I am in love!!

With my new shoes!



See the beautiful sockage! Whenever I look down, there they are!

In other news, I would have a photo of the yarn I sent to my S2K pal, but the photos were all TERRIBLE. Seriously. Of course, I forgot and tried to take them in the car outside the post office so what did I expect?

Rogue is progressing, about 2/3 finished with the hood. I'm now very eager to finish by the time Sock Madness starts so I can concentrate for the first round. After that, I will have already lost and it won't matter what I'm knitting.

I feel a tremendous desire to 1) start something new, and 2) knit something mindless that is not 10 spi. I'm resisting (mostly), although I did start a garter stitch scarf the other night out of some seriously bizarre handspun thick and thin yarn. Haven't touched it again so far... I should also do the other Wine and Roses mitt but, again, watching charts is not my favorite right now, plus I have to watch charts for Rogue.

Hope you're having a lovely day!

Yes, it is.

What Christy said.

Give me my country back.

Calling Shelly Kang!

Hey, Shelly, I can't comment to your post because I can't get the verification box to show me anything, but I would love to get together for a yarn crawl in the L.A. area over Mother's Day weekend! If you read here, please email me!

I have been lurking on the blog but unable to comment...

If you're not Shelly, sorry for the personal post!

More FO's!

I am trying not to post a rant (already written) about my church choir director, quite long, probably only interesting to ME. So instead...

More finished knits!

If you were following the progress on the sweater for my DFIL, it was finished in time. It is too big, but I knew it would be about 2/3 of the way through. At that point it was too late to start over (my swatch LIED!) and so it has a LOT of ease. He has, however, worn it and is probably wearing it more now, as it was too warm for January in PA but now real winter has come.



Pattern: Watch Hill Button Down, Knitting the New Classics, designed by Cathy Payson
Yarn: Plymouth Encore in Sage
Started: September 1, 2006, finished December 28, 2006

My FIL gave me the pattern book so it was a little nicer because of that.

Next FO is my second pair of Harlequin Felted Slippers by Dawn Brocco from Heels and Toes Gazette (now sadly defunct, but I think you can purchase back issues). I really enjoyed this publication, although I think she ran out of time a couple of issues before she stopped as the patterns did not appeal to me there at the end.



My first pair of these was out of my own handspun, roving dyed by Interlacements, but they wore out. This pair is from Noro Kureyon that I got in a blogger's destashing. She also sent some other yarn that will make it out of the stash for a vest someday, but these colors were too happy not to knit up right away.

And finally, another picture of the Crown Mountain Farms experiment socks on actual feet. I love these more and more! They are happy, colorful and cushy. I hope they don't wear out right away, but purposely made them easy to reheel and toe.



In spinning news, I will be teaching Beginning Spindling at my LYS, Unwind here in Burbank on March 25 and April 1. Let me know if you'd like to attend! It's two, two hour sessions; they supply the spindles and wool. I will also give students a chance to try out my Lendrum folding wheel. I'm very excited about this! Wish me luck!

And have a lovely day!

Wow, that's a lot more traffic!

Pictures sure do help the sitemeter!

Thanks for all the comments on the socks! One or two were rather...cryptic...maybe they're not your type of socks. But no one has to wear them but me, so it's okay if they're not your thing. I don't mind!

Anyway, after much hemming and hawing, and actually deciding not to, I signed up for Sock Madness. Go see! I'm too slow and don't have enough time to keep up and won't have enough time to beat some fast knitter with no work obligations and no kids at home, but since the spaces weren't taken right away, I figured I wasn't really taking someone else's spot. And it's a good excuse to use up some of my commercial sock yarn stash, right? Then I can buy more...

However, my socks out of my Spin-to-Knit pal's beautiful yarn progress slowly (at 10 spi):



Handspun yarn often looks thicker than it knits up and this is no exception. Glad I started them on 0's!

Rogue has progressed to about 1/4 of the way up the hood. I took Maia's advice and did the picking up of stitches over again, picking up as many as I thought looked right and decreasing away the extras in the next row. It looks SO much better!

As soon as the hood is done it is on to Sleeve Island. I will probably do them both at the same time (endless but at least you only have to do it once) and I think I will probably manage to finish the sweater by the middle of next month. Oh, except for the sock contest! So perhaps not. Depends on how quickly I lose, I guess.

I leave you with my current spinning:


Leaf Peep wool roving dyed by Spunky Eclectic for the Spunky Fiber Club, waiting to be plied into sock yarn


Silk/Merino singles to be plied into 2-ply laceweight for a Fiber Trends Spinner's Shawl (possibly for the Fair this year). I'm enjoying this lace spinning and the colors are if anything brighter than they appear.

Have a lovely day and thanks so much for visiting!

First of Many Picture Heavy Posts!!

I went outside and photographed my FO's and such today and will be posting them a little at a time. But I wanted to get my update out on my spinning experiment socks for the Twisted Knitters Dye-Spin-Knitalong from superwash merino from Crown Mountain Farms first.

These socks are so lovely (to me, anyway), soft, squishy, colorful. They go with my palette of clothes or with neutrals. I really love them and their high degree of, shall we say, spontaneity! So without further ado...



The yarns were spun from the same combinations of rovings in the same order, same weight of fiber. But in two different techniques, one from the fold, the other from the end of the roving. The from the fold yarn gave less yardage and was somewhat more lofty. Each color section is shorter than on the other sock. They don't feel different on the feet, though.

Here are pictures of the individual socks with the plies marked as they knitted up. First, from the fold:



The colors blended together more in the spinning, since the whole length of the staple was being spun at the same time. I like this yarn and would use this if I wanted a little more color blending rather than a tweedy look.

And from the end:



As you can see, I got more color differentiation, longer stretches of one thing at a time, more stripiness. Also a tweedier rather than a mixed together look. And again, more yardage here.

It was a really fun experiment and I plan to do it again, but this time not worrying about hue so much but trying to play with value. I think I would like to do something that goes through a value progression of some kind, maybe even back and forth.

The really fun part of this project was spinning the two sets of singles in order as I wanted them to ply. I know that this led to more fraternal socks, since the lengths of the singles were not controlled, but it was great fun to watch the colors flow through my hands and change so often. I never got bored (like I get bored spinning)!

Anyway, thanks to Margene for inspiring all of us to new challenges and great thanks also to Teyani at Crown Mountain for the lovely materials! NAYY, just a happy customer. I can't wait to see more of everyone's finished objects!

UPDATED!!! I may very well literally fall over

UPDATE: I was wrong!! The chocolate covered almonds were the camera!! Thank goodness DH opened it up to have some. We could easily have waited a while!!

So ikkinlala, you are our winner! Leave your email in the comments and I will get in touch with you for your snail mail address so I can get your prize out to you RIGHT AFTER I TAKE A PICTURE OF IT!!!

Today we received a lovely, large, heavy package from the in-laws. It was filled with birthday gifts, Christmas gifts we hadn't even seen, my gorgeous boxed set of the Complete Far Side, peanuts and chocolate covered almonds.

And no camera.

I am remaining in a state of gratitude. But apologies go out to ikkinlala who guessed today and whom I almost informed of her good fortune.

However, today was the last day anyone guessed. I will put all of your names into a hat!

In Rogue news, I spent over an hour yesterday picking up (over and over again) the stitches for the hood. I couldn't get the right count for ever so long. And then I still had one extra stitch on the holder on one side. So I fudged it. Yes, I did. I'm not sorry (unless it looks crappy, and then I will rip it out and do it over again). Progress will be made tonight during "24" and "Studio 60."

Oh, and if anyone remembers that I was upset a few days back, I'm feeling loads better and have decided to forgive. The benefit of the doubt has been lost forever by this individual and vague answers will not be tolerated in the future. But I think it has gone on long enough (for me). I cannot let unkind and thoughtless people steal my joy and that's that.

Have a lovely!

No Camera So Far

DH is speculating on asking my FIL to check on when it might be mailed...I feel bad asking about it because my SIL's father is very ill and I don't want to add to her burden of worry plus driving plus busy busy teenage sons, etc.

I have bound off all shoulders on Rogue. I even sewed up one shoulder seam last night and put it on as is. But I undid the seam as it looked like CRAP. I will try again today. Then it seems I am on to the hood. Now if only I knew where the rest of the yarn is...I'm assuming it's in the sweater yarn bin in the garage but haven't been able to go out there since I banished the houseguest from the living room. Which is a good thing. He's very lovely and unassuming, difficult to irritate. But ubiquitous. If you have children, you know how difficult it is to get any time where you are truly ALONE. No one sleeping in another room, even. Just ALONE. Enter houseguest. Sets up office in living room. Oh, dearie me. Anyway, I think that phase has ended.

I have spun the yarn for my S2K pal for February. Dyed some baby alpaca roving in blue, purple, dull magenta and it is heaven! So soft, so silky! I hope she likes it! I'm also going to send along some Spunky Eclectic roving that is pretty much my least favorite colorway (no fault of Amie's). But it fits in with her colors. I am still in my orange phase, it seems, and bought a bunch of orange and red yarns at Unwind's sale last weekend.

Now, a question. I have 500 yards of Montera in purple, 127 yards of Montera in dark green, 3 skeins of Silk Garden in a colorway that will go with the purple, and 400 yards of Cascada Pastaza (same fiber content as the Montera) in bright orange. I am rather obsessing trying to find a pattern that will make something nice with the purple and the Silk Garden and just don't seem to have enough yarn for anything. I know lots of patterns that will make smaller things, but is there such a thing as a sweater out of 800 yards of some striping, some solid yarns for a 36 inch bust? What is the deal with all shrug patterns taking so much yarn? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Have a lovely weekend!

No news is good news?

Teacher sent out corrected name list today, thanks, Miss D!!

Rogue has progressed a bit but I've been rather down and feeling too tired to knit. Translation, too depressed. But tonight is "24" and "Studio 60" and there's no [EXPLETIVE DELETED] way I won't be knitting!

Contest wise, Maia is out of the camera running as she guessed February 3. I wish! February 9th seems to be the consensus. If there are multiple guesses on the same day, we will draw from a hat.

My goal date has finally been chosen by someone for Rogue. Good luck if it's you! I have decided that finish will be called when I can put the sweater on and there are no ends to weave in. But I might not have washed it yet. You never know, I might just wear the thing as soon as I trim the last end. It's been YEARS since I knit a sweater for myself and this will be the first one that I like (I hope!).

I appreciate everyone's good vibes. Hopefully, the worst is over. I'm trying to get back into a spirit of gratitude and stop obsessing. My day has been better today.

Have a lovely!

Do we all have targets on our backs or something?

Man, somebody really hurt my feelings this week. Caused a confrontation and all kinds of stressful unpleasantness.

And now I find that my DD's name has been left off the class list for Valentine's Day. So what happens? She gets cards from the 2 or 3 kids who realize it? But otherwise nothing? That would be fun.

Anybody out there want to hurt DS? Or DH? Apparently we're asking for it.

CONTEST update!! (Join on in!)

I worked on Rogue yesterday. Had to do the beginning of the placket 5 (yes, 5) times before it worked. I needed girlfromauntie's special instructions for the double increase, but now it looks nice.

Currently, back is finished, front is 14 rows into Chart B, no sleevage yet.

You can still enter until...oh, I don't know. I'll cut it off sometime. Just want the comments!

Have a lovely day!

Silent Poetry Reading

This is the poem that has always expressed my love for my DH. I offer it here for the Silent Poetry Reading and in honor of the anniversary of the day we met...15 years ago, amazing!

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

e e cummings


If only I took better care of it...

[UPDATED] Update of sorts and CONTEST!!

No photos. Grr.

I finished the experiment socks yesterday and wore them last night, unwashed, unblocked, just had to put them on. They don't look as wild on the feet as they do off.

I cast on for socks with my S2K yarn. It is very fine at this point in the skein and I'm knitting on 0's, which is fine. I'll probably do Feather and Fan socks out of this yarn. Don't know why I'm doing toe up except then I don't have to worry about gauge for my stitch count; there's plenty of yarn (440+ yards!).

Also gifted my lacey mitts to J. Hope you were warm last night! I kind of planned to, but wanted to see if she liked them at all first. She seemed touched, I was pleased.

Now on to finish the black silk/alpaca mitts, work on the blue socks and...drum roll, please...Rogue.

I have a serious yen to be working on something larger, something cozy. This happens after a lot of socks go by. But that sweater is 2/3 done or so. If I buckle down, I could wear it by...CONTEST!!!

I will send sock yarn to the first person who guesses the correct date that I finish Rogue. Right now, she is at the bottom of the placket but I haven't done any sleeves. I would post a photo but AAARRRGGGHHH!

Give me some motivation! Help me shrink the stash!

Have a lovely day!

UPDATE: Based on Maia's suggestion in the comments, I offer MORE sock yarn to whomever can guess correctly when my camera will arrive!