PolarGrrlPurls

NH Sheep & Wool Festival

One of the upsides to being unemployed is that I now get to attend events on Sundays that I would otherwise have missed (like last year's NHS&W). This year I went up nawth with Bryghtrose and two of her knitting/dancing friends. We lucked out with the weather and the 30% chance of ain that was predicted held off admirably. Bryghtrose was on the hunt for a fleece, I was on a sock yarn gathering mission, and I am happy to say that we were both quite successful in our searches. I was suprised to find that there was much less sock yarn than I anticipated, however my perseverence paid off in the form of one beautiful skein of Flock Sock from Holiday Yarns in a yummy creamsicle colorway

 

...and 2 skeins of Super Sock from Ball & Skein in variegated blue and orange.

 

I was also happy to find the Acker's Acres stall and picked up another skein of my very favorite Bunny Blend yarn in this beautiful teal:

 

I think it will look beautiful with the teal Manos Silky Wool I used for my February Beret. Or maybe as the bright interior to a pair of stranded wool mittens? Decisions, decisions.

In our wanderings, I happened upon a single lonely skein of this beautiful Corriedale worsted weight 4-ply. I love the warm natural brown color and I think I may have just enough for a pair of very cozy mittens.

 

My last find of the day was this lucious 85/15 German Angora/Wool blend in a lovely natural white from Honeybuns Rabbitry & Aviary of  Washinton, NH. I wanted to buy several skeins, but it was too dear. Maybe next year. ;)

 

Last, but by no means least, Bryghtrose suprised me with this beautiful skein of sport weight handspun wool in a warm grey that I'm already hatching plans for:

 

Wouldn't this look beautiful as the foil to a vibrant turquoise or purple for a pair of mittens?

I also added to our stuffed animal collection, but I'll have to post that picture later. Right now I'm off to play with the new yarn!

Let's See...

Where have I been? What have I been working on? Well, my wrist was starting to bother me a few weeks ago, so I took a little break from knitting (and by a break, I mean that I was knitting only an hour or so every day) and worked on my cooking blog. I have finished the sashing between all the strips of the afgan and I will begin the final 3-needle bind off between the last two today. After that, I need to make a little trek down to the LYS and pick up what I hope will be the final skein of Cascade Eco Wool to do the edge. I'm pushing to get this done before it gets too warm to work on. At the size it is now there's is no way to avoid having it in my lap and covering me pretty much completely as I knit.

After the blanket is done, I plan so focus all my knitting energy on the gift stash and socks for me. I need more socks. I have only about 8 pair and 2 need darning. That really will not keep me happy through the bitter cold months of next winter, so I'm hoping to get at least 5 more pair knit over the summer. This should be emminently doable, as I tend to knit about a pair every two weeks when I'm actually focused on doing so. I also need to get about .5 oz. more of the Cherry Tree Hill Supersock yarn in Blueberry Hill to complete the toe of the second Peacock Sock which have been sitting neglected for months now.

Everybody Gets a Treat

On this holiday, I leave you with this:

 

This is a piture of a bear at the Buenos Aires Zoo and there's food inside that mock bunny.

A Trip to the Aquarium

Yesterday I had the good fortune to spend a few hours at the NE Aquarium with T and the Cutest Baby in the World. In addition to some very blurry shots of a 16-month-old-boy in motion, I managed to snag some neat pictures of the jelly fish and other marine life.

             

It's Only Been 2+ Years

We moved into this apartment more than two years ago. It's time to get curtains for the kitchen, right? I'd like to be able to say that I whipped these up in a few hours at the sewing machine but that wouldn't be quite true. It was more than a few hours...maybe 6 or 8? Sewing is not my strongest skill. This project has been fraught witht worry and insecurity (maybe because of my weak sewing skills? Nah...) First, I was worried that the wreaths of fruit and flora would look too "country". After that I was worried that the red broadcloth would combine with the green background of the print and conspire to look overly festive in the holiday sense. Then - and this really was the worst - I worried that I wouldn't have enough fabric. I bought the end of the bolts for both. And if you're wondering why there are green ribbon tabs as well as red fabric tabs at the top of each curtain that would be because I did actually run out of fabric. I also didn't have enough green ribbon to do all the tabs. I could have gone to the fabric store again and bought some more ribbon but I'm cheap. I put a band of fusible interfacing between the layers of the bottom red trim to give the curtains a little body and weight.

 

Growing Up

There comes a time in every woman's life where she realizes that she really must go out and buy a few tools. Usually, it's just a cheapo hammer, a combo screwdriver, possibly a radiator key (if you live in the Northeast and like your radiators to work in the winter), probably a box of picture hangers...you know...the small selection of tools and hardware required  to transform your average white-walled apartment from the ever charming dormitory decor to a cozy place to crash after a demoralizing day in the corporate world. After a few apartments and a maybe more than a few build-it-yourself pieces of furniture, this rudimentary collection gets larger, eventually requiring some kind of containment. Over the years I have used a gallon-sized zip-top bag, a shoe box, a larger shoe box, and most recently, a lime green Rubbermaid 3 gallon "storage tote" seen here (please excuse the inquisitive little cat named Kali):

 

Yesterday, however, I traded up (or maybe grew up?) and finally bought an honest to god tool box. From the hardware store, even! 

   

The past two months of unemployment have seen me spending an unusually large amount of time in the house (unusual for me, that is...I generally work 70-90 hours a week and only see my house while inhaling Arabian Mocha Sanani on my way out the door in the morning or bleary-eyed in the evenings before bed) so I expect that there will be more organization/cleaning/down sizing/steamlining projects in my future. There's only so many hours I can stare at the chaos and clutter before I either do something about it, develop a drinking problem, or run out of the house screaming.

In Remembrance of Mary

My grandmother, Mary, passed early the morning of March 16th at the age of 89. She taught me to write thank you notes, wash behind my ears, stand up straight, look people in the eye (I was horribly shy as a child), and was always happy to hear from me when I called or visited. I feel blessed to have had her in my life.

It's 25 Degrees Out

I am an online shopping nut. Particularly online clothing shopping, but also anything related to the house and most electronics and entertainment. I detest shopping in stores with all the attendant bad music, cloying sales people, counterintuitive organization, mess, dust, bad parking, flimsy shopping bags, to make no mention of the great hordes of unwashed, uneducated, unmannered fellow shoppers. Not that they are all like that, but there are enough to make shopping in stores a singularly unpleasant experience more often than not. I like thrift shopping and "antiqueing" better, as there seems to be more people like me than "them", but even that I do only in small bursts. I do make exceptions, however, and go to stores occasinally - usually for some fantastic sale - but even then I try to shop at 11:00am on Tuesday or 2:00pm on Thursday or some other random low-traffic time.

Because I shop online so much, I get regular emails from all my favorite (r)etailers. This is usually handy because I know precisely when the sales are starting, get to see the new clothes as they are released each season, and can watch for when the prices drop on the things I want to buy. Sometimes they send out "exclusive" coupons and such, too, which is nice. This morning I had an email waiting for me from a women's clothing store I shop at regularly advertising capris. Capris! Tank tops! Sandals! It's 25 degrees out in Boston today. That's below freezing. I understand that in some wealthy recession-proof corner of the world there are probably people embarking on Caribbean cruises right now and I can even see where that small group of the wealthy elite would not be enough to keep a major national clothing store chain afloat and I am very aware that the fashion industry works 6+ months ahead at all times, but really....capris? Just looking at the email made me cold!

So What About That Quilt?

Remember that blanket I started last winter? The one made of 30 log cabin style knit squares? In spite of my silence on the topic, there has been quite a lot of progress. This afternoon I completed the 3 needle bind off of the sashing between the first 2 strips of squares. I'm incredibly happy with the way this blanket is turning out! See! Pictures! Isn't it pretty?!

   

Levis, Revisited

I've been doing a lot of knitting, but seeing as I have all this time on my hands lately, I decided to try and clean/oil my sewing machine myself (rather than pay $50 for it) and see if I could figure out the problem with the feed dogs. After only 15 minutes of maintenance I had my machine working perfectly again and I'm very proud of myself. To celebrate, I sewed up this quick little storage device using recycled back pockets of old jeans. I will put a narrow curtain rod through the "rod pocket" created by the waist bands that I left on the top patches and hang it on my coat closet door with a couple of brackets. As you can see, it's already filled with scarves and gloves and I'm scheming on getting more recycled pockets for the next one. I could see this being very useful for any accessories or even in a sewing room , work room, or office for small tools that you would want to keep visible and within easy reach. To stabilize the patches, I backed them with a half yard(ish) of denim I had in the fabric stash leftover from another project. Marikal is modeling it for me until I can get the rod and brackets. Isn't she a great model? ;)