Ball One

I've been working on this afghan while watching Mad Men. (By the way, those of you following Mad Men, please read my editing blog and help me figure out whether there's a connection between Grandpa Gene and the dead snake. Or between baby Gene and the mouse.)

This is the first super-saver supersized skein of Red Heart, and it got me 8" of blanket. I bought twelve skeins. The future owner of this blanket, Danger Boy, is large for his age, and most growth charts peg his adult height at around 6'5" to 6'8". So the blanket needs to be large, too. Maybe ten skeins for the body, one or two for the border? We'll see!

The Curse Has Been Broken!

I spun around in a circle three times, clicked my heels, threw salt over my shoulder, and---


















--broke the antiknitting curse that some fiendish devil put on me.

The socks are done. I'll never be able to wear them without thinking of the last six months. The car wreck, all the trips to the pain clinic with my grandmother, the endless work hours, and all the other distractions, both good and bad.

I'd say that I'm happy to have them -- and this time in my life -- finished, but the truth is I'm more relieved.

I'm not going to cast on another pair of socks just yet. Next, I hope to finish the baby hat for Panera Larry's soon-to-be-born son. That's a small project, and I'm still just skittish enough to want to keep things simple. There's always the temptation to cast on something new, but practicality must prevail. Even without the hat, I still have three sweaters and a t-shirt on the needles. That's more than enough for now.

Post-Stitches

Got home from Stitches mid-day Sunday. Within hours, my parents had arrived in town, my sister left her husband and moved in here with her child and dog, and my life
changed dramatically. I've had to empty closets for her, just at a time when I wanted to reorganize my stash and spread it around a bit so things might be easier to find. Oh, well. Family comes first, even ahead of stash (though it is a very, very, very close second, lol).

Abbreviated Stitches report:
I bought some yarn.
I took some classes.
I enjoyed the uninterrupted company of knitters.
I ate amazingly good Indian food. Twice.


The best part was the company of knitters. There hasn't been enough of that lately, and I cannot begin to express how lovely it was to get away from the stress and chaos and just be with friends in a fun and relaxing environment. Big hugs for all my friends. You guys are the best!

The second best part was the Advanced Finishing class with Margaret Fisher, who is my new idol. Everyone should take this class. She'll blow you away with how much she manages to jam into a three-hour class, and all of it is useful. Plus she's adorable and very nice. And she agreed with me that my kitchener is weird, and she might have even pinpointed the problem. We'll see. I've spent years unable to figure out why my kitchener grafts always look grotesque, so if nothing else, there's comfort in knowing an expert also sees the same problems I see. It's nice to know I'm not imagining things!

Yarn. Yeah, okay, I bought some. Not as much as I had budgeted for -- I came home with a couple hundred (and then some) left over in my annual Stitches set-aside. The market was underwhelming this year. Many of our regular fave vendors were not in attendance -- the rainbow button lady, the antique button lady, The Fold, Black Water Abbey, Shelridge Farms, Jojoland, Manos, and this is but a partial list of missing vendors. The market was easily 20% smaller than in past years.

So there were some disappointments, but honestly, I'm not disappointed overall. I was able to get some new indie yarns and a few things not available around here. A skein of Kauni for a shawl, some cones of laceweight that were a real bargain -- don't have a clue why the laceweights are calling to me lately. I'm not a lace girl. Or maybe I am but didn't know it before now.

What's that? You want to see? Oh, okay. I guess I can understand that. ;)

The pink is an alpaca laceweight, about 800 yards, from Webs. And the other is the Kauni. If you could see through the layers of the Kauni skein, you would see all the colors of a rainbow. It's very bright and colorful. I really can't wait to knit it, and am torn between two patterns.