On (and Off!) the Needles:

Rhinebeck has taken up the last week or so of my knitting attention, so I have neglected to mention all the knitting I have been doing! I have finished TWO (2) projects: the Maze hat and the Wintry Beret. Unfortunately, neither is perfect yet, and the beret may be entirely frogged. I just don't know how well the Noro will hold up. I'm hoping that the Maze hat will become the length I want after blocking the slip stitch part. Umm, I think that's it for FO's.

I couldn't wait very long before casting on with yarn from Rhinebeck. I took the train back to the city with two other women, and we sat winding our yarn for most of the trip. Well, at least I did. They finished much sooner than I did because they had bulky yarns. But when I finally cast on for the Clapotis at Yonkers, I think they were jealous of my small, elegant stitches...eh, it was probably just the yarn.

I have also cast on for Fetching. Unfortunately, the Noro Silk Garden I picked up wasn't working for me, so I switched to the Debbie Bliss Soho and so far so good. I love Noro's colors, but it's just a bit too itchy for me. Also, the loooong color repeats would make the two hands look entirely different (not necessarily a bad thing, but yes, I am a bit neurotic). Of course, I only bought two balls of the DB, so I'll only have enough for one pair. I was planning to make a pair for a friend of mine (who cheerfully let me stay at her place in NYC the night before Rhinebeck). The three balls of Noro would have been enough. I'll probably just go buy some DB cashmerino aran like the pattern suggests. I'm working the pair in DB Soho on 7s - even though my gauge is approximately the same as the pattern, I decreased by 5 stitches. I have small wrists. Hopefully by the time my stupid digital camera gets fixed, I will have at least one finished to photograph!

Oh yeah, the sock is still on the needles and roughly the same length it was on October 11. Sigh...at least I have finally posted a picture to the Socktoberfest Flickr site.

Okay, I'll try to describe Rhinebeck now. It took me a few days to recover and be able to part with the fabulous yarn long enough to sit here and write about it. Wow. So much yarn. So much beautiful, hand-dyed yarn! I bought only variegated yarn, and a lot of it. Goodbye, solid colors! (for now, anyway - still lots in the stash). I'll start with describing the festivities, and I'll go over my haul in a future post. I dropped my digital camera this morning (those things were NOT designed for clumsy people) and I hadn't taken pictures of my yarn buys yet, so the sheep will come first.

My train up to Rhinebeck was an hour behind schedule, so I didn't get into the fair until 10:30. I went straight to the Fold for Socks That Rock (not hard to spot where all the people were heading) and grabbed a skein. I restricted myself to one skein; I had to pace myself and I didn't want to be greedy. Over the day, I didn't spend much time looking at "finished objects" - stuff made out of yarn - but standing in the STR line for a half hour gave me time to check out some crazy felted jewelry (not really my style...) and beautiful lace shawls.

I happened to stand in line behind two girls from my town! Hopefully we'll get together and knit. They were also able to point out to me the Yarn Harlot and January One. After completing my first purchase of the day, I asked them where I could find more sock yarn and they pointed me to Spirit Trail, where I splurged on the super-chic silk blend. I ended up revisiting this vendor several times that day to see the colors. After that I went through the building thoroughly checking out every vendor. Along the way I picked up some Noro (3 matching skeins for two pairs of Fetching) and later returned for some Debbie Bliss Soho (maybe another pair of Fetching?).

I ventured out to the other buildings and visited the alpaca and llamas...

Tomorrow is the big day. Yes, it is official: I am going to the NYS Sheep & Wool festival, aka Rhinebeck. After many plans made and cancelled, I decided to train it there from the city for Saturday. Goals for Rhinebeck include meeting some fun knitterly people and buying a lot of yarn, mainly for: a) two pairs of Fetching; b) my very own Clapotis; and c) socks. Yup, that means Koigu and Socks That Rock and Lorna's Laces and anything else I can get my hands on (within my budget). I have been pining for some Lisa Souza sock yarn, but I'm going to hold off on that for a bit. Maybe next month. I had decided that I should finish at least one sock before investing in gobs of sock yarn, but Rhinebeck doesn't count in resolutions like that.

In knitting news, I have been working on my wintry beret in Noro's Iro yarn. I love love it and have been knitting stockinette in the round (normally too boring for me) frantically to see the colors come together. I want it done! Here it is so far:




More pictures from my awesome new digital camera:


And my cute dwarf hamster Esteban:

Last night I met a bunch of local knitters at their SnB. It was so nice to finally talk to people about knitting! And I was very impressed and excited by the level of skill and dedication in the group. There are prolific sock knitters, baby blankets and lace shawls and entrelac bags! And I got to see and touch a clapotis in person (as if I needed more convincing to knit the pattern...). Hopefully I can get some gorgeous yarn at Rhinebeck to knit the "clap." There are also a few knitters in the group who are planning to go to Rhinebeck for NYS Sheep & Wool. I had brought the Maze hat I am knitting, and I was looking forward to working the slip stitch pattern (a bit of proving my skill). Of course, when I moved from the 4-stitch rib pattern to the 14-stitch maze pattern, I realized I had cast on wrong!! So I was able to show off my mean frogging skills and how much I suck at the long-tail cast-on. Grrr.

Last night after the knitting circle I worked the first couple rows of the maze pattern. The colors look great together and it's going really fast. I'm so excited to give it to Jack for Christmas. And of course, when I finish, that's one Christmas present done! And it's only mid-October! There are an awful lot of exclamation marks in this post.
The a-maze-ing hat:

I've been working mostly on my sock. The pattern is simple enough to memorize but not boring, and the sock is lookin' good.


I'm a bit worried about it being too small, but I think it will be okay. I'm knitting 64 stitches a round at a gauge of 7.5 stitches an inch. I tried it on and it was fine once I got it over my heel. Maybe I'm just defective at putting on socks.

I took the argyle hat off the needles sometime last week, so of course I had to put something else on the needles. I cast on for the Maze hat I'm making for my brother. I'm taking it to my first SnB tonight - I finally found a local knitting group! Because it's on US 8 needles it's going pretty fast, so I should be able to get through a lot of the maze pattern tonight. I'm excited to have two hours to work on it and not feel like I should be doing something else.

I'm putting the lace shawl on hold for a bit - I''m not really going to have a chance to wear it until the spring anyway, now that the weather is turning cold. Still haven't gotten to the stitch markers. Maybe I'll have time this weekend.

Only a week and a half until Rhinebeck!!!

Pictures of my gorgeous yarn:



So so pretty. It's Iro by Noro, 75% wool, 25% silk. I also bought some beads (pretty pretty beads!) to make stitch markers:


I, of course, have no clue how to work with beads and wire, and I will probably end up wasting a lot of time trying to make stitch markers and then using the beads for something else....such as decorating my winter beret! There's a reason the beads coordinate with the yarn.

I'm glad to see that my pictures are still viewable. There were some troubling little boxes with question marks instead of pictures last time. I've been busy with several projects: another repeat on the shawl is done, I finished the top of my argyle hat - so all that is left is to add the dashed lines on the argyle pattern and to weave in the gazillion ends (picture forthcoming), and I have been knitting my first sock! I finally picked a pattern: the More Fun Than Cables sock pattern courtesy of Stitches of Violet. The yarn is soooo gorgeous and the sock is really flying! I had started a sock in some Trekking XXL several weeks ago - the yarn is a heathered blue and was on sale - but was not enjoying it. I decided that if I was going to make it through a sock, I would have to invest in it first. So I bought Koigu. Best. Plan. Ever.

I also splurged on some Noro yarn because I suddenly decided that I need a tweedy winter beret. Where do these things come from?? It's the Iro yarn in #44. It looks so much prettier in real life than on the screen. I guess I decided this was "tweedy" enough for my tastes. The tweed thing flew out the window when I saw this yarn. I'm going to vaguely follow the pattern Last Minute "Purled" Beret. I ordered the dpns for this hat from KnitPicks, which will give me at least a week or so to work on other projects before the hat consumes me. For now, I just cuddle with the yarn.

I bought a digital camera! Yay! It's gorgeous - and now I can take photos of my knitting and post them here. After all, what is a knitting blog without pictures?? Here is my first lace shawl so far:


I'm on the fourth repeat of the body chart, which means I'm at around 140 stitches per row. Eeek! I'm actually really loving this project - as long as I have some time and enough mental energy to give to knitting, I can sit down and work on this without too much trouble. I did have some trouble last night because I was on the wrong row of the chart - so of course I thought, those yarn overs shouldn't be there yet! {drop, drop, knit knit knit} 'Hmm, why are there two rows that look the same here? Oh. Oops.' {unknit, pick up purposely dropped stitches, reknit row} So usually it doesn't take me an hour to knit one row, unless I lose my place. It's a good thing that I'm good at picking up stitches!

Here is a close up of the pattern ("adamas" is greek for diamond, hence the pattern name):


Uh oh, I think my digital camera is a bit too good for my knitting. I checked the shawl, and there IS a yarn over there in the center column where it looks like there isn't. All of that should sort out in the blocking, so the camera can show the true perfection of my knitting, ;) ;)

Finally, I can post a picture of my knitting! This is a picture of the hat I sent to my friend Gishnu in Boston:


made with Koigu Kersti Merino I got from eBay. I still have a little over half a hank (30 grams?) and I have no idea what to do with it. I suppose it will sit in the stash until it has some compatible friends. The hat is knit flat on a bias: it's a horizontal rib (4x4 rows) with every other row increased one stitch at the beginning and decreased one stitch at the end. The hat is then sewn together at the short ends, and one side is scrunched up. I decided to crochet the top closed instead of scrunching so much - this method looked a lot prettier on the first hat I made in this style (picture is forthcoming), but I think it works here too. I love the bright orange yarn and Koigu is so soft!!