One Skein Pal

My One-Skein Pal revelaed herself-

Fyberduck aka Sara Morris from Eugene, OR

Fyberduck is an alumnus of University of Oregon in Eugene- Go Ducks!

My older sister Eileen is a duck as well!
Here is her, Sara's blog and a photo of the great mittens she sent! They are hand-dyed dk and I have already used them- We went camping this weekend in the Adirondacks and it has been quite chilly lately-

Thank you Sara!

My one-skein pal also recieved her box of goodies- and here is it on her blog
I find it odd that both my upstream and downstream pals were from the same general area-
I was really pleased with the felted bag I made for my pal and I have bought the yarn to make myself one- I got the cutest button to go with them- I chose the button first and bought the yarn to match.

Dyeing Purple

I spent some time alone this weekend- The kids were with Tim, so I spent some time dyeing sock yarn. I really pleased with the color. It came out as a light to dark periwinkle. First I had to reskein it to a longer length- then soaked it in Synthrapol. I drained it and just covered the yarn with cold water. I was afraid hot would encourage the dye to dissipate too much. This is after 10 minutes of the dye being in the water.

The copper curled thing is the water pipes coming into the washing sink in the fiber mill. Tim designed them, and they work really well.

This is after 30 minutes in the water. I expected the yarn on top of the pipes to suck up the color, but it didn't so I stuck it under water for a minute or so- And here it is hanging on the fence- well this is sideways of course, I couldn;'t get the picture to go the right way- but I'm really happy with the yarn

Steeking class

Now that I am all signed and sealed- I can talk about it. I am going to take a steeking class at Web's in November. I began a sweater of my own design well over a year ago. It was to emcompass the eleven natural colors of Shetland wool. (We raise Shetland's, so it seemed appropiate).

So, I need to know how to steek to cut the armholes. As this is all in homespun Shetland, I'm a little nervous about doing so- also because of the way I knit it, I can't reclaim all of the colors if I screw it up- so I thought a class would be in order.

That and I've always wanted to visit Webs. I love the website, I can just imagine what it will be like in real life.

But I have been productive

So, even if the Jaywalkers aren't going well, I have been productive elsewhere in the house-


I picked berries - and made a pie








The pie was really good-

I still hate these socks

I'm still working on these Jaywalkers. I remember being able to knit a pair of socks in a weeks or so, but these are going on a month and I'm now just turning the heel- I can't wait until till these are done.

I made a commitment to myself to not begin a new pair until these are done, so I'm trying really hard to stick to it. So, I'm a little further along than here, but I will do this even if it kills me. I love the yarn but hate the knitting.

and things continue to go downhill

I came into work late today as I had to go to Jake's new school to register him. I got a distressing email that the president of the University had died the day before in a swimming accident. I'm not sure how I feel, the whole place feels like it is in turmoil.

I hate turmoil- I really just feel like going home to hide and knit.

Bad News

It seems like when things appear to be going well- they always have to change. I was just at the Periwinkle Sheep last week and was so impressed with all that Karen has done with the shop in the past three years- the yarn quality and the diverse imventory has all gone way up- it was definately turning into my favorite LYS- and it was reachable on my lunch hour- perfect for clandestine yarn shopping-

Well, Karen has decided to close her business- as we did the same earlier this year, I know how hard it is- making the deicison once made, was the best thing for us, but making that decision was one of the hardest things I've had to do. Karen, we are all there for you, and I'll miss the shop

good news, the sale begins on August 15th, so the yarn diet is officially over and I actually have some money to spend!

Argentine Yarn

And here is all the yarn I bought in Argentina and Uruguay- minus the skein I sent to my one-skein pal



Despite having bought all this plus a trip to the Periwinkle Sheep about two weeks ago, I realized fair season is in two weeks and I only have one finished project to enter- the cabeled socks below- so I made another quick trip today to pick up some yarns for the coronet hat from Knitty, the wavy scarf from Knitty and the Sophie bag from Magknits- I made one of these already and I love how it came out. i bought a really cute button for the closure and bought the yarn to match the button. I add an Icord loop in the middle for a closure.

the one skein photo

Here is the magnificent skein of handspun I recieved- it has beads in it- I've never spun with beads- after seeing this I may have to try it.

Argentina

I haven't really said anything about Argentina- we had a great time- I don't remember the last time I partied this late at night. It was really liberating to be able to trust the people I was with to take care that we all got home safe and the fact I was in charge, but didn't alway need to be.

I had a great time with my students and they got to see a side of me I'm sure they didn't know existed. It was funny, one of my married male students (when drunk) confessed he and a group of other guys ended up a brothel one night and how scared they were- he thought I would be shocked. Well my husband was in the navy and I have to say this guy's story was rally tame-

here we are
I'm in black in the middle with the drink- part of this picture are some of our Argentine hosts as well- they all left at about 2 to go home as they had to work the next day- the rest of us stayed out till 4:30 am- and I still made it to the ferry the next day. This isn't all of the group- 32 of us travelled- only 6 of of us are in the photo

Jaywalkers

I finally decided to start a pair of Jaywalkers- I had two beautiful skeins of Lorna's Laces sock yarn in this great pink to yellow stripe- Sassy stripes I think- and I wasn't too happy with how the stripes were working out. (All of the airplane knitting got frogged eventually). So, I decided a better pattern that would work with stipes would be great-

I hate this pattern- I'm working top down (already an issue for me), but I got two socks on two circulars, and having to count every other row is killing me- we are about 4 inches into the leg and already I hate them

And the yarn, Lorna's Laces isn't cheap and it feels wonderful, but I'm not so happy with that either-

Maybe the summer is making me cranky- Oh Albany is up to 91 degrees, maybe we should shut down the office and send everyone home becuase it is too hot out! Hello, its summer- its supposed to be hot- like in winter when the snow comes- hello we get snow in the Northeast-