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.

Spinning & tinies

This morning I spun up the second half ounce of Stitchjones Baby Alpaca called 'Moon in Libra'. It spins up nicely, but I suspect that I'm allergic to something about this alpaca and the Schaefer Yarns Judith I was working with today. Strangely my tongue has been tingling all day since I've been working with this stuff.

Here's the second single:


I also used the niddy noddy to move the purple tencel (unofficially called purpleberry yarn) off the bobbin so I could soak it. Way cool, it came out really balanced and not a lot of over twisting. I think it soaked in the hot water and cooled down to cold water over a three hour period because I forgot about it in the sink. ;^) Here it is hanging up to dry:
Nothing hanging off the bottom either!

I've started talking to the Streets of Tanasbourne (SoT) about the World Wide Knit in Public day (WWKiP) and using them for our venue again on June 13th. They have a new property manager and he wasn't getting it. There was talk that I might need a 'Certificate of Insurance'. After chatting with my very helpful State Farm agent, I need to have another chat, this time in person with Matthew at SoT. That won't happen until Thursday or Friday though. (Yes, William is still driving my car because of his flat tire and special wheels - PITA!)

I did get done a mitten set and a bitty hat out of another Yarn Sampling sample - the aforementioned Schaefer Yarns Judith. Pretty colors:

The hat pattern came from the Interweave holiday magazine or the free download off their site, however you want to get them. I'm going to try her socks from that set too. The mittens are these.

On tap tomorrow - more minis and I'm pulling out the merino/silk called 'Spicy' that I picked up with my prize from Tour de Fleece 2008. I'm also playing with the 12 days of Spinning(Rav link). Fun thing is I think I'll be able to enter them in a couple of different categories, but haven't looked really close. I'm also going to try to come up with a pattern to go along with the Moon in Libra yarn.

Now off to collect Chore War points for all that knitting!

Forgot...

I forgot to say what I was totally thrilled to see by Lisa's roving - its already separated into what must be 2 oz braids. I don't have a working scale right now so I've been doing it by luck and have come fairly close. This will totally make it easier to spin each of them up on their own spindles before plying.

Hydrangea!

I'm all done with Hydrangea! It's all sitting skeined and waiting for a project. I have almost 300 yards of lace weight merino to look forward to working with. It's a gorgeous blend of sky blue, indigo blue, lavender and purples.

Here it is:


I got them last week but I have 'Spicy' and 'Embarrassment of Riches' waiting in the wings for me to start working on. Embarrassment I got for winning the Tour de Fleece contest and I loved Spicy too, so I paid for it and saved on the shipping that way. They are an 80/20 blend of merino and silk. My first time to work with silk too.


I needed something last night that wouldn't take too much thought to work on, so I started another Basket Rib Hand Towel, this time in Knit Picks Crayon Beach Glass. It's a Pima Cotton that is similar to a boucle, very soft too. It doesn't show a lot of pattern definition, I thought, but well enough to tell where I got distracted, came back and thought I was on one side to later find out that I have two rows that are on the wrong side. Oh well, its now a design feature. ;^)


I had fun taking some shots of a beautiful day lily by the pond:



Then thought I'd try taking pics of the pond:


Can you spot Nessa in the background? I made the mistake of showing her about the Gooseberries under the willows and she was busy harvesting.

I'm possibly going to cast on for Wyvern with my Jewel Shibui Knit. I'm thinking socks would be a nice change up.