Madrona

Last weekend was Madrona Fiberfest in Tacoma. Lynne and I drove down on Thurday night and spent the next four days taking classes, eating (lots of good Thai food and martinis), catching up with friends, making new friends and of course, SHOPPING.
Yup. I bought a little bit of fibre. BFL, merino, silk, cashmere, the usual suspects. Check out those batts! I got them from this lady who was very nice, but kept bringing more stuff that was nearly impossible to resist. By day two, we were openly comparing the vendors to crack dealers. "Here little girl, the first bit is free, tell your friends." Insert evil laugh here.


Purchased a small amount of yarn as well. Blue Moon was the first booth to decimate my cash supply, but others quickly joined the fray. I'm nothing if not consistant.


I only bought the two Spindlewood spindles on the left at Madrona, and yes, one of them is square. I did notice. It spins really well despite it's obvious deformity. The two spindles on the right were waiting for me on Monday night. They're the now infamous Bosworths, a featherweight in really deeply coloured pink ivory and ebony and a moosie. They are exquisite. And they're actually here. Amazing.


The other nifty thing waiting for me on Monday was this package from my SpintoKnit pal. It's a large skein of very soft spindle spun merino/silk and some nice teas. I think the yarn needs to be a scarf. Many thanks to the nice person who sent it!


And if you've stuck with this post to the bitter end, here's a pic of the guy who drove our troop carrier (you read that right) in the Dominican Republic. We stopped in a sugar cane field and he whipped out a rather large knife to cut some for us to try. The Dominican Republic was an interesting place. Sugar is their main product for export followed very far behind by rum. Our tour took us to the back of a cafe where two people were making cigars, through huge cane fields and out to a refinery. Every time we stopped, we had to drink some rum. So basically, they got a bunch of tourists loaded and then put them on a boat that felt like it would sink at any moment. Exciting! I especially liked guessing which drunken tourist would puke first. Fortunately, no one did. Not even me. And we made it back to the cruise ship without having to swim for it. A nice and somewhat surprising bonus.

Last week was very productive.
Things were dyed:
Like this merino/silk for Holly.
Things were knit:
A pair of plain old socks in superwash merino.
Things were reknit:
It's the right size now and we're not to speak of this again.
This is the beach I enhanced my dose of skin cancer on in St Maarten. No one needs to ask why I want to live there anymore do they? Okay, except for the half-naked (as in only swimsuit bottoms) aging tourists, it's pretty much paradise. Be happy I spared you the view of the very large old man wearing nothing but a bright orange string thong that greeted our arrival.

Oh! I almost forgot. Chrissy had posted this on her blog a while back and I think everyone needs to see it. It's real. I know, I couldn't believe it either, but apparently it was made in New Zealand last year and is looking for distribution. I could not stop laughing. Enjoy.

Got Gauge?

I don't. I am an idiot. I got cocky and didn't swatch and now I have the joy of reknitting the sweater that I had pretty much finished last week.
Crap.

Some retail therapy occurred in the recent past in the form of the CTH New Years Sale, a trip to a sort of local YS and spindle enabling via Kerry. The spindles are a Beeswing and Satinwood Lizzie and a Mahogany and Purpleheart Emily. Both are from Adam 's Woodshop.


After five days at sea with nothing at all around us except half naked europeans and flying fish, we docked in Guadeluope. This island is technically part of France, so I got to subject people to what I remembered of school french. We bought lots of spices and some beautiful fresh fruit and wandered around the town a little. It was off-season there, so it was very quiet. We did go on a tour here to a nature preserve.
The brochure said, "Suspended walkways allow you to wander through the canopy, from one tree to the next at a height of at least 15 metres aboove the ground." This was the reality:


Being tethered by two carabieners to cables so you can inch your way along a pair of 1 x4s didn't seem very condusive to "wandering". Not to mention the fact that a have a fear of heights and spent the entire time staring at my feet so I wouldn't plunge off the tiny pieces of wood to my certain and surely embarrassingly slow death.

Snow, WIP and some FOs

New new year is already almost two weeks in and I'm behind. How does this happen?! I'm always doing stuff, so how am I so behind? WTF!?! But it's not all bad so far. The monkey finally said, "uncle" and gave up his old beater. This is his new baby. He loves it more than me I suspect. He gets this sappy grin on his face every time he looks at it.
And while dealing with car salesmen was not a treat, it was fun to tell one of them that the monkey's only stipulation was that it be blue. The salesman only paused for a moment, but it was a fun moment.


I have managed to get a few things done. I've got my Second Sock Syndrome package ready to mail. I used STR in the light weight and Sivia's Reptilian Lace pattern from Knitty. My pal wanted to try knitting socks on two circs, hope she likes the colours. Sorry,but I can't remember what that colourway is called. I've also got the first skein for the Spin to knit swap done. I used some Targhee roving that had been dyed in red, purple and brown and spun it to a light DK. That parcel will be ready for mailing by Saturday.


Here's the Kochoran hoodie finally sewn up. This sucker's been sitting on the arm of the couch for over a week. I just didn't want to do it. I have no idea why. I love this sweater. It's huge, soft and really warm, things that I desperately need since it decided to snow again yesterday. I hate snow! St Maarten here I come!


And on the needles right now is the Trinity pullover from CTH in potluck bulky. Weird pattern, it's knit from cuff to cuff and then picked up and knit down for the front and back. It's working up very fast and despite big shade variations in the skeins, it doesn't seem to show in the knitting. Should have it done by Monday. Wonder how long it'll sit on th earm of my chair before I sew it up...


The second stop on our cruise was Tenerife in the Canary Islands. We were a little thrown when we arrived as we'd both expected a quaint tropical island, but it's a modern bustling city. We didn't have a scheduled tour here and spent the first part of the day wandering around. We found a public market and bought spices and fruit and then used my pathetic spanish to take a cab to the other side of the island to a place called "La Casa del los Balconies".
La Casa is a tourist spot where they've restored one of the old houses to the way it was when the missionaries were there. It's sort of like a museum complete with mildly creepy mannequins playing house in the rooms. It was a bit of a disappointment, but the view of the ocean and the volcano from there was great! The cabbie was really nice and took us on a site-seeing tour of that side of the island. Banana plantations, black sand beaches and wild poinsettias everywhere. It's a really pretty place. This pic of the Tenerife parliament building and an old fort called the Black Castle. It's kind of a neat contrast with the ultra modern and the very old side by side.

SSSSwap

I think this will be the last swap I join for a little while. It is pretty brilliant though, just knit the first sock and send the rest of the stuff on to it's new home. I have no trouble at all making one sock!
Sorry guys, this is yet another questionnaire. A more interesting post tomorrow, involving FOs and the monkeys new wheels.
1. What are you favorite sock yarns?
Trekking ombres, STR, pretty much anything hand-dyed and I'd like to try the new Colinette jitterbug (Kerry, you're such an enabler!)
2. What are your least favorite sock yarns? Anything you just cannot use? I have a rather extreme dislike of acylic for socks and I'm not fond of alpaca for socks either. Don't get me wrong, I love alpaca, I just don't think it wears well for socks and I do WEAR my socks.
3. What method do you prefer to use (DPN's, 2 circs, 1 circ, etc.) I use four dpns. I've tried the other methods and I always go back to four dpns. Creature of habit.
4. Is there any method that you cannot use? Haven't found one yet.
5. What are you favorite colors? Blues, burgundies, purples and anything in-between. Not big on yellow or orange.
6. Are you a beginner, intermediate, or more advanced sock knitter? I guess fairly advanced.
7. Any other info you want to share (such as other likes, dislikes, hobbies, etc) I don't like cooked tomatos or boy bands.
8. Last, but not least, what are your sock measurements? 7.5