These pictures are from the Maritime Museum in Astoria, OR. I was really surprised to see it there. The swift is made out of whale bones and I loved the carved hand at the bottom holding the swift. Beautiful... It amazes me how knitting ties into so much history.

I'm not square...

Last week I was so excited to finally start knitting with my square needles. When I first heard about square knitting needles I thought it was kind of crazy. I thought it would be awkward and wondered if the stitches would be different. Well I tried them and I liked them, except for the cable. I started knitting a pair of socks for Hailey using the magic loop method. With magic loop I'm used to pushing the cable through the yarn when you are switching sides and the cable on these needles was so limp that it was impossible to push it through. It just wasn't working well for me and I was getting frustrated so I ended up switching back to my Addi's. I think these needles would be perfect for doing other projects like a scarf or a sweater. But, maybe with a little more patience and practice they will once again be used for socks. We'll see... I'm not tossing them out yet!

Spring break is almost over...

Ahhh... there's nothing like camping in the freezing wind and rain and sleeping in a rock hard bed with a very strange odor in the air. Guess that's what you get when you camp out in a little cabin in the woods at a KOA on the Oregon Coast. Where's a Hilton when you really need it? This old body can't more than a few days of roughing it :) Really though, it actually was a lot of fun, even the dog had a good time. Even though the weather couldn't make up its mind, we got to spend most of one day on the beach with no rain, just sunshine and a lot of wind and the kids got to swim in an indoor pool. All the other days it would rain, clear up, rain, clear up, hail, clear up... you get the picture. We were even able to get in a little history for the kids by visiting Fort Stevens State Park and the maritime museum. And, I even got to stop at a couple of yarn shops. The first one was in Seaside, a cute little shop with yarn, scrapbook and jewelry making supplies as well as fun stamp stuff. I had my daughter pick out some sock yarn for her next pair of socks and she picked "Yummy", 100% superwash wool from Fibranatura. I've never knit with this yarn before but the colors are fun and I'm happy that it is washable. The second yarn I got was, surprise, Merisoft hand painted from Punta. I just can't get enough of this yarn. The color of this yarn is just beautiful (at least in my eyes). It has a combination of colors that include black, purple, red and pink, it's pretty cool looking. Lastly, I picked up another pair of square needles since I can't seem to find where I put my first pair. I'm excited to knit with these and see if they really do help my hands.

The second shop I stopped at wasn't as fun. They had a good selection of (please don't be offended) "old lady yarn" as I like to call it... yikes... acrylic. There wasn't a whole lot to choose from but I did manage to find some Cascade sock yarn in a pretty blue that will match one of my new spring jackets perfectly. I really was looking for something different, some yarn that I had never seen before, but that just didn't happen. All in all we had a wonderful trip and I'm excited to start knitting some new socks for the kiddos. I think I will relax the rest of the weekend and knit. Cleaning can wait until next week :)