The Harvest

Here in Minnesota there's a big fiber festival that you frequently hear about called Shepherd's Harvest. As I've only been spinning for a little over a year (wow, it seems like so much longer) and only really into the internet knitting community for a couple of years, I finally got to go this year for the first time. My fibery friend from here in town and I decided to take a dyeing class. Dyeing roving. It was great. As a part of the fees to take the class, you get to not only learn our wonderful teacher's techniques but you also get to take home a full pound of roving. Separated into two braids. As such, you can choose which dye bath to place those two roving into. I chose two different ones and ended up with:

and

Awesome aren't they? I may have started spinning the bottom one already. (Can you believe that pink is supposed to be maroon?! I laugh in its general direction.)
Also, as the weather here has been pretty rainy and drizzly for awhile and by awhile I mean "Please kill me". I apologize for the awful pictures I have of everything I brought home.

Of course there are also vendor booths and various other amazing things to look at and do. We saw the sheep dog show. Then we watched them shear sheep for awhile, we got to see live sheep of various breeds which was very interesting. Let me just say, they look very little like the wool you will get from them.

I was recommended to go with a "shopping list" as there is so much to look at, if you don't have SOME idea of what you would like to purchase, it can be overwhelming. I didn't have an official list, but I did have some ideas of what I would like to come away with.
1) One or more fibers I hadn't tried to sample.
2) A Turkish drop spindle for travel and general spinning for fun/in small quantities.
3) I wanted to look for the Cloudlover booth because everyone at my spinning guild had been talking about their amazing rovings.

I think I did pretty well. Here are my purchases.

At the top, you can sort of see the amazing Cloudlover roving I picked up. Its deep rich purples on Merino/Silk. AMAZING!
On the left is a large zippy bag of Merino Roving. 10 oz. Plain colored so I could dye it or just spin it plain. I already played with the next item my turkish drop spindle with some of this roving. I wanted to try out the spindle to see how it worked on the way home. Luckily, I wasn't the driver.
Next to the drop spindle is a small bag of tussah silk fiber to spin. 2 oz. Its very pretty but also dyeable if I would like. Then next to that is a bag of Ingeo or corn fiber. At the very bottom is a beautiful little wooden needle case.

Overall I had a great time. Its so weird to go and see that every booth is fiber and knitting and spinning supplies and beautiful. Usually if you go to an event there's a few things you want and so many booths you just pass by. Here, I almost wanted to walk into every booth and buy something from everyone.

I will definitely be attending again next year. Now that I know more what to expect, I also think that it will be much less overwhelming. It was difficult to make some decisions about what to purchase and what to pass over.

Love at First Sight

Did you ever see some yarn and just fall completely, madly, hopelessly in love? You just can't live without it?

I have. It all began over at my friend Lisa's house. She had some yarn sitting out on her deck drying. I couldn't stop looking at it. I went and touched it, I couldn't stop touching it.

Finally, I decided, it had to be mine. Since she was dyeing it to sell in her Etsy shop, there was no problem. I asked about it. I had to have it.

I made a deal and brought it home with me. I wound it up and could barely wait more than a few minutes to cast it on. (Okay, I may have cast on at her house because I couldn't wait.)

Ah, isn't it beautiful?
I'm not going to tell you what I'm knitting though, not yet. I'm going to make you guess. I'll tell you later.

In other news, its been raining off and on for days here. I feel a bit like a mildewed, frog or something. But, on Saturday while travelling home with my mom from a family event, we saw a double rainbow. Gotta say it almost made the whole rain thing worthwhile.

I know the picture isn't that great but you can kinda see it. It's that cool?

Okay, I go knit my mystery project now.

Mastering the Art of The Mirror Self-Portrait, or not

Last week ended up being a crazy week, a trip down to see my parents for something ended up lasting several extra days. It didn't mean that there wasn't any knitting, just that there was less knitting. I had fun anyway and managed to trick myself into catching the cold I thought I had managed to avoid. Darn germs.
Anyway, when I finally returned home, I had to get some things done and return the house to its former state, which is to say: Non-Feral Bachelor mode. I'm finally (mostly) caught up with things and so, I'm getting back to posting and finishing up a few things. First, I did manage to finish my Malabrigo socks. They have technically been "on the needles" for a long time, although one has been finished for quite awhile and I just put it away for awhile. I finally cast on the second and finished them up last week.

The Specs:
The Yarn: Malabrigo sock. I believe the color is called Persia although I lost the label quite awhile ago.
The Needles: US Size 1 DPNs
The Pattern: Just a basic sock, plain stockinette with a heel flap.
The Recipient: Are you kidding? Malabrigo? These are for ME!
The Notes: I love the colors of this yarn. Some people I've talked to have mentioned that they don't like this yarn because it seemed splitty. I had no problems with that at all.

Then, I pulled out the Trekking socks I had been working on just before the Malabrigo socks. I thought I had finished them but somehow managed to miss a couple of ends that needed to be woven in and my rule is: They aren't finished until the ends are woven.
So here they are in their blog debut:

The Specs:
The Yarn: Trekking XXL. I have no idea the color. The label has gone the way of the dodo.
The Needles: US Size 1 DPNs
The Pattern: A Basic sock in a 3x1 Rib.
The Recipient: Me, I need a few pairs of basic, go with almost everything socks.
The Notes: The idea behind buying this Trekking was making basic socks that go with everything. While that was a wonderful plan, knitting these socks nearly put me off sock-knitting. That might partly be because I knit them while the world outside was roughly the same color as the yarn. And, although I haven't had this problem with any other Trekking I have used (and I have knit several pairs of socks from Trekking) I found many knots in this ball. If I had purchased it recently, I would maybe have considered bringing it back and exchanging it but it had rested in my stash for several years.


Since I've done so well with finishing things, I let myself cast on a couple of new things. First, a hideous pair of socks I'm knitting for my husband. I know he loves Blue but I just couldn't stand the thought of knitting a solid blue pair of socks for him so I bought another ball of a colorful yarn I thought would be manly enough and match. It doesn't really match, but I'm ignoring that. So should you.

They are coming along though.

I started another pair of socks but they are hiding in my purse and I don't have the energy to go pull them out and take photos right now so you will just have to wait.

Finally, remember when I broke down and ordered from Gritty Knits? I got a beautiful braid of Merino/Tencel Roving called Cabbage Patch.

It was so pretty that I couldn't wait to start spinning it and as a matter of fact, I barely stopped long enough to take a picture.
I spun it into singles and Navajo-plied it to keep the colors together.

I was so in love with the yarn, I wanted to knit it like crazy and couldn't decide what to do with it.

Finally, a knitting friend suggested Baktus I thought about it for about 20 minutes and then cast on. Well...

It came out beautifully but I still wasn't sure. It wasn't until some ladies at knit night suggested Severe! blocking that I decided to try it.

I wove in the ends and called it done. I love it and have worn it out in public several times already. Of course I attempted to take a self-portrait in the mirror so you could see how it looks on but none of the pictures came out. They were AWFUL as a matter of fact. Oh well, use your imagination.

Tonight is Crochet Night so I will probably get back into my Christmas Projects. Yes, you read that right, I have started my Christmas Knitting/Crocheting already. Don't look at me like that. More on that later.

Freeing up the Needles

Despite my Startitis of late, I've been trying desperately to keep myself on task and actually finish a few things before starting new ones. Some days its a struggle because I don't want to work on current projects but some days its just fine and I work along on something easily.

Since today is Tuesday (and I have Open Crochet Night this evening) I will focus on the Crochet first. For months I have had a little doily finished that I intended to put on my desk. All it needed was two measly ends woven in and to be blocked. For some reason, I just couldn't seem to bring myself to do it.
Finally, I broke down and finished it. You know something? It feels pretty good.

Pattern: Filet Crochet Doily from Beginner's Guide to Filet Crochet
Yarn: DMC Traditions Crochet Cotton, Size 10, one skein 5818 Pink
Hook: 1.75mm
Recipient: Me, for my desk in my home office.
Notes: I found this pattern very easy to follow. It is cast on at the side and crocheted across to the other side, making long rows but fewer of them.

Inspired by the fact that I finally finished it, I managed to finish another project as well. One that has been in my sights pretty much as soon as I touched it:

I apologize for the bad picture, its very grey outside here today and I couldn't seem to find decent light for these to save my life.
Regardless, here we go:

The Pattern: Feather & Fan Socks from Socks, Socks, Socks with a modified pattern repeat.
The Yarn: Patons Kroy Sock, handdyed by me with Easter Egg dye.
The Needles: US Size 2 (2.75 mm)
The Recipient: Since this yarn is pretty special to me and they fit me perfectly, hmm. Me!
Notes: I would only like to note that with these socks, it was pretty special because I had dyed the yarn myself and had so much fun doing it.

Well, there you have it, two more projects out of the running, now maybe I will have more focus to apply to other projects. Although, I wouldn't hold your breath.

Sunshine and Spinning make everything better

I keep meaning to post, I've actually been doing quite a bit of knitting but I never seem to get to it. It's really sad actually.
The Busy keeps catching me and I get involved in like 12 other things and don't get back to my poor, sad little blog.

I have to say though, everything is better when my view looks like this:

Ahhh, just seeing the picture makes me feel better.
I've been promising some picture of the yarn I've been having ever so much fun dyeing and finally, I'm going to deliver, since I finally just updated my ravelry project page and I'm too exhausted (mentally) from doing that to organize my thoughts here as well.
First, I dyed some Blueish Monochromatic yarn but I unhappy with the blue, it was very denimy and not rich like I imagined so I added some purple and dyed it again. I ended up with this:

I think its beautiful and subtle and I can't wait to find just the right pattern to knit with it.

Then, I decided to dye some yarn in rainbow colors since a friend from spinning guild has these very cute socks that are 2 rounds of white and 2 rounds of a rich jewel-toned rainbow color all the way down the socks. I sat next to her and couldn't stop thinking about them at all. I ended up with much brighter colors but I still think (once I start them) they will be beautiful.
The top of the skein:

The bottom of the skein:

The unwound skein:

I laid the yarn out just like shown here on plastic wrap and painted the colors onto it. Then I wrapped it tightly in the plastic wrap and put it in a microwave-safe dish folded in half with the yellow portion up on a little bowl to keep the colors from bleeding into the yellow too much. It turned out beautifully. I can't wait to start the socks but I have promised myself that I will finish a few projects first.

Finally, I wanted something nice and bright and springy so I picked out some yellow (which I wanted to be somewhat faded, it isn't at all though) and some tealy green and purple. I painted it onto the skein similarly to the rainbow yarn and came out with this:

I was so excited, I couldn't even stop myself from casting it on and ended up with these:

Its striping beautifully and I'm so excited to have such beautiful, bright socks for spring.

Epic

Once in awhile a project will come along that calls out to you. You want to knit it and it means something. (For some people, this happens a lot.) For me, (in this particular case) it came last December at a fiber swap. There was a stack of magazines that didn't belong to anyone and anyone could take them if they would be interested. I found an old copy of Interweave Knits from before I was really into the knitting scene and (Winter 2004) and flipped through it to see if I would like any of the patterns. I did!

There was a pattern for knee-high socks that called for a reasonable amount of yarn. I say reasonable only because knee-high socks, which I was somewhat interested in knitting for some time, usually call for about 600 yards of yarn. I don't usually have anything in stash that actually has 600 yards and while I wanted to knit knee-high socks, I didn't want to go out and buy yarn just for them. The pattern was simply called Lace Knee-Highs but had a lovely Embossed leaves lace running down the entire leg. The foot was plain. I took the magazine home and thought about it.

If I knit them, I wanted to continue the pattern down the foot, I thought. Plus, I would have to find some wonderful yarn, I mean, this was an EPIC project, right?

Later, I realized that some beautiful roving I had ordered for my birthday from a lovely little etsy shop (click at your own risk, there's lots of lovely stuff over there!), had spun up to be a wonderful 2-ply and was 490 yards or so. The pattern called for 480 yards. I had been conservative in my estimate, and what could be more decadent and special than knee-high socks knit of handspun?

Nothing

I did decide to do the feet plain as written mainly because a)It was a horrible pain even trying to chart the foot and b)I wanted to show off the lovely yarn.

I ended up knitting the feet very, very quickly because I wasn't sure if I would run out of yarn. I didn't but it was close. Like close, close. Like, less than 6 inches of yarn remaining close. Yeah, I mean it when I say close.

Ah, I'm going to go relax with my lovely socks now.

As long as we're finishing things...

Let's talk about the guy I'm married to.
First off, he's a major nerd. (I may have nerdish tendencies myself so that's okay) but he is a Nerd with a capital N.

This his him watching the Vikings in the playoffs game:

Isn't he cute? Please ignore our hideous couch ok.

Anyway, as a part of his super nerdy status, he loves comic books and especially superheroes. I had purchased some green sock yarn, expecting to use it for a specific project. I didn't (because it didn't actually match the yarn that I bought with it) and so I had this green yarn lying around that was BRIGHT green. Like grass green. Now, I like green quite a bit but this was too green for me. Hubby needed socks so I asked him if he would maybe wear socks knit with the green yarn. His reply? I'm glad you asked. (Pretend you asked)

"Can they be Green Lantern Socks?"

I decided that I could probably make that work so I started off on my sock knitting. Now, understand that my hubby has size 13 feet! I knit these on....ones. Yeah, I am insane and ended up staring at this green yarn WAAAAAAAAAY longer than I wanted to. As a result, I couldn't even contemplate how I would duplicate stitch the Green Lantern pattern on for quite awhile. Then he started asking me. The things we won't do for the people we love. *sigh*

Finally, I decided to crochet the Green Lantern Symbols and stitch them on because I was afraid I wouldn't get the right shape if I used duplicate stitch. So, here they are in all their green glory.

One pair of Green Lantern socks. For those who are gluttons for punishment, here's a close-up.

The Specs:
The Yarn: Knit Picks Essential Sock Yarn in Grass (Yarn is now called Stroll) and Kroy Socks in Whitecap. Looks like the changed the name of the color to Muslin or maybe they don't have Whitecap anymore?
The Needles: US Size 1 Dpns and Size E Crochet Hook (3.50mm)
The Pattern: I just made a generic green sock and made up the crocheted Green Lantern Symbol. If anyone is interested, I did write down the directions for the symbol, I just don't know if anyone wants to actually make a Green Lantern Symbol.
Notes: AHHHHH! The green.

I may or may not have mentioned that I made a local fiber friend. She's very awesome and has an etsy store. As such, sometimes when I watch her children, I get to get paid in fiber. Yes, that's right, for watching her adorable children, I was given this:

Isn't it pretty? Just what a girl needs in March in Minnesota. (This is what I was giving myself 5 minute spinning breaks to spin too by the way)
I spun it into two bobbins of singles:

I apologize for the extremely crappy picture. The colors on the left are pretty much accurate though.
Then, I was even patient enough to let it sit on the bobbin and rest overnight but yesterday I plied it into this:

Isn't it gorgeous? Its so not the colors I would normally wear but I may have to knit some socks out of it anyway. Its about 366 yards. I washed it today and it's drying right now. Let's see if I can resist casting it on all weekend shall we?

Olympic Gold

When I joined the Knitting Olympics I didn't have much of a plan. I had some black yarn that I had purchased at our Spinning Guild's most recent Stash Swap/Sale. It was beautiful. Knitpicks Andean Silk in Pitch. I had 1300 yards and I wanted a cardigan. Understand that I am of the school that believes that black goes with EVERYTHING. I have one black cardigan. A crappy thing that is very thin and doesn't fit well from a retail store. I have worn that thing all over the place. I love a black cardigan. I thought, 1300 yards should be plenty to knit a cardigan right? Right. Even for a "lady" of my size.

Then I got the beautiful yarn home and started looking at patterns. Nothing too fancy because it is in black, it would be hard to see, nothing too plain either because it would be boring to work on.

I considered the February Lady Sweater for which I would have ample yardage but I already have one on the needles. (As a matter of fact I wanted to finish it before the Olympics but time got away from me.)

I dug and dug and dug. I wanted something long-sleeved. I wanted pretty. Not too plain. I had a needle size picked out (I even swatched!) there just wasn't anything. (I also kinda didn't want to buy a pattern since money has been a bit pinched lately as we awaited our new vehicle.)

Finally I settled on Hey Teach! The sleeves were all wrong and as it turned out, my gauge was off. That meant (ugh!!!) math.

I forged ahead. Then I went to my parents to help with their fish fry and ended up staying an extra 2 days. I didn't bring it with me. I had to wait to cast on. I didn't cast on until....Tuesday, February 16! My time was even shorter.

I ended up bored of dark-colored yarn and I struggled to stay focused. I battled with myself.
Self, if you knit 5 more rows you can knit one round of your cute knitting bag, self, if you knit 10 more rows, you can spin for five minutes. And I set a timer for the 5 minutes. It was torture. Every other project called out to me, especially once I reached the sleeves. They were modified to be plain stockinette sleeves, long sleeves. A majorly boring pain to knit but you know what?

It was all worth it.

I love my new cardigan. I love it so much that I took about 10 pictures of it in the snow and then forced my (ever so cooperative) hubby to take many, many pictures of me in it.


I have spared you all from the awful ones. Ansel Adams he is not.

Here it is, my beautiful Olympic sweater, pictured here on Saturday February 27. That's right, I finished a day early. Now, I shall proudly put up my Gold Medal in the sidebar for all to see.

The Stats:
The Pattern: Hey Teach from Knitty
The Yarn: Knit Picks Andean Silk in Pitch about 1100 yards or so.
The Needles: Size 7
The Size: Due to my strange gauge issues, since I am a 48" bust, I ended up knitting a 43" bust size
The Notes: GOLD!
I picture this as my go-to sweater for the coming forever.

Love it, envy it. (haha)

These photos were taken at my parents house where I was doing this:

Knitting by the fire. Ah yes, bliss.

It is Finished

As of 9:00 am, the sweater is finished. I have gold medaled in my first Olympics! Well, okay, my first knitting Olympics. I'm very excited but I will post pictures later.

In the meantime, good night and happy knitting.

Addictive Handspun

I can't stop knitting handspun.
I need to get back to my Olympic sweater but:

Tah DAH!

Isn't it cute?! It's so perfect to fit right in my purse and carry my travelling sock. Now I may need to make more and/or write the pattern because it's so cute, I can't stand it! The bag literally hadn't had the ends woven in longer than 2 minutes when I stuffed an in-progress sock into it and it is now awaiting me leaving the house so I can put it in my purse.

*sigh* Okay, back to the Olympic sweater. Then Crochet Night.

Olympic Knitting

I've been stalking the Yarn Harlot's blog and watching for the Knitting Olympics. Finally, the time came and I signed myself up.
Then came the real issue. I had some yarn, that I had already swatched, that I wanted to knit up into a sweater. A pretty black Cardigan.
The yarn was Andean Silk from Knitpicks that I had picked up at our last Fiber Swap for our spinning guild. Someone had purchased it to knit into a sweater for their mother and it wasn't working out so they decided to sell the yarn. I couldn't stop petting it and holding it and I finally decided that I couldn't live without it.
The trouble was, I hadn't found a pattern that would fit me that used the amount of yarn I had, that also used the size needles I had.
Finally, I remembered something way back in my subconscious and I looked up Hey, Teach! I decided that I would knit it up with this beautiful yarn.
I cast on and knit my way up the back. (After a little math because the gauge I was getting was close but not the same as what was called for. I am actually knitting a size smaller than what I would normally choose.)
Today, I blocked the back. Here it is, preblocking.

I was feeling pretty good about my progress until I realized how little time is left and how much is left to be knit.
The good news? I'm knitting the fronts at the same time:

I'm already into the lace pattern. Really, this wouldn't be so much, but I'm altering the sleeves. I want full length, not lace sleeves. Meaning, I have a long way to go yet, in a not very long time.

And, last night, I was having an issue with the dark yarn. I needed some color so, I found this little ball of handspun. In color: Girly Girl, purchased at a friend's etsy shop. Hand over the Wool. It's very pretty but not super soft. It's rambouillet I believe, wouldn't you know it, I can't find the tag right now.

I started with a pattern in 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders for a little knitting bag and completely changed the pattern to something totally different, different stitch, different shape, etc.
To something that is now all mine.

It takes some convincing to not knit on this instead of the sweater, but the sweater must be finished. The Gold is on the line.

Unplugged

I've been trying to write my poor little blog more often and of course, this week I have completely disappeared. I honestly didn't mean to. I went down to my parents last week on Thursday evening to help with the Fish Fry at their church on Friday. Yeah, busy, busy day. 2200 pounds of fish and we ran out at 6:00 pm. Anyway, then I decided to stay a bit longer to get to visit with my grandpa on his 85th Birthday which was on Sunday. Yes, he is a Valentine's Day baby. His name is Valentine as a matter of fact. Val if you know him, he actually hates his name.

Anyway, I had a blast with my mom and the animals and then my brother came out one day and we had some outside winter fun. I usually do nothing outside in the winter so it was a blast. Made me not hate the snow quite as much.

Here's the parental's dog out in the snow. (Actually after I was gone mom said he would go outside, then come in and look all over for me. When I wasn't there anymore, he would go lay in his kennel to sleep.)


My dad on the snowmobile. Making faces at the camera. Of course.


Apparently the snowmobile wasn't enough because my brother brought out the 4-wheeler as well. It was hard work driving it though.

hee hee, obviously.


Look at how the snow flips up too!


And of course, the sunrise behind the trees because I just couldn't resist.

Otherwise, all I've been doing is Olympics Sweater, all the time. More on that later.

Weather whether we like it or not.

So lately, we've had some REALLY interesting weather here. Its been snow, ice, snow, ice, snow, snow, snow. Today (surprise, surprise) we're getting snow. This means that I've been cold pretty much all the time until I get into bed. It also means that I'm pretty sick of it.
So, I started a pair of handwarmers. Fingerless mitts, whatever you want to call them.
Unfortunately, the weather will not cooperate with the idea of taking pictures of these works-in-progress. You will have to just wait and see I guess. I can tell you, it's very pretty purple yarn and it is very, very soft.

In other news, I was given about 30 boxes of easter egg dye so today, I'm dyeing some yarn. Just enough for one pair of socks...for now. I can't wait to show you that too!

Well, I'm off to get some things done. Like check my yarn in the microwave. Ever wonder what people think of us?

Today's Goal: Get caught up.

Yesterday was a kind of crazy day so I didn't get a whole lot of knitting in. I did manage to finish a Crochet project during crochet night but it needs desperately to be washed and blocked before it's ready for its blog debut.
Mostly I knit on my Lace Knee high socks. I still love them and so, it's going fast but right now, it just looks like a slightly longer leg than what you saw before. Oh well.
Today I plan to cast on my Rocky Butte Socks. I'm trying out some new (to me) yarn for my Rocky Butte socks and I am curious to see how it will turn out. I'm keeping it a secret until I know.
My other goal for today is to get my Ravelry projects page updated because it is getting ridiculous. I got a bit behind when we moved and it has only gotten steadily worse. Now I'm not sure I recognize most things on there so I've got to do something.
Well, I'm off to take pictures of knitting and yarn now.

The Bliss of Handspun

About a month ago we had a little spinning gathering, not affiliated with a guild, just so some ladies from knit night could learn to spin. Well, we all got bitten by the spinning bug and a "long-term loan" wheel came home with me. It's also up for sale and I have to say, it's not going home with someone else. It's mine, all mine.

Anyway, then for my birthday, my hubby asked what I would like. I said: ROVING! immediately so I went online and purchased a couple of rovings for myself (from him).

I ended up purchasing 3 from Forest Fiber Works. (ugh! Fair warning, do not click that link unless you want to buy. Some gorgeous stuff there!) They were all somewhat green but different. When they arrived, I LOVE love loved two and the other, I was kinda meh about. I decided, since I was still getting acclimated to the wheel, to spin the one I was meh about. I have to say: "WOWEEEEE" It turned out so different than I imaged and absolutely beautiful. I actually got Sock yarn, which is what I was going for so I was in heaven.

I got about 490 yards out of it and I decided that it should be something special. It is:

This is what I was knitting in front of the fireplace at the mansion yesterday. The pattern is Lace Knee-Highs (Ravelry link) and I'm so excited I just can't stop knitting.

Hopefully I can get them done before the excitement wears off.

I'm trying to get back into the habit of posting, so hopefully you will be hearing from me more often. (Although probably not tomorrow since I have to leave the house early and won't get home until after Crochet Night)

Shamed into Action

This weekend I had the joy of attending another spinning guild's retreat. Well, I was just there for one afternoon but still, it was a complete joy.

It was at a local mansion called Linden Hills and it was such a wonderful thing to sit next to the fireplace in a wingback chair in the music room knitting. It was a wonderful experience.

Anyway, that brings me to my current post. I was asked about my blog and reminded by friends that I haven't posted in a long time. I was shamed into posting. At least I have a picture to post. I took this picture a few weeks ago actually when there was actual light. Maybe one of these days I will get some light again so I can take some new pictures.

May I introduce you to Sedona (Ravelry link):

The lovely designer of this pattern was diagnosed with Cancer and as a support/prayer/whatever thing, several of us are knitting her two favorite patterns Sedona and Manhattan. I chose Sedona and have been knitting away on this lovely pattern since. It's actually quite addicting.

Well, I've been shamed into posting so...there you go.

I need to get back into the habit of posting regularly so who knows, maybe you'll hear from me soon!

Will you die of shock?

Can you imagine! 2 posts in 2 days. You might all die of shock. If the frequency of posting isn't enough for you...

actual pictures?! Wow. This is my lovely Little Ruff from 101 One-Skein Wonders. (It's actually pictured on the upper right corner of the cover if you click the link)
So, the stats. Here we go.


Specs:
The Yarn: Bamboo and (I think) Merino blend roving purchased from Kashaknits.etsy.com that I spun into yarn. I was still really just learning to spin so it's pretty thick and thin and overspun but still very pretty.
The Needles: Size US 8 DPNs
The Pattern: Little Ruff from 101 One-Skein Wonders, as I mentioned
The Recipient: Me.
The Button: A wooden 1" button I had leftover from another project.
Notes: I did go up a needle size from the pattern with this because of the thick and thin yarn. It turned out beautifully though with a lovely shine from the bamboo.

It feels pretty good to actually finish something once in awhile. Even though it's been languishing.
Now let's talk about what is still on the needles, shall we? I got some lovely Deborah Norville Collection Serenity Sock Weight yarn from JoAnn Fabrics awhile back and it settled nicely into the stash. Then I remembered that in 2 weeks we are having our extended family's Christmas Celebration and we have a game with dice that we play to do a little gift exchange. I thought...wouldn't it be fun if there was a nice pair of handknit socks in there?

Yeah, crazy I know. I'm only a few weeks to Christmas and I'm pretty behind on that but I added in these socks anyway.

I'm knitting them into Monkeys and I think they're turning out pretty cute so far. I can make it. (I think)

If I don't have time to post tomorrow, a very Happy Thanksgiving to my friends here in America.

Still Knitting after all this time.

Wow, how sad is it that my Little Ruff of Handspun sat for that many months in want of only a button. It was even Blocked already for crying out loud. Well, I found it in the basket this morning and felt sorry for it and as long as I had my sewing kit out anyway, it got its little button. Maybe someday we will have a decent day and I can take pictures.
It gets dark so early now and it has been grey for far too long. I feel like a sponge. When there is sun I want to soak it up!
Lately I've been focusing on Christmas knitting and organizing things here at our new home. It's been quite an adventure. We have more space but figuring out how to organize our mountains of junk in that space is always the trick. Plus things have been a bit weird because hubby's computer refuses to acknowledge the internet here. That means we have been fiddling with that but sharing the computer as well. Which means he has been underfoot a great deal in my office.
Things are slowly starting to settle in and hopefully the family turmoil will settle down for a bit too.
I'll try to get more info posted more often. Maybe even with some pictures once in awhile.

Resuscitating

So, hi. Please don't die little Blog. I still love you. My life has just been a whole barrel full of crazy pie right now.
As a matter of fact, I have actually been doing some knitting. Not a whole lot but some. Enough to keep me from going crazy through the craziness. I'll show you pictures later. Meanwhile, I'm here. I promise.