So many hobbies!

Skeined Polworth

This photo is coming out darker than the yarn actually is, at least on my monitor.  The yarn is soft and lovely.  It's going to be beautiful knitted in my vest.

This is one of the sets of stitch markers I'm donating to the Summer of Socks 2007 knit along.  I printed it out on my printer, cut out the white squares and glued them to the black cardstock.  One of my many hobbies is rubber stamping so I have everything I need to create the cards:  card stock, 1/8" punch, cutting mat, xacto knife, rulers, Yes paste.  My other hobbies sure come in handy sometimes.

If you could go back in time to any time and place, where/when would you go?  (I think of these things sometimes.)  If I could, I would visit the great Library of Alexandria before it was destroyed.  (Of course, if I could go back in time, I'd also have the ability to read what was in the library.  Right?)  There are so many writings that we know once existed but are now lost.  What an amazing thing that would be.  The other thing I'd love to do would be to travel Route 66 during it's heyday.  I love to travel and I've always wanted to take Route 66 from the east to the west coast.  All the kitschy tourist stops and the great road-side food.  What fun!  Route 66 was a more casual way to travel, unlike today where we speed down expressways and never really see the land around us.  Sometimes I think I was born too late.  So, when would you go if you could?

More stitch markers

There aren't enough hours in the day, or rather, not enough after-work hours.  There's so much I want and need to do and not enough time to do it.  After work tonight I got groceries, came home and put them away, ate some dinner, relaxed a bit and read some of the book Living with Sheep (just in case I want to buy a place in the country and raise my own wool), then spent the rest of the evening designing and making stitch markers.  No wool touched my fingers all night.  I think I'm going through withdrawals.  Tomorrow I'm going to do my homework from the Sheep Breeds class which is to wash the dirty dark Corriedale locks we were given.   I've already flicked and spun all the clean locks and I'm ready for more.  I'm going to need more wool wash before I tackle washing the lighter Corriedale.

I'm so excited about the Great Lakes Fiber Show this weekend I can hardly stand it.  It'll be my first.  I admit it, much of my excitment is for all the wonderful fibery things I'm anticipating buying.  But I'm also looking forward to seeing all the livestock.  I don't think I've ever seen an alpaca in the flesh before.  Plus there's the sheeps, llamas, angora goats, angora bunnies.  I think I'll have to constantly talk myself out of buying my own source of angora.  I'm also entering my own handspun into their skein competition.   Wish me luck.

More stitch markers

I didn't do much tonight except make up more stitch markers.  My first day back at work and by the end of the day, I was exhausted.  Wire work doesn't take much energy, hence the stitch markers.  Eventually, I'm going to offer these for sale so if anyone wants to leave me any feedback, I'd appreciate it.  For now, I'm going to bed.  Hopefully I'll be more energetic tomorrow.

A great discovery

I learned Saturday, at my second knitting class, just why I've been knitting so blasted tightly on my sock.  I've been doing it wrong.  For nearly three months, I've been knitting wrong.  For a knit stitch, instead of wrapping the yarn counter clockwise around the needle, I've been wrapping it clockwise.   I have three months of muscle memory to unlearn.  Damn.   Well, I knitted on my sock today, correctly, and I'll be darned if my stitches weren't comfortably loose.  Sock knitting before wasn't exactly enjoyable because I was constantly fighting to shove the stitches down the needle.  It was going to take me forever to knit just one sock.  Not now...

In addition to my class and knitting on my sock, I worked on stitch markers this weekend.  I'd never done wire wrapping before, so I dragged out a copy of Bead & Button magazine and using their "basics" directions, taught myself how to create a loop and then wrap the wire.  I think they turned out pretty well.