Gore Place Sheepshearing Festival

I attended the Gore Place Sheepshearing Festival this past Saturday. It was a great time! They had a crafts fair, a "fiber tent" with tables from local yarn stores, a sheep dog demonstration, lots of food, and a petting zoo. I got to see plenty of sheep, alpacas, and goats. And to top it off, it didn't start raining until after the festival was over. Go Boston weather for cooperating for once!

I am also a ways into the back of the Nantucket Jacket. I started the armhole shaping this morning, so hopefully I will finish this piece soon. I want to try blocking the back out before I move on to the fronts, because I have heard that Berrocco Pure Merino stretches out after wet blocking. I wet blocked my swatch, and it did expand a bit, but it dried back to a normal size. I just want to make sure that nothing crazy will happen with the final product. I know I probably should have started with a sleeve, since that would have been a smaller piece to test out, but I started knitting the back first out of habit.

Moving Along

I am a few inches into the back of the Nantucket Jacket. I'm finding the stitch pattern to be surprisingly relaxing. And the yarn, although a little splitty (especially for wool) is quite soft. So far, so good!

And did anyone else see the beautiful knit chuppah in the upcoming summer 2007 issue of IK? It's like they know I'm getting married! Except, there is no way I will ever knit a project that requires 18 skeins+21 cones of yarn.

Swatch Time!

Somehow, I got a cold this weekend. I felt sick on Friday, but I didn't realize how bad I felt until yesterday. However, things have been much better today.

I did stencil a shirt (for a craftster swap), and then I dug into swatching for the Nantucket Jacket. I think this is the first time I'm knitting a pattern in the exact yarn and colorway that is called for. I usually either go for a yarn that is cheaper, or if I'm treating myself I end changing the color to red, purple, or blue. But this sweater was already knit in a reddish color, and I got the yarn for my birthday.

Spring Cleaning

Boston appears to have finally escaped the "April Showers" portion of this year's program. Which means it's time to clean out my closets and welcome spring!

I started with my yarn stash. I had taken to just piling knitting stuff up in a corner, but it was getting ridiculous. Now I actually know what I have! Of course, the stash still looks a bit bloated. I need to work on that.

Crochet time!

I was looking at my rather ridiculously sized yarn stash last night, wondering what I should work on. I didn't want to pick up a big project. As a result, I decided to crochet a hat to match a One Skein Scarf (from the Happy Hooker book) I finished last fall. Nothing fancy: just HDC in Caron Simply Soft. Maybe it will give me the energy to tackle something larger. I did wind a ball of Pure Merino in preparation for the Nantucket Jacket, but that's as far as that went.

In stash accumulation news, I got a late birthday present from the lovely Michelle, two skeins of Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud and the book Romantic Knits. Plus I picked up Lace Style. Apparently I'm into lace right now!

It's Raining

I'm sitting at my desk in the economics department (somehow the grad students got the short straw and are relegated to the basement) listening to the freezing rain/hail mixture that is coming down outside. That's right, it's the end of the spring semester, and I'm in full-on disaster mode. Work, work, work.... I am sorry I've been so laggard in posting lately, but unfortunately school comes first.

But, I do have some knitting plans! I started in on the border for Highland Triangle #2, but somehow I managed to pick up the wrong number of stitches. I was way off. I haven't gotten up the courage to start into that again. However, I do still have all that yummy Pure Merino for the Nantucket Jacket. Maybe it's swatch time?

And PS--thank you all for your kind birthday wishes!