A weekend of knitting

I haven't had such a knitterly weekend in a long time. Unfortunately, for all the knitting I did I didn't actually finish anything. All my knitting projects are still WIPs.

Saturday afternoon I met some fellow members of the Rockin' Sock Club. I got to spend a delightful few hours with Phoebe from Knit Happened and Leslie from a blossom knits. Being able to spend an afternoon talking about knitting, yarn, blogs and designers with women who are as excited about knitting as I am was a dream. Phoebe and I worked on our Inside/Out socks (the first project from the Rockin' Sock Club) and Leslie worked on a gorgeous entrelac shawl. I'm looking forward to doing it again soon. Thanks, ladies!

After I got home from the sock club meet-up, I spent the rest of the evening working on my Inside/Out sock. I don't know if this happens to you, but every time I learn a new knitting technique I get obsessed with it. This is my first toe up sock and the first time I've done a short row heel. I could not, could not go to sleep until I saw how that heel was going to work. Does this happen to you? Plus, Judgement at Nuremberg was on the local PBS station. Oh yeah, spent Saturday night on the couch with the dogs knitting and watching a Nazi war crime trial movie. That's how I roll. At first I was like, okay I'll give this movie fifteen minutes then I'll switch over to... I don't know... America's Next Top Model reruns on VH1. Three hours later I hadn't moved from the couch. The movie is that good is all I'm saying. I made it through the heel and finally called it quits, bleary eyed, around 1 AM.


I worked on Veste Everest a little, too. I promise this is a different photo than from the last post. The difference between the photos is subtle. You have to really look hard to determine that yes, in fact I have progressed about two inches.


In non-knitting news... St. Pete Shuffle had a good night on Friday. The organizers of Project: HOME had an exhibit at the club of the artist's plans and sketches for the upcoming show at Williams Park. If you're in St. Petersburg next weekend, come by Williams Park to see the finished artwork, all dealing with the concept of "home".

Perks

362 days out of the year my neighborhood is (usually) peaceful and quiet. You know the type: lots of old homes, 100 year old live oaks creating a canopy over brick streets, neighbors who wave to each other, large 1920's Catholic cathedral smack dab in the middle of the neighborhood. I love it (which is surprising because I thought I'd always be a downtown urban chick). Then, for three days every March, the church has a fundraiser and the neighborhood gets all crazy and festival-y.

I love that I live five blocks away from this:





It was much more crowded than these photos make the festival out to be. For starters, every teenager in St. Petersburg that needed a place to make out was at the festival. By the time I got there most people had migrated from the rides to the food and beer. I didn't get a chance to photograph the food area (too busy eating, I suppose). In a 50 ft. row, there was a combination of foods that probably shouldn't all go into one's belly at once: chinese food, greek food, pancit noodles, fried green tomatoes, burritos, cookies baked by the nuns, and peach cobbler.

In knitting news, I think I'm suffering from startitis. I have a huge pile of sock yarn and patterns. For the past few days I've just stared at it all and thought, what to start next? Jaywalkers? Monkeys? STR club pattern? So many choices it makes my head spin! In the end I cast on for a project I bought the yarn for six months ago, the Veste Everest from IK Fall 2005. I'm using Harrisville Highland Style in #34 Aster.


This will be my first knitted sweater-type item. Read: this will be the first project I've knitted that actually needs to fit. Before starting I swatched, measured, washed, blocked and dried like a good knitter. So far so good: after one row I had the pattern memorized and have been able to knit on auto-pilot. Last night I finished several of the cable repeats while mostly concentrating on watching The Thin Man. Oh, that Asta!