Friday, August 22, 2008

No free ride?

Who said there was no such thing as a free ride? I will tell you they are wrong. But is that a good thing? I will prove this!
Tonight I went downtown to meet-up for a little knitting. Are you surprised? :)

In addition to being Sockergirl, I try to be Eco-girl. I tend to carry fabric bags and load up my backpack at the grocery check-out. My favorite eco-girl act is utilizing mass transit.

Tonight I walked to the bus stop yarn bag in hand. Everything was very normal for evening rush hour. While the bus WAS on time, the bus driver told me, "The ride is FREE. Get on the bus." I was puzzled because I like to pay for my bus rides to show support for the route in hopes for increased services. BUT I quickly got over it, found my seat and pulled out my sock to turn the heel. After the heel was turned and stitches picked-up, I should have been downtown in 30 minutes. I did not notice my free ride was rolling through traffic to town. 90 minutes later and gusset decreased I made it to my knitting group.

See? There is good in a free ride.

Now the stress in my life. I am not sure how much I am suppose to share in case someone is reading. Are you suppose to stop reading? Do you really want to spoil the surprise IF it is for you? hmm... what are you going to do? Well, I am going to tell you the stress. I was asked to make a 9 inch square in a blanket and here is the problem:
I have the yarn, but now I must choose from 1300 possible patterns to create a 9 inch square! Can you imagine the possible neglect to my sock yarn? I believe I will get through this medium crisis by the end of the weekend and eventually get back to the sock knitting.

On to the topic of #1 Fan

You might ask WHO is Sockergirl's number one fan? And what does the above picture have to do with the "Number-Won." I must mention that it was a tough call to select the "Number-Won fan" My groupies in Cherry Hill, NJ have been wonderful in recent weeks, keep knitting away you could be next! Even those of you home alone reading in Delhi, Albuquerque, Reston and Chile don't give up hope.

My "Number-Won" fan is Knit-wise Cracker! Her gift this round is from the famous Sockermom's Organic blueberry tree.Sockermom even hand picked the lush blueberries for Knitwise-Cracker. The awarded prize was quickly put into pie, check out the yummy results.

Good luck fans, keep reading and leave a little time for knitting!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

In Search for....

I may have found the perfect knit spot for my tough knitter friends. (To enjoy the full views as a reader you may want to click on the picture.) How cozy does this rock look?
This knit spot is not on the bus line, so we all piled into the Subaru and picked-up our NW Forest parking passes for the first day of knitting. As you can see the first lesson was a little confusing.Yes, I thought the bulky 10mm yarn would be easier and safer for lesson number one. These knitters gave a good effort and soon we called it a night.We awoke at 4am to get to the cozy knit rock with the perfect view. At first the mission seemed a bit daunting with the first light and the small shadow of two possible crocheters racing ahead of my knitting team.
Eventually we built up our yarn management speed, yarn overs and tying off....
looking south, capturing great views along the way.Then we looked to the North and dropped our 10mm bulky Noro yarn to scrabble to the best view.
As we settled in to enjoy the knitting view, one of our knitters pulled out a bag of yarn from his hometown. We were all in 'aw' of his Welsh merino. You can see our knitting Chief in the back mid-left looking on to make sure we did not drop any needles from 10,047ft/3064m. Yes, we wear helmets to avoid any needles dropping from above, double points seem to hurt the worst!
Then we knit for an hour in perfect calm weather and the view was fabulous! Watch this:

The Knit Chief made us pack up our yarn after an hour and we went on back to the Subaru. Here is a look back.
Next up, I need to thank a couple of local gals for their generous donations to my sock blankie. Good things may be coming their way. ;)
Stay tuned for an adventure my sockamania socks took me recently, and where they are headed out on their own tour.

Lastly, a shout out to my Newnan, GA fan. I've biked with the BRAG'ers in your town, and camped in your park. Fun hills you've got for cycling. Keep those needles going!

Friday, August 1, 2008

It seems.....

I am really getting bad about blogging.... and even about knitting 24 hours a day. Instead, I seem to be searching for the perfect place to knit. Yes, the search is on. My friend Casting Away had some good spots for knitting recently, and I am getting a little jealous. So here I go to show what I believe to be Awesome Knit spots.
Two weeks ago I met up with KnitWise Cracker to view the Olympics and knit. Nice, eh?

This location was pretty good, BUT I knew I could do better. Look!

In case my technology skills have failed this is what I had pictured:

Not sure you can see my fellow knitters up on the glacier trying to position for a prime knitting spot on top while I stayed at base camp. There was a small set back in their grand plan. Can you see it?

There was a bit of a gap between snow fields, uhm...25 feet away. This Crevasse seemed to span the top to the mountain. Bummer.... this "snow problem" turned them around 1000 ft from the summit knitting spot.
There is always a bright spot to this event. While they were returning to camp I realized........ crevasses could be a great place for yarn stash. Just imagine the amount of yarn you could fit in there. AND the yarn would be WELL preserved..thousands of years... for the next generation dinosaurs. Also, if the wool is frozen, it should be safe from bugs and moths. ;) What do you think?
Now a quick update to my slow knitting. My blanket is now officially 20% complete, 90 squares. Sockfanatic and I swapped scraps last weekend so we can continue to knit fresh colors.
Here is a picture of the Japanese Fan socks with Lorna's Lace "Asian" color way. This is supposed to help pay the rent for my brief stay in Asia. Do you think TalkstoStrangers will be satisfied with this exchange?

I did miss the deadline for the July Sockamania Celtic cable socks. I just needed to finish the foot and toe of sock number 2. Since it is August I need to get started on the August socks. How am I supposed to do all this knitting while I am out searching for the perfect knit spot????
Lastly, I can not forget to give a shout out to one my million readers, Welcome Cadirs.