Weekends Are For Knitting

...and cooking and cleaning and gardening. And for my husband, running. (Let's not talk about my lack of running, okay?) So when the spousal unit is out on his long runs, I knit. Or blog, as is the case today.

On June 1, I started knitting up a Jaywalker sock in Trekking color #100, for the Trek With Me knit along. And I'm playing with fire with gauge, among other things. I diligently knit a gauge swatch using size 0 and size 1 needles. Did I get gauge? Nope, not even close. In fact, I got a smaller gauge on the size 1 needles. Go figure. So, since Wendy recommends knitting socks on size 0s, that's what I'm doing. And I will not be surprised to get smacked down by the knitting goddess. I also misread the instructions and did a k1,p1 rib instead of the k2,p2 rib. At that point, I thought I'd just see what happened. Now, I have been slipping the sock on to see if it is misbehaving fits, and so far, so good. It appears to fit. We'll see if that continues. I fully expect to have to rip it out and start over at some point.

On the baby blanket front, I've got about 200 rows completed and started the seventh ball. Woo hoo! I'm officially halfway done, with the knitting. There will still be hundreds and hundreds of French knots to embroider.

Thanks for answering my yarn shop questions. Your answers helped clarify some of the ideas that have been rolling around in my head for a while. I've started reaching out to other local business owners to get a sense of what rents are in the area (it would be really nice to walk to work). There's still a lot of research to be done, mostly visiting different shops (what a hardship), as well as writing a business plan. This will be a long-term project, perhaps three to five years down the road, unless I inherit a lot of money from an unknown rich relative. Or win the lottery. And both are highly unlikely.

Eating Local
I visited the farmer's market yesterday and spent a lot of time talking to the nice lady at Willow Hawk Farm about her fleeces and yarns. And while I was at it, I bought some lamb sausage, which is locally produced. Next door to Willow Hawk was Potomac Vegetable Farms, an "ecoganic" farm. They didn't have a lot of variety, but what they had was so beautiful. I bought some Swiss chard (too much, as it turns out) and made a greens pizza with a whole wheat crust, served with a salad (non-local) and a nice red Zinfandel. Tonight I'll make Swiss chard with beets and goat cheese, using local beets.

I tend to be a shy person and asking vendors what they do and how they do it is a bit scary for me. But I'm finding as I open up, so do others. I'm now searching for a local source of chickens and maybe, just maybe, I can increase the amount of local, and hopefully healthier, food in our diet.

Have a wonderful weekend!