So many hobbies!

Knitting, not eating

I get bored in the evenings and boredom leads to snacking.  This is not good.  My knee is still messed up from my spinning injury in June so lots of spinning is out.  I realized I needed another knitting project so I started knitting this hooded scarf.  I've had it in my project queue for a while.  I'm using my own handspun.  One ply is a Cormo/silk blend and the other ply is 50/50 Polwarth/angora.  It should be nice and warm.

It's now the end of November here in Michigan.  It's cold.  As you can imagine, pretty much everything is dead and brown.  And yet, this is a picture of the front of my neighbor's condo:

I took this picture two days ago.  (The cat is Oliver.  He waiting for his mom to come home.)  I had no idea pansies were that hardy.  There have been quite a few frosts since the seasons changed.  The flowers are a wonderful touch of color and cheerfulness amidst all of Michigan's gray weather.  Enjoy.

And so it begins...

The Holidays have officially started.  I'm waiting for the Christmas lists for my nieces and nephews to come rolling in, hopefully this week.  I'd like very much to get all my Christmas shopping done withing the next week. 

In an effort to eat/be more healthy, I bought tons of veggies today and my first raw meat since the beginning of the year.  Not buying raw meat wasn't really a conscious decision so much as the desire not to deal with raw meat.  It's messy and you have to be very careful to clean the heck out of anything that it touches.  It's just a pain.  Anyway, I cooked one of my favorite Cooking Light recipes (Curried Chicken with Couscous) along with a side of steamed baby carrots and brocolli.

The recipe says it serves 4 but I bought a little extra chicken and made 7 servings.  I bought chicken tenders and it worked out that each serving got 2 tenders each.  I found a long time ago, that I really love steamed carrots and brocolli.  Nothing on them, just a little salt, and they're really tasty.

In addition from a lot of napping (OK, a lot of napping), I filled one bobbin spinning up the batts I made last weekend.

The color changes are a bit more subtle in reality.

It seemed as if this long weekend just flew by.  I can't believe it's Sunday night already and we've got 4 or 5 weeks until Christmas.  How did that happen?  Last time I looked it was January and now it's Christmas.  My whole family is going to be at my parents' place this Christmas.  That hasn't happened in ages since two of my brothers live pretty far away.  I can't wait.

Blocked

The shawls are washed and blocked.  Those two project sprints cured the knitting jones I'd been having.  I'm spinning up the weekend batts but I've got one spun with 12 more to go.  I'll be at it for a while.

My blocking skills need improving but, all in all, I'm happy with how these turned out.

The Great Batt-making Weekend

Since I discovered that 8 oz. of fiber isn't enough for most of my projects, I took steps.  I bought 14 oz. of roving to make my own batts.  My camera refuses to correctly photograph purples but the left-most and middle balls are purple.  Plus, light blue and melon-orange.  I spent all day Saturday carding and made 13 batts.

This was the order of the carding:  purple 1, melon, purple 2 and light blue.  After the blue, I pulled the batt off the drum, split it in half, put the first half through and then the second half.  This is the drum after the second half was carded.

And the finished batt coming off the drum.  The melon roving was only supposed to be an accent so only 2 oz. of that color were purchased.  The other three colors were in 4 oz. balls.

All 13 batts.  I ended up using about 12 oz. of fiber in total.  I expect I'll start spinning pretty soon.  All that lovliness is calling to me.

Wings!

I still need to weave in the ends and give it a bath and blocking, but it's done!  And it has wings!  Blocking will happen this weekend.  Happily, I have nothing planned for this weekend.  Maybe a movie.  Maybe just staying at home and working on projects.  I am open to possibilities.

Shawl update

Once again, I didn't have enough handspun to finish the shawl to I had to order some coordinating yarn (Knitpicks Gloss in the Cranberry colorway, if you're interested).  I really need to start buying/ordering roving in 12 ounces instead of just 8 ounces.  I like my shawls to be warm so I spin heavier weight yarn and 8 ounces just doesn't cut it.  Now I have to figure out just what to do with the 4 and 8 oz. of roving I have in various colorways.  Hopefully, some of them will coordinate with each other and I can combine them when I spin.  Hmm, I'll have to see what carding them together does.

We had some beautiful weather this weekend.  Temps in the mid 60s; probably the last of the year.  I had the window open about 6 inches so the cats could smell what was going on outside.  Probably the last of that for the year, too.  How was your weekend?

Cats on Thursday

It's done

And it's too small.  I have the worse luck with sizing.  (Oh, sorry for the really crappy picture.  The colors are much deeper in reality.)  I didn't want it to be too big and as a result, it ended up being too small.  It hasn't been washed or blocked so it might grow a bit.  If it doesn't, I'll either be gifting it or using it as a scarf.

I voted today.  Thank goodness all the political madness is almost over.  A few more hours.  No more obnoxious TV commercials slamming this guy or that guy.  No more proposals.  I hate politics.

The red/orange shawl is currently hibernating until the yarn I ordered arrives.  I just wasn't going to have enough of the handspun to get a decent-sized shawl.  I hope the yarn I ordered is the right shade of red or it'll be back to the drawing board.  I seem to be in search of the perfect shawl:  one that will wrap around me, keep my upper arms warm, and be interesting to knit.  I'm still searching.

The best laid plans...

Our craft weekend didn't go quite as planned but I did manage to make a nice dent in the border of the blue shawl.  I ordered yarn from Knitpicks - Gloss in Sea Spray - and spent all of today watching movies and knitting.  I'm already past the halfway mark.  I would dearly love to stay home tomorrow and finish it but I'll be good and go to work instead.

I had hoped to get the kid's quilt finished and to finish a bag I'm making for a friend.  Instead, we spent most of Saturday visiting with my parents and doing a little shopping.  I bought some new, fancier garland for my Christmas tree.  I'm pretty sure I won't be putting up a tree this year.  The cats are still a little too rambunctious and I love my tree ornaments.  We'll see about next year.