Sunday, August 1, 2010

A Knitting Vacation!!!

I'm back! After a lovely and fantastically relaxing vacation, the family and I returned home this afternoon. We stayed in this lovely cabin on Sabago lake for two nights. Look look look!



In this pic you can see the living room (behind my sister, who was cleaning and wouldn't move for the picture ^^), the tiny kitchen, and the stairs up to the master bedroom. It was small, and quite cozy for my 5-member family, but perfect for a weekend.

This is the view from the front porch:



So pretty!!!

(Luckily I thought to bring my camera with me, and managed to steal my mom's USB connector cable when we got home, so I don't have to bother with PhotoBooth this time! yay!)

I also took a knitting vacation, of sorts. :-) My family thought I was crazy for insisting on bringing my entire huge knitting bag (Autumn Leaves Afghan included) with a bazillion projects "just in case." I didn't even attempt to work on that Afghan (thanks to the summer heat. You'd think I'd learn, wouldn't you?) but I did finish Kalajoki sock #1!



And it fits the brother's foot great! (Though that's my foot modeling it there, and it doesn't fit me quite so well ^^)

However, after I'd finished with that, I was good and ready for my knitting vacation.

Thankfully, I had thought to bring along my size 1 Hiya-Hiya needles and my new Plymouth Happy Feet yarn that I bought the other day. First thing's first: I had to wind the hank into a ball. So, stuffed in the car with the mom, dad, bro, sis, dog, and enough clothes, towels, sheets, food, and in my case yarn to last us a weekend, I proceeded to get out my hank of yarn and begin to roll it into a ball.

Now, I dunno about you guys, but my preferred method of winding a ball out of a hank is to kind of rest it over my knees as I wind the ball with both hands and periodically use one hand to loosen the individual string from the hank. I don't think this is an overly energetic, space-hogging, or movement-intensive. But my brother and sister were acting all affronted like it was totally unacceptable for me to wind a ball of yarn in the car. And all I could do was shrug, continue winding, and say "Well, at least I'm not spinning, right?"

So I wound my ball of yarn and got started on Cookie A's Vilai Socks pattern from her book Sock Innovation!



Wow. What a pattern.



In this picture (sadly un-rotated. Sorry 'bout that) you can see the other side of the pattern, the pic of what the sock is supposed to look like in the end, and the CHART! Sweet mother that is one heck of a chart. I have honestly never knit something that was this involved, and it has been a joy. It really does take all of my focus, so I couldn't watch TV or read while I work on it, but I can still converse or listen to music. And it really is exciting, watching the yarn transform the chart into something beautifully tangible.

I kind of wonder if I should have chosen a solid color for these socks, or at least a lighter variegated, so that the pattern would show up better. But I love this yarn and I love this pattern, so why shouldn't I put them together? My feet won't know the difference, and I'll be able to see it :-)

This is only one repeat of the pattern, and it's absolutely beautiful. 2.5 repeats makes the leg, then I separate for the heel and blah blah blah. It's gonna be gorgeous!

After I finished the one repeat, I figured it was back to work, so I got started on Kalajoki sock #2. But I haven't gotten very far on that.



I only have a little over two weeks before I head back to school, but I should have the Kalajoki finished by then. :-)

This post is already ridiculously long, but I'll leave you with some pics of the Autumn Leaves Afghan!





It's 33 inches long so far, and I plan on making it at least 50 inches long in total. So just over halfway done! :-) I'll post more pictures when I get farther along :-)

Until then, Happy Knitting!
~YoungKnitter

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