Hurricane Aftermath

Hurricane Sandy did a masterful job at destroying many neighborhoods in the city.  If you have power, mercifully I do, and were able to see the news, then you have seen the devastation.

The subway system downtown at Battery Park has flooded and they're saying it'll take about a week to get the transit system running again.  Bus service is supposed to start this evening and will take up the slack where the trains leave off.

Fortunately, I had power (it dimmed a few times) and suffered no ill effects of the storm other than leaves in front of the house:

My back yard had some fallen tree limbs which you can see here, if you're interested in the boring.

It looks as if most people managed to hang onto their roof tops.  There was no flooding on my street and you have no idea how grateful I am for that.

I took a little walk around the block and saw that these poor folks lost the doors to their fence:

The one door is laying down in their driveway, the other is probably across town somewhere.  I hope it didn't hit anyone's house.

Other than that, we've weathered the storm and other than some still pretty strong winds, it's calm.

Knitting chit chat will resume with the next post.

Postcard From The Edge

I'm writing from my cell phone because there is no Internet service - thank you very much Hurricane Sandy.  The storm is expected tomorrow, but certain parts of New York are already starting to flood.  We've been told that, in addition to high winds, to expect rain for 36 hours.  Yikes!

It's very unfortunate that my house happens to be in 'Zone A' which is considered to be the first area to flood.  I have two choices at this point, since the city has asked us to evacuate.  I can go to a shelter and bunk with a bunch of  Zone A folks and leave my cat here alone, or I can take my son and my cat to my mom's house.  Unfortunately, she's in Zone A also.  So, I guess I'm staying home.

That said, I am told to expect power to go out for several days.  I have batteries for the flashlight, jugs of water and a manual can opener in case we have to eat cold soup - or cat food.  My son and I have our 'go bags' packed.  Now all we can do is hope for the best.

With that, I just want to wish my neighbors in Zone A good luck, stay warm, safe and dry - and may all of our roof tops stay attached to our homes.

If the power goes out, I'll see you all in a few days.  If not, I'll see you sooner.

Fall

Spring and Autumn are my favorite times of the year because I get to choose between lightweight sweaters and heavier ones.  There are so many choices of fiber and color and I can even make my own yarn, if I'm feeling ambitious.  What color matches these trees?

New York Sheep & Wool Festival
Rhinebeck, NY 2012

There's got to be something in my stash that matches the color of the trees.  It dawns on me that I'm always giving my hand knits away and I'm in serious need of sweaters.  Maybe I'll make myself one for Christmas, which won't happen until after Christmas, of course.

I'm currently working on Mary's socks, Embossed Leaves.  I'm modifying the pattern by making the leg shorter because they're meant to be worn in home while watching TV so she can keep her toes warm.  It's amazing how much better they look made in solid colors.

The yarn is Karabella 4 in lilac, I think, purchased at School Products.  I haven't been to their new location yet, but I'll get some pictures as soon as I do. 

The new Knit Picks catalog came in the mail today and I've made note of all the things I want.  I'm not going to buy them, of course, but I still want them.

I hope to be able to do some spinning this weekend now that I have discovered how to spin woolen.  The Jacob fiber is as soft as butter and I'm sure I need a black and white scarf.  

Rhinebeck 2012

Yesterday was filled with drama!

First, the bus company I hired to take us to Rhinebeck sent me a bill that was more than we discussed, so I asked for a reduced price.  I waited for the new confirmation to arrive by email, instead -  three hours later I get a call from the bus company telling me that the bus they had for the group had a mechanical problem and they had done everything they could to find another bus, but no luck.  No bus.

They said they could get a bus for me on Sunday, but half of the ladies wouldn't be able to go, so it wasn't worth the price of the bus.  Oy!  I was furious!

Fortunately, Maria and Junior (husband and wife team) have a minivan and I have a car, so we packed up 11 people and headed out today, as planned.  The day started off foggy and dark, but the sun came out and it was like Summer at Rhinebeck.

Who does cute animals better than Rhinebeck?  How about these cute angora bunnies?

Or these lovely Teeswater sheep?

And these Jacob sheep (what horns, eh?).  He had a cute face too.

That sheep was so cute, I was moved to buy 8 ounces of (soft as all get out) Jacob fiber:

And a few other things:

Yes, Tracey, I finally picked up my three skeins from Creatively Dyed to make the Color Affection Shawl.  Fingering weight in blue, brown and ... uh ... rose?  Turns out that the owner of Creatively Dyed (Dianne) is reorganizing and getting rid of some yarns which she's selling at a 50% discount, patterns, books and magazines.  She's going to focus solely on dyeing and selling yarns, so I am told.

Since there was no bus and I had to drive, I didn't get very far with Mary's Embossed Leaves socks:

Oh, and Carmen carried the freebie skein of Rock Star and wore her hat all day in the heat waiting for someone to ask her for that skein of yarn.  Hard as she tried, no takers - except her.   Lucky winner!

Now, since I hit my picture quota for the day, I'm off to work on Mary's socks.  I get the feeling I won't get very far tonight either - I'm plum tuckered out.

Beyond Life Expectancy

Can you find Miss Kitty?  She looks like fiber, but she's not wrapped in plastic.

Last year I emptied my fiber cabinet (thanks Sojourn Knitter) and decided that this year I won't need to buy fiber at the New  York Sheep and Wool Festival.

From then until now I purchased at least 10 more braids.  I'm a sucker for color first, fiber second.

(Scratching fiber off the shopping list.)

At last the give-away skein is finished.  Abstract Fibers in Rock Star 2-ply spun woolen, 243 yards, 97 grams, 14 wpi.  It's squishy and delicious.

It'll be sad to see it go, but I hope it makes someone happy.

Now back to my sock.

Baby, You're a Rock Star

The trip is coming up, and I'm almost ready to go!  I've been slowly gathering my stuff to take with me and I'll be at the bus at 8:00 a.m. sharp.  I've got my shopping list all done up, I've mapped out my route and the only thing left to do is pack lunch, pack spending money and head out.

The Kilim socks are my chore for tomorrow (luckily it's my day off) and I'll have nothing to do but knit - and maybe run a few errands.

The Rock Star BFL is drying right now, and I hope it adds up to at least 200 yards of 2-ply yarn.  I packed as much as I could on one bobbin:

And when I took it off the niddy noddy it hung so nicely, Maggie Casey would have been very proud:

I don't think you can see it here, but the purple did show up nicely:

Can you see it?  I can.  I think I'm in love with this yarn.

It had it's soak in unscented Euclan:

And the only thing left to do is check the yardage, label it and hand it over to someone at Rhinebeck.  Woo hoo!

The yarn is still damp, but here's a preview:

I finally see the difference between spinning with the forward draw (worsted) and the backward draw (woolen).  My backward draw makes for a fluffier, squishier yarn.

Now, if I can just remember that for next time.

Only A Few Days Left

The Soundview Stitchers are leaving for the New York Sheep and Wool Festival on Saturday.  I promised to give away a skein of yarn to some lucky blog reader astute enough to find the Stitcher holding the skein of yarn.  

That skein is called Rock Star and the person that gets it will be a rock star.  I started off with this braid of BFL from Abstract Fiber:

And I thought I'd have more time to spin than I actually did, but I got halfway done by Friday:

And the rest done today:

I hope it ends up being a good quality yarn.  It's going to be a 2-ply yarn because I spun it a little 'fatter' than I usually do.  Hopefully it'll come out nice and squishy - like in the old days before I learned how to spin skinny yarn.

So, because my fiber needs overnight to rest I busied myself with other people.  Like for instance, look who got her ears pierced:

What's sweeter than a sleeping baby?  She's a little chatterbox when she's awake, too bad it's not a language I understand.  Do you think if I put her in my lap while I spin that she'll gain knowledge by watching?  Oh, I hope so.

Sock Interruptus

I finished my second Kilim sock, and now I'm faced with deconstructing the first sock.  I'm half tempted to leave the first sock as it is.  After all, who will know that the sock doesn't fit inside my shoe?  Who will care that the first sock is for a size 10 foot and I wear a size 8?  Who will look that closely?  I will, of course, but the thought of knitting that sock for a third time is more than I can bear, so guess what I did instead?

Since I promised to give away a skein of my hand spun away at the NY Sheep and Wool Festival (and because time is getting close), I figured I'd better spin up the skein:

Here's the Blue Faced Leicester I got from WEBS in the Rockstar colorway.  Too bad my cheesy camera doesn't pick up the purple.  It's looking a little shaggy here, but it looks a little different spun up:

One spool down, two more to go.

And because I can't knit the sock on the train, I took a skein of the Cascade 220 that was generously donated by my good friend Sojourn Knitter and started a scarf that will be donated to a cancer patient.

I like the scarf, it's from a kit that I bought at Stitches East last year, designed by Candace Eisner Strick.  Nice pattern, if I ever make it again it'll be with a different color since pink is not really my color.  I'm more of an earth tones type.

OK, off I go.  Time to start closing up the house and preparing for winter.  It's freezing here and I'm not turning on the heat until there's ice on the walls.  My oil company came and filled up my tank and I nearly fell over when I saw the bill.  Good thing I wasn't home or I would have stopped Mr. Oil Man halfway through!  Can't he mix that oil with cooking oil?  Sheesh!

What Froze Over?

Today I came home from work and my son had washed the dishes and mopped the kitchen floor .  This in turn caused me to search every channel on television to find out if there was a crack in the planet or if there was a beam from the sun or moon that shone only on my house that brought out the clean-freak in him.  Maybe he's not my son, but an alien who stops by and cleans up.  I hope he comes back tomorrow and throws in a load of laundry.

OK, on to knitting.

I did work on the sock and here's my progress so far:

And if you look at the socks side by side, I can see clearly that the colors no longer match, no doubt because I used a smaller needle for the second sock.  Further proof that the first sock must be destroyed undone.

Oh well, I guess you (like me) are never going to see the end of these socks.  Oy!

After these socks are done, I'm going to do something easy.  I don't know what it is yet, but I'll find it.

Nylah

When I'm not going to knit, I to have a pretty darned good reason.  And I usually do.  Have a good reason, that is.  I had company yesterday.

On May 29th, my son became a father and I became a grandmother.  I know!  Hard to believe, right?  His college education is delayed, but life goes on.

And my reason for not knitting is 4 month old Nylah, who came for one of her many visits to date:

She came and the house was full of happy baby noises!  I was far too distracted to knit.  Here she is napping with the Brooklyn Tweed Baby Blanket I made her:

And here just being as cute as can be:

And since my son spent enough time putting together a playpen, well, she's at least got to try it out, right?

And while she was doing that, I was blogging and doing this:

Granted, it's not much progress, but it's the best I could do to keep this a knitting blog.  Besides, she didn't sleep very long.

Tonight knitting resumes, and yes, the first sock was made with a larger needle than the second sock (which fits better) and therefore must be undone.  Oy!