Endings and Beginnings

All of a sudden it seems I have completed a lot of projects, and when I say a lot of projects, what I really mean is that I completed one project of long standing, a simple project with four items and a fiddly project with multiple fiddly bits.

The project of long standing was a pair of socks for my father-in-law. I'm not sure why they took me so long - according to my Ravelry page, I started them four months ago! The pattern did require fairly close attention, as it was just knits and purls and I never seemed to be able to memorize it. I also used size 0 needles, which aren't really that much smaller than size 1, but it sure felt like it some days. Anyway, they're finished and I can't wait to give them him when I see him in a couple weeks.

The simple four-item project was another Fair Isle hat & legwarmers with matching mittens. This time I used University of Louisville colors (or pick your school with red, white & black) in Cascade 220 Superwash. The knitting went very quickly as it was worsted-weight and I'd already made this set at least twice. I think the hat took two hours at most, the legwarmers about 90 minutes each, and the mittens maybe 3 hours, just because the i-cord was a little tedious. I still haven't decided whether I'm going to add a pompon to it - I think I'll make one up and see how it looks.

The last project, the fiddly one, was a black-faced sheep and his shirt, kilt, and sporran. Last post, I wrote about how I ran out of yarn for both the shirt and the kilt. Since then, new yarn arrived and I was able to complete those bits. Once those were done, I started thinking about how I was going to make the sporran. The pattern called for knitting up a blank, felting it by hand in really hot water, and then cutting out the pieces. As I'm not a big fan of hand felting, I bought some crafting felt, cut out the pieces, and glued them together with my glue gun. (I was pretty excited about this, as I haven't had an opportunity to use it in a long time!) Once I'd assembled the sporran, I found some perl cotton and crocheted a little chain to tie it around the sheep's waist. I've decided (with the help of some friends) that his name is Angus Shepherdsbain. We suspect that he'd be a pretty charming guy (you can see for yourself how handsome he is), frequently escaping through the fence to meet up with the lassies at the next farm, and forcing the shepherd to go looking for him well after his suppertime. He's clearly a mischief maker.

As for beginnings, I've started thinking about Kentucky State Fair stuff. For this year's Fair, I'll be entering my lopi sweater, the UofL hat set, and our loveable scamp, Angus. Next year's Fair is a completely different story. I'll be eligible for the sweepstakes points prize next year, so I'm hoping to submit an item in each category and see how many points I can rack up. There are 16 categories (4 of them for adult sweaters), so I have a lot of work to do in the next year.

In that vein, I've cast on for next year's first project, a baby sweater. It's the Archie vest from Kristen Rengren's Vintage Baby Knits book. I've had my eye on this pattern for a long while, and now that I have plenty of superwash sock yarn, I can make it without purchasing any. I've just gotten the bottom band to the right length, so I'll post update in future posts. I expect that the colorwork will go pretty smoothly - I just have to check my math and make sure the pattern is centered and pretty.

Well, that's almost all I've got for tonight. Until next time, Friends.

Two Reasons Stashbusting Projects Can Suck It.

Exhibit A:

This almost-finished shirt for a stuffed sheep. 360 measly stitches short of completing the parts. Maybe another yard to attach the sleeves. It was supposed to be a little thing I could do in an evening or two. I called 5 yarn shops in the area, 4 of them didn't have the color I needed. The fifth didn't answer their phone, so I ordered it online. Now I'm waiting for a new skein to arrive.

Exhibit B:

This half-finished kilt for a stuffed sheep. I clearly underestimated how much yarn I needed for this wee kilt. The pleats really eat up the yardage. I've ordered more yarn for this too.

At least I had enough yarn leftover from my lopi sweater to make the sheep! The pattern called for bulky-weight lopi, but I had plenty of lett-lopi so I used it doubled, which knit up quickly. The assembly was a little tricky, but since the stitches were so nice and big, it was easy to see what I needed to do. I still need to knit the eyes and attach the ears, and once those tasks are done, I think my wee sheep will be pretty cute. While I'm waiting for the new yarn to arrive, I can work on his little belt and sporran. These two pieces will require felting, so I'll have to do a little digging to make sure I've got just the right bits to do these up right.

I addition to the sheep, I've also knit up a couple hats and mittens from the lett-lopi left over from my sweater. The first hat was the Baa-ble Hat, which is a free pattern from the Shetland Wool Week website (oh, how I wish I could go!). I was able to use leftovers in green, blue and black, but I had to stop at my LYS for a ball of cream to make the little sheep and the snow in the sky. I definitely should have gone down a needle size (or maybe two!), as the hat turned out too big to fit even my big head. Luckily I have a cousin who not only has a bigger head than I do, but is fun enough to wear a such a sheepie hat.

The second hat was Helene Magnusson's Brynja hat, and I adapted Vedis Jonsdottir's Handtak mittens to match. Of course, I ran out of the maroon yarn halfway through the hat, so I order another and wait for it. Both projects were quick knits, and I'm happy to have been able to give the set to another cousin (who happens to be a knitter herself!). So I guess I really have four reasons stashbusting projects suck. I've been developing a hypothesis about how yarn quantities work out perfectly when you're a new knitter, then thwart you as you gain experience, but it's still half-baked, so I'll have to think on this some more and see if I can articulate it in a way that makes sense.

Ah, well, I think that's it for tonight, Friends. Until next time.

Reversing a trend.

It seems that a lot of my recent projects have been about running out of yarn and waiting for more to arrive. Well, today, Friends, I can proudly say that I completed a project with YARN LEFT OVER! It's a miracle, really. Some days, it feels like it will never happen again.

Anyway, back in the early part of the Spring, I was in the mood to knit myself a new sweater, and as my LYS had lots of colors of lett-lopi, I decided that I would make the Afmaeli sweater. The printed pattern showed all kinds of color combinations, but I knew as soon as I saw the rainbow-colored version, I knew that was the one for me.

I bought the shop out of all their charcoal skeins for the body & sleeves, as well as the beige for the ribbing. Nerd that I am, I really wanted the colors specified in the pattern, so I had to order those online. I dutifully knit my gauge swatch, checked it against the instructions, and quickly cast on. The photos in the pattern showed a little more ease than I like, so I did a bit of math and worked out some waist shaping to get a more flattering fit.

The body knitting sped right along, but for whatever reason, the sleeves seemed to take ages to finish. I was eventually able to join the sleeves and begin the fun bit of stranded color work for the yoke. I enjoyed it so much! Once I got the collar done, I tried it on and it fit! With yarn left over! Like, 5 skeins of charcoal and 3 skeins of beige, and more than half of each of the remaining colors. I'm more pleased than I really should be at this, but given all my recent frustration on this account, you can hardly blame me.

Next time, Friends, I'll tell you about some of the things I've been making with the leftover lopi. Until then.

It's a vicious cycle, using up leftovers.

So last post I showed you the cute baby blankie I made for my new nephew (who is now a couple weeks old and as cute as can be!). Once I finished the blanket, there was plenty of yarn left over, so I thought I'd try using it up.

The first project was a wee sheep hat for a charity's silent auction - our group had a cute little baby fingerprint kit thing, but we needed to beef up the basket, so I made the hat. I only needed to purchase one skein of green yarn, no biggie. Once I finished the hat I thought it would be nice to make some wee mittens to match it, so I cast right on. Sadly, I ran out of the cream colored yarn after the first mitten, so I had to go right back to the shop for some more. And, just my luck, they didn't have any. Nor did the other two shops in town, so I ordered it online and hoped it would arrive in time for me to complete the mittens in time for the auction. It didn't.

While I was waiting for the new yarn to arrive, I thought I'd try out another pattern from the book with the sheep hat. The Fair Isle hat and leg warmers pattern looked like a good one to help me use up some of the yarn I had, so I cast on and mere hours later, I'd finished a cute little hat. The leg warmers went pretty quickly too. I had enough of the green, brown and tan yarn left to make some mittens to match the others, so I did those too, which worked out just right. I've since sent the set out to my new nephew.

I thought I give the same set another try, with the orange, black, and white yarn leftover from the blankie. I was able to finish the hat and mittens according to the pattern, but I ran out of orange before I could finish the legwarmers, so the last bit of cuff was finished with a bit of white. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this  set. I may decide to enter the hat and mittens in the State Fair this summer, depending on whether or not anyone I know turns up pregnant between now and then. On my Ravelry project page, I named them after Finding Nemo, because they're the same colors as a clown fish, and I imagined that if Nemo & Dory had made their way to the North Sea, they'd be wearing Fair Isle sweaters. Or at least Dory would, but I didn't have yarn in her colors.

So that's all I have for now, Friends. I've been knitting all kinds of things lately, but I haven't been especially meticulous about photographing them. As I catch up on the pics, I'll write up the projects. Until next time then.

Entirely too cute.

Any day now our newest nephew will be born, and in expectation of his arrival, I've been working on a little blanket for him. When we found out my sister- and brother-in-law were expecting, right away I knew that whatever I made would be gender-neutral, not only because it was too early to know the baby's sex, but because I thought the parents would prefer it.

You can almost tell what they're supposed to be.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to make - I've made plenty of hats and stuffed toys for my legion of nieces and nephews, but I was in the mood for something different, so I thought a blanket might be the way to go. And after a good, long Ravelry search, I hit upon just the right one: Villi Pohjola by Terhi Viinikanoja. It was so cute! Knitted abstractions of arctic critters in easy-to-knit squares. The only trick was that the pattern was written in Finnish, so I had one window of my computer open to the pattern text and another window open to Google Translate.

I think this otter is my favorite.

The animals on pattern were a bunny, a reindeer, a brown bear, a badger, a lynx, and a fox. Since this new baby was going to grow up in North Carolina, I decided to modify the pattern to show critters found there. I changed the reindeer to a deer, the brown bear to a black one, the badger to a raccoon, and the lynx to a river otter. All it took was a few sketches on the handy graph the designer supplied and I was in business. The knitting went really quickly as it was stockinette stitch in worsted-weight yarn. Since this was a baby gift, I chose Cascade 220 Superwash for its ease in care. I don't think that new parents are going to want to deal with anything that isn't machine washable.

The fox is pretty cute too.

Once I got the knitting done, the seaming went pretty fast too. I used my favorite seaming tutorial from Twist Collective, and had the blanket put together in short order. Appliqueing the eyes was a different story. I had been putting it off for awhile, because the size of the blanket meant that I was going to have to clean all the mail off my dining room table if I wanted the eyes to look right. Thankfully, a gloomy, rainy day inspired an idea: I'd take the blanket to the coffee shop and work on it there! The tables would be clean, someone else would make hot drinks for me, and I wouldn't have to clean my dining room. Awesome!

And who wouldn't love this sweet bear?

Once all the critters had eyes, it was a lot easier to get going on the noses and mouths. The noses were all done in duplicate stitch (except for the racoon, who doesn't have a nose) and then I used a chain stitch to get nice curves for all the mouths. I improvised the deer's antlers - the pattern called for crocheting them, but my crochet skills are practically non-existent, so I knit them in garter stitch to keep them from curling up. I added some black trim to the fox's ears and called the blanket done. It turned out to be just the right size for a stroller, so I hope he'll get lots of use from it.

I'm not sure the deer is happy to be here.

Well, that's it for now, Friends. I have to get this package in the mail!

Adventures in Stash Knitting, or, Another Lesson in "You Should Know Better By Now"

So, the whole point of knitting from stash is, you know, using up stash yarn. I mean, I have yarn. Not as much as some folks, but enough that I'm not going to run out any time soon. And as I've got all this yarn, I want to knit it up. I haven't gone cold sheep (it's like going "cold turkey," but, well, knitters) or anything, but I am making a point of being mindful about what I'm buying.

Anyway, some time ago, a couple of my friends were doing a little destashing, and  I acquired a whole lot of Cascade Eco Wool. A few skeins in cream from my friend Holly, a few skeins in chocolate from my friend Tonya, and a couple random skeins of each from my friends Colleen and Jan added up to something like 6000 yards of bulky-weight yarn. That's more than 3 miles of yarn taking up a whole lot of space in my stash.

The first project I made from this stash was the Walnut Snood from the awesome Japanese knitting magazine Amirisu. I ended up using a little more than a skein for this cabled infinity scarf. Looking over my project notes, it looks like it took me less than a week to complete it, and I've worn the hell out of it since then. It's my go-to scarf, and I love its versatility: on the occasions when I've neglected to wear a hat, it's come in really handy as a sort of hood and even as a balaclava. I can't say enough good things about it.

The next project was Streymoy from the Winter 2013 Knitty. I think I documented the sweater pretty well here, so you know all the trouble I had with it. But, really, the whole reason I chose that pattern was because I thought I'd be able to use up all this yarn. It used up quite a bit, but sadly, not all of it. I had to think about what I was going to do next.

I didn't have anything specific in mind, just using up this yarn! I did a Ravelry search based on the gauge I was knitting, the yardage I had, and the necessity for colorwork since I had two colors of this yarn. After looking through what felt like a million patterns, I settled on the Northern Lights poncho from a Vogue Knitting book. It had been published 10 years ago, so I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to find it, but it turned out that my local library had a copy. It was a quick, fun knit. That, again, didn't use up all the yarn.

Ugh! Seriously, I was getting pretty sick of knitting so many brown and white projects (including the projects I made with some really cool locally-grown Shetland wool), but I was determined to use up this yarn. Since I didn't want to make another poncho, I got going on another Ravelry search, this time deciding I had just the right amount of yarn to knit Boreal by Kate Davies, and knit it in time to wear it for Christmas. Yeah, I don't know what the hell I was thinking, either.

Based on the amount of yarn I had in each color, I really should have done the sweater with the light color on the bottom, but I decided that for my body type, it would look best with dark on the bottom half. So with a little trepidation, I cast on. The knitting went quickly since there was so much stockinette. Once I made my way through the bottom half, I started getting a little nervous that I was going to run out of dark yarn for the top half. I had a bad feeling about it that only got worse the further along I got. On December 18th I ran out of the chocolate yarn. A week before Christmas! What was I going to do? There are only a couple yarn shops in the area that carry Eco Wool, so I was really sweating it. It wasn't necessary to have a new sweater in time for the holiday, but I really wanted one.

So one night after work, I braved the crazy traffic by the malls to go to the shop that I thought was my best chance of finding the yarn. I had a 20 minute window to get off the bus, cross something like 10 lanes of traffic, walk to the shop way at the far side of the parking lot, find the yarn, pay for it, and catch the bus to get home. The shop had exactly one skein of the yarn I needed. It wasn't the same dye lot, but I was pretty sure it wasn't going to matter with the color work, so I snatched it up and hurried to the checkout where there was a woman ahead of me who had a million little individually-priced stems of fake wreath-making stuff and nearly as many coupons. All I had was the one skein, but I was 30 seconds too late getting to the cashier. After roundly cursing her out (in my mind, though, not out loud), I took a breath and hoped I'd be able to make my bus. It was a Christmas miracle! I paid for my precious, ran for the bus stop, and thanks to the ridiculous traffic, I had time to spare before the bus arrived.

Once I got going again on the sweater, I was able to finish it in practically no time at all. From beginning to end, the whole thing took 10 days. And I had yarn left over, which kind of bothers me, but I just can't bear the thought of yet another Eco Wool sweater. I only ended up using about 100 yards out of the new skein of yarn, so I still have a healthy 400 yards left, in addition to nearly a full skein of the cream. I'd really like to use it up, but I think I'm going to give it a year or so. It'll keep.

Well, that's all I've got for tonight. Thanks for sticking with me over my long holiday break, Friends. Until next time.

Stranded!

I seem to be knitting a lot of stranded things lately. Mostly, I think it's because the yarn in my stash lends itself to the technique: I have a couple different yarns in more than one color, but not enough of each color to make a whole project.

Having finished my husband's sweater recently, I've been trying to find an appropriate project to use up all the yarn I have left, something like 3 skeins of the brown and 2 skeins of the cream, in addition to the 1 skein I have of another cream colorway. After searching Ravelry for bulky-yarn patterns, I eventually came upon the Northern Lights Icelandic Poncho by Vedis Jonsdottir, who is actually from Iceland. The pattern called for a lopi yarn, but since I'm trying to use up the rest of my Eco Wool, the yoke design is knitting up with more distinct stitch definition and less fuzziness than I would expect to get from lopi. The knitting has gone quickly, especially with size 10 needles! I only cast on Thursday night and I've gotten through the yoke already. All that's left is the mile or so of stockinette and the seed stitch hem. I'm pretty sure I'll have enough yarn left at the end of this project to make another, probably with the colors reversed. I just really want to use up the rest of this yarn.

The other yarn in my stash that I've been trying to knit up is the Littledove Farm Shetland wool blend that I won at the State Fair a couple years ago. Last February, I'd knit up a hat with one of my friend's kids in mind, but it turned out that the kid wanted different colors, and his parents preferred it to be machine washable, so I've held onto the hat, trying to decide if I want to wear it myself this winter, or maybe give it away as part of a set. As this is a sport-weight yarn, I did another Ravelry search, this time for stranded mittens. The winner turned out to be a pattern I already had in my queue, the Squirrel & Oak mittens by Adrian Bizilia. For whatever reason, I was able to knit the pair of mittens over the course of a weekend. One of my coworkers expressed a liking for them, so I'm going to give them to her, and since I'm giving those away, I immediately cast on for a new pair, this one using a chart inspired by the wallpaper from Sherlock. I haven't decided yet whether I'll make the smiley face, but I figure that if I have some yellow yarn lying around, I'll go ahead and do it. Sadly, one hat and two pairs of mittens isn't going to use up my whole stash of it, so I'll likely be knitting a few more stranded things before it's gone.

Well, that's all I've got for tonight, Friends. Until next time.

Lessons in Humility: Gauge Edition

Just about a year ago, I started a stranded sweater for my husband (Streymoy from Knitty Winter 2013). I even posted photos of the swatches and the buttons on this here blog and promptly never wrote about it again. I was pretty excited about the project, as I already had the yarn in my stash and my husband liked the look of it. We decided between us that we'd prefer it as a pullover, rather than a cardigan, and I got started swatching.

My first swatch with the recommended needle size got me 15 stitches per 4 inches. Since the pattern gauge was meant to be 20 sts/4", I needed to go down at least a needle size. The next swatch got me 18 sts/4", which was closer to gauge, but not quite there. And here's where I got myself into trouble: I was really anxious to get started knitting, so I did some math and calculated that I could use the directions for the men's large size and have it fit with 2" or so of ease. My math was wrong. Terribly, comically wrong. Like 4" too big around the chest wrong. It was so frustrating! Even worse, it had taken me a solid two months to knit it wrong, and I was disgusted with it. I unraveled my work and set the yarn aside to taunt me at different times throughout the year.

I picked it up again this fall, determined to make a sweater that fit. I took a hard look at the swatches and the sleeves that I hadn't unraveled. I also took another look at the math and determined that my calculations had been off by .25 stitches per inch, which was just the difference between a sweater that would fit my husband and a sweater that would fit Rubeus Hagrid. Anyway, with this reevaluation of my mathing, I decided that following the directions for the men's medium size would end in a sweater that my husband could wear in public, not just in our frigid basement.

The two months of futile knitting last fall seems to have made this fall's knitting go really fast. The stranded charts were easy to memorize, and it felt like it took me no time at all to knit the body portion of the sweater. Once it was long enough, I had my husband try it on. It fit! I was so happy! I was less happy, though, at the prospect of having to re-knit the sleeves. As they were knit to stitch counts of the large size, I didn't want to try to calculate the adjustments necessary to make them work with the new body. It only took about a week to re-do the sleeves and join them to the body.

Now that I had one big garment on the needles, I marked off the steek stitches for the collar and began the raglan shoulder decreases. The designer did a fantastic job here by planning the decreases in such a way that it ended up a little more like a saddle shoulder than a true raglan, which I think made for a better-fitting neckline than most. Once I completed the shoulders and neck, it was time to prepare the steek stitches for cutting.

I'm not gonna lie: just the thought of cutting my knitting makes me want to pee my pants. What if I cut too far? What if I cut in the wrong place? What if the reinforcements don't hold? What if??? I was really sweating it. In the end, I followed Kate Davies' steeking instructions: I did the crochet reinforcements and cut that sweater right down the middle. I even stopped in the right place. The only thing I think I'll do differently if I ever do another short steek is that I'll bind off the stitches meant to be at the base of the collar, which I think will add a little strength. It's a small thing, I think, but one that could help the sweater's durability.

With the steek cut, I picked up stitches for the shawl collar. I made it a 1x1 rib to match the cuffs and bottom ribbing. I had originally followed Jared Flood's collar instructions from the Brownstone pullover, but it ended up with too much fabric at the back of the neck, so I undid it and reduced the number of short rows by half. This made the collar fit my husband much better. I finished it with an i-cord bind off, incorporating the buttonholes as I bound off. As soon as I added the buttons, I made my husband try it on. It fit! We were both pretty happy about it. As I hadn't washed and blocked it when I took the photos, you're seeing it fit more snugly than it does since it was washed. As it was a lot of sweater (bulky-weight yarn, stranded), I filled the tub of my washing machine with water & wool wash and let it soak. I briefly considered blotting it dry by hand, but changed my mind when I lifted it out of the washer and found it was really, really heavy wet. I decided the better plan would be to use the spin cycle (skipping the agitation) to remove most of the water from the sweater. Then I laid it out on the guest bed, getting it to its proper shape and size and let it dry for a few days.

Since I finished it, my husband has gotten to wear it a couple times and has told me how much he loves it, which makes me pretty happy. He's so knitworthy! There's yarn leftover from this project and I'm trying to decide if I want to make something for myself from it. I've found a couple patterns I like, but I haven't made up my mind yet. That decision may need a little time to percolate.

So, Friends, that's it for tonight. Until next time.

It felt like a minute

Oh, Friends, where has the time gone? I'm having difficulty believing that I've been gone as long as I have, but so it is. Last time I wrote, I talked about my disappointing State Fair results, and showed you the beginning of a sock I was making for my mother-in-law. I've since completed the sock and three other projects.

First, the sock: it's the Rhombus pattern from CookieA's Knit Sock Love book. It ended up taking about six weeks to finish, and I ended up running out of yarn about 2.5" before I could close up the toes. A kind Raveler sold me a second skein of the gorgeous Sundara Sock, which allowed me to finish with enough left over to make some socks for myself.

Next I decided that I would make a point of knitting up the oldest yarn in my stash, partly as a way to clear out some space in my bins and partly as a challenge to myself. While I have a whole lot of some mohair boucle that I bought at a fiber festival some years ago, I knew I could find a pattern for the silk/bamboo hand-dyed sport weight that's been in my stash nearly as long. Anyway, believing that I had a mere 450 yards of this yarn, I cast on for the Glitz at the Ritz shawl, which I thought would use up both skeins. I got through nearly the whole shawl before I realized that I'd underestimated the yardage of the skeins, leaving me with nearly the whole second skein upon completion of the shawl.

Knowing that I likely didn't have enough yardage remaining to make another triangular shawl, I decided that a rectangular scarf would be the way to go. I could cast on and knit until I ran out of yarn, hoping that the yarn's slinkiness would help once it was washed and blocked. I used the Shimmer Wave scarf pattern, which had an easy-to-memorize repeat and traveled well. I mostly worked on it during my commute to work every day and occasionally in meetings and waiting rooms. It took a mere three weeks to complete, and I've already given it to a coworker.

Lastly, I restarted the Streymoy sweater I'd had so little success with last winter, but I think I'll save that for next time. There's a lot to tell! Until then.

State Fair Results

The Kentucky State Fair concluded today, so I thought I should head back out there and get a some photos of my entries in situ before I bring them home tomorrow. I had gone to the Fair on the day it opened, but I forgot my camera, so all I had were crappy cell phone pics.

While everything I entered earned a ribbon, none of them were blue (or red, for that matter), so I have to admit that I am disappointed with how I did. Overall, I think that each of the blue ribbon winners deserved their award, but I have a few quibbles with some of the other rankings. It's not major stuff, mostly technical issues with a few things. Oh, well. There's always next year.

My Cypri shawl earned a third place ribbon, which was a pleasant surprise, as I didn't really have any expectations on how it might do. My Rafters cardigan and Hanami stole both earned fourth place ribbons, which I'm alright with. The cardigan has been worn and washed often, and was a little felted as a result. The stole was entered in the always-competitive lace category and was up against a lot of really good stuff. All the ribbon winners in this category were beaded and knit from laceweight yarns. What ended up being the biggest surprise and disappointment was that my socks only earned an honorable mention (there were two honorable mentions in socks!). There was a lot of variety in the category this year, and the level of competition was definitely higher than past years. My favorite socks (aside from my own, I mean) were the second place ones (traditional stranded knitting). The first and third place socks were nice, and I thought that the fourth place socks had some technical errors, but did have a pleasing color combination. I'll just have to do better next year.

Aside from the knitting, there were plenty of other things to see in the exhibition hall. I always look at the needlepoint and quilts, and this year I discovered some fantastic baskets and leather work. The wood turning folks entered a lot of beautiful objects. Here are photos of some of my favorites:

That's it for tonight, Friends. Until next time.