So many hobbies!

A whole lotta yardage!

 

590 yards!  Out of 8 ounces of fiber.  That's the best I've ever done.  And it took flippin' forever to ply it all.  I had to do it in 5 or 6 sittings.  Forget socks, I could make a shawl out of this!

Following the Yarn Harlot's lead, I've created my own Sock of the Every-Other-Month Club.  My club doesn't have quite as catchy a name as some of the other clubs but since I'll be following a pattern that requires concentration, it's going to take me at least two months to complete each one.  So far, the patterns are the Socks of Kindness, the Eyelet & Flame Socks, Diamante, the Spring Forward socks, cabled socks from Sensational Socks (the 3x3 cable w/ moss stitch pg. 68).   My sock club is going to interfere with Only Handspun in 2011; I haven't decided how to deal with that one.

I wish I had tomorrow off.  I didn't get nearly enough done this weekend.  Sadly, I ran out of weekend before I ran out of jobs.  I didn't manage to put my garden to bed for the winter.  This is probably the last decent weekend of the year.  At least, the last one where I'll want to be outside not bundled up like an Eskimo.  Next year, I'll be planting only tomatoes and fingerling potatoes.  I enjoyed those two the most of everything I've planted so far.  Is it weird that I'm already psyched about next year's garden?

Now to plying

I've been working on the second bobbin since Saturday at the Fiber Expo.  I finally finished this afternoon and I've started plying.  So far, I'm finding it darker than I like so it might be going up in my Etsy store.  I managed to spin super fine so it's going to take a while to ply all 8 ounces.  I'm going to get a lot of yardage out of this one.

Too bad that skeleton is part of an art installation because I'd love to get a copy of the pattern so I can knit the skull.  I'd love to have it sitting on a shelf in my craft room, or better yet, the livingroom.  Talk about a conversation piece!

Just in time for Halloween

A knitted skeleton by fiber artist Ben Cuevas.  I kid you not!  Go take a looksee here at Craftzine.com!  Here's a teaser:

 

Fiber Expo 2010

It's rather nice having a fiber festival that's practically in my back yard.  Three of my fellow guild members and I volunteered to do a spinning demo (and got in free as thanks - yay!).  It's the first spinning I've done in close to 2 months.  I managed to come away with a little bit of loot.  Like this  adorable mug:

 

Some lovely, soft angora:

 

There was a woman there selling some truly amazing needle-felted dolls, pins and wall hangings.  (I kicked myself all around the place because I forgot my darn camera.  I am a terrible blogger!)  Some of them were suns which were beautiful but, not only could I not really afford them, it's much more fun to try and make one myself.  So, I bought these:

 

Because, you know, I don't have enough projects or hobbies.  It's quite possible my sun will turn out to be crap (or at least not up to my standards) and I will then start saving to buy one of that woman's gorgeous creations.  And a walking foot for my sewing machine so I can quilt the two quilts I've got sitting around my condo.  Hmm, maybe I should ask for one for Christmas.  You do realize people, that Christmas Eve is exactly 2 months from today, right?  Oh, boy.

This and that

I made a very cool discovery yesterday:  I can knit without looking.  I haven't tried purling yet, I'm still impressed with myself that I can look out the window on the bus ride home and still keep knitting.  It's not complete muscle memory yet, meaning part of my concentration is always on the knitting.  I don't think I'll be taking socks to movies any time soon.

 

This was my dinner tonight.  The first of my fingerling potatoes cooked in a little butter, a couple of scrambled eggs added and then a little cheese.  Man, was it good!  I'll post a picture of my potato harvest on Sunday.  Mmm, home grown potatoes!

 

This is the binding for my wonky squares quilt.  I'm still hoping to have the quilt bound by the time I leave for Houston on 11/5.  My cousin is a quilter and I want to show off my quilted quilt.  All of my previous quilts were tied.  I'm starting to get more excited about the quilt show.  I've never been to one before and this is a big one.  I'm anticipating seeing some amazing quilts.  And hanging out with the cousins.  I can't wait!

Consolidation

Or:  Getting Rid of Excess Crap

My DVDs used to look like this:

 

My friend Alice gave me the idea to reduce the bulk of my DVDs in cases to just the discs in sleeves, which is why I now have this:

 

Each box is about 8" square and will hold 80 DVDs or CDs.  (The bright light on the right side is the TV... please ignore.)  Thanks to Alice, I picked these up at Target.  Sadly, they weren't on sale.  Happily, however, my DVD collection is contained in this much smaller area and I have lots of cases to feed to my recycling bin.  Hmm, actually, my recycling bin is full, I may have to feed them to my neighbor's bin.

My current socks are about 1/2 an inch from the state of the heels.  Sorry, no picture.  I've been spending all my time that last couple of days working on the DVD consolidation.  It was good to have a project to work on.

The Fiber Expo is happening this weekend at the Washtenaw County fairgrounds.  I've volunteered with a couple of my Guild friends to demo spinning.  My mood at the time will decide if I'll demo wheel spinning or drop spindle spinning.  Should be fun.

Hand knit socks

 

I took a peek in my sock drawer today and was amazed to see I've knitted 8 pairs of socks.  That may not seem like a lot to some of my more prolific knitting friends, but I'm thoroughly impressed.  I also noticed that I really need to get more yarn that doesn't have pink in it.  Every pair, except one, has pink in it.  Going to have to work on that.  Fortunately, my current project qualifies:

 

Love!  I'm very fond of blue and green together.  And I love how it's knitting up, although I find it curious how the right side is lighter than the left side.

I think I can do them in my sleep

 

Yup, another pair of socks.  This time using Handmaiden's Casbah in the "Nova Scotia" colorway.  This yarn has cashmere...  <pause to think lustful thoughts about cashmere>  ...it is so very soft and I can't wait to slide my feet into these.  I finished the purple socks on Saturday and cast on for these the same day.  I don't know why it never occurred to me before but, if you knit your socks toe up, you don't need to do a gauge swatch.  By the time you've increased to the point you need to start on the foot, you can measure to get your gauge and you'll know how many stitches you'll need.  I'm still increasing on these but I already know I'm getting 9 stitches to the inch which means I'll need to increase to 72 stitches.  This is a very good thing because I hate doing gauge swatches.  Knit your socks toe up and you won't have to.

I treated myself to a fun Halloween mug today:

 

And the front:

 

I'm not that into Halloween anymore since I don't have kids but sometimes I just can't resist the fun Halloween stuff.  This definitely qualifies.  What are your Halloween plans?

Warm and purple

 

I chugged along on the feet and stalled on the legs.  I guess the 2x2 rib was more boring than I was expecting, although I don't know why.  I'll have to mix it up on the next one. 

I can't tell you how much I love these socks.  The yarn is so very yummy. 

The quilt I dropped off in July to be quilted is done.  Yaaayy!  Now I have to sew on the binding and frankly, hand sewing a binding on a quilt is really boring.  I'll have to rent a lot of movies to get me through it.  The deadline for finishing is the beginning of November.  On November 5th, I'm flying to Houston to spend time with my cousins and to visit the Houston International Quilt Show.  I love hanging out with family so I'm pretty excited about this trip.  The cousins I'll be visiting are three generations:  1st, 2nd and 3rd cousins.  We haven't spent much time together since I live in Michigan and they live in Texas but the first time we met, we clicked.  It was pretty cool.