Spinning Sunday

I went down to the Central Library for the Spinnerati meeting and had fun. I plied about half of the singles I brought with me. The fun part was trying to load it up to take home and not separate the progress. Managed to do it. I should have taken a photo of the spinning wheel and wheeled tote all strapped to my luggage cart. I noticed I was receiving a few interested looks walking the block to/from the parking garage.



(Love the look Duffy has!)

Stitchjones, aka Sharon, did make it and shared some 1 oz roving samples. I saw that she had some baby alpaca and so it came home with me. It's a dark blue called 'Moon on Libra'. I divided it in half and have spun up the first half ounce. I still have the purple tencel on the other bobbin so have to wait to take it off before I can do the second half ounce:

New fibery stash additions

William picked out from my list of wish yarns a Lorna's Laces Sock in Flamingo Stripe, it supports Breast Cancer Awareness. I'll try one of the two BCA sock patterns I have with the yarn:

I picked out from Alpaca Direct a second Cascade Fixation in Hyacinth, of course though it came from the same place, different dye lots and slightly noticeable. It may not be as obvious when made up in socks though. I also got some Cascade 220 in white. I can't remember why I got it other than it was a great sale price on the site - $4.99 and then an Alpaca Top roving in silver:




I have a few more gift dollars left that I hope to get some superwash wool roving with and possibly a couple of mill end cones. Then I'm going to try to stay on a fiber diet and just stash bust for projects. I actually have a lot of one skeins just for that reason. I'd like to be able to save and get more than one skein so I can do some larger projects like cardigans and sweaters.

First FOs of the New Year

I have a couple of star ornaments that I finished up yesterday and I used up the last of a yarn I was happy to see go - Lion Brand Glitterspun. I had just enough to make two whole stars and then a little bit leftover. What to do with it? I was at Insomnia knitting and we'd been talking about learning how to crochet. I know how to crochet, so I pulled from my rusty memory the rudiments of how to do a granny square. So started one of those. These are my stars and square:


I didn't want to try doing tiny little ornaments when we went down to my sister, Jennifer's for the Bridges family New Year get together (My dad, his two sisters [the two other brothers aren't talking to 98% of the family] and then their kids and their kids). Quick head count, there were twenty-seven of us there. So, I took along the ShibuiKnits Sock in Midnight to make a pair of my own Mitt Envy gloves. I have a good start on the ribbing for one glove done. Brandon and William were playing Risk (noisy game in the other room [A-Z, if you've heard of it])and I was watching. Jeanne (stepmom) and my dad watched them play part of it went off, came back and Scott (6'4" "little" brother) came back in and then they all ended up helping William play against Brandon. It was fun to watch, Brandon wasn't minding, because he did end up winning against them all. Scott plans to play the next time and he and William will be allies against Brandon.

I did weigh my bobbins and found that one was exactly .3 ozs lighter than the other and that I had three sections that were exactly .3 ozs each. So I did the one bobbin that only need one of the sections and have the other bobbin with the remaining two to finish up tonight. They won't get the rest time that I would have liked but I think it will be fine. I'll wind them off their bobbins in the morning so I can ply while at the library tomorrow.

Happy New Year!

Last night after Brandon and I picked up supplies for the evening - variety of cheeses (spreadable, gouda, feta, mozzarella), sausage log (had one already) and a sausage rope, couple different crackers and some pop. Luke brought his controller over so he was prepared and then it was preparation of the food stuffs. I cut up the sausage rope into bite sized sections and poured the second bottle of beer that Tammy had given me on top, but first I had a taste. Very good stuff and tasted awesome with the sausage. It simmers for a couple of hours on the burner. I then rinsed off the mozzarella balls and sprinkled some olive oil on top.

With my part done and orders for the boys to finish the preparations I headed over to Haggen's. It had been a couple of weeks since I'd been because of the snow and all. There was just Tiggywinkleknits, PersistentIllusion, KnitForJoy and Toolman. We caught up with looking at baby blankets for the charity, Bobbie had some preemie hats she made during MAX trips.

I picked up my prize from Judy's 'identify the tools' contest. Schaefer Yarns, Anne, Toni Morrison"
She was also working on a very cool Inca style hat for #1Son who is very lucky to be getting such a cool hat.

Just before it was time to head back home and for Cindy to head down to her evening job, Gail and Susan arrived. Susan had a couple of books she was giving away and one came home with me. Amazon has been recommending it to me, so looks like I'll be reading it some time soon. It's Fleece Navidad. (Apparently book #6 in the series and a test of the author that I will not have read the previous books.)

Here's a shot of all the great knitting books that I got as Christmas gifts, received all but one on my list so very thankful! It includes the Knit a Day Calendar too. I'd hoped for the 'Never Not Knitting' one but this has started out nice so far (I'd actually do the first project).


I did get some spinning in on Tuesday. I'm going to weigh the bobbins in their current state and see if they are close in weight before proceeding with the rest of my roving for this project. I should be able to take it with me on Sunday to ply. Both bobbins will have definitely had resting time after being spun and thus be ready for plying.

After a day at the Xbox360, I need some knitting time and I'm ready to knit again. ;^) I'm going to start on the Christmas 2009 Monthly KAL projects for January. Friday, there will be knitting with the Insomnia group, Saturday a trip down to Salem to visit with family and Sunday spinning with the Portland Spinnerati group at the Central Portland Library.

Monday William starts classes again for Winter term at PCC. Luke doesn't have classes again until the 14th at University of Idaho (yea they start classes in the middle of the week - how crazy?!). They'll try to get in as much visiting time as possible around schedules. We've missed not having Luke live with us most weekends. ;^) It's great to be a second mother without all the financial responsibilities. LOL.

Monday quickie

I have not been knitting since I finished my dad's fingerless gloves. He loved them too. My sister was happy to see her own pair of fingerless gloves. She had apparently 'borrowed' her husband's that I gave him last year because she loved how they kept her hands warm. Logan loved his hat and mittens too, so more happy knitting gift recipients.

I did some spinning Friday and Saturday and have more to do on the purple merino/tencel I picked up at Woodland Woolworks. I may be able to be plying for Wednesday knitting/spinning at Haggen's.

Sunday and today I've been out of commission from a right sided migraine. Mine are usually left sided. Might also explain the awful nausea that I woke up with.

I really need to do a couple of online classes tomorrow so I have my fingers crossed that I will be migraine free to get them done. Send healing thoughts my way please.

January knitting plans include a pair of socks and doing the mini ornaments that I didn't get done before Christmas. I can then store them away for next year. I have tentative plans for next year's gift giving and if I follow the plan, less stress will happen.

Merry Christmas!

We have survived the last couple of days successfully. No major family dramas, just some happy news. The cousin-in-law is pregnant and due in August. So more baby knitting in the future!

While in the shower (am I the only one that has this happen?) I remembered that I had planned to do a Blanket Buddy for Jenna. She's 18 months old and I did the Christmas Kiss Hat for her last year. So I gathered supplies and took it along with us to the MIL's house. After getting a couple of Candied Apple Cheesecakes going in the oven and then popping in the Gingerbread Cake, I sat down and started knitting on the Blanket Buddy.

We were the first of the family to arrive and there was a partially completed 1000 piece puzzle on the dining room table. Since that's where everyone gravitated to, that's where I was working on the Blanket Buddy. I did pretty well at resisting the lure of placing puzzle pieces until they pulled out the second one. Even then it was out for a couple of hours before I got sucked into the lures of finding the pieces for the area that you're working on. (We did finish the second 1000 piece puzzle before dinner.)

Fortunately this is a quick knit. I opted to do the yarn doubled, using up some of that Red Heart and fast on larger needles. I didn't finish it last night though. So once we were back over there this morning and in between opening up presents and watching others do likewise, I was working on the Buddy.

I finished it up just in time for Jenna to get it and go home for a nap and then on to the rest of her busy day with her mom. Dad works for ODOT and was off to sleep before going back on shift. Here she is showing that it was instant love for her Bunny Buddy:


Corbin and Kaisha also like their knitted gifts:




The ladies all loved their necklaces and the guys their hats and fingerless gloves - success! Speaking of fingerless gloves I had completed one for my dad and still needed to finish the other. I had planned to do that last night but the whole Bunny Buddy sidetracked its progress. When we got home this afternoon and after getting things settled back down, I sat down with it and got the second one done this evening - yea! They go down to my dad on Saturday:


I've decided that the two hats for the nephews are going to become books. They'll appreciate them more than the hats I think. Plus I'll actually be able to get out of my neighborhood to do the shopping!

Thus my dad's gloves officially ends the 2008 Holiday Knitting Frenzy! I did join the Christmas 2009 Monthly group. It starts out with doing ornament miniatures in January and lets me get those ones that I really hoped to get done this year done for next year, and ahead of time! I'll see how much of the KALs I'll be able to follow along with that line up with what I hope to make.

Friday I get to go back to spinning. I've missed it! A little break from knitting is in order I think before starting up in the new year.

Yippee!

I won a contest! Judy decided to challenge her readers on identifying tools. I was one of the four winners to correctly identify the tools that weren't thrown out.

I'm the new owner, once Judy and I connect up, saving her postage at Haggen's of Schaefer Anne in the Toni Morrison colorway.

Any suggestions for a cool pattern to use? Socks or other. Though with the amount of yarn I could get several pairs of socks out of it I would think.

Thanks again Judy!