Travel Yarns

Progress is being made.  I cast on the second sock but it is just a toe at this point and since it looks exactly like the first sock there is no photo.

I spent a good chunk of this week's knitting time trying to up the afghan square count.  I want to have as many squares as posts on this blog.  That way each Sunday I can keep track of whether I met my quota of one square per week.  This is post 10 and I have 9 completed squares and one on the needles.  With any luck, number 10 will be blocking tomorrow night.  Again since these squares look like the ones before, no photo.

I joined the mystery knit-along for Stephen West's Doodler shawl. My yarn choices was done last month and sitting there waiting for the first clue.  Clue number 1 was released late this week.  I wound Colour A and B and cast on.  I am guessing at the percentage completed.  Clue one consists of 17 wedges; I have completed 12 as of writing this.  The problem is that each wedge gets exponentially wider and taller.  12 of 17 is not 70% but more like 45% of the clue.  I am guessing that it is also maybe 10% of the whole shawl.  It is hard to tell as this of course is a mystery knit.  

Here is a photo for your entertainment.

This is the only photo for this post so I am going to distract you with a video issued by Stephen West

Baby You're a Knitter

and stories about yarn.

There are two different yarns in the above photo.  The purple is Hedgehog Fibres Sock Yarn in Grape.  I wrote about it here.

The pink yarn is Turtlepurl Yarns, Big Turtle Toes in Dirty Girl.  I acquired this yarn as a gift from my Hubby.  He was in Ottawa for a conference.  He looked out his hotel window and saw a yarn store; he is by this time a well trained husband.  As soon as there was a break in the agenda, he headed to the store and bought yarn for me.  He is definitely a keeper.

There is a third yarn for this shawl.  Hazel Knits, Artisan Sock in colourway 203-Blacklight.  From its location in the stash, I think I purchased this yarn at Sock Summit 2011.  To understand why this is amusing, I will tell the story of going to Sock Summit 2009.

When I heard about the very first Sock Summit being held in Portland Oregon, I knew I wanted to go.  It was going to be the Woodstock of the sock knitting world.  Hubby said one evening after dinner that for 2009 he wanted to put more miles on the motorcycle.  I said, "Have I got the trip for you!"

Portland is 3,865 km from here according to Google maps.  We had a total of two weeks to get there, be there and get home.  This meant averaging around 800 km (500 miles) travelling each day as I planned to be in Portland for about 5 days.  To do that type of mileage on two motorcycles each day means anywhere from 10 to 12 hours a day.  We stop every 100 km.  Hubby's bike could only get just over 200 km per tank of gas.  Heading out, it rained one day.   On another, Hubby ran into my bike.  I stopped for construction; he was looking at the river we were crossing.  No one hurt and no damage done.  I refused to stop for the night until we made our mileage quota each day; his reaction was to get up later and later each morning.

By the time we got to Ontario Oregon, just inside the border of Oregon and Idaho, we were hot, tired and barely speaking.  We stopped for the night thinking that the last riding day would be easy at just 371 miles.

I woke up with the worst case of food poisoning I have ever had.  I wish to publicly apologize to whoever had to clean the room.  I am sorry but I had to choose which end went into the toilet.  

To this day I do not know how I kept the bike upright.  We traveled from rest stop to rest stop.  I would get the bike on its kickstand then tumble off onto any handy patch of grass just laying there until the world stopped wobbling, then use the facilities.  Hubby would bring me water and wet down my neckerchief to sooth my head.  

By the time we reached the Umatilla rest stop on the Columbia River, this was routine but after bringing water, Hubby went to sit somewhere he could keep an eye on me but far enough away so the folks staring at me would not think he was with me.   It was here he sat down next to an emergency room nurse.  She expressed concern for my welfare and came and checked me out.  She provided me with a banana and Gatoraide and finally I started to feel a little better.

I spent the entire Summit feeling sick, not able to eat much.  Hubby located a grocery store and kept me supplied with bananas, oranges and Gatoraide. Yet despite being incapacitated I had the time of my life.

The trip home got worse.  I woke up in South Dakota with a wicked cold.  It is impossible to sneeze and keep your eyes open.  Try it, you'll see.  On a motorcycle you can't sneeze forward or you end up wearing it.  Traveling through Chicago's traffic on a motorcycle, and sneezing is my definition of hell.  I had to develop a system of checking traffic around me to make sure it was safe to momentarily close my eyes then tuck my head under my armpit and sneeze.  Never mind not being able to blow my nose; that takes two hands and one had to be on the throttle at all times.   On the other hand there was no place to store or access tissues anyway and even if I could, they would just blow away.

We arrived home safely.  I ended up sick in bed for another week.  When I heard about the second and sadly last Sock Summit, I mentioned it to Hubby.  He said, "You are going to fly aren't you?"

"Yes".

"Have an nice time", he replied.