east of the Mississippi), and then back into a second line for fifteen minutes to pay for them. Looking over what I bought, I’m quite pleased, and it was rather fun in line with all the other lunatic knitters!


I’d hoped to find some more lace weight yarns, but didn’t find any that said they needed to come home with me. I did buy a skein of Fleece Artist Sea Wool for socks – merino wool and Seacell. It’s lovely to the touch, and that may be the next pair for me. Oh, and for sheer silliness, I bought a pair of GLASS circular needles! I’m a sucker for the odd in knitting accoutrements.

I lost valuable time on the banner on Sunday because our male Maine Coon, Barnum was not up to snuff, and after watching him for several hours, I decided I’d sleep better if we took him to the emergency vets just to make sure it wasn’t anything serious. WELL, it turned out to be something that if NOT treat in a timely manner COULD be serious. He had a urinary tract blockage, not uncommon in male cats. So the poor baby was in the hospital for three days. We also discovered in the x-rays that he had EATEN a STRAIGHT PIN off of the banner! I’d caught him pulling them OUT of the banner – he’ll eat anything! I talked with the vet today and he’s recovered completely from the blockage, and the pin has moved into the lower colon, and they believe he will get it out of his body in a “normal” manner. And he can come home this evening! Rather glad this happen after MD S$W, as I wouldn’t have spent as much as I did – in fact I might not have gone at all!


After our wonderful weekend at the Festival, my sweet husband agreed to take a short detour on the way home to stop at Sheep’s Clothing the Morehouse Farm Merino’s own shop in the little town of Red Hook, NY. We were only 45 minutes away when we headed home – so it didn’t take long to get there. I was after the Swan Shawl kit that is in their ad in the Summer Interweave Knits – unfortunately they had found an error in the pattern, and were correcting it – but I was able to order it, and they are sending it to me with free shipping as soon as it’s all ready. Meanwhile I bought a little scarf kit, and enough of a lovely lace weight variegated to make a shawl (what shawl? Who knows? The yarn will tell me when I get to it – perhaps during the summer.).

At the festival, besides the banner, I gave a friend a shawl I had knit her at the end of last summer and never sent her. Again a huge hit, and pictured below is the back view of the shawl.


More soon when I have finished some other work (non-knitting). Photos of socks – knit a number over the past few weeks.