Hats and cables

I am having a current love affair with cables and hats. I love them! The majority of the hats that I gave as gifts this year were cabled hats. (Which reminds me that I still need to post some photos now that Christmas is done). I just went through Ravelry and queued a bunch of cabled hats.

Seriously, if I'm gonna be making a pair of socks a month and at least one washcloth a month and filling up the other time with the stole, where am I gonna find time to make these hats?

I just need to budget my time better *sigh*.

A Christmas FO ~ Chunky cabled hat

I know the picture isn't the greatest. But I wanted to share this cause it knit up *really* quick, certainly no more than 4 hours. But I wasn't timing it. It is child-sized. Going to try it on DS tomorrow. I got the pattern here. I used wool ease thick and quick. Pine color or something along those lines. Still have plenty of yarn. Definitaly enough for one more hat. Who knows, maybe two.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

I'm still waiting for DS to wake up and see what Santa brought him. Nothing to big, just some board games and a stocking full of goodies.

I woke up this morning to sub zero temperatures again. It's supposed to reach a high in the upper teens. I will believe it when I see it.

Today the plan is to go over to SIL and BIL's house to go sledding. If it's too cold I don't think we will be doing the sledding part. But it will be nice to visit, just the same.

I got an MP3 player from DH. *Disclosure* I've had it for a couple weeks.* Well, last night I figured out how to get videos on it. I was so happy I squeed.

I also got some great knitting books which give me more opportunities to buy more knitting supplies (darn :-) ). So I will be able to throw some more money at my LYS.

Oh, I hear DS is up.

Again, merry Christmas everyone. :-)

Progress ~ Serendipity

I figured I'd share a photo of the progress on the MS KAL 4 (Serendipity)

If you can see the measuring tape on the side you will see I have about 8 inches done. I'm about 7 rows or so into clue three. (Row 79 or 80)

Now that I'm sharing about Serendipity I guess I will also share that I'm having a bit of a hard time with it. I count the stitches when I finish a row. I *very* carefully make the stitches on the right side. Count the stitches, purl on the other side, count the stitches and go back to the right side and then have an extra stitch somewhere. *This* confounds me. I usually end up doing a K2tog but it does not happen too often.

If anyone else has that problem, please let me know that I'm not alone!

So far I've been flying without a lifeline. This amazes me as well. Especially considering all the problems I had with Seascape. Lifelines saved me some grief there.

FO alert! Seascape stole

Can you believe it?! I finished my Seascape stole yesterday right before going to an open house Christmas party.


I'd say that it was Wednesday I picked it up and felt my knitting mojo just go to town. I finished the last repeat and Thursday night and Friday I finished the ribbing part on the end.

*doing happy dance*

Now I can concentrate on the MS KAL4 stole. I don't think I've taken any photos of it yet, but only gotten as far as finishing clue 2 on one side. I printed out clue three the other night and am excited to start it up again. Specially now that I'm to a point where there is no beads. They slow me down something fierce.


In Christmas knitting news I've finished all that I'm gonna knit. I took photos for most of it and will eventually post them, lol. But I did have to get the word out that I finished Seascape. :-)

It's snowing!

With any luck, some will stick and it will be good snow for sledding tomorrow!


It hasn't added up to much yet~!



And just because:

CeeVee says: "Who cares if it's snowing out! I'm going back to sleep."

Happy Thanksgiving ... and some stuff

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. It's been kind of uneventful today. This morning it started snowing shortly after we woke up. I was hoping we would get enough snow to go sledding. No suck luck.

No knitting updates though :-)

We ate about 1ish. It was delish, as always. I don't cook any of the big family meals. That is something my MIL still does and she does a fabulous job of it. We are gearing up for shopping tomorrow, but now the game plan has changed a little bit. Now I'm not sure what the plan is. But rest assured I will probably be up early. I don't mind getting up early. It's how the other people act that bugs me. Last year it really bugged me, but I don't think I will let it get to me this year.

I thought I had a game plan on giftgiving this year. I think that's out the window too. But the plus to that is that instead of working on that stuff I can work on the MS KAL 4 shawl and the Seascape stole. Who knows, maybe I will get some spinning in. I haven't spun in ages.

I've seen that a lot of people are writing what they are thankful. I often thing about what I'm thankful for but I've never felt the need to write it down. It's more like a mental list I check everyday. Certainly I am grateful for everything I have and my health and the health of everyone I know. I feel better and more sure about things than I did even a month ago.

I've had this past week off. I've enjoyed it for the most part but I wish I had gotten more knitting time in. But I'm really glad to have got a break from work. Things have been a bit stressful there and lets leave it at that :-).

A FO and a couple of books

This week I decided to make An Unoriginal Hat, a pattern by the Yarn Harlot. Quick knit! I decided to do this for the transitional KAL in The Bunker group on Ravelry. I was going to make it for DH but ended up keeping it for myself. Naturally I have *one* mistake in it. It's my first cabling pattern. I enjoyed it for the most part and can definitaly see myself making another one. However, it is a bit snug. I made it on U.S. 10.5 DPNs and used Debbie Bliss cashmerino chunky. Oh it is so soft! I know she said that to make it bigger use bigger needles. Would that work?



I got "Dewey" the library cat book from the library this week. I haven't had a chance to really get into it. I've read the first chapter. I can't wait to finish it though.

I have also started listening to "Twilight." I'm on chapter 9; end of disc four on the audio books. I'm waiting for something *big* to happen in this book. So far the main guy has rescued the girl twice and confessed to an ability. *sigh* The book is very descriptive though. And the main guy is sooooo beautiful, lol. My boss is already tired of hearing me mumble about this book and I just started listening to it yesterday.

I'm still working on the Seascape stole. I'm about halfway through the last repeat.

Progress ~ Seascape stole

Okay, there's a little bit of drama to this project. I was going full tilt on this when I realized that I had messed something up. I set it down cause I didn't have the brain power to think on it. When things cooled down I went back to it and realized that I had no clue where I was in the repeat. I fretted. I put it back down. I worked on something else. I picked it up, ripped it back a bit. Set it down. Pondered what I should do. I didn't want to rip it all the way back, especially once I realized had more than half of it done.

I figured "I can do this." So I sat down for a couple hours with it one night last week and worked it all out. And I did it! I figured out where I was in the pattern. Once I finished the 4th repeat I stuck a lifeline in there and haven't looked back.

I am now on row 15 of the 5th repeat. This project has been a treat for sure. I kind of wish now I hadn't made it in acrylic yarn, but it makes it easier for me to give as a gift since I know someone can wash it and not shrink it or ruin it.


Here is a horribly exposed image that shows the detail of the design. I was looking at the designers patterns on Ravelry and he has designed some really gorgeous stuff. His Web site is here.

FO ~ Bellatrix socks

One of my dear friends asked me to make her a pair of socks. She chose Bellatrix socks. It took me a lot longer than I anticipated but my friend was a good sport about the whole thing. She's an artist so she knows good things take time.


I was a good girl and I swatched for gauge first. I got gauge on the bigger U.S. 1 DPN's

The drop stitch took me a little bit to get. Since I have never done a pattern on two circs the pattern "recipe" kind of stumped me. But I made some adjustments and made it work. Now that I feel comfortable doing that to a pattern there are a few things I would do differently next time to a pattern that is not set up for DPN's. Oh process of learning :-)



I used trekking xxl sock yarn UPC# 172927. I had the ball band stashed away. DS got into my knitting stuff and now I can't find it. You can find this at Webs.

Yikes it's November

Where is the time going? As I sit here it's foggy outside and supposed to rain. Most of the leaves have fallen off the trees and any nice day I try to get out with DS and enjoy it.

No snow yet, thankfully. I'm not ready for that.

A lot of stuff has gone on. Work stuff I should say. But in the end it's the same.

Home life is still great.

I'm still plodding along on the same few things. I'm making a list for Christmas knitting. Hopefully will get it all done. :-)

Wow, it's been a while ...

I haven't been too busy, but then I've been trying to ease back a little bit. You ever notice how when one area in your life is in chaos stuff you never expected to be bothered by it is? That has been my knitting for the last little while. I tried making socks, can't do it, I tried working on the stole, couldn't do it, tried making a hat ... well, you get it.

So I started playing around with dye (as you can see from my last few posts) It's not quite mindless but it keeps me playing with the yarn. And since I couldn't knit without making mistakes or getting frustrated I figured this was a safe way to still be "touching" the yarn.

Well, I've been thrilled how the yarn came out. I ordered some bare yarn and dyed it for Mystery Stole KAL 4. I liked how the blue came out in the sock yarn so I did it for the laceweight.



I am so in love with how it turned out. I was so not in love with how long it took to wind, lol.

Last weekend I picked the needles up again and made a feather and fan dishcloth. I did it! No mistakes. So then I picked up my Seascape stole again. I rocked through the rest of the repeat. I went long distances between my lifelines. Course I had to mess up somewhere in the last two rows, but we are just not gonna go there.

Here's a picture of it from earlier this week. I have progressed much farther than this.




Suffice to say, my knitting muse is back. Just in time for me to get ready for MS KAL 4 :-) Now I just got to muster the energy to wind up the second skein. :-)

*Eye Candy*

It turned out *gorgeous*!

Such a mixture of blues even thought I moved the yarn around a bit in the cooker to get the dye to cover evenly. Well, as even as you can get while over dyeing something.

It's got to be the water :-)

Redyeing skein of yarn

I decided to overdye the skein of yarn I did yesterday.

I just wasn't real thrilled with the "dullness" of the colors on it.

It's almost done now. Gonna unplug the slow cooker in a little bit so it can cool down.


It looks promising, doesn't it? :-)

I can't wait to see it out of the pot.

*caution* I have dyed again

I used food dyes this time. Not really sure how I feel about how light they seem to have come out since I seen how bright the yellow jaquard dye came out.




I used green, blue and mixed up orange. It's currently drying. Kind of makes me think of soft muted water colors.

Any input or suggestions is appreciated. I do think I'm gonna order the twisted sisters book on dyeing. Don't remember what it's called though.

An early August update

Haven't been doing much of anything. Can't knit worth a darn it seems. I've stalled on the seascape stole, tried starting the Bellatrix socks, and tried making a simple knit hat for DS. Keep making mistakes that I have to rip back. I guess I should be focusing my energies somewhere else for a bit.

I did dye my first skein of yarn. I think it may be destined to be a pair of nanner's socks.

Home life is good. Workwise we are just waiting to hear when we are supposed to be moved to the lower level. It's the waiting that gets to me.

Personally, I'm starting to feel better. Still don't feel quite "in tune". But at least I'm sleeping better.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to get DS to see some trains at the Railroad depot in the town over. I know he will just flip for that. Haven't decided to go on a train right or not. Will depend on the weather I guess.

I joined the Mystery Stole KAL 4. I already ordered some knitpicks yarn and beads for it. I'm super excited about this and hope it gets me out of my funk.

And because I like to punish myself I also joined SOTS-III. I had joined two but never got anywhere with it cause I didn't have the right kind of yarn.

So I had better update my blog buttons :-)

*I* have dyed yarn!

Bask in the glory that is my first skein.



It's like holding a ball of sunshine in your hands.

Seriously, I don't know how I managed to get such a bright, vivid, warm color.

The chair is finally done

Okay, so like 6+ years ago I started taking an upholstery class. Found a really nice chair at a rummage sale that was old and ratty looking. In other words, perfect :-). Then Wendy's (place of work at the time) decided that they had to make me close the nights I had the class. :-/. Here's some more background info on this poor chair

Then life intervened and here we are 6 years later. Well, last night DH helped me put the last of the nails on it and this a.m. I put the finishing stain on it. It's DONE!

Aaannnd, it's gonna go in my new office. Did I tell ya that this was an "office chair". What is cool about it is that it was sold at business office supply store in Duluth, Minn. It has a solid oak frame on it. It's really a nice chair and now that I'm finished with it, it's *perfect*

So, one more thing to cross off of my 101 in 1001 list.

Tour de Fleece

I had been spinning each day that I was supposed. I guess I didn't really "get" the rules of TDF. I didn't know I had to set goals, just that I had to spin each day. Well I did that. I've managed to get better at my spinning. I need to work on my plying. I tried plying yarn I spun during TDF and it was horrible. I didn't even do the whole thing. ...

But I'm going to end TDF early so I can focus on home and stuff. But it was fun while I was doing it. I can't wait to do it again next year. Hopefully I will be able to ply and spin even faster than I did this year.

taking a breather

I've decided to take a breather from everything that is not work and home.

So for the next few weeks I will not be on plurk that much or on ravelry. Probably won't be doing any spinning or knitting or posting as much. Everything else that is fiber-related that I wanted to do will have to be put on hold too. There are a couple things that I'm involved in online and I will continue to be involved in those -- just not as intensely.

Guess what I did today?

We went picking strawberries at a farm about 30 miles away. I don't know if $8 for 5 quarts is a good deal or not but we had a blast all the same. DS proclaimed to everyone that walked past us that he could eat all he wanted. Just slightly embarrassing, but he did eventually stop saying it.

DS gorged himself on berries and let out a few little belches and was "mmmmmming" almost the whole time. It was kind of like the bunny on the 7 UP commercial.

When we got home we almost immediately made strawberry shakes. There is something so yummy about making shakes with fresh, ripe berries. YUM!

Then the inner farmgirl in me decided to come out and play. I canned 4 pints of strawberry jam.

Aren't they pretty?

4 pints called for 5 cups of strawberries and 7 cups of sugar! Wow, that's a lot of sugar. I am curious why freezer jam doesn't seem to call for as much strawberries and sugar. The only thing I didn't do was skim the foam. But MIL told me that was purely for aesthetic reasons.



This is the first time I've ever canned anything or made jam or jelly. Was much easier than I thought it would be. I would definitely do this again next year though. We have about 2.5 quarts of strawberries left. I don't imagine we will have any leftovers though. This is usually time time of year we go gung ho on the strawberry shakes.

Seascape update

I have finished chart A of Seascape. It's all clicked and I seem to be cruising pretty quickly now.

Not sure how much I will accomplish this weekend. Got a new project to get started. One of my friends asked me to knit her up bellatrix socks. (ravelry link) Which I am happy to do. :-) I need to swatch a bit since it seems it's a bit tricky to get guage on this pattern. Plus I will be doing it on DPN's instead of two circs. Oh and it's gonna be this colorway or something similar if I decided to dye my own yarn.

Work news

Well, I got a shock this afternoon. I'm still kind of mulling it over. I'm getting my own office. For the last 5 years I've shared an office with the staff writer. However, I no longer have an office on the main level. It will be down in the basement.

I've never had my own office before and to be moved to an office that doesn't have windows is a bit much for me at the moment. What a way to end the week huh?

Meanwhile I keep trying to come up with positives to having my own office. And, of course, being moved is much better than losing my job. It's just that I'm not up for this particular change. I'm not gonna have an office mate anymore and that's gonna take some getting used to. In a way, this reminds me of the seinfield episode where George had to keep showing up to work because of his contract and his work kept making things more difficult for him and they ultimately moved him to an office supply closet. ... But we aren't the only office that's gonna be moved. ... but I don't know of anyone else who is being moved to the basement.

A quick check in

Well, I have no pictures but felt I should do a quick check in.

I'm currently working on Seascape from knitty.com. I have been working on this since last weekend and I gotta say I haven't progressed very far. It finally clicked this weekend and I finished the first part of the pattern. I am enjoying the pattern and discovered a Knit-a-long over on ravelry. Cool! I'm learning a couple of new stitches for it. Thank goodness for knittinghelp.com.

And I'm using some of my new options needles for this project. Oh, OH OOOOH, I love these needles. It is *so* nice to not have to fight with my needles. I bought the steel tip options rather than the harmony's. But I did get the harmony DPNs. Still haven't had a chance to try those out though.

I've also been spinning a little bit each night for Tour de Fleece. I still haven't finished a bobbins worth of my bluebell colonial top though. But that's okay cause I'm still working on making a more even yarn. I'm getting better at drafting though. It's nice not to have to draft a bunch before hand. Practice, practice, practice.

Finally, happy mail day!

Yes, it might not be much, but I finally got the interchangeable needles and the DPN's :-)

And 3 skeins of lace weight yarn and a dye kit.

Oh and a ball winder. O Mine gorsh does the ball winder work slick. Can you tell I haven't used one before? lol I used it to wind up some acryllic I'm using for a project. Oh is that nice!

This is my first *big* order of knitting stuff. The most I've gotten so far has been some fiber from Annie May on ebay. 2 lbs of fiber. :-)

Yeah, you might not be hearing from me for a bit. :-) My mind is just boggled. tee hee.

Bobbins for the spinning wheel

My neighbor made me a couple of bobbins. :-) I was so excited when he offered. Now I have three and can actually ply singles once I have more than one single ready to go, lol.

I bet you can't tell which is the new one :-)

New pretty thing :-)

It's an abbacus-style row counter bracelet. I figured out how to make one. Oh it makes such a pretty bracelet though. All the beads are from my birthday beads. It was so much fun making something that incorporated them. Well, other than the stitch markers. Two of those I decided to make into bracelets. Oh well, lol.

Hoping for a good mail day

Last month I ordered from Knitpicks for the first time. I can *not* wait. I ordered knitting needles. As soon as I get the DPN's I'm going to cast on Hedera's again. Since I've learned how to knit lace using other projects I can't wait to give them another try.

I also ordered some bare yarn and dye. Can't wait to play with that a bit too.

In the meantime here's a photo of my progress so far for Tour de Fleece.


See how even?!?!?!

Oh and here is a pic of the washcloth I did this weekend.

Just a wonderful little mindless thing I whipped together :-).

Happy Fourth of July weekend

I'm a bit late, but that's cause I've barely been online this weekend. I thought I would disconnect this weekend, but that's kind of hard to do when the computer is *right* there, lol.

For the most part it has been a super relaxing weekend. I had loaded some pics up on flickr but then it told me I'm at my max of 200 photos. So now I either delete some stuff or pay. Well, I'm not about to pay, so I deleted some stuff, but I'm gonna think of something in the meantime cause I do want to be able to link my projects over to ravelry from there.

I made some stitch markers. For my birthday I got some beads from a friend.


Tour de Fleece started yesterday :-( I had so much going on that I completely spaced it. My wheel is "resting" right now. So I will have to fluff some stuff up and break out the drop spindle tonite. Got some pretty stuff from AnnieMay on ebay. Colonial top in raspberry and bluebell. The texture is much nicer than the other stuff I've been spinning.

Anywho, not much going on otherwise. Better go clean up so I can start fluffing fiber :-)

a quick update :-)

Life the last few days has been kind of busy. I've been spinning every night since I got the spinning wheel. We are still working some of the bugs out, but I can see already that my spinning is getting more even and consistant. :-) Makes me super happy.

And just in time, I made a little button-thingy for Team LimeNViolet for the Tour de Fleece.


However, over on ravelry, selkieb and jeanous80 made *beautiful* buttons. Go check them out here.


Anywho, here are some shots of my spun yarn so far:

A photo of my very first spun yarn off of the spinning wheel. I apologize for the quality of the photo. Didn't realize it was such a crummy image.


Lots of over twist in this first ball, lol.

Here's my second skein of yarn. :-)



Here's a close up. As you can see, already much less over twist.



Here's my third bobbin full :-) Doing better ...



I don't have any photos of the bobbin I have on right now. But I predrafted that even more and it's coming out *really*nice.

Oh and here's a shot of my homemade niddy noddy. $3 for the parts. Can't go wrong with that. :-)



And between all that I'm whipping up ideas for stitch markers and making little sewing things :-) Life is never dull in my house, lol.

I've been kind of at a loss as to my next knitting project since I finished the branching out scarf.

I messed around with the traveling vines pattern, but I think I've settled on the seascape stole from knitty.com

Farmgirl Project #1

Introduce Myself.

I know, I know. That’s a little anticlimactic. Here were are, talking about changing the world from our rocking chairs on our porches with a little pie, and I’m asking you to just talk about one of the subjects you know best — you.

Well, to know me is to love me, lol. And for those who know me are probably wondering "huh?"

Well, I'm a farmgirl now. Added that title to the many titles I have. :-)

My name is Marcy, I was born and raised in a city that is on the south shore of Lake Superior. I met my soulmate when I was 18. We've been together for 11 years.

Currently work at a catholic newspaper. Greatly enjoy my job. Even though now is a slightly tumultuous times for all newspapers. I can't imagine *not* working.

Had a baby boy in 2005 the center of my life. Well, him and my DH.

I have a cat named CeeVee (Cat Vicious).

I have many interests. About a year and a half ago I found knitting (there it was behind the couch, lol) . I am now getting into spinning, dying yarn and making stitch markers. I hope to have an etsy store open at some time this year.

I love to garden. But I have a pretty shady yard so I have to chose my plants carefully. I don't have much luck starting seeds indoors. I did successfully grow catnip indoors all winter. My cat loved me for it.

The farmgirl sisterhood greatly piques my interest because I love community and women getting together who have the same ideas. I do belong to a great online group of mom's. We are so close to each other that our group is now closed to new members. However, I don't know too many people who share the same interests as me in regards to living more sustainably and not so much out of a "box". I'd say that for the last 10 years it's been my dream to get a little plot of land and garden, have some farm animals. Although not necessarily having the animals for food. I apologize to chicken as I'm cutting it up.

And when I'm home I'm little miss domestic goddess. I truly adore taking care of hearth and home (however it goes).

So I guess that's a little bit of me in a nutshell. However, by this time next week it might be different. I sometimes feel like I'm constantly changing and seeing new facets of "who" I am. I am me, a kind-hearted person, a great friend, and sometimes I have my head in the clouds. :-)

Branching out ~ is done!

Yay!

My branching out scarf is done. :-) I finished it ahead of schedule too. But I tell ya, I got into a groove last night.

Still haven't decided if I'm gonna keep it or give as a gift. I think I may decide that closer to Christmas time.




I did forget to take of a picture of it in the "cat yak" stage, but I got on of it pinned and blocked and a close up.

Happy 100th!

Happy 100th post. O mine gorsh, has it really been 100 posts?

Considering I started this blog lil more than a year ago with absolutely no direction and idea as to what I was gonna put on here, I'm amazed that I hit 100 so soon.

It must be that I am beginning to get so comfortable with blogging. Or maybe it's because I found the knitting community and love the idea of sharing my projects and ideas. I have no idea who reads or if anyone reads it outside of my mom's group. LOL not even sure if anyone from there reads it on a regular basis.

Wow, 100, pretty neat. That means I'm blogging more than once a week. I thought that it would be especially hard to do even *that* much.

My little stamp on the internets.

I evidently have a problem ...

with spelling demonstration. What's up with that?

It's my birthday, make a mess ...

I woke up to dark, gloomy skys, a perfect morning for my birthday. It rains almost every year on my birthday. I figure it's cause I'm a cancer :-). Either that or I figure the world was weeping with joy.

I'll take either one.

Today also marks the anniversary of the Battle of the little bighorn. Or otherwise known as Custer's last stand. This is a big deal for me because I am part Indian (or Native American, if you want to be pc).

Last night I went to a spinning demonstartion and I love it. I had better luck with a single treadle wheel, then the double treadle wheel. But I feel that was because the person who used the double T before me twisted the fiber up so bad that I just never had a chance.

I also showed someone my drop spindling technique and I'm doing okay in that department :-) I now feel super prepared for Tour de Fleece :-)

I won a spinning wheel!

DH won a spinning wheel for me on ebay. I is super excited, lol. It's a vintage spinning wheel. I hope it works okay and stuff. I did this turbo-charged happy dance when I won. Under $100 with shipping. And the seller has 100% feedback. So I'm fairly confident that he/she isn't going to do anything to jeopardize their feeback.


Oh I can't wait til it comes and try it out. And if I love it, DH can make me more bobbins :-)

Well, happy Monday ... If I have to, lol.

Well, I ended up frogging DS's hat last night. Somehow I managed to pick up lots of extra stitches. Weird. I counted several times to make sure.

I'm still making slow progress on my scarf.

I'm also gonna have another project coming into the cue. All Iknow is that it will be a pair of socks. :-)

Was going to spin last night when I realized I don't have as much fiber as I thought. ... I want to keep what I have for tomorrow's demonstartions. Wouldn't wanna be like drew on Ice Road truckers and come unprepared :-) But I did buy some off of ebay last night. Don't remember from who though ... If it's good I will pimp them, of course. :-)

And because I'm a joiner I've joined plurk :-) TONS of fun.

And I also joined the Plurkette Hen circle.

Between all that and wanting a spinning wheel now, MIL said all I need now is a butter churn. :-) DH told the neighbor to keep an eye out cause I may decide I want to process my own fleece and one day a sheep may suddenly appear in my yard. I keep thinking, if it gets that bad, the sheep will get parked out at SIL's house. :-D Keeping her horses company.

I guess I must be feeling all is well in my world if I'm joining all this stuff and lusting after certain items. DS is potty training and is doing excellent. I'm managing to keep a decently cleaned house. I'm not letting house hold stuff pile up. Things are going okay at work. I guess everything is just coming together.

Spinning ...

Things have been going good knitting wise so I thought I would start up my spinning again.

Well, also this Tuesday a woman is coming to my LYS with a couple spinning wheels and is gonna do a demonstration. I'm really excited for it and cannot wait. Not only is this a chance for someone to guide me through my drop spindling and let me know if I'm doing it correctly, but I can try out a spinning wheel.

DH knows I kind of have an itch for a spinning wheel now so he's gonna start keeping an eye out. Meanwhile I should start studying up on what would be a good wheel for me.

I want a wheel that will spin a various range of thicknesses. I suppose sock to DK.

But I need to learn what all the different parts of a wheel are. I do know I want a treadle wheel. But don't know if a double treadle is better than a single treadle.

Oh there is so much to learn. But if I can get the hang of my drop spindle I know that will be able to tide me over for a while until I find a wheel.

So if anyone has any suggestions for a newbie wannabe wheel spinner please drop me a note :-)

With this all in mind I decided to joined the ravelry group "10 Minutes a day". I really want to spin more. I figured this is a great way to get a routine down.

I managed to spin for more than 10 minutes this evening while DS was awake and he didn't bother the fiber or the drop spindle. That made me super happy and I'm hoping I will be able to do it more while he's away rather than waiting til he's asleep.

Learn from your mistakes ...

Last night I tried overdyeing some dishcloth yarn using the hot pour method and a crock pot. I used the wilton food colors. I let it "cook" for a while, then shut it off and let it cool over night.

I woke up to find that the water had blue in it when last night it was almost clear. I tried rinsing the excess dye and to my horror, my loverly blues and lavendars turned to a rosie rougish color. :-(

I have found out since then that I should have used the wrong type of dye for the type of fiber I was using.

Live and learn ... but now I know and I have an excuse to buy some wool yarn and play around a bit since I have a pretty good idea of what I want now. Either that or buy some rit, but then I don't dare use my crockpot, lol.

Some updates

Here's an updated photo of my progress on the branching out scarf. It's around 21 inches long. I've been taking it one repeat at a time. I'm hoping to be done with it by the end of the month. Still haven't decided if I want to keep this or give as a gift.


When it came to this project lifelines were my best friend. :-)


I also started making DS a hat. It's just a simple rolled brim hat. I cast on 100 stitches on size U.S. 7 dpn. I do love how bright it is. It's Caron's simply soft acryllic, I think. :-)



I'm so glad to be able to finally show these off. One of my friends had a birthday recently and I suprised her with a little goodie bag. The blue bag I made, actually :-) And these stitch markers. I was so glad to hear that she loved them. Gives me a bit more confidence that I can put beads together and make pretty things :-).




Here's a close up, but the flash was still a bit bright.


This is fabric that I picked up this past weekend. It's to make a scrub top for my SIL. She is going to be graduating from Vet Tech school this fall. As far as I know she is kicking butt grade wise. I'm very proud of her cause she managed a very full schedule of school and working. Not an easy feat. :-). The picture doesn't do the color much justice. It's a very pretty lavendar background.

Tour de Fleece

I'm joining it! :-) Oh I'm excited. Don't have much fiber but I figure I probably have enough. Heck, if I can get through my small amount I will be happy.

Got my blog button, got the starting date written on my calendar (July 5), got my fiber, got my drop spindle, got my youtube video, lol. I think I'm set. :-)

Information on it can be found here.


Oooo, doing the happy dance :-)

Happy WWKIP day!

I did some knitting, but I don't know if it really qualifies. We went driving to look at a vehicle that is a few towns over. I was actually the passenger instead of the pilot. So I decided to start a plain hat for DS. So people driving past us seen me knitting. :-)

Things I've learned thanks to a washcloth, lol

When I first started Branching Out scarf I had lots of problems with it. But ever since completing the Lacy Diamond washcloth the scarf has been almost smooth sailing. It's amazing that working on that lacy diamond pattern has helped me so much with the scarf. Now my only worry is that I will have enough yarn.

Tee Hee~!

I'm up to it again, lol. But I don't dare say anything *just yet*

Oh I feel so good :-D

Another gift given ~ Lacy Diamond Washcloth

I gave my lacy diamond washcloth to the person who was leaving my work building. He came back to get some stuff.

I gotta say that the reaction when the gift was open totally made my day. :-) I was told "I can't use this to wash pots and pans" :-) So it's gonna be used in a way that it will be around for many years to come. Probably to hold something very important in his life.

So even though he won't ever see this, lol, Good bye Fr. GBB, you were a bright star in the diocese and you will be sorely missed.

Super secret project can now be shown ~ It's a blanket

June 8, 2008, was my cousin's baby shower. I gave her the super secret project. It's a blanket :-) She loved the blanket. Just one part is missing on it (the label). My coworker is embroidering that for me. When it's completed I will take a picture of it. I told cousin that next time she comes up she will need to bring the blanket and I will sew it on for her since she's not crafty-able, lol.

So, here goes :-)


Pattern is something I came up with on my own. It's not a basketweave pattern.

I am very happy to have it done and given. All said and done it was about 40 hours (can't remember if I mentioned this before.) But it was a "labor" of love. (Ha I crack myself up)

My first lil bag

Totally cute I think. Not sure what I'm gonna do with it. I know I should get a different colored ribbing on there. I used the tutorial from Yarnmonster's blog.

After going through that my mind is kind of brimming with possibilities for ways to make my own style of this. It was so nice to have something that was written out so nicely and clearly.