On Tuesday I told you how much we were enjoying traveling through the Southwest.  We had arrived in Las Cruces, NM and were headed to Roswell, NM to visit old high school friends.  We had a great time in Roswell, catching up on 20+ years of news with people we wish we saw more often.

We left our friends’ house in the morning in search of coffee, and were going to head to Amarillo, TX to see other friends.  As we were ordering our coffee, I had a text message from Sherie about the weather.  Who would expect a blizzard in Texas at the end of March?  Sigh…

So we sat down with the map and tried to figure out how to get to Memphis by Saturday.  After much hemming and hawing, we decided to drop down to I-20 and head for Abilene.  If the blizzard-y weather continued East on Friday, we could always stay on 20 and go straight to Birmingham.

We made it to Abilene without incident, and decided to head for Memphis on Friday, laying over in Little Rock.  When we got to our hotel in Arkansas and looked at the current weather maps, we knew someone was watching out for us.  We had encountered narry a drop of ice, snow or rain all the way.  What we didn’t know is that we had traveled between two systems, the one that closed down I-40 in the panhandle of Texas, and another that followed I-20 behind us, causing havoc in Louisiana and Mississippi.

So here we are with the kids and their darling baby.  The boys are all watching basketball, Meagan is working and I’m getting ready to go to the grocery store.  I’ve hardly knit a thing on this trip because I’ve been so tense about the weather.  I sure am glad to be back in familiar territory, with the prospect of sleeping in my own bed tomorrow.  And rescuing the poor dog from the kennel.  Apparently she went to work several days this week and was pretty unhappy that she had to go back to the kennel at night.  I bet she’ll be happy to see us tomorrow.  I know I’ve missed her.

tap, tap (sound of someone blowing into a mic) Hello? Hello? Does this thing work? It’s been so long since I’ve posted on this poor blog, that it took some doing to get back in. I’m traveling again, so it’s time for show and tell.

Here we go again!

BJ Bass and I are on a road trip. The short version of the story is that my mother was recently declared legally blind, so she’s no longer driving. Baby Bass’ parents could use a car to drive him around town in style, so I’m getting my mother’s car and they’re getting mine.

Bass and I flew to Arizona on Monday. Picked up Mom and the title to the car and went to the nearest DMV office. The nice lady at the DMV told us that Mom would get a refund on the fee for the license plates (since they stay with her, not the car), and showed us how to apply for the refund online. Which I started to do after dinner. And found that we’d transferred title to the wrong car. I now owned my step-father’s car.

So back to the DMV on Tuesday morning with the right title, the wrong title and Mom. If you ever make a car title mistake, do it in Arizona. The entire staff of this DMV office went out of their way to make the process of backing out yesterday’s transfer, issuing a new, clean title to my step-father and then transfering the proper title to me just as easy and painless as can be.

Welcome to New Mexico!

Between one thing and another, we didn’t leave Sun City West until noon. The drive to New Mexico was long, but filled with interesting sights. I never get tired of looking at the different kinds of mountains around here. Some are lumpy, some look like fabric has been draped over them and some look like the scenery from my favorite Western movies.

We arrived in Las Cruces, NM too late to do anything but grab a quick bite to eat and collapse. The restaurant at the hotel was closed, but the bar was still serving food. Who knew you could get a burrito with homemade green chile sauce in a bar? That and a beer made us both happy campers for the evening.

Wall painting behind our bed in Las Cruces

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about my knitting.

Good lord, a lot has happened since I last wrote, though I guess that’s to be expected, since it’s been a couple weeks. I do apologize for not writing sooner, though I suppose I have a good enough excuse, as this last week I’ve been completely bed-ridden with the flu. Let me tell you—the flu is nasty stuff. I don’t remember ever being so sick. I’m stubborn and often refuse to go to the doctor when I’m feeling under the weather, but I was feeling so awful by Sunday morning that I finally dragged myself down to the urgent care clinic to be seen by a doctor. Five hours later, I had a diagnosis of the flu, a $50 copay bill, and a $110 copay worth of prescription drugs. Being sick ain’t cheap, even with health insurance! And I’ve got the expensive PPO health insurance, not the HMO option that costs less but also covers less. I can’t imagine what this all would have cost without health insurance.

And then, as if the flu weren’t bad enough, this Wednesday I fell (the drugs I was on made me a little dizzy) and really messed up my ankle. I thought it was broken—I’ve twisted my ankle dozens of times, and it had never felt like this before. My wonderful co-worker, Jenny, came and picked up and drove me to the ER and sat with me while they ran X-rays and all that. Thankfully, the ankle wasn’t broken, just severely sprained, but I’ve still got to wear this big bulky boot while the muscles heal. The ER visit was another $100 copay (though I did get a nice boot and some crutches for my expenses…).

All these medical bills are eating into my yarn budget! Not cool. On the plus side, I am feeling decidedly better this evening, and I’m hoping to have made a full recovery from both flu and injured ankle by Monday. Okay, the ankle may not be fully healed by then (they want me to see an orthopaedist to make sure there’s not any tendon damage), but at least I’ll be able to go back to work.

ANYway… other than being sick and injured, lots has happened in the last two or three weeks. On February 19th, I received my new Fiberphile yarn in the mail (yay!) and immediately cast on for a pair of socks. I started off with the Drift Wood colorway using the Pillars pattern by Lisa Stichweh (Ravelry link).

Fiberphile Mosaic in colorway Drift Wood

Pillars socks WIP in Fiberphile Mosaic Drift Wood

First Pillars sock completed!

I finished the first sock at the urgent care clinic on Saturday while I was waiting for my test results to come back (the ones that eventually told me I did, indeed, have the flu). The doctors and nurses were all completely mesmerized by the sock knitting. The main doctor who was treating me told me I reminded her of her favorite grandmother, who used to knit socks all the time.

I’m nearly finished with the second sock. Staying home all day every day for a week does give you plenty of time to get some decent knitting done, and I was glad to have this brainless pattern to work on. Cables and complicated lace weren’t gonna cut it when I was doped up on meds, but simple stockinette was easy enough.

At any rate… so the weekend after I started the socks, Franklin Habit paid a visit to Raleigh. On Saturday, February 21st, he did a book reading/signing at Yarns Etc. in Chapel Hill promoting his new book, It Itches. There was a huge turnout (we ran out of chairs! So I got to sit on the floor, which I actually prefer anyway…), and everyone had a great time.

Afterwards, I drove him back to his hotel, and we chatted about Mom and her store (Franklin did the last 1000 Knitters photo shoot and the first It Itches book signing there back in November), yarn stores worth visiting in Chicago (since I go to Chicago on business 1-2 times per year), and cameras (since he was teaching a photography class in Raleigh the next day).

Which brings me to Sunday, February 22nd, when Franklin taught his photography class at Great Yarns in Raleigh. We had another great turn-out that morning. Franklin talked a lot about light and color and how the former affects the latter. He taught us all the basics of how to adjust our cameras settings for indoor, outdoor, and various light settings.

He discussed shutter speed and focal length, and he even brought out his beautiful new lace shawl to demonstrate how some fabrics are really shown at their best when there’s a hint of motion in play. Not that the photo below is the perfect example of that—it’s by no means a great photo, but at least there’s motion…

He also taught us how to make a cheap, simple lightbox, which is a really useful tool when you have to photograph something small indoors. (I use one all the time.)

After about a 45-minute discussion, he turns us to our own devices and let us play with our cameras, photographing the small projects and yarns we’d brought with us. Everyone seemed to be having a great time, and it was really nice to see people helping each other out, locating the right settings on the various cameras (because of course, no one’s cameras were exactly the same) and suggesting different ways to photograph items in interesting ways.

Afterwards, many people came by to say that they had such a wonderful time and learned so much. I know I can speak for everyone at Great Yarns and Yarns Etc. when I say thank you to Franklin for coming and sharing your time and knowledge with us! We all had a fabulous time!

So, as if my weekend weren’t already busy enough, I decided to dye yarn when I got home after the photography class. I’d been putting it off for entirely too long, and I was itching to play with color. So I pulled out all my dyes and the undyed sock yarn I had stashed away, and I spent the entire afternoon and evening dyeing up a bunch of yarn. And here are the fruits of my labor:

Grass Stain

Autumn Iris

Cirque du Fête

Gypsy

Sea Candy

Pomegranate

Waikiki

Lady Lavender Grey

So, there’s the recap of my life for the last three weeks. Hopefully next time I post, another three weeks won’t have passed, and I won’t have to inundate you with so many pictures all at once! So, til then (whenever “then” happens to be), happy knitting!

I sit out on my porch a lot, especially when the weather is nice (and many times even when it’s not—one of the down-sides of being a smoker, though thankfully my porch is covered, so at least I don’t get wet when it rains). My co-worker, AK, knows this and gave me one of the bird houses she’s been making out of hollowed-out gourds.

The one she gave me was a prototype, and I was the perfect recipient for it. The way the hole is positioned, it allows any rain that falls on it to pour into the gourd, which probably isn’t ideal for any birds that happen to be residing inside. So, knowing that I had a covered porch that would protect from rain, she gave the prototype to me. No birds have moved in yet, but it’s only been up since Friday, so we’ll see what happens as we get closer to spring. :)

In economic matters, I yet again bought more yarn. I really need to stop doing this. But there’s this indy dyer whose work I’ve been lusting after for some time now. And when I saw her latest shop update (a little after midnight—the most dangerous time to start poking around Etsy), I just couldn’t resist any longer. I clicked, and clicked again, and after a few more clicks, I had $60 worth of hand-dyed sock yarn on its way to me. I should feel some buyers’ remorse, especially given that they just announced a company-wide salary cut at work this past week, but I don’t. I’ve wanted her sock yarn for a long time, and soon I’ll have it. And if it means giving up Starbucks for a few weeks, then so be it. Totally worth it, IMHO.

And you, too, can be the happy owner of such lovely wares. Just head over to her Etsy shop and splurge to your heart’s delight. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

Ordering more sock yarn had me thinking about my huge stash. Granted, it’s not huge compared to some people’s (*cough*mom*cough*), but it’s pretty big. And it’s grown exponentially in the last few months, what with shopping at mom’s store over Christmas and all the sock yarn purchases I’ve made at Great Yarns recently. I hadn’t gotten a lot of my newer stash put away — it was all sitting in boxes and bags. I thought perhaps one of the best ways to make myself stop buying new yarn was to have all my current stash on display so that I can really appreciate just how much of it there actually is.

So this weekend, I went out and bought another addition to my modular yarn display and got everything put away. It’s mind-boggling how much there really is.

That top box is almost entirely sock yarn. There’s a bit of laceweight up there, too, but about 95% of it is sock yarn. Intellectually, I knew how much sock yarn I had, but it wasn’t until I got it all put up on display that it really hit home. There’s over 70 socks worth of sock yarn up there. And that doesn’t even include the new stuff from Fiberphile that’s on its way here.

I posted this sentiment to Twitter immediately after I finished putting it all away.

17:32 Whoohoo, I just reorganized my stash! And holy crap, I have a lot of sock yarn. Where’d all that come from??

My SIL’s response?

you can make your sister-in-law some socks!

All in good time, my dear. :) All in good time.

Meanwhile, I’m still plugging away at the Nantucket Jacket. I’m bound and determined to finish this sweater before I cast on for any new large projects. And it’s coming along nicely. I’m happy to report that my continental-knitting gauge is identical to my english-knitting gauge, so I’m knitting away speedily on the rest of this in continental. (Makes it so much easier, since I don’t have to unkink the yarn every 2 rows, which was made all the more tedious by the fact that I’m alternating skeins with this sweater, as I’m using hand-dyed yarn for it.)

Mom helped me pick out buttons for the sweater while I was home for Christmas. They’re so pretty, and they work perfectly with the color and style of the sweater. I can’t wait til I’m ready to sew them on! :)

And speaking of hand-dyed yarn, I was really hoping to dye some of my own this weekend. But unfortunately, housework and errands just got in the way. So, my new plan is to play with myPANTONE this afternoon to come up with some palettes, and then I’ll set aside next Sunday afternoon to dye. That is, if I still have any energy after Franklin’s photography class. :)

If you haven’t been to myPANTONE, and you love colors, I highly suggest visiting the site. It’s entirely too much fun — you can view other users’ color palettes and create ones of your own. I think it’s an especially useful tool for dyers who need some color inspiration. There are thousands of user-created palettes to browse through, such as these:

And on that note, it’s time for me to go. I’m going to see Australia (finally) at the dollar theater with friends this afternoon, and there’s still tons of work to be done around the house before I can leave! So, I’m off for now. If I can get these chores done today, perhaps I will actually find time in the semi-near future to actually get some dyeing done! Wish me luck.

I’m terrible when it comes to keeping track of things. Physical things, anyway. I’m rather obsessive regarding calendars and to-do lists (thanks, Mom), but when it comes to remembering where I put my shoes? or my phone charger? Good luck. If it weren’t for the hook next to the door, I’d never know where my keys were.

And yet, this little guy here has been with me since 2002, through three moves, one of them even to a new state.

He’s a little lizard charm that came in my special-edition packaging of Tori Amos’s 2002 album Scarlet’s Walk. The album came with all sorts of other extras, like stickers, a DVD, and a map, all of which I’ve since lost. But this little guy refuses to be misplaced. He just hangs out on my bookshelf, minding his own business.

If only my tennis shoes were so stubborn.

A few days ago, I got a Ravelry message from Hannah, who works at Yarns Etc. She just wanted to introduce herself and say hi, which was very nice. So, I decided that this weekend, I would trek out to Chapel Hill to visit Yarns Etc., since I hadn’t been down there since they moved to their new location. (They moved this past August from their Carrboro shop to the spot where Knit-a-Bit used to be.)

When I got there, Hannah luckily recognized me from my Ravatar (that’d be a Ravelry user icon, or avatar, for those of you who are non-knitters), so I didn’t have to stand there awkwardly trying to figure out who she was for too long. (I didn’t know what she looked like, because her Ravatar is picture of her cute cat, Felix.)

The Chapel Hill store is lovely — so open and colorful and welcoming. What surprised me was the differences in inventory, as I had assumed (incorrectly, apparently) that they carried exactly the same stuff we did in Raleigh. Most of it was the same, but there were definitely some differences. The main difference being that they have fiber. FIBER! I’m jealous. (Though, on second thought, it’s probably safer for my pocketbook that Great Yarns doesn’t carry fiber.) So, of course, I had to buy some. What’d I get? 4 oz of some absolutely gorgeous (and soft!) black alpaca.

The Chapel Hill store also carries a bunch of products from Three Waters Farm, a local farm that sells “Handpainted Yarns, Rovings, Felt, Silk, Spinning Wheels, Looms, accessories, and Goat’s Milk Soap.” There was a beautiful display of their handpainted sock yarn on one of the walls, and I couldn’t resist. (I say that a lot, don’t I?) What I particularly liked about this yarn, though, was the array of colors it came in. They were all, for the most part, very masculine colors. And wouldn’t you know it, the next pair of gift socks I’ve got queued up are for a man. (Haha, yes — I did just refer to Wes as a “man.”) So, I bought a skein. Of course.

What amused me even more was that when I got home and actually looked at the colorway name, it was called “Man Sock.” Heh.

So I sat around and knit with everyone who had gathered around the table. And while it wasn’t terribly busy there (a fact we blamed on the 75° weather we had today), there were a number of customers who stopped by — regulars from what I understood. And spinners, too!

One of the women who came in is, in fact, the person hosting this week’s spin session of the Twisted Threads guild, a guild which I’ve been wanting to join for several years now, but haven’t due to logistics. However, there have been many discussions lately on the topic of changing dates/times/locations of their meetings, and should those changes occur, it might actually be feasible for me to join the guild. And I’d really, really like to join. It’s just really hard for me to drive 30+ miles each way on a weekday night after work to attend a meeting in an area that’s completely unfamiliar to me. But they’re talking about moving one of the meetings each month to a centralized meeting spot in Raleigh, and that would certainly be more than feasible more times than not. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Anyway, so on my drive home, I started thinking about knitting socks (which is, in all fairness, understandable, since I had just purchased some new sock yarn… again…). And that got me thinking about the tools I use for knitting socks. I’ve got two small bags I use for my sock projects, and a handy little tin I use to keep my dpns (sock needles) in. See?

The bags were ones that Mom’s given me over the years. The tin I got from my boss—it originally held a very nice bar of German chocolate. And it’s absolutely perfect for holding small needles and a few other spare knick-knacks, like a stray stitch holder.

What are your essential knitting accessories?