The Girl with the Cute Handknit Socks

Hey Everyone!

Today, I needed to run to the grocery store. While I was out, I went and looked at roses and went yarn shopping. The roses and yarn shopping were a spur of the moment thing.

I ended up going over to the West Side of the metro area. At first I thought I would go see how busy the test gardens in Washington Park were, they were too busy, so I googled yarn stores on that side of the river and found one. So I went there.

It was a nice store with a really good selection of yarn that I hadn’t seen in other stores. I had been looking for Hedgehog Fibres yarn in store for a while. I had made one of my very first pairs of socks, before I really knew what I was doing out of Hedgehog Fibres yarn, but those socks didn’t turn out. I had purchased that yarn from a yarn store that is now closed, so I couldn’t go back and get more, and I have been wanting to work with it again. Hedgehog Fibres is an Irish brand of yarn from Cork.

Like I mentioned previously, it was a nice store, with a good selection. Though IDK if I will go back. It was in a strip mall, and just didn’t have the same character as the ones I have been to here on the East Side. Not to mention the traffic on the West Side. I do hate coming back highway 26. The traffic coming into Portland from the west side is always a nightmare.

Before I had gone over to the West Side of the Metro area, I had stopped by one of the Rose Gardens in Ladd’s Addition, since it was one of the first real warm summer days we have had, and see the roses.

Portland is known as the City of Roses, since roses do grow really well in the climate we have here. With all the rain we have had this past winter and spring, it just feels like all the colors are so much more vibrant this year. Even the leaves on the trees seem more vibrant.

I am not one so much for putting patterns in my socks (yet), I definitely gravitate towards colors and colorways that pop, and some that are more utilitarian. I like a mix of both. I wouldn’t mind being known as the Girl with the cute hand knit Socks.

Road to Rhinebeck

Hey Everyone!

Sorry this post is a bit late, I super busy Wednesday, and then AT&T was a butt and I had no data pretty much until I had to leave for work at 9 o’clock at night.

Tuesday evening I finished up the “Road to Rhinebeck” socks I had been working on. I honestly love how they turned out and they are the favorite pair I have worked on lately. Then again it seems like whenever I work on an autumn colored / inspired pair of socks, I love them. Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival is in October so this sock set is definitely autumn inspired.

This was in fact a sock set, so there was a main hank and an mini hank of the contrast.

While Rhinebeck has been Goals for a while, this sock set really makes me want to go, and it is something I am going to try to make happen in 2023. It just isn’t going to work out this year due to what I have had going on and dealing with my health this year.

Yesterday, I took the time and washed the socks I had completed and stuck in my hamper for hand knit socks. I prefer to hand wash my hand knit socks and put them on the drying rack since we don’t have a drying line outside at the new house. The warmer weather makes me more inclined to wash socks since they will dry quicker. Some day I would love to have a wood stove or natural gas stove and be able to dry them in front of that in the colder months. Especially after having worn them.

Rhinebeck Is Goals

Hey Everyone!

This morning I finished up the first sock in the pair of “Road to Rhinebeck” socks I am currently working on.

This was a sock set with a main variegated hank and a smaller contrast / coordinating tonal hank for at least heels and toes. I have gone on the conservative side and not tried using the contracting tonal for a top rib in the cuff. I may kick myself later for that, if I end up with a decent amount left over. I just wanted to make sure I had enough for the heels and toes for two socks.

This sock, seriously evokes all things fall for me. Cozy Sweaters, Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes, turning leaves, fires in the fireplace, Gilmore Girls, Mel in Virgin River – the scene from the first episode or two when she is walking down the street in Virgin River talking to her sister on the phone in the cute sweater and boots.

Yes, one sock made me think of that. Well, it did have the help of visiting two local yarn shops yesterday. Those made me think of rainy Portland October days, with a cup of tea, hunkering down in a cute yarn shop working on a knitting project, or squishing the yarn. For me, Starlight Knitting Society was the coziest and most inviting of the two. It also really made me miss Happy Knits. Happy Knits was a yarn store here in Portland, on SE Hawthorne Blvd, that I fell in love with. They closed a few years ago (Pre Pandemic) they had a very light, airy, welcoming shop that wasn’t super crowded but had an amazing selection. In the back, they had a large table to sit around and work on projects as well as a couch that faced the natural gas stove. It was amazing in the colder wet months to go hang out, look at yarn, squish yarn, get inspiration, work on projects. I miss that space.

I have known about the Rhinebeck sheep and wool festival for several years. It is the big festival. I really want to go, and I want to try to make it happen next year. This year isn’t going to work for me, since I have other things I need to deal with first. Rhinebeck is one of things that I feel like I should experience at least once.

We don’t have many fiber festivals out here on the West Coast, and the ones we do have aren’t on the same caliber as the ones that take place back east.

All the smaller indie dyers I follow and typically buy from are from east of the Mississippi River, and the “better” fiber festivals are part of the circuit that most of these dyers go to.

Which is why I would love to go to Rhinebeck, especially, as well as some of the other fiber festivals back East and find more small, Indie, US based dyers who have amazing yarns.