I have been doing this knitting gig long enough to know that sometimes your knitting doesn't turn out quite like you intended.  And this is not per say a bad thing.  In fact that is for me one of the enjoyable things about knitting.  What ever shall happen when I mix this yarn and this pattern together?  But sometimes....it just doesn't work.  I've wanted to make Carousel since I first saw them.  The term Holy Mother of Wombats may have been used.  And then I saw this gorgeous Sweet Georgia yarn at DFW Fiber Fest and thought "Perfect".  And then I cast on.

And it wasn't bad...  It certainly wasn't the yarns fault that it wasn't self-stripping, I was even more enamored with the colors as I worked with it.  And it can hardly be the patterns fault that it called for self-stripping and I used variegated.  And truly the result wasn't bad at all.  It just wasn't what I wanted.

So the poor little start of a sock has been frogged and re-cast on with a new yarn, Millie Colori Socks &; Lace, which is turning out much better, if still not quite what I was expecting ^_^

Happy Earth Day, All.  In a somewhat rare turn of events, I actually spent most of this oh so lovely day outside enjoying my patio.  The kitties got an opportunity to hunt flying bugs and I spent a good few hours listening to the radio and spinning away.

I swear I do actually have plants, they are just 

 

on the other side of the patio.

For whatever reason I have been wanting to do a navajo-ply really, really badly as of late so I went through the stash and decided that this Exhausted braid by Two if By Hand would look good.  The base is MCN which I've never spun (there are a lot of bases I have never spun ^_^) but it is very squishy.

So far it's going pretty slowly, partially because I'm actually a slow spinner and partially because I'm in no particular hurry to try to speed up the spin.

Hope the weather was nice for everyone!

Oh I think I'm going to need a break from the spinning after this done.  I'm participating in Two if By Hand's combo spin and have finally finished spinning and plying all 6.6 oz.  Ended up with a 3-ply, a 2-ply, and a little bit of n-ply.  I think I'm going to avoid BFL for awhile, I am rather pissed at it right now.  Instead I'm going to get new braids of beautiful, squishy, easy Polwarth.

 

 This means I will have more knitting time....or more studying time, we shall have to see ^_^

 I did finish the shawl in time for my cousin's birthday and have started on a new pair of socks for my Mom.  The kitties are voting for TV watching or internet surfing.  Hard to pet them while spinning

 Ugggggg colds suck.  Though I have found a cold medicine that appears to be working pretty well, of course now all I want to do is go to sleep.  But despite this I did manage to have a lot of fun at the DFW Fiberfest.  I like to get a variety of designers work when I'm at these things (I am a veteran convention going) so I picked up some Alisha Goes Round, Madeline Tosh, and Sweet Georgia yarns and some Two if By Hand and Gritty Knits fiber.  I was doing pretty good about staying in budget until I saw the set of Dreamz Sock DPs.  I am already making use of them and I gotta say, I love um ^_^.  Now back to trying not to fall asleep while doing elevations.

I have created a time sink....I swear I keep adding to this shawl and it doesn't seem to matter, the edging refuses to be done.  At least I know how many repeats I have to do so I can convince myself that fewer are required after every knitting session but I think it is eating rows in there, I just know I should have made more progress than I have.

So here is a slightly out dated in progress picture of In the Pink done in beautiful, gorgeous, squishy Skein Top Draw Socks color Dolce.

I have managed to also finish spinning up a braid of Two if By Hand's Exhausted Now (must...keep...sane).  I've managed 522 yards of fingering weight yarn where none of my singles snapped while plying.  I'm pleased ^_^

Christmas in February

As promised, here are the pictures of my Christmas knitting.....just a couple of months after the fact ^_^

Casey's socks, which thankfully turned out really nice since I kind of wanted to throw them across the room a few times. Lovely yarn and pattern, just not a match made in heaven.




















Grandma Bumby's hat and scarf set. The dork in me likes the fact that the pattern is derived from math. Grandma seemed to like it, she wore it lots during the weekend.




















Kristen's Christmas gloves, which are totally becoming a tradition. They are nice and bright and comfy. Kristen has been choosing her coats based on how well they work with the gloves.




















Caitlin's Socks, which were made possible by me finally finding fingering weight, non wool yarn that I liked. Very shimmery and very very soft.



















And finally my Aunt's cat socks. They ended up being a little tight, which points to me needing more practice with stranding, but she really liked them so it hardly matters in the end. As you can see by this photo, I come by my weirdness honestly ^_^.

Too many interests

Starteritist, starteristist good god but I've got it bad. Plus I have entirely too many hobbies which means that progress on my new projects is only happening in small bursts. BUT, I have actually finished the video game I was playing (Mana Khemia, great fun) so perhaps with only the 2 choices, spinning or knitting, I will start making some progress again.

After whoring it about on my various social networks, I finally found a home for the first handspun. Dear Annie has requested a pair of gloves which is always good as it gives me a chance to try out another one of Julia Mueller patterns. This time I'm going with Eve:



















I've also got pair of socks on the needles, this time using some of my dyed yarn from the White Bear Fibers dye workshop. I went with Diamonds and Cables by Wendy Johnson.















And in spinning news; with the practice I've been getting recently I felt ready to spin up the lovely roving my brother got me for Christmas. Here we have 304 yards of 2 ply Tencel 'n Merino from Bonker's Handmade Originals. This is my first time spinning with a non 100% wool fiber and I've got to say my opinion on it differed day to day, hour to hour. Moments of joy and ease followed by moments of frustration and foul language. I rather suspect the fault lies with me, but in the end I got a lovely yarn even if I'm not raring to go out and try more tencel right away. I have already picked out the sock pattern I want to make with this.