Ribbons... of the county fair kind. Look!

 

These are a month or so old now, the fair was at the end of August. Rob and I went on opening day to check out the cows, ducks and sheepies, to watch chickens hatch and to count my ribbons.

I had a heck of a time trying to find them all. My most precious knit of the bunch, the alpaca-wool blanket took me at least 20 minutes of ever-increasing panic to find (the homecrafts room isn't *that* big). When I finally found it I was simultaneously relieved that it hadn't been lost or stolen and excited that I was 4 for 4! That is 4 ribbons for 4 entries. Wheee!

Unless you check my Ravelry page (members only linky) two of these you haven't seen. (On account of what a derelict blogger I've been) I wonder if the aforementioned baby blanket might have taken first instead of second if I had used conventional baby colors. Or if I had called it a lap blanket. The winning entry was variegated blue/pink/white. Mind you I'm biased, but I didn't think the pattern or quality was better than mine, I think the judges had a color bias. Oh well.

  • Pattern: Alpaca Baby Shawl by Marie Grace
  • Yarn: Cascade Lana d'Oro, 214 teal, 7 sk
  • Needles: size 6 Addi Turbo Lace

Etc: Extra rounds to compensate for lighter gauge yarn. I have a small pile of this discontinued yarn in my stash and it's hard to find patterns that are good enough to deserve yarn from the precious shrine.

 

I don't think you've seen the socks before either. I fell in love with the Tyrolean Stocking pattern in last fall's IK. I picked up the yarn directly from Green Mountain Spinnery at the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival last year right after the mag came out. 

Except I didn't like them as knee highs. Don't get me wrong, I like knee highs, just not out of worsted weight wool! So I adjusted the pattern to make them hiking sock length.

I also had to adjust the pattern to make them big enough for my feet which are 3 sizes bigger than the published size.

May I take this opportunity to rant about patterns that are written for one size? Especially sock patterns. Hello, designers? Socks do not lend themselves to one-size-fits-all. It's not like I can't make the adjustments, but fer cryin' out loud, if I *wanted* to refactor a sock pattern I'd just write my own d@mn patterns. Which is why I <3 Charlene Schurch (author of Sensational Socks).

  • Pattern: Tyrolean Stockings by Ann Budd
  • Yarn: Green Mountain Spinnery Maine Organic, ~ 1.25 sk
  • Needles: size 3, Brittanys I think
  • Etc: adjusted pattern for my big feets and to shorten the leg.