The Thrifty Knitter

Is this silly? I was thinking of going through all my old free patterns and making pdfs I could sell for like a buck on ravelry. The little fee would cover my time & trouble if you want a printer-friendly copy, but the free pattern would still be here for anyone who didn’t want to fork out any dough. What do you think? Is that stupid? I guess I could try it and see….

Also, Spring Yarn School is almost full, so if you want in, you should hop to it.

12/17/09, 12.15am UPDATE: THE GIVEAWAY IS OFFICIALLY CLOSED!  I’m too sleepy to print out all the entries and draw one tonight, so I’ll do it tomorrow and announce/contact the winner by noon CST. Good luck, everyone!

Okay, I’m totally addicted to knitting wire. Knit Kit Jewelry sent me a Regal Cuff Knit Kit and also offered at kit of choice for me to give away here! To enter the drawing, go to the Knit Kits Jewelry site and PICK THE KIT YOU’D LIKE TO WIN, then LEAVE A COMMENT ON THIS POST before midnight CST WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 16. I’ll draw names for a winner at midnight, contact her/him for a mailing addess & they’ll send your choice of kits. Hooray!

They knit up quickly, so if you’re thinking of a holiday gift for a non-knitter, you’ll have time!

My kit came with silver-plated copper wire, tiny freshwater pearl beads, and an enameled clasp. I decided to make a choker instead of a bracelet, and to work garter instead of reverse stockinette. Here’s how mine turned out. I love it, and it’s actually nice on the skin, quite soft and pleasant. Same piece of jewelry, shown worn 3 different ways:

Stretched out wide. I used about 2/3 of the beads, randomly inserted. Very formal and elegant. Makes you want to walk around like you’ve got a book on your head.

Took it off and scrunched it up a bit, and you get this. A little more relaxed and modern.

Wrapped twice around the wrist.

I’m thinking you could use it as a really ethereal hair ornament as well, but I was in no mood for a midnight updo.

Here it is so you can see the clasp (I couldn’t get a good picture of the back of my neck or front of my wrist).

There’s enough wire for you to practice before you get started. Here’s what I came up with before I made my fancy choker.

The wire is the key. It’s a very delicate, silky wire that is very easy to knit, but held up to the really agressive abuse of my fussy shaping and reshaping.

For my practice swatch, I used some leftover beads I had on hand. You string all the beads at the beginning, then just scoot them up individually as you knit them. They naturally stick out on the purled side, but it’s wire, so if you want to shove them through to the knit side, you can. I was using garter, so I was indifferent.

I started with 9 stitches of garter with a slipped stitch edge. After the first couple rows, it was smooth sailing. It looks like a mess while you knit it, since wire’s not elastic, but as soon as you stretch it out, it’s lovely!

Same thing, stretched a little (but not smoothed out blocked):

What really surprised me is that the knitted wire actually draped!

It’s not folded over my finger, just draping off it.

The cool thing is that you can completely manipulate the knitting and it maintains whatever shape you put it in. Here’s my practice swatch, stretched thin and smoothed out:

This is actually how I’ll use it. I added a ribbon to each end for a choker.

But the same piece could be a wrist cuff instead. You can stretch it so it’s fat and shorter instead of long and skinny:

And it stays however you manipulate it, until you remanipulated it:

Next I worked in stockinette without the slipped-stitch edge. Unlike yarn, there’s not a big difference in the final appearance of the edges, so I decided to forget the slipped-stitch edging, as it was awkward and slowed me down a good deal. This time I used some little glass seed beads and pulled it really hard at the end. Like yarn, stockinette curls under on the sides. I sewed up the ends with some more beads and made a double-wrap bangle.

And I had just enough wire and pearls left to make some matching earrings for the choker! 4 pieces from one kit. Huzzah!

They also sell spools of the lovely wire in 9 different colors!

Okay, enough about me and my brilliant foray into jewelry-making! Enter the drawing!

I’m so excited about the new pattern I just turned in for CRAFT! I’m drowning in adorable! I’ll post pics as soon as it’s up!

In the meantime, it’s fracking freezing at Cupcake Ranch. The good news/bad news is that the boiler is finally on. Good news because now I don’t have to sleep in a hat and ski pants; bad news, very, very bad news because we just learned that our already crushing winter gas bill will more than double due to a problem with the meter… but I’ll think about that tomorrow. There’s no point in fretting about it because it’s been so cold that there’s just no question of going without heat. All our pipes would burst. It’s been the coldest since I moved here, 2 below yesterday, highs well below freezing. But when it gets back into the 40s next week, I’ll probably go to only running the thing at night to protect the pipes & sucking it up during the day. In a way, it’s easier when it’s freezing, because at least it’s uniform. Now, if I walk around the builing, I’m inappropriately dressed every 20 feet. But my bedroom, the coldest room on this floor with the heat off, is warm as toast. If it wasn’t such a mess, I’d spend all day in here.

Anyway, I really can’t complain because the forcasted 9-15 inches of snow earlier this week ended up being more like 4, and that was over two days. Even most of the drifts were only a foot. I’m happy to report that I helped moderate the weather by being fully prepared for a big outage–both generators gassed up and tested out, water set aside, extension cords and flashlight at the ready. Mercifully, it was just snowy and very cold, too cold to be icy and problematic.

The first day after the snow, the sheep headed right out as usual. Last year, I kept them in the barnyard, but this winter I’m letting them graze through the snow. The snow won’t stick around forever, anyway, and they’ll be back to dead grass, which them seem to like at least as well as hay.

Mr. Shivers checks out the snow-covered energizer. Still hot, as I learned when I zapped myself on the fence a few seconds after snapping this picture.

Uncle Honeybunch didn’t care for the attention going to the chickens.

For their part, aside from Zoe, the chickens had no interest in dining al fresco.

Poor Bridgette doesn’t have a tail anymore. Or maybe she still has part of it, but it doesn’t work anymore. It’s always down, which gives her a sort of dejected appearance, even when she seems in high spirits.

At dinnertime, it was snowing again. The sheep are pretty indifferent to snow. If it’s snowing, they pretty much always have a layer of it on their backs because they’re standing around outside.

By the second day with snow, they’d mostly lost interest in the pasture and just stood around in the barnyard looking put-upon and gorging on hay.

They seem to mash themselves into it or something, because they always get covered in it like little kids eating spaghetti:

I need to get a real hay rack.

The chickens porthole cover blew off in the storm, and their coop was full of snow.

Winter finally starting in earnest means a big hassle with the animals–the water freezes several times a day, so you have to haul out heavy buckets of hot water in the freezing cold. Or, I should say, I did have to haul out heavy buckets. My dad bought the sheep a heated tub and the chickens a heated waterer for Christmas and I set them up today! I forgot to plug in the sheeps’ tub (after running the extension cords and getting it all set up), so their water froze and I can’t report on how it works, but the chickens’ water was still wet at the end of the day, though it was well below freezing all day. (The fountain has the absolute worst design, though–half the water was gone before I even plugged it in–and if it weren’t the only hanging heated fountain available, I’d be sending it back.)

I just got a new Knit Kit from Knit Kits Jewelry to try out, and just in time for holiday giving, I get to offer one as a contest prize for y’all!

They sent me the Regal Cuff kit, which includes fine silverplated copper wire, a long string of delicate freshwater pearls, and an enameled silverplated clasp. It’s meant for a bracelet, but there’s definitely enough wire for a choker, so that’s what I’m making! I’ll post my results, along with the contest, next week.

The sheep are really growing some marvelous fleece! Both of the Shetlands have longer fleece now, in November, than they did when they were sheared at the beginning of April! My sheep are too fidgety to stay still while I hold their fleeces open, but if I can wrangle Ron into holding them for me, I’ll get some good fiber pictures soon. In the meantime, I have a couple of neck pictures. The fiber there is open to the elements, so it’s dirtier and unprotected–and doesn’t grow as long, except maybe on the Shetlands, but you can get an idea of the nature of the fiber.

Here’s Mr. Shivers busting out of his Sheep Suit. I don’t think I have any fresh big ones left, so I’ll probably need to order him one–or I could try my hand at making one.

This is his first adult fleece, and it’s very different from his lamb fleece, which had chocolate tips. The first shows him now, the next two are before and after shearing last April  (you can also see how much his horns have grown since last spring).

Uncle Honeybunch has a bigger coat on, so he’s not bustin’ out, but he’s just as puffy–again, easily as puffy as he was just before shearing this year. If you press on his jacket, he feels like a big cushy pillow.

Early April, before & after (the second shows the same three animals you see above, only naked):

Jayne Cobb’s neck. He’s a Romney with an incredibly fine, crimpy fleece. You can see how tight and fine and lovely he is, even at the neck.

Here’s his mom’s neck. Fudgy’s fleece isn’t yet as long as it was when she was sheared, but it’s looking very good. She’s only had to go up one blanket size, but she & Uncle Honeybunch are wearing the bigger blankets from Midstates Wool Growers, so they accommodate more wool growth than the Sheep Suits (they don’t wear nearly as well, though–I’ve had to repair both of them, but none of the over half-dozen Sheep Suits I’ve used). Her fleece is quite soft, but not as fine or crimpy as his. The tips are sun-bleached, but if you look into the creases, you can see the dark color and nice crimp. I’ve got 2 fleeces from Fudgy, her lamb fleece and this year’s clip. I think I’m going to have it all made into roving, then have half of that spun up into yarn. I’m curious to see if she has more salt in her fleece this year–I’m going to keep a diary of samples of all of them, because I’m a big nerd.

The Merinos are obviously shorter than the Shetlands as well, but they’re coming in nicely. Ronnie’s is a bit longer and less crimpy than Hokey Pokeys, but I’ve been really pleased with it–it’s denser and crimpier than I expected from her newborn lamb fleece–hers was very open, almost Shetland-like, while his was all supertight curls. But hers has grown out beautifully.

The fun thing with the colored lambs is that their fleece changes over time. I think it typically gets lighter. They could just get lighter brown, or maybe they’ll turn gray, like their dad, Roger. Here’s his fleece:

The sheep are asking for this for Christmas, only they want the one with the double trough to better catch spilled hay. If Woolly Santa gives it to them, I’ll need to mod it out with a grid across the trough to keep the piggier ones (read: the bachelors) from pushing out the more timid ones (read: Ronnie) when I grain them

.

I’ve done the same thing on my cheapie discount PortaTroughs. On the large one, I just bolted a segment of cattle panel over the top. On the small one, I only had an end scrap, which made me more resourceful, so I actually came up with a better design. I drilled holes into the inside of the trough for all the short ends and one of the long ends, then popped all the ends into their holes and secured the one loose end with a U-bolt just inside the trough. It looks nicer, and I only have to worry about one pair of nuts loosening up over time, versus 4pr. But they both do the trick, keeping each nose in a separate square, so they can’t shove their neighbors out of the way. Now I can grain them all together. Before, I had to separate the Shetlands, and half the time, I’d have to give Ronnie her own bucket, which one of the other sheep would eventually discover anyway. Streamlined feeding is easier on me, but more importantly, easier (read: cheaper) for a future sheep-sitter.

They’re also asking for one of those mineral feeders with a fin on top so it swivels out of the rain, and for a 16 gallon heated tub, which I think is really gracious of them, because it will also make my life easier. Not that I don’t like lugging 40-pound buckets of hot water from the basement; it’s marvelous.

Speaking of water, pretty soon we’re going to be in water-lugging territory. So far we haven’t had freezing temperatures for more than a couple hours going, so I’ve been able to use the hose. But what happens when it’s too cold for the hose? I get stuck lugging 40-pound buckets is what. With the heated bucket, I wouldn’t have to lug as many. When the water freezes on top in a rubber bucket, you kick the side to break up the ice so they can drink, but when it freezes through, you have to tump it over to knock out the chunk of ice, and start over again, sometimes a couple times a day, so you end up carrying way more water than will a regular refill. I can’t really think of a way around it without plumbing the barn, which we can’t afford. Maybe some fancy rainwater collection and heating system on top of the barn. But all the open collection systems I’ve seen are for temperate climates & the heating systems are enclosed. Hm. Maybe a big tank you’d fill in the fall & then insulate & paint black? We have a huge old water pressure tank in the basement, but it seems too big to move. And anyway, it would probably weigh too much filled not to crush the barn. I guess you could place it next to the barn on the south side and have some kind of hand-pump for it, but still, there’s getting it out of the basement in the first place…. I really wish I had a Hulk or a Superman or Magnús Ver Magnússon to help me with chores. Until then, buckets it is.

My Tedious Project of the Week is untangling, cutting & splicing this fence. This is the fence poor Mr. Shivers got tangled up in last year. It wasn’t energized at the time; I was just using it to block off some hay and lumber. When we found him, he was completely tangled up, head and hooves, face down in the mud for who knows how long, poor thing. I thought he was dead and leaped over the fence and cut him out. He was really spooked, but fine. Anyway, now I’ve got this tangled, mangled length of fencing I’m going to try to splice back together.

Currently, I’m giving them small pastures rotated frequently (because though the grass hasn’t all died, it has stopped growing). I’m making long corridors to the ungrazed sections instead of open pasture, so they’re forced to graze the tall stuff (they’ll always hit the tender growth first, given the choice).

With a little more length (hopefully my repaired fencing will give me enough), I’ll be able to reach all the way out to the close north fence! I’d need to get at least one more fence section to graze the south pasture, though. Either that, or figure out how to lead them out there myself, a scary proposition.

My master plan for the winter is to have them graze down the whole pasture (I’m guesstimating maybe 5 acres that aren’t wooded) in sections. The dead grass won’t be enough to sustain them without hay, but the point is to give them more room and exercise, to keep the secure barnyard cleaner (my flock’s nearly double the size it was last winter, so hygiene is a bigger challenge), to keep their routine going, to evenly graze all the remaining prairie grass and weed seed heads, and to fertilize in the process, so we’ll have the best possible pasture next year. The side benefit of having them graze out the dead stuff is that I’ll be able to gather up all the random branches and debris that kept us from haying everything last year. Failing that, grazing down a solid perimeter around the barnyard will mean if I have the fire department come out and burn (what my hay man recommended to clear out all those branches), it will be easier to control. Either way, I want to maximize my hayfield so I don’t have to pay for any hay if at all possible. In the meantime, they’ll go through less hay this winter and be happier for the room, exercise, and routine.

Here’s what I’m working on…

2nd draft for an upcoming CRAFT project:

1st draft:

Noro Silk Garden Lite pullover, which I toyed with frogging–not because I’m unhappy with it, but because I think it would be so much more awesome as one of these. But it’s only used 4 balls so far, so I’m guessing only 6 balls total, which means I’ll have 4 left. With a coordinating solid from my stash, I should have enough for both!

Swatch for a project for someone else’s book (I’m waiting on the yarn from Louet to make the real thing):

And I’m doing a Hurry-up Last Minute Sweater for Ron for NaKniSweMo.

November Art Club Update (click to go to etsy):

Today Marta came over and cleaned out my weird no-man’s-land room that runs between the boiler room and the kitchen! We’re trading. I’m helping her with photoshop & etsy and she’s helping me attack some trouble spots (of which I have many). Eventually, the area under the stairs, which is sheltered from the boiler room and cooled by the crawl space, will be my root cellar! In the meantime, I can now use the existing shelves for more efficient storage, and maybe make a basement janitor’s closet. She also dragged all the junk stuffed into the entry storage closet out into the hall, so I have to deal with it instead of just closing the door and saying la la la la la, I can’t see you. And in the meantime, I can actually enter the closet and walk to the back of it and get something off a shelf instead of having climb over boxes and teeter in an awkward arabesque to reach anything more than a couple feet back.

I was feeling kind of peevish this morning. I was washing dishes with resentment (new! cleaning! power!) and being vexed at my never-ending to-do list. I thought November would be my big free, catch-up month, but open time just fills itself in, doesn’t it? I’m staying really busy, and even accomplishing a lot on a day-to-day basis, but I don’t feel like I’m making progress.

The problem is that my plan to leave November open has gone by the wayside. While I haven’t added any workshops or trips, I have had to take on some new commitments, and I’m broke as a joke, so I’ll need to shake my moneymaker (um, my brain & hands–that other thing shakes on its own, but ain’t nobody paying to see that) instead of becoming a paragon of zen organization.

I think I’m going to keep regular shop hours between Thanksgiving & Christmas, so I need to get the chaotic disaster that is my constant companion under control. And I’m making Art Club its own web store (still keeping the etsy shop) so it can spread out a little. And we just formed a nonprofit & that’s leeching away a lot of my time and brain power. Waaaa! God, I’m a crybaby! No wonder I’m so cranky–who wouldn’t be cranky, stuck with me all day? Also! I gained 8 pounds in a week! This, thanks to the poor turnout of trick-or-treaters. I guess Halloween falling on a Saturday = shitty turnout. We made goodie bags of favor toys and candy, plus Ron brought home 6 bags of fun size candy bars to give out, 5 of which went into my mouth within a few days of Halloween. My ill-fitting clothes are not elevating my mood. Hm. feeling a little peevish again.

Anyway.

I’m finally back in my normal routine, such as it is, after spending October in a sort of fibery haze. October was Fiber School & Rhinebeck. Fiber School was super fun this year, just an amazingly lovely group!

And my first Rhinebeck was smashing! Jen & I flew into Hartford, where we gave some strangers a ride to Holyoke on the way to Adrian’s place in rural Mass. Her house is just too freakin’ adorable, as is her mister and the stupendous Miss Pippa!

(These pictures were taken the day we left; while we were there, the weather was pretty shitty.)

First thing I did was pull out my newly finished but unblocked Rhinebeck sweater and soak and block it (replacing Adrian’s freshly-blocked and still-damp Rhinebeck sweater). I was really happy with my first Rhinebeck sweater. My only regret is giving away an ounce of the fiber. The sweater was 15 ounces–if I’d had that extra ounce, I could have added a kangaroo pocket. Waa. Otherwise, it fit perfectly–longish cut and sleeves, and shaped at center back as well as the sides for my hips and big ass. It could have come in a bit my at the lower back, but I’m pretty pleased, still. I used up all but maybe 2 feet of the yarn.

We went for dinner at a place with lobster (!) BLTs, and then I got a marvelous hot bath (I always take baths on vacation, as my own tub is still just decoration–we haven’t gotten around to breaking our ancient concrete to plumb the thing) in their deep Japanese soaking tub. I soaked in steamy water until my skin was piggy pink, then doused myself in a freezing rinse. It was freaking awesome!

The next morning, we headed for Rhinebeck, with a pit stop at Webs (cue heavenly music), where I did a big sin. My penance will be knitting six sweaters this winter. Yes, I got enough yarn for six sweaters. And a pair of socks, although I think that yarn will probably become a shawl instead. Wanna see?

Future Sweater #1: Araucania Ranco Solid, 4 skeins, 400g/14 ounces. Maybe a top-down raglan with a special pattern on the yoke and cuffs?

Future Sweater #2: The Sheep Shop Yarn Company Sheepfeet2, 4 skeins, 400g/14 ounces. This will be a striped sweater worked in ABCB, since I have unequal numbers of skeins. I’m guessing a cardigan worked in the round then steeked. Hopefully a cardigan with pockets, since I find myself wishing everything had pockets lately.

Future Sweater #3: Misti Alpacas Worsted, 6 skeins, 600g/20 ounces. Definitely a hoodie with a pocket! Maybe a cabled hoodie. Yes, probably cabled.

Future Sweater #4: Noro Silk Garden Lite, 6 balls, 300g/10.5 ounces. I thought this would have to be a vest only, but I’m through the torso of Sweater #6 (also Silk Garden Lite), and it’s only 4 skeins, so I might actually be able to crank a whole sweater out of 6 skeins!

Future Sweater #5: Noro Silk Garden Lite, 10 balls, 500g/17.6 ounces. Enough for a hoodie. I’m doing #6 with 2 balls in different spots of their color progressions to make alternating break up the stripes a little. I think on this one, I’ll use 2 balls at the same color repeat on the body, and one ball on the sleeves, for stripes that are bolder, but not too thick on the sleeves.

Future Sweater #6: Noro Silk Garden Lite, 10 balls, 500g/17.6 ounces. Sweater #6 turned out to be Sweater #1. I started it on the flight home. If I’d realized how far it would go, I would have skipped the collar & made it a hoodie! I’m already through the torso now (though I’ll probably go a bit longer) and I’ve only gone through 4 skeins. Definitely gets a pocket, unless skipping the pocket gives me enough to combine with Sweater #5 leftovers for a whole new sweater!

Shawl: Kauni. I don’t know what the line is, since I can’t read the language, but it’s a sock weight stuff with a beautiful, very long color progression. It’s sturdy and very woolly, just the kind of wool that non-knitters crinkle their noses at, sort of scratchy and lovely and with the promise of a nice bloom, but certainly not soft enough for your neck. This reminds me of all the yarn I bought in Latvia (or was it Estonia?). I’m tempted to warp some of the stuff I bought there and dye in some stripes!

I blew $308.79 at Webs, about 3X what I would have allowed if I had gone in with a budget. But I figured, what the hell! You only get a first visit to Webs once, right? And for over 6 pounds of fancy yarn, that’s not too shabby. Since I used many different payment methods at many different vendors, I don’t actually have a tally of what I spent at Rhinebeck proper, which is probably for the best. Next year, I’ll be more modest.

Despite the cold & rain Rhinebeck was terribly fun! We spent Friday night at a “cabin” (a 4-bedroom house with pool) Adrian found, where I got to meet & drink with a whole pack of really friendly & hilarious people, plus I finally got to see Carolyn again! Everyone arrived and unloaded food (David and Amy brought enough sweets to rot the teeth out of a good two dozen heads) and drink. We were supposed to go to a cheese party, but Adrian brought a whole case of local cider (a case of wine bottles, not beer bottles), and everyone was so eager to, um, taste all the different varieties, that very quickly, we were too lacking in designated drivers and too soaked in cidery inertia to actually leave the house. Instead, we played Apples to Apples and stuffed ourselves with Carolyn’s amazing baked ziti & Amy’s rich fudge brownies.

Saturday day was cold, but at least not raining, and we headed out to the glorious New York Sheep & Wool Festival, hurrah! Much delicious food, mad shopping, sheeps-a-plenty, and a ravelry meetup at noon featuring Ysolde as 70% adorable/30% menacing Bob.

If I ever got more sheep, I’d have to get something like this. It’s some kind of Leicester, I think–the signage in the sheep barn was pretty obscure–usually just farm names & not breeds. But they’re so cute! I do love that by mid-summer, all of my sheep look like they could be in a sheep-based civil war re-enactment movie, but these clean faces and erect rabbit ears are just so cheery! Cheviots have the naked head and rabbit ears, too, but their noses aren’t so arched, so they don’t have such a kangaroo face.

There was also a farm there showcasing another intriguing breed, the Ouessant, the world’s smallest breed. (No pictures–too blurry, thanks to my aversion to flash photography and my poor low-light skills). It’s a teeny little European black sheep they’re trying to upbreed with imported semen & Shetland ewes (because EU law forbids export of them as live sheep or embryos, apparently). In a couple years of upbreeding, they should have ones that are pure enough to be considered purebred. Ouessants are really wee: ewes are less than 18″ tall at the shoulder and only about 30 pounds!

After a few glances around, I quickly got down to the business of putting myself in the poorhouse. I was pretty restrained yarn-wise:

Future angora mittens (Maybe for the pattern I made last week?), 50% angora, 30% nylon, 20% superwash merino.

Socks that Rock mill ends, lightweight, about 13.5 ounces. Not sure what these will be. Long underwear? I think I’d really need to whittle my ass down a couple sizes to make that work. Or I might sell it. The plan was a sweater, but this color isn’t good close to my face, but I really liked it. This is one of the many colors I really want to look good in (much like the babyshit greens I keep buying) but can’t really pull off.

And more Socks that Rock mill ends, 5.5 ounces. Either socks or a really cushy bunchy cowl.

Fingerlakes Soft wool, 4 ounces. Cowl, probably, or maybe cushy socks! This is like Beaverslide, only finer.

And one lonely skein of random Zeilinger alpaca blend, because I can’t resist the natural browns, but I had enough sense not to buy enough for a sweater, with all the dark brown roving & top I have at home.

See how good I was? Except I wasn’t. I went a little apeshit on the spinning fiber.

Future Sweater #7: Spinner’s Hill batts, wool, 21 ounces. This will be a hoodie like this year’s Rhinebeck hoodie, only with a big pocket! And maybe a zipper, if I’m feeling froggy.

Future Sweater #8: Spinner’s Hill merino batt:  I can’t remember the weight, but, it’s merino, so it will make more yarn than the regular wool, so I should be set for a tight sweater.

Future Sweater #10: Decadent Fibers Jelly Roll. About a pound of Corriedale. Unfortunately, it’s not all rotten watermelon colors; there’s a bunch of blue on the inside. Hopefully, it won’t spin up as mush, and next year, I’ll know to look inside first.

Future Sweater #11 (realistically, a vest): Triple R Farms tri-color wool roving, 8 ounces. More on the rotten watermelon theme.

Future Sweater #12 (again, a vest): Triple R Farms wool & silk roving, 8 ounces. There’s more dimension to the color than you can see here.

Future Sweater #13: Cloverleaf Farms merino top, 12 ounces total.

And some undecided fiber…

Cloverleaf Farms merino top, 4 ounces

Cloverleaf Farms BFL top, 4 ounces

Fingerlakes hog island/alpaca blend, 4 ounces

We went back to the house for a little cheese party of our own before heading out to the Ravelry party. Ravelry hired a school bus to shuttle everyone to the Elks lodge where the party was held. Both Jen & John won prizes, only John didn’t get his, because apparently they wrote the number down wrong. It was definitely his number though, because when they called it out, it was the one right before Jen’s, and she was just after him in line. Poor John. If I’d realized, I would have called witnesses and had them go through the tickets they drew, but apparently John isn’t one to make a stink. So polite. Not me, not when it comes to prizes.

Those earmuffs may be my favorite Rhinebeck souvenir. They’re sheepskin, and I’m hoping wearing them all winter will really keep the sheep on good behavior. If that doesn’t work, I want Ron to make me one of those butcher cuts signs.

Sunday was really wet and miserable, so after we said goodbye to the housemates, we just did a quick run-through of the shops I wanted to hit again, then checked out the photo gallery and the sheep-to-shawl competition. I got to meet Otto & Joann Strauch (as lovely in real life as they are long-distance) and eat a scrumptious lamb kabob with one last batch of freshly-cut fries, then we headed back to Adrian’s, inadvertently (thanks, Garmin) taking the very scenic route. Actually, come to think of it, it really was scenic, all windy roads wending through dense woods, and leading up to snowy winter altitudes then back down into fall. We also got some fantastic ice cream on the way home. After all the fried food and cheese, Adrian made us a huge, delicious salad for dinner, then we packed up all or goodies and heckled Stigmata before hitting the hay.

Of course, Monday was stinkin’ gorgeous, just in time to leave. We ate an amazing breakfast at a sugar shack, then headed back to the airport. I finished up my Rhinebeck project on the plane.

The free pattern is up on CRAFT.

I am officially vowing to book nothing at all for November so that I can spend the whole month organizing and decluttering my crazy, scary, muddle of a life. The only thing I have planned for the month is the time swap I’m doing Mondays with Marta and Spinsters Club at the end of the month.

I will not add anything to the calendar. So there.