purlsandmurmers

Rhinebeck

Rhinebeck!  Rhinebeck!  Rhinebeck!

The New York Sheep and Wool Festival is next weekend and I remain a mass of contradictions.  I want to go.  I want to meet other knitters. I want to meet knitting bloggers.  I don’t want to meet knitting bloggers.  Will I like it?  Too much anticipation.  Too many nerves.

Rhinebeck is only 10 miles up the road from my house.  I have been to the Sheep and Wool Festival, but not for a good 10 years I would guess.  For the longest time we always seemed to be away that weekend.  I never considered it in my plans although I always enjoy going.  I have issues.  Well, I always have issues with almost everything so that is nothing new.  I love handspun and handdyed yarns.  I also love commercial high fashion yarns.  The latter craving is not satisfied at Rhinebeck.  That’s ok.

I had been hoping to get to Stitches but didn’t.  Never have.  Might someday. 

I will get to Rhinebeck.  But I am still uncertain.  It is a problem with being such an introspective type.  I think too much, far too much, and get myself so nervous about meeting people that I will just sneak in and sneak out and act out my old wall-flower self.  Perhaps not. 

When did Rhinebeck get to be such a big deal in the knitting world?  When did the knitting world get to be such a big deal?  I have been so out of touch.

I went to a Leadership Conference at Vassar College last weekend and even managed to talk to perfect strangers and have a good time.  I know I can do it.

Well, I AM going to Rhinebeck.  I will buy yarn.  I might buy fleece rovings even though I don’t spin – I do have plans for it though (you’ll just have to wait and see).  I will probably even meet people: I am looking forward to it in fact even though the thought makes my stomach churn.  I will not wear Tesla as I haven’t finished it.  Perhaps my general state of nerves has slowed my knitting progress, as if some small, very small, part of me thought that if I didn’t knit something to wear I wouldn’t go.  HA!  Not going to happen.

Rhinebeck!  Rhinebeck! Rhinebeck!

Beat the drums!  Start the chant!

Rhinebeck!  Rhinebeck!  Rhinebeck!

----

Meanwhile, on the home front:
Fall is here and the knit blanket has taken its rightful place on the bed.  There is a double standard here, and Miss Tabasco is sleeping on her fleece blanket, as she knows she is not supposed to be on her parent’s bedding, at least when Dad is home; she might try to sneak a crawl between the covers by me, as she knows I don’t mind so much as long as she is not in the sheets.

Posh

Posh is finally finished:

Pattern: Vogue Knitting Summer 2005 #26
Yarn: Stacy Charles Posh trimmed with Stacy Charles Muse.

The pattern originally called for a tie on the front which I have decided not to use as it annoyed me.  At the moment I am leaving it with no closure as it seems to hug the body a bit and stay in place.  If this proves inadequate I will probably put in a couple of decorative hooks and eyes just along the front:

socks and more socks

I have been working on the second sock, not all that much, as knitting time has been limited, but I am making good progress:

The fifth needle, down in the cuff, marks where I was on Monday at the time of my last post.

I bought more sock yarn (it was half price) since I know I will knit more socks simply because I like the portability of them when I don't feel like lugging a big knitting project around.  I am really looking forward to wearing the first pair.

Both of these yarns make me smile.

I am going to have to try a different sock pattern, I don't love this one, but I know I will find the perfect fit.

Pardons

Pardon the strange sizing and typing in my earlier post. I was trying to do something reasonable, the phone line went down three times during that post, each time I got it back I couldn't see what had been done before.

No excuse really, but I don't have time to deal right now and there is too much to do.

Sanity will return sometime.

[update] I might have it fixed.  Any remaining bugs will probably sit.  If it is really weird, let me know.

Return from the dead zone

I'm back from the dead.  Well, dead as in dead telephone line anyway. Our phone line has been out since Thursday morning and I have not been able to connect to the Internet or what-have-you, and therefore have not been able to post.  I have survived very well.   Verizon thought they fixed it Friday, they thought they fixed it Monday, but today the telephone actually works again.  Hooray! Hooray!

The good news is that they have discovered greater troubles on my line and have to trace it back through the town.  I have service in the meantime.  Perhaps this will solve the fuzziness, static, buzzing and occasional dropped lines we get here!

I still want to upgrade to some kind of higher speed line someday, but we have to rewire the basement for new cable wiring before that can happen.  It will happen, but when????? when I think of it at a practical time to call the electrician or am not crazy with other activities.

Knitting Progress during the Missing Days:

To begin, nothing has been completed, not that I haven't tried.

POSH
Posh has been completed and assembled, at least as far as knitting with the yarn called posh is concerned.  In a desperate attempt to finish in September I worked frantically only to discover that I did not have the right size crochet hook to finish the edges!!  In fact I don't have a hook anywhere near the right size.   Yet another unfinished project.

Did I run right out and look for a crochet hook?  No.  There is no store that close.  Did I call up and order one?  No.  I hoped to go by the new LYS today, but canceled all my plans to sit here and watch the TelCo repair man come and go.   I did get both freezers defrosted while I waited though.

TESLA
I am knitting on Tesla again.  I tried it on and decided that I needed to add more shaping through the waist and torso and so have added a few more decreases.  The fabric does not have a  lot of give and it kind of bags on the string I used for trying on.  Having side seams would have added a bit of structure but the yarn probably would have sagged between them.  Hopefully the sleeves and the neckline shaping will work as well.  It is really a guessing game as I go, but that is what makes knitting fun, if slow.

SOCK
I have overcome SSS and started the second sock.  I have almost 1 inch of ribbing knit, not great progress I know, but I haven't really devoted that much time to it.  At 84 stitches around on tiny size 0 needles it is not a fast project.

MISCELLANEOUS OTHER PROJECTS
I knit a swatch with a sample of Austerman Labella which I got from Elann.  I like the fabric I knit and it would make a great lightweight cardigan.  That was my car project coming home from Pittsfield/Hillsdale on Sunday.  We went to dinner at Aubergine after our last Pittsfield concert and I needed something to knit in the dark.  Neither Tesla nor sock would have been appropriate, Labella really wasn't appropriate either as it was hard to feel the stitches.  Still, a passable swatch was created.  I have been thinking about it.  I know that yarn went on sale this morning but as I had no phone service at that time I haven't checked the status of the yarn at Elann.  It is not like I am going to run out of knitting projects anytime in the near future.