I Went AWOL

The beauiful view of Sierra Blanca from the front porch of the house

For the past week, I've been on vacation to my grandparent's vacation house in Ruidoso, New Mexico (as I mentioned in my last post). Though I did practically nothing except drink hot chocolate and play Rummikub, I was delighted to be free from the pressure of blogging, though my few readers may have missed my posts. I had no Internet connection save the iPhone, and I rather dislike typing on touch screens so I did it minimally, and only to answer emails etc. I went with my parents, my sister, and each of our best friends (who are also sisters). Mother and Father left us alone for the most part, and let us stay in the house for three out of the four days we were there while they went out to dinner. However, on one of the days, we went into the town for souvenir shopping, and visited all of our favorite shops. I spent very little money, I'm proud to say (this is probably because there aren't any yarn shops in the town), and what I did purchase was not for my but for my partner in the swap I'm currently participating in (more on that later!).

Ruidoso is a wonderful place for knitting, and I knit an entire hat while there. I have no flattering pictures of the hat, and it is now in the hands of the person it was made for, so I doubt I will get any. The pattern I used the Police Box Slouch Hat, and it is a brilliant, brilliant pattern. I will definitely be making one of these hats for myself! (And I'll get pictures of that one.) As I finished the hat before the vacation ended, I was very grateful I'd thought to bring a backup project, and I'm happy to say that I'm making steady progress on Hermione's Everyday Socks.

When I got home on Friday night, I was delighted to find a package waiting for me. It was the Thin Pencil Roving I had ordered from the lovely Etsy shop Kauni, which I couldn't reccomend more. Free shipping worldwide and excellent prices on excellent products besides- I will be buying more from this shop! It arrived pretty quickly considering it came from Estonia, and I spent yesterday and today spinning the roving I ordered. It was possibly the easiest spinning job I've ever done, since the pencil roving required no drafting and all I had to do was feed it into the wheel. It's lovely long-striping and it was a joy to see the colors play out as I spun. It's about 100 grams, and 460 yards or something.

The yarn is not for my own use but is to be sent off in the current swap I'm participating in, another from Tiny Owl Knits. I'm extremelely excited, and have several goodies planned out that I have yet to make. It's a secret swap, so nobody tell my partner that I spun this for them!

Well, this has been an incredibly long and wordy post. Think of it as making up for all the days I didn't post in May (though, I still have lots of catching up to do! So many things to tell the world about!).