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The Rambling Rows continues. I'm on square 5 of 55. Still happy with my handspun!
When we were on our trip out West this summer, I brought my fall IK. Paul saw the Cobblestone pullover and thought he would like it. It took us awhile to decide on colors and yarns.
I perused Ravelry, and checked out all the Cobblestone sweaters. We eventually 
picked Harrisville Highland in Bluegrass.
The yarn came this past Monday, on a cone, ready for weaving. Well, I'm not weaving it, right?! So I skeined up one cone, and washed it. Fresh off the cone, it was 12 wraps per inch. After a warm sudsy bath and some drying, it is now 9 wraps per inch. It really bloomed into a nice worsted weight.
I'll cast on November 1. Sounds like a good day to start, eh? Ah, anticipation...
We hadn't had a chance to see Ben play rugby yet this fall. He is on a club team at Luther. This past weekend was our opportunity.
It looked like it was going to be a sunny weekend, so we loaded up the camper and 
headed off to Pulpit Rock campground in Decorah Friday evening after work. We came in after dark, so we weren't 100% sure of the view from our campsite, but here's the view we woke to. We walked to the bench on the other side of the trout stream for our morning coffee. While we were sipping, we watched a fellow camper catch a lovely trout and put him on the stringer for supper.
Before riding our bikes over for the noon rugby game, we did a quick geocache on Pulpit Rock. Here Girl of the House and Paul are examining the spot the micro-cache was hidden.
Rugby is a very physical game - we are still learning the rules. The game flew by. I had brought my spindle for the slow times, but never got it out.
Ben is the player in the red bandana. (His rugby name is "Pirate".) This is a "scrum" - everyone pushing and trying to get the ball.
Saturday afternoon we did two more geocaches in the area, then hunkered down by the fire. Ben joined us for supper before he was off to see a juggling show at the college.
Sunday morning it was 23 degrees when we woke. BRRRR...
Still, we went out and had our coffee on the little bench by the stream. Gotta love the hand warming properties of a ceramic mug full of coffee!
After our usual fantastic Paul-cooked breakfast, we took the dogs and went searching for more geocaches.
Decorah has fabulous trails and bike paths all around town. We did one cache at Dunning Spring. We were at Dunning Spring in late September (parents weekend). It was much quieter this weekend - we only saw a handful of people.
We hiked to Palisade Park high over the city. Total hike was 8.8 miles! Everyone did fine, GotH and puppy Chip included. We though we'd walk back through town for a snack from the grocery store. THE GROCERY STORE WAS CLOSED!! They are closed on Sundays! Wow, small town! Luckily the co-op was open, and we got yummy Kashi granola bars.
We headed home in the late afternoon. Just enough time to unload, check the mail and email, and settle in for a bottle of wine and a fire.
I did start knitting a Rambling Rows afghan for the camper with the Coopworth I have spun up. I have enough of the darkest color to get a good start.
The pattern, from Cottage Creations, calls for five colors, but I'm going to use the three I have. I debated dyeing some of the yarn, but decided I liked the natural colors quite well. I'm going to make the medium (lap robe) size.
It makes me foolishly happy to knit with my handspun!
This evening I carded up the last 3 ounces of dark grey fleece from my Coopworth 
lamb fleece! This leaves me with 11 ounces to spin, then I'll have done a whole fleece, all by myself!! This is a first for me!
(whoa, enough with the exclamation points already)
Here's the last of it on my Strauch petite carder. I purchased this fleece from Carol Wagner of Hidden Valley Woolen Mill at the Shepherds Harvest festival in May 2005. I realize this is a long time, but I didn't buy the carder til fall '06, and didn't take a class on drum carding til May '07. I have been motivated to finish this since I came back from SOAR.
In other real life events, Ben was home for a short break from college. He left for school this evening. It looks like the dogs will miss him...
I know we will.
This weekend I came across one more thing I purchased at SOAR.
A gorgeous little sampling niddy-noddy from Woodchuck Products. It immediately went into my spindle bag.
It collapses flat for easy storage.
Friday night we watched Journey to the Center of the Earth (yah, from 1959, for
sure!) for our Friday night family movie. Even an eleven year old can pick out all 
the inconsistencies, but we suspended reality and just enjoyed it.
During the movie, I plied up the Karaoke fiber I had started at the SOAR Spin-in. About 44 yards per ounce, Navajo plied to maintain the color changes. A nice worsted weight, I think. What I'll do with it? I'm not so much into knitting at the moment, but it felt good to spin this up!
Sunday we took a walk through our pasture, just checking things out. Chip liked jumping through the wet grass. He says "Being off-leash is GREAT!"
We took a walk through the arb, then dropped the Girl of the House at her cousins for an afternoon of preteen communing. While she was there, we did three geocaches before it started spitting rain.
We picked her up, returned home, started a fire in the fireplace and settled in with a bottle of wine for the evening.
It was a weekend almost as good as camping...
While at SOAR, I was able to do some work on the baby Scandinavian cardigan. It was kinda interesting - during evening lectures and downtime at meals, everyone whips out their knitting or spindling. I pull out my bright blue acrylic/wool baby sweater. Definitely odd man out with all the beautiful natural, mostly handspun fibers that everyone else was working with. But I wanted to get as much of this done as I could!
I got to the steeking part by Tuesday evening lecture. Last evening, a full ten days later, it finally got to meet the sewing machine!
Before sewing.
After the sewing/cutting phase.
Now to determine just how to attach the button band. The pattern calls for knitting the band separately, and attaching. I'm considering knitting it on. I just need to figure out how I want to do the facing to cover the cut stitches, without adding too much bulk.
In other news - our dishwasher finally gave up the ghost. I put some consideration into not replacing it. I rather enjoy standing at the sink, conversing with the Girl of the House, while we wash the dishes. Paul cleans up the leftovers. While this works on evenings we don't have to dash out after dinner, there are several nights a week we leave the house immediately post-dinner. I would DREAD coming home to a sink full of dishes later in the evening.
So, we are looking to replace it. My question to you is, white or stainless front? The existing white appliances (hopefully) won't require replacing for quite a while. Do we get stainless to meet the trends? Is it a long-lasting trend or will basic white always work? Will it look weird to mix and match? Please, give me your opinion!
picked Harrisville Highland in Bluegrass.
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