Catching up Sunday

Wednesday night's dinner didn't settle well, so I ended up staying home on Thursday. I couldn't concentrate much so I used my time feeling awful on the couch to ply the Spicy singles. I ended up with 345 yards of merino-silk lace weight 24 wpi yarn:



I finished the pink sweater from Kathleen's leftovers. I think it came out pretty well, bigger than the other ones, but then I think I used a larger needle size too:


So I tried doing another hat out of what I think was handspun from Bobbie, still had a bit leftover of that and so made up a scarflet. The scarflet really needs to be blocked:


I tried using another unknown leftover light blue yarn for a sock, but there wasn't enough of it do finish. I think I'll try it out as a ribbing on another hat and finish with white for the body. So I pulled out a multi-brown sock yarn and followed the sock pattern that came with the Interweave hat and sock. Found out that I really needed to finish the toe following a different pattern since it came out really pointy:

I'm going to go back and do another one of Michelle's socks with some other fun leftovers. (Not the Leyburn's that she's joined the KAL for this month, hers are looking gorgeous though!)

This afternoon I finished up my Midnight Mitt Envy fingerless gloves. I forgot to check before I cast off the right hand and it's two rows shorter than the left. Which is really weird because I was following the directions....They still work and will keep my hands warm for the rest of the cold season:


I didn't make it to the Gem Faire this weekend, mainly because of budget constraints from the car repair going over. That's life though! Next weekend is the Yarn Crawl with the PDX-Knit-Bloggers and the Seattle knitters. I'm going to see if I can do it on a small to non-existent budget. I'm also going to have some small projects in mind to buy for, so they can be one skein purchases. "Meet the Seattle Group at Union Station and crawl the Portland LYS including Dublin Bay, Knit Knot, and Knit Purl. Also possible stops at Whole Foods, Powell's, Cacao, Josephine's, and Button Emporium."

Now off to make some dinner, then spend the rest of the evening spinning some alpaca from OFFF.

Car in shop = knitting

I had scheduled the car to go into Royal Moore to have the belt that had the burning rubber smell replaced and to get a much needed oil change. This was supposed to cost me ~$130 and be done around 11am (dropped off at 9am). I had finished the second 2 oz braid of Spicy Tuesday night and so I picked up the Midnight Mitt Envy. It had been left at Repeat 4 out of 5. I finished the left mitt and then cast on for the right one and had the ribbing and the first repeat done when the car was finally done around 3:30pm. I was also able to finally take advantage of having a teen with a car and the ability to drive, William brought me home and dropped me off.

Here's what the left Midnight Mitt Envy looks like:


I had also spent five and half hours working with Mac. We made progress but still have a fair bit to go. Due to the car fiasco this afternoon I only put in another forty-five minutes today. So, I'll be going back over tomorrow morning and see how much more we can accomplish before the Insomnia group meeting.

It was great getting to go to Haggen's tonight. Tiggywinkleknits made an awesome driver's hat for Toolman and he was wearing and showing it off. There's going to be a rewrite of the pattern and another one made. Then testing knitting will occur and I've agreed to try my hand at it. Probably happen late spring because there is also hope of entering it into the county and state fairs. Here's hoping a blue ribbon ends up on the hat!

I started another mini-sweater whilst there out of some Noro Silk Garden that Kathleen had in a handful of sock leftovers for Bobbie and I. I admit that I snatched it out of her hand before Bobbie could get a hold of it because of the bright pinkness of it all. Bobbie showed much more restraint and divided the rest of the little balls up. I'd gotten to the point of knitting the body before leaving so will hopefully finish it up tomorrow. I suspect though that it will be another t-shirt style unless I switch out colors.

Sunday Spinning....Spicy, Bliss

Sunday I sat up the wheel and pre-drafted the Spicy merino/silk 2 oz roving in sections and started spinning while watching the last of Season 10 of Stargate SG-1. I'm not ready for both spinning the second 2oz half on the second bobbin and watching the two SG-1 movies.

Here's the first bobbin of Spicy:

I also have the Stitchjones BFL Lavender Bliss all skeined up. It's another 63 yards of lacy goodness at 21 or 22 wpi (snugging up its 22) but I need to check that I'm doing it right to be 100%. It's ~1.3 ozs:

(The flashed photo shows the true color, but the non-flash has a tendency to come out blurry, thus why the blurry closeup of the wraps. Brandon would say use the tri-pod, but I need a bigger photo area to work in first.)

Spent time also putting in a few more repeats on the Midnight Mitt Envy while watching a bit of the Golden Globes:

I'm scheduled to do some paperwork help tomorrow with Brandon's grandfather, Mac. There's shop time for the Outback Wednesday am. I'm also doing a presentation at one of the local high schools I think on Friday (still deciding on Thursday or Friday). Good news is that William got his tire replaced and once he's all sure that it really is on, I have the use of my car back. I need to spend time on web site design as well as business card design, hmmm sounds like some of this is going to take me away from knitting/spinning - darn it.

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.