Irish Fair Sunday. I was a good camper and applied sunscreen. the spray on kind, cuz I hate lotion. (unless it soaks in quick and doesn’t leave that slimey lotion feeling behind)

note the highlighted bit.

Saturday I wore a red t-shirt and had no problems. Sunday I wore a white t-shirt. as we were leaving, my friend’s dad comments that it looks like I bumped against some dirt or something. I knew right away what had happened.

the initial damage wasn’t too bad - kind of light. I washed it on cold, hoping that would prevent it from setting the stain. what do you think?

I think it bled. the white spots on top should be easily explained - what’s the opposite of tan lines? (yes the bra has a few stains too). I did not put sunscreen below though - no clue on that! (other stained items: a towel, my bath loofah scrubby).

I have a date this weekend:

Let’s pick a color, shall we?
I have: Golden Yellow, Peach, Mauve, Country Blue, Kelly Green, Caramel, Tan, Scarlet, Black
(does anyone else have the song* from Joseph… in their head now? I wonder if RIT makes ochre…)

* scroll down to the end

It just might work! You can turn a white shirt orange with spray-on sunscreen,
(Trust me!) so in theory, this exciting new method could work on yarn!

Hey, this is bettyvelma! ORANGE YARN WILL TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!
And I’m holding Christy hostage here until she can turn straw into
orange yarn AND guess my REAL name (bettyvelmastiltskin… shhhh…. )
or at least until Irish Fest is over.

In the meantime, try out the sunscreen thing.

I will be at Irish Fair all weekend. stalking the dance tent, stalking the spinning demo people, watching Gaelic Storm (hopefully backstage). and looking for knitters. because at some point this weekend, there is supposedly a TCKnit picnic.

yeah, I’ll be the one with a camera in one hand, knitting in the other, and not wearing curls (despite what that pic over there shows)

see ya there

after a chaotic day (I picked up my car the other day and drove home, all is good. yesterday on the way to work the check engine light comes on. dammit! on top of that, we ended up looking at a house closer to the Cities, thus disrupting my plans to go figure out what’s up with the car.), we got home late and I had two packages waiting. one from my Sockapalooza pal, and the other from my Knittyboard SP9. I did open them both, but didn’t have much time to enjoy what was in them (which means there’s chocolate waiting for me when I get home!).

so you’ll just have to wait for the pics.

in knitting news, I finished k-chan #3, except for the felting - since you can’t do that on a bus. I’m hoping to do that tonight. this morning I cast on a Harry Potter book scarf. I’m double-knitting it (I tried it in the round a while back and on size 0 needles, it just drove me nuts) in Gryffindor colors in the later movies style. ‘yarn’ is DMC Perle Cotton or something like that. I was worried it would take forever, but once I got into it, it seems to be going kind of quick

Finished size: to fit my pal’s 9″ circ/10″ length feet
Yarn: Lion Brand Magic Stripes - Jelly Bean
Needles: KP circs: size 2
Pattern: Carolina from socktopia

Started: around 4 July 2007 …
Finished: 4 August 2007
made for: my sockapalooza pal

I was so excited as I knit the first sock - so many lovely coincidences happening: the pattern repeat recycled at the point where the heel turns, the white I ended with on top joined up nicely with a round of white as I made my way around the heel gusset, and it looked like I was going to end at the 50g mark/end of pattern repeat exactly.

I decided to go matchy-matchy and found the starting point for the 2nd sock (in a 2nd ball of yarn) surprisingly easy (I had to remove a large chunk, but that barfed out nicely - it’s still wound). and then the yarn decided not to play so nicely. yeah, the stripes matched up, but some repeats are a little shorter, so things aren’t identical. and then, nearing the end of the foot - a knot. they matched it up fairly well, but one whole color is missing. which is why the toes don’t match.

I had tried the first sock on and found it a hint tight (my pal’s measurements are nearly identical). so nearing the end of sock #2 I added a few pattern repeats and reworked the toe (initially I had alternated decreasing and plain rounds til the end. reworked I did the last few round without a plain round). went back and frogged the toe of sock #1 and reworked the toe.
(there was much frogging in these socks in general due to my inability to count on such a simple pattern.)

these socks fit me perfectly, so I’m taking notes!

My mods/notes:
* my gauge worked out to be 8 sts/inch.
* I ended up using 110 grams total (glad I had the 2nd ball! future socks from this yarn will be split ahead of time and the cuff shortened a bit)
* I cast on 69 sts total, decreasing the extra stitch at the end of the first pattern round
* I added a stitch to either side of the k3tog, so the line read k6 k3tog k6 around
* I picked up 18 sts from the heel flap.
* there are 13 purl ridges in the cuff, 31 total
* at the toe: I ended with a purl round, then worked round 1 without the YO’s at the outside edges instead of working the usual decreases.