It looks like a painting, so Paintbox Hat is an appropriate name.  I'll take this and my sock to Lake of Egypt this weekend.  I'll probably be too busy to work on either, but one should never leave home without any knitting.

I've decided to act on my opinion that sock yarn is too pretty to keep in bins and made a trip to Target.  I got some Itso cubes and rearranged my stash.

The bottom two cubes hold non-sock yarn, needles, notions, and some knitting related books.  I'm hoping I don't regret leaving the yarn out in the open like this, but it's so much better than having them stuffed in bins in the closet.

I also got some shoe cubbies to organize our shoes instead of just throwing them in the closet.  It was a mess...

SHOES?!

I went to a local shoe store that sells brands like Keen and Dansko to look for that perfect mary jane shoe to wear with my hand knit socks.  I didn't get anything because the saleslady told me their fall inventory will be on sale in a couple of weeks.  If I wait, I'll have a bigger selection.  I don't have a problem with that.  I wore socks made with different yarns to test drive the shoes.

I think I should just do this more often anyway because it's fun.  No pressure on getting that second sock finished.

When there is downtime at work (and there has been a lot of that over the summer), I am allowed to knit at my desk.  I've been working on my Promise socks mostly and the new lab assistant really liked it. She told me that she does know how to knit, but she just hasn't been interested in socks.

Now she's knitting socks with her daughter.

She told me that she was impressed with my socks and it would be a great project for her daughter to do for an upcoming 4-H competition.  In order to help her daughter, she is working on the same sock pattern ahead of her so she can offer help.

How awesome is that?  Mom and daughter knitting socks and spending time together.  I told her that I would be happy to help with anything they needed.  It makes me feel warm and fuzzy when people tell me that my knitting inspires them to do something creative.  Another good reason to knit in public.

SPINNING

In other news, I'm trying to spin again.  I own an Ashford Traveller and have for about five years.  After several falase starts, I think I'm starting to get it.

This is undyed Romney.  I'm told it's a great beginner fiber.  My single is starting to look more even. When I started, it was much more thick and thin than this.  Maybe after more practice, I'll try out some dyed top I have.

MORE HATS?

Of course!  Jake is sort of a hat fiend.  It makes up for his fear of wearing socks.  I haven't made him one yet this year and I always knit at least one so he has something new to wear to MAGFest.  Here is the latest creation in progress.

We agreed that a plain stockinette hat would be best and would allow the colors to stand out.  I may put some icord on top.  He gets a kick out of that.

Enjoy Nugget...

He loves you!

The weather was awesome; low 60s to mid 70s all weekend.  The fair itself was half outside in tents and half inside at a local community college.  Not a bad idea in case it rains.  The very first place I visited was Creatively Dyed.  How can you not?

I wanted to show Dianne the sock I have been working on in her Calypso dyed yarn.  This is in the promise colorway.  She really liked it.  I got eight stitches per inch on size 1 needles.

After raiding her booth (I think I bought about nine skeins total), she was nice enough to have her photo taken with Loopy and I.

Inspired by Dianne's gift for dyeing, Jake decided to dye a skein of his own at Ewe Dye It Yarn.  We saw a fantastic prairie sunset while driving to Crystal Lake and he wanted to emulate that in the yarn.

This was lots of fun.  I'm positive that Jake would get into dyeing if he wasn't so wrapped up in his music.  Here is the end result; I'll probably make a lightweight hat for him.  He isn't too crazy about socks.  He's afraid he'll ruin them.

We called it Prairie Sunset.

We also had a yummy lunch while listening to live music...

...and visited some alpacas that were from a local farm.

I also tried knitting on size 50 needles.

When all was said and done, this is the yarn I brought home with me.

That's just yarn.  Oddly enough, Jake and I fell in love with a quilt kit and bought it.  I don't have a sewing machine or know how to use it if I did.  We've already signed up for lessons and are shopping around.  I also got some handmade jewelry and a little project bag.  Jake took home some roving for felting.  He wants to make a felted Nugget.

I had a fantastic time at the Midwest Fiber & Folk Fair.  It's smaller than Maryland Sheep & Wool, but I didn't get nervous trying to navigate though the crowds and all the vendors had time to talk with us.  We had a relaxing weekend and drove home with renewed creative inspirations.

All of the photos of the fair can be found here.

Here is a progress photo of the 'Sekrit Project'.  The Ella Rae Superwash and soft and the project itself is almost mindless.  There are a few cables thrown in to keep it interesting.

I sort of hard an epiphany after frogging the Kristi socks.  I have a lot of variegated sock yarn.  A lot...  In fact, I should probably sell some (No, that wasn't my epiphany).  I don't want to sell any of it; a lot of it I picked out with Jake and I remember how almost each skein was purchased.  Picking out a perfect pattern for my sock yarn, especially when its variegated, is frustrating me.  I'm tired of trying.

I'll just knit plain vanilla socks.  No worrying about the pattern being lost in the coor and I don't care so much about pooling or identical socks.

I recently purchased some Creatively Dyed Calypso yarn from The Loopy Ewe.  I picked up the Promise colorway from the Calypso line.  I'm going straight to her booth at the Midwest Fiber Fair; I love her colors and she's really nice.  I started a Yarn Harlot plain vanilla sock and am enjoying knitting again.

The truth is that I had to frog my first attempt and start over again.  I was getting 9 stitches per inch instead of the 7.5 suggested on the ball band.  I had to add an extra tweleve stitches to cast on in order to compensate.

Is anyone else going to the Midwest Fiber Fair?

I even tried it on and it fits fine so far.  I'm very pleased with my work on this.  I'm still terrified of seaming it all up later.  

This is why an upcoming project will be the V-Neck Man's Pullover from Knitting Pure and Simple.  No seaming!  Jake picked out some Rustic Wool for the project and it's really soft.  I'm in the process of swatching it now.

No, this nothing to do with my Sekrit Project.  That project still remain sekrit.

I have cast on for the May Sockdown project.

When I'm done, my sock should look just like the one on the cover of Sock Innovations.  A sock pattern that shares the same name as me AND has cables.  I couldn't resist signing up for the sockdown.  I'm also glad I learned to read charts early in my knitting career.

The semester is winding down; one more week of class and then finals.  I will be taking Intro to Plant Biology this summer so I can keep my student employment.  I want to get my biology out of the way anyway.  I don't have too much of an issue with dissecting plants.

Still on Rogue and the mystery project, but I always need something portable.

I'm so indecisive on the yarn to use...

I asked the folks at Ravelry and decided on the Acero on the lower left.  Acero is from Brooks Farm.

For whatever reason, the yarn looks really washed out in this photo.  It's more of a denim color.  I purchased it at Maryland Sheep and Wool a few years ago when I went with my mother.  At the time, Acero was called Limited Edition I.

In other news, I did score some Numma Numma from The Loopy Ewe last Monday.  That order got me into the Loopy Groupies club, so I got fabulous goodies with the Numma Numma.  Photos forthcoming.   I'm feeling extra tired and lazy today since we took Nugget to the dog park.  I'm supposed to be practicing my speech about the Mars Science Laboratory....but no.  

Nugget had a great time wandering around and sniffing trees at the park.

Before I went back to college, I worked for a few months in Volition QA.  I was testing Red Faction Guerrilla; I worked with art and activities, but mostly audio.  This meat that I wrote bugs for my husband, which was cool.  We had a really great time working together, even though stress was high

There weren't many women at the company. In QA specifically, there were much more men than women. I worked with two other girls who started a website about gaming recently.  There is also information about zombie survival, but I don't know much about that.  I think Janette would be the expert.

So, check it out!  Thoughts From A (Girl) Gamer

There are actually four contributors to the website.  It kind of reminds me of when I wrote for The Rabid Monkey and UGPO.  That was around 1999.  I really miss working with those guys.

Anyway, I didn't attach any photos of The Loopy Ewe Consolation Kit because people still had not received them.  I think it's safe now; the color isn't true anyway.

It's much darker than this.  More like a wine color. VERY soft.

Here is the entire kit.  The totebag was a surprise; I didn't think they would throw in anything that nice. It's already full of stuff I'm working on.  The pattern, by Wendy Johnson, is nice too.  I don't think I'll use the yarn for it though.  Oh yeah...the yarn. Nugget got ahold of it and shook it up a bit.  Lucky for him, it's still usable...

This past weekend Jake went to Cleveland for a demoscene convention and I had no schoolwork to do.  That equates to a free weekend, so I cleaned up the house Friday night so I could go to Needleworks early to get help with the Rogue pullover.

(On a side note, Jake won all of the music competitions except one and came home with money, books, tshirts, and a top of the line gaming computer.  It was awesome.)

I was ready to seam the shoulder together and pick up stitches to start the hood.  That is, at least I thought I was ready to do that.  Matthew was there on Saturday and was happy to help me out.  He pointed out, to my embarrassment, that I completely forgot to knit 36 more rows after the armhole shaping.  The back was much shorter than it should be.

He said that that particular direction looked like it was snuck in at the end of a paragraph when it probably should have had its own paragraph...like all of the other important instructions.  He undid the bind off for me and set me up to knit those last rows.  Then I'm going to undo the bind off at the front shoulders.  Instead of seaming, I'm going to do a three needle bind off with the front and back shoulders at Matthew's suggestion.

Here is a photo of the back.  The back was about as short as where the two strands of yarn are.  You'd think I'd notice something like that, but I haven't knit anything like this before.

In other news I managed to get a net score of 100.8% on my latest chemistry exam.  I got 100% on the polyatomic ion quiz which is added on to the exam.  So...wow.  As a reward to myself, I'm stalking the Loopy Ewe for their Numma Numma and will get some if I can catch it.

Yarn4Socks was having a 'stash stimulus' sale yesterday which included their Casbah yarn.  I decided to treat myself and pick up a skein; I thought I deserved something nice after getting 100% on both my algebra and chemistry exam this week.  I had never tried it before.

Incidentally, I had also signed up and failed to get a spot in The Loopy Ewe sock club.  They always offer a consolation kit for those that didn't get a spot.  I got an email from them telling me that this new kit was ready.  They could have picked any kind of yarn to use.

They picked Casbah.

I can't complain about that.  They're also including a pattern from Wendy Johnson just for this kit...and surprise extra.  I didn't have to pay or it either;  I used the rest of the gift certificate my mother gave me for my birthday.  Two skeins of Cashbah, a Wendy Johnson pattern and extra goodie for about $20 total. Good day.

In lieu of any knitting photos, here is a cute picture of Nugget.