Monday, May 05, 2008

Maryland Sheep and Allergies



Before I left the house for the Maryland Sheep and Wool I saw a box of tissues -- the decent kind, with aloe and lotion -- and thought ah! I should bring those along, what with my heinously evil allergies, even though I have already had some benadryl, and have some extra in my pocket. Naturally, I forgot to grab the tissues on my way out. I stopped at the gas station, and there were no boxes of tissues, but they had a generic pocket pack of sandpaper brand tissues. I bought a roll of paper towels instead.

And what did I do? I left them in the car. A compacted nasal passage makes me stupid.

MDSW is pretty amazing. It's huge and confusing and there's wool and people and sheep EVERYWHERE. I had to walk around four times before I could actually focus on any one product. This is the line for Socks That Rock:

The line for Socks That Rock.


The weather was pretty good -- cloudy and cool in the morning. The afternoon got warmer and humid, and I started to feel badly for all the people who were wearing their recently-finished wool sweaters.

There was a Ravelry meet-up, and BOY was it crowded.

Saturday's MDSW Ravelry meet-up

Saturday's MDSW Ravelry meet-up


Being not so wild about big crowds I got my Official Ravelry Pin and took off for shopping. So here're my spoils:

My spoils from MDSW


Clockwise from that blue stuff on the left (or you can click for flickr notes): 2 braids Flying Fibers hand painted BFL; 1 oz Nono Cashmere; Socks That Rock (I had to see what all the fuss was about) in Purple Rain; more Cashmere*, this time from The Fold (aka the Socks That Rock booth); three small skeins of Koigu KPPPM which were 25¢/ounce which is actually not as good a deal as you might think, but will make good baby booties**; and finally, in the gold bag, an ounce of buffalo roving. I rave about it all the time and thought since I cause such a fuss about it (and since it was half the price that I've seen it for online -- thank you, The Fold!) I should have some to show off. This may never get used for spinning, but kept for fondling.

I wanted to go to the Ravelry party, but at around 4pm I got hit with some really bad allergies -- sneezing, itchy eyes, general misery, and I dealt with it for an hour, and finally decided it wasn't worth it and went home.

So! Project update. I blame this one on Grace. She was all talking about knitting baby sweaters, and then all of a sudden there I was, knitting a baby sweater.

Whale sweater


It also hasn't helped that I've been lusting after colorwork knitting lately, and than it's looking like my nephew is going to be a hefty fella, and everything I knit him already is a little on the small side. But there you go. I'm still debating what to do for the neck. I like button necks but haven't done one before, and am not sure how they should work. Whatever. I'll figure something out.

I used the Yarn Standards website to try and get some sizing ideas, and y'all, babies are some weird-ass sizes. For a 3 month old the length from their armpit to armpit is 8", but the length from the nape of their neck to their waist is just 6".

That makes for a freaky looking sweater, so I'm just using it as a guideline. And if it doesn't fit, well, then I'll just cry.


*See, I stuck my hand into the cashmere bag at The Fold and was all NOM NOM NOM but ended up buying some from a different booth (the Nono cashmere), but then I got back to the Fold, realized THAT cashmere was 1. nicer, and 2. half the price, I bought some of that, and then didn't feel like I could return the first one, and can you really have too much cashmere? I didn't think so.

**Although since I just found out it's not machine washable it'll only be used for knitters' babies. Shoot.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't cry! it'll fit someone!

Anonymous said...

nom nom nom nom! To the fiber booty AND the baby sweater! Eep! It's too cute!

Tanya said...

That sweater is freakin' adorable!

Pixiepurls said...

oh how funny, that's ME in the STR line, white skirt, blue hoody wrapped around my waist and brown mud boots on.. hah!