I had a busy, fun weekend!

Saturday was the usual lunch with M. Then, since it was a relatively nice day, I decided to take a little trip over the Chehalem Mountains to Carlton to visit Woodland Wool Works, quite possibly one of the coolest places on earth. Spin, felt, dye, knit, crochet, tat — no matter what your fiber art addiction, they have fun stuff. I especially like their “stash room” where the discontinued and used items go to find a home. I usually end up with more than I planned on, but I restricted myself to some Crystal Palace circular bamboo needles, some Opal yarn, and a few incidentals like stitch markers (they have some flexible ones I really like) and straight cable needles. If you live in the area or are ever within striking distance, Woodland Wool Works is well work the visit!

Another cool place in Carlton (can you believe such a small town has two cool places?) is The Chcolate Sheep Gallery. Opened by felt artist Loyce Ericson in 2003, the gallery features the work of Ericson and several other fiber artists, is open for felting classes, and sells small-batch gormet chocolates like Sharffen-Berger. Being a dark-chocoholic, I indulge in Sharffen-Berger wherever I can get it. I’m not sure what hours The Chcolate Sheep keeps. They were closed on Saturday, although they have been open other weekends when I was there. If you are going only to visit the gallery, I suggest calling ahead.

Sunday I attended the parent/school meeting to discuss the New York trip in February that #1 Son is participating in. As well as seeing the sights, they will be visiting several advertising agencies to see what goes on behind the scenes. Wish I were going!

Today’s a day for thawing out. I’m happy to see that the camelia seems none the worse for wear, although I expect that some of the blossoms may drop.

#1 Son, now that he can come home instead decided to spend the afternoon at the zoo, followed by band practice, followed by work. He called very excited because tonight he gets to actually prepare food, rather than just wash dishes. A step up in the job department is always a good thing! So, congratulations, #1 Son!

And here’s hoping that it doesn’t refreeze tonight and I can pick him up after work!

In the mean time, I’ve been knitting like a mad woman trying to get the alpaca socks-from-hell completed so that I can start on my sock scarf.

“Socks From Hell” because I’m finding the Plymouth Baby Alpaca D.K. yarn difficult to work with. It has a yummy soft hand, but it’s very slick. I’ve tried birch and bamboo circular needles and sets of DP needles in bamboo, metal and plastic (Pony Pearl needles) — and different sizes of most of these. After many false starts, and one entire sock knitted and then rejected, I’ve finally settled on bamboo circular needles in size three, which seem to be giving me the correct gauge and keeping most of the stitches on the needles. I’m getting a lot of practice at picking up dropped stitches, though.

The rejected sock was too small, even though I thought I was checking well enough as I went along, and too irregular to give as a gift. It was my needle-experimenting-sock, and ended up with a lot of gauge changes and strange looking stitches.

The socks themselves are striped in an off-white shade and a dark purple. The stripes are fairly wide at 10 rounds per. I’m knitting these toe-up with a figure-8 cast-on and short-row heels. I’m not sure of the size of my friend’s feet, but I think they’re about the same length as mine and maybe a little wider. I’m making them long enough to provide some “room for growth” in the toes. I want them to fit snugly, but not too tight. They are intended as bed-socks, not to be worn in shoes, so I am working them all-over in k3 p1 ribbing, except the toe and heel which are stockinette stitch. I’m considering a fairly short ankle (not super short, but not as long as usual), with a rolled top instead of ribbing, since the whole sock is ribbed anyway. I’ll post a pic when I get them done.

In the cool-new-info department, I found out that, if you knit the entire row after a color change, the knit stitches don’t look weird in the rib pattern — in fact you can’t tell at all they aren’t perls without looking very closely — and the color changes are much more crisp. I first learned to knit something like 37 years ago, but this technique is new to me and I’m grateful to learn it!

Now I just need a better jogless jog.

In the miscellaneous department, being number 3 result in the MSN search phrase need different potatoes use warms the cockles of my Idaho-born-and-bred little heart. But leaves me wondering exactly what “different” uses would be?

Now that #1 son is a proud possessor of that wonderous thing, a learner’s permit, he naturally wants to drive everywhere. And I want him to learn. Really. And I have to admit he’s doing pretty well. There are a few things he needs to practice: Turning is still a little shakey. He sometimes forgets to look both ways before entering traffic. And he has a propensity to drift far to the right that makes traveling on streets that have no right shoulder interesting. Other things, like pulling into the garage, he’s surprisingly good at. All in all, for a brand new driver he’s doing well.

Last night I let him drive a few blocks to a friends house. And this afternoon, figuring that the traffic would be pretty light, I handed him the keys and he drove all the way over to his girlfriend’s house in NE Portland. I know that I can be a bad passenger sometimes, so I took along my knitting to keep my hands busy with something other than clutching the door.

You can see from the picture (click to embiggen) that, after a few false starts, I’ve managed to get a sock going pretty well. It even fits me. 😀 I’m working a 2×2 traveling rib over the instep and up the ankle. I messed the pattern up in a couple of places, but the colors in the yarn keep it from being too noticeable. The heel could be better (it was worked in the car), but the toe came out pretty well.

The yarn is called Moda Dea Sassy Stripes. It has a lot of random colors that make stripes and interesting patterns as you knit or crochet with it. Unfortunately it’s acrylic, but it does have a nice soft hand. I’m thinking that these will make good bed socks or wear-around-the-house socks, and at least they will be washable.

Tonight we went to a movie and #1 son drove home. I live down what’s been described as “a really scary road.” I don’t know that I’d go that far, but there are no lights, and there is a stream running through a culvert on the north side, and it does go up and down and around some curves. And #1 Son does have that tendency to want to drift right while driving, and the stream was on that side…

It was too dark to see, but it probably would have been a good thing if I’d had my knitting with me.

I spent all weekend finishing up the ornaments for the folks at work. They were all finished and delivered on time! I’m pretty proud of myself for that. 😀

I worked a bit on the slippers that I wanted to make for K. But I’m finding that, in my zeal to make it warm, the felt I made is too thick. My poor Bernina is choking as it tries to stitch the upper to the sole. I’m not really very happy with the result. I’ll probably finish them, but I don’t know that they’ll be given as gifts.

In the meantime, I needed a TV-watching project, so I’ve decided to teach myself the continental style of knitting. I used to knit way-long-ago, but gave it up in favor of crochet, which for me has always been faster. But lately I’m finding that the motions of crochet are tough on my hands, even when I use a pad around the hook.

There are two basic styles of knitting (with a gazillion variations). I learned English style knitting, where the yarn is held in the right hand and “thrown” over the hook. I’ve always been fascinated by the continental (aka “German”) style, where the yarn is held in the left hand and picked up by the needle in a motion that’s rather like crochet. KnittingHelp.com has videos and pictures showing both styles.

Last night I knitted a swatch using the continental method. Wow… I am so out of practice! I couldn’t even remember how to cast on! Although it’s slow going right now, I can tell already that continental will be much faster than English. And since there is so little hand and finger movement, my hands didn’t feel at all trashed even though I knit for about 90 minutes straight! (I would have paid for 90 minutes of straight crochet, believe me.) I knit a few inches of stockinette stitch with size 5 needles, and then a few of 2K/2P ribbing.

If I can get this going well, I think I’ll try knitting a pair of socks. That doesn’t take too long and if the results are not what I’d like, I can still wear them in bed.

If I get really brave and back in practice, I might steal this sock scarf from Jerry at When Knitting Was A Manly Art, which he adapted from a this pattern in Knitter’s. I think the heels down the length of the scarf look strange and I like Jerry’s version a lot better. But I’d like to try it with one end as a toe-up sock and the other as a top-down.

If I get better, that is. I’ll start a little smaller.

Lest anyone think all I do is work and then sit around and bitch about politics and play video games (like I wish that was all I had to do), this is a pic of some ornaments that I’m crocheting for my colleagues at work. It’s something of a tradition for me to pass out hand-made ornaments as Christmas gifts to the folks at the office. (click on the picture to embiggen)

So, if you work with me, STOP LOOKING!

Originally I planned to make a candy cane ornament for everyone. But the candy canes take twice as long because I have to crochet two twists: One red and one white. For the wreaths, I only have to do one green twist. Most people are going to get wreaths, probably, because I don’t have enough time to do the candy canes. This candy cane is for my coffee lady, who insisted I make one for her. 😀

The candy canes are taking about 1 hour each, start to finish, and the wreaths take about 40 minutes. (I need to make about 15 or so.)

I used Lion Homespun in Country for the wreaths. The candy canes are made from some generic 4-ply worsted weight that has been in my yarn basket for years and long ago lost its label.

The pattern is mine, and I don’t mind sharing. Click on the link below if you are interested.