Odd balls from the bottom of the knitting bag . . . .

First, I'll fill in the blanks from what I posted, er, didn't post last week about the Blue Moon De-Stashing. ToolMan and I were looking forward to this S.E.X. (Stash Enhancement eXcursion), so we arrived early, even before the Hawaiian Restaurant at Scappoose Creek Inn was open for breakfast. If you haven't seen their website, go do that now; the pictures of the rooms are great and get a load of those quilts on the beds!. While we waited for the restaurant to open, and friends to arrive, I petted the llamas and discovered that despite all the planning I'd done for knitting in the car, knitting that I couldn't possible arse up if we stayed for the knit-in, extra bag for newly acquired treasures, charging the camera and the phone, printing directions from Google Earth, etc.; I had, in fact, left the camera, complete with a fully charged and an empty memory chip, laying on the kitchen counter.

No matter, because soon enough we were joined by a whole bunch of people for breakfast. Although ToolMan and Cindy declined anything containing SPAM (the meat, not the emails), we all knew we needed sustenance for the upcoming shopping. Go see the pictures and details by Monica, or Judy, or Duffy.



Duffy and I both bought a skein of the Laci in "burnt sugar"; mine is slightly darker than hers, but hers has a greater variation of colors. I want to make a Faroese shawl from mine and I think Duffy had a similar plan for hers. It'll be interesting to see what we come up with, using the same yarn.

The group that had breakfast together dallied over our coffee and tea, so we were about 15 minutes late getting to the barn for the sale and it was pretty well picked-over by then! This wasn't a normal "open the doors" for a sale; oh, no, this was more like a plague of wool-starved locusts descending a poor, lone sheep. I was looking for roving and came up empty-handed when Melissa walked by and said, "Hey, want this Sheep to Shoe kit?" Of course, I protested that I really didn't need more roving (but not too much) and agreed to take it off her hands.

I did get the cable hat finished, although I'm not too happy with it; the crown looks a little "pouffy". I'm hoping it comes out in blocking. I think it and the Fetching mitts might be Christmas presents for somebody.

I did get some spinning done last week, too. Here are three skeins I spun and plied last week.



My singles are getting thinner and thinner as well as more consistent. That turquoise skein is 210 yards of 2-ply. Since I Andean plied these, it means I've gone from getting about 100 yards of single on a bobbin in October to getting over 400 yards of single on a bobbin last week!

I also spun these two skeins which haven't been measured yet.



That's one skein of white and one skein of cotton candy colors barber-poled with white, both in lace weight, 20 WPI. I think these might get used together for a pair of mitts (or socks, if there's enough) for a Christmas present. The multi-colored one reminds me of the ribbon candy we used to get at Christmas time. If they become socks, maybe they'll get blocked on ToolMan's sock blockers.



These are 3/4 inch thick cedar with nicely rounded edges so you don't have that ridge like thinner sock blockers sometimes make. And, of course, these have been approved by Inspector 37.

Yesterday, the PDX Knit Bloggers got together for their Holiday Knit-A-Thon. I think we should definitely make this a yearly event, and maybe we should consider other holidays to have Knit-A-Thons for.

We met at Gino's Restaurant in the Sellwood neighborhood, which is owned by Deb and her husband; actually, they live upstairs. There's nothing like a big whack of knitters to get the ol' mojo going.



It was really interesting to see what everybody was working on; from kitty nests to be felted to socks to sweaters.



Speaking of sweaters, would you just look at the fair isle Kathleen is working on for her son? It's in a bulky weight and totally cute; the little guy will love it. And she's working on a purple silk scarf in a candle flame pattern.



Duffy and I parked our wheels in the back and spent most of our time spinning. She's working on some alpaca that is such a dark brown, it's almost black. I was working on a gold and brown alpaca marl; it's the last of the Dragon Waste from OFFF.



There were knitters I knew and knitters I didn't know, and knitters who I didn't really get to know nearly well enough. ToolMan picked up a couple "Honey Do" requests from Melissa for extra bobbins and from Duffy for a lazy kate. He was already busy cooking up designs for both last night.



Since this was an all-day affair, we decided on pot-luck brunch. I made a breakfast casserole with bacon, caramelized onions, mushrooms and cheddar cheese. There was bread and hummus, bagels and cream cheese with fantastic sliced ham, fruit salad, raisin cookies, pastries, a fruit tray, a basket of little muffins, and assorted other goodies. And Kathleen brought a bottle of Almond Creek sparkling wine which was perfect! Needless to say, if anyone went home hungry, it was their own fault.

We also did a yarn swap and I think everybody came away with something they were thrilled to get. I took some small skeins of my homespun which were snapped up by Cindy and Chrispy. I managed to snag some BEEYOOTIFUL stitch markers hand-made by The Famous MonicaPDX.

Aren't they gorgeous? They're burgundy cultured pearls and lapis lazuli with sterling silver wire and a sterling necklace to keep them on. These are definitely staying home; I don't want to take a chance of dropping one of these babies on the MAX and having it roll away from me. I think there's already a trail of cheap plastic ones that runs from our front door, to the MAX station, on multiple MAX trains, and from Pioneer Courthouse Square to my office. Which is precisely why I keep buying cheap plastic ones and have never sprung for really nice ones like these.

And lastly, I ran across this. I know it's a website for an insurance company, but if you live in the Northwest, or know somebody who does, or have visited here, go look; it's a hoot! I think ToolMan is a hybrid of #56. #34, and #8. I'm not sure what I am, maybe a cross of #88 and #99?