Holy picture posting batman!

I finally have something of an Internet connection so I decided I needed to do some updating. Pictures are (in order): merino roving, handspun merino, manos and cascade used for Picky Pants, Picky Pants, Close up of pants, manos and cascade for more picky pants, mountain colors sock yarn, cascade stripes sock yarn, and art yarn superwash. Not all the pictures are in this post though. The single ball of artyarn is not a lone gunner. The matching ball is about half way through an ankle sock for me. As always, you can click the pictures to bring up a larger one.


The Picky Pants are a size medium. They are a bit short for my liking but I have an issue with pant lengths. In all honesty they are a perfect fit for the wee one. I have ten garter ridges on as the cuffs. I love the way they look. My first cuff though has some issues which you can see in the first picture of the pants. I kept screwing up on the first stitch of the round so I havea diagonal line going through the cuff where I occassionally have some stockinette stitch going on. That seems to be my only mistake though. My kitchener for the crotch is fabulous! I actually used the directions/pictures from my Knit Socks! book and it went so much better. Not sure why, they are the same as every other set of direction I have ever used. Who knows? I can't wait to get started on the other pair. As I was pulling pictures from Photobucket to put in here I found some more yarn I have destined to be Picky Pants and I can't wait. I think my knitting motivation is actually coming back. I need it to. I have a lot of things on my knitting plate and very few are getting worked on. I am slacking big time and it's beginning to bug me. Plus I am a HH helper this year and need to get going there. SIGH, UGH, GRUMBLE. :)

Ok, I just tried to make a new post to post the remaining three pictures. Blogger, once again, has something in it's backside and won't let me. I shall post them later on when it thinks I haven't posted pictures for a bit. :)

No house, new yarn

We have yet to move in to a house. When this was all brought up to me I told my husband I didn't want to move to a new state and end up not having a house to move into right away. What do you know? I was right. Joy.

I did get a bunch of new stuff though. I got to go to a pretty decent sized yarn store here in town and blew quite a bit of money. My absolute favorite thing(s) out of it all so far is my Schacht hi-lo Spindle and a 10 ounce ball of merino roving. Yes I have a spindle and yes I have roving but I wanted something better. When I first got my spindle (the one I ordered offline) I knew it was different. It was a low whorl spindle but it was built oddly. It had a flat bottom with no shaft sticking out. No biggie since it was my first one. I thought it was heaven. Since using my Schacht though....oh boy! I am in heaven! This thing glides through the air like it was made of nothing. The basic balance of it beats my other one by leaps and bounds. The first one, I think I need a name for it, wobbled...the balance was off...something weighed more and it was centered. I couldn't figure it out but I made do. The Schacht has incredible balance. It's like an orgasm for my hands. :)

The roving I got to go with it is beautiful merino. Reds and blues and golds. Looking at the ball you'd think it would mainly turn out red but after spinning a bit of it the color is very much tweedy...it reminds me of my Salt Lake Donegal Tweed. The spindle holds about 1.1 ounces so I made up a two ply with a total weight of about 2.2 ounces. What a difference when you have good quality roving! My first stuff was hairy. I wasn't a fan of it. It looked like it had split ends after it was spun. Very unimpressed. This new stuff though is smooth and slick. I've already started knitting a bracelet with a design based off a sock pattern. This stuff is gorgeous! I'm pretty impressed with myself too. It was my first time actually "washing" it to neutralize the twist in it. Oddly enough I had my Spinning the Old Way book in my knitting bag. So last night I pulled it out after I finished plying and read through it all, got it washed up, and hung to dry. There is a reason they recommend doing that! It relaxed my yarn so much and made it more useable...less rigid. It was pretty amazing to see it all turn out. I am in love with that stuff! I just wish it didn't take so long. Reading through the book I realized I could make it easier on myself in regards to how I work with the roving. As it stands right now I just seperate my strips and lay them out. Then I join a new piece when I need to. Not a big deal since it's effcient and I have optimum control over how much gets drafted in. The book though shows how to wrap it around you wrist and go from there. I want to try it but I am a snob and very particular to how my yarn turns out. I'm not a fan of the whole thick and thin thing and I hate novelty. I want uniform, consistent, even yarn all throughout. I blame my OCD.

I bought some more Manos for the sole purpose of longies. These colors are beautiful! I got two different colors and then some solid Cascade 220 to use for the waist and cuffs. I'm thinking of maybe do leg "patches" too to add some personality to them. :) I just tried to add in pictures and Blogger isn't letting me. I'll try in a new post. :)

I also bought four skeins of sock yarn. The husband has been complaining I have yet to make him anything so I grabbed some Cascade 220 in blues for him. He picked out the color and was pretty appaled to see how much a pair of socks would cost. lol He just doens't get it. ;) I got some sock yarn for me in a GORGEOUS color. The yarn is Mountain Colors sock yarn in Gold Rush. Very pretty. I do have the online picture of it and it does not do it justice. Makes it look very...primary colorish. In real life the colors are more earthy. I bought (on a different day) Knit Socks as well. I want to make some out of there but I'm knid of irritated with the book. Her numbers are off big time. For instance for my 18 month old daughter I cast on 40 stitches with size 3 needles. In this book there are multiple patterns that say to cast on 48 stitches on size 1-3 needles for a WOMAN'S medium. I wear a medium. I need at least 60-64 for a sock to fit. Most of the patterns require numbe specific patterns as well. There is one I want to make that uses a chveron lace dealio. It's in a 9 stitch pattern which is fine. I can figure it out but it's the entire pattern that needs refiguring. Why buy the book if I need to do the pattern writing myself you know? I have made the munchkin a few pairs of socks and ended up frogging them a few times. Irritating to say the least but luckily it's jsut toddler socks. Nothing huge.

I also bought two pairs of needles. Size 1 and 2. Holy smallness batman! I ended up buying Brittany brand needles since they didn't have both sizes in Clover. Thank god I did. I ended up snapping two of my size 1's in half the first day I sued them. I was pretty upset about it all and mad that I had done it. I went to put them back in the box they came in and noticed yet again that the company has a 5 year replacement on them. Woo hoo! No need to buy a whole new set. :)

I have been knitting. Not nearly as much as I had hoped since it's hard to find motivation when you're in a hotel room all day. I decided to do the wraps one at a time as opposed to the three at once. It was taking too long and I was tired of getting yarns all tangled up. I am almost done with one and halfway done with the two. They are turning out way cute. Although I ended up casting on for a size small. I thought I had done the newborn but when I recounted all the wraps I had made the size small. They are a hybrid of small and newborn but that might be divine intervention there. Who knows? Maybe they will be the best fit for the babes. I need to finish them up and get them sent. I realize they aren't going to suddenly gain 100 pounds but I feel bad that they have taken this long.

I feel even worse over this latest Magic Ball swap on Mothering. When I signed up we were told we would move here and get into the house that day. Since then every possible thing has gone wrong and they have bounced us from hotel to hotel. My swapee has since sent my yarn to the address I gave her. I have no way of checking the mail there because they are apartment style mailboxes. Plus we aren't officially in there yet so it's kind of a in the air thing in regards to having mail there for us period. It's a mess. To top it off I haven't been able to send out my yarn. I have had the mama's address for three weeks now and I have yet to send it. I have talked to her and she's happy to wait but I feel horrible. I shoulnd't have signed up for this. :( I am tempted to send her a gift certificate to a store so that she at least can get herself something. Someone can only be patient for so long before they get irritated you know? This whole situation sucks and the longer it goes on the more I feel like it's one big joke.

Finally moving

We're packing up the U-Haul as I type! We leave bright and early tomorrow morning. We won't have Internet access until Tuesday but that's ok. That gives me time to unpack and get pictures and all that good stuff without getting distracted. :)

I have been feeling the sock itch these past few days. You know, that inevitable burning sensation to knit a sock (man itch and burn and socks...sounds like athletes foot :) ). I can't justify starting such a time intensive, for me..a sock newbie, project when I have yet to finish up the wraps. I still need to do two more fish and finish the wraps but I had to do a sock. I dreamt about it the other night. Yeah, I dreamt about knitting socks. And that's all I was doing. Sitting in a chair knitting socks.

So I started one anyway. :) Bwahahaha. A toddler sock ot be exact. Last time we were in Salt Lake and I bought yarn I copied off a sock pattern out of a book at the library. I had lost mine and was on a roll so I had to get a pattern. I can't remember the book but the cover has four pictures on it and I think it's gloves and some tams etc. A very basic pattern. I pulled that out the other night and my first skein of sock yarn and started. I was almost done though when I realized it was on the wee bit small side so I frogged it. The good thing about small things is it's not heartbreaking when you do have to frog it. :) I re cast-on yesterday afternoon and decided to do an ankle sock. I think there is something so cute about little kids ankle socks. I'm on the gussets right now. I started at 3 when Dr. Phil was on. It's taking a bit longer than I would think a small sock would but I rationalize my slowness by pointing out that not only am I packing a house to move but my 17 month old daughter was AWAKE during said knitting time. As as my toddler of a husband. yeah, things took time yesterday. hehehehe

So until Tuesday adios! I plan on knitting many pairs of toddler socks and the wraps. I'm going to try and work on the wraps mainly but honestly, who can pass up a quick sock? Not me.

One fish, two fish

I finally got pictures of 2 of the 4 fish I did for the MM yarn trade. I'm a slacker and am just barely getting these off but the tradee knows this so no worries. I have decided I do not like this pattern. It's easy enough but it lacks. There are easier ways to do the entire thing including the fins. The author doesn't tell you how to seam it up at all. Nor does she tell you how to do the eyes and mouth. I ended up changing some things around on fish 2 but still haven't figured out the ideal way to go about it. My sister wants some toys from the same book and I am hoping that they are nothing like this dinky pattern. :)

Yarn cakes

I bought a ball winder and Oh.My.God. The sheer joy that sucker brings me is silly. I have almost reqound every single thing of yarn in my house. :)

I bought some yesterday when I bought that. I got three things of Cascade 220, one Cascade Quatro, and two things of sock yarn (Lana Grossa and Magic Stripes). Enough chitter chatter...yarn p0rn!


Ok in order from top left to right: Brown Cascade 220, unknown color Cascade 220, Magic Stripes Sock Yarn unknown color, Lana Grossa sock yarn unknown color, Blue Cascade 220, and finally unknown color Cascade Quatro. Beautiful stuff huh? :)

Slowly but surely

I wasn't able to work much on these last night. Our heat is controlled downstairs. See our apartment is the upstairs of an old opera house. Downstairs is the landlord/building owner's business. Apartments one and two (which we do rent) are part of the original building (dressing rooms!) and all the heat was added later on. So our heat is also the downstairs heat. When we first got it turned on they warned us it would get hot and fast. Boy they weren't kidding! So in an effort to control it a bit they set a timer on it so now it only clicks on twice a day. Sometimes that's all we need but usally not. We had three blankets going last night. Brrrr! So anyways, my hands were frozen and I couldn't manuver like I needed to. I am loving this yarn! Both the orange and the purply red color have subtle changes throughout that you can't really see in the picture. The two ends are squished up so you can see what the actual piece is starting to look like. I have decided that it is indeed going slower. I have yet to know if it's because there are 3 or if it's cause I'm not knitting at my normal spped due to temps outside. I need a couple more inches and then I start decreasing... I can't wait! I love the shape these take on once decreases are started.

Stitch markers galore!

Last night we were driving home when we decided to stop by our business partners house. Lucky me! I sat in the living room with his wife who is also a fibery type gal. She had started making some stitch markers to sell on EBay but had no luck. She had been meaning to give them to me for months now and as she was cleaning ran across the bag of them! Woo hoo! There are tons. The bags are not consistent. Some have only one style in them while others have five variations of a theme. Some only have one. I have hooks to hook into an actual stitch or I have hoops to go over the needles. I LOVE them!! I'm in another Magic Yarn Ball swap so some of these will be gifted. I am so excited to be able to send some lucky mama some beautiful hand made stitch markers!

The blue one on the top row is a turtle..it was a set of four. The bottom one on the end are crosses..big ones and little ones.











The second set on the top row are double sided. One side is a sun and the other is a moon.



This set is my favorite!!! I love the fact that it spells out knitter. The lady who made them has her own set for when she crochets. She needs more needles so more often than not she has to snake away a needle from something she's working on and place the WIP on a holder. By the time she gets back to it she can't remember what needle she was using. Her solution? Stitch markers that have a letter block in the size needle she was using. So ifshe was using a J hook she just slips on her J marker to her holder and off she goes. I thought that was a cool idea. I might make me some with needle sizes.


And here are three newborn size wraps. The mama got back to me and I cast on for them two nights ago. We had a long distance drive yesterday where I was the main driver so I didn't get to work on them. This was what I did in the first night. That's the front ribbing and I am onto some increases now. Thank god for long needles! I'm doing all three at once. It seems to be going faster but honestly I can't tell. I hope it does!

Swim swim

As part of a trade that I am slow on I made up another fish. I've actually done four...in all different sizes but only one is seamed and stuffed. I like it. It turned out far better than my first one but I am still not a fan of this pattern. The author doesn't tell you how to seam or place the fins/tail. It makes it kind of hard. I hope the mama who is getting them likes it. I think he's cute. :)

I decided I was going to wear a scarf this winter. Something simple but fabulous all at once. I decided to use my red tweed for it. A very simple pattern. 3 rows garter stitch, k5 on the edges with a stockinette niddle. I am loving the way it is coming out. It's going to be super long! It's not too wide either which I am glad about. As trendy cute as those super skinny or super thick scarves are they scream nonuseable. To me at least. :)



I pm'd the mama I am making so many covers for to ask if she would like a couple in newborn size. Those babes were tiny and I knew that smalls would be too big. She pm'd me back to say that NONE of their covers fit so newborns would be perfect. Woo hoo! I think I will end up doing all of them in that size just because they are so tiny. I need to get three done up and sent so that she can try them out. I would hate to make all those and get them sent only to find out that they just won't work.



And non-knitting....we're moving. To Colorado. On Tuesday.

Oh the sadness

I finished my sock!!!! It doesn't fit though. :) It's a bit too tight and a tad too short and my toe is ugly. There are some other issues along the way but nothing horrible. I am going to frog it though and make it into something else. This yarn is definitely more suited for toddler socks. Or something related to a toddler. Although I'm frogging it I still get the pleasure of saying...............










I knit socks.


See the ugly toe? Not my best Kitchener. I also messed up in my decreases and ended up fudging it a bit so there is quite a drastic decrease...hence the pointy toe.

You can see the pull in the fabric here. The pattern called for 56 stitches but I think it would be better using 60. At least for an akle sock. There isn't much give in the short amount of ribbing. Not a good pattern in my opinion. :)

Here you can see the funky pull throughout the decrease. Again...too tight. Despite it's ugliness I sure do like it. And man is it toasty!

An almost finished sock

So I had no intention of taking WIP pics of my first pair of socks. I actually wasn't sure I was going to do pics at all. Not because I don't like them but because it just seems like a project best photographed when there aren't so many glaring mistakes. :)



But I'm actually liking them. I wasn't so fond of the yarn at one point. It was right after I had turned the heel and it was looking less than cool. :) Since I've worked on it and I'm almost ready to get to the toe shaping it's not turning out so bad. I really like the yarn far more on the skein than I do knitted. It's going to be an ankle sock. When I was working on the leg/body part it dawned on me that lately all I have bought are ankle socks. My favorite toe socks are also ankle socks. I figured I should probably make them ankle socks. :) This is taking longer than I wanted but only because the wee one has not felt well the last couple days and so she is taking up my knitting time.

Picture of the new yarn

I tried getting this in the post below but....yeah, no sense beating a dead horse.

The sock yarn is Trekking (XXL). I've never seen it before but like I said before I mainly got it for the color. With my size 3 needles and all. :)
The tweed is Donegal Tweed homespun 100% pure wool. For some reason I thought tweed was a cotton only thing. I guess not. :) Both are both amazingly soft!

And red.

More yummy yarn

Well as much as I liked the blue yarn the intended mama would like something else. Something darker. Not so much pastelish. No problem though. I have the recepit and can easily take it back. I'm glad I didn't get started on it while we were in Salt Lake though. That would have sucked!

We went to Salt Lake this weekend for some work reasons and for our anniversary. The first day there I got to go to a yarn store. The first one was having a sale and that's the only reason I stopped. They had some ok yarn but nothing to really write about. I did buy some tweed but I think I bought it for two reasons. One is for the color...a beautiful red. And the other is cause I felt I needed to. I know I didn't but they were having a sale and I couldn't handle the thought of leaving without something. There was a bucket on the front porch that had some corn yarn. Had there been more I might have picked it up but there was only one tiny skein of mustard yellow. I so wasn't feeling the love. The store was also a fabric store and I think I would become more sewing minded if I could blow millions there. They had some awesome stuff!

As I threw my bag in the car I saw another store two doors down. So I tossed it in the seat and headed over there. The owner had some gorgeous colors! Oh I just wanted to buy things I wouldn't just for the coloring. I was there to look at sock yarn though. The owner was very.....non user friendly. I realize she was simply trying to help me find what I wanted and what not but the way she talked was very condescending and came across like she thought she was superior. The looks she gave me when I told her I was just now learning socks was one of disgust. "You're learning to knit with socks? Well that's actually boot yarn.What size needles are you using? Oh. 3's huh. Well my yarn is actually best for 1's." Blah blah blah. Lady I know what I want...back off. I did end up buying some based off the color. Again...red. :) As Iw alked out the door she hopped up and came running at me.

"If you have any questions please call me. All I really do is socks so there's nothing I can't answer. After all...socks aren't for everyone."

If I could have I think I would have thrown up on her. :)

Oh the joy of yarn!

I don't think I have had this much yarn goodness in so long. It's fabulous!


Good stuff from the craft store! The black is yarn for longies for the munckin. I needed/wanted a solid color to use for the MM yarn I got not too long ago. I have been trying to get some orange or red for some time and the husband pointed out that black would look awesome with it. I have to agree. :) The blue is for a trade. I'm using up the Elijah yarn and the mama wanted a solid color as well. She was thinking blue and blue is what I got. Surprisingly enough the color is almost exact. I had forgotten to grab the skein of LTK yarn to bring with me for reference so I had to go off memory. It couldn't have been a more perfect match actually. The striped yarn is Magic Stripes sock yarn. When we got to the craft store tehre was a lady knitting...socks. They looked fabulous! She's there every Wednesday and there is a class for knitting there as well. I'm not sure which day of the week since they don't have a schedule yet but the knitting lady said they are mainly doing socks this winter. Score! I asked what pattern she was using and she said it happened to be the one on the Magic Stripes yarn. After I got the Cascade wool I checked it out. I want to do socks. I really do. They are just a pain in my ass. :) So I grabbed the yarn I liked, checked the label to see if I had enough and to get the right sized needles. I hope I can do this. We are leaving for about a week and I am bringing a ton of knitting. I'll be able to whip out a good portion (if not all) of the trades I am working on. I'm thinking ambitiously and am hoping to get a lot of my list done. I plan on doing diaper covers galore and the mystery WIP. I plan on bringing cotton for the remaining washcloths and the socks. I plan on packing tonight since we leave early in the morning and am already writing my list of knitting. Yes, the knitting will get it's own suitcase. :)

**Grrrr! I have the blue yarn done and pictures have been taken. Of course...Blogger sucks!!!!!!!! You hear that Blogger...bite me! Pictures to come.****

The pics of today

Ok...here goes....trying again!


Prespun roving.



The first of the two singles. I'm almost done with the second one now and should be able to ply tonight...if not early in the morning. :)

And the latest stage of the MWIP. Oooo pretty!

Oooo some blue stuff. And some MWIP

I've been spinning non stop and am almost done with my second ball of yarn! I finished up my purple/yellow combo and plan on plying the remaining stuff with some white. I hope it turns out as well as it has in my head. I'm just not sure about it. This roving/yarn is hairy. :)

Like I mentioned in my last post I'm in a Magic Ball swap. I decided to spin the blue roving from my kit and send that my partners way. The coloring is actually blue and green....very much like ocean colors. Ocean waves and seaweed...cheesy? Sure. Truthful? Yes. It's kind of hard to see the green since it's just barely there....floating beneath the blue stuff just like seaweed floats below the water. Very subtle. I'm hoping once I ply it that it brings the green out a bit. I unrolled it all out and split it in half so that when I do ply it it will go a bit smoother than last time. It's turning out very pretty! I think I'm getting the hang of it. My thickness is more consistent this time around in my singles. I hope my balance is as good as the last one. I posted on MDC and they pointed out that I had really nice balance. Yeah....an ego stroke. :)

I've started on the second half now. I think I am either allergic to the wool (Cotswold) or to the dye the farm used. I can feel a residue after I spin this color for a bit. I couldn't feel it when I spun the first ball of roving but by the time I went to bed last night it felt like I had something greasy....I was tempted to think it was lanolin but this stuff is too dry for it to be that. Within ten minutes of laying down my hand I use to hold and draft the roving was itchy, slightly puffy, and tingly. So far today I haven't had an issue with it. I'm really hoping it was a fluke thing.

I haven't been working on the mystery WIP as much as I am wanting. It's been freezing here! This morning I got up early to wait for my neice whom I'm watching today. At 10:30 it was STILL 28 degrees outside. Yeah. It's cold. As a result my fingers have been like ice thus preventing proper knitting. I managed a row this afternoon when the temp. had gone up a bit but it's still a bit too cold. It's currently 59 degrees and my fingers hurt cause of how cold they are. Our apartment has HUGE (like taller than 5 feet and wider than 4 feet) windows in every room. So it feels a lot colder inside than it does outside. Hard to keep heat in with all that open space you know? I think I need to knit me some fingerless gloves. That way I can get some warmth and still function. Spinning surprisingly enough is just enough movement for the blood to get flowing and not require feats of gymnastics. BUT I have been getting little bits and pieces done. Not a ton of progress but we're getting there.

***I had three or four pictures in this post. However, Blogger sucks ass and refuses to let me post them in any form, size, or position. I have been trying all day to get them in without any luck. I'm going to go ahead and publish this post and try again in a seperate post until I get them up. Sorry...no pictures for you! :) ****

I have handspun yarn!

Saturday the glorious spindle arrived. By midnight I had my first ball of yarn! :) I ended up spinning all day long. I was so excited that I just wanted to get a finished product. As a result I think it could have been better. I'm shocked at how consistent I was able to get though. My singles weren't so great but when I plyed them I got a pretty good balance going. At least I think so. :)


Here's the whole skein. I didn't use the whole ball of roving so the skein is not complete. I ended up putting my singles on two different bobbins so plying would be easier. Since I wasn't sure how much was on the first bobbin I had to guess. I was very close. I only had a short amount left on the first bobbin and I used that to tie it off. I'm going to use the rest of the roving and ply it with some white I think.






Here's a close up of the actual yarn. You can see how uneven my singles are in it. But like I said I was so excited...I just had to get something done. :)

This roving is super easy and smooth on my fingers. There is a huge difference between this stuff (Cotswold) and the random fleece I got off Freecycle. The fleece is harder to draft but that could be because it hasn't been combed or anything. I'm hoping to get some brushes to see if that will work. I don't know if I like the roving that came with the kit though. It's very hairy. I don't know if all roving is like this since my fleece doesn't do it. But like I pointed out the fleece isn't combed or anything. I was hoping that it was just because this is my first time but the stuff I'm spinning now is doing the same. I hope it's just the type of wool that makes it do it.

I've got some more on the spindle now and it's going soooo much smoother. I think I've got it figured out pretty much. At least the spinning portion. I know I still need to get the hang of drafting but until then I'll just use thiner strips of roving. I read a blog this morning and the post was about some yarn she had spun on her wheel. Oh man I want one! It looks so smooth and nice and fluid!!!! I want to try one so bad. Maybe I'll talk the husband into renting one for me for our anniversary. I would love to just try one. I do like the fact that i can walk around with my drop spindle though. That's nice. I can see it becoming a habit when insomnia hits. :)

I'm part of a Magic Yarn ball swap and I think I'm going to use my spindle. I have some perfect roving for this mama and I think it would be absolutely perfect to use it. :)

If fluff were gold....

I would be rich.

This morning the husband woke me and the daughter up early. He wanted to go to town and get himself something. He had just spoiled me on our last trip there and now he wanted to spoil himself. The plan failed though because we ended up getting the daughter a ton of warm clothes. It's been freezing here and she needed some things.

When we got home it was well past noon which meant the mail had come. While the husband grabbed the clothes out of the car I ran to the mailbox and flung it open. Sadly all that was in there was a dinaky post acrd advertisment. I was dissapointed but got over it as I got the sleeping child out and headed up the staris. There....in front of our door....was a package.

Now, dear readers, do not think this is some ordinary event. It is not. Our mailman does not come up the stairs. They leave a nice little note in the mailbox downstairs and outside that sayd, hey come get a package HERE at the POST OFFICE. The fact that a box was sitting in front of our door was a miracle in and of itself. And no, it was not UPS. This was your ordinary, mailman delivering, priority mail. It was fabulous.

The man realized how excited I was and opened the door as fast as he could. I couldn't get in quick enough. I laid the sleeping kid down on a bed and ripped it open. You know what it is?

Come on guess.

It was something glorious.

It was my drop spindle!!!!!!!!!! And to top it off I got three colors! The website said it would be three natural and one dyed but as you can that was not the case. We got home at about 2-2:30 and it is now 9:53. During that time maybe an hour was spent NOT sinning. Yeah I'm addicted.









Here is some of the colored roving I've spun. Since this picture was taken I've done a ton more. (**Picture dissapeared!***) I had to remove that yarn and put it on a bobble so I could do more. This will become a scarf for my sister I think. She likes the color combo so it works. Me? Not a fan of it. :) I also did some white but it's not as pretty looking spin wise as this so I have yet to upload it to Photobucket. I do have some pictures but the camera just died so no luck.

As a result of my crazy spinning there was no work done today on the mystery WIP. There was some work done yesterday..a color change in fact but nothing really to post about. I'll try and work on it some more in the next day or so so that another picture can be taken.

Behold! The loveliness of the mail box. :)

I got my first package of yarn for the triplet knitting today. Wow! This yarn is so much better than I could have imagined. It's all so so so so so so soft! I can't believe how soft it is. The munchkin has opened the bag and taken the balls out and put them back in about a million times. She keeps petting it. See? The softness speaks to her as well. :)

The lovely mama also sent me some roving for me. This stuff is SSSSOOOO soft and creamy. It makes me want to wrap myself in it. Heaven!


Here is all the fantastic yarn. The colors are so much more vibrant than this picture shows. It's dark and rainy here today so our lighting is less than stellar.









And here is the roving. I want to dye it but I don't know what colors. I don't want to do Kool-Aid either. And do I dye it in roving form so that the color is even more random when it gets spun or do I dye it once it's yarn? Oh the predicament.

Twisted stitches

Every now and then I get a random but pleasant pm on MDC. Tonight happened to be one of those now and thens.

The title made it sound like a sals pitch. I'm thinking it was for some random knitting tool that I would need. Nope! Turns out it was a rather helpful pm.

I've been knitting with twisted stitches!! Every so often I get the feeling I'm doing it wrong. Being the newbie that I am I usually chalk it up to a lack of self confidence in my knitting ability. Turns out it was intuition talking! I'm not sure how I'm doing it wrong but when I should have all v's on my needle I have y's and v's. The pmer was guessing it was my purl row. I had posted a picture of my mystery project and she noticed the discrepency. Thank god!

I guess I am off to refresh my memory with some videos. I guess I can continue doing it this way or I can correct. If I correct it I can make my yarn go further.....like 15% further.

Mystery Project

So in true knitting funk I have decided to cast on for a project for the little one. Yes I know I have tons of other people to knit for but I want to do something for us. I've been knitting for others for awhile and will be knitting for others for sometime so I thought I should get something in there while I could. I won't tell you what the project is but I will tell you some details. :)


Needles: size 6
Yarn: Tatamy Tweed by Kraemer Yarns.
Colors are oatmeal and lime. 45% cotton and 55% acrylic.
Pattern details: Cast on 60 stitches. First green stripe is four rows and is solely garter stitch. First oatmeal is three inches followed by a one inch green stripe and done in stockinette. Total length of this piece will be 7 inches.

This is all worked in one piece. The original pattern is for a much smaller babe so all the tweaking I'm doing is experimental. I got my cast on from a post on another website. I hope it's enough. I held it up to her and it seems to be wide enough. The 7 inches is based off my own measurements. I really hope it works out.