Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Lake Hartwell State Park, SC

Last weekend we met three friends up at Lake Hartwell State Park, in South Carolina. They had camped there before, but it was a first visit for us. Our sites were not on the lake, however we were the only ones camping in that section, so we had lots of quiet and privacy surrounded by woods.  Friday night we sat around chatting until lightening started. We thought it must be heat lightning as it was silent, but took it as our cue to call it a night. About 1 a.m. the lightning was like a disco strobe, it was so frequent. The rain was intense, but oddly, no thunder. The rest of the weekend the weather was great (ok, it was pretty warm, usually 90+). Saturday afternoon we made ice cream using ziploc bags. All the fixings and equipment were provided by JP.  Mostly, we sat around getting to know each other better and ‘girl-talking’. MOTH tolerated the whole thing admirably and with his usual charm and good nature. It didn’t hurt that they all think he’s terrific and spoil him mightily.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

These are finally finished!

I finished these up between working on a couple of other projects. I am in the process of doing a small lace shawl as part of a Knit A Long on Ravelry, one more repeat on that and I will begin working on the edging. It has been a fun knit in spite of the number of times I have had to tink a row or frog several rows. Thank goodness for lifelines!! For me, especially since I am such a beginner, lace requires lots of concentration and no distractions, so I only get the early ours before everyone else gets up to work on it. These socks, however, when not doing the toes or the heels, were just straight knitting, so I could work on them while watching TV in the evenings. I must say, I like the cast on, the short-row heel and the bind off used. This was Lifestyle Toe Up Sock—more guidelines that can be adapted to any pattern of stitches- than a sock recipe. If you Google it, the article has links for the cast on, short row instructional video and to the Elizabeth Zimmerman bind-off as well. I’m hoping to cast on another pair today, using some different numbers based on what I learned making this pair.

knitting for blog and rav 004

These were made with Blue Moon’s Socks that Rock, Storeytime colorway. It made “sort of” stripes, but was not a self striping yarn.

This is the yarn that I hope to get cast on today. My goal is to keep a pair of socks on the needles for TV watching at all times, with other projects on different sized needles to work on in between. I find that changing needle sizes(projects) keeps my hands from getting too tired and sore.

knitting for blog and rav 006