The Hive....

I should have taken pictures. The store yesterday was alive with activity and resembled a hive of some very industrious mostly female insects. I would say the AlterKnitive SuperBowl Bash was a raving success. There were door prize give-away's, including some of Gail Callahan's hand dyed silk scarves. There was yarn, coffee, tea, VERY yummy snackage, and about a million persons of fiber orientation - crocheters, weavers, spinners, and a large proportion of knitters. They were strung from the rafters, sitting on the floor, on rented chairs, and generally filled every space the store could offer up. It was a lot of fun. Girl came along and found a small spinning child, also homeschooled but about 8 years her junior. They wandered aimlessly, chatting. Always interesting that homeschoolers seem to find each other in a crowd, the way the kids in "real" school all seemed to find a group. I find that homeschoolers tend to not be selective about ages though - a ten year old homeschooled kid will happily spend a day with a 17 year old homeschooled kid, and never question that it might be "uncool" for the 17 year old to take an interest in her, nor does the 17 year old find it odd that she's fascinated by this "little kid". They seem to me much more accepting of people of all ages and types, and make no generalizations about groups or individuals.

In knitting news...I finished a pair of socks last week, Artyarns Supermerino that just sort of called to me when I walked by the rack, and so I bought it. I just did a simple cuff down sock with a mock cable pattern on 6's, no big, and really worked up very fast. I am a sucker for red.

Also finished the first baby set for the petite unborn, who perhaps we should now call 'Kermit'. Mommy picked the yarn, so he/she can blame her when the time comes! I love the yarn (Filatura MilleFili Fine which is a steal at $3.00 a ball for discontinued colors), but do not love this particular color. I love the pattern but think it very feminine.

While driving bike routes with Mr. Wonderful (try finding roads in NH with a breakdown lane, or a smooth shoulder...good luck) I worked on the Baby Bunting Bag From Heck. It's a Dale pattern, supposed to be knit in Hauk but I am doing it in Cleckheaton Country 8-ply on size 2's and very slow going to me. The yarn splits a lot, and is annoying as a result. I have used it before but for simpler projects on larger needles. I just want it to be done. Then I did more baby shower shopping and decided I'd really like THAT to be done as well!! It's down to food and finalizing, which is nice. I have selected four games to play, bought about everything I need short of food, selected a theme, invited the guests, and fielded a variety of phone calls of all types - acceptances, rejections, and confusions. It's amazing what can happen when you get addresses from a pregnant woman who refuses to look in her address book and is convinced she can remember it all. She transposed phone numbers with zip codes, streets and towns, and all manner of interesting things. She has not accepted that her mind is lost to her for the next 18 years at least.

I thought this was cool - a pile of swatches since a few weeks before Christmas, incomplete actually as there's more underneath and I did not lay them all out. I pulled them all out of the basket for blocking and transportation to the swatch holding area ( a Grey Goose Vodka box with a sliding top) someday I am going to pull them ALL out and make something. Some are washed and blocked, many more are just bound off and tossed in the basket. I figure when the box gets full I will petition my local liquor store manager for more. We have a bunch of the boxes, and they're incredibly handy. We use them for storing dyes and dye materials mostly, though I use a mini version for my circulars.

Last, but by no means least...Girl started making "a bag to felt". We've been sort of keeping track, writing it down as she goes, and if it works I will post it here as a free pattern. It is 2 strands of her most beloved Berkshire (Girl truly loves Berkshire and is even considering the creation of a sweater in the stuff) on size 15's. It will be round, with a flat bottom and drawstring top, although I think she may need to rethink that part in the end, but we'll see. It is freaking huge! I think she will line it with fabric (or get her mother to line it) to keep the Berk Alpaca Haze off whatever she's carrying, but generally I suspect this thing will be SpEcTaCuLaR when done, and I may need one myself.