"My" week begins

I finished the socks last Thursday! What a journey! I love them, they fit like a glove and they are ever ever so comfortable and snuggly warm. I'm wearing them now, in fact.




I've started another pair. I wanted to do socks using the magic loop method. I wanted to knit two socks at one time. I wanted to knit some toe up socks. Then I found a pattern...well, no, it's really a tutorial. which is what I need anyway, since I had no idea how to do any of those things. I'm using the yarn I dyed, with a few alterations to compensate for the dyed yarn having a smaller guage. Things are going fine so far. The hardest part was casting on. A fiddly "figure 8" cast on, which felt like you were knitting stitches into thin air...in fact, I reckon I was from time to time.





Which brings me right up to today. Monday! I woke up at 3:15 AM to see Chris off. He's left today for his geograpy camp, a working week away in the Flinders Ranges with about 35 Year 11 students. Tonight and tomorrow night they will be staying in a relatively modern campground at Wilpena Pound, but Wednesday, they seriously go bush, with no toilets, no kiosk, no conveniences of any kind. It's a wonder how he ever gets any teenage girls to go!

And here I am. On my own! Boy, am I stoked! I love Chris, I really do, but I really really really was needing some serious downtime! Which, now, I have. I have so many knitting, dyeing and spinning things on my TO DO this week list that I almost don't know where to start. But start I did, at 3:15 this morning no less.

After seeing Chris safely off at 4:30 (I even did the Aussie stand outside and wave till they're gone thing), I came back in, put a tape in the VCR and started knitting on my jumper. Yes, the long neglected Fringe jumper..the one I mentioned WAY back in the Alpacomplete thread. The one I've put aside in the quest for a finished PAIR of socks. The one with the really big needles and the obscenely long rows that hurt my hands, forearms and even shoulders. Ahhh, what we do for our craft! Well, this morning and on and off thru the day, I got a bit accomplished. Quite a bit really, but it doesn't really look like it because the thing is soooooooo long!

I came and got online at around 7:00AM and saw my youngest son on here. We got on the webcams and phoned over Yahoo messenger, and I got to wave and blow kisses and talk to the grandbabies, which was certainly the highlight of my day. Then I made a quick trip to the grocery store before the crowds showed up.

I mentioned in the last post how I had gotten two black balls of Patonyle, and should have gotten 3. Well, I decided to get any big drives behind me, so at a bit before 9AM I left to go to Stirling to pick up the other ball. I wound up getting 4, the last 4 they had, but now I've gotten enough for 2 pair of dull black conservative socks. Ah well, it will justify my much needed trip to the optomitrist if nothing else, trying to SEE the stitches in all that blackness.

On the way back, I decided to check out a little shop in Hahndorf that carries some local homespun along with regular commercial yarn. It was off the beaten path, but only by a little, so I went. I got there to find the shop didn't open until 10AM. I had 10 minutes to burn, so I went in search of a toilet, which happened to be a bit over a block down the main street. On my way back, I passed a candy store, but what caught my eye was not candy.

Mom, if your reading this, you'd better be sitting down!

There, right inside the doorway, on a shelf, was a pile of cans of DR PEPPER. My mother had almost refused to come visit me when she found out that there was no DR PEPPER in Australia. I had searched everywhere locally. US Foods in Melbourne had them, but cans of soda pop are not light, and never mind the steep (by US standards) price tag...the shipping costs made it prohibitive. Anyway, I felt like I hit the jackpot. Maybe, just maybe, she would come back to visit her loving daughter now.

She wasn't here now however, so I didn't bother buying any, but I did decide to go inside and look at what other treasures this store might offer. To my utter Shock and Awe...they had...yes, that's right...Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. My food group of choice! I bought as many as I could afford, which wasn't nearly as many as I wanted (and sent one off later to a fellow expat). But now that I know where they are, I WILL go back. I've eaten only two cups so far, which certainly attests to my strength and fortitude. I want to savor them slowly. If you can make out the price tag, you will figure out why.




There were lots of pretty things in the wool shop, but nothing I could afford after buying the Reeses, so I made my way home. Since then, I've messed around on Ravelry, mailed off my RAOK to my fellow US expat, knitted on the Fringe jumper some more, knitted on the Magic Fruit Loops socks, watched a couple of programs I had on tape, retied (with cotton) some more TeAwa Natural wool I'm going to dye tomorrow and threw it in the utility room sink to soak, and skeined two balls of the white Patonyle that I plan on dyeing tomorrow.




Not bad for day one. Tomorrow I WILL pull out the spinning wheel. I WILL dye the TeAwa and the Patonyle and maybe, if I feel particularly froggy, some of the white alpaca fleece.

I'm on a ROLL!