Haleakala National Park

One of the many parks that will stay on my imaginary trip list is Haleakala.  I have managed to visit all of the 48 states.  The last two never worked into my plans.  I wonder what volcanoes must be like.  I imagine that there are exotic flowers everywhere and that the air is full of their scent.  I even want to taste that uniquely Hawaiian treat, shave ice.  Alas, I expect I will be limited to this souvenir yarn from Knitted Wit.

Beyond Enhancement

The self striping yarn from Must Stash showed up today.  Anything that comes into stash now is officially beyond stash enhancement.  The color with a lot of brown in it is Woodstock 50.  The one with a lot of gray is Ready Player One.

Shop Therapy

I’ve been sick.  I miss my cat and have been wondering if I should get a new one.  The country has reached a new level of stupid and it makes my head hurt.

To offset some of this nastiness, I have been following some dog people on Twitter.  I think they may show up other places, but that’s where I see them.  If you need some sweetness and happy, I recommend them.  I’ve Pet That Dog is 10 year old Gideon from Iowa.  His goal is to pet all the dogs.  He posts pictures daily of the dogs he pets along with a charming story about the dog.  We Rate Dogs is Matt the dogfather whose daily posts include a rating (never less than 11 out of a possible 10) for that day’s dog.  Once a week, a dog is featured whose caregivers are overwhelmed by medical costs.  It gives you a little faith in humanity when you see how fast each goal is met.  The Golden Ratio is a group of mostly rescue golden retrievers.  I think there are six at the moment.  They are all cuties with distinctive personalities.  Their caretakers do not hesitate to give love and care to even the oldest and sickest puppers.  It is very positive and I enjoy their adventures.  Go find them and discover the importance of waffles, carrots, a rock in Florida, and a shark.

This should be enough, even for a yarn junkie who suspects she may have achieved SABLE (stash acquisition beyond life expectancy).  It wasn’t.  I changed my National Park project. The new project requires 3 more skeins.  When I ordered one from Miss Babs, I saw this and decided to get it.

Then there were emails from Must Stash.  They do the best self striping yarns.  Ready Player One is a rainbow on a gray background.  I liked it and having read the book recently, the yarn kept calling.  I was good until a well-timed email caused me to give in.  I also got a 50th anniversary of Woodstock skein.  It has a zillion stripes with each one representing a band that was there.

That was more than enough until the train wreck/dumpster fire was last week.  I saw the newest Dolores kit on the WEBS site.  It is a cute sundress with a martini glass fair isle border.  Clickety click, I’ll have that.  And since Dolores no longer has a cat companion, I got the Harry kit too.  He’s a  ball of yarn that features in many of her adventures.

Yeah, I have been here before.  I may be here again.  In the meantime, I’ll be working on Tour de Sock stage 4.  Ever hear of first sock syndrome?  I think I just invented it.  I want to do anything but finish one stupid toe.

Socks

I decided to behave myself and work on my Tour de Sock pair instead of the patchwork queue jumpers.

The TDS sock is called Ancient Path.  It has fancy colorwork cables on it.

Judging by my credit card bill, I have been doing much better with not indulging in yarn.  The exception is this Shiver of Socks kit.  It is for celebrating Shark Week, so it was a necessary purchase.  Also I had a credit at Jimmy Beans.

Pillows

I finally got a pillow form for the Shadow Magic pillow.  The colors are from the yarn advent calendar I got last year.

I completed a Franklin Habit KAL for a counterpane pillow.  I weighed the leftover yarn and there should have been enough for a second pillow.  I knit it, but needed 10 grams of another color to finish the back.  Not only do swatches lie, scales do too.

I learned a new knitting phrase this week:  queue jumper.  I saw a pattern I really liked, discovered it was already in my Library, and found a ball of the recommended yarn in my stash.  And when I say found, I mean it wasn’t where it should have been.  The minute I realized it wasn’t in the proper bin, I glanced up and spotted it on top of a mixed up pile across the room.  I considered this to be a sign from the universe that I was supposed to drop everything and knit these socks.  These socks are a queue jumper.  I am behind two squares on an afghan KAL and the next stage of Tour de Sock starts today.  I am still knitting merrily away on these socks.

Tour de Sock 2019 Round 1

The socks are a pattern called Fledermaus.  I don't think I care for twisted stitches anymore.

Yellowstone and Banff National Parks

I visited both of these parks on a single trip.  Most of my memories are not the best, due to car troubles and relationship troubles.  The car continued to be a royal pain for the next 3 years.  I continued to be a royal pain for about a year.  Some people should never be married and I would put myself high on that list.

As usual, I digress.  I would put both parks on the wish I could visit again list.  Banff is in the Canadian Rockies and is beautiful.  I remember thinking that they were even nicer than the Rockies in Colorado.  This is especially sacrilegious because that was where I was living at the time.  Even if you’ve never heard of Banff, you have probably seen pictures of gorgeous Lake Louise.  I remember seeing wildlife including moose and bighorn sheep.  There was a bear visiting one of the campgrounds we stayed at but there was no way I was going to go wandering around looking for it.

My souvenir yarn Yellowstone came from Knitted Wit:

The Banff yarn is a substitute for the yarn I really wanted.  It has some of the colors.  It is Malabrigo Mechita:

I have yet to settle on a project for the souvenirs.  There are a lot more parks and yarns to share in the meantime.

I have started on the annual Tour de Sock, which should keep me busy into September.  This year’s event is not competitive because the organizer is taking a year off to do family stuff.  Every 10 days we pick a pattern from a list of free patterns and we whip them up.  I have a major case of second sock syndrome which is why I am posting this instead of knitting.  The pair I am doing have more twisted stitches than I thought would appear on any sock.