Day after NY Sheep & Wool Festival at Rhinebeck

A friend and I went to the New York Sheep & Wool Festival yesterday, and had a marvelous time. I am also totally amazed that I only came home with one skein of yarn, but more on that in a moment. Jana and I hadn't been at the festival more than about 10 minutes when we happened upon the booth of The Fenwick Collection, and immediately fell for their Pacific Jacket. The jacket is made of felted alpaca and wool, and should be nicely warm (however, with the weather in the northeast this fall, I wonder if we will ever have the chance to wear warm things?). The lines of this jacket are very elegant. Jana bought black, and I bought what is, for me, a very unusual color: a muted red (what they call "tomato bisque"). I did not think that it was a good sign that we were spending so much money so quickly. From there, we walked a few steps to the Brooks Farm booth, and because it was early, we were actually able to move amongst their displays. I remember last year, when it was almost impossible to do just that. I wasn't planning to buy any yarn here, lovely as it is, as I haven't yet knitted up the two skeins I bought last year. But Jana drew my attention to a knitted shawl they were displaying, and showed me some yarn she thought would be perfect with my new jacket. Uh oh, this was not turning out well for my pocketbook. But she was perfectly right, this reddish/purplish skein of Acero will look great, once I knit it up. It should be a fast project, as it is done with size 17 needles.

The one category of stuff I was looking for was needle felting supplies. I haven't actually done any of this, but I am intrigued by their use as embellishments, say on a knitted and felted bag. (I have no aspirations to create pumpkins, creatures, or people.) It seems that felting, both needle felting and wet felting, are IN, IN, IN. Supplies and books were everywhere. We saw some lovely wet-felted bags and even some nice scarves. I bought a bit of fiber and roving and a few extra needles, but didn't go overboard.

The Festival didn't seem quite as crowded as on the Saturday of last year. The weather was perfect, though a bit warm for people to wear their warmer handknits. I saw a lot of vests, as well as summer tops. I was delighted to get some compliments on my Fleece Artist vest. The Spinning Room, our local yarn store, seemed to be doing very well selling Avoca throws and scarves from Ireland.

I was delighted to see the Philosopher's Wool booth, which is a good reminder to finish up the cardigan I am working on from them. Both sleeves are done, as is about 1/3 of the body. But it has just been too warm to work on it till now.

The highlight of the day? Could that be when we tried the deep-fried pickles? Well, maybe not!

Last week I finished up some fingerless mitts made out of Noro Kureyon for a friend, and today I did 20 rows on the second of the Composed Mitts. I was feeling a bit upset with the first one, because the increasing done for the thumb made them far too wide for the hand. I figured I'd have to rip out 30 or so rows and redo the pattern. Luckily, Jana figured out that they could be tacked between each finger, and that would nicely take up the slack. This was all I needed to regain my enthusiasm and start with the second one.

Pictures of Entrelac Clutch

Here is both the front and the back of the entrelac clutch. I really enjoyed this project. It took one skein of Boku, and one button.

Learning new things

In working on a couple of projects this weekend, I've had a chance to expand my skills. The entrelac pouch that I knit up for a class I'm co-teaching in November required that I learn the brioche stitch. I really enjoyed this, once I found a tutorial on the web that explained how to knit into the stitch below. The whole back of the little bag uses this stitch, and it looks quite nice. The seams of the bag had to be slip stitched, something else new. And it required a single crochet edging along the top, which I had done once, about a year ago. Luckily, when I was working on this today at The Spinning Room, both Joan and Nancy, good crocheters, were there to give me a hand. The bag is being blocked at the moment--I'll post pictures soon.

Today I started a pair of fingerless mitts (the free Maine Morning Mitts pattern from Clara Parkes), and decided, after listing to one of the Knit Picks podcasts in which Kelley extols the magic loop method, to learn this myself. A friend's mother had given me the booklet by Bev Galeskas, and I had a long cord that works with my Denise needles. It really isn't hard at all, and I am hoping it will keep me from having the ladders I sometimes get with my dpns.

I've ordered Clara's book The Knitter's Book of Yarn, and Amazon says it will be here by Thursday (as it isn't being published until Tuesday). I am really looking forward to it, and if anything catches my eye, I hope to find a suitable yarn Saturday when I am at the New York Sheep & Wool Festival.

I finished this hat, a birthday gift for a friend, last week. It's made from a skein of Lamb's Pride Bulky that I got at 30% off. I really love this pattern.

Current projects and dye lot miracle

I spent time earlier in the weekend weaving in ends on my arm snuggies and sewing on buttons to hold back the lapels of the new ribwarmer vest (note to self: knit the collar option if I make more of these, it looks much nicer than the inexpertly sewn down neck tab on this one. Thank goodness my hair is long enough to hide it). I think the buttons I picked are too similar to the yarn, but none others called to me as I was trying to choose them. After finishing these two up, I rather ran out of steam. I don't have too much left to do on a cabled hat for a friend's birthday next month, I should be able to finish that today. I also started a couple of projects: the Two-Toned Triangle bag from the new Bag Style and an entrelac clutch. The latter is the project for a class I'll be co-teaching next month, and I'm trying to find a yarn that works well for it--one that is sold by the store where I'll be teaching. I think Boku will work, though it really isn't my favorite yarn.

On Saturday, my husband and I were in a small town about an hour north of here--we were on our way to a wedding and went up early so we could go to a nice used bookstore in Hudson Falls we haven't been to in years. I found a yarn store just up the road, Knit Wit Kreations, which I've never been to. The owner was very friendly and welcoming. While it was a bit hard to see what they had, as there was a big knit-in going on, I did find the 2 skeins of yarn I needed to have enough to make the Bluebell Boatneck Sweater in Fitted Knits. Exact same dye lot as the 3 I had bought at a sale locally over a year ago. That sure made my day!

Recent activities

The last couple of weekends I've been travelling--Ogunquit, Maine with some knitting friends (and we stayed in a fabulous old house that even had servants' quarters right by the beach!) and then Boston (with a side trip to Northampton on the way home) with my husband. All the riding in the car allowed lots of knitting time, and my second rib warmer vest is just about done. On the Maine trip, I started these Arm Snuggies from the November 2007 issue of Creative Knitting. I just wove in the ends on the first one this morning, and I am really pleased with the way it turned out. It is knit in Navy, Burgundy, and Burnt Orange colors of Elsebeth Lavold's Baby Llama. The yarn is super soft, and lovely to work with. I converted the pattern to knitting in the round (why sew a seam if there's no need?). The medium seemed to have a glitch in the polka dot-like pattern that appears twice on each snuggy, so I winged it and am much happier with the section near the top than the earlier one. I also recharted the pattern with the crosses to get it to work out right. This is the first time I have used a charted pattern that had beginning and end sections, with a separate repeated center section, and that threw a curve ball near the beginning of the project. So I feel a real sense of accomplishment getting the first one done. The second should be easy!

While I didn't find any yarn at the two shops I stopped in at in Boston (I was amazed to find an extremely helpful sales clerk at Windsor Button near the Common--the last time I was there, the help was pretty rude), I did much better at Webs on our way home. I bought the new Williamstown yarn in teal for the pattern on the back of the current catalog. The description said it was soft, and it really is! I was a bit dubious... While there I also bought yarn for the Sunny Flower Fez from Folk Style and a couple of skeins for one of the bags in Bag Style, which is on its way from Amazon. I also picked up the holiday issue of Interweave Knits, and have become fascinated by the idea of needle felting, having read the article in the issue. I think I'll add supplies for this to my shopping list for the NY Sheep and Wool Festival in just a few weeks.