First, while I’m sure everyone has seen this, go take another look at the Kevin F. Sherry Sweater Project. If you are currently working on a sweater that looks anything like any of the ones he’s wearing, stop immediately. I mean it.

Second, I finished my second rainbow sock. I’d post a picture, but I didn’t actually take one, and besides, its a sock. It looks like the first one. It really looks like a sock for a little hobbit foot, but it fits reasonably well. I almost got one pair of socks out of a ball of regia, but I had to crack into the second ball. You really do need two balls of regia, but the socks I made were practically anklets, and the foot was small. I think I’m going to make a pair of toddler socks out of the remaining yarn.

In my next pair of socks, I think I’ll keep with the toe up construction, but cast on fewer stitches. I wonder if it’d be worthwhile to buy The Sole Solution? Well, I don’t imagine myself becoming a hardcore sock designer really.

In other news, folks on the Knitting Beyond the Hebrides list are reporting that the Zara from Elann that they are recieving is a bit… malodorous. Elann reports that airing it out for 4 days has been reported to help.

Speaking of Knitting Beyond the Hebrides, they had an excellent Virtual Conference about using a variety of non-traditional yarns and techniques. The scarf class links to a ton of my scarves - not that I’m brilliant, but I do take lots of pictures and keep them. Also, I was one of the winners of a contest, so I recieved a free signed print of the mascot.

And, finally, I have in my hot little hands, In The Hebrides, thanks to the Downers Grove Library. Downers Grove, you rock. they actually got it from the Oak Park library. Oak Park, you rock as well. This is a lovely book, and I wish it didn’t cost 30 trillian dollars to buy. I very much want to make Minch, a child’s aran sweater - its not cabled, but has lots of crossed stitches. I bought the Homespun Yarn at Amana with the design in mind, but I don’t think I’ll have enough yardage. The smallest size is actually for a 5 year old (its show on a 3 year old, which is why I thought “toddler”), and needs 4 skeins of Bainin. Which ranged from 170 yards to 190 yards. I only bought 3 skeins of the Homespun, which is 225, I believe. Assuming that the design used 170 yards Bainin, it’d be super close, yardage wise. But I’m pretty sure I have some heavy worsted/aran weight yarn in the stash that might be suitable.

I’m so sorry that I’ve not written anything in forever. It’s a sad day when you open your blog and see all the entries have scrolled off.

My excuse is that I’ve been swamped at work. Completely swamped. And I’m taking all of next week off, so I’m trying to get a zillion things done before then. This blog entry is being done in the time it take to upload SPSS 12.0.2 for AIX to the AIX server.

First, here is the current state of knitting.

Its been woefully neglected. Why would such a thing happen, you ask?

Well, I’ve been playing EverQuest II. I do knit on my sock while waiting to zone, but I haven’t had a lot of TV time lately, so my sister’s sweater is still languishing. I’m on the sleeve caps now.

Oh, speaking of my sock, here’s a fairly current picture:

Yup, its a sock.

In more exciting news, Kevin and I went to Iowa this weekend for a quick trip. It was tons of fun.

We stayed in Iowa City, and went to the Devonian Fossil Gorge. It was great - sure, it was freezing, and Kevin almost died, but we got to see deer and lots of fossils. I actually stole a fossil, but then it turned it out that it was illegal, and then I felt really bad, so we went back and put it back.

Who knew that picking up a rock was illegal? But, I guess they want to preserve the area, which makes sense. In fact, I just read that its illegal to take fossils from any federal land without a permit.

We also wandered around downtown Iowa City, looked in the shops, and had dinner at the Brown Bottle.

The next day, we went to Amana Colonies. The actual plan was to buy some of a certain kind of pottery that I really like, but it turns out that the shop stopped carrying it. Darn it. But, I did get to go to the Amana Woolen Mill, which is the only working mill in Iowa. It’s fun to see the looms, and this year, we actually bought a 100% wool blanket. It’s perfect for snuggling under on the couch, and its really pretty.

You can buy left over yarn from their blankets on spools, but its not really suitable for hand knitting. However, oddly enough, they did carry some Patons yarns, and even better, this great Homespun wool yarn.

Can I remember the name of the mill it comes from? Of course not. It is from Michigan I believe, and from what I remember, they mainly sell knitted garments. The wool was in all natural colors, and I picked out 3 skeins of a natural beige/cream color. I think it’ll turn into a toddler aran sweater, perhaps. It was just over 5 dollars a skein for 225 yards, and it is reasonably soft. It probably falls between Cascade 220 and Barlett Fishermen’s wool on the softness scale.

Oh, and while we were in Amana we had an enormous breakfast. It was actually really fun - we wandered into the Brick Haus, and they seated us. Then, our waitress came over, offered us milk or coffee, and told us, in a very german accent, that our breakfast had been ordered.

So, a bit confused, we sat back and waited. It was very very good. It started with fruit, and then they brought out eggs, hashbrowns, a pancake each which was very thin and crispy at the edges, bacon and sausage from Amana, orange juice, and toast. It’s all done family style, so our table was filled with food. I don’t like hashbrowns, and he doesn’t like eggs, so I ate half the eggs, and he ate the potatoes. The syrup was so good, and the sausage was great, and we were so full afterwards. All that came in at under 20 dollars for two people.

We didn’t have time to go into all the shops, but we got homemade fudge, and candles, and cookies.

Kevin drove, and so I got to snooze for large parts of both car trips. I really need to work on getting more sleep, given that I’m doing that thing my mother used to do - as soon as she sat down, coming home from work, she’d fall asleep. And I don’t’ evne have the excuse of working 13 hours a day and having 2 kids. I just have too many hobbies.

I haven’t heard from my Secret Pal at all since my last package, which was my book. So, I can’t reveal her/his identity yet. I’m guessing I should be getting one more package, but who knows.
My Secret Pal was Iko from Woolgathering.net . She hasn’t posted an update in awhile, so my last package to her isn’t up there yet. I sent two balls of Rowan Biggy Print in a pretty berry colorway, some chocolate, a bar of honey soap, and I think a bookmark. I hope I was a good secret pal!

I’m still knitting away on my sister’s sleeves. Have I mentioned how much I love Barlett yarns? Its so wooly and smells so sheepy and very nice to knit with. I Just wanted to say something positive, after all the grousing in the last entry.

Also, when I was at Knitche, I saw Colinette’s Shimmer 5 yarn, which is unbelievably gorgeous. The skein I got my hands on was this lovely combination of greens and blues, and I just drooled. But, I was good, and put it back.

Oh, and go take my “Do Geese Like You?” quiz. I made it all by myself.

I’m feeling crabby this morning. I don’t actually have a reason to be crabby, I just am.

So, in the spirit of crabbiness, I shall crab about knitting.

First, . I own the first , and I liked it. I thought it was fun and that the basics in the book were good. But do we need another one?

Go take a look at the pictures. They are… bad. Very bad. And the projects are just more of the same. Chunky knits. Weird accessories. A couple of fairly simple sweaters (although perhaps slightly more advanced than the last Stitch N’ Bitch book, but only because Intarsia is involved. Intarsia is involved in most of the projects. I guess people like stockinette and intarsia.). The only item I could potentially like was this one:

I know people talk about how its for the young people to convince them to get into knitting. How many of those books do we need? Perhaps young people would like to knit something that actually looks nice and is challenging?

Second Crab:

We ventured out to Zora’s Yarn Shop in Naperville. It’s in the owner’s house. (She has a gorgeous kitchen, btw.) She appears to only carry Plymouth yarn at this point, and I wasn’t very excited. Lots of novelty, a fair amount of Galway, and she did have some Alpaca. Oh, and one kind of sock yarn, and some baby/cotton yarn. I wasn’t even tempted, sadly enough. I hope she gets more stock - she had expressed an interest in stocking more traditional yarns, but I didn’t see a lot of evidence of that, unfortunately. The owner is very nice, though, and she is offering a variety of classes.

In No Crab News:

After Zora’s Yarn, Kevin and I went to lunch at Dali’s, in Downtown Downers Grove. It was scrumptious, as always. I then dragged him into Knitche (its his fault he parked near the yarn shop :)), and wandered around. I didn’t buy anything, but I do like how they often get in yarns in the higher end, even if I don’t buy them. For example, I got to touch some lovely bulky cashmere (53 dollars a ball), and some baby camel yarn. I totally fell in love with it - it was a wavy mix of browns, and was perhaps even softer than cashmere. But, at 23 dollars a skein, a bit too much for my budget currently. The yardage wasn’t bad for that 23 dollars, but it was still 23 dollars.

In knitting news, I have done a tiny bit. I’m starting the heel on my second sock. I’m still working on my sister’s sleeves. The problem is that for some reason, knit 2, purl 2 puts me right to sleep. Not out of boredom - its just so relaxing that 30 minutes of it leads me to snoozing on the couch. But, I shall soldier on.

I have done not a lot of knitting lately. Why?

Because Kevin showed me the EverQuest II beta, and to my great shock, it is fun. It is a lot of fun. We made a character named Gail, who is a halfling (of course). She runs around and does quests and kills things. I also die a lot, and bat my eyelashes at the boys so that they’ll tell me where in the hell the Tower of the Oracles is. (I did find it eventually. You ride a griffin to get there. How cool is that?)

So, I’m behind on my TV shows and my knitting. I did finally wise up and bring my sock into my office, so I could knit while I waited for zones to change and to regain health.

Oh, I suppose you all want to know what I’m talking about See, EverQuest is an online multiplayer game where you run around and kill things, and other people are logged in and they kill things, and sometimes you group, and before you know it it has taken over your entire life. Something like that.

Anyways, I did finish my sock. It’s pretty much an anklet sock, but see, I have calves of steel. They are massive. I blame it on being short and always having to tip toe around. So, if I had wanted the socks to go over the calves of steel, something which I can’t remember happening, like, ever, it would have been time for some major increasing. So, instead, I bound off.

Monica was nice enough to take a picture of my foot. On the table at Barnes and Noble, wearing my new sock. Go on over and take a look!

I’ve been ranting a bit too much over at Knitters Review, in their politics forums. I don’t hate Republicans. I truly don’t. But its so hard to read such bigoted stuff coming from two particular users, you know? I do wish that the Republicans could just oust those types from the party, but that’s hardly likely.

Speaking of Knitters Review, they did a review of Debbie Bliss’s Cotton Angora. The results weren’t pretty. I love how the stuff feel in the skein, but if it wore as badly as her swatches, I’d be very displeased. I’m glad I haven’t bought any.

A new yarn sneakily opened up in Naperville. It’s called Zora’s Yarns, and Dee checked it out for us. They are having an open house this weekend, so we’re heading over on Sunday. They don’t seem to have a web presence, but they are on Chicago Avenue, East of downtown Naperville. They are open 10 to 5.