Ribbons!

Paul and I headed to the Altamont Fair on Wednesday night.  He is displaying his car in the "Cars Past Present and Future" building, so he wanted to check on it:

It was fine (but very dusty).  Discussion ensued about whether or not to dust it off.  He decided against it since it's just so dusty there anyway.  He'll give it a good Paul-once-over once it gets home.

And I wanted to see how my judged items did.  We got to the Wool Nook in the Sheep Barn and perused the cases:

And there is my shawl with a Fourth Place ribbon!:

And my skein of yarn with a Second Place ribbon!:

Third from the right, the skinny purple-y one.

It's so exciting to see my items on display.  WITH RIBBONS!!!!  There were so many beautiful entries.

In Other Knitting News:
As promised, pictures of the Cranberry Capelet after it was blocked:

That sideways thing is SO annoying!  At any rate, that's me wearing it. (I told Jana just to get just the capelet because I had just come from babysitting and i was tired and sweaty and my hair was a mess.)

Here's a better view on the mannequin:

Except it's sideways again.  The neck definitely relaxed, as did the rest of the ribbing and it is VERY comfy and cozy -- can't wait for the cooler weather!

I started my Watermelon Slice Socks!:

Soon come the black beads (for the watermelon seeds) but I have to check out some online tutorials for how to add the beads to my knitting....

After I got that far in the socks, I took a short break to knit the Vite Cowl:

Unblocked - blocked picture to come next post...

Made with Cascade Magnum and size 15 needles, this is a super bulky yarn which makes for a super quick knit. I made it in about 3 1/2 hours.  To give you an idea of how thick the yarn is, here is a picture of the ball of yarn with a strand of medium weight yarn next to it (which I used to make the capelet):

The tape measure reads 7 inches across.  That's fat yarn.  It's so fun to knit something so quickly.  This is knit flat and then, after blocking, I will seam it into a loop that will be doubled around the neck for a nice cozy, warm cowl.

In Gardening News:
Here is my bounty of sugar pumpkins:

We had a second crop coming (three or four more pumpkins started growing much later than these) but someone may or may not have accidentally cut the vine they were attached to when trying to clean up the other vines.  So, this is it. This weekend I will be making roasted pumpkin puree to freeze and make pumpkin bread in the fall.  Or now.  I love Love LOVE pumpkin bread.

And we have a gazillion tomatoes (ok, I weighed them and it is "only" 6 pounds worth) so I'm going to make and freeze tomato sauce this weekend.  I decided against canning since I don't have a lot of tomatoes at one time.  I guess "a lot" is relative.  Not enough for me to drag out all the canning stuff anyway.

More on my processing progress next post...