The Great Frederick Fair

Last night we got invited to the "Great Frederick Fair". We went with my sister and brother-in-law and some of their friends. There were 8 adults and 6 children...the youngest was 2 and the oldest of the children is 12. Going to the fair, at least for kids, means riding the rides. I'm mean though. When we go to the fair, we actually go to see the exhibits. The only problem with going to see the exhibits at the fair on the last weekend, is that a lot of the exhibits have gone away. We went to the sheep barn, cuz you know, knitter = sheep or at least their fiber. The sheep that were left were mostly meat or dual purpose breeds and there wasn't a lot of documentation to tell you what you were looking at. The best things that we saw in the sheep barn was the icelandic sheep and the angora and cashmere goats. There were also a pair of cashgora goats that were awfully cute. But, of course, I don't have pictures of any of that, because I left my camera at home.

We have been at home since Tuesday morning. We made the choice to come home so that some preventative maintenance could be done to the truck. We were going to leave on Wednesday, or Thursday at the latest, and here we still sit. DH was done with the truck on Thursday, but there weren't any loads around here, at least none that weigh less than 44k lbs. We'll get something on Monday, not a problem, except the no money coming in thing, but there is also none going out, so it's a wash.

I posted that I had finished the socks for DS. I finally got some pictures of them on my niece's feet, since they ended going to her. She's younger than the DS, and therefore, her feet are smaller for the misjudged size. She was also a real booger about letting me take the pictures of her feet. I ended up threatening to take them back and give them to someone who would cooperate. Her mother convinced her that she need to let me take the pictures and once that happened, she was fine. but it was a long road to that point.I think I will adopt the Elizabeth Zimmerman school of thought. Don't knit for anyone in particular, find someone that the garment fits. That works for me and makes it easier when I screw up. I think the color is closer to the pair on the left, but you can see the flecks of color on the pair on the left.

I have been working on the "I love Gansey" socks for the Six socks KAL. I have turned the heels on both and am working down the foot. I am knitting them for my sister for her birthday tomorrow, but I won't be done with them tomorrow, but she knows that and knows that she'll get them when she gets them, kind of like the tank I'm knitting for her. I'm knitting them each separately, magic loop, and knitting a little on one and then a little on the other. It's working out pretty well.


Here is a picture of the niece and the DS...they are working on one of those word fill puzzles that is different every time you do it because each person will use different verbs, nouns, adverbs and adjectives. I caught a couple of the niece making faces at me, but I decided not to show those. She would be mortally embarrassed and would never let me take another picture of her again.

I was so excited the other week when I caught a sneak up at the Loopy Ewe. I actually got in in time to get some of the patterns that I wanted from Wendy of Wendy Knits and some Wollmeise yarn....Let me just say about the yarn, GOOD GOLLY, MOLLY is it nice. I haven't knit with it yet, but it is absolutely gorgeous and kind of tightly spun and soft and I can't wait to start a pair of socks with it. I was able to boot the DH off the computer long enough for the sneakup and then I gave it back to him rather happy.

We are on the way to California. I finally found us a load after we went home and DH did some preventative maintenance on the truck. I found a decently paying load hauling some Hummers for the Marine Corps. After I called our dispatcher about booking it for us, he called about an hour later offering us a load going to NH for less than a dollar a mile and then you have to deduct the empty miles and the tolls from that, and it was pitiful. When DH turned that down and asked about the load going to CA, the dispatcher asked if we still wanted it. Well Hello, I did call you and ask you to book it. I found out all the particulars and knew what it was paying and how heavy it was and everything, of course we still want it. So we are beat feeting for San Diego, Camp Pendleton to be exact. Looks like we might be trying to find something to occupy us in San Diego for the weekend, so if anyone has any ideas or suggestions, please, please leave me a comment.

A really weird thing happened this morning. We had parked at a truck stop for the night last night and this morning as I was walking the dog, this old man got out of his truck and came over and asked me if we were hauling those hummers. When I answered yes, he proceeded to attack me for the government's policy on the war in Iraq. Now I may not agree with everything that the administration is doing about this war, but by golly, I support the troops that end up doing the fighting and if getting them better equipped and better armored vehicles to use in their duties is going to help, we are going to help if we can. Granted we are getting paid to do this, but that's only fair for us to be able to make a living. Besides that, DH was in the Marine Corps when he was a much younger man, and he kind of likes the military load.

As requested by Shelby for SP11, I am posting a picture of my stash. Now this is really the stash that I have on the truck, although if you go and look at my Ravelry stash you would see tha I actually have stash stashed in several places in multiple states, but since I can't get to all of it, I can't post all of it. Some of it is in Colorado, some of it is in West Virginia so I don't have it all with me. It tends to keep DH from being so crazy about the amount of yarn that I seem to have collected in the last 8 or 9 months.
The container fits under our bed in the truck and I can pull it out if I have to, to get to all that yarny goodness.

Next time I post, I will post pictures of San Diego and whatever it is that we decide to do there and some pictures of the Wollmeise (squeeee).

Here we go again

With me forgetting how long it has been since I posted. I cant believe it's been two weeks, or there abouts. We haven't really been doing anything except in the last 8 days, we have sat 5....can't make any money that way. We finally got a load on Monday that delivered on Tuesday and then sat until Thursday and picked up a load that delivered today. Now we are waiting again. If we don't get a load, maybe I can talk my dear darling husband in to going to Old Sturbridge Village, or maybe, if I'm feeling really lucky, to WEBS. That's about 50 miles away, but I might also try to find a way to go to Boston, which is only 40 some miles away. We have been to Sturbridge before, but it's a different season than the last time and they do have craftspeople that do all kinds of fibery things that I would thoroughly enjoy seeing.

The weather in New England, at least this part of it, is beautiful. It's sunny and warm, but not sweltering hot and cool at night, which makes for good sleeping weather. I don't notice that a lot of the leaves are turning yet, but you can definitely tell that autumn is not far away, and close on the heels of fall will be winter.

I finally finished the pair of socks that I was knitting for DS, but they don't fit. The measurements that I took oh so many months ago are wrong. I either measured the heel turn dimension wrong, knit it too small, or something, and he can barely get the socks on and they are extremely snug. They will be given to my younger niece, even though they are a dark grey with the tweed flecks in them. She can wear them with her cowboy boots or winter boots and no one will see that she's not wearing "girly" socks. Now I have to go through the stash and see what else I have for the DS. I will knit him up another pair of socks, just plain, out of something that he will wear. He really wants a pair and I feel bad that the ones I knitted don't fit.

I also am still knitting on my sister's tank and the "I Love Guernsey" socks from the Six Socks KAL. I'm about 1/3 done with the tank and have turned the heel on the first of the socks and have the cuff done for the second...just getting ready to knit the heel flap and turn the heel on it. Hopefully I will have these done in the next little while as I am going to give them to my sister for her birthday. I think that I am going to modify them a bit and only put 1 repeat of the heart motif on the top of the foot and make the rest of the foot in stockinette stitch. That would be more comfortable inside of her clogs, I think, but still have the pretty stuff showing. I am using a subtly variegated yarn or not even variegated just hand painted in subtle variations of the same color and it's showing the patterning very well and looks pretty.

I am getting ready to cast on for a pair of socks for my mom. She was going to get the ILG socks, but the yarn I have for her just wasn't working....too fuzzy. I couldn't see the pattern, and what's the point of doing a pattern if you can't see it?

Now I am on a hunt for a special yarn for my secret pal. She is a die hard fan of a certain ball team and she wants yarn in those colors....lets see if I can find it. There are a lot of yarns that have almost the right color, but almost just sometimes doesn't get it. I will either find the right yarn, or I will come up with some other things for her.

Well we got a choice of two loads...we are going to Maine to pick one of them up and we will be taking it to PA, the other went to Florida where no freight comes out of. Not a great load, but it is getting us moving and not sitting, which makes DH happy. I guess that's better than having him be upset all weekend because we aren't moving and then not wanting to do anything. :-) At least we know that our company loads out of the area that we are delivering to, so we shouldn't have a real hard time getting a load out of there.

Maybe the leaves will be turning and I'll be able to get some fall pictures. Then I could post said pictures on my blog and then I would actually have some travelogue pictures. Ooohhh, now that would be something new. Or wait, maybe I will get some ocean pictures. I don't think that I have actually ever seen the ocean in Maine. We have been to Maine once, but we weren't near the ocean, so I couldn't get any ocean pictures. Maybe this time, DH will actually stop somewhere where we can get some Maine Lobster.

I guess after the weekend, I will have another post and will answer some of the questions that I posted. Have a great weekend....mine looks crappy so far.

Finally....

I got to wind up some of the yarn that I picked up when we went home this last time. We were in San Antonio the other night and we had hooked up to IdleAire, and while we were watching a movie, DH helped me wind yarn inside the truck. That entails putting the winder on the pull out table and then he has to hold the swift on top of the box lid while I wind. We did seven or eight skeins and then decided that we could do the rest another time. What you are seeing there is some Lisa Souza Mombassa, some Louet Gems in Fern Green, some Yarn Lust Sinful Signature in sloth which is a really pretty mist grey and lavendar. The pink is some Zen Yarn Garden Wool and silk in Silk Roses colorway. The rusty color is Doodlebirds creations in Tiger lily and finally the darker blue is Fleece Artist Sea Wool. This is only about 1/3 to 1/2 of what I got and I will put the pictures of the other stuff up separately. There is some more Louet Gems Sport...the red one is the large 100 Gram skein in Cherry Red and the brown ones are two 50 gram skeins in Sandalwood. I have decided that I really like this yarn for those socks that need to have a solid color yarn for stitch definition. I works up nicely and the colors are very nice as well.
The two here, the teal and the pink and brown are the club shipements for Mama E's C*Eye*ber Fiber Crazy Eights Sock Club shipments for June and July. The top one is called Sea Sick and it has coordinating heel and toe teal with the multi body and the bottom one is a Merino Silk yarn that is called Chocolate Raspberry. As I told Mama E, neither of these are colors that I think that I would order, but that's one of the reasons that I buy sock clubs...they get me out of my comfortable "Martha" colors and lets me try things I wouldn't on my own.

A lot of the yarn that I purchase is a result of enabling by Lime n' Violet's podcast. They always spread the goodness around and let everyone know about the things that they have found from one podcast to the next. This next yarn, which my camera doesn't do justice to, was one of those. They were talking about Yarn Lust one day and talking about her yarn based on the seven deadly sins. I, of course had to go and check it out and found Sloth. This yarn is gorgeous. It's kind of a misty grey with overtones of lavendar and is sooo soft. My picture makes it look either blue or grey, but that just isn't what it is. It's shiny and purply and grey and oh so pretty. This one was in the picture of the wound yarns, but it was something that I wanted to share it by itself. I broke the 100 gram skein into two parts so that I could make socks with it, but it does come in one large hank.

Three other yarns found because of Lime n Violet are from Doodlebird Creations, Posh Yarns, and Pigeonroof Studios. The orangey one is from Doodlebirds Creations and is called Tiger Lily. It's a really nice yarn that comes from a friend of Lime n' Violet and was in the studio. She provides really good customer service and the items come well packaged.

The middle yarn is from Posh Yarns and the colorway is called Sweet Pea. It is a British company that is a cashmere/silk yarn that is amazing. The colors are pink and lavendar and are pretty close to what the picture shows. The way that they package their stuff to send to you is great. "They" say that presentation is everything, and their presentation is very good.

Finally, Pigeonroof Studios is a nice yarn and kind of reminds me of Koigu. The colors are very vibrant and the yarn I got from them is called Violet's Blue. I will do some socks out of it and I will probably do something like Monkey socks out of them.

Finally I got some sock blockers from Chappy's Fiber Arts. I chose the knitting needles in the yarn ball and they are nice. I know that dh could have made me some, except that he told me he needed a pattern to be able to make some, so I bought some. They are made out of oak and finished very nicely.

Dh decided that I needed a picture of my on truck stash, so here it is. It isn't a great picture of me, but it does show the amount of yarn that I have on the truck. It fits under the bunk in our truck and I have the ability to shop the stash when I am starting to knit a pair of socks. With the additions of the yarn pictured above, I now have a bunch of solid yarns as well as several variegated yarns for different patterns that would work well for that. I do have more yarn than that, but it is either in our container at my sister's house or stored at my folk's house. I don't have lots of yarn, at least not like this lady. Her stash is HUGE. I could happily shop her stash for many years and knit up everything I want to knit. Can you imagine trying to load everything into Ravelry?

I have been working on the I Love Gansey socks and the plain Joe socks for my ds and the tank for my sister. The gansey socks are going to be for my sister for her birthday and I can say that because she doesn't read my blog. I love this pattern. It's difficult enough that it keeps your attention, but not so hard that you can't learn the pattern and know what comes up next. I'm into the ribbing on the socks for ds and it's hard to work on them cuz it's just boring. The yarn is nice, but the plainness of the pattern is boring. I need to just bite the bullet and finish them so I can cast on the pair for my mom. I have that blue Mountain Colors Bearfoot that is fuzzy and gorgeous and will make a wonderful pair of socks for her. I just need to impress upon her that she really needs to hand wash them. I'll even give her a package of the wool wash so they don't shrink and/or felt.

I hope that everyone is having a nice holiday weekend and has tomorrow off. We don't, although we will be at my sisters for at least part of tomorrow, even though she isn't there and is on vacation. It will be nice to sleep in a real bed and then take a shower and go through the mail that we have...probably some more yarn and some books, at the least.