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Saturday, April 4, 2009

Finished the old and starting anew . . .

First, I finally finished the sockalong socks. I did not enjoy making these and I won't make any more like this. This yarn wasn't very nice to work with and knitting them on too small a needle hurt my hands. I did find someone to wear them after I finished them tho, so they won't go to waste.


So now, I'm going to start the Leyburn Socks with this yarn - it's Bearfoot by Mountain Colors but I don't have the label handy to get the colorway. I like this yarn a lot - have another ball of it ready to make some socks but it's darker.






This is the Midnight Corriedale Roving from Northern Lights Fiber. It's very pretty and much more colorful when spun than I expected. It spins very nicely and is making a nice yarn. Don't have a clue what I'm going to knit with it yet . . . .
This is some of the wensleydale roving that I brought back from SAFF. I did not spin this - this is the Midget's first attempt at spinning on my wheel. She didn't do half bad for a beginner and she really seemed to enjoy it. I can tell you right now that I am NOT going to fight her for wheel time . . . just won't buy her any fiber.

Round Squiggly Wiggly Hot Pads





After reading about the squiggly wiggly hot pads I had to make one. It was fun and I really like it as a hot pad.

Then I was reading about the squiggly wiggly hot pads on Crochetville Forums.
They have some rather interesting discussions and fantastic photos. And one of the entries mentioned doing these hot pads in the round. I searched and Googled but couldn't find the directions.

I worked it out on paper first and the result is the red/blue/pink one. Works okay but the crocheting didn't work out as planned. So I went back to paper and pencil and planned out another attempt. This one worked out as far as crocheting, is nice and thick for a hot pad but I think it could be fuller. Maybe after I get everything else caught up, I will work on the design some more.

Mom's pond




Andrew was down here for a couple of days of Spring Break and he undug the pond and redug a new hole so it would be located near to mom. This way she could look out of her kitchen window and see the pond.

Fred assembled the bridge and helped Andrew install it over the pond.

From the sounds of all the plants she wants to put in it, we might have to rearrange things so that the bridge only goes over a wee corner of the pond instead of the center to allow more room for plants.

Isn't that a good-looking pond, a great looking bridge, and a terrific looking boy?

Monday, March 30, 2009

More to spin . . .

The roving and scraps I bought from Northern Lights Fiber came in the mail today and they are lovely. I still have some of the lovely chocolate alpaca to spin and then I'll start on these. That should keep me busy for a while (I hope).
I'm going to make the Ridged Eyelet Shapely Shawlette by Judy Pascale from the brown alpaca. The pattern calls for a sport weight and mine is a dk weight, but it calls for a size 9 needle, so it should be ok. I bought this pattern about 5 years ago and made a lovely blue shawlette from it and have used and enjoyed the product for a long time. And I enjoyed making it too, so another one in nice, soft, brown alpaca will be nice.
Tomorrow, I will post pictures of the needle felting the girls did this weekend. I would have had them today but it's very difficult to take pics of small things so that you can see them. I might have to have one of the girls take the pics for me.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

And now, it's yarn!


Lest you forgot how it started, this is what it looked like when it arrived on my doorstep. Four large hanks of roving, soft and smelling like lavendar.
Then, I spun it into singles that looked like this (well, ok not all of it looked this nice and even, but some of it did).

After I spun 4 ounces - two of those lovely hanks of roving - I put the two spools on the lazy kate and set out to ply them into yarn.
This is the yarn on the niddy-noddy. It's about 214 yards of 10 to 11 wpi which is between a dk and a worsted. It's slightly thicker than I wanted, but I'm ok with it. I think it will still make a nice shawl in the pattern I had originally intended, but it will be bigger than I had hoped.





This is a close up - I just wish you could feel how soft it is - and it's nice and bouncy too.



Friday, March 27, 2009

More Socks

I finished the second pair of socks made from the Austermann Step yarn. They are footsie type socks, very plain, very simple. I only hope mom likes them.

I also finished my pair of socks made with the Guernsey yarn. I did mostly use the instructions from the Schoolhouse Press Two Socks on Two Circulars Knit-along. I like them.

Now on to the hedgehogs except I lost the yarn. Or more accurately, I put the yarn somewhere and no longer recall where that somewhere is.

It is Fun Fur so I thought I put it in the box containing Fun Fur. All the Fun Fur is there except for the hedgehog color.

I have a bag containing yarn for projects I am working on. I looked in there but that was just all the yarn for all the projects I have started or plan to start very soon, not to include the hedgehog hair yarn.

There is a huge box of yarn I haven't sorted through yet and that had the yarn for the hedgehog nose right on top. I had already looked once when I saw the hedgehog nose yarn on top but I took everything out and looked again. No hedgehog fur yarn.

Where or where can the hedgehogs be?

Love Alpaca!


I loved the sample of Alpaca/Merino roving that came in the April Phat Fiber box so I ordered some more! It came in the mail yesterday afternoon. As you can see, I ordered a good bit more . . . that's 8 ounces of roving in those 4 brown things. Maple, the very nice lady who runs North Star Aplacas and the associated Etsy shop included several little extras for me. The light brown fluff in the picture is some unprocessed alpaca - from what I understand you just spin it from the locks. I haven't tried yet, but since it was a gift, I will definitely try it. The black below it is pure alpaca roving (the brown is 25% merino, 75% alpaca). And my favorite thing that she included is the card with Sonata's picture on the front - Sonata and Orion were the two that donated to the roving.


And I didn't waste any time looking at the roving either - spun up half of one hunk last night after I finally got the girls settled.

My Job was to Scream like a Girl

The morning started off peacefully enough. I slept in, my husband slept in, the dogs slept in, one child got up quietly and the second child slept in. My husband gets up quietly and lets the dogs out and then all three come back to bed for a snuggle or two.

I get up and get ready for my day in a nice, slow, leisurely fashion. All is right in my world. As I walk through the living room on the way to the kitchen, I greet my middle child who is up and playing video games. I talked to the dogs as I start making breakfast. I talk to my husband as I get my medicine. My husband wanders off to talk to the child playing video games.

My breakfast is done and I wander slowly back towards the kitchen to put it together so I can sit down and eat. I stop in the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen. My breakfast is mere feet away. I am hungry. But . . .

Instead of continuing into the kitchen I back up to the living room and mention to my husband and my son that the dog and the cat have an animal in the kitchen and I want it gone. Both of these big, strapping, strong, hero type men look at me as if I were an idiot and go back to talking.

Then it hits me. My Job is to scream like a girl if I want big, strong, strapping, hero-type men to rescue me and remove the rather large, very alive, totally unwelcome animal from my kitchen so I can safely go get my breakfast.

So I scream like a girl. But just the facts. "There is an animal in my kitchen." This doesn't faze either of my hero-types. In fact, they don't even look up. Okay, I can possibly understand that because there are always animals in my kitchen. Perhaps I should be more specific.

"There is a live animal in my kitchen being chased by the dog and cat."

This also elicits no response from my would-be hero-types. Again, I think, perhaps I wasn't loud enough or specific enough to truly convey the situation properly.

So, very very loudly I announce, "There is a HUGE animal in my kitchen that doesn't belong in my house. It is alive. It is moving. I want it gone." This, I feel, has fully defined the situation. And it did cause these two, tarnished hero-types to at least stop talking.

So I scream like a girl, "It is HUGE. It is alive. It is moving. GET IT OUT OF MY HOUSE." My husband saunters in to see what the fuss is. I yell at the child to stop the game and help his dad remove the HUGE ALIVE animal.

The son comes to help his dad laugh at me. The dad hero directs his wee little son to capture the fierce huge animal while he stands between the animal and the exit. Chaos ensues.

When the animal is finally gone, they both razz me but I didn't see either of them doing much except try to get the other one to capture the animal.

What was the animal? A rodent slightly bigger than a guinea pig with large rodent teeth and a short tail.

Where is the animal? Gone - thrown out the door.

My Job was to scream like a girl and I did my job.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

New Sock Knit - Along


Mom has created a new sock knit-along for the three of us. It is going to be fun and exciting. It is a round robin type of knit-along.

Mom will get the yarn.

Oh, she already has it.

She bought a skein of the Regia Special Edition Galaxy yarn in Jupiter Red. It is a gorgeous yarn that creates Jupiter style spirals and elipses. I think it is going to be gorgeous.

Now the round robin knit-along passes to Teresa. She has to create a pattern for the socks.

Oh, she already has it.

She created a gorgeous sock pattern called Toasty Twist Sock and it is available on Ravelry. I have downloaded and printed it.

Now the round robin knit-along passes to Dena. She will simply knit the yarn into the pattern.

Oh, she hasn't even started.

Socks



I was working on the Two Circular Two Sock KAL and decided to knit mom a pair of socks instead. Mom had a skein of Austermann Step with Aloe and Jojoba which is so very nice to knit with. Mom got me a whole book to use (Favorite Socks) for the pattern Embossed Leaves. The socks are finished and mom wore them to therapy to keep her feet happy. She says it kept her feet happy but the muscles from her hips to her knees are in agaony. I don't think socks will help that.

But I did have enough yarn left to make a third sock. Since mom doesn't need a third sock, I am making a pair of toe up and we will see how far it goes. So far, I have two toes. Mom has ten but I don't have much yarn.