Happy Birthday Baby!

Happy Fourth Birthday S!

She got to open one gift this morning, and is wearing her Tinkerbell dress already. We're planning out our day based on the birthday activities we need to complete - where to get her cake (ice cream cupcakes from Coldstone) and what she wants for dinner (Mac & cheese at Red Robin - at least this morning that's what she wants!), not to mention what she wants to bring to school tomorrow to celebrate!

Birthdays sure are fun when you're 4!!

Yowza! It's been a while since I posted. I've done lots of knitting, a little spinning, and all sorts of other "stuff." No pictures, because most of it is stealth (gifts) and the rest, I'm too lazy!

It seems late to post the Sock Summit summary. It was awesome. I bought some stuff. I won more stuff. That's probably enough anyway.

I've been knitting like crazy. For the holidays, for Barb and Kollage, for me - not so much I guess. That's wishful thinking. But there are grand plans for "me" knitting, once the holiday stuff gets finished. I have some lovely silk lace yarn for a Featherweight Cardigan, and a whole bag of Malabrigo in Forest (holy cow what a great gift!) just aching to be a nifty cardigan for me too. Anyone with any ideas is welcome to weigh in. I have a couple options from my Ravelry queue, but I'm open. . . This much lusciousness is so tempting for so many things!

I have been spinning, and planning my spinning . . . I've spun a few natural colors (CVM, some merino/baby alpaca I got in a swap), and a few chain plied fun tops. I'm learning long draw (what you can do with top, sliver, and batts), and feeling more confident with my modified long draw. Posted pictures of most of it on Ravelry. And what I haven't gotten up there, will get up eventually. Lambtown yielded a little new fiber (8 oz of Cormo), but the Yolo Wool Mill trip on Halloween yielded my project for next year. . . I found 26 oz of chocolate merino (at a steal of a price)! I'm planning to spin it up into DK weight yarn, see how much I get, and figure out a lovely sweater to knit for myself from there! I need to decide if I want to do 2ply or 3ply, probably 3ply, because I usually like the look of that better (but after I knit up S's mittens for the holidays, I'll know better). OK, I know I said (somewhere) that I had no desire to ever spin for a sweater. And we'll see if I ever get there. But that's my project for the next year. People change, right? This sliver is just so gorgeous, and such a great price, I could not pass it up! (and I even had to fight off a couple spinners, as I was waiting for my change hehe).

wow

I'm back from Sock Summit. Overwhelmed, exhausted, and satisfied beyond words. It was a fun weekend of knitting, new friends and sisters. I enhanced my stash more than intended (but the bonus of that is that I followed my budget, and only purchased one skein that was not on my list of intended purchases! Winning door prizes is fun.) I got to be a little starstruck and even got to make a fool out of myself gushing at my "spinning idol"

On the non-knitting end of things, I had the best hot chocolate of my life, some great microbrews, good food, and got to explore some of Portland.

Now I am back. I am getting back to the reality of groceries, the chatter of a 3.5 year old, and housekeeping duties.

I'll write more later. And maybe even have some pictures for you.

I'm busily preparing for my trip. I leave tomorrow for Sock Summit. For those who don't know what it is, I'm sure you won't understand ;) It's a sock knitting convention. With classes taught by famous (mostly sock) knitters, and a marketplace full of fun sock knitting goodies. I am taking one class, and plan to spend money at the marketplace. I am having dinner with some of my online friends (and hopefully my favorite Yarnista will be there too!) - How nice to put faces and voices with all those posts we've shared online! I am beyond excited. Like a kid at Christmas - you know: up at 4 am watching the window for a glimmer of the sun so that I can go in and tell my parents the sun is up so can we go see what Santa brought now please but what do you mean I have to wait until the clock says 6 but I can see the sun no it is not just a reflection of the moon on the snow I've been watching and it is definitely brighter than it was an hour ago come on why not - My flight leaves tomorrow around 6. PM. I hope I make it without annying the whole family!

I am meeting my (non-knitting) sister there. We are making a girls' weekend out of it. No kids, no J, just me and my sis.

This is a photo of the yarn that I made just to take with me to SS. It is the "Labor of Love" that I mentioned in my last post. It is now all caked up and ready to go in my carry-on (no way I'm entrusting it to the baggage handlers!) For those that are interested in the specifics, after finishing it was about 430 yards of 17 wpi, Targhee from Time to Knit (Etsy seller)


Hopefully I'll have lots to gush about after my return!

Pictureless Progress

The vacation was nice. After two nights camping on the beach, we had all gotten our fill of the sand (Anyone else know the Sandra Boynton song that goes something like: "I've got the sand in my toes, the sand in my nose, the sand in my hair and the sand in my face. I think I've got the sand 'most everyplace" Yeah, we all felt about like that.) We took off looking for a new place to camp and we no longer have a tent. (Don't ask!) We spent the next couple nights in hotels, and I think by Sunday, while we had a lot of fun, we had all seen enough of each other for a while. I didn't get as much knitting done as I hoped.

But, this week, I finished another test knit for Barb and Kollage. I knit up a cute little one-skein bag, the yarn and pattern for which I received in a recent swap. And I did a little spinning too.

As the title for this post shows, I have no photos for you though, so it's just a boring list of my accomplishments.

I also need to photograph the labor of love - 4-ply cabled fingering weight yarn, made from Targhee. I worked on it for over five weeks, and now it's just sitting on the table, begging me to take pics so I can post them. It really wants to be loved now, after all the time it spent on my wheel.

So, maybe next post will have some yarn pr0n for you.

Whoot! We're headed to the beach for five days! CAMPING on the beach. I haven't been camping since the summer before S was born. (Remember that trip, Courtney and Carrie?) It's supposed to be in the 70s while we're there. That means that we get to escape the 105+ they're predicting for around here. I wonder how much knitting time I will get. I already know that I'm driving most of the 5 hours there, as J has to work. Hopefully that will be the end of the work while we're on vaca.

See you in a few days! I've been pretty cranky this week. Hopefully I'll be more relaxed and happy when we get back.

A few FOs

So one of my knit-night friends keeps dropping these not-so-subtle hints about seeing the finished socks. And since I've sent them to their new home already, pictures will have to do. While I'm at it, I decided to include a couple other recently finished projects too. Hopefully there is some fun eye candy for you here.

I'll start with the test-knits for Kollage Yarns (and Barb, the designer). I just finished two sets of fingerless gloves in 1/2 N 1/2, which is a half wool, half milk protein yarn. I adore this yarn - it is nice and soft, with great stitch definition. It feels fantastic on my hands! Forgive the self-photography. I'm getting better, but there are only so many angles you can get of your own hand.

These are her Petit Feather & Fan Fingerless Gloves. A quick, fun knit. And who doesn't love purple anyway?

Next are the Spiral Rib & Ruffles Fingerless Gloves. There is a funny story about these gloves. A while ago, I knit a pair of socks in this stitch pattern. Made a mental note to never make anything with this stitch pattern again. About a year later, I was leafing through my book, and decided on this stitch pattern, because it's so pretty. Made an actual note to myself in the book to never make anything with this stitch pattern again. So, along comes this test-knit, and I mentally groaned (OK, so maybe I actually groaned out loud hehe) to be, yet again, knitting this stitch pattern. I don't know if it was the yarn, or maybe the slightly larger needles (at least over what I used previously) but I didn't hate the stitch pattern this time. And I even kind of like the ruffle! It was a fun ruffle to make.

And now, the socks. These are Toe-Up Bayerische, which seems to have vanished shortly after I printed up the pattern. I even had a lot of issues getting to the original Bayerische pattern, by Eunny Jang, when I was looking for further information as I attempted to size up a bit. Boy am I glad I printed it all up when I did! I used Shibui Knits Sock yarn, in Chinese Red. These were fun, even though I just finished a twisted stitch cabled sock, and have another in the works. I guess I'm just a glutton, but these patterns are so PRETTY! This one was a little hard to fathom. My typical socks are 65-75, maybe 80 stitches. These were more like 100! And according to the pattern, were supposed to fit something like a 7 inch foot circumference. I think it fits more like an 8+ inch circ, but I was still amazed that 100 stitches at 9-10 spi pulled in to 8 inches! J nearly stole them, before I shipped them off to my swap partner in Minnesota.