One Crazy Fiber Lady

Worry no more about the whole teacher gift knitting quandry.  I’m proclaiming this year the year of the scarf.  I think I had made that decision quite a while ago, January more likely, when I made this.  I can’t find evidence of it, but I vaguely recall proclaiming the scarf the teacher gift for 2006. 

Now if I could just find where I put this scarf, I would be able to cross one of the four off the list.

Worst case scenario?  I buy two skeins of Noro and make a new one.  Aww that would be a tough one, wouldn’t it.  I could make that sacrifice for these teachers. 

In the meantime, I could resist the call of the Irish Hiking Scarf last night.  I started it after dinner while watching some Big Comfy Couch with the twins.  I cast on using some Cascade 220 Superwash in a purple that was aging in stash.  After doing 5 or 6 repeats on a US7 needle, I found the scarf just didn’t have the squoosh factor that I was looking for. 

After the twins went to bed, I went stash diving to see what would squoosh and yet wouldn’t be itchy.  I couldn’t find anything in the store bought yarn and then hit the chest of drawers with the hand spun.  I found what would be the perfect yarn.  Back in 2003, Chris picked me up some lovely cormo/angora roving from Alice Fields at one of the New England festivals.  I had planned on going myself, but I was 4 months pregnant and feeling a little off.  We all decided that it was best for me to sit this one out.  Anyway, Chris picked it up for me.  It was definitely a very yummy roving and I quickly spun it up.  The resulting yarn went into stash though a small amount was made into an infant sweater that I knit while lying on my butt in the hospital.  Sadly, I don’t think it ever went on one of the twins. 

This yarn has serious squoosh.  And the IHS is progressing very nicely.  I can do roughly one repeat in about 10 minutes.  I cast on this scarf last night at 10:30 and did the bulk of this thing today during the normal knitting times (train/lunch).  I did take it in with me to the polling place but there was no line at 6pm and I didn’t need it.  Figures.  Bet if I had left my knitting in the car, the line would have been an hour long!  Anyway…

I think I’m going to forgo the math figuring of how many repeats I need to do at how many repeats per hour to figure out how many remaining hours of knitting I have.  As commenter extraordinaire Rachel H. put it:

Rule number one: Do Not count the remaining stitches. It sucks the life
right out of you.

Thank you for that reminder, Rachel.

Today was one of those excellent mail days.  First up was a pair of shoes that I’ve been eyeing forever at work.  They had been on the 60% off employee discount list forever, but there was a little requirement that they be purchased in the retail stores and not online.  Finding a store isn’t a problem.  There are 4 that I can get to easily, 2 near the office and 2 at home.  The problem is that they start at size 6 in the stores and I have a size 5 foot.  Sigh.  The 5′s are online but no discount online.  I was patient and it finally paid off.  The shoes went on sale and I jumped.  Got em even cheaper than if I could take advantage of the 60 off list as I get 50% off the sale price!  Good things do come to those who wait.

Brooke will probably be amused by this next bit.  One of our stops during the wandering around the fairgrounds at the festival was the fleece sale.  I was taken by a gorgeous corriedale fleece that was just sooooooo clean and well, perfect.  Except it was 8.9 pounds and really, I’m at SABLE, I just don’t need that much raw wool.  So, while I lusted after the thing, I walked away from it, reluctantly.  It did come up again in conversation though, and I had been tempted to go back, but it and then drop it off at one of the processors.  But then there was that whole not needing all that much wool still hanging around.  I remember clearly telling Brooke that we’d not go back and that surely someone else had bought the thing.  I do have to admit that as my group was forming for the long car ride home, and the sale was right there, I did check.  If it had been there, I would have bought it.  Sadly, it wasn’t there.

I found out though that it hadn’t been bought, just picked up by its shepherd.  How did I know this?  Marcia had been oogling the same fleece over the course of the weekend!  She did me one better though and got the contact info for the shepherd.  Long story short, we split the thing!  My half arrived from Marcia today.  This thing is as gorgeous as I remember it.  Though it isn’t as tippy as this photograph is showing.  Not sure what is up with that. 

And a closeup of the yummy goodness:

Each lock is just perfect.  Look at that crimp!  I ain’t sending this out for processing.  I’m going to give it some tender loving care at home.

Well time to watch House and then to bed.  I have an early deployment (6AM) of a project that I’ve been working on for the last couple of months.  Fortunately, unlike the previous and obnoxious employer, I had to be onsite.  The current employer recognizes that I can copy files using a computer from anywhere.  Which blessedly includes my laptop whilst lying on my bed, which is btw, where I am no whilst writing this!

Craft on my lovelies.