Making Progress

I managed to finish a couple of Christmas presents.

I finished Debbie's scarf. The Scrunchable scarf in SeeJayneKnit's Dexter colorway.

A new pair of socks for Julie. They are knit from Duet Skinny.
I scored a Phat Fiber box November 2010 version, the theme was a Season of Light. This is a Fluffy box which contains fiber samples, a spindle, patterns and several coupons.

I received a great package from my Fallmaggedon swap pal Sadie aka Blueruin on Ravelry. She sent me lots of Inuit teas, beautiful yarn and a braid of fiber she dyed herself. There is a shawl pin hiding under the yarn there, it is circular and looks hand hammered.

I put together both of the cabinets for the craft/guest room. That makes 6 out of 8 pieces assembled. Over the long Christmas weekend I will finish, putting together the last two bookcases.

Finished Objects

I have finished a couple of pairs of socks and done quite a bit of spinning.
Knitterly Thing Vesper Self Striping Sock Yarn
Savana colorway
I think I posted this already but I just love this yarn. Handspun fingering weight yarn from Crown Mountain Farms in colorway Riders on The Storm. I still have some singles on a bobbin, yes still, that need to be plyed so I can figure out the total yardage. This was an 8 oz bump.

Currently Spinning Quetzal Bird. It is similar to another fiber I have spun, cannot think of the details of that one right now. This is a 4 oz bump from St. Seraphina's Etsy shop.

Duet Sock Yarns Skinny in the colorway Tide Pool. I love these socks, they are for Julie.

Nice Long Weekend

I enjoyed the nice long weekend I took last week. The trip to Reno was fun and relaxing. I did not get to finish any of my projects though. We caught snow on the way home, near the summit - about 30 miles from Colfax. There was smoky rain for about another 50 miles. Mom was calm and patient and we had no incidences coming home; it was her first time driving in snow. We made it to the Dixon Produce Market just as they were closing. I got pecans for baking, some dried fruit and their famous chocolate covered raisins. Yay!!!

My visit to Jimmy Beans Wool was productive. The Namaste buddy cases are Christmas gifts, the Gold Lustra is going to be a colorwork scarf, I have some black for the contrasting color. The Colinette Jitterbug was on sale. I bought the Regia Self Striping in the World cup colorway because the sample sock was so danged pretty, I also got 3 more Zauberballs.







I assembled two more pieces of the new furniture, which are the last two pieces for the master bedroom.

Redecorating - The Library

I have too many books. I relocated six bookcases full of books over the weekend. My new cabinets and bookcases came early Saturday morning. I managed to assemble one bookcase and one cabinet. The rest of the day was spent loading and unloading books. My scar felt like it was going to burst open at one point so I had to call it a day. I just managed to push the unassembled pieces against the walls out of the way. I still have one more old bookcase to relocate, then I think things will go much faster. The Paterson furniture is super easy to assemble but the pieces are quite heavy. The cabinet weighs more the 120 pounds and the bookcase 97 pounds. Needless to say they must be assembled close to their final resting place. I hope to get two pieces done each weekend until all 8 pieces are in place. An unanticipated problem is disposal. There is so much styrofoam and cartons to recycle that we fill up the can very fast and have no place to put the rest. Timing is good though, our recycling is picked up on Monday, so whatever we put in over the weekend is picked up right away.

I am going to Jimmy Beans Wool in person. I shop there online all the time so I am excited to actually visit the store. I am putting together a swap package for the KnitGirllls Fallmageddon swap. I will be on the look out for some deals. I am within budget so far, but I have a couple of yarn options that allow me to spend a few more dollars on goodies. I made some items this weekend from my endless supply of craft materials.

I finished sock 1 of the Vesper Savana 4 stripe socks and sock 1 of the Skinny Duet socks. I want to spin so badly, but I also want to get these socks off the needles. I have done the cuffs and first 10 rows on the second socks of both pairs. I cast on The Eiffel Tower shawl in Wollmeise We're Different colorway Kornblume.

I finally got a copy of Sweaters from Camp and it is a signed copy. Meg Swansen and the other two authors inscribed it to someone named Lee. I don't know if that is the person who sold it to me, or if a used book dealer ended up with it. It is like new and the book is amazing. I want to sit down with a pot of tea and read it all the way through. The patterns are challenging and inspiring.

GO GIANTS!!!!

Hi Blog How Are You?

My poor neglected blog. I have been inundated with chores, my Sister's birthday, spinning, knitting and getting organized.

Good news is my Sister thoroughly enjoyed her birthday. I have found someone to take my Chaise Lounge so I can move my drafting table under the picture window where there is lots of light. I have gotten rid of some more books and bags and miscellaneous office stuff from the guest room. I found the perfect cabinet and bookshelves at Crate & Barrel. I plan to order them when we return from our mini-road trip. The really good news is this cabinet is on sale. You cannot see them in the picture but it has glass doors.

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/furniture/bookcases-cabinets/paterson-black-2-door-cabinet/s572503

Bad news is I still have boxes of movies, books and dvds to deal with in the guest room before I can move my yarn collection in there.

I celebrate my six month spinaversary next month. I cannot believe I have only been spinning for 5 months, it feels so natural. Just like with yarn, I have developed a sense of what type of fiber I dislike and which types I love. My favorites are Corriedale, Blue Faced Leicester and Polworth. Silk blends send too much loose fiber into the air and I have to wear a mask when prepping and spinning it - I would rather buy my silk blend yarns already spun. I have not tried to spin the tencel yet. No exotics or luxury yarns either. I am kind of blah about the superwash merinos I have spun. They were kind of boring, maybe because both were 8 oz braids and took awhile to spin.

I have cast on a whole bunch of new projects for winter. I am freezing, so I am making myself some hats and scarves and mittens. I need to also finish my felted clogs!!! I have only two Christmas presents to knit this year, my Sister wants a red scarf and I have decided to knit my Brother (in-law) some socks. The scarf is about 25% knit already, I just ordered a pattern and yarn from Knit Picks for the big old man socks - he wears size 14.

I Lied - Again

I lied to myself, and possibly the interwebs, about taking photos of stash enhancements. I had said I was not going to do it anymore. I spend too much time uploading and updating stash and wips so I claimed I was not going to do that any longer. Well, I got all jazzed about a pattern last week and looked through my Ravelry stash to see if I had enough yardage in a particular yarn. But travesty of travesties I couldn't get that information because I never put the yarn in my stash. SO - it's all or nothing. I am back to putting stash pictures in Ravelry. And, by the same token, it was time to update my Library Thing list. I scanned about 100 books today and added them to library thing.



If you are curious about what I read my Library Thing username is paletpc.
If you want to peruse the stash enhancement or WIP updates, click the Flickr link in the sidebar. I still have to take pictures of my Kauni and Socks That Rock. They may have to wait until next week, I want to knit.

Make A Wish

I was lucky enough to be a prize winner in the drawing that LynnZimm held for those who donated to her Make a Wish fundraiser. My prize was a handknit pair of socks from Leslie of the wildly popular video podcast The KnitGirllls. Leslie also sent me some brain food, CHOCOLATE, a book light and bookmark for those late nights reading in bed. I am going to have a cozy fall and winter with all three (well maybe 15 minutes with the chocolate). The hanpainted water color notecard that was included in the package is to die for. It is gorgeous.

It's a Record

I somehow managed to knit a Traveling Woman Shawl in three days. I cast on and knit the stockinette portion on Saturday. I knit Chart A three times on Sunday. I knit the border Chart B and cast off Monday. Unfortunately due to the healing process I cannot block anything right now, I did not have the foresight to pull the blocking squares out from under the chaise before surgery. I also don't think the stretching during the pinning and wiring process would be good right now.

I was determined to knit another Traveling Woman Shawl correctly. If you recall the one I knit for the Ravelry meetup was a pattern fail. I forgot to knit the second repeat of chart A and ended up with a modified version of the pattern. The shawls in Ravelry which were knit correctly kept taunting me. My only modification this time was to add a third repeat of Chart A. I knit this out of my own handspun, Japanese Maple 100% Corriedale from The Painted Tiger. I still have a nice sized ball left, but I did not think it would be enough for another repeat of Chart B. I love it so much, the colors look so pretty knit up. This gives me a sense of how the spinning and plying affect the knitted fabric.

My itty bitty Nano came, it's adorable. I had it engraved with Go SMALL or stay home! 8-}

Spins, Socks and Wips

Spins:
I have skeined up the Bermuda Triangle and finished spinning the singles of the Sanguine Gryphon Dinosaurs in the Neighborhood. Currently I am spinning my first braid of Crown Mountain Farms, it is 8 ozs of superwash merino. Wow it looks more like a pound of fiber. I may spin 4 ozs of something else before I spin the other four ozs.


Socks:
I finished three pairs of the socks I was working on - mostly to avoid the mind numbingly long rows on the Cobblestone Sweater and Green Mountain Shawl. The yarns used below are (1) Opal Rainforest 6 in the colorway Lord Marlon; (2) Lana Grossa Solo #5208; and (3) Happy Choices #6.




Works In Progress:
I am still knitting sock 1 of the Hermione's Everyday Socks in the STR Colorway ST-1.

I cast on a pair of Ardeo Socks for my Sister, I have only completed the cuff so there is nothing to see yet. I am using Knit Picks Essential in Navy.

I cast on a Traveling Woman Shawl in my handspun in the colorway Japanese Maple. I cannot tell you how much I love this yarn, it is knitting up wonderfully and I love the way the colors are moving through the stockinette portion. I have just started Chart A. . . . and this time I will knit the charts in the proper sequence.

It Is Mine Whine

I have decided not to put any more of my stash into Ravelry. Except the Prism Merino Mia because I am trying to collect one skein of each color, and need to avoid duplications. I will list my handspun as I finish a skein also. But the sock yarn, and yarn for projects I think I will only list when I am working on a project using that specific yarn. I am getting a lot of requests for yarn in my stash even though I don't have any listed for sell or trade. I am pretty sure I have whined about this before - sorry. Just because I have had a skein of something since 2007 does not mean I don't want it. I am a collector, I like to try different yarns/fibers and I buy single skeins to see a yarn in person before buying enough for a project.

I always volunteer to send Ravelers left overs if I have something they need, but I am not selling my Alice Starmore Hebridean or my Wollmeise lace weight. I am actually considering downloading my stash to an excel file and removing it from Ravelry. I don't like having to say no, and constantly explain why I cannot send someone that "impossible to find in the same dye lot" skein they are searching for.

What would be great is if I could make my stash non-public, that would be perfect. Then I could continue to use it on Ravelry with all of the links. That may be selfish, but I listed my stash for me to scroll through when planning a project and keep track of colorways and such. I don't know, I guess I am feeling a little harassed, Ravelry has gotten so big now and there are so many members, that the number of requests has grown with it.

Past Due

Wow my projects were really out of date, books too. I spun two fibers and read three books that never made it to the side bar. Lets start with what's on my needles.

I am about to start the sleeves of Cobblestone. The yarn is Malabrigo Worsted in Emerald Blue.

Lots of socks.

Pair #1 Happy Choice in colorway #6, very weird to be unraveling yarn from what looks like a scarf to knit a pair of socks. Lots of curl in the yarn but no problem knitting with it and the sock is extremely soft and cushy.

Pair #2 Lana Grossa Solo in colorway #5208. I love the fabric and the slow color shift but the yarn is very splitty, doing the ribbing and the heel flap was a pain. Project bag: Blue Baseballs from Piddleloop etsy store.

Pair # 3 is the beginning of the Hermione's Everyday Sock in 3am Enchantments' one of a kind colorway The One Eric Dyed. I love this yarn so much. However, I am going to have to frog this sock. The pattern calls for a size US 1/2.25mm needle and 400 yards of sock yarn. The sock is too small and I need to go up to at least a US 2 needle for this yarn. So I don't have enough of this yarn to knit these socks. Not a problem of course because I have a gazillion sock yarns in my collection. Project Bag: 3am Enchantments Route 66 bag.

Pair #4 Opal Rainforest Collection 6 in the Lord Marlon colorway. Plain stockinette socks, nice and squishy and knitting up superfast in all their self-patterning glory. Project Bag: Piddleloop retro Snoopy bag.

Next - what I am spinning. I cannot say "what's on the wheel" anymore because my Hansen electronic Mini Spinner does not have a wheel. I have named her Cherry by the way, thanks Lemonhalf for helping me pick a name.

First is the Bermuda Triangle from Wild Hare Fibers that I am currently spinning. It is a 4 oz bfl bump. So pretty.


Second is The Painted Tiger 100 % Corriedale top 8 0zs in the colorway Japanese Maple. I spun and 2 plyed it for a total of 472 yards. It is a fingering weight. I want to knit a shawl out of the yarn. The hank is currently hanging in the shower to dry. I will probably post another picture of it all skeined up.

Last my Dyeing Arts Goblin Seas duo which was 4 oz of superwash merino. I 2 plyed it for a total of 254 yards. It is destined to be a pair of socks for Mom.
I cast off the Mystic Desire inspired shawlette I created when I had pattern fail on the Mystic Desire KAL pattern. I also finished the Clapotis I knit for Jane's birthday present; it came out gorgeous. I used Interlacement Tiny Toes again, colors #203 and #209 - I really wish this yarn was still available. The colors are so wonderful.

Brief Update

Surgery went well, they removed a tumor and several fibroids 4 x 6 inches in size and a few other things. I got home last Friday 8/13, and things are progressing. I go in to have the sutures removed today 8/19. The body wrap bandage they put on after surgery removed my skin in several places, that is the only real healing problem right now. I am using New Skin liquid bandages to keep the areas covered and prevent infection.

I started the Cobblestone sweater in the Emerald Blue colorway.



I started Jane's Birthday Clapotis in Interlacement Tiny Toes #209 and #201. I am on section 3, the straight section.


I also started a pair of plain stockinette socks in the Happy Choices Color 6. Some nights I feel up to knitting, but mostly I don't. Very disappointing, I visualized lots of knitting on my time off. Charts are completely out of the question I cannot bend over or keep them positioned in a way that is easy to move the post-it tape or a ruler.

My Hansen Mini Spinner arrived yesterday, I am totally thrilled. It's so beautiful. Mine is number #318. I am hoping I feel up to giving it a spin this weekend.

Checking In

I have been away from the blog for too long. Posting daily for Tour de Fleece was time consuming and draining. I did spin 28 ounces of fiber which was way more than planned. Then I had to ply it. I ended up with 640 yards of handspun from the two 8 oz braids and 224 yards from each of the 4 oz bumps. I am pleased with that. I have no plans for the yarn, I am just trying to learn how to spin and get familiar with my wheel.

I have had some real frustration with my spinning wheel, the con rod on the right treadle broke on Saturday. The squeaking had returned to the left treadle too. I am really tired of taking it apart and fixing things, so I stuck it under the craft table. I was trying to spin as much as possible until surgery because I will not be able to treadle again until Dec at least. I really think this is an inordinate amount of problems for a spinning wheel that is only 2 months in use. I wouldn't recommend this model to anyone, it is hard enough learning to spin without having to constantly work on the spinning wheel itself. I ordered an electronic spinning wheel - the Hansen Mini Spinner, no treadles to deal with. It should come the week after I get out of the hospital.

I have also been plurking quite a bit. So that's where I have been. I will probably be blogging much more when I am on medical leave. I know I will be knitting and reading more.

Tour de Fleece Finis

TOUR DE FLEECE 2010
Rookies 2010 and Team KnitGirllls

My Tour de Fleece accomplishments. A GRAND TOTAL OF 28 Ounces of fiber spun.

I spun the DyakCraft Batt in colorway #101 Striped and knit a One Row Handspun Scarf. 4 ozs of fingering weight.

Next I spun the Gale's Art Fibers Merino Silk blend in the colorway Proud Peacock 4 ozs. I got around 200 yards of sport weight 2 ply yarn.

For the Challenge Day I spun the Purple 70/30 Merino Tencel from Ashland Bay. I have two bobbins packed with singles which I will ply with Zephyr lace weight some time today. 4 ozs and it's currently a fingering weight.

Lastly I spun two 8 ozs 100% Corriedale tops from The Painted Tiger. The light green colorway is Seascape and the blues are Blue Lagoon. I 2 plied the two colors together for a worsted weight. So far 2 bobbins of each have yielded 172 yards. The rest will be plied later today.

My goal was just the first two bumps for a total of 8 ozs. I exceeded my goal by a whopping 20 ozs. Yay me!!!

I learned how to long draft on the wheel, change flyers, and ply. I had a fantastic Tour de Fleece.