Celebrating Autumn in the Country

We took a break from the knitting, and drove  into the country today,  west along highway 1A, through Cochrane, on to Ghost Lake and then took the eastern road across to Big Hill Springs Provincial Park  which is north of Airdrie, the turned  back west again,  to stop at Glenbow Provincial Park  to enjoy the fall scenery.   Libby enjoyed Ghost Lake, as you see, rolled in a cow pie at Big Hill Springs Provincial Park and had to be dunked into the spring to wash off, but managed not to get into trouble at Glenbow Park..  Travelling with a Border Collie is never dull,   Most provincial and federal parks are onleash for dogs, so we stick pretty close to each other, which means I narrowly missed stepping in the cow pie that she was busy rolling in.   None the less, we had a great time exploring today.  It really is a pretty time of year.

Socks and Knitting tales

The travelling socks are finally finished  And it was a squeeker let me tell you.  I blithely cast on my usual 56 stitches, did my 3 inch rib cuff and moved on down the leg for 8 inches which I like, never thinking that this Lang Jawoll Cotton Stretch colour only had 330m on it.  One sock down, the second one down almost to the toe and I started to panic.

This little tangle is all the scrap I had left.  I didn't use the spool of coloured nylon so kindly provided by Lang in every one of their balls of sock yarn.  I don't think it would have made a difference in any case.  There was just enough yarn - and they are fraternal twins, these socks, not identical twins, but that's Ok too.
I like the Lang sock yarns - they have a nice twist and are easy to work with and I'm really in love with my new steel tipped, carbonized sock needles by Knitter's Pride.  But I was surprised that the Cotton Stretch has about 100 meters less on the ball than the regular Jawoll Colour.  No idea why that is.

Here is the latest shot of my problem child shawl.  I've now ripped this lovely yarn back twice - but this time, I think things will work.  Both rips were because I wasn't paying enough attention to the quantities of yarn required for the shawl pattern I had chosen.  Let that be a lesson to me - I'm beginning to see a pattern here.   At any rate..  I do like this pattern - crochet  - called the BFF Shawl and in Interweave Crochet Accessories Special issue 2014.  It's a four row pattern repeat guaranteed to keep my interest as I plow through it.   I was pleased to see the designer not only gave me the number of chains on, but told me it was a multiple of 12 stitches plus 2.  Once I discovered that the shawl would be way too wide I was able to do the math, cut to 72 stitches and one ball of this delightful manos Del Uruguay Alegria yarn named Botanico will do the trick..  Good thing - it's all I've got.
Today is a good day for knitting.

This is why.  Welcome to my snowy world.  Libby is, of course, ecstatic.  We took the Rav to the garage for it's tune up this morning, and walked back home via the park.  She was doing stop, drop and rolls in the falling snow about every three feet.  There is enough on the ground at the moment to make really good, big snowballs to throw for her this afternoon.  But my, its early for this stuff.  I hope it will melt and the warm temperatures will come back.  I'm just not sure if the plants will survive this wet snow.  That's all for now.  Time for a cup of tea.