Trip to Québec

(To the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas)

On our trip to Québec there was:

• 12 moose

Yes, 12. I’d never seen a moose before that and it was a real treat to see so many. We had to be really careful driving because it was night time and with all the moose on the side of the road we didn’t want to risk hitting one. Because it was night time I didn’t get to take a picture and on our way back we didn’t see any. Maybe next time!

• 11, 10, 9° F, temperatures in the mountains of Maine as we were driving up

• Only 8 rows knit on my Herringbone Rib sock

• 7 long hours of driving (each way)

• 6 family members

We spent the weekend with my parents, my brother, his girlfriend and my two lovely nieces.

• 5 inches knit on my sock yarn square

• 4, the birthday my niece Naomi celebrated

• 3 skeins of sock yarn

I picked these up at the post office as we were leaving, so they kind of count, right! This is the yarn I received for the Sundara Artist’s Choice sock club.

• 2 turkeys crossing the road

• 1 fabric store

The Fabric Garden, really nice quilting shop, much bigger than my LQS. I made a few purchases…

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This is for Abigail: you mentioned in my last post being interested in one of my box bags, please check your spam folder if you’re still interested!

Rhinebeck recap

The drive up to Rhinebeck was pretty uneventful, except for some cows crossing the road and lots of trafic just before arriving to the fairgrounds. Even though I wasn’t really planning to get any Socks that Rocks, my friend Carol wanted some so we first headed to their booth. Carol and I made a few selections and then headed for the line. We had to wait about 30 minutes before we were able to pay and in the mean time our selections ended up changing entirely. I ended up purchasing 2 mill ends skeins, one in Silkie and one medium weight.

STR Silkie in Lover’s Leap, STR medium weight in Oregon Honey Clover and on the right, Holiday Yarns FlockSock sock yarn in Yarn Fairy

After a successful STR purchase we made our way to the Ravelry meet up where we were witness to some acrobatics on the part of some Ravelry staff to be able to take a group picture.

Later, we met Franklin at his book signing.

We also met Mason-Dixon’s Ann and Kay and we admired their beautiful Belinda scarves.

I bought more yarn, see sock yarn above on the right, and single skeins for a hat and cowl project.

On left Northern Lights Yarn (mohair, kid mohair and rambouillet blend) and on right Alpaca with a Twist Highlander a baby alpaca, merino, microfiber and viscose blend)

I didn’t end up buying either a shawl pin or buttons for my Calvert (I totally forgot about it and didn’t bring my swatch to match buttons) but I guess I did buy sock yarn!

After a full afternoon of wooly fun/fumes, we went to the Ravelry party for a bit of fun and had a chance to meet and chat with friends. Sadly, we had to leave early and we missed the prize drawings and more times to spend with friends. But I’ll make sure to be there next year!

Eye Candy Friday

Sweet, sweet sock yarn…

From left: Ball and Skein Sock yarn in Sunrise, Shivaya Naturals Fingering Merino in Camellia and Hello Yarn Sock in Sour. Now if I could only get my hand on some Mama Blue…

Random Monday

Sewing:

I tried a new free pattern I found over at Show Your Workings. It is a pattern for the Japanese knot bag. I ended up sewing up two bags because I wasn’t sure I’d understood everything properly the first time around. I still haven’t quite figured out what to do with the handles but here’s the second bag I made.

The bag is reversible and you can see the other side here. The first bag was made with a Japanese print and you can see it here and here.

Shopping:

This weekend, DH and I went to stART on the Street in Worcester. My friend Karen from Simply June had a booth there. I just had to purchase this cute little pouch, especially since this button came with it!

Hiking:

Also this weekend, I hiked up Mt Monadnock, NH. It was quite the hike and I have to say that I am quite sore. The view from the top was really awesome and well worth the hardship to make it there.

You can see a lot more pictures in this Flickr set. I managed to knit a couple rows on my Knitterly Things stripy sock and you can see that I’m wearing my finished Stacked Eyelet Cowl.

Knitting:

I just had to. I couldn’t resist. We just got in this new yarn for the store and I had to have some. And I had to cast on, right away… The yarn is K1C2 Ty-Dy Socks and the colors were screaming my name. So I guess I have yet another sock on the needles and I have absolutely no will-power!

BTW, before anyone freaks out, this is not my foot but a plastic foot model that was a bit too small,  I added tape to make it bigger, which is why you can see tape on the foot.

Eye Candy Friday

This last week has been very good to me yarn-wise. Over a period of 3 days I received 2 beautiful skeins of sock yarn.

The first one was the last instalment of the Knitterly Things Summer Sock Club. For some reason I was convinced that we would receive a Wee Skeins kit as part of the sock club so when the last mailing came I was sure that was what I would find in my package. I was a little disappointed when I opened the package but my disappointment was short when I saw the beautiful skein that I had in my hand.

I think that this yarn is the most pleasing arrangement of colors, it just goes so well all together! The yarn, a merino tencel blend is also something new for me, so I really look forward to knitting it up.

My other yarn came as a surprise. Last week I won a contest over at Chrissy’s Random Life‘s blog. Chrissy is the dyer behind the new Yarn Sprout. When I first saw that name I fell in love with it, I don’t know why but I just loved it. Chrissy dyes her yarn with natural dyes, which I think is really great too.

Here’s the skein of sock yarn in the color Juicy that she sent me:

First, it’s pink, and it’s a beautiful peachy pink, almost a solid, that will be perfect for so many things!

Don’t they look great together? I most likely wont knit them in one project but I thought that these two colorways worked very well. Now the question is, what will these beauties become!

Etsy Friday

I’ve been buying lots of fabrics lately, mostly from etsy. I’ve gotten some great stuff from several vendors and am really pleased with what I’ve gotten.

If you’re not interested in fabrics, you’ll just have to scroll down to the bottom where I’ll show you a picture of my latest sock in progress!

Here are my latest purchases:

From Bee Square Fabrics:

A fat quarter bundle with fabrics from Joel Dewberry’s Aviary collection and from Kaffe Fassett’s Paperweight collection. The lower picture is 2 fat quarters from Alexander Henry’s Aviary collection.

I’ve always loved the woodgrain print fabrics and decided that I needed one in every color! The brown and the yellow woodgrain come from Caty Lou Quilts and the others are from Craft-O-Rama.

I also like some whimsy! A mushroom Japanese print by Fabric Supply who also gave these cuties. Lower down you’ll see a Russian Dolls and Gnomes fabrics by Heather Ross from Starlit Nest.

And, finally, my latest obsession, Tina Givens Zazu Collection also provided by Starlit Nest.

There’s more here and here .

I really can’t wait for my new sewing machine to get here so that I can start sewing all these beauties!

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For those who’ve read this far to see some knitting, thank you. As promised here is my latest sock in progress.

For this sock I am using the Simply Cables pattern from the Sockamania KAL. The yarn I am using is Farmhouse Fannie’s Fingering a new sock yarn coming soon to yarn4socks. This yarn is really beautiful. It’s a merino/nylon blend but it feels silky and is not “hairy” like some other merino/nylon blend I’ve used. I’m really loving knitting with it and it’s coming out really good in this pattern. I’ve got one repeat left to do before I can start the heel, maybe I’ll even have it done before the end of the month!

YPF – Silver bells

2 weeks ago, I fell in love with something I saw over at Lotus Knits‘ blog. She’d just had a contest and the winner had won a skein of her Aura sock yarn in the “Walking with a Ghost” colorway. She’d also mentioned that she would post more of this yarn on her etsy shop that evening.
After a brief exchange through her blog and email, she listed a skein of that yarn especially for me and a few days later it made its way to me.

By now I bet you’re wondering why I fell in love with the yarn, right? Well, first of all, Aura is a blend of Merino, Silk, Nylon and … wait for it … Silver strands. Furthermore, this particular colorway was silver colored so it was just beautiful!

You want to know what it looks like now, don’t you? (Make sure to click on the pictures so you can see them bigger)

Can you see the shimmering of the silver thread?

The yarn is super soft and the color is just gorgeous. I’ve been thinking that I should make a pair of Snowflake Lace socks with the yarn. That would be a quite appropriate match I think. Now if I could only knit them in time for Christmas…

Yellow

I’ve always known I didn’t like yellow. Can someone tell me what happened?

How did all this yellow yarn make it into the stash? And why do I like it so much?

I’m pretty convinced I like pink too, I think that much is obvious.

Feel free to click on the pictures to make them bigger. Don’t forget to wipe the drool off your chin when you’re done! : )

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Does anyone have the Tree Jacket pattern by Zephyr Style that they’d like to trade for Wicked by the same ladies? I bought the pdf a few months ago and I just know I’ll probably never knit it. But the Tree Jacket, I’m pretty sure I will! ETA: Found one!