Alpacapalooza

This past weekend was Alpacapalooza Ohio!* I had so! much! fun! And I bought so! much! yarn! A good mix of huacaya (warm and wooly) and suri (soft and silky) yarns, both processed and natural colors.

Gotta get a little pretty in pink!


I love grey. I once heard highly gifted people are drawn toward grey because it calms their super crazy-smart minds. I'm sure that's why...

Or it could be because I'm just a tad bit colorblind. A friend called this colorway "teal". It so is not! Cadet blueish perhaps...but not teal!


And then there was this lady who had just piles and piles of yarn, all natural alpaca colors, and I looked and I pondered and I wished *desperately* that I had won the lottery on my way over so I could buy it all...but I hadn't so I finally setted on brown tweed and charcoal. (I actually came back later and she was sold out. Sold out of her mountains upon mountains of yarn!!)


These are llama, wonder what they had to do to smuggle them into Alpacafest? So pretty, the first two bunches I've balled. Balled? Made into balls... With which to knit...



*No, that was not what it was actually called...

Fuzzy Feet: Finis!

Bring it on Winter...me and my fuzzy feet are ready!

The obligatory wear it on your head shot:


Perhaps I added a tad too much detergent:


All done!


I worried from the start about compensating for my chicken-little ankles but was afraid to push my (non) knitting abilities in modifying the pattern...I think the pie crust effect looks quite cute:

And they fit! Kitty Caz thinks they're quite dashing:


I felted until they were slightly small, then wore them *alot* while damp to mold them to my feet. Mmm,mmm! Wet wooly feet! Then in a fit of genius (or happy coincidence) I tucked them into my drying rack so the arch bent around the rod while they dried...built in arch support baby! (Sorry for the dark pictures, welcome to Ohio.)

The Funky Feet, they call to me...

Will someone please *pretty please* tell me that those funky stitches will felt out okay and everything will be just fine in Fuzzy Feet Land?! Because I'm having serious issues forgetting about them and even more serious issues knitting past them.

Must...frog...must...frog...

Pucker up baby

...because I'm picking up stitches!

This is what happens when I multi-task -- knitting while watching tee-vee and talking on the phone with my sister, holding the phone between my shoulder and ear of course! Maybe that's why everything's just a little bit tilted.


You know, this side really doesn't look too bad...


...but rut-roh! I hope y'all aren't kidding about felting healing all.

Got Gauge? Hell no!

Okay all you Socktober knitters, I have one question: What the f*** happened???



This is a picture of my first knitted sock (aka Papa Sock: dark blue) compared to a heavy boot-sock (aka Mama Sock: perwinkle blue with design) compared to an actual sock I wear every day (aka Baby Sock: light blue). Sorry it's so dark but I think you can get the idea...obviously I had a gauge problem. I admit it. **Fine!** But this is what I don't understand, the stitch gauge was on at 12 st/2" but my row gauge was too big at 10 rows/2". Why does this happen, and how do you fix it? Go down a needle size? If so, how do I keep my stitch gauge?



Why did my toe come out so pointy? Did I decrease too much too fast? Should I have stopped the toe earlier, binding off with more stitches? Even with my super-long alien second toe, I still don't need this triangular of a toe.



I think the heel came out quite nicely, I mean for a giant, but still...

Anyway, I knit my first sock, turned my first heel, and made my first triangle-toe. Mission Accomplished. The sock is now a pretty center-pull ball waiting to be fingerless mitts.

It's official, I'm a joiner!

I have obtained stuff to make Fuzzy Feet! Granted some people are already finished, but me, I feel accomplished because I bought the damn yarn. That's right, I said it, DAMN YARN.

Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride in Raspberry, a very warm color to inspire very warm feet. And I'll be knitting on Clover Bamboo 10 1/2 DPNs.