Roadtrip!

Tuesday May 22, 2007

So much to do, so little time………..

Did all the Canadians out there have a rocking long weekend? The Ottawan’s tell me they had some great weather here at home. And next weekend our American friends get a chance to cut loose too! Really, I must learn to book an extra days vacation onto to these bonus weekends so I can get in some badly needed sitting-in-the-sun-quiet-knitting-time to finish some projects that have been languishing.

Still it was lovely to be out of the office for 3 days straight. We headed straight to Swanton, VT for a weekend with friends, and despite the ever lurking gloomy weather there, we had a great time! The excellent shopping in St. Albans, Burlington and surrounding area is hard to get over. And I found an amazing yarn store there, The Northeast Fiber Arts Center:
www.northeastfiberarts.com

Check it out – I’ll wait.

See I told you – you have got to go see it for yourself if you are any kind of knitter, crochet-er, weaver or just a yarn junkie in general!

Jennifer has an amazing shop with so many high quality brand yarns, local, national, and international, I’ve never seen before (now that’s not hard to believe, as I am still a novice when it comes the enormous number of brands available out there!). I went with my not-quite-as-obsessed-with-yarn-as-I-am friends, who, after an hour or so of gamely watching me fondling, debating and dizzily turning in circles as one skein after another caught my eye, retired to veg/nap in the van while I finalized my purchase! And Jennifer was kind enough to show me her indigo dying set-up - very high-tech mind you - which involves a large kitchen pot, immersion in the hot dye bath, and swinging around the dyed skein in the backyard to extricate the excess water like you are winding up for wicked under-hand pitch! (Sorry no pictures – I forgot my camera…again..) Fascinating to watch the vivid blue color appear immediately when exposed to the air, and we had a very interesting discussion about her failed attempts to stall the conversion process to retain the beautiful acidic greens that appear in the bath before air hits the dye. The end yarns are beautiful and definitely one of a kind, no two lots the same!

I had a chuckle when I looked high on a shelf top, and saw the same Taos beret pattern I held in my hand, already made up and beautifully displayed. I checked out the colorways of the Taos yarns, but in the end I adventurously choose a beautiful yarn I had not worked with before – Odyssey by Reynolds of JCA, Inc. in Mixed Green 502. I love the tweedy teal blue greens mixed with the majority mossy acidic greens, and the results are lovely. I knitted it up on my way home from Vermont in the car, and it is soft and pliable, and without a doubt some of the loveliest 100% Merino I have encountered to date. The substitution took a little more than the yarn quantity called for in the Taos beret pattern (even with no pompom), and I used about 1 and 1/3rd balls of the Odyssey. I bought 3 balls and am hoping to make a short ruffle scarf with what ‘s left to go with the beret. I think I may need one or two more balls though to make a good ruffle and am tempted to just contact Jennifer and ask her to send me some P.D.Q.!!

I got very little other knitting done, although I had packed enough UFO’s to keep me busy for days. I had wanted to finish some little basic socks started a month ago, but forgot the pattern at home and since I’m lousy at turning heels (need way more practice!) without instructions, I couldn’t go any further. And movie watching in the darkened cottage trailer home (it’s a feakin’ huge house on wheels, not a trailer!) was not conducive to knitting on any of my other UFO’s.

While I’m at it, I must give plug for our dinner location and our waiter Brian, on Saturday night – Mimmo’s in St. Albans http://www.mimmositalian.com/loca.html. We had a really great meal (and great prices too), with great service, and a vibrant lively atmosphere with lots of laughing and great conversation. It is not an easy thing to accomplish for me, eating in an Italian restaurant (think cheese and cream sauces on or in everything!), given that I am completely dairy intolerant. And no seafood allowed either. I am challenging! But Brian served me the best pasta and fresh tomato sauce (made by him at 5:00am that morning, so he said!) that I have eaten in a long, long, long time and I stuffed my self to the gills with Italian goodness! Sometimes simple is the best –
thanks Mimmo’s! We’ll be back!

So now I’ve started my Mo Dea Sassy Stripes socks in (variegated pink) Crush, and they are knitting up super fast on the 3.5mm needles. The yarn is more sport sock weight (is there such a thing?) and very cushy in 2x2 ribbing. Looks like I’ll get to that heel turning practice very quickly after all! I really want to get to the point where heels and toes require only momentary concentration and for the rest it’s mindless knitting ‘round and ‘round.

Now – off to get ready for Tuesdays are for S’nB………..