little bit of crazy leaking out

The sock yarn fairy came to my house today.  A while ago I won a prize pack from Sock-a-Month 2 - enough yarn for SIX pairs of socks . . . woohoo!  ‘cuz y’all know I’m a sock yarn ho!

Bubba has claimed this for his “yarn socks”.

Bug has claimed this yarn. I’m thinking toe-up knee socks.

 

Sweet Socks from the Sweet Shop in the Lush colorway, semi-solid purple, and y’all know how much I love purple.  I’m thinking, maybe, Lupine Lace socks.

Koigu (p852), this is a colorway I would never have bought for myself, but the more I look at it them more excited I am to knit it up.  How great would socks made from this yarn be with pair of Berks.

Brooklyn Handspun Signature, Winter Sunrise.  Beautiful and so soft is all I can say.

Thanks Chrissy!

I just got a call from Hubby’s Uncle and Hubby’s Grandpa passed away last night.  Hubby is taking it as well as can be expected.  Grandpa was in his 90s and the last time we saw him, last summer, he had gotten quite frail.  He had also been battling skin cancer, so this wasn’t a total surprise.

Grandpa Carter was a pioneer in Washington wine making, here are a couple of articles from when he was nominated for the Legends Hall of Fame.

7 Wine Pioneers to Get Awards
Washington Wine Pioneers Nominated for “Legends” Hall of Fame

I’m between projects right now, and am not feeling inspired to start another project.

Okay, I still need to graft the underarms of the Saddle Shoulder Sweater, but, for all intents and purposes, I’m between projects.

Okay, okay, and the February Sweater is still only half finished, but I don’t want/need to work on that right now. 

No, I ripped the Flower Basket Shawl, it isn’t an WIP/UFO any more. =P

Last week I tried to knit a lace scarf. I say tried because I failed miserably. The pattern is the Trellis Scarf by Evelyn Clark from the Spring ‘06 IK. It is a lovely pattern, even with the 7 into 5 clusters, or maybe because of them. I made the mistake of trying to knit it with a hand painted yarn.  Lace = solid yarn.  I tried one yarn, then another, started the cast-on in a different place in the color pattern, changed needle size; nothing helped, it still pooled in an unappealing (to me) way. Shoot. I had imagined random pooling of purple in a sea of green, purple flowers on a vine covered trellis. Instead I ended up with zigzagging pools of purple and green. Yuck. Rip. Rip. Rip.

The picture was taken just after I had finished the edge chart.  I knit a full repeat of the body chart before deciding I didn’t like the pooling.

I think the problem is that I have to many projects I want to start, right now (in no particular order).

• Millie (Louisa Harding Bk 5) - I had planned on knitting this sweater for Bug from some Maggie’s Merino Aran, in a lovely sky blue, from my stash, but the more I thought about it the more I figured Bug would prefer it in a more ‘girley’ color. So, I picked up some luscious pink Rowan Summer Tweed while at the LYS this week. Summer Tweed?! For a child’s sweater?!! Yes, apparently, I am crazy.
• Skipper (Louisa Harding Bk 5) for Bubba from the Maggi’s Merino Aran I had originally planned for Millie (above).
• Swallowtail Shawl — I want need to knit this shawl, but keep changing my mind about what yarn I want to use:  Misty Alpaca called for in the pattern, Sea Silk or something else from stash.
• Estonian Garden Shawl — the LYS has this one knitted up in Frog Tree Alpaca Sport, it’s lovely. I have some Frog Tree in my stash, but not enough (short one skein), and I bought it long enough ago that they no longer have the same dye lots/colors in stock.  If I wnat to knit this one I’ll have to buy new yarn.  Not what I was planning.
• Ellen’s Shawl — this is a shop pattern from my LYS, I originally bought the Sea Silk for this pattern, but now I’m not sure if I want to use the Sea Silk for the Swallowtail Shawl.
• Socks – to much sock yarn, need to knit socks, want to knit socks.
• Something for Dulaan — I still have quite a bit of the Dulaan Avalanche Yarn in my stash and there are a couple of patterns in The Yarn Girls’ Guide to Knits for Older Kids that I would like to try out. Dulaan knitting has become my fall-back knitting lately. Don’t know what to knit - knit for Dulaan.
• Heartland Lace Shawl by Evelyn Clark from Wild Fibers Magazine — just waiting for the charts to be published on the website.

So much yarn, so little time.

At least yesterday was.  I had two full bobbins sitting, waiting, for me to ply them together.  One purple, one gray, the first two full bobbins I had spun on my wheel.  I plied them together and ended up with about 125yds of thick and thin yarn. 

I still had some of the purple and gray roving left over, so I went ahead and spun it up and plied it, too.  About 30yds, much more even than the previous skeins.

I still have a little left to ply, so I will do that later today.

I can see a big difference between the first (gray) bobbin and what I spun up yesterday . . .

How do you get to Carnegie Hall lace sock weight yarn? 
Practice, practice, practice.

* Sorry for the bad picture, it’s very overcast and rainy today.

Bubba’s EZ Saddle Shoulder sweater is almost finished.   The ends are woven in, the hems are sewn, just have to graft the underarms.  Bubba had a fitting this morning, just so I could be sure it would fit over his pun’kin head.  It fit, no worries.

 

Bubba  really liked all the yarn ends hanging out of his sleeves.

 
“Look mamma! I flapping, I flying!”

The sweater is now done, except for the grafting . . .

The weekend started on Friday with Knit Night at Village Yarn & Tea.  Not only was it Knit Night, but it was Pajama Party Knit Night with the Yarn Pirate.  She created a special colorway called Village using the shop’s colors and I got caught up in the hysteria (they were handing out numbers for selecting YP yarn, limit two skeins until everyone had a chance, no kidding) and purchased not only the Village colorway, but also Crocus.

I met up there with several knitting friends; Debi, Emma, Amy, and met a new friend, Sam.  I forgot my camera, so, no pics from that night, sorry.  

Emma was spinning silk hankies that she had hand dyed, it was so cool to watch her . . . poke a hole . . . pull . . . stretch . . . abuse the silk . . . then spin . . . amazing! 

Amy brought her whole polymer clay set up so people could make buttons for the wristbands for the Breast Cancer 3-day Walk, I didn’t get a chance to make one and I wish I had now.  Amy also brought in some pink ribbon stitch markers and all the money from the sale of the markers goes to the same project, I bought one and it has already been put to use on my current knitting project.

Saturday is the regular knitting group at noon-ish, Emma and I decided to bring our wheels and this is what I was able to get spun while there.

 

Kim brought in roving she had hand dyed for the shop, some of it ended up comming home with me.  The picture doesn’t do it justice.

 

That evening and Sunday I spent time working on the Saddle Shoulder Sweater for Bubba, but I took a break and made these for the kids for lunch.

 

No, I didn’t make Twinkies for lunch, they’re corndogs made in a Twinkie pan - Twinkiedogs!  The kids love them.  Make up a batch of your favorite cornbread batter, fill pan about 1/2 way and push 1/2 of a bun length hotdog (I use kosher hotdogs, I like to think they have fewer lips and tails in them) most of the way into the batter, the batter will rise up to cover the hotdog.

 I used to be more of an original (maiden name) . . .

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 13 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

but, now I am more common (married name).

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 1,045 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?