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.