A Muggle in a Motorcycle World (Part One)

This is Wheezy. He is my father. He likes motorcycles. In the motorcycle world, they do things similar to Fiber Festivals. They are called rallys. Wheezy took me to the Return to Shiloh BMW rally this weekend (Mom and Maggie came,too). There were tons of bikes.

And vendors.

And field games where people compete to see who can throw water ballons over a pole and then catch them on their way down, and put Kermit chairs together.


Wheezy got his butt kicked on the Kermit chairs. I'll post some more later. There will be knitting included in that one.

Sock Wars

I just removed myself from Sock Wars and I feel that I made the right decision. After reading numerous posts, I just felt like I had enough going on and really was not as obsessed into it as some of the other members. I like knitting socks for the enjoyment of knitting socks. They are reserved for people I like and I take those people's considerations into my knitting. Socks Wars is not for my kind of knitter and I have so much stuff going on, that I felt like it would be taking up knitting time, energy, and materials, that could be better used elsewhere. So goodbye sock wars and good luck to all involved!

Sunday is for Socks

Thanks to lots of football listening (The Steelers are never on t.v. down here), I've almost finished the second of Nikki's socks. The picture above is from a few days ago, but it shows off the true colors of the yarn, better than I picture I could take tonight would. The yarn is Fiesta Ballet, a 50% merino, 50% alpaca blend, that is very nice to knit with. It also seems to knit up very fast. I'll put up all the stats when I show the picture of the second sock. I also wanted to say thank you again to everyone for their comments, thoughts, and prayers. I appreciate it more than I can say.

Yarny Goodness from Bloomin Yarns

A week ago I went to one of my favorite yarn shops to vacation at. Bloomin Yarns, in McMurray PA, has great yarn selection, esp. sock yarn. We're talking Yarn Pirate, Shibu Knits, Claudia's Handpainted, Cherry Tree Hill, Bamboo Wool and Cotton, among a ton of others. It also carries unique non-sock yarns like hemp alongside Dale and Cascade. Overall, a very cool store. The best part is the people inside. The owner, Michelle is as nice as nice can be. She even remembered us from the one time we visited over the summer and asked if we were back for the wedding. That is a rockstar shop owner! (she also accused me of being a secret of the stole enabler, which is true and you can still sign up until tomorrow). Overall a great store. If you're in the PGH area, I would def. check it out. As you can see by the yarn that came home with me, I managed to have a great time :)
Edited to add: If you didn't already know this, I am a horrible speller. It's all fixed now. Sorry if the misspellings made you want to kick someone (probably me) in the head and light them on fire. I will use spell check, I promise. And Eloise, I did not buy all of the yarns Michelle sells, although I wish I had.

You're Adventures of Huckleberry Finn!

by Mark Twain

With an affinity for floating down the river, you see things in black
and white. The world is strange and new to you and the more you learn about it, the less
it makes sense. You probably speak with an accent and others have a hard time
understanding you and an even harder time taking you seriously. Nevertheless, your
adventurous spirit is admirable. You really like straw hats.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Nikki's back in the hospital again. I will get around to blogging about Blomin' Yarn because it is a truly awesome store. But not today. I'm too busy distracting myself so that I don't go spend the night at the hospital. Hence the quiz above. I really like the part about the straw hat and me speaking with an accent.
I'm planning on going to Kathy's early tomorrow morning to figure out the class sched. for October (I'm thinking about switching the lace bag to a lace scarf class. Any thoughts?). I'm sure that their will be a beginning sock class and a candy corn hat class somewhere in there. Any other ideas?

Socks For the Infirm

Thank you all for your kind comments. I took off work yesterday and spent the day in the hospital with Nikki. While I was there, I knit on her socks. The first one is done and I have started the second, I am knitting them out of Fiesta Ballet in the Wild Oak colorway. I love the colors and the 50% Superfine Alpaca and 50% Tencel content. I am hoping to finish these by Saturday. I am almost finished with my project for Sheri, I didn't want to take projects for people other than Nikki into the sick room just in case (BTW, that was pointless because she hasn't been contagious since Monday). Hopefully, I can finish those up, also. Tomorrow, I plan on blogging about a really cool yarn shop in PGH and showing you all the goodies I got from there (It's really that good). I'll try to show you pictures of Nikki's socks on Saturday and get permission to show the secret project. Have a great Friday!

Nikki

This picture is of my sister and my friend Nikki at PGH over the summer. Nikki is the type of friend that you always want to be around. She is outgoing and always has a joke and a smile. She is always in motion. She is the perfect protagonist to my antagonist self. She understands my sarcasm like no one else. She has become part of our family.
Nikki and I met when we both taught Middle School English two years ago. She has since moved on to teaching Drama and 8th grade English elsewhere and I moved to the library. We still remain close friends and often go out to get sushi or dinner. Yesterday evening, I got a phone call from Nikki telling me that she was in the hospital with Bacterial Meningitis. She was admitted on Saturday and didn't want to bother me because of the wedding. I went and saw her tonight. I think that this was the first time that I've seen her still.
What do I do in times of stress? I knit. And knit. And think of Nikki. The socks I'm knitting are going to be a gift for her, but they are a kind of therapy for me. These are socks crafted of tears, happy memories, thankfulness, and hope.