The knitting doldrums

So the last several weeks I haven't had it in my to knit or spin. I did both but my heart was not in it. For a long time my two projects was the Adamas shawl and the vanilla sock. The vanilla sock is hardly anything to get excited about and when I made the mistakes on the Adamas shawl and had to frog I felt all my enthusiasm deflate.

Combined with the other stuff that is going on my life I decided to just set everything aside and decompress.

Well, it worked, I think. I've been enjoying all the stuff that we have been doing at our land. The garden is doing great. I took photos but they came out all blurry. But I have actual veggies growing. We've got peas, beans, little baby cukes and one tiny little tomato so far. DH and DS have been out hunting raspberries the last week or so. We thought we'd have to bring raspberry canes in and to our happy surprise there are raspberry canes all over the place. So the plan is to get some blueberry bushes and strawberry plants for next year.

So after decompressing I've felt pretty great the last few weeks. I gradually moved back into spinning and it's been great. Tour de Fleece has really helped with this.


The fiber is Gillyweed from theforbiddenwoolery on etsy. So far I've split it into thirds and I'm still working on the first third of the braid. I've been spinning at least 20 minutes most nights. It's been pretty great.

And I've started working on a shawl out of some acryllic yarn. The Simple, Yet Effective shawl.


This pattern has been exactly what I needed to give my knitting mojo a boost. It's mindless but not too mindless. I've been working on it since middle of last week.

When this shawl is done I think it may be an office shawl. ... Not completely decided yet. After this I suppose I should start thinking about any Christmas knitting that I may do this year.

Tour de Fleece and a mini update

A week ago or so I seen scuttlebutt about the Tour de Fleece coming up. I thought this was perfect since I want to get back to my spinning. So I got my spinning wheel back out and it is in my bedroom right now. I did some quick spinning Sunday night and oh it was heaven. I felt tension leave my body and there is something so soothing about the sounds of the wheel spinning and the foot treadles going.

A few of us over on the BB are going to do a spinalong together. Since we aren't competing against each other we are just setting some goals. Right now I'm trying to decide on personal goals. I have a braid of fiber that I bought a few years ago and I may just spin that OR try my hand at dyeing up some fiber and spin that.

In the knitting world I did start up Adamas but just frogged it again. I managed to make a boo boo on the first repeat and I don't know what I did. This past weekend I started up a vanilla sock again. I am going to keep that project in the background and work on it during the weekends we are out and about.

I have started jogging and I'm learning a ton about my breathing. Last night I went out jogging and I didn't feel like I was dying. I take that as a positive.

My son started summer school this week. So far he is loving it and I think it's a wonderful intro to the school that he will be going to for kindergarten.

Has it really been over a month?

Yikes! :-(

No knitting. That's right. I've done no knitting in almost a month. Cannot recall the last time I did any spinning.

The reason? DH and I bought 10 acres of woodsy goodness. Just about all our spare time is spent out there doing projects.

My Adamas shawl has an error in it. I decided I'm going to just frog it rather than try to stick a lifeline in after the fact.

The sock I'm working on will probably get frogged as well. I'm not real happy with how the ribbing came out when I did the heel gusset.

To be honest I have not been much in the mood for knitting. I have been having some pretty stressful times this last little bit. A lot of it has been work-related. When you work in the newspaper business this is perilous times. And while I probably need the relaxation that knitting gives you, I've been too tense to do any and my guage would probably be way off. I really should be spinning. I am contemplating setting my spinning wheel up in my room and after a certain time in the evening just go in there and start spinning. I've tried setting aside time for myself in the past but it hasn't worked out. I should just say to heck with it and make the time my own.

On the health front, I'm getting close to my peak weight. The work stress of early 2009 had turned me into a stress eater and I gained more than 10 pounds. So I'm now trying to manage my weight and lose it again. So far I think I'm doing all right but it's certainly not coming off as quickly as it did when I was on the Atkins program.

My son is all done with Headstart/Pre-K. The school year went by so fast. I marvel at how far he has come in the last school year. I tell people what he is capable of doing and they are quite impressed. It makes me nervous that he will be more advanced in the other kids in his class, so he will be come bored with school.

Playing catch up

Or as one of my friends would say, a state of the knitting.

Well, that fiber that I got at at the beginning of the month was spun up into 2 singles.



159 yards of yumminess. I got it from forbiddenwoolery. Not enough to do a pair of socks like I had hoped. I didn't figure the WPI for it either. I think I can make a cowl with the amount of yardage I have.


While we are on the topic of spinning. I have something to share:


This is about 28 yards of what I would call lace weight shetland yarn. Last year another SIL gave me a couple fleeces from one of her friends who has a few sheep. I took a bunch off of the fleece and processed it. Then spun it up on my wheel. No plans for it whatsoever but I sure felt a sense of accomplishment with it. Next year I think I'm going to get a drum carder.

I've also been working on the Adamas shawl in a KAL with my BBs.

Yarn is Knit Picks laceweight that I dyed myself.


A close up. Don't you love the varigation?

I'm also working on a couple of gift knits so I don't want to post about them yet.

I also have a sock on the needles. Just about ready to turn the heel on it.

I'm using this pair to figure out my very own vanilla sock pattern. First time I have taken the time to count the rows on the leg and the heel flap. But it has made things easier. I'm knitting the sock in a 2 x 2 rib. It's gonna be so snug! I'm debating on continue the ribbing through the foot.

I also knit a pair of worsted weight socks for my SIL for her bday. A pair of lovely purple socks in Berocco yarn. Alas, I forgot to take photos of them. But trust me, they were very nice :-).

Well, I guess that's about it for now. When I put it all down it sure seems like a lot has gone on the last month, but I feel like I haven't accomplished much.

The fever made me do it

A couple weeks ago (March 30 to be exact) I had a cold and all the fun stuff that goes with it, including a fever.

It was during this fever that I decided it was a good time to learn to crochet.

(Doesn't it look like Nebraska?)

Using some leftover dishcloth yarn I had I managed to figure out how to single and double crochet thanks to videos on Youtube and Lion Brand.

I have a crochet video at the library waiting to be picked up. Can't remember what it's called though.

Isn't if funny how you decide some things are so important that you have to do it *right now*?

Well, I haven't picked up my crochet hooks since. I have been on a bit of a spinning kick and I'm having daydreams of processing the fleece that is sitting in my garage. (Even though I don't have "proper tools" that's not stopping the daydreams)

Today was a good mail day

Today I got in the mail a braid of fiber from one of the ladies on my online knitting group.

L is very talented. I told her what I wanted and she created exactly what I had in my minds eye.

Since we started discussing the fiber around Valentine's day she called it "Funny Valentine"

The plan is to spin this into a pair of socks.

Knitting Olympics project done!

Ice Queen from knitty.com

Yarn was Schulana Kid-Seta by Skacel company. It is 70% mohair and 30% kidsilk haze.

I finished this item a few days before the closing ceremony.

This pattern was easy and not. I mixed up a couple things but it still turned out great. Basically I meant to use the chart that called for the lesser amount of beads. I started using chart B and didn't realize that I mixed up until I was halfway done. I needed to get a second ball of yarn. I was ready to bind off and I ran out of yarn. After a quick trip to the LYS I was able to finish.

But now I have an almost full ball of this yarn. I'm going to set it aside until I decide on a project. I may end up combining it with another yarn.

I've never used true laceweight on a finished project. It's my first finished pattern with beads. I did a successful picot edging. I've never done a provisional cast on before. I didn't get the cast on to "zipper" correctly. I ended up doing a lot of snipping and carefully placing the stitches. I didn't have the correct sized 16 inch circular needle for binding off. So I did it magic loop. I have never done that before.

I learned so many new techniques. I've very glad I did this pattern for my knitting olympic project.