Category: General Page 45 of 49

As I said, I’m suffering from short attention span. Here’s a sampling of what I’ve been working on during the past couple of weeks.

Clockwise from the upper-left:

1. “designer yarn”: thick & thin, lightly spun hand painted merino, plied with finely spun silk (same colorway)
2. woven samples made with new Hazel Rose Looms. Pink square is kool-aid dyed wool (see KA Experiment #2). Brown is one ply llama and one ply wool.
3. glove/wrist warmer with the primary colored hand painted wool; handspun singles. I haven’t decided if these will be plain wrist warmers or fingerless gloves.
4. Hemingway. This is the little sweetheart that gave us a heart attack last week. Doesn’t he look adorable here? He’s doing much better now, thank you. Tons of energy and constantly in our faces to get lap time.
5. spinning samples of wool from Carolina Homespun, and knitted swatches. On the right is an eggplant merino/tencel blend. The grey brown are her special blend. Top of the middle piece is the same as the one on the left, all light brown wool. The bottom of the middle piece is the dark brown wool. The middle section of the middle piece (redundant, eh?) is one ply of each.
6. V-neck raglan of my own handspun (see bobbin. I’m thinking of edging this with commercial blank yarn.
7. Cul-de-sac. This has been stalled since I put it down in the Christmas knitting finishing marathon. I need to set aside some focus time to figure out where I left off.

Hopefully, I’ll find the wherewithal to finish these sometime this century.

Sorry I haven’t been able to post any pictures lately. I just haven’t had the day light hours to take any pictures. Not that I really had anything to show. I’ve only had the attention span to knit couple of rows here and there. I’m still working on the raglan, knitted top down, using my own handspun. I’ve also started a fingerless glove with the primary colored singles that used to be the Klein Bottle hat.

But I did notice that there’s a Rogue knit-a-long brewing at Amber’s. I haven’t been much for knit-a-longs, but this is one beautiful hoodie. I just love the way the cable is worked around the neckline. I may just end up signing up for it. But that will be right in the middle of the move (2nd one in 6 months — I’m going to shoot myself), and I’ll be at the Gig Harbor Winter Retreat in mid-February. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to have time to find the yarn. Although I’m thinking Cascade Paztaza would work well. I think I can get the right gauge if I change to size 8 needles. Although the Peruvian Collection Wool at Elann would be nice too. What’s everyone using for this sweater?

Oh! Look what Martin bought me! It’s the Quilt Weaver’s Set from Hazel Rose Looms in Australian Lacewood.

See? Attention span of a gnat.

Time sure flies when you are total self absorbed. We didn’t even realize that Thanksgiving was next week until we checked the calendar this weekend — and someone wanted to know what my scheduling looks like for next week. Huh? What’s so special about next week? Oh, Thanksgiving. Yikes! Thanksgiving!

I don’t know what we are going to do. All I know is that we are not heading back to Seattle for the weekend. Maybe a nice relaxing 4 day weekend with just the 2 of us.

Today is the day that we sever the last of our ties to Washington. The house sale closed today. No more mortagage payments (and simultaneous rent payments down here).

So, with the count down starting, I thought that I’d better get cracking on the Christmas list. The only person that I had presents picked out for is Ian. And on top of that, he requested a repeat of a Christmas present from 2 years ago – another pair of Fiber Trend’s felted slippers. In the two years, he has nearly worn them through. Last time we saw him, he kept harping on how much he loved them and how well they fitted.

But, that doesn’t count, does it? When someone requests something specific for a present, that is. Where’s the surprise in that? I’ll have to find something else.

I found the cutest item from Debbie Bliss Toy Knits. Right now, it’s in the “pelt” stage. I’m doing it blind. I did not read the pattern all the way through. I have no idea where I’m going, but it’s been fun seeing it unfold. Something different is happening on every row, so it’s definitely not mindless knitting. You have to follow the pattern line by line. So far, I’m intrigued and thinking that I just may have to do a few more of these lovely toys. Perhaps a snuggly teddy bear or a sheep.

I’m using Baby Ull from Dalegarn (what lovely, beautiful and soft yarn!) for this toy (no word on what it is for now, it’ll be a surprise when I get closer to finishing it).

I put up a freeze dried indigo dye bath this weekend. I wanted to overdye some yarn that I dyed and spun up last year for Martin to be knitted into a pair of Duck Socks. But the color was way too obnoxious for me to look at for very long. So, I’m aiming for some more soothing blues and greens. We’ll see.