A few WIPs just so that I can show that I do still knit on occasion.

I’ve been struggling, lately, with the fact that this blog has gone by the wayside in a major way. My knitting, in general has slowed to a crawl also. There certainly is not enough happening in my own knitting to keep a blog going. So, I’m going to try something different. Instead of a blog focused on myself I’m going to try for a blog that will gather knitting news from around the web and bring it in here. This new direction aligns more closely with what is going on in the rest of my blogging so I have great hops that I’ll be able to keep up with it. I also hope that there will be interest in this type of information being pulled together. I’m still working out some of the details but I’ll probably look for bloggers to spotlight, update on recent and upcoming publications, events, podcasts, etc. And when I have a chance I’ll still post about my own knitting. I’m open to suggestions. What do you all think?

For anyone that’s still with me….thank you. It’s been a rocky 6 months. Two surgeries and countless little illnesses in my house have pretty much devastated my blogging….and my knitting. I’m gong to be optomistic and say that now that I’m on the mend from the most recent bad cold and also from surgery on my leg 1 1/2 weeks ago that things will improve and that I will have some decent knitting progress to share.

As with most kids in the US mine watch a bit too much television. The station Noggin, which runs preschool programming 12 hours per day has been playing a song called I don’t like candy corn. From the first time I heard it seemed a strange thing to write a song about.

For the last couple of weeks my 3 year old has commented, every time we see candy corn or pictures of candy corn, that he doesn’t like it. As far as he knows he’s never tasted it. I say that since it’s definitely possible that he has had it previous years.

So I was buying a costume for my 6 year old and I noticed the bags of candy corn. I know, it’s probably wrong to conduct experiments on your children, right? Well I bought a bag. I offered him some a few minutes ago. He identified it. I asked if he liked it, he said no. So far it has gone as expected. He didn’t refuse it. He hasn’t exactly eaten it either. He has sort of been licking it. Apparently weighing the impression placed on him by television with the fact that it is pure sugar and every child on the planet loves pure sugar. I predict that the love of sugar will win in the end.

Update: as I was about to post this he came over and handed what was left of the candy and announced that he didn’t like it. TV - 1 Candy - 0. Go figure.

Actually there are are lot of places I’d rather be. The one that tops the list today, though, is Rhinebeck. It’s 12:18 pm and if I hopped in a car right now I would still have several hours to shop and wander around. There are just a couple of little problems. 1. I have two kids home that would be bored stiff after about 5 minutes. 2. Even if I were brave enough to bring my two kids on the 1.5 hour (each direction) car ride, my husband took the good car. So I am passing the time in other fibery ways.

My first order of business, today, was to get caught up on photographing my projects. Both finished and unfinished. I think I have my Ravelry list pretty well up to date.

Here are some new photos of old projects

And two WIPs that have not made it in front of the camera till today:

The sock to the left was what I worked on while stuck on a broken-down train after Stitches East. The sock on the right is a beautiful colorway. Unfortunately there are probably a million ends to weave in since the yarn appeared to have been attacked by a hungry pair of scissors. Or, probably more likely, by a certain famous cat. I’m far too stubborn to let a few snipped strands to keep me from knitting a yarn that is really pretty when worked up. Especially when the yarn was a gift from Wendy!

It does feel good to have a sense of organization. And now to pass the rest of my “not at Rhinebeck” day I will go and clean my house. Joy.

Last night I was hit with the mood to finish things. I always have several projects that just need little bits of finishing. Recently, though, the pile had gotten out of control. So I wove ends into 3 pairs of socks and 2 scarves last night. Then I washed it all, laid the socks to dry and blocked the scarves. As is usually the case not all is going as planned; it’s an unseasonably humid day here in the NY area so the scarves aren’t drying properly…

Here are the socks:

My next fit of finishing will involve felting a variety of bags that have been set aside.

I’ve been busy working on a Swallowtail Shawl

I’m very pleased with the way it’s coming out! I hope it will be just the first of a long line of shawls and wraps. I have supplies to do at least a dozen of them…

I’m a bit late in posting, as usual!

On Friday, October 11 at 5am I slid out of bed and onto a train headed for Baltimore. I had worked out the connections so that I had only a short wait at each of my transfers. The whole trip down went like a dream. I arrived at Penn Station in Baltimore around 10 am and Jill was waiting for me. She surprised me with a gift!

2 Skeins of Salsa. -A DK weight Mohair/Wool from Dancing Leaf Farm.

I was already feeling pretty worn down and we had not even gotten to the convention center.

I was truly thankful that Jill has a good combination of familiarity with Baltimore and a decent sense of how to figure out where she is even when we did get just a bit lost. We managed to get to where we needed to be and it was good to have access to a car.

The convention center was open and roomy. I wandered around on day one with a pretty glazed expression and I’m not sure that I can give many details of the day. We took that day and scoped the place out, got our bearings and made a few carefully selected purchases. The highlight, I think was stumbling upon the Malabrigo table. They were not selling anything but they did have free samples of the Malabrigo Laceweight. They are like squishy little pets. Jill and I kept pulling them out again and again.

Here is what I ended up with at the end of Day 1.

A full bag of Noro Transitions and 2 Skeins of Hemp For Knitting AllHemp6. The plan is to make a Lady Eleanor Stole from the Noro and a market bag with the hemp. I felt good about having been disciplined in my buying at the end of the first day.

At around 1:30 Jill and I agreed that we were pooped and we headed back to our car and then to the hotel. It was a nice room at the Tremont Plaza Hotel. I bit too far from the convention center to walk but it was a nice place. We had a microwave and a fridge in the room and Jill had brought homemade curry and bread and a bottle of wine and we had a lovely meal while we considered our purchases and planned for the next day. We ended the day with an episode of Dr Who on Jill’s laptop and called it a night pretty early.

On Saturday morning we had plans to meet Wendy and L-B for breakfast at their hotel. We left our hotel in good time and walked to our car. As we went we noticed clumps of people and lots of traffic cops. Then we looked at each other and realized that we had both completely forgotten about the marathon! We got out of the parking garage just in time. The hotel we were at was right on the marathon route. We ended up parking a bit further away from our destination than we planned due to streets being blocked off but we managed to get to the Marriott for breakfast and we had a really great time! It has been referred to as the “ Wendy and L-B show.” They have one of those special friendships that involve a lot of teasing and jokingly suggesting that they hate each other but you can clearly see that they just enjoy being around each other.

We arrived at the marketplace a little before they opened. We made our rounds and sought out all the things that we had missed the day before. Jill had swatched a cone of yarn that she had gotten from Webs and I decided it was a deal I couldn’t resist. 1.75 lbs of awesome tweed for $35?!? This also happens to be the same yarn that the Yarn Harlot has been talking about this week..

We brought Wendy and L-B to the Malabrigo booth so they could get their own little pets. Then I made a list of everyone that was supposed to be selling the yarn and we spent the next chunk of the day sniffing out all the lace weight we could find. In the end we had each purchased 3 skeins of lace weight.

I didn’t want to leave without something from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. The booth was starting to look pretty thin but I managed to grab some SR Lightweight

I also wanted to be sure that I got something for my husband. Naturally he didn’t really like it. But I did make the gesture.

And then there were these

At that point my budget was exhausted and so was I. We spent some time hanging out in the concession area until it was time to get me up to the train station.

I managed to miss out on most of the celebrity spotting being a bit slow in the head. We did stop and observe as Wendy stopped to talk to Carol of Black Bunny Fibers. She had Veronik Avery with her. And then Eunny Jang stepped up and joined in on the conversation. It really was a fun thing to witness. The best part was when Jill stepped forward to show Eunny her Print o the Wave stole. A great moment for Jill. How many of us get to actually share our interpretations of patterns with their creators?

Jill got me back to the train station with plenty of time to spare. I toyed with the idea of switching trains but it was going to cost more so I decided to stick with my original plan. The train left and we were cruising along. A little while past Philadelphia all the reading lights went out, the a/c died and the train came to a very very gradual stop. In the middle of nowhere. The train had broken down 20 minutes away from my stop. It was still a little light out but my car was half way in a tunnel and it was about to get dark. Everyone stayed really calm but it was quite awhile before an announcement was made to let us know what was happening. At first they said they were trying to fix the train. Then they were sending another train. It was about 1.5 hours before we were transfered to another and smaller train. Apparently they told the passengers on the other train that it would take 10 minutes to transfer us. It was more like 30 minutes. So my plans of getting home before my kids were in bed were shot.

I managed to get onto the commuter train that would get me to my town. I learned, then, that I would not want to be a train conductor on a Saturday night. See, you don’t need a designated driver if you are taking the train. Most of the drunks were quiet. There was a group of 20 something guys, though, that were singing, what I am guessing to be, songs of victory in French very loudly. Now, I don’t speak French but I swear It must have been a Hockey game, I suppose. I’m pretty sure they left one of their friends passed out when most of them got off the train. Nice, huh?  The good news is that I got 7″ into a sock on the way home!

I’m updating the back end of my blog, which was an awful mess because I just can’t leave well enough alone.  Things should be back to normal soon.  And I might even manage to post something, for a change!

I have lots to talk about but not much time to do it so I’m going to limit this post to my Summer of Socks 2007 progress. There is some, though not nearly what I had hoped to have by this point.

I finished one pair. They were for my 6 year old son who will be passing me in shoe size(and my feet are not small) within a couple years.

Please notice the temporary tattoo on his arm. He was quite adamant that it needed to be visible.

I have been struggling with the Regia Bamboo Color yarn that I got back in December for months now. After a very bad start on needles that were much too small I began again with basic stockinette and reasonable needles. I finished the first one:

I have my first Fuzzy Feet finished but not felted

And last, but not least, my Toe up version of the Charade sock.

That is all for now.

I’ve officially started my first socks for Summer of Socks 2007!

I expect to have several socks in progress at any given time throughout the summer. The current count is 3!

First up - Some basic stockinette socks. These were going to be the [Charade] pattern but I wasn’t feelin’ the love with the color/stitch combo so I decided to keep it simple.

Second - [Fixation Ankle Socks]

Third - [Fuzzy Feet] I’m not entirely sure these count as socks but I’m making them anyway.

I also got a boatload of sock yarn in the mail. I won’t describe each one but here are the photos.

That’s it for now!