The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Hang onto your hats, this is a pretty disjointed post because I'm trying to catch up to everything that's happened since OFFF.  First, the good:

I gave a demo of chain plying at OFFF.  This is the skein that resulted, which was just skeined and washed up today.  If it looks familiar, that's because it's the leftover of The Big Blue Thing.  I won't knit more turquoise lace, but I will knit turquoise worsted.

One of my co-workers is married to one of the county judges; they went to England, Wales and Scotland in August and brought me back some yarn!  WhooHoo; souvenir yarn from across the pond!  There's some lovely Rowan tweeds and kid silk in there, which are beautiful yarns and certainly nothing to turn up one's nose at.  And a fabulous skein of Noro in a colorway I hadn't seen before (My co-worker picked it because she loved the colors, so she may be getting that back in the form of a holiday present.)  But the ones that really stole my heart are the ones from Wales; hand spun and natural dyed by an indie dyer!  There's purple camel (Do you realize how rare Welsh camels are?) dyed with indigo and cochineal; some blue dyed with indigo, and a cream, blue, green variegated dyed with indigo, Welsh heathers and moss.  Be still my heart!  And some natural undyed as well.  I don't know whether to knit with these or enshrine them behind glass.

Here's some fabulous fiber from OFFF.  I was determined not to buy anything and I didn't.  Well, except for some antique knitting needles which I'll show you later.  I was happily spinning from my stash and chatting with friends when dear Karen walked up an put this in my lap.  Isn't it gorgeous?  It's black alpaca and merino over dyed in a dark eggplant purple. It's pin-drafted so it should spin up like butter!

And while I wasn't shopping, darling Bethany came by with a huge bump of this: white CVM and lilac angora.  The seller wouldn't split the 8 ounce bump but Bethany couldn't walk away from it.  Of course, she knew I'd be more than happy to take half of it off her hands.  This picture doesn't even begin to show how gorgeous this is.

Oh, another "good" but no picture:  ToolMan had a stress test a couple weeks ago that showed a blockage.  He had an angiogram on Thursday which came out clean as a whistle; it was a false positive on the stress test.

Onto the "bad": I went ass-over-teakettle up the courthouse steps Wednesday afternoon.  Yes, I fell UP the stairs.  Outside.  In the rain.  No serious damage except 3 broken fingernails and my pride.  I did get checked out at Urgent Care, just to be sure and get some pain meds.  I'm still really, really sore and the bruises are spectacular colors of blue, purple and green.  I'll spare you pictures since most of them are on places no one wants to see.

The "ugly" is this sweater.  No, not mine; one of my young attorneys was wearing this on Friday, with the unraveling pocket being held on with a safety pin, fer cryin' out loud!  I made her turn it over and told her she'd get it back on Monday after I repaired it.  I can't stand to see an unrepaired knit, even if it is a store-bought cotton sweater.

Not sure where this fits in the scheme I started here, but I have been knitting, slowly and seldom with my bruised and sore left arm.  On the needles currently is yet another pair of EZ's Sideways Socks for ToolMan.  Hey, they're on those antique needles I mentioned a few minutes ago.  

I bought 5 pairs of them; each size is a different color.  The tips are super pointy steel for about 3 inches, then the remaining 7 inches are enameled.  They're great for traveling knitting; the tips are super slick but the body is much grabbier.  And the sizes are funny:  each pair has two sizes on the end cape.  These have "2" on one side and "2 3/4" on the other side.  There's a set with "3" and "3 1/4"; one with "3" and "3 3/4"; etc.  I showed them around to my friends but no one knew what brand they are.  Anybody out there have a clue?