A lot of catching up...

It's been a busy September. The September mystery sock has ended. There are quite a few finished socks already and it's been so much fun seeing each one completed. I knew that the rolled edge might not be popular, but I like it. I wanted something nice and horizontal to cap off the top of the sock. I don't like adding ribbing to the top of the sock if it doesn't flow from the rest of the stitch pattern. Here are the two socks that I knit while testing the pattern. The left sock was knit first with Opal 6ply yarn. The right sock was knit with Wollmeise in Campari Orange.

After all of the mystery clues were out and the questions have slowed, I got a severe case of the lace bug. With our vacation coming up, I knew that I wanted to take a lace project. That resulted in casting on for 4 different shawls and scarves trying to figure out which one to take. I cast on for the Slow Bee #2, Fiore di Melanzana, Autumn Arbor Stole, and the swiss cheese scarf. The Autumn Arbor stole won and it came on the trip. I was able to finish about 2/3 of the stole during that week away. Not bad. I have finished it this week and it just needs to be blocked. I'm hoping that I'll have it blocked and photographed for my next post.

Where did we go? We went to Cass Railroad and stayed in the caboose on the top of the mountain for two nights. This was a different adventure from our usual camping trips. The train ride up the mountain was fun. The falls colors were beautiful! We did get rain the one whole day that we were there, but that was worth it to see the double rainbow! Dwight and E saw it first and then came to get me. I was staying in the warm caboose. There's a coal stove in there and can really heat up the place if you can manage to keep it going. That was difficult at night, but not too bad.

For this trip, I made a few hand knit items to keep us warm. I made a cowl for E, D, and myself. D got a new hat out of Knit Pick's new Imagination yarn in the woodsmen color. I knit a bucket hat for myself. And I was sure to pack a few hand knit socks for everyone too. I can see why there's a cowl craze right now. Those things are very useful and I like multi-use items. E likes to wear hers as a hat most of the time. I used mine with my hat to cover nearly all of my face for the cold train ride back down the mountain.

Isn't this just beautiful! I'd take any rainy day to see this.

After the two nights at Cass, we drove over to Watoga State Park and spent three nights in a cabin. This cabin was heated by a fireplace in the living room. That was another challenge to keep warm at night, but we survived. It wasn't that bad and it was fun having the fire to watch and listen to all day and night. This park was beautiful too! There are a lot of hiking trails that start near the cabins. There's a pretty lake there too that would be fun for the kids in the summer. The roads within the park look like something out of a postcard. The roads were black and smooth with the trees forming a canopy overhead. At this time of year, the leaves were pretty and rained down whenever a breeze came.

From Watoga, we drove over to the Beartown boardwalk. The rocks looked cool to me, but the kids were bored quickly. They just wanted to race down the walkway. They did have fun sticking their hands into the holes in the rocks while pretending some evil monster was getting them. We visited so many other things on the trip, but I won't be too wordy about those. All in all, it was a very fun trip. It was different from any other camping trip or vacation that we've taken. I would love to go visit that section of West Virginia again. We did pick a great time of year to go since the leaves were so pretty already, but it wasn't too cold.

That's enough catching up for now. Back to knitting. I'm working on my Fiore di Melanzana stole in Knit Picks shadow in the grape color. It's pretty, but the patterned lace on both sides is slowing me down.