A Special Visit

Divided entry for those interested only in the Knitting Content: see below!

Family Content
My son and his wife from Juneau are visited last week! (DS#2 and DDIL#2). Not to be confused with DS and DDIL who live here in Anchorage. This is the younger son, the little trouble-making, tech-supporting, air-traffic controlling, cold-water scuba diving, piano-playing, fast-swimming person that we all miss since he lives an airflight away. We always have been a "close" family; we have always been each other's friends. After all, I stayed home most of their growing-up years to be a home-schooling (non-knitting) mom. Life changes. I miss my "boys" but am happy to trust my DDILs to care for them!
We had a blast: lots of shopping, lots of good food and conversation. So blessed to have some hugs from far-away! We will see them again in a few weeks in Portland! Both the DDILs like to knit, so that is always a fun topic of conversation. For Mother's Day I was given a lovely skein of hand-spun, hand-dyed 50% silk/50% merino yarn from an artist in Sitka. Pictures to follow. The yarn wants to be a shawl.
Speaking of Mother's Day, we were also blessed to have breakfast with DS and DDIL before going to church. And I received a lovely corsage and a goody bag of lavender bath products! DH gave me a large Hummel figurine! I have lots of pictures to post.
Knitting Content
I have been really, really bad. Bad = new yarn. Sock yarn.
Yarn like "Lorna's Laces", "Regia Stretch", and "Lang's Jawoll color". I have definate plans. Well, maybe more indefinate than definate. All I did was go to get some wood #5 dpns last night, and what do you think was going on at a LYS? They were unwrapping bags of yarn. The owner showed me this because I said "You guys have such a nice assortment of sock yarn". She immediately told me about the fabulous stretch yarn and how nicely it worked up. I couldn't resist. I will have a pair of stretch socks before snow flies! (Remember, this is Alaska. Not a comment for the faint of heart!) Why did I need a pair of #5 dpns? For a baby hat. Co-workers, cousins, etc are all having babies fairly soon. I tried with aluminum needles, but maybe because I am still a new knitter, whatever, I have a problem with yarn jumping off slick metal. Now I own crystal palace bamboo...love it. But something bad happened over the weekend to my crystal palace bamboo #1.5s. I discovered a tip broken off! In the kind process of "no problem, I can fix this" (from DH when I asked where in the monster garage I could find sandpaper) the needle became quite short. Warning: if you attempt to insert a dpn in a power drill and hold sandpaper at the end while the power drill saves on "elbow grease" you must use extreme caution. Crystal Palace bamboo dpns are not that durable. For my household, there should be a warning on the label: Caution: do not attempt to use these knitting needles with electric drills. This will invalidate the warranty. Well, I now have a much shorter needle with odd points, but still useable. Needless to say, the finish is gone, but maybe I can come up with some non-power solution for that.
So I was only dead in the water for a short time: my Purple splendor socks are still in progress. I am inching down the foot on #1. I can hardly wait to wear them. I am hoping the lace will go better on the second sock. It's not hard at all, but I keep messing it up, miss-counting or something.
Other than that, I have not gotten in too much trouble. I am enjoying the Yarn Harlot's book. I also found the Winter 2003 Interweave Knits at the LYS with the pattern for the flower facecloths. For a view of these, go see Poor Miss Finch and what she made for Mother's Day.