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07/31/2006
knitting reality...
Waaaah, bloglines has been down for a couple of days now, it's a nightmare. I feel so disconnected!
Sorry that I've been such a slow blogger lately, but I really want to keep this fun and not a chore... seems like a lot of people are having a slow blogging summer as well- I'm still amazed how many of us knitters are stitchin' on in this heat.
I've been working on a few things, especially the 2nd Rapid River sock that I wanted to be my sock-a-month contribution for this month, after I hadn't managed to produce a pair last month already. I've tried soooo hard to finish the 2nd sock the last few days, but the reality was that I passed out at 7:30 one night (see the sock in my bed?), and last night I spent a couple of hours playing guitar and drinking red wine. By myself. Welcome to single motherhood.
Anhow, this is how far I got (ouch, crappy pic- smudgy paws on the lens again...). I'm sure I can finish it today, hopefully it'll still count;-)
I've also spun a few skeins of the Lime On the Beach roving, which I really like. Mmmh, the way I dye the roving though, the yarn comes out stripey and I should definitely try different methods because I love those variegated yarns, check out the incredibly gorgeous colorways Spin A Yarn For Ewe makes.
Oh, and one of the reddish skeins that I've spun was tempting me so much, I knit this hat with it- instant gratification project alarm;-) I'm so happy with the yarn, it's even enough for my liking.
Johanna's new sweater is also growing...
11:45 Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this
07/20/2006
A week in fiber
I'm sweaaaating!!! It's kind of too hot here to knit, but still, I can't keep my hands off the needles and roving:-) Get ready for loads of progress pix!
Let's start with the beginning of a great fiber adventure: Elsa, my knitting partner in crime has friends who live on a farm and have sheep. 
Last time she visited them she brought home a bag of unwashed fleece with her, but she doesn't have a bath tub, so I invited her over for a night of fleece washing. There was a LOT of pasture in that fleece, but I'm sure the twigs and grass will come out when she cards it.
On Wednesday, we also welcomed a wonderful addition to our mini-S'nB, Betta. She's one of my mother's customers and in a conversation, she revealed that she was a collector of English knitting books (!!) and was involved in the online knitting community. YAY! I called her instantly and when she showed up at out weekly meeting at Pony Bar, she also brought Alice Starmore's Book of Fair-Isle Knitting. Gorgeous! I'm so glad I could take a look at this book and I'm psyched that we have another enthusiastic knitter to talk with!
Now on to spinning:-) I spun up the roving with different shades of pink to sell at my mother's store, and I also started yet another sweater for Johanna using the pink&orange 2-ply.
Love how even that yarn turned out and how the colors change gradually!
Here's some new roving I dyed, the working title is "Lime On the Beach". Gotta love pictures with your feet in them.
Something else I took to the store is this load of hand-dyed sock yarn that I've made months ago. The colorways are named "Meeresrauschen" and "Verliebter Förster".
There's another sweater on the needles using the Schoppel-Wolle yarn I've bought , it's a little on the body-hugging side, and the first sleeve had to be frogged because it was definitely too tight.
The other body-hugging sweater in the mama-of-purl house is my Rogue- I've finally picked it up again to finish the body, not realizing until the end of the collar panel that I've miscounted the stitches when I divided the center front, ending up with 2 stitches too many on one side. ACK! I didn't want to rip back all the cabling and just adjusted the decreases. Oh well. I'm hoping that it won't be too noticeable once the sleeves are set in.
So many projects! My CAST-ON ADDICTION is in full swing again!!
11:10 Permalink | Comments (8) | Email this
07/09/2006
Urban Beach Trekking
We've finally been going on a little trek to our city's riverside beach and I took the Pretty Petals with me. Despite the frustration with sock Nr.2 because I misread the pattern and happily knitted away in company, not realizing it for an entire pattern repeat. Great.
So it was frogging and trekking, really.
Anyhow, here's a picture of me trying to figure out what went wrong: The weirdest thing was, when we got to the beach at around 10 a.m., there were quite a few young couples sleeping there. I assume they went there after the World Cup parties last night (Germany came in 3rd, yay!) and passed out. Umm, one couple was up again making out :-o Look away, children!!
15:32 Posted in Knitalongs , Socks | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this
07/07/2006
yarn, yarn, yarn
It's been so hot and muggy here the past week, I *holding my breath* didn't feel like knitting!
Add a few frustrations, like
- twisting and joining the beginning of another kids' sweater, the ultra adorable Blossom I ordered at jimmybeanswool,
- totally misreading the Pretty Petals pattern for sock nr2 and not realizing it until about an inch into it, and
- casting on for the second River Rapids sock with the wrong needle size,
I was off dyeing roving and spinning again.
I dyed with 6 different red shades of kool-aid (which you're not able to tell apart that well) and plied the singles I spun from it with the pink&orange singles. Here's the result:
Today I also had some nice wool yarn in the mail, which I'd ordered at Schoppel-Wolle. The colorway kind of reminds me of Trekking XXL and I think I'm making a nice hoodie for Johanna with it.
Something that was STILL NOT IN THE MAIL: my dye-o-rama yarn:-( My not-so-secret pal Katherine mailed it a month ago! PATIENCE, mama, PATIENCE...
13:00 Posted in spinning , Stash | Permalink | Comments (5) | Email this
07/04/2006
note to self...
READ THE PATTERN CLOSELY AND FOLLOW PRECISELY.
13:36 Permalink | Comments (9) | Email this
07/03/2006
It's not quite winter yet...
THe first Squirrely Mitten is finished! How much fun this pattern is!! I just had to make the hand a bit longer and I had to guesstimate where to start with the decreases for the top, but it worked out well. And I didn't have to change the measurements for the thumb, which I was a little nervous about. Knitting the entire mitten with 2.5 mm needles instead of US 1s was all it took. This mitten was such a breeze, I'm looking forward to making the 2nd one:-)
Oh, want to hear a comment on the mitten, obviously from a non-knitter, at the playground this afternoon? "And they don't even look hand-knit!"
10:20 Posted in Gloves and Mittens | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this
Spinning, before & after
Here's just some pictures of the low-maintenance dyed roving I've spun & plied. The larger hank could use some more spin to it, I think I'm going to give it another round on the spinning wheel. It was amazing to see how the spots of color spun into pastels and that there's hardly any natural colored fiber in there.
Not my favorite colors, but it was nice to experiment.
10:17 Posted in spinning | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this