Woo Hoo, it's Wednesday!

The workweek is half over, I'm jazzed about that. So much fun was had over last weekend, it makes me want this weekend to get here faster.

Our knit group had a party with our puppies at MJ and Del's house on Saturday. We had a blast and a half. There were a lot of dogs, I can't remember how many, but here are some pictures.
There was some knitting done but, as Lisa noted, not by me. My puppy decided to spend most of her time in my lap. It was a little overwhelming.

We got to see more of MJ's Kool Aid yarn, we ate a ton of food, the dogs got treats and jello doggy shooters.













After that party, my husband and I went to Territory Days in Old Colorado City. It's a celebration of our town as it was back in, yes...you guessed it, the days the state was a territory. There are tons of street vendors, food tents, Native American dancers, the Greyhound rescue group, the Birds of Prey group, and assorted people. The people range from families with small kids, teenagers hanging around looking cool, women having a Girl's Day Out, bikers, and so on. Here are some pictures of that...

Sunday I spent all day in my jammies, read, and did some but not much knitting. There will be no pictures of that!

On Monday, we had a bonus knit group meeting. It was great. Lisa got to knit the same length of yarn for her sock a few times. There are of pictures of that either, it wasn't pretty.

A day to remember...

When I was younger, I remember that Memorial Day sometimes took two days. We would buy flowers, geraniums mostly, pile in the car, and drive into Chicago and plant the flowers on our Grandparents graves. We were sent to fetch water for the plants, and I remember seeing a lot of flags put up by the VFW posts.

We also had a day to drive to a little town near Edgerton, WI to put flowers on my Grandfathers grave. He is buried in a tiny cemetery near a little white church. My sisters and I used to try to find the oldest headstone there. I remember there were some that were so old that the engraving was nearly worn off. Mom always packed us a picnic lunch for the trip, and we would eat at a picnic table near a little river.

When we got older, we stopped going with Mom and Dad. We were teenagers with busy lives, and besides, Mom and Dad went. Now I live 1000 miles from there and even though I still enjoy my three day weekend, I wish I could spend part of it planting flowers for people I never met, but am connected to, as well as those I am connected to and have lost. Today I am sad that I can't put out flowers and a flag for my father. But you can bet I'm thinking of him, and of his brother Norman who lost his life in the Pacific arena during WWII.

I don't care what your politics are, I don't care if you agree or disagree with the current military action in the Middle East, please take a few moments this weekend to honor those who went before, and those who are serving now, so others can live free.

For some background on Memorial Day history, go here.

Knit in Public Day

Not my idea, but a great one...

Heard about via Franklin's site. Which by the way, is very funny. Here in Colorado Springs, we will be meeting on Saturday June 10th at Acacia Park downtown at 9 am.

The festivities last until we leave, who knows when that will be. Bring a lawnchair or picnic blanket, food and drink if you want to, and of course, your knitting.


There are tons of places within easy walking distance for coffee and food, there are nice big trees, and Uncle Wilbur's fountain, which may drive some of you nuts.

I hope to see you all there!

Knit Shops

Ok, good news. It looks like I will need to go on a yarn diet!

Now, that normally doesn't sound right, but it looks like I'll be in Vienna, Austria this time next year! Because we are on a tight budget already around here, and I'll probably have to get a second job to pay for the trip, I'd better think about spending less on yarn. But oddly enough, this thought is not upsetting.

I'm still going to Estes Park, and I'll still spend some money there. But I think I will be able to keep the purchasing reasonably small.

After all, I have to save money for the yarn shops in Vienna and Prague.

There had better be some!

It's May already?

Okay, so my last post was nearly a month ago....time is going by so fast! I will try to sum up the things that have been happening.

My daughter came back from college the first weekend in May. It is great to have her back, but man, you should have seen the load of stuff she brought with her. My son Matt and I had to take a second car up to school to get her, since all of her stuff wouldn't fit into the full size Bronco. The full size LTD was crammed full of stuff, too. It was like trying to fit the whole stash onto one shelf in my closet. While the girls were waiting for their RA to check them out of their room, I decided that the drive from Greeley to Fort Collins was short enough, and I had time enough to go here.

Yep, Lambspun is as great a shop as you can imagine. It has yummy yarn, tons of books and patterns, a huge variety of notions , buttons, needles, and other accessories, a room full of spinning stuff, and a coffee shop attached right to it. Top it off with really nice people, and there you go, one fabulous place to visit, since they won't let you live there. I tried to stay out of the spinning room, since I am trying to resist the temptation of that addiction. I'm hoping Estes Park won't push me over that particular cliff. My husband is preparing in case he sees a drop spindle or roving hanging around the house. He knows that after that, there won't be much more to do than accept the fact the a spinning wheel may show up. There is a small hope that I won't like spinning...

The shop in the new books written by Maggie Sefton was based on this one. I didn't have much time there, only about a half hour, so I didn't have a big bag when I left. And the way that car was packed, I couldn't have fit much yarn in anyway. I did get a beautiful shawl pin and a small yarn pocket thing, which I hope is as convenient as I think it will be. I plan on going back, hopefully as part of a Knitters with Altittude yarn crawl. Hint, hint you guys. I'm thinking late July sometime, preferably after we all forget how much we spent in Estes Park.I have completed the blue Trekking socks, see.... I love them a lot. I did those on the "magic loop", top down, regular heel. This year, I am trying to decide what kind of sock knitting I like best. So hopefully I will get to them all (you can stop laughing now). I am going to try toe-up, top-down, two circs, magic loop, different types of toes and heels, that sort of thing. I've already done double points, which I like very much. I do like the magic loop a lot, too. Bonus points to that method for making it easy to figure out where I am when I pick up the sock after an interuption. I did cast on another pair of Trekking for working on at work. They are top down, magic loop as well. They are brown and I haven't decided what I'm going to do as far as pattern after the ribbing. On those I'm going to try a different heel and toe. I haven't figured out which one yet.

I also cast on for a pair of toe up, two at once, two circular needles. I will admit I was not thrilled at first with this method. I was having all sorts of problems figuring out where I was and which piece of yarn to be using. And we won't discuss the tangling. But I will say, I like the idea that when I am done with the process, I'm done with a pair of socks. And it seems to be going much bettter now. I should try to remember that the first few rows of any method are icky. I'm starting to wonder if two socks at a time are possible with the magic loop method....

These are made from some of the wool I dyed at knit group at Christies house. The pattern is from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury, page 136, Dragon Skin. I had to change it a little bit to make it fit into my stitch count.

These are the other two skeins I dyed. The mostly green one is laceweight, the red is worsted. The red lost a lot of color is the rinsing, so I have been playing around with overdying the skein with assorted Kool Aid colors. I think the red one wants to be a felted bag. The laceweight is just laughing at me for thinking it will be knit up any time soon.

Here are pictures from the dye day at Christies and Ben's. We are so grateful that they have the patience to have their home invaded by fiber-crazed, dye-happy Knitters. Thanks again, you two! From left to right, Ellen's yarn, Phoebe and her yarn, TOK's skeins. and MJ's creations. There was even more, but way too much to put here.

And for those of you wondering about my mystery Pi shawl, here you go.

It's not very much further along. Apparently, I am easily sidetracked by other projects. I really do plan on finishing it before August. And I am still hoping the miracle of blocking comes through for me on this.

In other news, my son Mike came home from college on Friday. I was happy to see him. It's nice to have everybody back together. We learned that his football team will be playing in some kind of European football charity thing next May in Vienna. Austria. We are very excited, as you can imagine. They will be spending 9 days visiting Vienna and Prague. With any luck, my husband and I will be going, too! It will make a great 25th Anniversary trip. We are hoping that our younger son's High School graduation will not be on the same day. I'll find out tomorrow if the dates will all work out. Everyone keep your fingers crossed!

I am still planning on going to the Estes Park Wool Festival in June. I'll be staying at a cabin there Friday and Saturday night. I could use some more roommates to split the cost. It should be a blast....an entire weekend around people who like fiber and understand why I do, too. As I said before, I'm hoping not to catch spinning fever there.

We are also thinking about selling our house and moving to a place that will fit our lifestyle better now. Read "we don't like doing maintenance and yard work, only partly because it cuts into knitting time" for "that will fit our lifestyle better", and you'll understand a little better. We are still waiting to see how the numbers are going to work out before any decisions are made. If you know anybody that wants our house, tell them to call me.