~~Happy Halloween~~

My costume's coming along, luckily I have until Friday for our party! Thanks for your brilliant ideas. Kris - I'll work on the 365 degree head turn for you:)

Finally

It's been a long week, but I'm finally sharing some of the good stuff last weekend.

First, ~ my Rhinebeck goods::

I had a great time looking at the wide variety of yarns at the festival, but in the end I walked away with some lovely worsted weight tweeds from one vendor. Some Rhinebeck attendees may be shaking their heads in shame, that I could be surrounded by all of that yarn goodness and only buy this, but I'm so excited about this yarn! It's soft, I love the colors (all of her colors were great), and it was such an amazing deal.

I'm going to use the indigo skeins to make a new sweater (more on that later). The greens are going to be used, along with the balls of roving, to make some thrummed mittens.

A little public service announcement about thrummed mittens:: DON'T BUY THE KITS. I know kits are nice, they come with the yarn and the directions, all you have to do is knit. But seriously, why pay over 30 bones for materials that you can pick up for about 8? All you need is about 200 yards of worsted weight yarn, and 1-2 oz of roving (my pattern calls for 1oz, but I've seen some patterns call for 2oz). As for instructions? I know you can find some great info on Hello Yarn, and there's a nice pattern in the Winter '06 Interweave Knits ~ which is the one I'm going to use.

And finally, my sheepish, but non-knitting finds::

Some ceramic buttons for my tilted duster, a mini sheep, and a sheep photo!



We had a great discussion with the photographer of this picture. He's the farmer on the farm where this pic and many others were taken. My friend bought an amazing shot of a rooster crowing for her kitchen. Our friend, the farmer, runs this farm full of animals and veggies and he takes the pictures in his spare time ~ it sounded like the perfect life (don't get me wrong, I know it's full of manure and early mornings), but still, I told him I was envious of all of the photo material right outside his front door!

Now for some knitting::

My tilted duster just needs some sleeves! I'll probably work on the sleeves and my jaywalkers while watching Game 3 tonight.

It'll be a hoot...

I think I want to be an owl for Halloween, but I want to keep the costume simple (I want to insinuate owl without coughing/hacking up a little owl pellet). So here's my plan: wearing a big pair of round "movie star" sunglasses, using gel to make two tufted ears from my hair, and wearing a big black wool cape as my wings.

Any suggestions?? maybe a white round belly, maybe a beak of some sort?

A Summary of our Fantabulous Weekend

The weather was perfect. So perfect that we even got to see the high push away the low::See it? See the perfect line between blue sky and clouds? Put simply~ That's the spot where the high and low fronts are battling it out. The high is slightly cooler air, so when it slides in under the low, the water in the warmer air condenses. In the end, it just meant perfectly sunny days for us!

We had as much fun in the animal barns as we did shopping. Some sheep, alpacas, and angora rabbits::





{The ewe and I had a moment}

I've been waiting for the fall foliage, and I think we hit the nail on the head. You can get better color than this::




We were expecting a lot of yarn, knitting, and spinning related products, but the fair excited us with so much more::


These pictures are just a snippet of what we saw and ate. But do you really want to hear about the cheese tasting, wine, and lamb chili? Or the wool rugs, the woven items, and such?

And in the car, I kept myself busy with my jaywalkers::

I came away with some great purchases that I'll share with you later in the week*

As promised.

Some pictures from the weekend ~ a mix of life and finished knits! The fall weather provided rain and fog in Boston and Berkeley, but once we got to Tahoe, all was sunny!


Of course the weekend was filled with good food, including this apple & fig crisp. yum. Just take your basic apple crisp recipe and add some quartered figs. You can't go wrong. Serve it with some vanilla ice cream garnished with pomegranate seeds.
Here are some finished knits ~ I've shown you these before, but here are some pictures of foliage and sarcelle in use and the pinwheel sweater in better light and with the ends woven in.


Now, this week will be busy with research. Much research for school, and some for Rhinebeck! I have to make a little list of projects I want to knit and the yarn requirements... fun fun.

I'm back from a wonderful weekend away. A quick weather report ~ at this time of year Boston and Berkeley seem to share the SAME WEATHER {rainy and temps in the high 50s to low 60s}. I was only in Berkeley for a few hours on Friday and Monday, but both times consisted of rainy cool weather. What happened to the land of sun I grew to love? Anyway, it totally put me in the mood for fall and now I can't wait for Rhinebeck this weekend!

Speaking of all things yarn and knitting, I'm working on some Jaywalkers. I had to start and restart the pair three times this weekend, but now all is good and I see many more jaywalkers in my future.

More posts with pictures later.

Octoberfest & Socktoberfest

~both in one post!

I went to the Harvard Square Octoberfest this past weekend and had a great time. They were calling for rain, but we lucked out and had a beautiful day. The festival was particularly lively because the Honk Parade came through ~ I don't know all of the details about Honk, but here's what I know:: This Honk Parade was comprised of activist marching bands from around the world {seriously, Germany, France, etc}, I think they were marching and playing for peace. When they arrived in Harvard Square, the bands would take turns playing, so between that and the three stages that were set up, there was plenty of music for our ears. There was also plenty of good food, and general fun ~and of course, a green, furry bike!!~.



Now, on to socks! I didn't do much last year during Socktoberfest {maybe one pair?}, but this year, I Socktoberfest is coming at a perfect time. I'm just finishing up a few big projects {tilted duster, EZ sweater, etc}, and so I think between the sweater knitting, I'll enjoy the small sock projects. I'm leaving tomorrow for a weekend in CA, so I thought I'd start off the month with a sock project using up some of my many scraps from past socks. ~Plus I don't have time to pick up new sock yarn before I leave, and *yikes*, unlike some knitters, I don't have a stash of sock yarn hiding in my closet!

Fall Sweaters in Fall Light

I finished the knitting portion of the baby surprise jacket, and I'm really happy with the final product! I just have to sew on the buttons, weave in the ends, and sew the shoulder seams... so I'm almost done with this one :)


Now I just have to make up some winterfoliage tags for the sweaters that are gifts {I also want them for the knitted projects I make for myself!}. Something that says winterfoliage and provides the washing instructions. I have a plan, and the materials, so I'll provide more details on this project later.

Last night was knitting night/watching the Red Sox night. I worked on the top section of my tilted duster ~ the back and front pieces that had to be seamed. I don't have much experience with sewing seams, so I closely followed the diagrams in EZ's knitting workshop and it worked perfectly!


I'm excited for the Tilted Duster, maybe it will be finished in time for Rhinebeck*

October

I always feel like October is the epitome of fall. The days are getting shorter, the air is cooler and smells so crisp. And after my initial start to the school year, I hit a slump in my activity level. I think it takes me a few days {weeks} to adjust my schedule and stay motivated to keep working {stay awake} after the sun sets. These shorter days have also limited my picture taking ~ until I get home there's no sun left for some good pictures, and so I leave them for another day, along with all of the items I haven't crossed off my to-do list.

While I've been napping and distracting myself from school work, I made an effort to take more photos over the past week.

Farmers Market::

My bike ride to and from school passes a couple of ponds and one river. Spy Pond and Charles River::


And finally, the baby sweaters are taking a little longer than expected {signs that it's October}::


Here's to a month of apple picking, pumpkin baking, sheep & wool, falling leaves, and crisp air. cheers*