A Long Hiatus and a New Toy

Unfortunately it has been a really long time since I've posted - atrociously long, in fact. I've actually written many blog posts in my head in the interim, but therein lies the difficulty - I have not yet discovered an efficient method for transcribing the mentally-written posts to my computer keyboard.

That said, it has been a crazy busy year, with lots of knitting, an incredible amount of snow (earlier), an outlandishly miserable heat wave (hopefully mostly over now), a broken ankle, and many other distractions keeping me from actually posting. However, I have now set up a reminder in my cell phone calendar which will actually remind me if I haven't posted to the blog for too long.

Meanwhile, I have purchased a new toy - an antique Legare 400 hand-cranked circular sock-knitting machine. I haven't had nearly enough time available to work with it as I would like, but I've successfully cranked out several pairs of socks and am really getting the hang of using the machine. I'm thinking that this may be the year when handmade socks are in everyone's Christmas stocking, although I'm not making any promises at this point.

In May I attended my very first crank-in, a gathering of "crankers" and their sock machines, in Warrenton, Missouri. It was a fabulous weekend which I enjoyed immensely. It was very educational to walk around a room full of people with their variety of antique machines (and a display model of a new machine that is now being manufactured), and awesome to meet an entire new group of people that shared this interest.

Other recent knitting includes the completion of my sixth Double Hearts blanket for sale, and a plethora of dishcloths and kitchen towels. I'm also working on a special order for FIVE Christmas stockings for this coming year, although that project is firmly relegated to "work at home" status since it's just not practical to cart a project around with that many different colors and strands of yarn. Still waiting to be started: yet another attempt at producing a show sample of the Double Hearts blanket (so far I haven't succeeded in completing one before it has sold), two new original baby blanket patterns, two more blankets that I've done before but in different colors this time, and lots of smaller stuff in preparation for the fall craft fairs. Now if I could only figure out how to blog and knit simultaneously I'd have it made!