a post mainly about Philipsburg

I have a four day weekend - woo hoo!!

It comes with a heavy price though; seven full days of work spread out over two weeks -a full day is 10 or 11 hours...I normally only work four and a half hours/day!- I have worked three of those seven, just four left. whew

Scott also had a four day weekend, so we've been enjoying our time off together. On Friday we had a mini road trip up to Philipsburg, MT. My high school English teacher always told us to travel as much as possible, to always see as much as we can, even if it's just the next town. It certainly makes me appreciate Montana: the open skies, the valleys and mountains, the wide fields of alfalfa, and stacks of hay rolls.



I knit on my Hermione socks ..didn't make much progress :)





We walked around downtown of course, but also walked up the hill into a residential area. We were really lucky that it didn't rain on us because it was in the forecast! There were quite a few houses for sale, so we picked up a listing and walked to many of them. It was fun to imagine living in each (well, some were really run down and needed a lot of work) - a few were so cute! I'm not sure I would want to live in such a small town; Missoula is nice because it's not too small, but definitely not too big. (According to Wikipedia, the 2010 census had Philipsburg at a population of 820 [compared to Missoula's 109,299 in 2010]).




from bottom left clockwise: this dog at Philipsburg Brewing Company was comfortable laying anywhere, we had a pale ale and a porter, candy at the Sweet Palace!, and lunch at UpNSmokin -excellent pulled pork sandwiches! Scott had a jalapeno and cheddar dog with pulled pork on top. We went on a recommendation and it was definitely worth it!

The late poet Richard Hugo wrote Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg. I really hope you listen to it, he was such an amazing writer.


Yesterday I finished spinning this:



and washed and dried and skeined it:

I built a two yard niddy noddy too! So easy. I looked at several tutorials but basically you need one 16" piece of PVC, four 6" pieces of PVC, two tee connectors, and three or four end caps. One tutorial said to use 18" so I originally had someone at Ace cut it that size, but it made my skein much longer than two yards. At 16" it's perfect! The total cost for materials was around $3.15.

Today I am enjoying Agatha Christie's 4:50 from Paddington, a Miss Marple mystery! I have Andi to thank for turning me onto the Miss Marple tv series, and the book is just as great!



and that is the wee start for a Hitchhiker for my aunt in MadTosh.

Plans for Monday are not set yet, but I would not mind spending the entire day, reading in bed ♥

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend :)

just a drunken note...

I typed "by the beach" to make a new Pandora playlist, which brought me to "beach/shag" and the songs have been nothing short of AWESOME!!

♥

Proposed knitting

My dear knitting and Instagram friend, Jenn, is celebrating her one year blogging anniversary on Knitwise, Purlwise! Congrats Jenn!! To celebrate, she is holding a pattern giveaway each week (so go enter and check out her blog!!) :)

I won last week's and Jenn gifted me Pendulum! It is a gorgeous, swoopy shawl that will be perfect to cover my shoulders this summer. I already have yarn for it too.








It's Cascade Heritage in Turquoise and Charcoal. Originally they were to be a Great Divide shawl for my aunt, but the more I knit, the less I thought she'd like the color combo (the turquoise is really hard to photograph!). BUT, I think these two will be perfect as Pendulum.......for me....





I'd love to cast on right now but I know that's not realistic. As soon as I tame the WIP pile I will cast on immediately!


(and just so you don't think I left my aunt without, she will be receiving a Hitchhiker in MadTosh instead...in a lovely light gray that I think will suit her much better :) )

Thank you again, Jenn!!!

socks alive!

It's been such a productive day that I can finally feel like I've earned this beer :) ok, just to gush a little, I did my first ever Click-n-Ship from the USPS website, it was so. cool.!!! We dropped the package off at the post office an hour later, and they said it will arrive on Monday! How fast is that? It's Priority mail, but still, I feel that's lightening quick to get across the country. It's the little things, right? :)

I better share my last two pairs of socks. I finished them both last month but didn't blog about them.

Pair 3/13:



Pattern: a nice vanilla one, 64 stitch, toe up, 2aat, Eye of Partridge heel 
Yarn: Zwerger Garn Opal Vincent Van Gogh in the Sunflower colorway (sonnebloom I think?)
Needles: 2.25mm

I bought this yarn last summer in Portland ♥ the gauge is slightly stiff, and from what I hear about the durability of Opal yarns, I think these socks will last a long time :) the colors are beautiful, I just love this pair.

Pair 4/13:



Pattern: another plain jane!! though, the idea for this pattern came from a KAL Susan B. Anderson held last year, in which you switch colors every ten or so rows
Yarn: all scraps! There's Knit Picks Tonal, Berrocco Sox, Mountain Colors (two colors), Lynai, and Regia (two colors)
Needles: 2.25 mm

They are kind of a pain to knit because of all the color changes and tails to weave in at the end! I like the Russian join because it does a good job securing the tails and requires less weaving in. It's so much fun choosing the colors and the order they should be! I keep a bag filled with sock yarn scraps and when it gets too full, I know it's time to knit some scrappy socks.

Ok, are you ready to see pairs 5&6??



Cadence in Knit Picks Stroll Tonal (springtime)! I am knitting these two at a time (and am past the heel actually) but in this photo I separated them in order to move stitches around to change the starting point. They are super fun to knit and after two pairs of plain socks, the pattern is a great change of pace. The only problem I have with them is, I can't read and knit!! There are three charts and it requires too much of my attention.




This last pair is, yes again!, Hermione's Everyday Socks for a summer KAL :) I couldn't resist; I love this pattern! Yarn is Lynai Sock in Loch Nessa ♥ I love how it is knitting up!! I am obsessive with new yarns and patterns, I have to check Ravelry for projects to see how the yarn/pattern looks. But Lynai is so new that it doesn't have projects in this colorway listed. So it was pretty exciting to see the colors emerge in pattern :)

Let's end with Berny:




and this one I love <3>

spinning!!

my hand spun yarn!

I was never going to spin yarn because I always said I could just buy yarn all ready made. And then I bought a drop spindle and spun these...

and then I had to have a wheel...

This is a Louet Victoria I purchased from one of Missoula's local yarn stores. She is petite, folds up so nicely, and is wonderful to spin on!! I always thought spinning wheels were heavy and immovable, but not so.

My first yarn spun on my wheel!

This one I started on the drop spindle and finished on the wheel. I over plied it, but I still think it's my best spinning yet!

I. Love. Spinning. So much. Each time I improve and learn something. I just cast on with some of my hand spun, a bunny nugget:

and it is so cool to knit with it! One of the coolest things :)

I also said I would never own a Kindle (love mine), never knit a sweater (in progress, but am loving it and have purchased a quantity of MadTosh for an Abalone), never knit socks (well, you know how that one's going) ....

my updated list of nevers is, I will never knit color work socks or a fingering weight cardigan ;)

Happy Weekend friends!!!!!