What to do? What to do?

1. Finish second sleeve of Feb. lady Sweater and work on the body more. I would love to finish this up by Sunday.
2. Start second plain sock
3. Work on Master swatches....I bought a new skein of yarn so I have no excuse....except my needles are missing...that's a good one.

Nap time cannot come fast enough.

Teeny stuff

I know this post should be the second half of my fleece cleaning but I'm the blogger so I'll do what I want.

A week ago a friend had a baby. A boy to be exact. I knit him a diaper cover remember? I harassed her a few times (I know...nice friend I am I demand modeling pictures at less than a week old!) and she finally obliged. :)

Aww...how sweet. I was worried it wouldn't fit. Silly me. He has some growing room (the waist is folded down). I'm liking it....mostly the baby though. ;) Go now and tell the mama he's a keeper. We like to hear things like that. :)

Gettin' dirty

**This is a spinning/fiber post...nothing knitting related. Just a warning for you non-spinning/fiber folk.**

The Tour de Fleece recently just ended. For those not in the know it's like the Tour de France...but without bikes. You set yourself a personal goal and then try your damndest to spin up that much fiber. I didn't do it this year because 1. I have a 1.1 oz. drop spindle...it would take forever to get anything decent and 2. I didn't find out about it until I read about it on Yarn Harlot's blog a day or so after it began. I'm not that ambitious. :) It did get me motivated to haul out the fleece from a couple yeas back and get some cleaned up. I thought I'd take some pics of the process and since there are so many this will become two posts.

Here is the fleece in the box I store it in. MAJOR amounts of vegetable manner. Super thick and tangled. I have yet to take it completely out of the box and lay it out flat. I'm going to give it a try here in the next little bit but for now I just pulled out a bunch. Nice and gooey with lanolin (natural sheep oil...it's what water proofs them for those who aren't in the know).

Next I stuck it in the tub (warm water with a tad of dish soap..not too much). I set it on top of the water and let the water naturally soak through everything and really saturate it. After it had really soaked in I turned it over and moved it around and seperated it up a bit. I also removed the larger pieces of vegetable matter at this point.

Here it is after a bit of manipulating.

This is the second rinse. During this one I put more focus into the ends and inner most pieces of the thicker locks.

I'll post more pics tomorrow and more info. Blogger is being stupid right now and it has taken me two days jsut to get this much up.

Proof I knit

***Hmmm this post has been done for sometime now. I was just logging in to post on another blog and noticed this one never posted. I know I hit publish. Blogger hates me. That is all.***

So here is proof I knit. A couple fo's! First up is a Warm Heart Woolies wrap (these pics were taken pre-bath/lanolizing). This is a size small with extra rise (done for a neice). The yarn is some Cascade 220 (the solid blue) and some random wool. The funny thing about the random wool is it is stuff my sister bought (the sister who happens to have given birth to said neice) and dyed and then sold on ebay. It then wound up at my house many months later. It seems fitting it should go to her.

I haven't put any velcro/applix on it for a couple reasons. 1. I'm lazy. 2. I think, personally, it reduces the amount of stretch and this baby is STRETCHY! 3. When I told my sister reason 2 she said not to worry about it. She's going to try out snaps (if I ever get it sent to her) and if that doesn't work she'll do the applix.

Next up is something that actually has been finished, packaged, mailed, and received for sometime now. It was part of a trade that took way too long (on my end). It's Robbie the Fish from Toys to Knit. And again, I hate this pattern. I wish toy patterns weren't so seaming heavy. This fish drives me nuts. I get it almost completely seamed, turn it inside out (because the seaming technique the author suggests doens't work well for me on this pattern), stuffed, and then when I go to close the rest of him up it turns out ugly and mangled. I hope the mama who got it wasn't horrified. I would have been. I did explain it a bit to her and I think she could see what I was talking about. It was nice and large (as were the othe two toys I sent).

I think I used 8's on this one. The yarn is recycled wool (way back from 2 years-ish ago!) that I kool-aid dyed myself. It's weird to me that up top it suddenly started pooling red. The other side has some pooling too. The yarn was my first ever try at dying and I have to admit I'm quite pleased it striped as well as it did. I had no plans when I was dying...I just threw color at the yarn and hoped it came out pretty. I really wish the seaming had turned out better. :( I think I just need to stop making this stupid fish! :)

Wow...lame (day 4...sort of)

Geez. I get on a "I will post for 30 days" bit and then last....3 days.

In my defense though we moved. We are now unpacked, minus a stray box here and there, and things have somewhat settled in. We are headed out of state tomorrow and then have a busy weekend (baptisims) so it's not horribly likely I will be here blogging away. And you know what? That's ok. Because I said so. It'll just be a pleasant surprise if I do show up. :)

I originally had a big long post here about knitters and vanity. Are we vain? Not in our looks but in our materials and FO's (finished objects for you non-knitting readers). I got all the way to the end of it but couldn't publish it. It wasn't coming out right and I was afraid that all of us lovely crafty folk might be put off by it (not that I really think that many people read my blog...only hope ;) ). I may re-work it and come back and republish. It seems like it could work. As far as rambles can. :)

Since we've been in a state of boxes I haven't really done much with my knitting. I have moved it from one safe place to another as soon as the previous was no longer safe. I have checked (maybe obsessively so) that none of my 200+ stitches have slipped off my needles. I have also kept tabs on the bag holding all the other balls (though I'm nervous now that one is floating free....I need to go check again). The idea of knitting all those stitches into even more garter was a tad daunting. I'm so close to the end of it though I might as well plug on. I'm gearing up for some good knitting time tomorrow. Maybe even tonight. My fingers are itching to get moving.

I'm even going to go take pictures now. Of actual knitting stuff. So I can post them. On my knitting blog. Will wonders never cease.