So many hobbies!

Gorgeous!

This was an amazingly beautiful weekend.  Especially Sunday.  I spent the day with the front door open and at 7:00, it's 70 degrees out.  The warm temps and the sunlight energized me and I spent the day running errands (which reminds me, I need to bring the catfood in from the car), rearranging my bedroom, cooking and dealing with recycling.  On one of the few times I was on the couch, the kids were thus:

I have to wait until May before my sisters will be helping me to repaint, rearrange and do more decluttering of my condo.  I really didn't want to wait that long so I rearranged my bedroom.  I don't quite have room for everything in this configuration but come May, some things will be going.

All of my spring bulbs are up, although not blooming yet.  My neighbor across the street has pale purple crocus blooming.  I'm too late to take a picture but trust me when I say, they're a wonderful breath of spring.

My world-traveling niece is home from Asia.  I can't wait until Easter to hear all of her stories.  I'm so proud of her I can hardly say how much.  She's pretty awesome.

Saturday was my spinning guild meeting, which is my favorite day of the month.  I came home with a quart of yummy Michigan maple syrup.  I also came home with a little Mochimochi chicken named Mildred:

I also came home with a dozen free range eggs.  I've attempted to eat vegan since the beginning of the year.  I need to lose weight and this seemed like a good way to go about it.  Unfortunately, I've learned about myself that if something is a challenge, I'm excited about it and into it... until it's no longer a challenge. (I did really well for about a month.) Then I'm no longer interested.  I'm still going to be meatless while I'm at home and I'll still buy soymilk for my cereal.  (It's actually pretty good.)  I really don't miss dealing with meat:  it's slimey and icky and you have to be really careful you don't give yourself salmonella.  However, when I eat out, I don't restrict myself to what I eat.  I have no idea how this is going to impact my weight loss goals.  Probably not well.  Still, my dinner tonight was tofu triangles with peanut butter sauce, steamed asparagus and a whole grain English muffin.  I have lots of tofu and sauce left over for my lunches this week.

I really hate the change to Daylight Savings Time, but I love that it's 7:30 and it's still light out.  I got so much done today and all because it feels and looks like Spring outside.  How was your weekend?

One more time

Typepad has it in for me. Thursday I tried to publish my post only for my computer to tell me it lost the internet connection. Tonight, I can't upload photos. When I try, Typepad just sits there, telling me it's uploading the photo but it doesn't actually do anything. I'm beginning to think I'm not meant to show those three swatches. I'll try one more time later this week and then I'm giving up. (I just tried to start a new paragraph only to find the cursor won't move. I think Typepad is having a seizure. Okay, I guess I'm going to have a run-on paragraph.) This was a pretty good weekend. I had friends over Saturday and my friend Sheri helped me fix the center-back double-decreases on my shawl. I couldn't figure out exactly when/where to start the decrease stitch and as a result, the decreases were kind of all over the place. Sheri helped me fix the wonky stitches and showed me where/when to start the decrease. I'm now whipping along and should be done with the body of the shawl by the end of the week. Then I'll start the top edging. We went to lunch at Pizza Hut and had a great time. Sunday I went with a friend from work to lunch and then to IKEA. My mission was to decide on the storage boxes that will go in the Expedit bookcases I plan on buying next month. I brought home one of these to see how well the woven banana fiber holds up to use. I'm having a hard time committing to one of the boxes because I'm not really wild about any of them. I like the clean look of the woven banana but I'd prefer it be darker. Hmm, I wonder if I can stain them darker? With that final thought, I'm going to end this paragraphless post and head for bed. Hope everyone has a good week.

The mitten

Sadly, the finger has to be ripped back to the hand because it's too small.  I decided to combine the functionality of gloves with the warmth of mittens by knitting a forefinger and hen knitting the other three fingers together.  This is my first time attempting to knit a finger (as opposed to a thumb) and I was too narrow by 2 or 3 stitches.

I'll be on vacation next week and I don't know if I'll be able to post while I'm gone.  I'm going on my annual trip to Sanibel Island with my sisters and my parents.  I'm so excited to go I can hardly stand it.  I hope the shelling is good!

I should have made it bigger

It doesn't really look that orange.  It's more a paler salmon pink.

This is pretty much what I did Saturday.  That and watch home improvement shows on HGTV.  I've improved my lace-knitting skills enough that I can have the television on while I'm knitting.  That's a big step forward in my book.  I'm now on the long slog to finish the top of the shawl in the brown Merino/Polwarth yarn I spun.  I need to change to a shorter cable.  Now that I'm into the body of the shawl, I'm hoping it blocks out big enough.  I wrapped the border around myself while I was knitting it and it seemed plenty big enough at the time.  It may be that I should have done that extra set of repeats.  If it doesn't fit, that will still be okay.  I knit for the knitting, not necessarily for the finished product.

Today was mostly taken up by cooking.  Not a surprise.  That's become my usual Sunday activity:  grocery shopping first thing in the morning and cook most of the day.  And do lots of dishes.  Today's recipes were another stir-fry and black bean chili.  So far, my favorite recipe in the past month has been the simplest:  a can a black beans, drained and rinsed, mashed with salsa, heated, and eaten on a tortilla with cooked brown rice and avacado.  I could eat a couple of those in one sitting.  I'm good, though, and stick to just one.

Galen found a new cave for sleeping.

New mittens

The jury is still out on this.  I'd forgotten how much I dislike knitting with double-pointed needles.  I need something to work on at work during lunch and breaks, though, so I'll give it a shot.  On another, funnier, note, I'm watching The Big Bang Theory and it's hilarious.  It's one big nerd fest!

Andrea's edging

This is 75 repeats completing the edging for Andrea's Shawl.  The original pattern calls for 93 repeats but the yarn I'm using is a lot bigger so I went down one set of repeats.  I'm knitting a shawl, not a sail.  I started the edging Thursday morning and finished it Sunday morning.  I want so very badly to start on the lace portion of the shawl but I've only just started spinning the yarn.  Then, of course, I have to dye it.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to find my dyeing book so there's another delay.  Frustrating.

Did you survive Black Friday?  I'm happy to say I spent the entire day, with the exception of lunch with my sisters, at home and never set foot in a store.  I hate crowds.  I hate standing in line.  Most of my shopping will likely be from Amazon.  My preferred gifts, when possible, are art supplies and books.  My niece is getting art supplies and I bought them Thursday night at Michaels.  The Christmas shopping has begun!

Finally, some knitting

Finally, the socks of many colors are finished!

It's been so long since I started these, I can't remember exactly when that was.  I'm pretty sure the yarn is Merino/silk.  Or was it Merino/bamboo?  Can't remember that, either.  Anyway, I took two colorways, spun them up and then plied them together.  The pattern is my generic sock pattern with a short-row heel.  I used Judy's Magic Cast-on for the toes and both were knitted at the same time.

I just love the colors. 

On another note, apparently, fingerling potatoes make great cat toys.  That's the only conclusion I can come to when Tyr steals them off the kitchen counter and then bats them around the floor.  I think there's two of them under the bookcase.  She is the funniest cat.

Now that the socks are finished, I can start on Andrea's Shawl.  Woot!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends in the US.  Have a great holiday and good luck shopping on Black Friday.

Blocking

 

Finally!  The neverending bind-off is finally finished and the ends are woven in.  The shawl got a bath and now it's drying on my new blocking matts with my new blocking pins and wires.  Actually, I've had the wires for a while but never had a chance to use them before now.  Not a bad job for my first blocking experience.  I think I need to tweak upward the right side, though... and shape the bottom point a little better.  I'm glad I bought the extra pins because I used all but two of them.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this; it's a little big for a neck wrap and too small for a shawl.  Doesn't really matter too much:  I made the shawl because I wanted to not because I needed one.

Now to bed...

The Endless Picot Bind-Off

 

I'm more than half-way done but this bind-off is taking F O R E V E R!  It took me a while to get the hang of it but now I'm a pro.  Rarely do I have the urge to to knit the same pattern twice but I've enjoyed this one so much I'm pretty sure I'll knit it again at some point.  Also, I'm absolutely in love with bottom-up shawls.  I found a handful I like on Ravelry but most shawls are designed top-down.  The rows on bottom-up shawls get shorter as you go until you're flying through the shawl at the end.  It's great.

I'm eager to get the shawl done and start working on quilts again.  I have two quilts that need bindings and two I'm still piecing.  It's great to have different hobbies to bounce between.  As soon as you get tired of one hobby, you can switch to the other.  Or in my case, I can switch between knitting, spinning and quilting. 

It's strawberry season and the beginning of the summer U-pick season.  One of my girlfriends and I are picking this Saturday.  The rest of the weekend I'll be making strawberry jam.  Yummm!  Strawberries are just the beginning.  After strawberries comes sweet and sour cherries, then blueberries, peaches, raspberries and finally apples.  Oh yeah, and around the first of July will be cucumbers for pickles.  I found a farm about half an hour from my house that sells U-pick cukes.  I haven't made pickles in YEARS so I'm looking forward to this.  I'm hoping one of the recipes I have will give me the sweet pickles you buy in the grocery store.  I adore sweet pickles.

I'm looking for some good blueberry recipes.  Anyone have a favorite blueberry cake recipe?  I've still got berries in the freezer and I need to use them up before the blueberry season starts.  Any help would be appreciated.

Baking cookies

 

Tyr has a tendency to steal my yarn when I'm not looking so I put my knitting in this clear plastic tote just to torment her.  Revenge is sweet!

I learned a very important lesson this weekend about knitting gauge swatches.  I thought, "It's a shawl!  Why do I care about gauge?"  Well, if you want your shawl to be a certain size, you can't have 5.75 stitches to the inch when you're supposed to have 4.25 stitches to the inch.  The shawl you end up with is going to be SMALLER THAN YOU WANTED!  The darn thing is going to be a neck scarf and I wanted a wrap.  Note to self:  Next time, knit the stinkin' gauge swatch!

 

Galen was very snuggly today...

 

Tyr was just happy to be close...

 

This morning, however, she was in a very different mood:

 

Happy work week.  I'm making cookies.