So many hobbies!

The rest of the sock

As I thought, this yarn is coming out lighter than the yarn for the heels and toes.  I'm almost done with the first 2 ounces on this bobbin.  I'm going to ply from two bobbins instead of from a center-pull ball like I usually do.  Four ounces of sock-weight singles in a center-pull ball would take ages to ply and it would be harder to put it down and take a break.

My guild has its monthly meeting on Saturday.  The same day as the spring Fiber Expo.  The girls and I, as soon as the guild meeting is over, will be heading off to the Expo.  None of us needs anything but we've all been cooped up over the winter and anything that gets us out and about is not to be missed.

Thanks to Gayle and Helen for leaving me comments on my roving idea.  I really could use all of your opinions and ideas.  

I'm starting to get excited about the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in May.  My friend Sheri has introduced me to Freezer Bag Cooking and I've printed a number of recipes that sound good.  What is Freezer Bag Cooking you ask?  You take your freeze-dried or dehydrated ingredients and add them to a quart-size freezer bag.  Then, at your campsite, you add boiling water and wait 10 minutes or so for the food to rehydrate/cook.  Mostly, these recipes were developed for backpackers who want their packs to be as light as they can get them.  I'm interested in good food that doesn't take a lot of work.  After a long day at a fiber festival, I'm hot, I'm tired and I don't want to work for my food.  The hard part for me will be picking just a few recipes to take with me.  I plan on trying them out before we leave for Maryland.  I don't want to get out there and find my dinner is terrible.  Personally, I'd rather eat out, in nice, clean air-conditioned restaurants but my camping partner would rather save that money for more fiber.  I can see her point which is why I'll be picking some recipes to try between now and May.  I can hardly wait!

Tyr and socks

She jumps down off the nice, comfy couch to go sit under the table.  I have no idea why.

New socks from handspun.  I think it's Merino/silk but it's been too long.  These will likely be house socks.  You see those scratches on my left foot?  Guess who gave them to me?  I'll give you a hint:  look behind my left foot.  There I am, minding my own business, laying in my nice, soft bed when I had the misfortune to move my foot.  I really need to clip her claws.

New Socks!

Somehow I've gotten it into my head that I always need to have a pair of socks on the needles.  My last two socks-in-progress are finally finished so it's time to cast on for another pair.  The yarn is Superwash Merino from The Sanguine Gryphon and I'm in love with the colors.  As usual, I'm knitting two socks at once from the toe up using size 1.5 needles.

My sister's house in Pennsylvania flooded a few months ago.  In the overenthusiastic effort to clean the mud out of the basement, quite a few things were inadvertently thrown out.  Several of those things were the handmade Christmas stockings my sister had made.  We have to have stockings for Christmas and my sister doesn't have the time, so I'll be heading off to Joann tomorrow or Thursday for some fabric to make four quick and dirty temporary stockings.  Nothing fancy, just stockings to tide my sister over until she can replace the ones that were lost.  I've been given instructions to make the stockings BIG so lots can be fit inside.  Gotcha!  Four big stockings coming up.

Two weeks and counting

My presents are wrapped.  With the exception of some baking next Saturday, I am done with my Christmas preparations.  I haven't been ready this early for Christmas in years.  I have to say, it feels pretty good.  I even had time to do some sewing.  I made myself another pair of pillowcases:

They have a Christmas feel to them but not so much that I can't use them the rest of the year, too.  I'm tweaking the pattern as I go.  The piping I'm reducing to an inch and a half as opposed to the 2" piping you see above.  The smaller accent looks better.  I use Kona Muslin for the body of the case but I'm having a hard time finding it.  Joann no longer carries it and it's a little too expensive to buy it online and without a coupon.  I'm thinking buying a single flat sheet and then cutting it into the right size for the pillowcases would work better.   Now I just have to find a good source for flat sheets.

I also finally finished my house socks.  Cormo/silk handspun knitted on size 3 needles.  These will be nice and warm for the winter and my cold floors.  (Crap!  I just realized I didn't cast on for a new pair of socks.  I take the socks to work with me and knit during breaks and lunch.  The sock doesn't grow very quickly but it does grow.)

Does anyone know where I can find yellow Miso paste?  I don't know if Whole Foods was out or they just don't carry it but I'm craving Miso soup and I need yellow Miso for that.  Kroger doesn't carry it nor does Trader Joe's, as far as I can tell.  Mmm, Miso soup!  Oh, geez,I almost forgot, there's an Asian market just down the road.  They should carry it.  I hope.

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.

Nibbled by a goat

 

The Handmaiden Casbah socks are done.  Finally.  I started them October 2nd and finally finished them this past Saturday.  Well, I wove in the ends Saturday.  The fabric is tight and thick and will be very cozy on my feet.

 

I cast on for these in the airport on my way down to Florida.  I've made pretty good headway.  The kittens, on occasion, give me a bit of knitting peace so between the week in Florida and the past week, I'm about an inch and a half from starting the heels.  They're going much faster than I expected them to.

 

A little more shell art.  This is a Sunray Venus my parents found on the beach.  I pretty good find.  I'm partial to anything sun-like so once I find a place, this guy will hang on the wall.

 

My spinning guild meeting was this past Saturday.  One of my fellow guild members often brings in orphaned baby goats or sheep.  This little girl is a three day old angora goat.  For some reason, she nibbled everyone's chins and necks (she wasn't hungry, we tried that).  Little, tiny nips with her teeth, but not enough to hurt.  It tickled instead.  (The picture was taken by my friend Amy with her iPhone and a special photo app.)

Good thing I brought extra projects

Because all I worked on last week were these:

 

Knitted from this yarn:

 

which looks much better in person.  Anyway, I think they're beautiful.  It's a pity they're just going to get shoved into a pair of shoes.

Now that I think about it, I did work on this:

 

When we're on Sanibel Island, the third best shelling in the world, we inevitably turn to shell art.  The local shell stores have different sized mirrors and wooden boxes to cover with shells and my mom always brings her HOT glue gun down with her.   You should see the mirror my sister was working on.  It's not finished so I don't have any pictures.

It was great to get away but by the end of the week, I was ready to go home and eager to get back to my kittens, although not ready to go back to work.  I'm now eagerly awaiting my sister's help clean sweeping my condo.  I have WAY too much stuff and not enough room to put anything.  After the end of March, though, I'll have much less stuff and much more storage thanks to IKEA.  Until then, I just have to wait.  Bummer.

I still knit

 

It's just a lot harder than is used to be.  You see, I have these two "helpers" who make a night of nice, calm knitting virtually impossible.  I've taken to knitting at work, waiting at the doctor's office and car repair shops, etc.  I'll be on vacation the first week of February so I anticipate lots of peaceful knitting and spinning (I'm bringing a drop spindle).  Drop spindling at home has the same problems knitting does.

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?

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.