Madelinetosh sock in Ivy
My Dad says yello instead of hello sometimes. He's a country ham that way. Sometimes I totally take after him.
So. blogging. Not such a good idea.*
Pfshawww! Blogging is a great idea! It just is so much work to organize all the knitting crap that goes on inside my head AND take and edit pictures in a timely fashion to enunciate said knitting crap. I want to catalog my progressions. I'm a knitter and a narcissist. What else could I possible want to do but consider my ideas and actions ad nauseaum? Absolutely, or almost absolutely, nothing!**
So where was I? Last time I was talking about another stranded sock pattern I began and how I needed to try out a provisional cast on heel. Well I did just that on May 1 (according to my rav notes).
Ugugugugugllllyyyyyyyyy!
I think I can improve upon this, this which is my first attempt and 100% allowable to be crap on a stick. But improve upon it is not something I have felt like doing over the past three weeks. No, I feel like doing anything but.
Yarn stashing? Totally felt like that:
Madelinetosh Sock in Iceberg
Ball and Skein Sophia (an MCN yarn!) in an unknown colorway
The latter I picked up on my annual pilgrimage to the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool fest on May 14, 2011. MCN yarns and fingering silky merino yarns were all over the festival. Last year I had a hard time finding the latter, and don't think I even saw a single example of the former. And spinning wheels. There were spinning wheels for sale in every building. A marked increase in vendors from when I was on the prowl two festivals ago.
The semi solid MCN and merino style yarns I associate with Plucky Knitter, Sundara, Mama Blue, and a whole host of other indie dyers that made waves two or three years ago, have finally made their mark on festival vendors, Ball and Skein, specifically. Although this yarn hits my sweet spot, with exception of that MCN from B&S, I walked away from a lot of gorgeous specimens.
My goal was to only purchase yarn that was festival-unique, yarn that one doesn't see being sold by the indie dyer's I like, or at my local LYSes. I found a couple that fit this restriction on point, one a cotton merino fingering weight blend, and the second, a light DK silk and wool blend. They are one of kind yarns that may never cross my path again, as a favorite festival yarn reminds me of continually.
My first two festival outings were at the NH Sheep and Wool in May 2008 and the TKCG show in July of the same year. I was a festival virign at that point and by some miracle I found a yarn I would still love to be knitting with today, three years later. It is/was a merino cotton and spun in a way that I consider rustic: it is primarily fingering weight, but has sections that veer near to laceweight, as well as the opposite spectrum, a slubby worsted or Aran weight.
NH S&W 2008 purchase
TKCG 2008 purchase
When I purchased the second set of skeins in July, the vendor informed me she was no longer dyeing the yarn, as the mill was no longer providing it. It never dawned on me that no other vendor would sell a yarn like this ever. If ever there was a rationalization to stash excessively, the vacuum this yarn leaves in my heart is a grade A doozy of a rationalization.
Heheheh. Mildly excessive stashing up next, same bat channel, different bat time.
* "So. Dancing. Not such a good idea." - B. Swan, Twilight - the movie. Could the serendipitous comparison between me and my dad open up the excessive, stored references of Isabella Marie Swan? Mebbe.
** Wow! See how I whine here? It's just like Bella throughout the entire beloved Twilight series. It's as if the task of living an easy middle class life is wheelly wheelly hard. Count your blessings beyotch. Do I need to be smacked upside the head or what? Uh, yes. Lol.
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