Stoneview

I thought I might cast on for the second attempt at a sock for the swap over the weekend but I didn’t have the right needles with me so it didn’t happen until a few days later. I cast on for this sock on Tuesday but being a little under the weather I spent a fair bit of time ripping back and redoing the same several rows a number of times. Yesterday I finally hit my stride only to realize I needed to rip back half a pattern repeat. Darn! They are so pretty though and I *think* the size is better this time around.

Here’s the latest in my non-itchy hat efforts. This is a top-down Timothy cap knit in Muench Touch Me on size 6 needles. It still needs to be washed and dried so this is not yet the final fit but I think it’s turned out very nicely so far.

  My first purchase was an embroidery pattern at the quilt shop next to our first hotel. That was quickly followed by some Flat Foot sock yarn from the Irish Ewe who managed not to laugh as we stood holding it waiting for her to officially open. I also snagged some experimental hand-dyed jaquard striping French Twist yarn from the French Hill Farm booth as well as a lovely Blackberry Ridge lace shawl kit which you dye after knitting (This from the Unique One).  For fiber purchases I made a beeline for Spunky Eclectic to grab a colorway I’ve seen on a few blogs and I chose a couple others as long as I was there and already squeezed into the booth. Next up was some deep rich red bunny roving at the Woolen Rabbit and last but not least some amazingly soft angora/merino from the Spinning Bunny.

At Halcyon I picked up another Turbo drive band for the wheel. Just last week I finally put one on my wheel and I really like it so I wanted to have a spare in case it breaks. I grabbed some bobbins from the sale bin for some fingerless-rovaniemi-mittens from the Jan/Feb issue of Piecework along with some felting equipment. At Yummies I bought some cornuts for Daniel so he’ll stop raiding them from my snack mix, some peanut butter cups for Jason and some fruit slices for me.

Breakfast was included with our room and that was the first order of business yesterday morning. After that we loaded up the vehicle for the return trip home. Look how much room we have left! We had planned to visit Halcyon which was open especially for SPA attendants and had a %10 discount for the day. I’ve never been there and it was well worth the trip.

Mary picked up a flyer for the Knitting Experience Cafe, (she’s always thinking of us) so we stopped there next.
The owner was very excited to see people from SPA stopping by. We grabbed some lunch at Joshua’s afterwards where I found some delicious Maine shrimp. Walking back to the car we spotted a little glimpse into the future.

Next up was a visit to Purl Diva’s in which Kathy executed a u-turn to stop on the wrong side of the road just especially for us. We were glad she did because the shop was adorable complete with a very soft cute dog. She has an amazing selection of Fleece Artist and Lorna’s yarns many of which I’d never seen. We made a brief stop so I could get a photo of this amusing cow advertising her drive-thru coffee (sadly closed for the day). In the course of ensuing discussions it came up that I’d never been to Yummies and so one last pit stop was dictated and purchases were made by all.  More photos of the trip are here for those who want to see more.

On Friday we departed around mid-day before the storm really kicked into gear. We check in to our hotel around mid-afternoon and tried to make a beeline for the vendor room but ended up taking the scenic route in which the infamous "blond moose" was spotted (Watch Debbi’s blog for that story). Once we arrived we checked out a few spinning wheels, admired all the goods and maybe even made a few purchases. When Debbi spotted the Flat Feet sock yarn we pawed through it and stood holding our selections until the vendors officially opened. We really did leave plenty for everyone else. Later in the evening we had an excellent dinner at a Thai restaurant just a few doors down from our hotel and then proceeded to play with my spinning wheel a bit.

Yesterday morning we packed our bags and headed out for a delicious breakfast at the Sunrise Cafe. We visited vendors again to fill in the corners and ran into lots of friends. There might have been a fair bit of roving purchased since everyone was feeling a bit more friendly with the spinning wheel. We grabbed lunch and then checked in to our fabulous townhouse at the Harraseeket Inn where we had two floors and all sorts of gorgeous space. We had a very relaxing afternoon in which Debbi spun some Shetland roving she’d bought earlier in the day. I later made a marled two-ply out of it. Lynne and I had arranged a barter, my soap for her doing a tarot reading for me. I’ve never done anything like that and it was a lot of fun. Over the coarse of the weekend I knit up another top-down Timothy cap, this time out of Touch Me with the proper increases.

Since the first pair of socks meant for the Silly Sock Swap turned out the wrong size I’m trying again. This time I’m using Lorna’s Sport and size 2 needles. I’ll knit the Buds and Blossoms sock from the Tongue River Farm Sock Collection. Wish me luck!

With another snow storm drawing a bead on New England we’ve decided to head up to Maine for SPA a day early. In light of that I pushed on through to the end of the second New Harmony sock last night and even managed to get it blocked in time for packing this morning. This is the New Harmony sock pattern from the Tongue River Farm Sock Collection knit on size 1 needles with Lorna’s Laces and On Your Toes yarns. They were brilliant fun to knit and I definitely plan to do more of the patterns from this booklet.

At last Bob is finished. For the record this is the Bob Dobbs vest from Domiknitrix knit with Knitpicks Wool of the Andes on size 7 needles. I used duplicate stitch, as suggested, for the Bob image. I made no modifications to the pattern though I did make a few errors in duplicate stitch that didn’t get fixed. I used to do a fair amount of counted cross-stitch so following the chart wasn’t too bad but I did find myself ripping back with some regularity. I think he looks great, errors and all. He  needs a bit of blocking along the armholes before I pass him off to Daniel as those want to curl inward.