Putting one sock in front of the other

I think the last time I was this tired, I had a newborn. You will have to forgive me for being a bad blogger and not keeping it together on the posting front, but every time I get more than 20 minutes in one place where I don’t have a job to do, I opt for sleep or food. (Mostly sleep.) Opportunities to blog present themselves in 10 minute intervals (like now, I have 10 minutes before I need to go do an interview) and while I ususally find time to blog in airports while I wait for planes, this morning something came over me and I just ….knit. It was grand. I had a whole hour (you can’t really sleep in an airport) and I watched “Boston Legal” on my laptop and knit. Very restorative, though I have developed a disturbing crush on William Shatner. (It’s probably the exhaustion talking.)

The last time I wrote I had left New Orleans and gotten on a plane or two and headed for Texas. Houston, to be exact, and upon my arrival I (slept) and then staggered off to a spectacular event put together by Eve and Shelley, the fine owners of Twisted Yarns, which is in my humble opinion, a very, very nice yarn shop.

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(I bought yarn. I have developed very high resistance to yarn shops – largely promoted by the knowledge that anything I buy I will have to carry for days in a suitcase that’s plenty heavy already. Even so, when that rare beast, a yarn shop that seems to be stocked according to my personal taste appears…I am helpless.) On my way to the yarn shop, having squandered all 2 of my precious sightseeing hours on sleep and basic hygiene, I saw these guys.

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Freaky, eh? Who are these little guys? I tried to get a sock picture with them, but they startle easily and are very quick, and I think they were slightly alarmed by all of the sock brandishing. “Slightly alarmed” also describes the hotel staff, watching me sneak ever so quietly and slowly around their garden, camera and sock aloft. I’ve never seen anything like them. The bottom guy had a big red thing that he could blow up under his neck. Totally weird, and worth the trip just to see them.

(Whoops. My 10 minutes are up. I’ll try again when I get back.

Ok. I’m back. Quick but terrifying tv interview where I was attacked wholesale in a makeup booth by a woman who put scary tv makeup on me and then sighed and said ” and WHAT will we do with your HAIR!” and then came at me with aerosol hairspray out of freakin’ nowhere. There was no time to defend myself at all. My hair is immobile now, and sadly, still frizzy. I could have told her there was no point if she had given me time. )

Where was I? Right. Houston.

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The event was in a high school next to the store and I had a pretty good time, once I settled in. I had a seriously good time back at the store after the time of my trial. This is Gus and Hannah.

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Gus is a serious baby, and is almost unique in the world in that my considerable baby charming skills meant nothing to him. He was totally immune. He liked me, he looked at me intently, but nothing i did…not “ahhh – boo!” (which is very funny to most babies) nor my exceedingly baby amusing fish imitation…nor the big gun…pretending to eat his leg, coaxed a smile out of him. Stoneface. Dude should take up poker. (You know. When he can hold cards.) Witnesses will agree that I went to tremendous lengths, but he is immune.

I found the youngest knitter of the evening,

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Tonie, 10 years old and a perfectly competent knitter. We should all be so solid.

Dolores may have had some trouble with gauge:

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but prefers to say that “everything is bigger in Texas”. (I love that knitterly denial let her make a pair.)

Zari is knitting an anatomically correct fair isle cuttlefish, which she, naturally is calling “the cuddlefish”. He still needs a siphon and some tentacles.

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(No. I didn’t ask her why. Sometimes it’s better not to. )

Teri wants to help me get over my spider thing:

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so she made a spider washcloth. (Also soap with plastic spiders imbedded in it. I know where she’s going with it, but even the thought of rubbing pretend spiders on my skin gives me the heebies. Much inner work to be done, apparently.

Freida went the traditional state shape direction….

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while Lynn ann made me one with the lone star, and no, I didn’t tell her it was a tremendous co-incidence that Texas was shaped like a star. (I had already gotten the tip off from Freida.)

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Cheasty represented for the non-knitters who like me even though they don’t really get all the jokes…

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David represented for the male knitters wearing utilikilts and hand knit hose.

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(There are more of them than you think)

Amanda proved that my sock recipe works. This is her first sock.

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Sara was no end of interesting.

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See her hat? She wanted to make a hat with a firm round brim, so she disected an idea organizer and got the plastic ring out if it. Good thinking, eh? She’s also wearing a pretty nifty lace bolero. Now, me and lace boleros are pretty heavy with the “not so much” but I loved the way that the pattern she used handled colour changes.

The thing is knit with three strands of laceweight, and the colours shift by swapping out one of those strands at a time. The first section would be purple/purple/purple, then purple/purple/red, then purple/red/ red……see how that would create the shift? Very cool. The bolero is the The bolero is the Merging Colors Feather & Fan Bolero, in the Caribbean Sunset colorway, from Candace Eisner Strick. (There are tons of cool things on that link) and if you hang out at Sara’s blog, (which I really suggest, should you enjoy tech stuff about knitting) I bet you’ll see the hat pattern up as a freebee sometime soon.

Finally, last but certainly not least,

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our Houston hat lady, Emily. (She sells European sock yarn here. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.)

All in all, a very good time in Texas, I’d love to go back, especially with more time to investigate, though those strange little lizard guys were a high point. There’s nothing like that at home.

PS. I know someone will ask. The yarn I fell for was Jojoland’s Harmony. It’s a laceweight. A very nice all wool effort that changes colour in long swathes…like Noro or the Kauni yarn.

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I love it but have no idea what I’ll do with it, maybe this, but really, for this price for 800m/880 yards?

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Who cares.