Back to normal

The political messages are over and we can get back to the real business of the day......knitting and spinning! It is good to know if the economy totally tanks and if I can no longer afford to leave the house, or heat the house I can make my own warmth from my wool stash and once I run out of yarn, I can spin up from my stash and make some more. That is a warm thought for this chilly day.......

I finished my last skein of homespun from my Louet Northern Lights. It is washed skeined and now I have 4 skeins which I estimate to be at least 600 yards. I plan to begin a clapotis by Ruth Gilbert once I have some room in my current project bag. This was such a nice yarn to spin and I would definitely recommend it to beginner spindlers. Very little drafting necessary and the random color spotches blend very nicely when plying.
I began the lace scarf from Misti alpaca, and it has been a bit frustrating to get going. There are only 51 stitches in the scarf as designed and 3 border stitches at the beginning and the end. The problem is that there is one extra stitch in addition to the 11 stitch repeat of the pattern and this extra stitch is gonna kill me. What this means is that I cannot use stitch markers to keep my place in the row because everything moves this one extra stitch every other row. I have started and frogged at least 6 times so far until I "got" it. So now I count at the end of each row to make sure I have 51 stitches and I count each 11 stitch repeat with out markers! Ughhh... this is gonna take a long time and I may use a "life-line" for the first time in case I get off in my count and have to rip back. The yarn is so fine that each time I frogged it, I tossed the yarn previously knitted because it got too fuzzy. I am trying to be very diligent to count as I go along. I forgot to mention that I started this on addis, but then ran out and got some bamboo straight needles which aren't nearly as slippery. I may end up ordering knitpicks harmony tips in this size because using a lifeline with those is much easier because of the little tightening hole.
This second photo is after steam blocking what I had so far and the pattern is starting to show up. A nice surprise came in the mail today: my blog prize of 2 oz of fiber from Spinknitandlife and it is so soft and pretty. I look forward to spinning this and maybe doing a two color hat with some natural colored BFL fiber I have in my stash. Thanks, Phyllis!! I love it!

Packing is a B***H

I should be doing one more load of laundry and gathering my underwear and cosmetics, but today I spent time looking through my high school yearbook ahead of the reunion. The book itself is a little worse for wear since we had a minor basement flood and the pages are a bit ripply and old mold signs are present. Here is me from 1968 and you can see that I haven't changed a bit!

I probably will notice that everyone else has REALLY aged! I have only seen a few of these people in the years since my 20th reunion in 1988 and am really looking forward to renewing old friendships.

I have also been packing my knitting bag:

I am especially happy to have this bag to take to Rhinebeck on Sunday and to see if I meetup with any fellow Ravelers and bloggers. If you are reading this and are going look for me. I hear that the weather will be good for wool, so the Kauni sweater is my sweater of choice that day because of all the bright colors.

In the bag will be the socks I mentioned on the last post if they are not finished, and this ball of sock yarn which should make a great pair on Monkey Socks for me, unless I decide to give them away.

I will also take my Golding Tsunami spindle and the rest of the Louet Northern Lights pencil roving which is almost finished, but I will wait to ply it till I get home.

I will also be bringing Ann Budd's Yarn Requirement chart booklet, and the wrap per inch chart and tool from Nancy's Knit Knacks.

I imagine it will be fuller after visiting the markets of Rhinebeck.

Edited to add: Computer Hell revisited. Two hours ago when I started this blog entry, I put my yearbook in the printer to scan my 1968 photo. The scan function did not work so I tried a few things and then phoned the Costco Concierge service which came with my new computer. Seems like my printer was not compatible with the Vista operating system without a download of a new driver. It was slow slow slow, but my personal concierge, Tony, who was in Florida and not Bangalore, had the patience of a saint. I put him on hold several times to get the mail, get my knitting, get a drink, etc. Two hours later, IT WORKS! Yay for the Costco Concierge, which not only is a great service, it extends the warranty an extra year to two years. If you have to get a new computer and you are as clumsy at everything as I am, it is a fabulous deal!

Nothing happening

I really need to post more often, but nothing exciting has been happening................

Except for my oldest daughter being in Tokyo for the wedding of a friend she met during her internship in Philadelphia four years ago! She purchased a phone card and phoned us today, and it sounds she is enjoying her trip and the wedding was beautiful. She said most of the guests do speak English, but all the speeches after the wedding were in Japanese, so she missed most of that. On Tuesday, the family of the bride is taking all the out of town guests touring the sites of Tokyo. What a fabulous experience and I can't wait to see photos once she returns to NY on Wednesday.

Except for finishing my monkey socks that will be a gift when I visit Connecticut in a couple of weeks for my high school reunion.

Except for the e-mails that have been passed around from LA, Chicago, Atlanta and Connecticut, not to mention Denver as many of my friends have been reconnecting in advance of the reunion. There are even some photos on the Classmates.com site and from what I can see, I don't look the oldest, fattest or most matronly. Of course, many of the men will be very old, bald and out of shape. I have found that women, for the most part, age better than men.....

Except for finishing up another skein of the Northern Lights. This one came out nearly identical to the last and probably would make into some nice socks, but now I am thinking of a Clapotis. I have been thinking about this pattern for some time and it would make a lovely gift for the holidays. I measured out 3 packets of the remainder of the fiber and there will be one more skein of this fiber. I started out with 8 oz of fiber, and the final tally of home spun yarn will be 3 skeins of about the same fingering weight and one skein that is more like worsted weight.

Except for the cutest little mini skeins I made up. The two grey ones finish up the merino that I navajo plied on the fly. A hat is in the planning stage... The burgundy one is one ply of the new alpaca fiber from last weekend and one ply of the Louet Northern lights pencil roving that I had been working on. I have heard that alpaca has no memory like wool has, so I was just testing out this combination. The end result is very soft and squooshy, but since I am finishing up the Northern Lights, the mini skein is all there will be of this. I am happy to report that spinning the Alpaca fiber wasn't a difficult as I had expected. It is a bit slippery, but if I am paying attention it is ok.

Today was the Race for the Cure for the Susan G Komen Foundation. Although I participated in past years, this year I sat it out and accompanied Mom to the cemetery for a Memorial Service during these days of awe. Tomorrow I am having my yearly mammogram only a few days after Maggie's birthday. Last year I scheduled it on her birthday as a tribute to her memory, but tomorrow is a close as I could get this year. In Maggie's memory and in honor of the thousands fighting this hideous disease, make sure you are taking care of yourself, doing your monthly self exams, and getting your yearly mammograms.