Ah-CHOO

Look at this face:


And this "Hey, where ya goin'?!" pose:


You would never know to look at these beasts that they are agents of destruction. Wet, stinky, allergen-bearing monsters. Lounging and baa-ing atop their layer of WET HAY, which just added that extra oomph. I was fine when I walked into the sheep barn. Not so by the time I came out on the other side.

But they sure are cute, eh? I just can't stay mad at them. ;)

Sunday was my Sheep and Wool day... way too much "real life" stuff to do on Saturday, including some general housekeeping and making from-scratch samosas for my D&D group Saturday night. Sunday was a rather wet day, but it was nice to be able to move freely and not be squashed by throngs of fiber-crazed festivalgoers. Saw some of the gals at the Cloverhill booth, stuck to my budget, and got some beautiful yarn.

Like what?

How about some Lavender Sheep superwash merino sock yarn from the Cloverhill booth?

"Bordeaux" is a perfect name for this yarn, which is all wonderful shades of reddish-purple. It made me promptly break my "No sock yarn" rule. Could you resist this?

Or some merino/silk from Ellen's 1/2 Pint Farm?

I believe this is the "Aquarium" colorway. Those blues and teals caught my eye as soon as I walked into the booth. This picture shows off the "shiny factor" very nicely.

And there was also a big hank of Duet from Brooks Farm:


Somewhere down the line, I'm going to take a look at how my two colors of Duet look striped together...

Both skeins have the same beige in them... it might work.

Eye candy

I spent my Saturday outside on my balcony, knitting. It was a gorgeous day here: 75 degrees and sunny. PERFECT outdoor knitting weather. I gathered up a smaller project and a glass of iced tea, and had a blissful afternoon.

A couple of days ago, I played around a bit with my camera and my Lorna's Laces stash. The next best thing to actual yarn--pictures of yarn:

I finished a sleeve!

The ball of yarn I'm on, working very hard


The current sleeve-in-progress:


And not just any sleeve, but a SECOND sleeve. You can see the first sleeve hiding in the background in the above picture. I spent a lot of time in NJ knitting and watching the NCAA conference tournaments with my mom, and finished the sleeve while I was there.

I also ordered some more Lorna's Laces...


This showed up on Monday, which was grey and dreary and involved my coworkers and me spending the morning cursing at Verizon. Again.

The telltale bag of yarn from Jimmy Beans Wool made it better:


How could that NOT cheer a person up? The colorway is "Robin's Eggs", which is the April '09 limited edition color. It's like candy. Smooshy wool candy.

Sorry for the absence

And just like that, I haven't posted in three weeks.

My grandmother passed away on the 11th. It came as quite a shock. She would have turned 95 last week, but we all thought she would get to 100 without breaking a sweat. She was in the hospital for a couple of days, then was moved into the hospice unit for a few hours before she died. I went up to NJ that day (I'd been trying to get there before it happened; my dad called with the news when I was about 30 minutes from the hospital), and stayed for most of the week to help my parents out. Grandmom's funeral was on St Patrick's Day. A number of friends of the family came to the viewing, some of whom I hadn't seen in 10 or 20 years. I also got to meet a few relatives for the first time... second or third cousins? Anyway, after the funeral, we somehow crammed about 13 people into my parents' living room, and had sandwiches and beer and sat around talking.

I have one of her paintings in my apartment now. And by "hers", I mean she painted it -- guess where my artsy-craftsy genes came from! I see her painting every time I go to the kitchen, and it makes me smile. Lots of wonderful memories. :)

I'll try to post a knitting update soon. There has been visible progress made since my last post!

Another project cast on...

J came to visit me! Yay! Way too short of a visit, but I took him over to the library, and we went to see Watchmen with most of my gaming group on Friday (AWESOME... various people around me have been hearing me talk about this since the plans for the movie were first announced). Saturday, I took him to see the ocean, followed by dinner with my parents. There was also an ill-fated attempt to drive into DC on Friday so he could poke through the Air and Space Museum gift shop, which ended with us not finding it and having to come back so we could get to dinner on time. At least he only wanted to see the gift shop and didn't have any interest in seeing, you know, the museum.

Even the sight of my stash didn't scare him off. :)

Anyway, on the knitting front:


I started the Whisper Cardigan from the spring 09 Interweave Knits. It's a very springy pattern, so I finally have an excuse to use this springy yellow-green yarn for something.



It's Misti Alpaca lace, but it's knit on size 7 needles. It gives a thin fabric that will be nice on those days where there's just a little bit of a chill in the air.