The obligatory Rhinebeck post.

Okay, so my third time at Rhinebeck was such a different year for me, leaving behind my 8 week old child in the care of the incredibly capable Mr B. I caught a ride upstate with gleek (oh! and I've been meaning to mention, you should check our her new project, a new online magazine called Popknits, it's incredibly cool!) and Nancy, it was a beautiful day and I had a great time. Although I didn't get to meet many fellow bloggers (besides the spiders, of course, and Maryse [edited to add this info, sorry Maryse - it was great to meet you irl!) I was so happy to be out among the adults. I don't have an amazing haul to show you - in fact I've barely got a thing to show except the cool mug and yarn I bought from the last stand I went to.

I *love* this mug, I use it every day, now that my Mum (and lack of reflux) has helped my tea addiction come back in full swing. The [supersoft, lovely] yarn is most likely going to be used for some fair-isle mittens.

I don't have much in the way of knitting to show you this time, just a hat that I'm trying design - it's Malabrigo, which I also bought when upstate, from Fabulous Yarn we stopped in the village of Tivoli, NY for dinner before the Rav Party. The lady saw our desperate, yarn hungry faces peering in the window (yeah the festival didn't quite sate us) and she re-opened for us! how nice. I decided that I wanted a cabled hat, but could find no pattern that caught my fancy, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I still have no clue what I'm going to do come the crown...

Oh yes, I am actually in the middle of a row here, in fact, it's mid-cable! The joys of motherhood :)

I have been sewing like a maniac though (well, when I get a chance) and the shop has never been so full. The reason for this? Well, apart from the huge daycare deposit and severe lack of income (aaahh, US maternity coverage is astoundingly bad) I actually have an ad running on Ravelry for November and thought I better have some bags to offer - this is VERY exciting for me.

Good news is, I have lovely bags to show for it.

I'm Schrodinger and it's been 5 weeks since I last posted

Wow! It really is incredible how easy it is to neglect your blog and all blog reading when you have a baby. To everyone that has sent their congratulations, THANK YOU and please accept my apologies for not getting back to you. I've also neglecting blog reading, and am horrified when I see what I have to read - gulp! I have to admit, that it's not just the baby that kept me away, but also a new addiction... microblogging through twitter. My Mum also came to visit (Dad needed to stay back in Austria while they finish up renovations on their vacation apartments). Mum brought a ton of gifts for baby E, from them as well as other family over in the UK, one thing I had to share with you is this adorable sheep.

She also brought with her a stunning handknit dress that she had made, but that's going to wait for another time and it's own, special post :)

So, you can imagine there's not a huge amount of knitting going on here, but there are a few knits that Baby E has modeled so far to share with you all. I'm trying to take pictures of all the amazing handknits that Baby E has, as and when she wears them. There are still plenty more that she's yet to grow into.
Saartje Booties from Sharon, excuse the blurriness, baby E was fidgety here, this was the best shot I could get :)

Better than booties socks

Modeling the spider blanket before tummy time.

I've been knitting a bit myself (although the hat is the only FO I have to show for it so far)
I made this hat [rav link] last week, it has since been undone and reknit to add length, it fits better, but I've not taken new pics.

I'm thrilled to announce that Baby E is also able to bottle-feed, therefore I've been creating a stash of milk so that I'm free to go to Rhinebeck on Saturday - WOO HOO! Hope to see some of you there, you can distract me from buying yarn and fiber we can't afford.

Catching up

I just wanted to re-introduce myself to the blog. I'm so behind with blogging and bloglines, oh well, it's a sure sign of a busy life :) Everything is going well, lots going on, and much to show you. I don't want to bore you with a bunch of writing, so I'll catch you up with some photos.

First up, the dress - which I'm finally getting around to show you:

And the shawl, which I completely forgot to take a picture of actually *with* the dress, sorry for the crapola photo, I really struggled with this one:


Pattern: Muir from knitty
yarn: Yarn Place "Gentle" a cashmere, merino mix.
needles: US #6, denises
adaptations: I did one less repeat on the row pattern, making a narrower shawl, since I only had 690 yds. Worked out well for me.

I've knit a bit, and frogged a lot, so all the knitting I have to show today is this sock:


Pattern: It's the Honeybee socks by Stephanie van der Linden. The sock is available (in English as well as German) from a Yahoo German sock Knitting group. You need to join the group to access the pattern (yes, it's all in German, I used Altavista's Babelfish to help with translation, it's not perfect, but it gave me the gist). Once joined, click "Dateien", then the patterns are in the folder "Monatsmuster".
Needles: Knitpicks 32" circs us #1
Yarn: Opal in some yellow (obvious huh?) color
Thoughts/adaptations: I added some extra stitches in the purl part of the pattern and some extra pattern repeats for a longer foot. I'm very worried it won't fit the recipient (despite this being the 3rd sock pattern attempted for them), but I can't do another sock now, I. just. can't. As for the pattern itself, I've really enjoyed knitting it, but it took some time to figure out.

Other stuff: I went to Rhinebeck last weekend with Sharon, Cindy, Colleen and Nancy, we had a blast! I scored a good amount of fiber, a spindle and enough yarn for a sweater/cardigan, sorry about the bland photo.


(click pic for flickr notes on what I bought)

I had planned on buying a new spinning wheel at Rhinebeck, but the prices were the same as online, so I figured I would wait to get one delivered to my home, so my Lendrum Double Treadle arrived this week, and had some fun playing with some of the fiber bought at Little Barn.


It was fun, and so much smoother and quieter than my other wheel, I love it so much, I'm a very happy bunny now.

Baaaa!

Yesterday Sharon and I took a drive to a little festival known as the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival - AKA Rhinebeck. This was my first time meeting Sharon, and hopefully not my last. We ate Darrell Lea liquorice and her homebaked, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate cookies and chatted all the way there. She is a great person, very funny and interesting and it was a pleasure to spend the day with her. So, on to the day and a picture heavy post.

I was a Rhinebeck virgin, so "Oh My God!" was pretty much what was going through my head for the first hour or so at Rhinebeck. You've heard the chatter about "sensory overload" and all that. All I can say it that it's true. There is so much to see, touch, smell [well, sniff and smell] and hear. We saw cute bunnies,


petted alpacas,


saw sheep

Okay, not a real sheep. Here's a close up of a sweet friendly sheep.


and goats more sheep. This was a Jacob Sheep [thanks for the correction Karrie.


and llamas (at least I think this one was a llama).


So much yarn to see. And fiber to touch.


Sharon and I met with Cindy [it was great to finally meet you Cindy] and her blogless friends Ebony and Trina for Bratwurst and a beer. We drank warm cider and tasted wine. I bought a bottle of the Brotherhood Riesling.


In a very important moment in my life, I TOUCHED QIVUIT!!


It was better than I thought it would be, and took a lot of effort to walk away from it, but at $40 an ounce, I had to resist the urge.

Instead I took a 'step down' and got some bargain Cashmere and Alpaca - thanks Sharon, for putting up with my near panic at not being able to find Little Barn. I got enough wool to knit my first sweater of my own.



I found my perfect spinning wheel. EDIT: NO I DID NOT BUY THIS WHEEL, IT IS JUST SOMEWHAT SIMILAR TO THE ONE I ALREADY HAVE IN THE PICTURES BELOW. Sorry for the confusion everyone. While I'm going on looks mostly (the wood in this beautiful hand-made wheel was stunning). I saw one in action, and was pretty impressed. They are Robin Spinning Wheels and were stunning.

As for what else I got, I made out well, and can't wait to start playing with everything I bought. Well, if I'm honest, I have already nearly finished spinning this sage Merino. I'm so happy with this merino roving from Carolina Homespun:


I'm really starting to feel confident with my spinning, I actually want to show this to everyone I know before I send it out to my Mum - my big decision is whether to leave it as singles, or to ply it.



I also got some Corriedale Wool roving from them. I bought some tie-dye looking merino/tencel from Sheepshed, it looked so pretty spun up.


Last, but certainly not least, I could not resist this lace weight alpaca from Briar Rose, all 2,500 yds of beauty.


It was funny, because as I was stalking reading blogs last night I saw that Melissa couldn't resist it either, the color she bought is equally gorgeous.

And here's the money shot (the wheel is not one of the purchases, it's a wheel I've had for a while now).

Rhinebeck

Okay, there's a gazillion posts just like this in blogland, but I have to say it...

I'm going to Rhinebeck and am totally excited!!! Not only is there going to be all that gorgeous yarn and fiber to touch, feel and sniff, and the cute sheep, there will be fellow blog-knitters and spinners to meet. And as an added bonus I get 2+ hours (EACH WAY) of uninterrupted knitting as the wonderful Sharon drives us up there - looks like I will be closer the second time finishing Mr. B's zipped raglan by the end of the trip (yay to elann.com who had the same dyelot left and sent it to me in superfast time). Time for me to get some yarn for a sweater all of my own.

Sadly I will miss the spiders at Rhinebeck, since they are there right now, as I type this post. But I hope to have the advantage of knowing the best stands to get too. I just hope they leave enough yarn for me (honestly, I am a little worried that there won't be anything left tomorrow - please tell me I'm being silly).



So I had to get myself a little something when I ordered more yarn for Mr. B. look below and you will see a wonderfully, soft, luscious yarn. It is called "Baby Cashmere" in Tapestry Blue, it is an elann exclusive. It's 60% baby alpaca, 30% merino wool and 10% cashmere. Isn't it so purdy?


I love it, and cast on immediately for the Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave. This is the second time casting on for the shawl, I was having so much fun listening the chatter about Rhinebeck at The Point last night, I messed up the pattern (knitting where I should have purled) in a bad way. So I started again - I'm getting good at this huh?