A Quickie

Alright- super quick today. We are T minus 45 minutes to departure for the OBX and Family Vacation of Fun! I wanted to post before I left so no one worries when I go quiet for the next week and a few days. There is a slight chance I'll be able to blog while beaching it - but I'm not pushing it. So, anyway, I finished something. Yay me! Where's my cookie?
The Ribbed Noro Socks. Sorry no foot modeling today. I'm not about to put on a pair of 100% wool socks in 90 degree heat and humidity (I obviously am not dedicated enough to my blog). I did these 2-at-a-time style, so I used both ends of the ball of yarn, which means that the sock stripes match...
In reverse order. So cool. Anyway, now I just have to wait for Autumn to roll around to wear these pretties. No hurry though. I am very ready for a week of lazy summer days.

Counting Up Counting Down

Today was nephew Elliott's second birthday. Happy birthday little man! Can't believe he's already 2.Which means that yesterday was his big b-day bash. The cake was tasty, and more was eaten this time around.
He made out with the presents... again. Here's him driving (yes I just said a 2 year old was driving) his Gator. Can't tell you how jealous I am that he has a Gator and I don't. Need to talk the school into getting me one. And just so Mr. Mason doesn't feel unloved, here he is in all his cuteness.
Seriously. Cute. So in the car on the way back from the party, I finished sewing in the ends of the first "Toe Up with a Difference" socks. AKA -Charm socks, because the third pattern's a charm with this yarn. That's right, this is the 3rd pattern I've attempted with this yarn. And I finally have a winner. Love the pattern, love the yarn. Yay.I'm also very close to finishing the Noro socks. Like, finish them tomorrow at SnB, close. Yay! The goal was to get these done before vacay - and I will. Which, means new socks for vacation knitting.

Speaking of vacay - the countdown is on! T minus 4 days. Well, 5 if we're counting how many days until I'm actually on the beach and not just out of the hometown. Which means that blogging will cease for a week. A strict luggage rule is being enforced, and only one laptop is being permitted in the car, and it's not mine. And seeing as Dad will have work stuff and Ellie will have school stuff... I'm not thinking that blog stuff is going to rank very high. But I'll try.

And so I'll leave you with some photos from last week. I did some puppy sitting for BFF Bridget. And my favorite thing about Seamus sitting, besides Seamus, is this...
The view from their neighborhood park. I love walking down and looking at the lake and letting Seamus run wild.
He likes it too.

Bad Blogger Me

I am a bad blogger. I have been told by my brother - who is blogless. How dare I not post every 3 days? My only explanation is that I haven't had anything blogworthy lately. Not much knitting, not much to report about work.

Tommy came home last Wednesday night. Last weekend, I went down to States for the baseball game. It was a heartbreaker. Up 4-3 going into the bottom of the 7th, and the guys lost 5-4. It was very sad, and disappointing, but there's always next year - as any Cleveland sports fan knows.

On my way home on Saturday, I had a bit of car trouble. A new light started blinking. We all know how much I love to see an odd light on in my dashboard. It was the "Check Transaxle" light. So I called home from a rest area and was told to add transmission fluid. Okay. Mile and a half down the highway is the first exit. Okay. Four different gas stations. Okay. The Shell has transmission fluid. Okay.

And an hour and a half later, the fluid was finally added. I won't go into the details. It would take too long. I just have to say thank goodness for Steve at the tractor/riding lawn mower service station who came to my rescue.

Saturday was Mom's birthday, so we went out to dinner at Smoky Bones and then had ice cream cake. Had a cookout on Sunday and Tuesday nights so people could come over and spend some time with Tommy.

Yesterday, I went to the Riverfront Irish Fest with Bridget Chris and Kaylee. No pictures - I took my camera, but managed to forget my memory card. But it was good to get out for some Guinness and good music. Can't wait for Berea.

And now for the lackluster knitting content. I finally managed to finish plying up the "Mother of Pearl" roving. Here it is.270 yards of fingering weight-ish yarn. I haven't done the wraps/inch so I'm not entirely sure on the weight yet.

At some point in the last couple of weeks, I managed to finish spinning up the first 2 oz. of the "Wander" Corriedale roving. This is what it looks like.
I prepped the second half of the roving today, and now just need to wait until it's cool enough so I don't felt it while spinning.

And here's the only knitting progress I've got to show. I've passed the heels on the Noro socks.

See, no longer Hokie like. Alright, that's it. Just wanted to drop a note in case anyone was worried.

Noro is my anti-depressant

Sorry for the delay in the presentation of the fibery goodness. This week has not been the best. My car started making a horrible noise late last week and I took it in to get fixed on Tuesday. It's now fixed, but my bank account is broken. Anyone know where you get to get that fixed? I'm already working, any other suggestions?

So, anyway, Tuesday I needed a bit of a pick-me-up after I got the quote on my car. And since my bank account was broken and I couldn't order the pretty yarn that was in the Loopy Ewe's Sneak up (first time in weeks I've wanted to order stuff and I can't - because that's how my life works) what did I turn to? Noro of course. I started some Noro socks using the 2 socks at one time on one big long circular needle (a circular needle has the two knitting needle points attached to one flexible cord, thereby allowing you to knit in a circle). As of right now, they look like this:

I'm doing a knit3, purl 1 rib. Nothing fancy. And they kinda look like some Hokie socks at the moment. But this is the ball of yarn that will eventually become the rest of the sock:So it won't stay Hokie-ish for too much longer. Sorry Krista. But onto the haul from Saturday. Clockwise from top right, 2 oz of gray angora from Sheephaven Hutchworks, 2500 yds of hand-dyed alpaca lace-weight yarn from Briar Rose, 100% baby Suri alpaca from Stargazer Farm (that's only one of three hanks I got) and 4 oz of a 50/50 blend of alpaca/llama roving from Midwest Fiber Company. And here's the spindle I got:It's from the Rouge Lucette, it's .9 oz and made from curly koa wood, which is only found in Hawaii. And it's currently holding some Corriedale roving from Squoosh on Etsy. Which I'm loving.Not bad fro my first ever fiber festival. And so, we move on to the knitting. This is where I'm at on the previously unblogged sock.It's just a plain stockinette sock, therefore it will be known as the Plain Vanilla sock. Out of some very not vanilla Stone Barn Fibers "Adrianna" from the Loopy Ewe. It's very pretty yarn and works up really well. I've also started some Christmas knitting (I know, hard to believe I'm attempting to get an early start for a change) but since recipients or those close to recipients may or may not read the blog, they will go unblogged to maintain the surprise that should be Christmas presents.

Okay, for a reward for my knitting muggle readers who made it this far into the post (the term "muggle" comes from Harry Potter, all non-magical folks are referred to as muggles, therefore, it's been adopted to be used as a term for those who do not belong to a particular sub-culture) some sports related updates. My baseball team is playing in the regionals today down in Lorain, against a team that no one has ever heard of, Maple something. They played a game Tuesday against Beachwood that didn't count for anything and managed a come back from 9-1 to a 13-11 win. The win, if they count it, gave them a new school record for most wins in a season. Yay them.

The LAX team played Rocky River in their first play-off game on Tuesday and they won. Which means that we play the hated US team today. I will be attending that game. Track ran at Navarre yesterday for the regionals or whatever level they're at. And that's it.

Aminals

Happy Memorial Day! Hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend. NE Ohio is finally starting to feel like spring. I spent Saturday in Wooster at the Great Lakes Fiber Festival with my knitting buddy Rebecca. I'll save the fibery goodness for another post this week. Today, you get the aminals. All the cute sheepies and goats and alpacas and fuzzy bunnies. I didn't take pictures except of the animals. So here they are:
Very cute alpaca. Got bunches of alpaca fiber to spin up.I love the bunnies. They're big puff balls. And angora fiber is so soft. Most of the bunnies were for sale - very tempting.Pretty black sheep - I really don't know what breed. They weren't clearly marked.

This guy wa my favorite. He ambled over as soon as we got to him and wanted some attention. He's a rambouillet if I'm not mistaken. And I probably butchered the spelling on that.Cute goat who didn't want to do anything. Sat there quietly looking at everything going on.

All my sports are winding down. Softball and girls LAX are done, they both lost their first playoff games. LAX hasn't begun their playoffs yet, first game is Tuesday. Went to the district game last week for baseball - we won. Yay district champs. They play again on Thursday - but in Lorain, so I'm not sure I'll be making that trek.

As for knitting, I don't have much to show, so instead, we'll do a guide on how to read this blog for all the knitting muggles out there. Alright, when I start a new project and blog about it, usually the first time I mention it, I refer to it by the pattern name. Like last blog, I introduced the Luna Moth Shawl. From there on out, I will probably refer to that knitted object by it's name, ie - my Luna Moth. I throw in info about the yarn I'm using only in the first post about it, for any knitters who happen to be reading.

Occasionally, I'll gush about some yarn (ie, the Noro yarn that was made into the Clapotis recently). Noro happens to be a particular yarn brand known for it's gorgeous colors that self stripe in a very slow color change. (I put this in just because I know that I'll continue to gush about Noro in the future) Anything else that I mention about the knitted object is just what I'm thinking about it. Usually how pretty or frustrating or whatever.

We'll tackle spinning in another post. There's just too much to go into. And photos will help, photos I don't currently have. So, I hope that helps all you knitting muggles out there who read the blog anyway.

Knitting ADD

Okay, this last week has been a bit nutso with my knitting. Serious ADD. Which is leading to a case of startitis. Don't know why, but it is what it is. Slowly moving along on the Nagini socks. Finished my pretty pretty Clapotis, it's currently blocking.

Mildly disappointed. But only with me, not with the knitting. I don't think I made it long enough. I followed the directions, but I think it's a bit short. Of course, this is something that can't be realized until it's too late. Too late because the stitches are dropped, and there's just no way to go back and pick up and knit again. Oh well. It's still gorgeous.

And then, the other night. I got a message from knitting pal Maggie with a question about her current lace project. So I sat there looking at the pattern and trying to work it out in order to help her, and was unable to. So I finished the last few rows of the Clapotis, and had the urge to cast the shawl on in order to figure it out. It's how I am with puzzles, I can't help it. So, the Luna Moth shawl is now on the needles. I'm halfway through the second repeat. It's a nice easy repetitive lace pattern. Much less concentration than the Mystic Waters. I'm using KnitPicks Gloss yarn, in Dolphin. It's 70% merino, 30% silk. So great. And then on Saturday, I had to start the November Ruffle by Kate Jackson. The yarn has been sitting there for petting, because, seriously, the 100% alpaca Peruvian Tweed yarn, is so incredibly luscious. That's the only word to describe this yarn. LUSCIOUS. Don't know why I was so intent on knitting this, I won't wear it until the fall, and it's like 15" of stockinette. Oi. Oh well, it's dummy knitting, and everyone needs a little dummy knitting in their lives.

Yesterday, I got something finished. Here's my Wrightwood roving, all spun up and plied up into some yarn. It ended up being 100yds of sport/worsted yarn (It's 11 WPI which is right between the 2 weights).

Very glad I finished this. It was for the Project Spectrum Earth cycle, which ends at the end of this month. So I actually got it done on schedule. Yay me.

Alright, well, that's about it from my land of knitting distraction.

Getting There

It's been a rough week. I got really really sick on Monday, and was just able to ingest food again yesterday around 2pm. And that's all I'll say about that. The weather has been less than spring-like, the rain is spring like, the temperature is not. But here's hoping that it's on the upswing. The sun is shining today, even if it's only in the fifties.

Yesterday, we managed to get in a baseball sectional. The weather was not cooperative. It rained most of the day and all of the game. But as we were winning, we really couldn't call it and expect the other team not to protest. So they played on, and won 10-1. Woohoo. I missed most of it due to the LAX game going on simultaneously. We won that 10-3.

Sunday was Mother's Day, and the joint celebration of my brother Paul's birthday (it was actually last Friday, but we didn't see him until Sunday). Elliott was most entertained by the musical card I got for my brother.

Mason, as it runs in the family, has a penchant for tissue paper. Paul appreciated the MP3 player and North Face.And then we moved onto mom, who loves anything that comes in a shoe box.She's totally going to kill me for posting those photos.

I haven't really gotten much done in the way of knitting. The Temptation sock ist kaput. The little pooches that resulted on the sides of the heels were present in other people's socks on Ravelry and the designer was unable to give me any tips on how to avoid them, so the yarn will get knitted up some other day. So I started another sock.

It's the "Nagini" pattern from Gigi Silva. I'm knitting it up in "Sour Grapes" by Rio Del Plata, purchased from the Loopy Ewe (not surprisingly). I'm loving it to this point. The way the yarn knits up in the pattern, it reminds me of snakeskin. So awesome. And I'm past the bulk of it, it's now just the mindless pattern up the leg. Which means I should get it finished relatively quickly (how often have we heard that?)The most exciting knitting though - I'm onto the decrease rows of the Clapotis!It's the home stretch now. I'm thinking that I'll be blocking this bad boy this weekend!! Which makes me very happy. Once again, I'm jinxing myself by making predictions. Gotta learn to stop doing that.