The beach....

Ken and I leave for Sea Isle City this afternoon. Never been there, but a group of people from St. John's invited us to share a beach-front place and I had to accept. Am I packed? Nope. Just enjoying blogging, reading patterns and deciding which yarn to take along..or should I say which project do I NOT take along?

I awoke yesterday to another bout of dizziness. This is the third event in the last 3 months. This time was different. Long story short, the MRI I had a week ago showed an "old" stroke in the temporal lobe which just happens to have something to do with balance. Aha! Now I know why I've been walking like a drunken sailor. Nice to know what's going on, not so nice to know that these dizzy spells will be a regular event. All in all, it's pretty weird.
Those of you who know me well will attest to the fact that I tend to be a Peter Pan-ish individual. Whatever that means.
So...I'm off to spend time at the beach with knitting in tow and the bikes left home in the garage.

Que sera, sera :)

True blue

Here's the Cascade yarn (real wool) that jumped into my heart at Rehoboth:

I'm hoping to knit the

Vine Yoke Cardigan with it one of these days. It's one of Ysolda Teague's patterns that was in the Twist Collective, Fall issue. I have no idea how to do all of this link stuff, so y'all may have to travel to Ravelry-Land to actually see the sweater. Everyone on Ravelry SAYS the cardigan is a piece of cake project. Yep. Oops...I think I just saw a pig fly past my window.

Must finish Noro shawl from Hades before starting this sweater......... stay tuned.

The beach, sort of :)

Husband, son, and little old moi traveled to Lewes, DE for a much-enjoyed day trip yesterday.

Funny thing though....I only saw the ocean from the boardwalk at Rehoboth after we biked all the way from Lewes to Rehoboth and then back to Lewes. (That's an 8 mile round trip.)

My blue bicycle and I are now friends. No falls onto concrete...No tumbles onto gravel...just lots of good exercise and beautiful wooded trails with plenty of shade and wonderful forests.

We settled for yummy cheesesteaks and Grotto Pizza since it was Monday and my Green Man Bistro was CLOSED. Oh the cruelty of it all... I was sorely tempted to sample the bacon ice cream offered at one of the boardwalk stands, but brain cells kicked in just in time and saved me.

And the yarn??? I consider it a verifiable miracle that Kitschy Stitch,the new Rehoboth yarn store, materialized right in front of us on the way home. Well, I had to go in and investigate. Besides, it gave the guys a chance to rest on the porch. Pictures of yarn to follow.

The end of a very special day.

Thursday night knitting at LYS. It's the best place to be. Tonight, there were only four of us, maybe because the tornado watch didn't expire till 6:20? What's a little weather among friends?

I don't think I actually knitted one stitch tonight, what with the 15 or so visitors from Italy that stopped in the shop. What fun.....I got to use some of my Italian. All ten words.

Besides, Lauren brought pizza.

Ciao :)

Up, up and away!!!

Today is my mom's 85th birthday. I have heard her wish for a hot-air balloon ride for as far back as I can remember. Today was THE day and it was all I could have hoped for. Even the overcast skies made for awesome views from the balloon.

We sent Kenny along, so it was a double treat: time with her grandson doing something extraordinarily cool. The video is pretty long, my first attempt at such things. Who knows how it'll end up???

Socks and Showers

Behold the ballband dishcloth taken from its lowly state, knitted in Tahki's Cotton Classic and on its way to becoming a centerpiece at Lauren's wedding brunch. Our Thursday night gang at LYS is busily knitting a bunch of these beauties so that Lauren will be able to use them on each table at her wedding brunch. They'll be topped with vases handmade by her future husband Phil, the potter, and finished off with flowers from Central Market.

Lauren is shown in the other picture with fellow knitter, Kathy. The reason for the big smiles is that Kathy is showing off her scarf and purse adorned with Lauren's handmade buttons. Yep. Phil taught Lauren how to make buttons, the prettiest ceramic buttons ever, and Kathy was her first "customer"....such excitement!

OK......and here's a picture of my very first attempt at "real" socks. I'm using Paca Peds superwash alpaca sock yarn which has 20% alpaca, 65% superwash wool and 15% nylon. So, I'm thinking it should be called Wool-Paca Peds. But I digress. Back to Lauren's table-topper which I must finish before any other project is worked on.

Blogging Buddies

I have the best blogging buddies. One of the really terrific things about knitting, besides actually knitting, is the people you meet, whether in person :) or online.

Today I learned two things: How to knit, and pronounce, NUPPS. But, best of all, finding out that it's Mary's birthday!

Happy Birthday Mary. Have a wonderful day.

The socks.

Voila! My first sock, knitted with worsted weight, so it's an indoors sock they tell me. It actually has a mate, so now I've started my first pair of real socks on sz. 1 DPNs with some beautiful sock yarn purchased at the LYS, Kitchen Kettle Village, PA. (Pictures to follow.) So far, so good. I'm using K2 P2 ribbing and then who knows?

I'm saving the sparkly sock yarn from Knitty City for something bigger and better, maybe a shawl?

Oh boy!!!!!!!!!

Today was awesome. Ken and I drove to a farm outside Halifax, PA (God's country) to drop off the wool from Mr. Brubaker's sheep (see earlier post). Lydia is the woman who owns the farm and will process the wool into roving so I can spin it. Now this is the wool from the sheep down the street which are "meat sheep", no fancy names or anything, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Lydia gave it the ok and will have it processed in about a month or two. Great timing since I need to earn my spinning legs first, so to speak. :)

That's me with Lydia and one of her gorgeous horses. Don't you just love the other picture with little miss ewe peeking out from behind a tree? I swear Ken was having serious farmer delusions and it took me a while to talk him down from the "I want to be a farmer" ledge he was on. I seriously think it was the chickens running all around that lured him in. For me, it was the kittens....and the horses...and the St. Bernard.

Yep. A real walk on the wild side. Stay tuned.