Neither Hip Nor Funky

(Insert maniacal laugh here)

My goal was to send off my socks to my target today….but it looks like I won’t be able to mail them until Monday. (You better watch your back KnitWit21.) I just hope I don’t get killed by sock with my mail delivery today. I want to be able to at least get my first target. If all this sound confusing to you, check out Sock Wars. It is based on the Assassin game popular in many cities where you track down your target and assassinate them by watergun, except in this version it is death by sock.

The Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival was great. It was the first time I had been to a fiber festival, so I was super excited about all the yarn and spinning. It was interesting to be able to talk to the small family vendors who had handspun the yarn that I was buying and could tell me about their sheep that the yarn comes from. It definitely makes it all feel more connected.

The Flock side of the festival was actually even more entertaining. We watched one feisty goat for awhile. Every time one of the goats in the neighboring pen came near, he would bite him in the butt and all the goats in that pen would chaotically run in circles for awhile. Then they would all calm down and the scenario would then repeat.

In the alpaca section, we found the David Bowie of alpacas, singing about how you do that voodoo that you do while dancing with puppets. Okay, so he wasn’t dancing, but he did bear a striking resemblance to Bowie and did have a nice singing voice. A vendor also tried to get P-funk and one of our friends to buy an alpaca.

We then went outside to find a big ball of fluff being airdryed…turns out there was a bunny hiding under all the fluff.

So here’s my score:

• One hank of Socks that Rock in the Autumn Colorway (This one jumped out at me, as it is full of my favorite shades of orange and brown.)
• One hank of Fly Dyed Monarch sock yarn in Raspberry Creme. I hadn’t heard of this company before, but they had some beautiful hand dyed and hand painted yarns.
• Some handspun yarn from a woman in Washington: a gray sock yarn from a Romney sheep and a beautiful tan alpaca and mohair blend….so soft and both of these are the natural colors.
• A bunch of handspun alpaca from Alpaca High in Pleasant Hill, OR, also in a natural color, that will be made into a Cropped Cardigan. The women at this stand were great. After I had checked out they told me to go ahead and grab a free extra hank to make sure that I didn’t run out before I finished my project.

Afterwards, we went to a wedding at Beckenridge Vineyards. Between the time in the car and the time spent watching Carnivale later last night. I was able to finish the second side of my bobble bag from OneSkein and my second pair of socks.

I really don’t have much else to say; I’m just in a good mood.  I have my second pair of socks, my first pair of toe-up socks, and my Simple Knitted Bodice to work on this weekend.  I also just started a Fair Isle hat class, so I’ll be learning me some fancy knitting.  And while I knit, I have new podcasts from Lime ‘n Violet and Brenda Dayne to listen to.

Oh…and I have the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival to go to.  I’ve been saving up money so I can splurge on yarn.

I will be shunned from the knitting blogs if I do not meet my “headless blog photo taken in the bathroom mirror” quota.  Considering that I do not have any of those on this blog so far, I am in severe danger.  So here’s two:

This is the Simple Knitted Bodice from Glampyre released through Stitch Diva.  I’m making the medium size, which would normally fit a little looser than I like, but my gauge was a little tight and it seemed the best choice.  (Okay I just re-read that sentence and I didn’t intially mean for it to sound dirty…but I don’t really know how else to accurately phrase that).  After the first try on, I ripped back to eliminate the final 2 rounds of increasing, and I added 3 rows after I joined in the round.  I’m now ready to start the lace.

I was originally going to bead the yarn for the lace section.  However, I didn’t have beads, and I was feeling a little too lazy to go buy and string beads on my yarn.  So I asked P-funk’s opinion on the beads, and he replied that he didn’t think I needed them b/c he didn’t like beads.  Normally, I really wouldn’t care what he didn’t like since he (hopefully) won’t be wearing my sweater.  However, I that was the encouragement to be lazy that I was looking for.  Plus, Stitch Diva recently released a picture (scroll down on the linked page) of an unbeaded, wool version of the sweater that is just as elegant.

I have Knitters ADD pretty bad. It looked worse before I finished my socks the other day.

1. At the top in pink, is the Pea Pod Baby sweater.
2. Then there is my start on the Simple Knitted Bodice. I am using Knitpicks Andean Silk in Barn Red. It is a beautiful, deep color. I have joined it to start working in the round. I am going to try to bead the yarn for the lace section, so I need to wait until I can go get beads. (I have been sick and laying on the couch today, and half the day yesterday after I left work early…so bead buying hasn’t been an option yet.)  There are two KALs for it if you want to check out different versions of it: Sexy Knitter’s Club and Simple Knitted Bodice KAL.
3. I still am working on the Sunrise Circle Jacket off and on, but (as you may have noticed in the picture) I ran into a problem. I apparently cast on 43 stitches instead of 44 and didn’t notice until I was done with the right arm, so I started over. I couldn’t even be down one stitch b/c I need the sides to match, and I am already going to have to stretch the arms during blocking for it to fit correctly.
4. I’m also still working on my second pair of socks. One is finished and I have just started the second.
5. The tan is the Mock Cable Cardigan from Knitting for Baby for my niece. It would be farther along, but I got selfish and started knitting the Simple Knitted Bodice for myself.
6. The green bobbly thing is one side of one of the crocheted bags from One Skein. It was featured in one of my recent posts. In case any of you were wondering about the rather odd post it was part of a blog contest put on by Knitters Anonymous where you were supposed to try to use multisyllabic or odd words in your post. You should check out the winners….they are rather impressive and amusing.