I got bored with socks. I've been exclusively working on socks since I returned from my NYC trip in Nov. I'm tired of them, and I hope I can muster up enough sock mojo to finish up the second one of the ML, toe ups that I started before I left NYC in March. I do have an FO for you though. I have some lovely Malabrigo that I bought a while ago when I discovered a new yarn store about a 40 minute drive from myself. It got put in the stash with no real plan for it. It's been getting warmer here, but last week it was cold. Really wet, rainy, windy, and cold. So, I decided on a hat. I've never made a hat before, and decided that it was time. I found a free pattern called the 3am Cable Hat and went to town. I started it Sunday evening, I think? I finished it Wed. night after watching LOST. I think it turned out quite well.














It's the Alpine Pearl color, and I would say I have roughly half the ball left. I have one more full skein, so I think I'm going to make matching fingerless gloves. Something else I've never made, but have been wanting to try. See the all the viney leaves on the fence in the background? That's what covers one whole side of my yard. I love it. I was hoping there would be some honeysuckle in there as well, but no such luck. It's still pretty, and will make for great FO pictures.

Notice in my picture how the sun is shining? I blocked the hat because some of the purl stitches near the cables were funky. It just finished drying today. Today just happens to be the nicest day we've had in a couple of weeks. It's still a little chilly, and the wind is blowing, but the sun is out, the birds are singing, and I'm wearing flip flops. I knew as soon as I was able to wear the hat the weather would change, and I wouldn't need it anymore. Isn't that the way things always work out? I'm happy about it though. If me making this hat attributed to the sun finally coming out and spring getting it's butt in gear then so be it.

This is the first time I've ever really taken an interest in the yard. I guess cause it's actually my yard now, and not the landlord's. I have pretty flowers blooming that I didn't have to do anything at all to. They just popped up out of the ground. My MIL planted a mum while she was here that I'm pretty sure isn't going to make it. I think there might be too much sun on that side of the house. Does anybody know if mums and herbs like full on sunlight? That's the area that Nathan wanted to plant his herb garden. Which we have in containers right now, but I don't want to burn them all up in the sun.

I've also decided that for the time being my "office" (aka where I use my computer) is going to be my screened in porch. I mean...look at the view I have directly in front of me.
I love that pink tree. I have no idea what it is, but it's pretty. It might be a dogwood, but the flowers don't look like the typical dogwood flowers. The people that live in that house have a very nice back yard. You can tell that someone loves to garden. I get to enjoy it because my house sits on a hill above theirs, so despite the fence I can see into it a little. Not that I want to be spying on their BBQs, but I do like their flowers. I also have some pretty nice views all around. To my left is the cemetery which is starting to grow on me. If I lived in another neighborhood there'd be a house, and parked cars there.

When that little tree comes in full bloom it's going to be really pretty. That's where those yellow and purple flowers live; round the bottom of the tree. I'm hoping that it's a maple tree. One of the ones that turns really red, yellow, or orange in the fall. When we moved in I grabbed one of the dead lives and spread it out. It looked like a maple leaf to me (that was always my favorite part of Bio Labs...going out in the woods and identifying trees). I'll have to wait til fall to be sure though. The view to my right is of my neighbor's big pine tree. BIG pine tree. It shades a corner of our yard, and drops it's needles so that grass won't grow there. I haven't decided if it's annoying enough to trim the branches on our side or not. Probably not. I kind of like the rustic way our yard looks with the leafy vines (no idea what that stuff is called...) Yay for spring. So glad it's here. Dziga likes the porch too. Especially when the birds are around.

Tomorrow I go to the Sedalia Spring Fiber Festival. I'm excited. It's my first fiber festival ever; I'm sure I'll have lots to talk about when I get back.

So much to talk about! Ok, let's start with NYC and The Represent tour. It was so much fun. The Harlot was really cool, gallivanting around to 12 yarn stores in 4 days was dizzying, meeting lots of other knitters was fun, and meeting lots of other knittyheads was awesome! I guess the thing that it really did was make me feel like I belong somewhere, and that I'm not some freak who is so boring that I love to play with string and sticks. Well, ok, maybe I am BUT I'm not alone!

That's a whole bunch of knitters (not to mention a great picture of the Harlot's mother-in-law and hubby right there in the front row). See the girl in the pink sweater directly above her m.i.l.? That's my friend. I was sitting right where Joe's head is, and I had a great view of the whole thing.

I was even able to finish the 7x9 square for Warm Up America that they asked us all to knit by the end of the talk. That surprised me as I'm not usually one for fast knitting. Stephanie is so personable, and even though she kept telling us how scared she was she seemed to be right at home.

I did a lot of lys shopping, and got to meet a whole gaggle of knittyheads on Sunday. I forgot to snap a picture when we were all at The Point. There were probably about 15-20 of us. I did manage to remember before we split off for the third time outside of The Yarn Tree. I'm not going to identify people as I didn't get permission to put their picture up, so you'll just have to trust me that they are knittyheads and they are fabulous. See the pink sweater? That's my friend Laura again!

What else? Oh, so I finally finished my socks for the sock swap. I ended up ripping back to the gussett decreases on both socks and modifying the pattern. It really was the best looking option. I sent them overnight and my pal qdgirl tells me that they fit perfectly and she loves them. I was so excited to be done with them and get them in the mail (finally) that I forgot to take pictures. Silly me! I did, however, obtain permission from her partner to post the picture she took.

They're STR lightweight in the Rolling Stone colorway. I used SKS pg 37 with the Crossover Rib pattern. From the cuff to the end of the gussett decreases I used the pattern as specified. After the gussett decreases I started doing every other knit rib in pattern, and alternated the rows, so that it was kind of a checkerboard effect. It gave the foot a nice wavy look, and thinned them out a little bit. They were pretty thick up to that point because of all the yarn used. I'm happy with the way they came out; the pattern showed up well in the yarn, and I didn't have any weird pooling.
I also received my March package from my SP8 Vaarsuvius. My battery in my camera died after some other pictures I took, so I don't have any,but rest assured it's a very nice package with lots of cool stuff. Some Malabrigo, the first two books in the Dark Tower series, some chocolate, some kitty magnetic clips...the list just goes on! My SP really does spoil me.

The pictures I took were for the Flash Your Stash 2007 on knittyboard. It's kind of quick and dirty, but it's my stash! What has this event taught me? That I have an extremely modest stash. I thought it was pretty big. It's nowhere near some of what I've seen, and I've only been through a couple of pages of posts! It makes me feel a little better actually. Hopefully by this time next year the vast majority of what's there will be knit up. We all say that, don't we?

I think that's all I've got for now. I'm working on some magic loop socks, so I'll post some about those when I'm finished.