Why not?

I appear to be in a knitting conundrum. I have lots I'd like to knit, but I have several things I *should* knit. One of them a baby sweater for a baby due any day by the cousin-in-law. I have the yarn, I have the pattern - Baby Surprise Jacket, that I've never knit. Pretty yarn too. So why am I not knitting?

With the cold I've had the last week, I could blame it on excessive napping, and foggy brain. I really hadn't been knitting much before the cold though, not like normal. The cold is just down to a stuffy head, some late night coughing and a HUGE cold sore on my upper lip.

I don't think I've done a lot of knitting though since Nessa. Depression, then getting Leeloo and having a small puppy to keep an eye on. Leeloo though is now eight months old and lets me do things more often. I'm way behind on what I wanted to knit for people for Christmas gifts. So I'm trying to remind myself I can let go of these expectations of myself and come up with other things.  Probably good to shake things up a bit. I can then start on the bin of projects in the new year.

I have been spinning though! I've spindle spun half of the World Wide Spin in Public samples and chain plied them. The other half I spun up over a couple evenings and then chain plied them at the first Portland Spinnerati meeting in its new location, Urban Fiber Arts. I've even come up with a plan for the samples, making up Barn Raising Quilt squares. The World Wide Spin in Public Samples:

In other spinning news I had been working on three two-ounce bundles of what I think are a 50/50 merino/silk blend that I had gotten with my wheel purchase from Morgaine of Carolina Homespun.  I have two more similar bundles to spin up, but they were just different enough in color that I didn't want to spin them together. I put each bundle on their own bobbin and then took a few days to ply them together. I opted to use the bulky flier and more treadling rather than trying to force them all on to one of the four ounce bobbins.

So I ended up with 953 yards of three-ply lace weight yarn. I think I'm going to do the Torreyana Shawl with the yarn. I may need to find some pretty lavender beads to go along. I think there's another Gem Faire next month to help out with that.

I did end up with twenty yards of leftover single. Picked up a drop spindle and two plied it for a little over ten yards to play with.