HI!

Hi! *waves*

I've got some motivation to restart my blog again. I spend way too much time on Ravelry now, and have gotten way more into spinning. In fact I'd say I spin more than I knit now. I recently joined a spinners study group, and am going to receive soon a box full of raw fleece from a variety of sheep. The purpose is to make notes about the qualities of the different wools and make comaparisons for future reference as I wash card and spin them up. It's an educational venture. really. I want to continue this study with other bits of fleece that I can get my hands on after I run out of these. I'll try to remember to share my notes with y'all.

I also joined the Spunky Club! I'll be getting a surprise in the mail every month, its gonna be great. I have a lot of her non-club fiber, so its about time really. I made myself promise to spin up some of my stash first to make room though.

Yet another club, this one is only for a year, every other month I will be getting a shipment from the Unique Sheep every other month with a sock yarn, pattern and surprise all dyed and designed around the Lord of the Rings. The club is now called Lord of the Strings, a very cute pun, though there was nothing wrong with the original name. My first sock was awesome. Hobbiton is a very earthy green yarn with hobbit toes. I really love it, and am looking forward to seeing what comes next.



I do some more backlogged updates later, when there's not work to do. With photos.

Clearly Blogging is not my Thing.

Especially since I keep failing to update it. Should have guessed right, with my lack of posting to other blog type sites. I could blame it on the fact that my computer died, but it only died a few weeks ago, and I've been home from my grandparents since February.



I've been knitting on socks. One in particular- the Cookie A. Red Thread sock, is taking forever. Mostly because I manage not to work on it. It requires too much quiet time and attention. I have ADD and like to knit in front of the TV. Bad combo. One sock is more than half done though. In the meantime, I've started another, from my Stitch 'n Bitch daily calender-- the Reverse Psockology. It's pretty awesome in it's reverse-stockinette-but-you-don't-have-to-purl-ness.



Also I have been spinning much. It's my new passion. I do a lot of monthly challenge spinning for the Spindler's group in Ravelry, but I did finish some other yarn that is sock weight from Romney wool. I'm very excited to start knitting with it. The only other thing I've knit from my hand spun is a blue/brown sparkly hat I modeled after my friend Shawn's store bought hat. It's currently my new favorite.



Not much else to report here, except that I keep blowing all my funds on Etsy stuff, when I should be saving up for that dental appointment. Having my wisdom teeth out is not going to be cheap.

Oh my.

So sorry for my long absence. I'm apologizing just on the off chance that anyone actually reads this thing. I've been staying with my grandparents, who need assistance getting around their house. They have no Internets. And no one in the neighborhood has wireless I can "borrow". Not even a secure network I just can't access. No wireless at all. If you have a ravelry account, I've been able to keep moderately abreast of my projects, not all of them have pictures. If you don't, I've made some Christmas presents: two pairs of comfy socks, and a hatchet man hat. I made jaywalkers for myself, got the new cat bohdri book but am too chicken yet to try one of the socks. am more than halfway done the viveka sweater from knitty. ordered assloads of yarn and fiber from knitpicks and webs. got the new harmony options needle set for Christmas. tried to order the new harmony dpn set, but they ran out before lunchtime on the first day they were available. There's probably more, but my brain hurts.

Unbelievable!!

I had previously failed to mention, someone that my dad and my boss's husband works with owns a lamb. Boss's husband mentioned to him that I knit and now spin my own yarn. He offered, through BH, the wool of said lamb after shearing in the sping, free of charge.

I am very excited about this. Buying wool carders will be expensive, but I think it will be an interesting and fun and educational experience. I intend to play around with some dyes as well.

Yesterday, after all this had been arranged and agreed upon, I learned that before now, HE THREW THE WOOL AWAY!!!!
He didn't know what to do with it, and actually threw it in the trash!!! I about fell over dead.
Absolutely unbeliveable.

Posting from work again

So of course, there will be no pictures. I'm terribly sorry.
I finished 1 pr of comfy socks for an xmas gift. one more to go.
I finished my skelly hat. Mostly. I have to sew the face on. Now I just look like a ghost.
I think I said I finished the hemlock blanket, and I love it!! I forgot to put the lace edging on though :( Seeing as how I've started carrying it around like a blankie when home, probably there will be more in my future.
I've started on a baby dragon from a Bernat baby booklet from walmart. The yarn is crappy acrylic, but as an infant is going to be drooling and chewing all over it, Probably that's for the best. (Yes I am a yarn snob, and yes I know and freely admit it). This project was pressed upon my by my mother for an expectant mother who is past her due date and still hasn't given birth. No pressure to be done in a timely fashion here at all. No way. Her father in law lives down the street from us.


That is all for now.
Over and out.

Hopital times again

Sorry for the lack of postage. Once again my grandfather is in the hospital, and I'm staying with my grandmother. This time I'm not taking off work, as my mom can care for her during the day. I am most assuredly knitting. I finished the pink and yellow roving, and plied and washed it. I am about 9 rows away from finishing my hemlock rings blanket. 9 very very very long rows. I'm about half done my jack skellington hat, which I started 3 days ago. I've begun spinning some lovely green merino yarn, for which I had to learn how to short draft, because the long draft was absolutely sucking for it. And to top it all off, I've ordered yarn for 2 more sweaters, a hat for an Xmas present, and lots of socks. My little online SEX are costing me a lot of money.

Cheers!!

Here Again.

Once again I find myself at the end of several projects, and stalling to finish them. Individually it would only take about 15 to 20 minutes, or less than an hour for some others, to finish them up, but I just can't get around to it. If I were reading a book and I was near the end I would hurry up and try to finish it, because I want to know what happens, how it ends. I'm not sure why this doesn't translate in to knitting. I do want to see the finished product, and they weigh on me, like they know I'm neglecting them. So this weekend I have a list. The fat cat needs to be cut out and assembled. The Bobble purse needs to be sewn up and I need to cut and and insert the lining. The voodoo doll needs to be embroidered so I can stuff it and sew it up. I tried the needle felting thing, but it didn't work out as well as I had hoped. Embroidery is the way to go.

Hopefully I will have pictures of FOs for you this weekend.

In other interesting news, I dreamed last night that I was spinning very fine silk singles on a large spinning wheel. I was wearing an old-timey dress, and had an assistant. I knew in the dream I was spinning the singles to weave my death shroud with. Apparently I was expecting to die soon. It all seems vaguely Penelope like, in that it was going to take quite a while to spin enough singles to weave a shroud with.

Look at me!! I'm networking!!!

As a very special belated birthday present, Ravelry notified me last night that I was accepted. Since then I've been very busy exploring and setting up my profile stuff. I have a feeling its going to be much more organized than my attempted list making here. It's super awesome, and if you haven't put your name on the waiting list yet, you should. This place is going to blow the internet out of the water, Chuck Norris style. :-D

Also, I let my friend Katie make me a facebook. Hell just froze over. And I explained to her that Ravelry is like a facebook for knitters, she wasn't terrible enthused, but patiently sat through my explanations and demonstrations. I love that girl. :) She tries to understand, or at least pretends to.

And as promised I finally charged my camera and photographed some stuff. I'm not sure if I've been super productive and didn't know it, or just really bad at keeping my camera charged.

Here is my handspun--

Thats right. That nasty blue/orange combination of handspun I made, has been knitted up. I felt obligated to make something with it, since its my first handspun and all, and I already had plans for the next two I spun.

An earwarmer is about the only thing I had enough yardage to make, since I spun it so bulky. It is very warm though. And I did wear it in public, so I guess it isn't that bad.

This is my second ever skein of yarn that I've spun. As you can see it's much improved. The yarn is much thinner, and the Plies are actually sticking together, unlike the above yarn, whose plies came appart whenever I knit into a stitch. Also, I adore the natural grey. The white below I spun today at work. I mentioned that I was learning and they didn't understand how it worked from my decription (its kind of self explanitory, but I guess they were expecting it to be more involved and difficult) so I brought my drop spindle and the next ball of roving in to show them how its done. With the white and the grey I'm thinking I should have enough for mittens, perhaps inspired by my new book Scottish Highland Knits.

IF you'll kindly notice, I did in fact snap that picture in the midst of blogging. Thats how badly I suck at photo documenation.

I also ordered some yarn from ebay. The Blue Goose Glen in TN sent me some lovely vanilla and mint (seperately, not together) merino yarn that I won in the ebay bid. I believe they have an online store as well as an ebay store. It's lovely soft and came well packaged.

Yay!!

Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me!! Happy birthday to meeeeeeeeeeeeee, happy birthday to me!!!

I finished one side of my knitting needles knitting purse last night, but I have to go buy size 15 wooden needles. I thought I had a pair, but they're plastic. My big wooden ones are size 17. I've decided to line the purse in this purple plaid fabric I bought in the hopes of making a skirt. (I can barely sew. My Mom-mom was teaching me before she got Parkinson's). I'm pretty sure I bought more fabric than I actually needed, so I think I can still get a skirt out of it.

And now off to work.

Swimmin' in da Pond

The frog pond that is. I screwed up all my courage and frogged those projects that have been haunting me. The mermaid scarf that I will never finish because I can't find the yarn. The bellocq stockings that I couldn't concentrate on and therefore lost interest. I'm still working up to the barely started shawl. I had hoped to salvage it, but to tink back a row of alpaca lace weight x-hundred stitches around just wasn't happening. I gave it an honest try, tinked maybe 10 stitches, and gave up in frustration. Maybe next week I'll rip it out entirely and re-appropriate the yarn. I bought the lovely lovely and super educational book Victorian Lace Today, and I adored it. There are more than a few projects I'd like to try. But not all at once. The newly reclaimed sock and shawl yarn will go towards a new shawl. Even though I haven't finished blocking the MS3 yet, due to lack of proper blocking supplies. I have no pins and wires. Its fine for sweaters and scarves and hats, but Not so OK for lace.

I have no picture (I have to recharge my camera again) but I knit a make-it-up-as-you-go-along hat for my Pop-pop, who is having chemotherapy tomorrow afternoon. Mom requested that I make him one to keep his head warm when all his hair falls out. A fair assessment would reveal that he really doesn't have that much hair to begin with, but I made him a hat anyway out of leftover yarn from my harry potter upperclassman scarf. I had some very light grey and some dark blue leftover (I did ravenclaw colors), so I made the base the light grey with a stripe of dark blue every 4th row. Its a simple 2x2 rib that I cabled, but the stripes overpower the cable so much you don't really notice it, except as a bit of added texture. It looks nice though, and its wool so his head will stay warm.

In a frenzy of Internet shopping- these things come and go-- I have ordered an ass-load of yarn that now and will continue to exceed my current storage limits. I'm gonna have to get creative. I don't want to hide the yarn, so I'm thinking some wicker baskets from Walmart nailed to the wall will make nice display and storage. I ordered yarn for a blanket designed by Brooklyn Tweed, a blogger I recently discovered, and whose knitting I absolutely adore. The Hemlock blanket and the Red Light Special hat are his and my yarn has arrived and is waiting. IN that order I also got yarn for a bobble purse and the long awaited felting needle. Now I need some foam to support the 3-D form while I felt it. I"m so close to finishing it and yet so far.
Then, because I'm now plying my second ounce of yarn (the grey) and I only have 2 oz left, I got panicky and ordered some merino roving off e-bay. Then knit picks had a sale. Lord save me, I bought several more skeins of lace weight, and that Highland knits book I've been coveting. Both of those orders are en route to my house.

I should be swimming in projects by now but I neglected to think about needles. I'm using a size smaller for the purse, since the dimensions aren't so important so long as they match on both sides. But some other projects may be on hold for a while. What I really need is a Knitpicks Options needle set. Then I'd never not have the right size. . . . . .

Ensemble

I've only been mildly productive this week. I finished mom's scarf. It looks like this:

The stitch pattern is from Vouge Stitchionary, the name is something descriptive like diagonal rib or something. I did 3 repeats all the way down the scarf. Because its a traveling stitch it gave the ends a nice finish all by themselves, nothing you could or should put fringe on (thank god). Instead I opted to do a single crochet rib all the way around the edge in a contrasting color. The yarns are the same I used for her pumpkin hat, except for the green trim. Her hat has a two tone green stem, so it still matches enough to count. Before I blocked it (I don't have any pictures) it was a curly scrunchy mess. Once again the magic of blocking took place and made the scarf flat and beautiful.

Please observe mom in her ensemble for this years DE Punkin Chunkin.

Sorry the picture's dark. Probably I should have turned the light on first. We are cave dwellers here. With the eerie glow of the computer, she looks all set for Halloween. Don't tell her I said that ;)

OH, and if you were curious, I recently ordered some yarn from Nistock farms in NY. It was a starter kit for beginners complete with what I think is an ounce of four different yarns, a drop spindle and an instruction book. I wouldn't have been able to figure it out from their pamphlet, but I had bought the weekend before a book from Barnes and noble called Spin to Knit. Lovely book, lots of instructive step by step pictures, and good instructions. With these tools I became a spinner. :)

I had been thinking about it for a while, but by buying the book I committed myself to the task. Fibre followed soon after.

It took me a little while to get the hang of it, but halfway through the first skein I kind of knew what I was doing. I chose the color I liked least to start with, so I didn't mind so much if I screwed it up. Its a blend of orange and blue I'm not crazy over. The yarn is very thick and thin and I haven't gauged it yet but I'm pretty sure its quite bulky.

Here it is while its drying in the sun:

I was going to show you a picture of it all skeined up in my center pull ball. The first one i've made on my shiny new nostpine I made from a piece of driftwood I got from the river. Already small and smooth yes? Almost no work to make it yarn safe. Its 11 1/2 inches long. I really liked the natural looking wood ones I saw online, but I couldn't justify paying 15$ for one when I could pick a stick up out of the backyard and make one myself. So I did. (Technically the river is not my backyard, but lets not split hairs here).

Ahah! My patience is rewarded. Here is my skein of bulky complimentary colored yarn. My first handmade yarn ever!!! How exciting. I had a hard time choosing what yarn to spin next. There was white and grey undyed, and a lovely pink/yellow combination I find very appealing and spring like. I'm saving that one for last, when I've really got this spinning thing down. I chose the grey next, and Its spinning so much more nicely than the dyed yarn did. I don't think its entirely the improvement of my own skill. The grey yarn sticks to itself better, and is less fuzzy. I can spin it much thinner, and may be able to get at the very thinnest a sport weight once I ply it. Ooh, I chose the easiest plying method-- spinning the single into a center pull ball, then attaching both ends to the spindle to make it ply. Then I had to re ball it. I was going to try Andean plying, but I couldn't figure out how to wrap it around my hand (written instructions were a bit cumbersome) and not cut off my circulation in the process. It probably didn't help that I was watching scary movies on sci-fi at the same time.

One last picture, then its time to watch Moonlight, my new favorite TV show.

NOSTPINE!!!

Denial is a Good Thing

I've had a very productive day today. Much cleaning and finishing was done.

First of all, I finished my cactus sweater, finally its blocked. And my denial served me well. Because. . . it fits.

TA DA!!!! I finished it just in time for it to be 80 degrees in October. Freak weather. . . We'll pay for it later in February, when we all get snowed in for 3 weeks and worry that we might run out of stash before the roads clear enough for us to order more yarn. ( My stash is not as developed as other peoples, I have a small budget, which I continually blow).

At any rate, as you can see, blocking did not help the insufficent lengths of strands in the back, and consequently the sweater pulls. I'm hoping no one notices.

I also finished my pumpkin hat, and my stuffed pumpkin. Both are very cute.

So I feel very accomplished today overall, but also in my knitting. I ordered more stuff from knit picks, and I won't feel so bad about starting a new project now that I've got these other ones completely finished. In my order is a needle felter thingie, so I can get to work on my voodoo doll.

Mom's pumpin scarf is progressing quickly. I ended up picking a travelling rib stitch that has yarnovers and makes a diagonal. Its interesting to look at, and even though its a two row repeat, its not so boring as other things I had considered so I'm happy with it. TV knitting. I also decided to do a crochet stitch border around the edges to help stablize it and keep it from curling up. (I'm still gonna block it. Not stupid. . . no). Oh, and the sc will be a contrasting green color. I tried it out around the bottom to see how it would look and its quite nice.

Next time, My Adventures in Spinning Land.

Almost FO's

I took the poll that Knitting Daily put out in today' s email. I was shocked to find that technically I had 9 UFOs lurking about my room. Two of them-- My sweater and my MS3 are finished being knit, but I still have to block them to make them wearable. I have a pair of socks and a shawl that need worked on. The mermaid scarf I can't finish because I cant find the yarn- it was a skein of cheap-o acrylic that a friend gave me, and I ran out before I could finish. I may end up ripping it out and stashing the yarn somewhere. Also doomed are the Belloq stockings- the ones for my sister that I lost interest in. I can't bring myself to rip it out. I'd actually like to give it another try. . . some other time.

My felted pumpkin is also languishing- I've finally felted it, but I haven't gotten around to stuffing it yet. This photo is pre-felting. For my voodoo doll below, I need a felting needle.It's going to be really cute. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I'm entering it into the piecework contest. Right now I need to stuff it and embroider it, though if I can get away with using plies of yarn instead of wool fiber for the embellishments, that's what I'm going to try. I'm going to felt it all over to take the stretch out of the knitting, and make a more solid fabric for the pins to stick through. I'm afraid the stuffing will distort the figure if I try to pack in enough to make it pretty solid if I don't.

I'll have photos of the finished pumpkin hat tomorrow (the one thing I did finish, all I had to do was weave in a end). I'm currently working on mom's pumpkin scarf, I had thought to put little pumpkins on it, but I'm still devising my method. I may take the easy route out and make it an x by 1 rib with some kind of fun fur edging to make her happy. ( I know I know, but she bought it for me and I have to use the crap up somehow. Damn you Ollies, Damn you!!!)

I haven't counted, but I believe that makes 9. I'm going to count now. Yeah. I need to get busy. And try really hard not to order yarn for all those projects I'm dying to cast on for. Some of them I can actually knit from stash. . . .