I made my first two-ply yarn on my spinning wheel! See?
I need more practice plying – it’s over-twisted in some spots and under-twisted in others (of course, so are my singles) – but all wrapped up in a skein like that, it looks like real yarn! I actually plied it last night. I probably should have washed and blocked it, too, but it just looks so darn cute wrapped in a skein!
Gosh, do you think I could have it bronzed? (I’m kidding!!!!)
I should have realized that when this book gets delivered, not much knitting will happen that night! The only way to describe this book is yummy. Seriously, I want to spend Saturday wrapped up in a blanket, with a cup of cocoa and this book!
I spent most of last evening flipping through the pages, thinking about warm mittens I could be making, or little sweater egg-cozies for my soft-boiled eggs…wait, when’s the last time I ate soft-boiled eggs?!? The interesting thing was, I didn’t think about going to buy yarn to make something out of the book, but I was thinking about what yarn in my stash would work for some of the projects. Hmmm. Have I matured enough in my knitting that stash acquisition isn’t the most important thing? Probably not, I’m sure it’s just a fluke!
OK, that was a much longer tangent then I’d planned. This entire post is supposed to be about….my new project, the Green Mountain Gardens Cardigan! Click the link or the picture to go to the project page, where there are a bunch more pictures, taken with the new camera (which I have – I think – made peace with.)
As for everything else, the dust bunnies haven’t taken over yet, but they’re not gone either! And I’m trying to be good about limiting my GameCube playing. I don’t have enough time to do everything I want/need to do as it is without wasting time playing silly video games. (Says she who spent two hours last night and two more tonight playing silly video games!)
(It’s like anti-matter for knitting projects. When there is anti-knitting karma present in the house, you just shouldn’t knit. Especially before coffee.)
I know I promised pictures and details of the latest project, but you’re just going to have to wait another day. I made a really stupid mistake reading the color charts yesterday morning before I had my coffee – one that required ripping out 10 rounds of two-color knitting and picking 215 stitches back up when I discovered it last night. That was fun. Really. Add to that getting sidetracked by a really addictive game (Animal Crossing) on the GameCube I got Denis for his birthday, and you get a very anti-productive knitting night.
I’m three rounds away from being back to where I was before I had to rip out, and then I might be persuaded to take a picture or two…unless I start playing video games again…
Will Sarah accomplish any knitting tonight? Will another tragic mistake doom this project before it starts? Will the GameCube put an end to all future knitting projects? Will the dust bunnies finally win the battle to take over the house? Tune in tomorrow to find out the answers!
Due to some interest, and the fact that I’d rather knit than try to market it, I decided to just go ahead and post the pattern for the Teeny-Tiny Felted Totes. It’s been test-knit by someone else (my mom!) so I’m fairly certain it’s error-free. If not, please let me know!
What else did I do this weekend? Yesterday was the monthly spinning meeting, and I managed to spin a bobbin of yarn while I was there…and buy a bunch more fiber…now my yarn stash can have some company: the fiber stash!
Right now I’m wrapping up the weekend by swatching for a cardigan for me. Pictures and details will follow, but right now I’m too busy knitting to go find the camera!
Hope everyone else had a nice, relaxing weekend, too!
It’s. Too. Blasted. Cold.
I had to skip Sit & Knit tonight, because I wasn’t entirely sure I could get there and back in one piece – too many accounts of cars off the road. Plus, the poor thing wasn’t too happy about starting when I had to move it earlier today.
So, I watched Sister Act (yay for fun songs that are now stuck in my head!) and knitted for a bit here – not quite the same, but at least mildly productive. Oh, well. I suppose I could have at least made myself a cup of coffee…
Hey – tomorrow it’s supposed to be 10 whole degrees (F). I think I’ll open up the pool, it’ll be a regular heatwave! (Sorry, I’m feeling quite sarcastic towards the weather tonight. As if the weather cares.)
What’s a girl to do when she’s somewhat bored with her current knitting projects, and overwhelmed with the number of unfinished projects she found while cleaning the craft room – and therefore unwilling to start something new and add to the madness?
Finish something! I don’t know exactly when I started this little square. I think it might have been as early as high school, but more likely it was my first or second year of college. (For those of you playing at home, that makes it 8-10 years old. If it were a kid, it would be learning long division by now.) It is pieced and quilted by hand – poorly. It really isn’t as crooked as the picture shows, but it is a little bit crooked. The neat thing, though, is that the center of it is folded like origami – but out of fabric. I do remember seeing the pattern in a quilting magazine and wanting to make it – if I could find the original magazine, I’d have a better idea of how old it is!
Anyway, all that was left to do, literally, was quilt one side of the outer square and sew on the binding. I spent all of an hour and a half finishing it up – I’m not entirely sure why I put it down with that little work left. (Wait, wait, I know – I started another project and forgot about this one!) I’ll probably sew a couple of little plastic rings on the back and hang it in my craft room, even though I have a hard time looking past all of my beginner’s mistakes. When I do look past them, though, it’s kind of cute!
It’s downright icky out there – howling wind, blowing snow, the works. So, I’m taking advantage of being able to work from home today. Now I’m all cuddled up under a blankie, with my toasty laptop on my lap, and a mug of coffee on the table next to me.
Hopefully, the snoring puppies won’t make me too sleepy!
I’ve just been consumed with non-blogging activities lately…
Such as trying to figure out if it’s a) me, b) my camera in particular, or c) all canon digital rebels that take such horridly underexposed flash pictures. All I did to that one was re-size it for the web, although I can manage to edit it to something decent-looking. Just for clarification, that picture was taking during the day, in a room with plenty of windows, and with a big honkin’ flash (technical term) on top of the camera…and it’s not the only one I’ve taken that looks like that. I’d like to think I know what I’m doing with an SLR (I’ve had a film SLR for almost 10 years), and what I’m doing with a digital camera (I’ve had one of those for 3 years). And working for the big yellow box had perks like photography courses and darkrooms, of which I took full advantage…so, I’d like to think it’s not user error… Of course this would become a crisis just a couple of days before the end of the return period… I don’t know what exactly I’m going to do yet.
Then, there’s the fact that I spent a good portion of the week in waiting rooms at the hospital, leaving absolutely no time to clean up my house, so the disaster area turned into…well…at this point, if I torched the place it might be easier to deal with. :) So, that’s what I’m spending the weekend working on. (No, not torching the place – cleaning it.) Really. No knitting for this blogger until the craft room has a floor again. And the living room looks like a living room again. And the tree is out, the decorations are down, and the bathrooms sparkle. (How many hours are in a weekend, anyway?) Of course, I have great motivation to stay indoors, since it never even reached 6°F today.
Anyway. So, if I don’t blog too much over the next couple of days, that’s why. I’ll be cleaning. Or knitting…no, no, no….cleaning…mostly…with a little knitting, maybe? Please?
I really have been knitting lately, although not as much. I hit a little knitting slump right after Christmas…I probably should have expected that, since I knit almost non-stop for several weeks straight! I have my first finished object of 2004: my multi-directional diagonal scarf! And I finished it just in time for the balmy spring-like weather to turn into something actually resembling winter.
I can also reveal another of the mystery projects, since it’s been given: I present to you “Henry’s Dragon (Dinosaur) Cardie”. (See, it started out being called a dinosaur sweater, because that’s what the pattern was called, but I really think it looks more like a dragon. So there.)
Of course, since almost all of my works-in-progress are finished, I had to start something new. But it’s just a pair of socks, and I’ve only gotten the toe done on the first sock, so it’s not all that exciting at the moment. Oh, actually, I just thought of something else I also started, but that’s a secret project…
Grandpa came through the surgery fine, and was awake and talking when I left the hospital. Supposedly, they’re going to have him up and walking sometime tomorrow, which is amazing to me. He’s going to have a good bit of recovering to do, but all the doctors and nurses were very happy with his progress.
It was a very surreal day. A lot of my family was there (obviously), and we spent the day talking, laughing, crying, knitting (and crocheting), learning Italian (ok, I was the only one doing that) – it almost felt like a holiday at Grandma’s, except we were in the waiting room of a hospital. Yeah, surreal is a good word for it. When all was said and done, there were about 18 family members in and out all day – in fact, for dinner, we had a sheet pizza and a bucket of wings delivered right to the waiting room! (I didn’t know they could do that!)
Thank you all for your good wishes. They really meant a lot to me!
