Some People's Children

I fell for temptation and went to a yarn sale today after buying yarn yesterday. Yes, I need yarn for a vest and a Pi R Squared shawl. Of course, I do. The closet is full. Not all of it is yarn but a lot of it is. The blue yarn is for a vest, Rudy likes his red vest out of the same yarn. He even laughed at the staying alive forever to finish the projects comment.

Now to the part about some people's children. The yarn store I went to today looked like locusts had descended on it. The stock was below anything I had ever seen. This leads to the little voice in my head saying " are they just really reducing stock or is something more sinister afoot like getting ready to sell the store." The unfortunate truth is, they had to throw out garbage bags of yarn because of vandalism. Some kids threw rocks at the windows and broke them, spraying glass all over the yarn. Of course it happened at night and the kids are still on the loose. All we can do is hope the bad karma of frivilously destroying yarn will catch up with culprits. It was definitely a move worthy of Crab and Doyle.

Yesterday's is the reddish yarn and intended for the shawl. It even has a neat name: Bougainvillea.

So, if I was doing skeins in and skeins out, I am behind for the week. 16 skeins in and 1 hat finished for 1 skein out. That would be an increases of 15. And, I have to admit the hat yarn has enough left for a small roll brimmed hat.

Alpaca spinning

Here is my lastest spinning. Some alpaca I got last year at the Estes Park Wool Market. The purchase was 5 ounces of Roving from the Aplaca tent. The reciept says Sancho Paca #92 Fawn Roving.

I am trying to be a little more organized with this since I want to ply it. I weight it and split in half using my flour scale. Lets face 5 ounces doesn't do anything on the bathroom scales. This is approximately half it spun. I am keeping about a oversized fist of loosely wound roving and will compare the two bobbins before deciding who gets this little bit. Will it be bobbin #1 or bobbin #2? And more to the point will I even remember to post the answer.

A weekend of Pottering

As many others have this weekend, I fell under the spell of the latest Harry Potter book. I picked the book up when I went to the knitting group on Saturday. The store was gracious enough to let me buy it there instead of at the exact store I had the reservation at.

Since I was at knitting, I did finish the hat I was working. Everyone there had bought a copy of the book.

Sunday, I attended a spinning get together for awhile. It was tempting to continue reading but I had done my usual cheat so I could put the book down. I read the last part. With a number of books, it is either check the ending or do something stupid like stay up way to late reading. It is the only partial cure, I have found for the compulsion to finish a book. I stiil concentrate on reading when I get a reasonable chance.

Now, that I have finished the book and know absolutely who dies and who doesn't, I can go back to my normal routine for the rest of the week. And I know the answer to friend or foe but it will not be revealed here.

TADA - Socks Are Done

I was right it took more than an hour to finish but they are done and the e-mail is off. For those who don't know,in order to be added to the count for the Denver Knits 5280 pairs of sock challenge, 6 questions have to be answered. These are Brown Sheep Wild Foot, color Symphony, cuff down on size 2 needles socks. They are for me which makes the left sock about .3 inches longer than the right although both are still size 9.5 socks. It just makes getting dressed in the morning more interesting. The socks are more comfortable particularly when worn on the appropriate feet. So, I am down to 3 projects on needles. I am sensing hat/hats are next.

Not Much Progress

Here is a picture of the skein I finished spinning last week. It really is more green than the picture. I am just going to put the color distortion down to lighting. They always saying lighting is important in photography. They are absolutely right. And for a quick snapshot with the computer camera, I am just going to ignore them and live with the results. I have noticed that the sparkles only show in some lights not others. I need to pick the next fiber to spin. Definitely plan on plying it.
Here is sock number 2 for my first pair of 5280 socks. I am almost to the toe. Right at the point where I feel like I will finish it in no time at all. But I know it is at least an hour left, maybe more. So, it will take more time.

Now, off to pick up clue number 3 for the mystery stole.

Reading and Knitting

I will start with my recent reading. None of it falls in the exciting category. It all falls in the important category. One of the book, I have finished reading is Cat vs. Cat. A must read for anyone who has a cat stopping the other kitty from getting out of the cat box. We have a dominance issue which I suspected. Separating the cats was/is the right move and can go on for months. I honestly don't buy into every piece of advice in the book. Probably because it is my house, my home territory and the book focuses on the cats. It has helped me convince Rudy that letting the cats work it out, won't work. Now, if I could just get him to read the book.

I am still putzing away at 'The Wisdom of Menopause'. There is a lot of information to figure out so reading more than a section or two doesn't work well for me. Again not all of it applies at this house. But a number of the sections are very informative.

Then there are the diabetic cookbooks, 'Mr. Food Diabetic Dinners in a Dash' and 'Better Homes and Gardens Diabetic Living Cookbook'. I am still working on them and found a couple of recipes I would like to try. They aren't necessarily suitable for our current hot weather. Why am I reading diabetic cookbooks? I do most of the cooking and the household is a diabetic diet because Rudy went to the Doctor's for a checkup about 4 months ago. He gets to deal with the monitoring issues. We have both read "Diabetes for Dummies" which is a good book. At least, I think he finished it. I certainly hope so but I am not going to nag or ask since he is doing much better about what he is eatting. The odd thing is I am at a higher risk than he was. Another one of those go figure things in life. I probably should cross my fingers and knock on wood since I have plenty of years left. I would rather not stab my fingers. Life is just easier if you don't have too.

Another book, I finished recently is 'Selbuvotter Biography of a knitting Tradition'. I am not a big mitten knitter. The last pair was over two years ago. There are some neat charts that could go on sweaters or socks. O.K. so I working on year two of my Philosopher's Wool sweater. Half the fun of knitting is day dreaming. I really mean to use the charts on something sometime. I just need to finish the PW first. I did enjoyed reading the history and now would like to see the museum sometime.

I have been knitting just not finishing. So here is the progress report without pictures.
- The 5280 socks are over 50% done. Sock number is started and about half way to the heel.
- The afghan out of bulky is on skein 3 of 5.
- The Philosopher's Wool Sweater is about 1 3/4 inch above the armhole.
- The Oregon shawl has 10 repeats left for the center. So three are done.
The most likely thing to get finished is the socks. The question is, can my first pair be number 100 for the group? With 83 pairs in, the odds are not good.

I did finish spinning some 75% Wool, 20% Mohair, and 5% Nylon. At least, I think those are the right portions. Anyway, I decided to leave it as a single and I ran it back through to remove some of the over twist. This wasn't completely successful. I untwisted too much in about 6 places. Hopefully, spit joins are the right solution. There still is a little overtwist left but it is dripping downstairs as I type. Is it amazing, you don't go to a yarn store but more yarn shows up and it doesn't even have a designated project.