Finally, A Picture!

Yes, we have had some nice sunny weather and I've had a little more time than in the previous couple of weeks. Ragna has been done for two weeks. How about a picture already? I'm not all that happy with the picture, but here it is:



I had plenty of yarn left over, so I made these nice warm spiral tube socks too.



They are so easy - just knit on a multiple of six stitches plus or minus one. K3 P3, repeat until as long as you like. Before you put them on they just look like plain tubes, but this stitch stretches in all directions and conforms to your foot and leg quite nicely. I knitted these from the toe up, using a middle eastern style toe (I have pictures of that and will explain it here soon - I like it) and I did cabled ribbing for the cuffs. I'm not sure how good that choice was. Cabled ribbing looks nice, but doesn't stretch nearly as well as regular ribbing. The cabled part can't stretch. On the first sock after I cast off I had to go back and redo it (the casting off) because it didn't stretch enough to go on, but after casting off really loosely it was fine. The other nice thing about this stich is that it is so forgiving of errors. There were lots of times when I got off by one stitch somewhere on a row. Guess what! I just didn't worry about it and made sure it was back on pattern on the next row. Nobody would ever know.

The socks each took one skein of yarn. Well, the first one was a little less than a skein, but the second sock ran out when it was not quite finished. So, the yardage must not be quite consistent. No matter - I still have more yarn left. One full skein and odds and ends that probably add up to one more. I have cast on for some wrist warmers with this yarn too.

Fiber Festival

Yesterday I went to the Back of the Wasatch Fiber Festival. Thanks, Toni and Arlene, for giving me a ride! I go every year, except I missed one year. This year is the fifth for BOW. This year they combined it with a rendevous and a Bluegrass competition. We wandered over towards the music, and they were having this "Band Scramble" thing. The way it works is they had jars for various instruments, including one that was marked "other." I had a recorder with me (can't leave home without both knitting and an instrument of some kind), so I put my name in the "other" jar. Joining bands on impulse everyplace I go could get to be a bad habit. I've never played Bluegrass before. Although I really want to learn to play the fiddle, specifically Hardanger fiddle, I don't play any string instruments. So, it was interesting. I picked up a melody line on one song and backed up chords on the other. I was really wondering what I was thinking for getting into that competition. Must not have been too bad though, or we got points for originality. Out of five bands, mine was second place! And we didn't even have a fiddler. The first place band (all put together on the spot and given 30 minutes to come up with a program including two songs) had an excellent fiddler and really deserved to win.

That was the exciting part, but there was also shopping of course. I'm rather proud of myself. I sold more than I bought, and I wasn't even a vender. I sold two lucets and and some books that I have a bunch of about how to use the lucet and about fingerloop braids. If you are interested, I have plenty more of those books. The things I bought include mostly fiber to spin (like I need more than that, but this is mostly stuff I don't already have) and some Opal sock yarn. I think I might actually try making some sock weight socks, and the pre-printed sock yarns have been calling to me for a while. I was thinking about putting up one picture per day of my purchases and stretching it out over the week, but instead you can just click on what you want to see from the list below:

• Opal Sock Yarn
  
• Dyed Corriedale and Romney batts. I love this colorway, which is called "Autumn." This and the Opal came from Judy's Novelty Wool
  
• Ingeo. This fiber is from cornstalks! And it is so white!
  
• A dyed silk bell and Soy Silk. Love the color of that silk cap! The Ingeo and Soy Silk are from Wind River Flock & Fiber.
  
• This Cotton and Silk blend which comes from Snake River Fiberworks, as does the silk bell

I hope I remembered all of that correctly. Anyway, it should keep me busy for a while.