Hello!!

Tokena's are done:



Cascade Heritage in Butter and Plum using 2.75mm Signature arts needles.
Cast on 937am on Sat April 4, 2009 Cast off 616pm April 8, 2009. Wheww, relax a bit before Round 3 of Sock Madness launches.

Ordered the some parts for the wheel. Sadly this wheel is no longer in production and only one vendor I have found, Detta's Spindles, has any spares for it and even she reports supplies are getting lean. The owner of the company is no longer making anything for the wheels, but is slowly cleaning out existing inventory. Fortunatley offers to repair existing wheels and pieces though.

Ordered some basics, drive bands(string), oil bottle with the fancy tip, some of the leather bits, instruction manual for the care of my Country Craftsman adn 3 bobbins and a standard whorl(10:1) which are backordered.

Detta was wonderful to talk to. Very helpful and informative about my wheel and what I would need and could do without as well as the over all status of future parts. I may stock up a bit on the available stuff just to be safe and order a few more bobbin in the future as my wheel will only accomadate the 2 ounce version with the flyer I have and the 4 oz flyer is no longer available. THough if any knows of anyone willing to part or finds one, huhhmmm, hint hint, lol.

We interrupt.....

This sock -

Notes Sock Madness III Round 2 - Tokena using Cascade Heritage in Butter and Plum.

For This!!!!

A spinning wheel for me!!! A gracious and wonderful gift from my mother in laws friend Linda!!

The Makers Mark is there on the bottom: The country Craftsman Littleton, MA J Rooney.

Needs a little cleaning up and drive bands, and a new piece of leather string for the treatd and will have to find more bobbins, but can't wait!!. It is near perfect condition!!!

thank you Linda!!!!

Of Spring and Madness

Upon waking this morning, my lovely kidley, runs into the room, yelling "It's snowing Mommy, it's snowing!!" Not quite awake and there not even being rain in the forcast from my vague recollection, and half of mind maybe the satellite box wasn't turned on for his morning toons, I pull back the curtain, and danged if he wasn't right!! Spring being 21 minutes away when the pics where shot.

This was the gooood snow we had been waiting for all winter. Heavy, wet, perfect for packing. Unfortunately I don't think it will still be around when we get home :o(

Of Sock Madness....

It is that time of year again, when the squeaks of sneakers fill the courts, basketballs flying and March Madness overtakes the airwaves (No Survivor last night to watch, dang it!!) And for others, 199 to be exact the Divisions have been set (For Whom the Ball Rolls, Great Knitspectations, Purl and Prejudice and the House of Seven Cables) we're a literate bunch aren't we!!
Round 1 has begun with Mer-tini by Ronni Smith aka raspberry of Rav.


My progress as of 9ish this morning. Learning new things. A new cast on(Twisted German), an afterthought heel with flap(coming soon to a sock near you) and an e wrap cast on. Not progressing as fast as I want, taking breaks more frequantly and icing down the thumb and wrist. Icy hot is my friend, thankfully Andy likes the smell, lol.

News of other Importance...

Joseph turned 4

James turned 18(sorry no new pics of him :o(

Baby passed of lung cancer Feb 9. It was sudden, she suddenly was sick and we went to the vet and we didn't have any options, it was to far advanced, she passed peacefully.

We are heading out on vacation, sometime tomorrow. Driving to Tennessee, to Gatlinburg and the Smoky Mountains, coming home via North Carolina and the BlueRidge Parkway. Will hopefully post a bit of the trip.

Take care ttyl !!

The War is over and other things

Well Sock Wars III ended on May 14 for me. Good news was it was a mutual kill. I died with a lovely pair of Detonators, that arrived in a plain brown wrapper, quite unassuming...... even got a kitty sniff for my death socks......

and I killed off my target within the same day. Took me 3 days to knit up this pair, using Tofutsies. Pattern is a little hard to see with the pics, but I liked it none the less, learned how hard it is to count by three's, hmmmmm

In other combative news. Sock Madness ended a while ago for me after 3 rounds, Zombie, Reversai and Slippin'Stripin. Round 4 was Shady, which I started, but around the time of the heel turn, my "sock" started whispering to me. What was it whispering you say....."Glove" it was saying, but your a sock I said, "I need a thumb gussett" it says back. So I listened to the WIP and gussetted and thumbed and 1 fingerless glove latter: FIrst pic would have been the front of the sock and the palm side would have been the back of the leg.

In other sock news, I am a glutton for punishment or just really not quite right in the head.... I signed up for SOS08 (Summer of Socks 2008) or how many pairs can you knit between 6/21 and 9/1. And if that wasn't bad enough I signed up for the 52 Pair plunge II or see if you can knit 52 pairs of socks in a year, which starts 6/1......

Onto other events....

Had a great time at Maryland Sheep and Wool with my Mom and Sis. We got lost following the directions to the fairgrounds, but ended up there anyway with a minimal not real circle detour, the right and left thing ya know...LOL. The few pics I took are up in my flickr stream. Had a wonderful dinner Saturday night at a place called Pasta Plus in Laurel. Unassumming from the outside, wait was almost 45 mins, but Oh my stars was the food worth it!!!! and the prices!!! The three of us, with entrees, 2 desserts and sodas, just under $60!!! Defenitely worth the wait and would go back again next time I am in the area, just get there a little earlier....

Missed the Rav Party, by the time dinner was done and the sunshiney day caught up with me, I was wiped and it was late. Maybe next year or there will be something at Stitches this fall.

But MDS&W, if I go next year will need a definite plan. Missed more than I saw this time wandering the way I did. Had a good time and did get what I planned on (to be shown later), but the place is HUGE and packed with vendors and people. The bathroom line was as looonnnggggg on Saturday, not to bad on Sunday though.

As to the shopping, I stayed on budget and bought what I intended, what I needed to learn to spin the drop spindle way!

Two Spindles, the one on the left a Jim Childs from Hatchett Farms and the one on the right a Bosworth. Both were on my to eval list and very happy with my purchases. Did go by Goldings booth, very nice, very pretty, but not on budget this year. The roving in the middle pic is Corriedale, picked up at the Coopworth Registry Booth. The end pic is some MErino Roving in Forest from Cloverleaf Farms and the green orange purple is from the Coopworth Registry as well. Not shown here is some lovely BFL(Blue Faced Leicester) in a natural grey and cream, that Mom picked up for me at Mystic Farms on the way out. All in all walked out with a little over a pound of roving.

Spinning is going, not to bad so far, lots of videos on You tube I have bookmarked, helped some and some bolstering and encourgement from Kathrine from my Twisted Stichers knit group helped a lot more, when she confirmed I was doing it right and not to shabby for my first go around.

Let's see what else. After MDS&W, went to to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island with the Mom and Sis. A great time was had by all. Mych different trip this time, wasn't sure how I would handle it. Background the last time and the first time I went there was 2 days before 9/11. Didn't know at that time that I would be in the city again so soon and for such tragedy as an EMT. I took skyline shots from the boat again, someday may compare them to the first set.....

Spent some quiet, reflective time on the bow of the boat going back to Liberty State Park, thinking about how things change and stay the same, trying to find some new peace or acceptance about that day and still can't.

The last day of Mom and Sis's trip we went South. South NJ that is, heading for Millville and Wheaton Village. Watched a glass blowing demonstration, purused the shops. Will go back again. You can make appointments to do a glass workshop, make a paperwieght, vase or beads. Really cool, lot of other stuff to do when the are fully open, very artsy craftsy type of place. Learned a lot about the glass industry in NJ too.

Then off to AC (Atlantic City) since we were so close. Went to the Trump Taj Majhal, had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, pretty good actually..... saw the last of the sun on the beach... a few hands of black jack (I broke even) and Sis hit the Pai Gao tables (I am happy I can count to 21 without trying to hard).

Well I will close out the post with this......

puddle jumping in the rain, he had a blast and was soaked to the knees....

Sock Madness Round 1 - Zombies!!!

Well I took on the challange of Sock Madness. I started a little late, pattern was released on Thursday March 13, while I was at work for a 5p-1a shift. And considering I had forgotten all about signing up for it, doh! I perused my Rav stash while on break, trying to figure what of my stash would work, had 5 picked out. Got home crashed, woke up got J ready for school A ready for work myself ready for work, took a minute to find my never used KP Options 3.0mm circulars x2, and the first yarn bin held the Tofutsies #737 Footsteps, one of the five. I took this as a sign, dumped all into my bag(needles and 1 skein of yarn) and left for work.


So to re-cap, cast on Friday March 14(don't ask me what time I was happy to be awake), kitchnered off today Friday March 21 at 146pm EST. My fingers are achy, my hands have a nice fine tremor and I am ready for round 2!!!!

In other news.... I picked up someMMMMMalabrigo laceweight, I know I wasn't supposed to buy any more for a while, but I didn't have any appropriate or not already earmarked lace weight in the stash, and Sock madness one pattern will require lace weight, soooo.... I picked up, Pearl ten( alovely greyish brown and pagoda also lovely in a soft burgandy color, and is it nummy soft or WHAT!! this is snuggle stuff, cuddle along your neck downy chick soft. Delivered with the wonderfully great service from Jen at WoolGirl. With some lovely, sniffable Banana Butter lip balm from naiad soap arts, tastey!. Oop and a great stitch Marker from sinneshine. I will add it to my collection.

I will say, being in multiple swaps and in the truely most excellent sock clubs from Jen, I have amassed a wonderful collection of unique stitich markers. So much so I have displayed them when not in use. Will post pics soon, as photo uploads are a pain in the tushie, I have lost and currently have on order the usb cable for the decent digital camera. In the mean time using the older digital camera which is not vista compliant, guess what I run. So I have to find a systme still wiht XP, which happens to be for work, hmmm. So photos generally get uploaded once a week off the old camera which I need the right lighting to get good yarn shots.... But back to the stitch markers, got a great little jewelers board(black) from Fire Mountain Gems with some silver u hooks for a great price and have them all displayed and sitting on my desk for me to enjoy.

Other than that everything and one is doing great. Getting ready for a great Easter weekend wiht the family, hoping the weather holds for Sunday so we can take J to an Easter Egg Hunt at a local church. And lots of great homemade food!!!! kielbasa, ham, homemade chicken noodle soup, bread, all super nummy!!

Have a Happy Easter All!!!!!