Capture December

Rachel posted this as a challenge on Facebook and looking at the different things, I think I might be able to manage most, if not all, of the days. Anyone else want to join along?

I have been knitting!

I was chatting with Michele of PDXKnitterati about her newest scarf design and she asked if I'd like to test knit it. Since I would be using my own yarn, I said sure!

I was able to make some suggestions to make the pattern easier to read for a beginner knitter and I got a scarf that I'll be able to gift to someone this holiday season. A win-win! Plus, I get some test knit credit for it too. ;-)

Since that project went well, I thought I might be over my knitting slump and while in one of the Ravelry groups saw a suggestion for doing the BFF cowl in Oregon State University colors. I thought that might make a nice hostess gift for my cousin's wife. She's been hosting the HUGE family Thanksgiving since my Aunt Zoe Anne has had breast cancer.

Kristin is an elementary school teacher and a busy mom of three kids, so I did it out of a mystery orange acrylic I had gotten and some Lion's Brand Wool-Ease. I think it came out well and hopefully she likes it!

I was in the middle of working on the BFF when I commented on Larissa Brown's Litla shawl that she posted in FaceBook. One thing lead to another and I was soon test knitting for her the Litla shawl. Its one of the only times I can think of that I actually did a gauge swatch! I had to go up a needle size to get close to gauge and was still a little off, but I don't think its enough to affect the end shawl. ;-)

This too is planned as a gift. Anyone who is in the SCA with me could probably see the connection, but I'm not going to spell it all out here. Suffice to say that I was also able to help make the pattern easier to read and solved a math crunch at a critical point. ;-) I get another lovely finished item to give as a gift and Larissa's offered me another shawl pattern as a thank you.

Here's my Litla Shawl:

I'll need to make a little shawl pin to keep it closed, but that will be fun for me to do too!

With these three successes, I hope to do a slew of slippers, so look for those coming soon! I'm going to continue my success by re-visiting Michele's Thrumbelina slippers first. I might let Brandon drive so I can start these on our way down for Thanksgiving in Corvallis.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgivings surrounded by family and friends!

November Spinning

First I was spinning. I spun up some qiviut that Carina brought back with her from Alaska. She used to live there and so had a source for some inexpensive stuff. Less expensive because it still had the guard hairs in, but still nice to spin up:

One ounce on each bobbin

All plied up and ready for a nice soak

217.4 yards of lace to light fingering weight yarn just before dyeing

Carina was hoping for a teal and we kind of got a green, she's happy with that

Carina originally had planned to have me knit it up into a pair of fingerless gloves. Her husband thoughtfully pointed out how much wear and tear they would take on her hands and thought something around her neck might be better. I thought of a cowl/smoke ring idea and showed her Ice Queen and my Green Ice Queen. She loved that idea. We might now have enough yarn though so I'll have to see what I can do. Maybe go up a needle size and make it lacier?

While we were playing with the dye and over-dyeing dark yarn I brought along my pygora, then remembered I had a small ball of light green it would be fun to change the color of so added them to the dye pot:

Pygora, qiviut, merino

After I dyed the merino, I remembered I had been frogging the last block I was doing with it for the Barn Raising Quilt because I needed to add a few rows to it. Now I have to decide to do it in the new color or frog that part all out and use it to start a new block or what. No biggy. It will work out. I may have to frog the whole block though.

The last few weeks I haven't been spinning and I miss it. I still have eight ounces of the blue-red superwash merino to spin up. Might be able to get that over the weekend or next week to wrap up the month. Will see. ;-)