This is what happens when you cast virtue aside and wantonly flaunt your credit card at Blue Moon Fiber Arts and Crown Mountain Farms, and maybe a couple of other madams vendors at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival. It’s not quite Rhinebeck (I missed my Spiders, the fried artichokes, and the sheepdogs especially, although there were some beautiful Irish Wolfhounds having their own convention at the other end of the fairgrounds), but I did get to do these things for the first time:

1. meet up with Katherine in person
2. pet a baby camel and a Wensleydale ram
3. load up on Sock Hop

Speaking of which, let’s identify the lovelies above. From left to right: Sock Hop in Secret Agent Man and I Got You Babe; Socks That Rock Lightweight in Rare Gems and Blue Brick Wall; Sporfarms Merino/Silk in Frostberries; Sock Hop in two shades of My Boyfriend’s Back. I tried to stick to my goal of not buying yarn I don’t have a pattern in mind for. The two pairings of Sock Hop will become not socks but Elizabeth Zimmermann baby sweaters — maybe Baby Surprise Jackets, maybe Bog Jackets, perhaps Baby Surplice Jackets. I love garter stitch to show off handspun that’s plied this way, and I think some subtle stripes in these closely related colorways will be pretty on babies. What babies, you might ask? It’s true that I’m still finishing up some knits for the most recent crop. Bran new baby Flynn across the street has two hats ready for him, and I’m trying to get his little baby pod zippered and seamed this week. Wee Jordan hasn’t received her February Sweater yet because we haven’t managed to connect with her parents, but it probably won’t fit until next month anyway. The fact is, my friends and relations seem to be taking a breather from the baby manufacturing. It’s like half time. It’s like the last wave has receded and pulled all the little pebbles dancing down the beach after it, but a larger wave is building. The babies are coming, I just know it. This is what happens two or three years after a wagonload of your friends have gotten married, and I aim to be prepared. Armed with my Sock Hop haul, I can garter stitch away on little projects to my heart’s content and store up ickle sweaters like so many squirrel nuts.

The lovely Sporfarms merino/silk was a souvenir for Katrin, who couldn’t come with me to OFFF because she had to work. And the Socks That Rock? Lord knows there’s plenty of that in the stash, thoroughly marinated and aged to perfection, but I liked these two skeins together so much that I couldn’t resist them. The Rare Gems are mistakes or experiments that aren’t replicated, and mostly I don’t find them too attractive. But this one looks like sunset over the desert, and I thought it was particularly harmonious against the blues of Blue Brick Wall. I was thinking of Kate Gilbert’s Syncopated Caps when I picked them up, but then I started to think of interesting designs for syncopated kneesocks. I hereby vow to knit a second Drunken Bear kneesock — and a second Pomatomus — before I cast on a new pair, but I’m looking forward to them.

And now to go knit like a fiend and finish up Star Wars Hat the Second and Wine and Roses Mitt the Second so they can go to their new homes this week. Sorry the posts have been thin on the ground of late; I’ll try not to let the week get away from me this time!