Caren Knits

Liberty in Our Lifetime

Mike and I just returned from a lovely weekend up north in the White Mountains. 

We attended the Porcupine Freedom Festival (a.k.a "Porc-Fest"), which is the annual gathering of the Free State Project.  The Free State Project is "an agreement among 20,000 pro-liberty activists to move to New Hampshire, where they will exert the fullest practical effort toward the creation of a society in which the maximum role of government is the protection of life, liberty, and property."  In other words, it's a bunch of freedom-loving, Libertarian-type folks who believe the government should get out of our bodies, our bedrooms, and our wallets.

We had a wonderful time, schmoozing with old friends and meeting new ones.  Then we attended the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance annual banquet.  The keynote speaker was U.S. Representative Ron Paul (R-Tex) who was a big hit.  Another speaker was Jack Cole, from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.  This organization's mission is to "reduce the multitude of unintended harmful consequences resulting from fighting the war on drugs and to lessen the incidence of death, disease, crime, and addiction by ultimately ending drug prohibition."  I've always been a pretty prudish anti-drug type person, but I have to admit, Jack's presentation really made me rethink the War on Drugs, and its intended and unintended consequences.

I debated posting about this stuff here, because I know a lot of knitters are more left-leaning, anti-Bush type folks.  And I'm not exactly the biggest Bush fan on the planet either.  But the older I get, and the more I read about politics, economics, etc., the more conservative and Libertarian I seem to become.  I was reading a knitting blog a week or two ago (I'm afraid I forgot which one) in which the author "outed" herself as a Republican.  So I will hereby declare myself a Knitter Against Hillary, and leave it at that.  :-)

Back to knitting content, I did get a fair bit of knitting done this weekend, completing about half a Koigu sock.  Of course, I hadn't given Mike the head's up to take some sock-knitting in progress photos.  So, alas, there are none this time.

On the way home, I finished the heel, but I did a weird sort of half turn-and-wrap, half yarn-over short heel technique that ended up really wonky and crooked.  So I'm going to rip it out and redo it.  I should have at least a sock WIP photo tomorrow. 

Socks

Since I can't report too much on my current knitting projects (which are Hanukah presents and therefore super secret), today I'll recap some of the stuff I've done since last you heard from me.

Here are my first ever socks:

Wendy's generic toe-up pattern (short row toe and heel); Lana Grossa Meilenweit "Fun & Stripes" sock yarn on size US1 bamboo DPNs.  As you can see, I like my socks to be identical twins.

And some other socks:

Toe up, short row toe and heel, lace pattern on leg from Kim Salazar's blog String or Nothing; Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in beige and blue; Size US 1 bamboo DPNs.  (I figured this color would go with jeans or beige khaki's.)  These came out a bit more fraternal, but I can live with that.

Here's the Heidi picture of the day.  This is our back yard, where DH Mike is building a new play set for Jordan.  Cool new swing, huh?

And I leave you with another Jordan photo, because heck, why not?  :-)

I'm back!

After almost a full year's absence from the blog world, I have decided to jump back into the fray.  I stopped knitting for several months last winter, and just didn't feel like posting for a while.

The inspiration for starting up my knitting mania again was meeting this guy:

Last March we finally got to go to Ekaterinburg, Russia for the first of our two adoption trips.  Jordan Vladimir Pelletier (nee Vladimir Andreyovich Bukov) was 13 months old at the time (he'll be 18 months on Aug. 5), and he stole our hearts the minute we saw him.

We're in the final home stretch of the adoption now.  We hope to go get him in the next couple of months.  I'll keep you posted of course!

I've already knit him 3 sweaters (pics to follow) and my mom has knit him 2.  In the meantime, we've been getting the house together, fixing up his room, etc.

And I've been knitting up a storm!  Over the next few days/weeks, I'll be updating the blog with lots of FO photos and my latest WIPs.  It's definitely the Summer of Lace and Socks for me.  It's way too hot to knit anything else!