Monday, August 2, 2010

Mission Accomplished

It was 105 degrees today in our neck of the woods. Texas is always hot during the summer but this is even hot for us. So what does one do to keep cool in 100 plus temperatures? Stay inside and knit.

Truthfully, the temperature had nothing to do with me staying home and knitting; the real truth is that I needed to finish a baby gift today. I am happy to report that the baby afghan is done and ready to be given to its new owner.
This is a very simple basket weave pattern knit with Lion Brand Wool-ease. I started this project at the beginning of June. It should have been finished long before now but I had other things to do. I had hoped to complete the afghan before its new owner was born, but I missed that deadline. He was born almost three weeks ago. However, did I mention that is 105 degrees in Texas? Even a newborn baby does not an need an afghan right now. That said, it is done and I will give it to his parents this week. They can pack it away until we have that one day in January or February where curling up under an afghan sounds like a good idea!

I haven’t knit much this summer. I have been a little preoccupied with other things. Now that the wedding is over and I have some time to sit still and relax, I am ready to get to work on the list of things that I “have been wanting to make for awhile.”

We did visit several knit shops while we were in Vermont. There was a small shop in Stowe that sold both yarn and quilting supplies. I think that their primary focus was on quilting but I did get a skein of hand-dyed sock yarn that was done locally.

The second shop we visited was found serendipitously. We were on our way to visit Dog Mountain (I will tell you about that in another post.) with somewhat sketchy instructions. We did OK getting to the right town, but beyond that we were . . .clueless. We were driving along the main street in this little town when we spotted this.
Surely these nice knitters will give us directions to Dog Mountain and there might even be an added bonus – yarn! We were not disappointed. The first thing we saw when walked into this shop was a print by the artist who created Dog Mountain. Goal 1 accomplished. We had directions. And after a few minutes, Goal 2 was also accomplished. We had yarn.


This yarn has a lot of green in it. Those who know me know that green is probably my least favorite color, especially for something that I am going to wear. However, it seemed appropriate to get something green while in the Green Mountain state. The colors in this skein of sock yarn, again dyed by a local artist, remind me of the beautiful scenery that enveloped us for our week in Vermont.

We have not decided which one of us will get the socks made from this yarn. At the current 105 degrees, socks are definitely not a priority!