Red Tail Hawk

Last night my sister came over. After dinner we fondled the yarn.


I hadn't had a chance to show her all the goodies from Taos yet. Now I know most knitters enjoy perusing the stash and fondling the softness within but does it always result in the urge to cast on something new? I've slapped my own hands again because I've got to finish one more gift before I can begin anything else. The hat that I'm knitting should be done fairly fast. So to compensate myself for such strength and self denial I decided to just photograph the temptation. And maybe it'll just snuggle up in my knitting tote beside the olive shawl.
The colorway is Red Tail Hawk from the Barefoot collection at Mountain Colors.
Beautiful huh? I bought one 100 gram skein, which is usually enough for a pair of socks (I have small feet!). But this morning I had the bright idea of gloves and short socks. The colors are just so rich they deserve to be seen.

A Knitter's Nightmare

I woke this morning with the shakes.

In my dreamworld I'd opened the front door to a blinding light and three uniformed police offers. After groaning and requesting a few minutes to gather a bag of essentials to take with me to jail they kindly said they'd wait for me at the patrol car. The blinding light was turned off and I closed the door.

After grabbing a tote bag, Chris helped me gather my favorite Levi's, my ditty bag of meds, comb and contact solution, my most often worn sweater, all of my wool socks, six pairs of panties and my journal. We went downstairs and I pulled a big thick book from the shelf and turned to the couch where my knitting bag sat.

That's when I screamed!

Oh CRAP! They're not going to let me take my knitting needles to jail!!!

Now I don't think I'm in any danger of jail but I have a good idea of what Knitter's Hell is now and it gives me the shudders.

FO - not to be confused with an offensive gesture

We finished our bike tour the week before Thanksgiving. I'd taken one project with me. There isn't much room when all of your belongings for two plus weeks must fit in one medium size pannier. Normally I chose socks for travel knitting but on the needles was a second sock and it was more than halfway finished at that.


I'd bought some Malabrigo Baby Lace, colorway Olive, at Taos Sunflower with the thought of a simple shawl from the Morehouse Merino Book. Short story - it is a great travel project. Two skeins and the circular needle takes up very little room. The project isn't especially fast since you end up with oodles (185) stitches on the needle at the widest part. It's very simple though and no instructions need to be carried. By the end of the two weeks I'd gotten to the halfway point with my sporadic motel room knitting which was balanced with reading and journaling in the evenings.

As soon as we got back home though I blazed through the last gift sock on the needle, then picked up Christopher's navy blue pullover sweater. It too was almost finished. The body was complete, one sleeve finished and the other 2/3 done. All stockinette. Sometimes it's damn hard to find the umph to tackle that last little bit. But I gave myself a stern talking to. No more knitting for myself until all of the knitting for others was complete.

Within four days after our vacation ended I had two FO's! Chris's sweater fits great and I think he'll actually wear it! I slapped myself on the back and ate a piece of chocolate.

One more item on the list for holiday giving, a hat for Chris's dad. I fussed around with several choices of yarn and decided on a nice brown and gray Superyak from Karabella, colorway 61444. It's coming along well. I've got a three inch rib foldover and have started in stockinette now, which will go really fast.



Then....I can get back to my shawl and even my sweater. It's the Notre Dame de Grace pattern from IK using the brown/gray organic wool from Full Belly Farm.