One Quarter

One ruffle down, seventeen gazillion to go.



But that is okay because I saw a completed Osprey at the Webs booth at Stitches East and I liked it. Which, you know, since I am knitting one, is a good thing.

Speaking of Webs and Stitches East, I was amazed to see it carried Socks That Rock (who knew? It's not on the website) and that there was no pandemonium regarding same, unlike The Fold at Rhinebeck which has been uber jammed for the last four years I have been. Why is The Fold's STR so much more popular than Webs? Do they coat it in crystal meth?

Yarntopia

Tomorrow I shall be at Rhinebeck touching a whole lot of yarny goodness despite the cold, wet weather. I'll be up at five o'something (actually, considering my insomnia, I will probably up at 4:51 a.m., the time at which my goddamn internal clock has reset itself) and ready to meet my homies at 6:30 a.m., well, after I stop at Starbucks because even though I am on the decaf, I still get a perk from the coffee goodness. I am assuming Starbucks is open that early. Huh. Maybe I should check that out. In any event, I am looking forward to Rhinebeck, even in my technically full-term preggers, waddling, sciatic state. In fact, even with me being me and the weather being the weather, the only downside I am seeing is that Lady Eleanor won't be making it. She is perfect for the weather, being that she is basically a horse blanket, but not-so-perfect for the occasion of wanting to be comfortable and unencumbered with shit. As you can see from the pictures, she is BIIIIGGGGG. I had kind of hoped to wear her, get pictures at Rhinebeck and use them for my nine month late FO post. Since it's not going to happen, I'll just do my FO post now.

The fringe is probably my favorite part. Makes me think of fishing ... stuff. Weird, huh? Nonetheless, that is what initially turned me on to this project. I loved the knotty goodness.



As I recall, the pattern requires one strand of yarn for each fringe, but I doubled or tripled it. I wanted substantial fringe, and being that the blanket shawl is so big and substantial, I think this was a good idea. The big substantialness is both good and bad. Yes, Ellie is cozy. But she is bulky. Heck, she totally hides my baby belly.



There is no using this as a scarf. When I tried, I looked like a woman in a dysfunctional birka. It doesn't go over my head, but damn if it doesn't try. She also is so heavy that if you move your, well, anything, the weight of the shawl shifts and down she falls. Being that I had no photographer, I was kinda stuck in weird, stiff poses in front of the mirror. When I sneezed, well, I had to start all over trying to get her up and on since she slithered to the ground. I suspect the the major reason for the bulk and heft was my yarn choice. I did make the shawl bigger, but I am bigger so my body should hold her up. At least that makes sense in my head. In any event, my yarn was stiff and bulky and I think that it gave Ellie a little too much body.



The good thing about this bulky yarn is that the wrong side is just as pretty as the right side, and at first blush, it is hard to tell the wrong from the right.



Overall I like Ellie. She used a lot of yarn. A. LOT. OF. YARN. Well, my version did anyway. But I like her and will futz around the house with her all winter long. And, should I come into some money to buy A. LOT. OF. YARN., I would make her again (and again).



Yarn: Noro Silk Garden Chunky, Color 8, Lot A, 28 skeins.
Needles: Addi Circs, size 6 mm (US 10)
Pattern: Lady Eleanor from Scarf Style
Time: Two months.
Care: Dry clean.

Weekend In Review

5 - The number of friends on our Rhinebeck voyage. Also the time at which I had to wake up to ensure I was on time for our Rhinebeck voyage. A time in the morning in which I do not like to be up.



2.25 - How many hours is took to drive to Rhinebeck via squiggly windy back roads. Squiggly windy back roads with lots of pretty scenery like horses and um, other stuff.

200 - The number of dollars I spent in first twenty minutes, at the first place we visited. Damn you The Fold and your Socks That Rock! I haven't even used my STR from last year's Rhinebeck voyage and yet you pulled me in and now I have more.



4 - The level of bedlam, compared to last year's, trying to get to the Socks That Rock. This, honestly, could have been because we arrived about thirty minutes earlier than we did last year. Or, it could be that the novelty and orgasmic enthusiasm surrounding the STR seems to have abated.

6 - How many skeins of yarn you can get for $200, two of which consist of 995 yards of a kid mohair, silk, nylon blend. I may have been worried that 995 yards would not make the bee shawl that I wanted and it may be that this isn't even the yarn that I was looking for and that I had a colossal, and expensive, brain fart.

1 - How many times someone in our group saw the Yarn Harlot. This was unusual compared to last year when we saw her a gazillion times and she may or may not have been stalking us. It was also funny because a newbie who wasn't there last year wanted to try to find her again so that she could see her. Had we seen her again, this could have help balance the stalking karma from last year.

2 - The number of people I saw at Rhinebeck that I know in real life. Excluding their entourages, because that would bump me up to like 5 people that I know, and that would make me seem MUCH cooler than I am.

3 - How many bloggers (with sites where I lurk) that I saw.



4 - The number of people that giggled at Baaahhhb, The Talking Sheep Puppet. "Hi! My name is Baaahhhb. Where is my wife, Baaahhhhbette?"

1 - The number of creepy dudes interested in Baaahhhb, The Talking Sheep Puppet.

1 - The number of Baaahhhb, Jr. talking sheep puppets that came home with us.



1 - Number of vomiting pumpkins I saw.

4 - How many times I had to use the Rhinebeck loo and did not have to wait in line. Which was totally awesome. I hate to have to wait in line, bouncing from foot to foot, hoping my bladder does not prematurely explode.

0 - The number of rows I completed on my knitting while at Rhinebeck. I thought I left my pattern in the car, which it turns out I did not, I had it with me, but I digress. I couldn't make the pattern work as I didn't have enough stitches. I tried to knit the same row four or five times and then just gave up since I couldn't check the pattern and figure out what I was doing wrong. Boy was I amused to find it in my purse, in the sock knitting bag, the bag in which I had stored my sock and had removed it from to try to knit on.

5,000,000 - The number of rows completed on the knitting of my compadres. Compadres who did not forget their patters or have brain farts.

2 - The times I stopped for carny food. I love me some carny food.



2 - The types of carny artichokes I ate.



2 - The number of items our gang purchased that read "NON-INFLAMMABLE." And, just for the record, does this mean it IS flammable?

30 - The number of dollars I gave my husband when I got home and realized I forgot to put gas in his car after driving it to Rhinebeck and back.

10 - The level of my gratitude, on a scale of 1 to 10, that my husband did not tell my to drag my tired ass back to the car and fill it up so that he wouldn't have to this morning on his way to work. Especially in light of the fact that, had the situation been reversed, I might not have been as cool about it. I hate to put gas in the car and might turn into a raving lunatic if someone drives my car and gives it back to me with anything less a full tank.

0 - The number of football picks I made this weekend. GODDAMMIT! There goes my hope of winning!

12.5 - The hours of sleep required to recover from Rhinebeck; the consecutive number of hours I spent sleeping Saturday night to Sunday morning.



100 - The percent of love I have for the new goodies that came home with me (and the boy and critters to whom I came home).

Socktober Is Here

I've been diligently working on the green sweater. I pseudo-kitchenered up the shoulders and mattress stitched up the sides (taking Mr. Puffy's advice and starting in the middle). I picked up the stitches for a sleeve (twice, because I may not be so smart and not know front from back) and have been working on a sleeve. And despite all of this hard work, and a block of about six hours of knitting time between now and tomorrow, I realize that I will not be able to finish my sweater by the time I leave for Rhinebeck. I do believe this is the first time procrastination has bitten me in the ass. It could be because I had no real do-or-die incentive (e.g., failing a class, getting thrown out of court, etc.) or it could be because this sweater is just huge. Like afghan huge. Like afghan-bedspread-for-an-extra-tall-and-wide-king-sized-bed huge. Or it could be because I cheated and started on some Socktober socks ...



I know! I know! I said I wasn't starting anything until I finished the kangaroo beast, but I couldn't help myself. This cheery Lana Grossa was calling out to me from the yarn room, begging to be knit. Mind you, the Socks That Rock yarn, the yarn I waited for a gazillion hours in a million person line for, the yarn that was the Holy Grail of my Rhinebeck trip last year, it still hasn't been touched. Not at all. Well I guess technically it was touched when I put it away in the yarn room, but it hasn't been touched in a knitterly way. So once I finish the kangaroo sweater, and the Socktober socks, then I'm pulling out the STR. For real. Unless something else calls my name. Like tomorrow, at Rhinebeck.

Thunderstorms

This weekend the weather at Yarnbeck is suppose to kind of suck. Somehow I doubt that will slow the masses.

Call Me Merriam

Yarnbeck (noun) yärn-bek
1: Formerly known as Rhinebeck;
2: the New York State Sheep & Wool Festival

I'm quite proud of this new word I've created. Maybe it will one day catch on and end up in the Urban Dictionary between Yarn Balls (which are NOT what you think they are) and Yarn Gargler (also NOT what you think it is and totally NOT related to knitting. AT ALL!).

And, holy crap, Katy bar the door! I can add my own words to the Urban Dictionary. Woot! Woot! Please hold while I delve into the world of narcissism and memorialize my dorkedness ... So I just totally submitted Yarnbeck to the Urban Dictionary folks. I'm not sure they will take it as it is not exactly hip slang and my definition and sentence were anything but sexy, but we'll see. I'm suppose to check back here to see if it is accepted.

And to return to our regular programming ... I have made NO progress on the sweater. Despite the gaping neck/head hole, of which I have not made a decision about what to do, I did try to seam up the shoulders last night. It was, um, not pretty. Or rather, pretty fugly. The variegation in yarn thickness melded together to make a really horrible lumpy seam. S'no good. So I undid the seam and decided to heed the advice of those smarter than me and undo my cast-off and then kitchener the shoulders together. Which is great and all, but I can't seem to uncast-off the back piece that I finished sometime in 1983. Not sure what I did there, maybe I was high at the time, but it is not coming undone whatever it was. My latest brain storm involves faking the kitchenering by picking up the last row of stitches before the cast-off and using those with the front stitches and then seeing what happens. This could totally be crafting gone bad.

Not related to knitting, or my plan for the disastrous sweater, but equally cockamamie, is NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and my voluntary participation in same. Often I subject to you my babble, having to write every single day for the month of November is going to result in me subjecting you to a hell of a lot more of my babble. Prepare to enjoy (or cringe)! Should you be interested in participating (which I really hope you are because I could use a lot more stuff to read during the day and further my procrastination), you can look here for last year's info, prizes and whatnot and click on the box in my sidebar to sign up and see this years info.

Hello There Sexy

I love October. My husband, he loves September, but me, I love October more. I like the chilly October air, the turning leaves, and the chance to put up dust collectors holiday decorations. This October though, it is giving me stress.

There are only 18 days until Rhinebeck and my sweater is only two rows closer to completion! That being said, I am vowing to knit my little fingers to the bone this weekend. I have SnB tomorrow night and then some down time Friday afternoon. Then I have the three hour drive to and from New Jersey this weekend. My goal is to finish the friggen front of my friggen sweater. That then leaves me two weeks to knit two sleeves and a hood, seam up the entire thing, block it and get it ready for wearage at Rhinebeck. I think this is a reasonable goal. I also think Kennedy was killed by the magic bullet. Okay, that last part was a total lie used to illustrate my point. My point being that my goal is um, slightly unreasonable. But it's all good.

In any event, and not withstanding my sweater's status at the time of Rhinebeck which I am sure will be done and worn because I am going to knit that sweater like nobody's business, I am starting a pair of socks the first knitting minute I have after Rhinebeck. It's Socktoberfest people!

Mixed Bag

I have a cold and I feel like ass. Which totally, totally sucks. I'm no good at being sick. I don't handle it gracefully. I tend to whine, "I don't feel good." A lot. I prefer not to take anything for my colds, which is fine when you only get sick once every few years but suckey when it's that time once every few years when you are sick. In any event, I feel like crap and my brain is somewhat mushy right now. But that is not going to stop me from reporting that ...

I. The yellow thing is in fact "a shawl like rich people wear to the country club" and NOT an apron. Which is totally lame. Turns out the gift giver and another guest at the shower make these ... things ... and sell them. It is good that BeFri didn't call the number on the label and say, "I received this weird ass wrap/apron/sweater thing as a shower gift and I was wondering, what the hell is it?" as she probably would have been talking to the gift giver herself!

II. Lately it seems like several people I know have gone, or are going to be going, to England. And every time I someone mentions England, I beg (rather shamelessly) for the person to keep a look out for black currant candy/pastilles. To which I get a smile and a nod and a look of, "Uh, What??" So I try to explain how Joan is evil and introduced me to the wonder of the hard chewy black currant goodness which lives everywhere but America and then I move on to how she'd get them in England when she visited and how she sent me black currant goodies from abroad, like the Black Currant Life Saver. And at Life Saver my fellow Americans say, "Oh!" Because we know the Life Saver. But then people go and travel in England and have fun and they can't find them and they think I made this candy up. But look!



Photographic evidence to show all you doubters that they do in fact exist. It just seems that they only exist in Australia. So my bad for using them as an example of the black currant delights available in Great Ole Britain. That's not to say there aren't other, better, black currant candies in London. Because there are. I just know it.

III. I worked on the Kangaroo Duo sweater at SnB the last few weeks and I even worked on it last night in between nose blows. And you know what? I am really sick of that sweater. And I am not even onto sleeve island. Hell, I even have hood island to contend with, and that totally makes me shudder. What is so annoying is that there have been hours and hours of knitting and hardly any progress to show for it.





I tried to get all creative on ya and pin it out so you could get an idea of the huge amount of boringness going on, but I had some issues. For starters, I had to use thumbtacks for pins and the floor kept rejecting the thumbtacks and sending them flying. It did add a little adventure to the photo shoot as I was forced to duck and weave. The other issue was all the movement of the colors in the sweater and all of the movement of my office carpet mixed together to make it seem like a three dimensional optical illusion picture. Either that or you might just feel motion sick. In which case, my bad, didn't meant to make you wanna hurk! Overall the photo shoot was a bust, but I figured I should share share the joy that is my work in progress.

I do have a bunch of traveling coming up ... a flight to Florida for BeFri's wedding, a drive to The Cape for Girls Weekend, a drive to New Jersey to see the MIL ... and all this traveling lends itself to knitting. So I should be able to make my Rhinebeck goal. But the thought of knitting that sweater, and all of the knitting that is left, well, it is killing me. I know if it is the only thing I have with me to knit, I'm not going to have a choice, but man am I tempted to start a sock or a scarf or a Clapotis, something small and fun, for my travels.

IV. I dreamed about knitting socks last night. Very specific socks. I even dreamed about buying the yarn, Fleece Artist yarn, a yarn I've never used but hear lots about, to make the socks. I blame this dream on my lackluster sweater interest/progress (see supra III ... and what the hell as that?? I just Blue Booked my blog. Jizzy Crizzy I need help. I think I am embarrassed by this. Well not so embarrassed that I am deleting it, but still embarrassed enough that I feel I must make amends for my dorkdum by sharing said dorkdum with the world). Anyway, I dreamed about knitting Fleece Artist socks which is kinda weird for me ... Fleece Artist socks on a nekid Bruce Willis, oh yah, knitting Fleece Artist socks, not so much.

V. The Cuisinart saga has come to an end in that Cuisinart will not do squat for me, despite my best (and repeated, at the urging of Williams-Sonoma Awesome Sales Associate II) efforts. At some point in the future, I will have to make a decision, but for now I'm doing nothing. Which means that you can not throw a party in which people need to bring food. I mean, you could, but then you wouldn't want to invite me since I would be bringing a veggie plate or something else equally boring. And not inviting me, well that would be mean. I'm sick. Don't kick the sick girl when she's down.

For anyone interested, Consumer Reports rated food processors in December 2006, and rated the Kitchen Aid ones slightly higher than the Cuisniart ones. The top three choices were Kitchen Aid models KFP750, KFP740, KFPM770 with Cuisinart's DFP-14BCN and ProCustom II DLC-8S coming in a couple of points behind. Also, Williams-Sonoma has a new policy where it guarantees any appliance type things you buy there for life. So if your Cuisinart craps out 30 years from now and Cuisinart won't repair it or help you out with a discount, Williams-Sonoma will either fix or replace your machine, or give you the money back that you paid for it. I couldn't find this policy on the Williams-Sonoma website, but it is hanging on the wall in my local store and Awesome Sales Associate II explained that this was a new policy recently enacted.

VI. Guess who is last in our football pool? Not me baby! I am in a tight race for first. It's neck and neck I tell you! (Or in plain English, I am in second place.)

Hi Ho The Derry-O A Rhinebeck We Will Go!

I am happy to report that Rhinebeck was a success and my SnB peeps and I had a great time. There was knitting on the car ride up!





And there was beautiful weather when we got there.



My only objective was to get some STR yarn. I even had a favorite color in mind with a back-up or two or three. Well, apparently I wasn't the only one!



Have you ever seen those blurbs on the news about the hoards of women that line up helluh early to buy cheap wedding dresses and snatch up like 10 gowns at a time and then go through them to make a final choice? It was like that, only with yarn, and less blood shed. None of my color choices were available, but I found a few I liked. I even lucked out and got a navy skein that I thought was sold out. A friend and I both saw it and she was able to hurl it over the crowd to me - just in time - as I was the next person in line to check out.

Once I had my STR, I was open to going with the flow. I saw some things that scared me.







And, I saw some things that I really liked.







It is a good thing I was not our driver; otherwise, I would be the proud parent of a sheep, or a llama, or a border collie. I restrained myself and did not get any animals but I did get a neat glass pendant for which I need a necklace.



I didn't get any more yarn. In fact, about halfway through, I was quite yarned out. I found that I had yarn overload and it all started to look the same (the same thing happens to me at museums). I did find some nice bison and buffalo yarn which was heavenly soft and would have made a nice scarf for Boo but it was more expensive than cashmere so I decided to pass. I did not pass, however, on the great carni food. Say it with me FRIED ARTICHOKE!

After we finished at the festival, we hit Morehouse Farms, where we encountered a fork in the road.



Heh. The trip to Morehouse was slow going because of the traffic but it worked out nicely because the break was long enough for me to be ready for some more yarn. Yeah!

In the end, I was pleased with the yarn purchases - not too much but enough.