Baudelaire

I’ve been so busy knitting a wee tiny sock (more on that…maybe tomorrow) and trying to convince myself that I don’t need the Kromski Symphony1 I’ve been coveting for over a year that I neglected my post for today. I’ve just forced myself to put down the sock and get down to business. Oh, and totally random, I forgot to tell you all that I had a visit to the emergency room the night before I left (Saturday Jan. 19). Long story short, my nose may be broken…hard to tell from the x-ray. More on that later too.

So, backtracking a little, I’m in Arizona. Yay! It’s sleeting and cold at home and meanwhile I’m perfectly comfortable in just my Autumn Rose sweater. As for Tuesday’s plan?2 Mission accomplished.

First I carved my signature stamp while drinking a glass of wine and eating cheese. Pitiful…not sure whether to blame the wine or my lack of artistic ability. I used the dragonfly I purchased instead for my first day of letterboxing.  By the way, did I mention I spent almost a whole day gallivanting all over Phoenix looking for speedball?  When instant gratification is needed online shopping just won’t do.  I found it at the 6th and last place I looked…typical.

I slept well and was the first to arrive at Jessica Knits. The prices were good…not fantastic…but of course, I bought. Six skeins of Malabrigo (pearl ten and tortuga, yum), 9 skeins of Rowan Tapestry (um, have you tried this yet…beautiful colors and soft with 30% soy), 1 skein (2400 yards!) of Cherry Tree Hill merino lace (I have no clue what I’ll be doing with this…I’m not much for bright shawls and you’d have to pay me big dollars to make socks at that gauge…but it’s purty), 2 skeins of Louisa Harding Kimono Angora (apparently Pinky loves her socks, but her ankles are cold) and two skeins of Bingo Chine (Hippo lost his hat ) Poor Hippo.

Then the letterboxing. I did the MMR Eats series. Seven miles (loves my Garmin…a wonderful gift from Stacie) and 2 1/2 hours later I had found 4 letterboxes. Strangely enough, one of these was marked as a “drive by” and turned out to be about 200 yards from Jessica Knits.3 I was tempted to show you the scans of the stamps I got (I’ve decided to keep a digital logbook) but I’m not sure about the etiquette on that. Let me know!  Oh and I revisited a signature stamp today.  I’m much happier with this one.  I’ll be using it tomorrow.

Ok, back to knitting. I’ve had Baudelaire on my needles as a traveling sock for a while now. Last time I was in Arizona, I had a bit of a boo boo. It seems that one can somehow forget the size of one’s feet despite the fact that they are nearly always attached to one’s body. Huh? Well, one detriment of pattern socks. Since I did the actual Baudelaire heel and not my normal short row I had to guess on the second sock (no tape measure). I was in the car knitting along when it finally dawned on me it was too big. I ripped back and set it aside disgustedly. Fortunately, I had no other socks on the needles when it was time to get on the plane this time so I was forced to so I continued on with the Baudelaire (yeah, I know I quit the cable somewhere along the way…that happens when you have something on the needles for too long). I found out the hard way that the Baudleiare heel really doesn’t work for me. I wore them on my 7 mile hike on Wednesday and got a huge blister. Seriously, I hike all the time. I KNOW better than to wear untested socks. But I did it anyway. Maybe a blond thing? At least they are pretty and I’m sure fine for normal wear despite the heel fit. The specs…Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock Baltic Sea, 2 skeins, size 1 needles and 60 CO. Lovely pattern, maybe not the best with this yarn and my heel. It looks much better in the solid color in the pattern picture.

Enough already, right? I need to continue with the wee sock and then get to bed for my Southwestern Skies Letterbox hunt tomorrow.

One more thing though.  Thanks to Jen and La for supporting my craziness as usual.  I’m not sure why people aren’t jumping on the Project Sanity bandwagon, especially since most of my previous contests have been popular and you know I give away good yarn!  La in her infinite wisdom suggested I may need a separate post…I was so excited about the idea at the time I just spurted it all out instead of waiting for a special Project Sanity post.  Maybe I wasn’t the only one inspired by Stash and Burn?  When they came back from break, episode 41 mentioned other stash/gift knitting groups on Ravelry.  At any rate, Seanna has a great botton!  Her odds of winning at this point are very good. 

1. Jim’s been telling me to get it all this time. I really don’t know why I deny myself when I have a husband that actually supports my fiber addiction. [↩]
2. Last blog post excerpt: Until then, my super fabulous schedule for the next 24 hours: carve my signature stamp, get my letter boxing tools together, drink some wine, eat some cheese, sleep well, arrive at Jessica Knits at 10 a.m. for their 4th Annual Super Bowl Sale, buy copious amounts of yarn, go on several hikes in the area of Jessica Knits to collect stamps. [↩]
3. Of course, I didn’t realize that until later but it was only about a 2 mile drive from the others, so NBD. [↩]