In which the Rabbit apologizes to her blog for neglecting it

Not much has been going on here.  All the activity around the podcast these days has been eating up a lot of my creative energy.  I haven't been doing much knitting.  The projects I have going seem either stale (Mr. Rabbit's Smooshy socks) or, like the afghan, interminable.  And while I have been spinning, it's all been podcast related, so I'm loathe to scoop my own podcast by revealing it here.

I'm going to cast on a couple of new things today in hopes of jumpstarting my knitting mojo.  I'll report back soon.  Promise.

In which the Rabbit makes a list

Five things I should have on the needles at all times:

1.  Something that is knitted from handspun

2.  Something that is  all garter stitch

3.  Something that is a gift for someone

4.  Something that is a challenge

5.  A sock

In which our story continues . . .

In the car on the way to and from Maryland I continued working on the Log Cabin afghan.  These squares are big fun—just when the garter stitch starts to get tedious, it's time to bind off and pick up stitches again. So I'm feeling quite enthusiastic about this project.  Hence my conclusion that it needs more pink and green, and my purchase of three more colors for it yesterday.  Do I need this yarn?  Nope.

Really: no.  But, as the woman in the store said: "they look like a watermelon."  How could I resist?

In which the Rabbit, and Mr. Rabbit, go to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

Along with a lot of other people!

So last weekend the Rabbit and the ever-stalwart Mr. Rabbit got in their car and headed south to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.  The Rabbit was so excited she could hardly contain herself.

I used to live in Baltimore, you see, and I love the city and miss it terribly.  So this trip meant not only unparalleled fiber-y shopping opportunities, but also a chance to eat the best crab cakes in the universe—Faidley's, in Lexington Market, below, hands down—drive by my old house in Charles Village (no pics, sorry).

Then we went to the Baltimore Museum of Art, and generally hung out in the city on Saturday.  At the Market we were even treated to some live music by a fabulous blues band, which afforded me a chance to dance (and sing!) with total strangers.  Fabulous.  And in the BMA sculpture garden we even found a lagomorph!

Then, after a nice dinner in Canton, we went home to bed so that we could head to the festival early Sunday morning.

I knew from my study of the Maryland Sheep and Wool group on Ravelry that Sundays at the festival are generally less crowded than Saturdays, so we opted for Sunday and boy oh boy was I glad we did!  Apparently the crowds and traffic on Saturday were insane.  Sunday was managable, but still blistering hot.  All the animals were panting.  So were we, at times.

We saw some Alpaca.  Mr. Rabbit said that they look like Dr. Seuss characters, and, as usual, he's right:

We also saw  tons of sheep breeds in person that I'd only read about, and a blade shearing competition.

While we were watching the competition, Heather Ordover of CraftLit happened by and struck up a conversation about lamb sausage.  I knew it was Heather Ordover because a) I recognized her voice from the podcast and b) she was helpfully wearing a CraftLit tee-shirt.  We had a nice chat about Dracula, among other things.  She is lovely.

I picked up an absolutely gorgeous Corriedale fleece that I had selected a couple of weeks earlier, sight unseen, from Ruppert's Corriedales.  I wish I had thought to take its picture before I handed it, and the nine-pound (!) black Cormo-Corriedale cross fleece I bought at the festival's fleece sale, off to Ozark Carding Mill for processing.  (Added bonus: in the Ozark booth I met spinning guru Maggie Casey, whose classes I'll be taking next month at The Spinning Loft.) You'll just have to take my word for the fact that the Ruppert's fleece was stunning.  And the black fleece was also pretty lovely.

Aside from the two big fleeces, I was pretty restrained.  I bought some lovely silk and merino painted top from Cloverleaf Farms in their "Autumn" colorway.

And two skeins of worsted, minimally-processed Polwarth yarn, dyed in seawater, from Seacolors Yarn (they don't have much of a web presence, but they're profiled in the book Shear Spirit).  I've been wanting to see this yarn in person since reading about it, and it didn't disappoint.  One skein for me, one for my friend Aara.

Last, but not least, I was able to visit the Three Waters Farm booth, meet Mary Ann Pagano, and see her beautiful hand-dyed yarn and fiber in person.  Wow.  Just . . . wow.  The pictures on her website are impressive—I've been stalking this fiber online for a while now; the color palette is so rich and original I couldn't decide which I wanted—but they really don't do the fiber justice.  My pictures don't either (my camera seems a bit vague and unfocused today), but they give a hint.

It was so hot that we actually left the festival around 2.  I know I didn't see everything, but that just means more discoveries next year, right?  We drove back Monday.  It was pretty much a perfect weekend.

In which the Rabbit confesses her adoration of Kay Gardiner

The Rabbit just loves Kay Gardiner, the "Mason" half of Mason-Dixon Knitting.

I adore her affection for the rectilinear, the clean-lined, and the graphic. I swoon over her passion for garter stitch, and her brilliance in deploying it in ever-new ways. And I totally heart the fact that she hearts the quilts of Gee's Bend. So, inspired by her fabulously cukoo-for-coco-puffs plan to knit an entire log-cabin afghan out of sock yarn, I have embarked on a log cabin project of my own (first, experimental square, above). Partly because I want to use up all that Cascade 220 I bought for the Penny Rug Purse that got frogged when the color decisions all got too much for me. But mostly because I want to be more like Kay Gardiner.

Here are some things of hers that I particularly love. Most of the postings on Mason-Dixon Knitting don't seem to have their own links, so you'll have to search for these: "A Dingo Stole My Baby," and "Blue, Orange, Green, Green, Green, White, White, White, White." The latter I find heartbreakingly gorgeous.

In which the Rabbit makes felted bowls

These are three felted bowls from Leigh Radford's One Skein. The Rabbit loved making them (they are essentially small hats knitted on big needles from bulky yarn), and loves how they turned out. There will be more, more, more.

It which the Rabbit attempts a Good Work

Inspired by Betsy Greer's Knitting for Good, the Rabbit has decided to make a series of items to donate to various local charities in the fall. "Donation Hat #1," above, is the first of them. It was a wonderful excuse to use this fabulously garish (and soft, soft, soft) Patons Rumor, an alpaca/acrylic blend (the colorway is called moonstone). Normally the Rabbit eschews acrylic, but she couldn't resist the hand of this yarn.

The pattern is the "Garter Stitch Cap," from the first book of knitting patterns the Rabbit ever bought, Handspun Handknit. With bulky yarn and big needles, it only took an evening.

In which the Rabbit perseveres

This is the Knitting Needle Knitting Bag from Bag Style. It was nearly the death of the Rabbit. First, there was the stitch, which initially gave her fits. Then there were the handles: endless six stitch rows of garter stitch which seemed to go on for much longer than they actually could have. Then, due to lagomorphic haplessness, the Rabbit attached the handles wrong twice, and both times managed to cut the knitted fabric when removing them—and thus had to frog and reknit a number of rows. Then there was the lining (see remarks on sewing, below). But all this builds character. And the finished bag is lovely and functional.

In which the Rabbit felts yet another clutch

Clutch number three, for the only person I know who really looks good in that olive-y green right under the handle.

In which the Rabbit makes excuses, and needle cases

The Rabbit has been so busy making things that it's been hard to find the time to blog about them all. So a series of short posts about a bunch of finished objects will follow. Above are a the knitting needle cases the Rabbit made out of sweaters purchased at Value Village and felted in the washing machine. There's one for straight needles, one for circulars, and one for dpns. This project reminded the Rabbit of how much she hates to sew--knowledge that is always useful in preventing future sewing projects.

In which the Rabbit keeps felting

At 170 stiches per row, this bag kept the Rabbit knitting until her little paws ached, but she's pleased with the result. The Paton's worsted weight merino felted beautifully, and it was cheap!

But alas, all is not copacetic in the warren. Last night the Rabbit tried to teach herself to knit berry stitch, which involves knitting, then purling, then knitting all into the same stitch. This concept proved way too much for the bunny brain. Fortunately, there's a fab video on YouTube that demonstrates how to do it quite clearly. She also tried to start a tiny iPod case using sport-weight merino on tiny double-pointed needles. This proved very difficult without thumbs.

But today is a new day, and the Rabbit will try, try again.

In which the Rabbit knits and felts another bag, and it's even better than the first

Same yarn, different color, yet this bag is a bit larger and a lot fuzzier than the first. The first one, by the way, is still waiting for buttons.

The Rabbit is now working on another felting project to be named later, and which will probably take her at least a week. Watch this space.

In which the Rabbit knits and felts a bag

The Rabbit decided that she might stop just buying the yarn and actually make something with it. She chose a pattern from Leigh Radford's One Skein, which, by the way, has lots of intriguing-looking quick projects. The wool, which is not in the stash picture below, is Manos del Uruguay's Wool Classica. The Rabbit loves this combination of colors—she seems to be in a major rusty-orange and deep-pink phase. Since the project uses size 15 circular needles, it knits up really fast (even with paws!). None of that pesky purling. Before felting, the bag looked like this:



In other words, a very baggy bag. But, with the help of a fantastic little primer about felting on Knitty.com, the finished version ended up looking like this, which made the Rabbit perform a little hop of pleased excitement:



The plastic bags peeking out the top are for blocking purposes.

The pattern calls for a little embellishment with buttons. The Rabbit is considering using some or all of these:



A picture of the blocked, dried and embellished bag will follow.

The Yarn Stash

As promised, a picture of the yarn The Rabbit can't seem to stop buying.

In which the Rabbit buys yarn

The Crafty Rabbit is on a yarn-buying binge. Five days ago, she woke up with an overpowering urge to knit, something she has not done for years, stimulated by listening to a single episode of Brenda Dayne's knitting podcast, Cast On. Why, you may ask, was the Rabbit listening to a knitting podcast when she hadn't knit for years? Well, the Rabbit likes to listen to crafty podcasts while working away in her warren/studio, and she had run out of Craftcasts and gotten dangerously low on CraftyPods. And she happened across the fabulous Ms. Dayne.

The episode was called "Panacea" and one of the things it was about was knitting as a mindfulness practice. And this spoke to the Rabbit. That, and the fact that the TiVo had been filling up to overwhelming levels while the Rabbit was busy experimenting with collage and found-object assemblage. The Rabbit saw that an answer to the dilemma of how to make something every day and keep up with In Treatment, all while cultivating equanimity, was . . . knitting.

So she went to the yarn store. And she bought some yarn. And the next day, she went to another store, and bought some more yarn. And the next day, another store and yet more yarn. The Rabbit may soon require an intervention. Or, she's just in the collecting mode that Twyla Tharp, in The Creative Habit, calls "starting with a box." Hard to tell.

Pictures of the growing yarn stash, and the current project on the needles, to come.