North Country Fiber Fair

I had a wonderful weekend at the North Country Fiber Fair in Watertown. Here are a couple photos of my winning entries. I took two firsts, the Booga Bag with Nicky Epstein flowers and the yell0w-orange skein of handspun from a roving I painted. The yellow-orange skein also took best of show, which is called the Kay Cheever award.

The two third place ribbons were for the Aran knit sweater and the bluish skein of handspun from my painted roving. (Incidentally, one roving of each winning skien is on my Etsy site - http://sheepishhandknits.etsy.com). I've never received any ribbons before, but that's probably because I never entered anything, anywhere before!





Even better than receiving ribbons was the time I could spend renewing old friendships. People were there whom I haven't seen in a number of years and conversations just seemed to continue from when I saw them last. It was truly a winning weekend!

Belle Epoque Socks

When I saw the pattern for these socks in "2-at-a-time Socks" by Melissa Morgan-Oakes, I knew I had to try them. I don't buy a lot of solid-colored sock yarn and this pattern would be completely lost on the multi-colored yarn I usually chose. While light blue is not exactly my color, it was on sale at my local yarn store and I figured that these socks would at least go with jeans.

The picot edging on the top (you can barely see it in the photo) is what initially caught my eye. It was super easy to do and a nice departure from ribbing at the top. The cable is not really a cable and the pattern is so much fun, these socks go by in no time. I am really sold by the "2-at-a-time" method. At first, it seemed like it took forever to get a pair done, but not anymore. Plus, I really like that both socks match.

The Mystery of the Missing Sock

I'm always a little sad when there is one lone sock after I fold the clothes. I'm usually confident that eventually the dryer will cough up it's mate. At least that's the case when it's a commerically-made sock, not one of my handknit ones. I got home from an overnighter on Friday of last week. I dumped the plastic hotel bag of laundry in the laundry basket without even opening it. My spouse is really great about doing the laundry - he even air dries my superwash wool socks, rather than putting them through the dryer! I had nothing to worry about - or so I thought.

Saturday night I went to put some of the laundry away (he doesn't do everything - but I'm not complaining) and there was ONE LONE HANDKNIT SOCK on the table, just one. I panicked. It was from one of my favorite pairs. I looked in the dryer. I re-folded clothes, thinking it stuck to something else. I looked in the pack where I had the laundry bag. I looked in the space between the dryer and the washer - just in case it stuck to something and was erroneously dried. I looked everywhere - no sock. I even had a little trouble going to sleep that night. During all of this my spouse was blissfully sleeping, content in the knowledge all was well in his domain.

Sunday, I couldn't think of a way to address the missing sock without it sounding like an accusation - after all, I really appreciate the fact he does the laundry and I don't want to take that job back. Every so often, I would peek in the laundry room to see if the missing sock returned, it hadn't.

Just before bed, I went down to bring up more laundry - both socks were neatly placed together. Long story, short - I still don't know where the sock went, but it's back, washed and neatly placed in the sock basket.