In Which the Pirate Knits All Weekend.

Marie, from the weekly knitting group (the one I never get to go to anymore) invited me and a half-dozen women to spend the weekend at her beach house in Maryland. What a fun time we had – and what an amazing view! We knit, spun, talked late into the night, and ate *so* much food. Marie’s house is absolutely beautiful. It’s a three-story Victorian right on the water, with so many little details that I kept noticing.

I arrived on Saturday afternoon. After a wonderful lunch of lemon chicken, we knit for a while and then ventured out to a local yarn store, Crazy For Ewe. It took some serious self-control, but I didn’t buy anything. The only yarns that really tempted me were out of my budget – like some Schaefer Heather, and some sock yarn that I would have had to get two skeins of for just one pair of socks, and some hand-dyed laceweight from Ellyn Cooper’s Yarn Sonnets that glowed with color and had metal spun in with the yarn. It would make a beautiful shawl, if I could afford it! I did have fun touching all the yarns, and everyone else bought something, so I didn’t feel bad about keeping the store open after its scheduled closing time.

We had grilled salmon for dinner with potatoes au gratin and green beans, and then got back to knitting and spinning! Jinann and I both brought our wheels, and I got started spinning some of this merino. I’m planning to make a three-ply sock yarn with it. There’s eight ounces of the stuff, so no concerns about having enough. I don’t know if I’m spinning tightly enough for sock yarn, so I plan to run the singles through again and put some extra twist in before plying.

This morning, Marie made us French toast with raspberry butter, and there was more knitting and spinning before a lunch of shrimp over pasta with a saffron cream sauce. I finished the second skein of yarn on the baby blanket, which was my goal for the weekend, and got started on the third skein. The Bloo Sock did see a few new stitches, but as it’s meant to be my airplane knitting in a couple of weeks, and it doesn’t have the deadline that the blanket does, I tried not to work on it too much.

What a fantastic time! I hope that we can all get together again soon and do it again!