A Fresh Start

I've been feeling the urge to cast on a sweater again but I've been holding myself back. Part of why I've been trying really hard to resist is because I'm so close to done with the Spoke sweater but I'm not quite finished yet. I keep trying to bribe myself to finish and I just can't do it. All the pieces are knit and they're all sewn together too. All that's left is to pick up stitches around and bind them off. So what's holding me back? I'm basically out of yarn. I have a very small amount left, not really enough. If I were just going to pick those up and bind them off like the pattern calls for, I would use a similarly colored handspun that I dug out of the stash but I really think I'm going to need to add some short rows onto the side of the half circle to make it fit the way I'd like it to. If I need to do that, I really would like more of the same yarn. I'm thinking it might end up languishing until May when I can attend the Shepherd's Harvest Festival here in Minnesota and see if I can find more of the same fiber. (I've looked online and can't find it but I've consistently seen it at Shepherd's Harvest and hope springs eternal.)



This week I just couldn't take it anymore though. I had been daydreaming about light, gauzy sweaters for the spring and I couldn't resist any more! I found some destashes of Malabrigo Lace on Ravelry, made a couple of purchases and found this lovely stuff in my mailbox on Tuesday.

It was even already wound up! How could I resist? Honestly, this Malabrigo lace was such a great deal too! With shipping and purchasing the pattern, we're looking at about a $27.00 sweater. Hours and hours of entertainment with a lovely sweater at the end and only 27 measly dollars? I can get on board with that!

It's being knit up into the Wispy Cardi by Hannah Fettig. It doesn't look like much of anything yet though. More updates to come when there's actual progress.

Languish No More

I'm genuinely trying to dig into my UFO bin and work on some things that have been languishing. I finished my March Vesper socks and I wasn't able to resist starting my April socks (which is fine according to our very laid-back KAL thread). I haven't been working on them a whole lot though, I decided to take some time and finish at least one languishing project. I dug out a pair of socks and got to work.

I really was thinking about these socks because I have a peachy-colored sweater and I wanted to wear it one day. I realized that I had no socks that matched. At all. I was sad until I remembered that I did have socks started that would match! (At least close enough since the sweater and socks won't be right next to each other.) I dug around until I found them and then dug around until I found the pattern I had printed out and started work on them again.

Super cute huh? The major problem with these socks which were about halfway done was that I had made the first sock too short. It fit but I didn't have room to wiggle my toes as much as I liked so I knew I was going to have to rip back and reknit and who wants to do that? I finished the second sock and bit the bullet and ripped back the first and fixed it though. I'm really glad I did. I forgot how much I loved the yarn and the pattern. It really looks great together!
The Stats:
The Yarn: Arucania (their sock yarn, I seem to have lost the tag)
The Needles: US 2 DPNs (2.75mm)
The Pattern: Sedona by Lisa Dykstra
The Notes: I originally started these a couple of years ago as a KAL in support of the lovely designer when she was diagnosed with cancer. I'm so sorry I let them languish because I think they're on their way to becoming a Favorite pair of socks.

That's not all though! I finally finished spinning the fiber I've been working on for my friend Lisa. Remember this?

It's Southern Cross Fibers in Serenity on Finn. As I've said before, it's not a fiber I've worked with a whole lot, it's got a feel more like a BFL than a Merino, not super soft but not really scratchy either. She requested a fingering-weight Chain-plied yarn.
I finished it the other day and here's what I got.

I think it turned out lovely and while it isn't washed and twacked yet (she said she would do that herself) I think it's a true fingering weight but I'm not thrilled with the yardage I got. Only 314 yards. Now, I may have miscounted while winding it, there's always lots of distractions in my house when I'm trying to wind yarn onto my niddy noddy but it seems pretty dense so it's quite possible that's correct. I'm not thrilled with that. It's definitely hard to tell with a chain-ply what you will end up with for yardage and I'm not devastated but for me a fingering weight in a 3-ply (even if that is chain-plied) should be more like 350+ preferably 400+ yards. I'm hoping she will love it anyway.
I have set myself a goal to finish off some spinning projects now before I start anything else so I've dug out some BFL and I'm working away at it, even though I got my Gritty Knits Merino-of-the-Month yesterday and I love it so much and I want to spin it right away! It certainly isn't making me love my BFL right now. We'll see how long I can stick it out.

Sanity Intact

As I sit here unable to sleep (what is up with that?!) I'm thinking back to last week. I had some stress last week which is to say; I barely made it through the week with my sanity. My husband's car (which we have already sunk a small fortune into) had another issue and I was cruising on almost no sleep and a frustrating start to the day. Near a nervous breakdown, my mom offered to come get me so I could spend some time with my niece the following day. I agreed quickly and she came to pick me up. I'm thankful I was down with my family because then my grandma was taken into the hospital (by ambulance) because she was short of breath.
It's related to her heart, she has Congestive Heart Failure at this point so it's really just a matter of keeping the symptoms at bay as long as possible. She's not willing to do a whole lot in that arena to help herself so there's really only so much the rest of us can do.
There was time spent in the car, time spent on the phone, time spent visiting her at the hospital and all that time; my hands were knitting.
It got me thinking about knitting and how it can be a comfort. There are certainly times when you want to tear your hair out thanks to your knitting and it can often cause as much stress as it helps relieve but when crunch time comes, when you just can't handle any more, having your hands full of that knitting and working away, stitch by stitch can help you through.

For me the best thing is something garter stitch (or stockinette in the round) and very simple. If you need to look down at your hands to compose yourself, you have an excuse but otherwise, you can just knit and knit and knit and knit without thinking about it.

Slowly doing something productive in a time that you otherwise wouldn't be.
Sometimes, it helps.
Pattern: Hitchhiker by Martina Behm
Yarn: Handspun CJKopec Creations Polwarth in Autumn Rainbow

Maniacal Laugh

*Insert Evil Laugh* Finished socks. Before St. Patrick's Day! Hooray! These are the Skew pattern from Knitty knit in Vesper Shamrockin'. I received the yarn last Tuesday and cast on that night. I finished the first sock the following afternoon. (I really focused on that first one to get it done.)



Aren't they pretty? I love them. I just love the way this pattern fits my feet too. They're so cozy and unusual.

I love how strange and cool the heel looks. I do have to switch to size 2 (2.75mm) needles once I start the gusset increases for the heel though because I knit this yarn on size 1s (2.25mm) and they're too tight through the heel if I knit it on 1s (which I learned the last time I knit this pattern.)

Now I'm going to attempt to finish off a pair of socks that have been languishing before the start of the new month when I would like to knit the next Vesper in my KAL plan.

From Gemstone to Shamrockin'

I finished some socks, I don't even know if I should really call them socks since they are so short but I did knit them and on 1s even (2.25mm) so I'm counting them. Otherwise I'd have to come up with a weird word like Socklette or something.

Aren't they cute? They're Vesper Sock Yarn in Gemstone and I really like them. They're meant to be for the summer when you're wearing Capri pants or shorts but the air conditioning is just too chilly to have bare feet. (That happens to me a lot in the summer.) It's hard to imagine summer right now though, we just got another big dump of snow. More than 6 inches for sure. March is so fickle.

If you are friends with me on Ravelry (and check your friend activity) you can see that I'm a little obsessed with Vesper sock yarn right now. I love it! I just keep buying it from people's destashes and stuff and then I hoard it. I have at least 9 skeins waiting to be knit and that still didn't stop me from buying this:

Oh look! Another skein of Vesper Sock Yarn. This one is called Shamrockin'. I'm in the Vesper group and we have a little KAL going on to knit Vesper in 2013 (which means I will probably need more) you set up your own goals and colorway choices. I didn't have one that was really calling to me for March and this went up on the Knitterly Things website and I just couldn't resist. It's so green and happy. I really love my Skew socks from the Witchy Woman and I'm thinking this would be fun in that pattern as well. Something a little different than the traditional plain sock, something to keep my interest a bit.

I just can't wait to cast on, as a matter of fact the post office took a long time to get this to me, I thought I would have it well before now so I am certain it won't make it through the day without being wound and cast on.

I'm also working on some spinning, it's a bit strange to go back and try to spin something different after the Fiber Optic but I'm spinning something pretty fun.

This is Finn and I'm spinning it for a friend. She purchased it from someone else's destash and since I wanted to play with it too, I offered to spin it for her. It's not a fiber I work with often but I'm really enjoying it. I can't wait to see what it turns out to be.

Wrought Iron Finito!

I've been very good and sticking with the finishing even though I'm so not in the mood for finishing. I'm wanting to start new things. Shiny, pretty new yarn is waiting to be knit! I've been a good little Knitter though and I'm working on getting at least a few things actually done.
Awhile back and I do mean awhile, I looked it up, I started some socks. I joined the Solid Socks group on Ravelry and every month they have a chosen color or theme for their KAL. In October it was Purple and I dug out some lovely nom and started knitting. I got this Royal Purple in the nom of the month club but it's now available on their website.

I chose the Wrought Iron Socks from Wendy Johnson's second sock book: Toe-up Socks for Every Body. I love the look of these Austrian twisted stitches but I have to say; I didn't love knitting them.

I don't know if it was the combination of the yarn and needles (although they are soft and lovely now that they are done)  Or just the pattern which is a lot of tiny little cable crosses but I didn't really enjoy knitting them. The yarn was splitty with my KnitPicks Harmony Sock DPNs
I pushed on and knit the entire first sock, I even got the second sock to the heel flap which is kind of fun on toe-up socks because you decrease at each side of the heel flap. Then October Ended. I hadn't finished in time for the KAL and I wasn't loving them so I put them aside. I decided recently that I really wanted the socks though and I only had half a sock left to knit! I dug them out and started working on them again. I have to say, it was a struggle. I just wasn't loving the knit but today I finally, finally finished them!

I really do love the finished product.

They fit beautifully, I love the very bright purple (which is extremely hard to photograph! These are pale in comparison.) I love the cabley goodness. 
I will probably try the pattern again if I am in the mood for something like this but it isn't something that I'll rush right into. It is a challenge.
I did pay attention to details though, I mirrored all the cables.

You may or may not be able to tell from this photo but I know they're there. That's what really matters. Hah!
I still have a bin full of unfinished items but I'm not sure I can keep up the finishing much longer! 

The Albatross that turned to the Phoenix

Does anyone remember me talking about this?

It's the Fiber Optic Yarns Rouge, Violet, Cerulean Gradient and it's for the Knitgirllls spinalong/knitalong. I have been talking about it for awhile. What seems like a long while.
I received the braid (from my preorder) in December. I couldn't start spinning until January 1 though. So I did, a little after midnight on New Year's Day I started. I was excited, I spun the first half of the braid pretty quickly. It took a long time.

I was so excited! One bobbin done, one to go! Then I would have to decide if I wanted a 3-ply (which would be navajo-plied) or a 2-ply which is what I had originally planned, which is why I split the braid the long way into two pieces.
Then I sort of lost steam. I knew it was going to take a lot of spinning hours to get that second half done and I just wasn't feeling it. I ignored it for probably 2 weeks at least, spinning just a few minutes here and there.
Then I realized that the deadline for the SAL part is coming up! It's meant to go January and February. We're already over halfway through February! Yikes! The handsome husband has been bugging me a bit about getting some things cleaned off the DVR because it's getting full so I decided to sit down and actually work on the DVR'd shows. After all, I DVR'd them because I like them right?
I started spinning and started watching. I watched Episodes 4 through the finale of Downton Abbey (no spoilers but I was not happy at the end!) and I was still spinning. I started working on other random bits off the DVR and various real time shows just to keep motivated. I was in the purple but it was taking a long time....Finally I managed to finish the second half of the braid.
Now came the time to decide, two-ply or navajo-ply. Tough call really. It was spun very fine so my concern with two-ply was partly strength and also that the 2 strands would not match up as well as I wanted color-wise. I knew I wanted a good amount of yardage though and two-ply is easier on my shoulder (which is much better but still reminds me occasionally that I should take it easy) so I ultimately went with two-ply.
So, I plied. And plied. And plied. I spent about 8 hours plying yesterday. Doesn't that sound ridiculous?! What was I doing all that time? I know sometimes I get distracted, going for more coffee, checking email and doing other things but really, a good amount of that time was actually spend plying so what gives?
I wound the skein onto my niddy noddy, trying my best to keep count of the wraps.
Then I understood why it had taken so long. All those hours spinning, all those hours plying. This was why. This made sense.

This skein of lovely gradient yarn. This beautiful 4 ounce baby. It has (If you're not sitting down, you should at this point.) 1350 yards. Yup, that's why it took so long.

I forgive it everything. I love it so much I'm currently wearing the skein as a scarf.

It's pretty well balanced too! And the very best part (well, one of them) is that it's not wiry. You know how sometimes (especially if you're me) you spin something and it ends up being wiry and not soft? This is soft, supple, gently shiny gorgeousness. I adore it.

It's so pretty and balanced that I'm debating whether I should even wash it. I'm ready to wind it up and get knitting. There's enough here for a circular shawl. A lovely, large lacy one. Wouldn't that be great? Of course, that would mean another new project but who's counting right?

Finished Hat to Match it All

If you remember back a few weeks I spun up some Babydoll Southdown and I was completely smitten with it. Completely. I could barely wait to cast on and so I did (despite my large number of UFOs) and quickly churned out a hat. I chose the Orland Cabled Beret because I thought the yarn would look great in cables and it does!

It doesn't look like all that much from the top (although I love the little, teeny i-cord knot) but from the side is where you get the pop!

It's gonna look wonderful with almost everything I own! I can't wait! (Why does my nose always look ridiculous in my hat pictures?)
Since I finished those socks and now this hat, that means I can cast on something new right? I'm starting to get itchy fingers. (Just kidding, sort of.)

I'm sorry for my brevity in this post, I have a raging headache today but I wanted to get something up for my lovely readers!

Truly An Afterthought

Thanks to everyone who responded to my last post. I got comments here, on Facebook, Plurk and privately! I loved hearing about your numbers and it is making me stick to finishing a few things before I start something else. To that end, on with the show!

I've been a little bit obsessive about self-striping sock yarn lately. If you're friends with me on Ravelry, you may have noticed that I have been increasing my Vesper sock yarn stash a great deal especially (I love destashes). I'm willing to try out almost any self-striping sock yarn though. I have a few others in my stash and this one was calling to me. The yarn came all the way to me from Australia! From the lovely etsy shop Yarn Vs. Zombies. When I saw the cute hand wound balls, I knew I just had to get one and this one is so fun! It's called: It came from the Deep. Isn't that great? It's a wool and nylon blend and while it's not the softest yarn, I think it will wear really well so I'm very excited about these socks.

I decided to keep them as purse socks and just knit on them a bit here and there when I had a chance so I don't think they've even had a blog mention. I also decided to do something I hadn't tried before. A true afterthought heel. I love the afterthought heel with striping yarns because it keeps the stripe sequence going, then you can go back and add in a heel later. I decided that with these socks, rather than adding the waste yarn, I would simply knit a toe, a tube and a cuff of ribbing, then go back and cut the heel in later. Sounds scary doesn't it?

First you knit two rather odd-looking tubes with toes.

Check. Don't they stripe so nicely! It's Black, Brilliant Blue, Green and a sort of Purpley Blue, in case you can't tell in this funny winter lighting.

The idea for the afterthought heel came (I believe, I haven't researched it myself) from Elizabeth Zimmermann. The idea was to just enjoy knitting your sock and think about the heel later. That's what I did too! Although it seemed like these went on and on and on. (Probably because they only got a row or two here and there.)

Next you dig out a trusty tape measure and measure for heel placement.

I'm going to share how I did this as well. First, I measured the toe to find out how deep it was. It was 2 inches. That's important because your heel will be the same depth. Then I measured my sock from the toe up to 2 inches shorter than the length of my foot (because that's how deep the heel will be).

My foot is 9 inches long. Therefore I measured to 7 inches (9-2=7) and picked up a needle full of stitches all the way across the sock.

There should be half the number of stitches you had while knitting the sock and make sure you picked it up so the toe is flat! You don't want your heel on the side of your sock but rather on the bottom.

Now you're ready to cut.

If that scissors lying there on the knitting makes you a little woozy, don't worry that's normal. I have found that large amounts of coffee are important for this part, although not so much that your hands shake, that would be bad.
You want to cut ONE stitch in the middle of the picked up stitches and unravel it out to either side, picking up the stitches that get freed on that side.

Well, it looks like a hole doesn't it? I knit around with 4 needles holding the stitches and a 5th to knit with so I've spread out the stitches onto 4 needles. I also picked up 2 stitches on either side of the sock to help minimize holes on the sides. Don't worry, you can decrease them out right away.
Now, just knit a toe.

I know it sounds (and looks) a little bit goofy but trust me, it works. Simply decrease down just like if you were working a flat toe on a top-down sock. Then graft the end.

Weave in the ends (Yikes! That seems like a lot!)

Then do it all again on the other sock.

It does look a little bit goofy just lying there.

But they fit great!

(Provided you put the heels in the right places)
There we have it, another finished object! Doesn't it feel wonderful? Well, it does to me, with my warm, new socks toes.
Pros and Cons of this method:
Pro: You can just knit and not think about the heel until later, meaning it works great for a purse sock or other mindless knitting.
Con: There are extra ends to weave in. If you do a waste yarn afterthought heel, there are only 2 ends, in this case, each heel had 4 ends. It can be a bit of a downer but not impossible to overcome.
Con: I still prefer the fit of a heel flap sock.
Pro: The stripes stay striping exactly the way they were through the rest of the sock.

Overall, I do like the method and I will use it again but it won't surpass all the other sock-heel methods that I know.
Note: I haven't forgotten about the food blog post I mentioned on my last post. I'll get to it.

What is your "number"?

I had a lovely food post planned for today, I had pictures at the ready and I was set to go. I was excited about it too. I think people might be interested in this food post. Then my train of thought was derailed. Last night at Knit Night someone asked a question. A sort of loaded question so you might want to sit down if you're not already. We went around the table and answered this question.

Are you ready?

Are you sitting down?

Are you sure you're ready?

It can wait, are you really sure?

Okay, here goes. How many Unfinished projects do you have right now?

See what I mean? A loaded question. I don't really talk on my blog about how I move from project to project with little regard to getting something done. I do try to finish things occasionally but really I love the thrill of something new and so I often start things and never mention them. It's really okay because they often get frogged anyway. If they don't, they go into a bin and they get ignored until I think about them and then they get picked out and finished. Usually. Sometimes I can't even face them so they get shoved somewhere. Somewhere they can be forgotten.

I answered as truthfully as I could last night but then today, as I was casting on a new hat out of my lovely Southdown. You remember the southdown right?

The lovely 208 yards of 3-ply was just begging to be cast on. It is now but I was thinking about the question from last night. Pondering how many things I genuinely had on the go. I decided to get a little idea of how many there are. This is dangeous and I know it but now I had to know. I dug around a little bit. A very little bit, I didn't dig out old, horrible projects that need frogging or anything, I just dug around in the UFO basket in the living room and the UFO bin in the office.

Here is a representation of what I found.

This bin, this UFO bin from the living room here (which I did pretty up for its photo shoot, taking projects out of bags and things) is a fairly accurate representation of the*gasp* 25 or so projects I am currently working on. Now, that doesn't mean that I take them all out and actually work on them but these are projects I do have the intention of finishing. Someday. That's a lot. Twenty-five.

Many of these projects have been put aside for a specific reason. Honestly there's maybe 4 to 6 that I actually work on in a somewhat regular fashion but really, I was still floored at the number. This may explain why I've been feeling a little frazzled with my knitting lately. Why I don't seem to be able to make time to finish anything. It didn't stop me from starting the hat. It's there on the top of the bin but maybe it should slow me down a bit. Maybe, instead of starting anything new for a bit, I should finish something first. Maybe, just maybe, that's a good idea.

It also might explain why I can't find any size 1 dpns.

So now, I turn the question to my readers. How many projects are you working on? I shared my deep, dark secret number, what's yours?

Spinning Extravaganza

Hello again. I keep thinking about my poor neglected blog but I just haven't gotten back to it. Handsome hubby was sick with a cold last week and demanded a lot of attention so I didn't get a whole lot of knitting or spinning time. Or time to myself really. When he wasn't home (which he was a lot, he stayed home a couple of days) he was calling me from work to talk about how sick he was. It's so funny how they seem like adults and really, in many ways, they're still very big children.

I did finally manage to finish the first bobbin of my Knitgirllls SAL fiber from Fiber Optic Yarns. It's the Rouge Violet Cerulean gradient in 80% merino 20% silk and while I love it so much, some of those colors seemed to take forever. It took me a long time to spin this bobbin, lots of spinning hours in there, because it spun so fine. The end is left fuzzy on purpose so I can find it again.

It really is lovely and I'm slowly working on the second bobbin but that won't be very interesting, it looks just like the first.

I did take a little bit of a break while spinning the Fiber Optic to turn this:

into this:

It's my Babydoll Southdown from My Little Sheep (I really cannot recommend them enough. A font of information about spinning the yarn, adorable pictures, great, reasonable prices and lovely, lovely stuff!) and I love it so much. It's not super duper soft like Merino and it's an unusual texture but the nature of the fiber, with the crimp going in all directions rather than straight lines, makes it a fun spin and a super bouncy yarn. I purchased it for the Expand Your Horizons Spinalong in the Knitgirllls group and have decided that Expand Your Horizons is Very Dangerous because now I'm daydreaming about a sweater's worth of this lovely fiber. Wouldn't it be beautiful with lots of lovely cables? I pulled the braid apart into 3 pieces (not the long way, the short way) and spun 3 bobbins, then did a traditional 3-ply. The second, smaller skein is what was left on 2 of the bobbins, navajo-plied. I can't decide what this wants to be but I can't seem to bring myself to shove it into the stash, I think it needs to be knit very soon!

I am doing some knitting too. I'm working away on my handspun Spoke Sweater but it really just looks like a bunch of jumbled pieces now. I'm hoping to finish it this week but we'll see how the knitting time goes and whether I run out of yarn. Eeep!

Getting a Little Bit Personal

I've been sitting here wracking my brain about what to blog about. That's the problem with simple, plain projects, they look exactly the same day after day. I could take another picture of the stripey sock but honestly there's about one more stripe. I could take another picture of the green shawl but it looks like a slightly larger blob of green right now. I'm not even on the second skein yet.

I thought maybe I should start a new project to show you something interesting. No, by the time I wound the yarn, I knew what I wanted it to be but I can't find the pattern right now so I guess that has to wait.

I even resorted to digging out the UFO (Unfinished Objects) bin to see if I could finish something up quick and show you that. Nope, nothing that's quick to finish or that I really want to work on right now. I guess that plan is out the window too.

The husband hasn't done anything funny and the pets are napping, not doing any strange antics so what exactly am I supposed to blog about.

Well, look out because it's going to get a teensy bit personal for a bit. This week has been a bear so far. You know that I'm gluten free because I talk about it here often and you may or may not know that one of the side effects I experience when being glutened is anxiety. Well, this week I had anxiety without gluten. It wasn't fun and it wasn't pretty. Last evening, the doorbell rang and I nearly had a heart attack. For most of the last two days I would rather have peeled my skin off than feel it. I wanted to hide and I wanted to not have to deal with it any more. I'm so thankful to have a very supportive family and it was mostly because of my wonderful husband that I got through it but I just want to say this: If you are feeling this way, it's not normal, it's not okay and you do need help. Whatever that means. For some people it's therapists and medications, for some people it's alternative things but ultimately, you are not alone, and help is out there. Please seek help if you need it.

It Must Be a Plot

Do you ever feel like your little portion of the world is working against you? I certainly do. Last night is a perfect example.

Please note: Coffee figures somewhat largely in this story, my love for coffee is unfettered. I still love it and I'm drinking it right now.

Sometime last evening: Decide I am cold and tired but cannot go to bed yet since it's about 6:30, decide it's worth the risk of not sleeping and make coffee. Drink the glorious elixir of life and wonder at the joy of it all. Fortified by stories from other family members of being able to drink coffee and still go right to sleep, I drink with unabashed joy.
10:30 pm: All the other creatures in the house are asleep, including adorable cat (Kiki) who is asleep in my lap. Hubby is snoring on the couch. I'm not at all tired and I'm a little pissy since I still need to wash the dinner dishes. I do not enjoy the dishes so I'm trying this thing where I do them every night rather than waiting until the next day because my attitude regarding dishes gets much worse. It's not unusual for me to be wide awake at this point though. I'm a stay-up late kinda person.
Midnight: I am now in my bed reading on my kindle, still not tired despite all the creatures being asleep again. Many of them on the very bed. I'm still not really worried about my non-tiredness but I'm starting to tell myself that it's okay to shut off the kindle and go to sleep.
2:30 am: Yes, I'm still awake. I decide that even though I don't think I'm tired enough to sleep, I need to try and I shut off the kindle. As I lie there I think about how, it'll be fine. I can still get up for church at 6:00 and then take a nap later in the afternoon. No big deal, I have done it before. I have existed on much less sleep before.
2:31 am: Adorable cat walks delicately up my side (I generally sleep on my side) and looks down into my face from my shoulder. I talk to her. Saying things like; "Hi Kiki, it's okay I'm here, just going to sleep."
2:32 am: I am slowly settling in to sleep. Kiki jumps on the dresser. She is not allowed on my dresser. She knows this, she has never been allowed on my dresser. It's somewhat messy right now and all she does is knock things down. She also climbs up onto this little shelf thing and stares at me while I sleep, I do not like this. She does not need to be up there. I sit up and chase her down.
2:33 am and every couples of minutes or so for the next several hours: She climbs on the dresser, I chase her down. She does this each time I slowly drift off to sleep. I then have to wake up, chase her down and lie back down, settle down and try to go to sleep.
Sometime during those few precious hours I was going to sleep: I get up and go into the living room, picking up the water spritzer which was used earlier to keep her off the top of the bookshelves. She scampers around my feet, happily thinking we are going to play and she has successfully gotten me up. When I pick up the water bottle she runs away. I do not think this is adorable. I think it is horrible, evil and malicious. I seethe with quiet, exhausted anger. I go back to bed and try to lie down again.
The rest of the time until I need to get up: I lie in bed, attempting to sleep while evil cat continues to wake me up. I do not know what her plan really is but it involves me not being asleep and I'm not okay with that.
5:59 am: I am awake when the clock turns to 6:00 and I listen to my alarm going off. I blearly think; What is that? When I realize, I shut it off. I don't think I'll be getting up for church.
6:01 am: Cat has stopped being evil. She lies down at the foot of the bed and goes to sleep. Instead of being angry, I fall asleep too.
Much later: I wake up (special thanks to Handsome Hubby who let me sleep for a bit. Feeding himself and the other creatures, not questioning me about why I wasn't getting up.) Cat is lying on the bed next to me purring happily like she's loving this time we spent together. I resist the urge to shove her off the bed. Cruelty to animals is wrong. I genuinely wonder what her plan was. Then I start to think about it while making coffee and write this blog post.

Seriously, what on earth was her plan? I'm a little afraid and I'm also tempted to keep her awake all day so she lets me sleep tonight.

Return from the Depths of the Holiday Madness

Sorry about my disappearance. I seem to have been struck by something large and heavy, I think it's called "the Holidays." I managed to get all my gifts finished and off to my family and friends except the Cool Beans socks. I knew they were going to be cutting it close and then I got worried about fit so I waited and had my mom try them on. I'll finish them soon and get them to her. She understands these things. I swear she's a knitter at heart, she just doesn't knit, only crochets a little. Don't worry, I'm trying to bring her over to the dark side.

I can tell I'm sort of burned out by my choice of projects. A plain shawl, although it's out of the loveliest yarn I can find!

It's some Dk weight Polwarth/silk from CJ Kopec Creations. I did a sample knit for her earlier this year and 3 skeins of this amazing yarn were my payment. They're one of a kind so they don't have a colorway name but they're a lovely softly tonal green. I'm planning to whack a ruffle on the edge of this shawl and call it good. In the meantime, it's all garter stitch.

What else am I working on? (You had to know I had more than one thing on the needles right?) Plain socks.

This is Vesper in Gemstone and I hand-wound it into one of those nifty balls you see sometimes where the colors are all separated. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. The colors are very different but I love the knit and knit and knit without paying attention thing right now.

I am spinning too and that's really where most of my focus is going. Why?

Because this is what I'm spinning. (This photo is a little too blue, the outside color is really more of a true red) It's the Rouge Violet Cerulean Gradient from Fiber Optic Yarns and it's the Spinalong fiber for the Knitgirllls group. It's 80% Merino and 20% Silk and I cannot believe how much I love it. It's spinning so fine and so beautifully. I split the entire braid down the center and predrafted the first half thinking I would two-ply it. I'm questioning that a bit now because it's so fine but I'm thinking it might puff up a little once it's washed so I'm going to stick to the plan.

I'm afraid to take it off the wheel to get a picture in case I lose the end but here's a picture of it on the wheel.

Isn't it amazing? Despite the fact that it's not the greatest picture?

Speaking of The Knitgirllls, today was a Very good mail day.

I got some yarn from destashes, a club yarn, a book from Amazon and this:

In the Knitgirllls group they do something called Expand Your Horizons. They choose a different fiber every other month and encourage you to try it out. Not your usual Merino but something else, something you may not have tried. They have the entire list for 2013 up and I was thinking I wouldn't want to make a purchase to spin for it and then someone posted a link (that's where I purchased from. Very nice, reasonable prices and it got here very quickly). The fiber this month is Southdown and I have in my wool-piggy little paws 4 ounces of undyed Babydoll Southdown. What convinced me? The pictures of the sheep! They're just so adorable. I dare you, heck, I double dare you to click that link and not squee with delight at their adorableness. (Yes, I do think that is a word.) It's an unusual fiber and I'm very excited to try it. I'm hoping to finish the first half of the Fiber Optic fiber over the weekend and then we'll see if this somehow dives onto my wheel before I spin the other half.

Making Progress with the Help of Ibuprofen

It's really hard to blog around the holidays when you're trying desperately to get everything done. When you do get things done, you worry about posting them in case some random family member accidentally finds your blog through Facebook or something and figures out what you've made them for Christmas.

To add insult to injury (or maybe I mean injury to insult) I have a pinched nerve in my neck/shoulder which is making it really hard to even knit. I can only knit when full of ibuprofen, leaning against a heating pad. And even then, I have to take frequent breaks. It's making it hard to push forward.

There are a few things I have finished that I can post because I know the recipient won't find them or I don't know if/who it will go to yet.
First, the dad socks. I love knitting socks for my dad. He wears them only on Sundays to "save" them and then shows them off to people. I keep thinking if I keep knitting him a pair each year, he will wear them more often but so far, no. This year, in keeping with tradition, I knit him a pair of socks. These are from some Austermann Step I got in a destash. I think they're sort of ugly but my mom thinks they look okay so I won't both to overdye them.

This yarn is said to have Aloe Vera and Jojoba oil in the yarn which will soften your feet as you wear them and lasts through 40 washes. I'm not sure if that's true but it felt pretty nice to knit with. I have another skein of this exact same yarn so after Christmas my hubby will be getting a pair of these socks as well.

I can't remember if I mentioned it before or not but I couldn't resist the handspun Loop! yarn anymore so I cast on a quickie shawlette. I was working on it over Thanksgiving as a matter of fact.

I made a basic triangular shawl and added an eyelet row about where the color changed. I think it's very cute but not super big. I'm hoping it will block at least a little bit bigger and I might end up giving this as a gift because it's not really my colors, I'm not sure yet. I don't even think anyone on my list is handspun & handknit worthy so we will have to see what I decide.

If you're interested in some of the other projects I'm knitting this year, check out my Ravelry Project page. I just updated it and it's more current and has some things I don't dare share here. Yet.

Try to be funny? Or not.

With the holiday season I tend to get over-committed with my gift-knitting and tend to run short on time.
Add to that some family things, work parties for the hubby and various other things and what you end up with is very little time to blog with very little to show on the blog.

Gifts are continuing apace and I'm starting to think about if we need to do some sort of Christmas series again this year. So, what do you think, gentle reader? Should I try to make light of the insanity that is my Christmas knitting again this year?

Let me know in the comments please.

Finishing and Christmas Knitting

I keep meaning to post again but I sort of flamed out on re-entry. We were gone for the Thanksgiving weekend. Four days of food, family and fun but right after getting over being sick, it was pretty draining. I finished my test-knit.

The Coboda Hatt and Mitts set from the Simple Knits blog, look for it to come out soon. I really like it and it was a very quick and easy knit. As much as I like it though, I'm going to be reasonable and put them on the Christmas pile. I'm pretty sure I know who these will go to and I can always knit another set if I decide I need some.

That means, Christmas knitting is in full swing around here. I cast on the Cool Beans socks again. This time from the toe-up and with some concentration, I'm making good progress.

I think it will be easier to make sure they fit by working them from the toe-up.

I also cast on a pair of plain ribbed socks. The yarn is striping in a really odd way so I may overdye them when I'm done, we'll see.

They'll be for some male in the family but I'm not entirely sure which one yet. I will have to decide when I get farther down the sock and need to decide where to start the toe.

I've got a few other small projects planned but I'm keeping it reasonable and planning to buy a few gifts this year. How about you? How are your Christmas Lists shaping up?

Tea and Crackers

I keep meaning to put a new blog post up but I just don't seem to be able to do it. I still feel sort of like death-warmed-over which isn't very fun and I just want to feel better because it's seriously cutting into my knitting time. I finished my laceweight singles though, like I wanted and got them plied.

Just lovely! I got 750 yards too! I'm really happy with that. For 4 ounces, that's very respectable. It's still soft and lovely too, not too fine and wiry. It's Sprites by Funky Carolina in Merino and silk and I love it. I'm finding it difficult not to cast on immediately.

Since that was finished, I needed something as a break before I dive back in to more laceweight so I started spinning a Loop Bullseye Bump. I have purchased a few from destashes but I have not actually spun one. Until now. I did manage to take one photo of this one before I started, it's just a crappy cell phone pic though. Hopefully it will look ok.
The fiber started out Navy Blue, then transitioned into Salmon, then periwinkle blue, soft pale peach, light dusty blue and finally a beautiful royal blue. It was a joy to spin and I could hardly stop myself long enough to sleep.

I finished the spinning in less than 48 hours and almost immediately started plying. I navajo or chain-plied to keep the color transitions as they were and ended up with a lovely yarn! It's a sport-weight. About 322 yards and I love it. Another one I'm having a hard time convincing myself that I should not cast on immediately.

It's hard to see all the color changes when it's in the skein but it's still lovely. It's called Cuckoo Wrasse and has Merino, Nylon and Angelina in it so it's a lovely soft but still silvery, sparkly skein. I'm thinking a shawlette with an eyelet row at the color changes would be perfect. As soon as it's dry because I did manage to convince myself last night that I should wash it at least before I cast it on.
I have been doing a little knitting when I can get my brain to function properly. I have been working on hubby's socks. Again, I do not love the colors but the yarn is squishy and decent to work with so I'm sucking it up. I turned the heel on the second sock and I'm working my way up the leg now.

I should be done with this soon. Then I need to focus on some Christmas gift-knitting before I get back to socks for the handsome hubby.
I also finished part of a test-knit I've been working on. It's a hat and fingerless mitts set for the SimpleKnits blog.

The hat is done and I think it's really cute. I hope to cast on the mitts this evening. I agreed to the test-knit thinking it might make a nice Christmas gift, the set but I'm not sure I'll be able to part with it so we'll have to see. Look for the pattern coming out via SimpleKnits soon!
When you don't feel well what you really need is super simple knitting and that's where most of my focus has laid. The socks, this hat and of course my Multnomah. I'm about ready to start the pattern but I need some mental capacity for that so that's no rush right now.

It may end up a gift for Christmas, we'll see how the list ends up.

I've also been working on my handspun Spoke sweater, finally. I was going to do the math to make the pattern work with my gauge ages ago and I just didn't seem to be able to convince myself to get it done so I enlisted the help of a lovely friend and she passed back a pattern written to my specifications. I cast on almost immediately and have most of a back already.

I really didn't realize how much 1x1 rib there was in the pattern but I'm slogging ahead imagining how it will all be worth it when it's done. Anyway, I'm going back to bed with some tea, gluten free crackers and some British Mystery shows on Netflix. One of these days I'll feel better and then just wait! The knitting will be full-on Christmas focused!!