winged orange

Hope everyone enjoys their parties and their trick or treating! :)

We’ve had the first really cold snap of the year. It’s 49 today. When the first cold, “Oh my god, it might actually be Fall!” snap of the year rolls around, I grab a cup of tea, sit down, and figure out that most heinous of all lists: Holiday Knitting.

I get burned by Holiday Knitting every. Bloody. Year. But not this year. This year I started in AUGUST. As a result, I have the better portion of a number of gifts finished. :) Well, that, and the fact that my crappy temp job has the “benefit” (for me) of being in the real estate industry. Since the housing market is so bad right now, not a whole lot prospective buyers come in, which means that I really have nothing to do at work but sit at my desk and knit. I also set reasonably more attainable goals for myself. So this year, the Holiday Knitting List includes:

• Black and gray striped/color-block scarf for Scott’s sister (5 stripes of 15 completed)
• Cross-stitch piece for Scott’s mom (not knitting, but still heinous; about half done)
• Fetchings for my mom (1 mitt of 2 completed)
• Felted clogs for my mom, and potentially Scott’s mom and grandmother (haven’t started these yet)
• Baby items for my friend Kate’s twins (unstarted but unconcerned – if I run out of time, I can scrap the sweater ideas and do hats, mittens, and booties instead)

See, it’s really not so bad. When was the last time you saw me with this many holiday knitting projects and had that much work actually done on them?! I’m confident for this year’s round of Holiday Knitting. I can knock out a block or two on the scarf a day depending on how my wrist feels and what I’m doing. I can also finish the other Fetching in a few hours if I need to, but those will be done and wrapped by Thanksgiving. The only thing I’m a little nervous about is the baby knitting, but Kate’s not due until January so I may have some leeway there.

Oh, and the devil-spawn cross-stitch piece. I just hate that thing. :P But I can work on that when my wrist hurts, so it has its place, I guess.

Maybe this year I can actually scream, “I finished all my Holiday Knitting!” on Dec. 24. And then hell might just freeze over. ;)

So. On Monday night, after Amanda had left and I’d taken a good long nap, I sat up and played with my Rhinebeck haul. And I made a pumpkin:

There may or may not be two more, one slightly bigger “papa punkin” and one slightly smaller “papoose punkin” running (rolling?) around my apartment. That kit was well worth the $26 – there’s enough fiber left in it for at least four more pumpkins the size of the one in the photo. I’m going to felt them all up and split them between me and my mom. :) My friend Lizz came to spend the night yesterday, en route back to Maryland, and she was so tickled with the process and “the noise that it almost doesn’t make” (it’s kind of a scratching as you poke the fiber) that she’s going to home to order her own pumpkins. Lizz doesn’t knit. She barely crochets. She has yarn at home and has – ready? – no idea where it is. And she doesn’t care.

But yeah, I made a pumpkin. Lizz and I learned that I need a Flickr Pro account (none of my old pictures of Snitch are showing up because I’ve sort of…erm…exceeded my limit), and that needlefelting is fun. And that it takes two college graduates, two hours, and the Internet to finish a New York Times Crossword Puzzle.

Two blog posts from me in one day. See what happens when my life is interesting?! After I went to a job interview, took a little nap, and uploaded my life to Flickr (and YouTube!), I’m ready to share Rhinebeck 2007 – Day 2. Or Rhinebeck 2007 – The Sequel. ;) All the pictures can be embiggened on Flickr if you click on ‘em.

This is gonna be another quick & dirty post, because you guys don’t care so much about the details of the day as you do about the haul. ;) And the fuzzy animals. We were glad we went for the second day, because we got to see some of the events. Since we got there before the vendors opened, Amanda and I took in some sheepdog trials. That looks really hard; I don’t know that I could handle a sport where the only thing you really can control is what you say to your dog. We saw the Frisbee dogs, and the Dutchess County Sherrif’s K-9 unit, which was pretty neat. Amanda and I learned that K-9 attack dogs are Slovakian Shepherds, and that after their training, they’re worth about $30,000. I got video of all the canine events; they’re on my YouTube account. :)

We also witnessed a Punkin’ Chuckin’! Apparently, a bunch of local high schools form teams and build these gigantic catapults, pictured at left. Then they each get three shots to see how far they can fling a pumpkin. It was pretty awesome, but kind of slow because it took forever to reset after a chuck. We did, however, see The Yarn Harlot at the chucking, in the wild. We saw her on Friday at the signing, but Amanda and I were thinking on Saturday that we were a little sad we hadn’t seen her shopping or randomly at Rhinebeck like we did last year. And then Sunday, wham! There she was at the chucking. Thank you, magic wool fest. :) We also decided that I’m socially uncouth (as opposed to socially couth, which IS a word, Lloyd. Looked it up) because I was torn between doing one of the following: either going, “Steph! HI! How’re you?!” because I felt like I knew her from the signing, or screaming, “YARN HARLOT!” which would have been awful because she walked past the bleachers and was therefore about two feet from my face.

We saw more fiber animals. :) This year we saw goats, who were very chatty, and in the same barn as the equally chatty Bluefaced Leicester, which were the featured breed this year. We saw a guy with a lap goat, which was a little crazy. Behold: goats.

There was some beautiful fall foliage happening up in Rhinebeck, but I only got one photo. Amanda got better ones, I’m sure; she had her film camera with her. We saw an alpaca, who I believed was named Macho Man, and he was a huge ham. Kinda wanted to take him home in my car. And we saw this crazy awesome guy, who was riding around standing with one foot on each of his big American Belgian horses. Fantastic! :)

I know, I know…what’s the haul? :) I didn’t take any pictures of Lloyd’s Day 2 haul. I’ll let her do that. But man, she got some good stuff. I almost stole the pound of merino roving she bought. I got some good stuff, though, even though I didn’t buy much. Some of my money went for food. I got my mom two bags of Maple Cotton Candy, and I had some fries and the BEST hot cocoa ever – steamed milk and ganache. Oh, dear god, it was good. Also spent $3 on a Coke when I could have spent $1 on a Pepsi. Damn my brand loyalty. ;) Anyway. The first thing I bought on Sunday was something I’d see at Liberty Ridge on Saturday, but wasn’t sure I wanted. I still wanted it Sunday morning, so I went back for it. It’s eight ounces of bright blue bamboo top, and the natural sheen of the bamboo makes the color look SO PRETTY. Might roll in that along with the alpaca. I also found some really pretty silk at Autumn House Farms, in a color so fabulous that I had to have it even though I’m not much for pink. Eight bucks for 200 yards. Wow.

That’s all I bought on Sunday. I saw some stuff I wanted but didn’t NEED, so I held off because of my lack of Real Job. :) We had SUCH a good time all weekend, and I’m so happy with absolutely everything I bought. I was sad to leave, because where else will you find such a huge gathering of knitters and spinners? They’re so polite – everyone apologizes for bumping into you, and you can feel the sweaters right off people’s backs if you ask nice. It’s really amazing, and between the festival and the Yarn Harlot’s book signing/talk, I have never been so proud and happy to be a Knitter. With a capital K.

Oh, before I forget – Amanda and I were mad silly this weekend. The two best moments were, hands-down:

Me: Wow, Rhinebeck is kind of small, but they actually HAVE stuff in Kingston!
sees semi-shady looking character along the side of 28E
Amanda: Yeah. They have hobos.

I laughed so hard, I couldn’t see the sign for the Super 8, and I barely made the turn into the driveway.

Also, there was the discussion of my music collection:

Me: I have sort of strange music.
Amanda: No, strange would be if you had a massive collection of Tupac.
Me: Oh, yeah. Me with my ‘fro, drivin’ around going all, “West side!” throws wholly fake and unconvincing “gang sign”

…And we lost Lloyd at that point. ;) Good visit, good weekend. Is it October 2008 yet?

I have more Rhinebeck photos (and new yarn/fiber photos!) to show you, but I have to head to a job interview shortly and I haven’t gotten photos of anything yet. I do have a pleasant side-effect of Rhinebeck, though. I’m (briefly) in an article in the NY Times! I was in the A Touch of Twist booth, looking at some brightly-colored rayon, and this woman (who couldn’t have been much older than I am), was trying to get a good look at it as well, but her little boy was kind of impeding that. So I held it up for her and told her what the yardage was and all, and let her feel my new alpaca fiber, and she said, “Hey, you’re interesting. Mind if I interview you?” I assumed it was a blog, so I said sure, and answered her questions about what I’d bought and how I’d locked half my money in the trunk of my car. When all was said and done, I asked what she was writing for, so I could look it up, and she said, “Oh, New York Times. Metro section,” like it was no big deal. Like it was actually, “Cereal boxes. Nutrition information,” or something. Pretty neat, though. :)

And before you read the article and think I spent $200 on yarn, I didn’t. I only spent maybe a hundred, $120 tops. The rest went for admission, food and cotton candy, tolls, and gas. But I did have it locked in my car. In the trunk.

This is going to be such a quick & dirty blog post, because I am freaking exhausted. Amanda and I got up at 7:00 this morning, I drove for 3.5 hours, and then we shopped and petted things ALL day. I took lots of pictures of sheep and llamas, but I’ll only show you one here. The rest are on my Flickr. The one that I’m going to show you is a babydoll sheep, and she looks really pissed off. I think it was the pink bandanna.

And now for a quick overview of the haul! :) Amanda and I brought Manny and Beekin to Rhinebeck last year, and they asked to come back. The photo on the left is Beekin with just my haul, and the one on the right is a buddy picture of Manny and Beekin with both our new stuff.

I got a bunch of nice stuff, none of it actual yarn. I got a new spindle (a Bosworth mini!), a kit for felted pumpkins, a “party favors” pack of fun-colored wool roving (to test the new spindle), and a 4 oz, bag of caramel-colored baby alpaca. I could die.

The pumpkins are from Decadent Fibers, and I didn’t buy them last year because it was either that or sock yarn, and the sock yarn won. But I wanted them for a whole year, so they were one of the first things I went for this year. They’re needle-felted, and I love them completely.

I also got a close-up picture of the Party Favors pack, and my new baby alpaca. You can also see my spindle, which is a Bosworth mini (1 oz. weight) with a whorl made out of Jatoba wood. The alpaca this year may be even prettier than the stuff I bought last year. I kind of want to roll in it.

Well, it’s bedtime for me. Amanda’s already asleep and we need to be up at 8:30 to make the Continental Breakfast here at the Kingston Super 8. :D

Okay, we’re off to Rhinebeck in the morning, but I have to share one photo with you for the road. Amanda and I met The Yarn Harlot tonight. And we got to hold the traveling sock. It was awesome. :)

Lloyd is here, the money’s in the bank, and the hotel has our reservation.

Know what that means?

WE’RE GOING TO RHINEBECK! :D

See you all on Monday. Maybe I’ll bring back a llama. ;)

I admit, I totally forgot it was Columbus Day. I had the day off from work anyhow, so I didn’t think anything about it, until my friend Katie told me she had off from work for the holiday. We took advantage of the day and most of the sales (although, by god, it was HOT. 90 degrees in October :P), and did a little shopping. I didn’t get much, just some stuff for Lori. I had a $5 off of $10 coupon at Petsmart, so I only spent $5. I did get some fabric, though to make a case for my DPNs/stray circulars. Wanna see? Modeled by my lovely MacBook:

Cute, huh? The flower print is for the exterior; the blue semi-solid is for the inside lining. Now, here’s a question for those of you that sew. I want to put a pocket on the front, for my small scissors, darning needles, stitch markers, and tape measure. I’m always losing this stuff, so I figure having a steady pouch to put it in would be good. I figured I could close it with a little bit of magnetic tape, but what’s the best way to attach it to the front so it’ll be sturdy? Should I put batting between the two layers of pocket fabric to strengthen it? I guess there’s no way to attach it without sewing it on, huh? My mom is going to do most of the sewing, as I have no clue how to operate a sewing machine, so I’m trying to minimize the work involved for her. I may just ask her to teach me to work the damn thing, so I can do it myself.

I’m going to the library tomorrow to pick up a book to use. I feel vaguely…Fahrenheit 451 about ripping all the page signatures out of a perfectly good book, so I figured I can buy one of the library’s $1 sale books to use. I’m looking for something with a sturdy cover, but out of which the pages are sort of starting to fall so I don’t feel TOO bad about cannibalizing it. I’m really excited about this; I need a needle case pretty bad, and I’m thrilled that I make one for maybe $7 rather than buying one for $30 on etsy. :D

So there’s been a lot going on at chez wingedorange, but I haven’t blogged it because a.) it’s not knitting, and b.) I friggin’ hate it. I’m working on a cross-stitch piece for Scott’s mom, a Dimensions Gold kit called Cliffside Beacon. I love the design; I think it’s really pretty. But what I hate is that just about every stitch I’ve put in this sucker, I’ve ripped out. I had to cut out a whole section of stitching yesterday. There are so many mistakes in this thing, it’s unreal. Fortunately, they’re all in the sky, you really can’t tell that a few sections were kind of fudged. Thank god for cloud shapes. It’s just that the actual piece bears at best a passable resemblance to the package photo. I’m trying to force myself to muddle through it, because I know that if I put it down, I’ll never pick it back up, especially with Rhinebeck and Lloyd’s visit in two weeks (!!!!). It’s a little unfair. Especially since…look what came in the mail…

KP Shine Sport for sweaters for Kate’s twins! Ugh, I wanna knit baby sweaters. :P I may treat myself this weekend; I spent all week on the cross-stitch project from hell. Oh, I also finished spinning the alpaca/wool/angora blend. I tried Andean plying it, and I made the BIGGEST mess because I have such small hands. I’m going to try Andean plying with paperbacks instead and see how I make out that way.

Not a good craft week for me, huh? The contact for that job I interviewed for last week is out of the office until Tuesday, so no further job news until she returns. Bleh. :P