husband

Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival

I can’t believe I forgot to post about this! A little over a week ago, my husband and I found ourselves in Franklin, Indiana on one of the days of their annual Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival. We went in on a whim (hey, I’m always up for some yarny shopping), and we really enjoyed it!

The festival was much more extensive than I thought it would be. There were three barns of vendors–LYSes, dyers, spinners, wood crafters, etc. This lacemaking vendor, promoting local lacemaking classes, was one of my favorites:

I got to feel up some bison yarn for the first time:

My husband loves historical gadgets, so this antique sock machine was right up his alley:

Easily my favorite booth at the whole festival was a whole wall of hand-dyed yarn from a local dyer, A Good Yarn. It was the first booth I saw when I came in, and I probably spent more time there than at any of the others combined. I didn’t get a great picture of the booth, but you can see some of her gorgeous skeins in the background of this shot:

And, of course, I couldn’t leave her booth without purchasing something. I made away with two skeins of sportweight superwash in this luminous blue color:

Lucky for me she didn’t carry DK or worsted-weight yarn, or I would have really been in trouble!

My husband did a more extensive blog post (with more pictures, and quite frankly more witticisms than I could ever muster) here, if you’re interested in checking it out: Fiber, Fiber Everywhere OR The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Hoosiers. :-)

So Proud I Could Burst

See this nifty hat, modeled by my husband?

Nice, eh? (And the model’s not bad either, if I do say so myself. Look at those soulful brown eyes….)

But here’s a secret–I didn’t knit the hat. He did!

After a few years of watching me knit (and start designing), he decided he wanted to learn. As he put it, at least then he could understand me when I started swearing at my knitting. Heh.

He started with a knit-purl square. In one of those jokes of the universe, he was a total natural. Very even tension from the get-go, and he figured out right away the best way to hold his yarn so he’s fast. My first projects looked like utter crap, but his first square is good enough that we actually use it as a coaster around the house.

This hat is his second project. His first time following a pattern, knitting in the round, using DPNs, cabling, etc. etc. etc.

Look at those sexy decreases:

He picked out the yarn at The Twisted Stitch in Monterey. It’s Imperial Yarn Columbia in (I think) Indigo Heather, and it’s DELICIOUS. Squishy and bouncy, and just the right amount of rustic-ness while still being soft. The color depth is fabulous. I want a sweater out of this yarn really, really badly.

The pattern he used is the Irish Hiking Hat (Ravelry link). He deliberately made it a little longer so it’s a bit slouchy: