Goin' natural

This is a fiber post but not part 2 of the original fiber post. This is new. This has to do with food. :)

The other night I was making a salad for dinner and had to set aside various chunks of spinach and a lettuce mix. Our fridge isn't set correctly so we tend to get warm and cold pockets. Since these had been shoved to the back they had been frozen and thawed more than once and ended up slimy and not useable. As my pile grew, I grew more and more irritated. It was such a waste! And something easily fixed. I didn't want to just toss it so as I continued to make the salad my mind went crazy figuring out what juices I could put the better stuff in and still be tasty. That's when my moment of genius hit! Green juice! Natural fiber! I had dye! I hurried and finished what I was doing, cleaned up and set to work.

That, dear readers (going clockwise), is a pot of tea (it had been simmering for a long time by the time I took this picture, a pot of spinach, and a pot of spring greens mix lettuce and spinach.

The tea one I have done before. For some reason doing raw fiber, it takes longer to exhaust. By the time this picture was taken that pot had been on the stove for at least 3 hours. I'm glad I had patience for it though because I ended up with a much deeper brown than I expected to get (even after rinsing). What I do when tea dying (I have yet to find a good set of instructions I like) is combine water and vinegar in a pot and dump in lots of tea bags. I don't pay attention to what kinds go in but in this case it was an entire box of Pau de Arco. Then I bring it to a boil and then turn it off and let it cool. Once cool I stick my fiber in (sometimes I presoak and sometimes I don't regardless of if it's yarn or fiber...this time I didn't) and bring it to a boil slowly and then slowly reduce it down to a simmer. I have yet to get a clear exhaust though. I think it's just a tea thing.

The next pot is the spinach. When I started juicing everything down I started with the lettuce mix and got a dark green. I wanted to lighten it upa bit (I figured I'd get more of a brown if I didn't) and added a bit of spinach. I wish I hadn't but only because quite a bit rinsed out. My color is still nice but I think had I done the entire bag of spinach on this pot there would have been more depth. Same process as the tea (minus the initial boil and cool down). I dumped the juice into a pot of water and vinegar and stuck in my fiber. I brought it up to a boil and then down to a simmer (as always, if you need to get the fiber moved around POKE it, do not stir as you could agitate it and end up felting....it's agitation that felts, NOT just heat!). The fiber sucked this up fast! In fact, I had reached exhaustion before I was even to a boil. I did go through all the steps though so that the heat would set it.

The next pot is the spring greens mix. Same as the spinach. The fiber sucked it up as well.

Ater I let all the pots cool down I rinsed and was surprised at how fast the greens rinsed clear but how much they lost and long the tea took. The tea lost the least amount oddly enough. The two greens are similar in color when combed out but spun up they are just different enough that it makes you squint and turn it over to see if you are imagining it. I bet if they were combed together you could get a somewhat heathered effect. Spun together I think all three would look very nice. I did spin my test pieces and all the colors are nice and even (i.e. no sudden dark splotches) and none comes off on your hands (or spindle).

So there you have it. I am either very frugal :) or think a bit too much about dyeing fiber. Either way it was very fun and interesting. Oh and a plus was that my house DID not smell any worse than wet sheep. You couldn't smell the greens or the vinegar. You smelled more of the tea than anything else. I am wanting to dye with more foods but that will have to wait (mostly because I need to wash more fiber). This was a huge experiment. When I googled it that night I wasn't finding anything. All I was getting was how to grow certain plants specifically for dyeing. That's not what I was going for. Luckily, this isn't rocket science so I just winged it and it turned out very well (I think). I have more pictures of the individual pots but blogger isn't behaving for me. I don't have any of the dried result but I will get pics of that soon enough. I didn't want to take too many and then post them all since these actually went to someone else. Hopefully they like it all as much as I do. :)

This'll be fast...

since the smallest one is asleep and I have a feeling it won't be for much longer. It's a lot easier to blog when she's not in my lap trying to eat my hands. Small details.

1. I managed to work on some more masters swatches. I had to do laundry the other day at my sister in laws house and since her dryer sees fit to take its sweet time I had a good chunk of nothing to do. I got 3.5 swatches done. I would have done more but a.) I needed clarification on some so I skipped those (I hate skipping....makes me all antsy for some reason) and b.) swatches are only entertaining for so long. I was tempted to start my question portion but that required measuring tools and blocking. Neither of which were available at the time.

2. I got the second sleeve of the Feb. Lady Sweater done. After browsing through the finished ones on Ravelry I noticed someone decreased out all the picked up stitches on the underside of the arms. Her's looked awesome and fit great. I decided to go ahead and try that. It turned out great! Fits much better and looks less boxy on me. As a result it makes the top pull differently and it actually looks like this is going to fit me! What does that mean? The first sleeve has been frogged. That was a pain in the ass actually. Why? Oh because I tend to not use lifelines when I frog so I had to go back and pick up the 56 original LACE stitches done in black yarn. Hindsight is always that....hindsight. Note to self: black=bad knitting mojo.

3. I finished up a skein of yarn! I started a fiber swap over on MDC and in my new found enthusiasm I started spinning. I got my first single done (and lots more than usual as I figured out my preferences for spinning...note to self: it helps to know what you're doing and why) and posted about it on the spinners thread. Someone mentioned Navajo plying and while I am against it (finished yarn is 1/3 of the original length.....seems like you're getting screwed there :) ) I decided to give it a go. I have been curious about it and I had a finished single and I didn't want to spin a second single since my fiber swap will be here soon (from England!). I wanted my spindle to be open. It's fun. It's easy and you get a skein very fast (and I had a ton! so the end yardage isn't horrible I guess). My only issue is I do not like thick yarns. I did a quickie wraps per inch measurement and mine qualifies as very bulky. I am NOT happy about that. I know it's because my spinning on this single was inconsistent at times and a Navajo ply equals out to a 3 ply but still. Now that I know how to do it though I'm going to try and spin a super thin single with the intent of Navajo plying it to see if I can't get a thinner yarn. It's difficult to see the real color since it's red but this is the best shot I can get. It has golds and blues in it too although the gold tends to get swallowed up. The last part of it I paid more attention to how I was drafting and was able to get longer chunks of the colors I wanted but the gold still disappears. There are a few spots where you can see it but it is always combined with one of the other colors so it gets muted. In some spots it looks green. I wish it were more dominant as it's a very pretty color of gold.

Perfect timing to be done. I just heard a cry from the bedroom.

More cuteness!

I got two emails the other day with pictures of soakers in use!

First up iss baby K. I thought these would be too big but they turned out perfect! I'm glad I did the newborn size...she's 3 months old here and barely a bit more than a newborn weight wise so these really do fit well.

And now we have baby A. Who is actually more like a toddler. Remember this soaker? Still not a fan of it and actually tried to convince the mama to send it back so I could make her a better one. She likes it. It's almost too small (as you can see) but is still working. This is one kiddo who looks just like her daddy!

I promise the next post will be about fiber. I know, contain your excitement.

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.

Of thoughtful knitting (day 3)

This post has been forming for awhile now and since I didn't get a chance to knit it seems perfect time wise. :)

Back in Feb. when I started the Master's Handknitting course I gathered my supplies and cranked out my first few swatches as fast as I could. I wasn't thinking or learning/researching. I was just cranking out squares based off what I already do. Not what I know but what I do on a regular basis. My default. I had about 3 or 4 swatches done andw as loading them into a binder when the 1x1 ribbing on one started bugging me. It looked sloppy and twisted. I tend to avoid 1x1 ribbing because of that. I knew it was a tension issue but it was something else too. I didn't have the issue on any other type of ribbing. I posted about it and someone suggested learning how to do a norweigan purl. I figured it couldn't hurt. I went to knittinghelp.com and learned the technique. I debated with myself over frogging the swatch and redoing it. It just seemed like so much work. After ignoring it for a bit and doing more swatches (with more consideration at this point to what I was doing) I decided to at least do a second one of the swatch and then decide which one looked better. In the end I kept the second one.

All that was a long way of saying be aware of what you are doing! The difference between my two swatches was so huge that even the non knitting spouse of mine could see it. The Master's course has made me aware of what I'm doing and have been doing. Mydefault cast on does not always work. My default bind off tends to look sloppy a good portion of the time because I don't care and bind off on the wrong side (not neccessarily the wrong side of the ending fabric but also the patterning). My increases are not always placed well. My decreases look like crap because I'm too stuck on one way of doing them and not doing them correctly. So what right? No big deal? As long as the item gets finished? That was my thinking. Last year I did something like 37 projects. I was thrilled. Look at me! I can crank out high numbers of hand knit items! Not that cool when they weren't done well. If you're going to do something do it right the first time right?

I'm a knitter and I take pride in what I make. I enjoy showing it off to people. I enjoy gifting it. I enjoy the actual process of it. It doesn't make sense, to me, to take pride in an item done sloppy. It doesn't bring me joy to gift something when I'm going to worry they will see the flaws I knowingly chose not to correct. I don't enjoy the process of it knowing that in the end it looks like I didn't take the time to do it well.

This year I havenn't knitted nearly as many things. And I'm ok with that. Happy even. Not because I was needing to slow down but because I'm thinking about it. I'm considering whether a ssk or k2tog will look better. I'm taking time to make my cast on and bind off show up on the same side of the item. I'm taking the time to make it look good. I'd rather have a couple excellent hats than a hundred flawed ones. Knitting, for me, isn't about quantity. It's about quality. Knitting is my meditation. On days when I am needing a break from life it is nice to know I can go sit down and just knit. I guess not thinking about it (and I don't mean mindless knitting) would be the equivalent to sitting down and really meditating with a radio blasting and a jackhammer going. Not the most condusive to real relaxation you know.

I've learned quite a bit from the course so far and I'm so excited about that. It's neat, to me, that I can look at something and pick it apart now and not just from an arrogant standpoint. My view on it all has certainly changed a bit in the last little bit and I like to think it's because I, myself, have grown up a bit. I'm not meaning for this post to be all self reflective but it seems to be going that way. When I say I've grown up I don't just mean in the physical sense. Various things have occured that I no longer see everything through rose colored glasses. I don't irrationally lash out/react in a way driven by pure, uncontrolled emotion. And as cheesy as that sounds I no longer do that in regards to my knitting anymore. It takes discipline (for lack of a better word) to consider all the aspects of something before making a decision and I'd like to think that I have finally reached some level of that.

Will I always view my knitting like this? Probably not. I'm sure in time the thinking portion will just become my default and that it won't seem as smart to me, as genius to me. Heck, I may even get back in quantity mode. But for now I'm content to sit here and think and ponder and learn from my knitting.

As it stands, the Feb. Lady Sweater is sitting on my dresser. I'm avoiding it. There are 297 stitches waiting to be gartered. It's a bit...ummm.....monotonous.

Day 2

I got a chance to work on WIP 3 last night. The kids were asleep and I was not. I stayed up until just before 4 am and almost got the entire yoke done. I continued to have issues with my stitch count and I think it was on the times I had to do a button hole. I'm not horribly impressed with mine but I suppose they will work. I was able to get all the way to my last increase set before I decided I should go to bed. A couple rows and then I section off the arms!! I am a bit worried about the fit/size. I am doing the smallest size since I've read that they run big. The difference between the smallest and the next size up is shoulder width. I picked the smallest since I have smaller shoulders but I don't know. It just looks small! I'd rather have something be a tad on the tight side than on the loose but I also don't want to look stupid. I'm going to do my next few rows and then split the stitches between needles since they are crammed on one currently. Maybe that will give me a better idea.

I didn't swatch. I know, I know. A bit too late for that (well I suppose I could squish my stitches down and grab another skein and do a quickie) but now I'm paranoid. Maybe my possible fit issues are because my row gauge is off. It looks short. I think it's just my recent luck of having projects go wrong due to not swatching that has me nervous about it. I don't know. I am very tempted to do one though. It just seems like such a waste of time, especially now that I'm as far in as I am. Oh well. I'm sure splitting them to check it out will help. Hopefully.

I didn't work on anything else yesterday. I wanted to get past those damn increases and I did. That's all I cared about! In fact at about 3:30 in the morning the oldest chitlin came out to ask why I wasn't in bed and didn't I think I should work on it tomorrow. Sheesh! Go to bed! :)

Day 1- In which I make myself accountable

I sat here yesterday reading the various blogs I read daily and thought to myself I suck as a blogger. There for awhile I did really well and posted almost daily and with real knitting content and not some measly hey this is whats going on type nonesense. As I sat there wondering what happened and feeling lame as all get out I noticed the blogs I love to read update daily and post real content. Gee. Go figure. In an attempt to get back into the swing of things and start enjoying my blogging more I'm going to attempt to do 30 days of daily blogging. With real content. And maybe even pictures. The camera will soon be back in my hands as the husband is off retreiving it from our previous residence. When it gets here I have pictures to take off (such as the giant fish) and pictures to take. I'm going to do this damn it. :) As it is there are no pictures here today. :)

WIP 1- A WHW wrap for my sister. Her wee one has outgrown all her covers and is needing some new ones. We went camping this last weekend and I started on it the night before we left hoping to have it finished by the end of the weekend. I got close I suppose but it's still not done. In fact it's sitting n the back window of the car. I'm almost done with the increases and then the last few rows of ribbing. I'm doing it in some yarn I've used once before. The ribbing is in some Cascade 220 and the body is in some blue/green yarn that I got as a "donation". Turns out it was yarn my sister and I had dyed ourselves one night. Very fitting she ends up with it. :)

WIP 2- A Curly Purly soaker for us. Some leftover Cascade 220 from a pair of shorties I did a bit ago (with the picot trim). I've got the ribbing done and a little bit of the part after that. I've been slacking on this. I brought it camping as well but didn't touch it.

WIP 3- My favorite. I started the February Lady Sweater! You can do a quick google search (blogger is not wanting to let me put in links for some reason) for it but a quick cap of it is a lady on Ravelry wanted one for herself. As she says in her description of it: A swingy lace cardigan, made to fit a grown-ass woman, lovingly based on Elizabeth Zimmermann’s classic “Baby Sweater on Two Needles,” from Knitter’s Almanac. I started mine in some black Wool- Ease. I went out and bought new yarn for this (I have inadvertantly been stash knitting all year) and while it wasn't what I was going for my options were extremely limited and that's what I went with. I was wanting to do brown but I figured if I wanted to get maximum wear out of it it should match more of my clothing than brown would. Not that my clothes are odd colors or anything but more that I have many styles of tops in a wide range of colors. And if I want to be able to wear it certain tops I need more versatility. This is what I keep telling myself as I bitch while kknitting. Why bitch while knitting my current favorite WIP? It's black yarn. The stitches blend together into one long mass of black. Not horrible since it's done on size 8 needles but irritating none the less. Already I've had two mistakes due to counting (that has nothing to do with the black yarn). The way the increases are set up I do 8 total on one row: one on each side of a marked stitch, so technically four 2 increase sets. The first screw up I only did one increase on one set. Luckily I was able to count each section and figure out where I was missing the stitch. Again luckily it's all in garter right now so my mistake was easily hidden. Last night as I was chatting on IM to a friend and knitting we decided to see how long it took to do certain things. She was binding off over 500 stitches and I was doing a plain knit row of over 100 stitches. I finished up my last increase set and set about timing myself. I counted up my stitches and realzied, even with my craptastic math skills, I should not have that few. I recounted three times to make sure and then pulled out a calculator. Sure enough I was two stitches off. Once again though I was able to very easily find where they were missing though so I can insert them on the next row. Hopefully it doesn't screw with the shaping. I've never done an adult top. I've never done an Elizabeth Zimmerman design (or offshot thereof). I've never done raglan shaping/increasing. I'm very happy at this point it's in garter and in black. There is no way you can see my mistakes at this point. Ahhh...heaven. :)

I do have a couple non-official WIP's. Just socks though. When we moved we had to stay with a brother in law for the time being and so out of boredom I started an ankle sock. It's ok. It'll be frogged and I will re-start it using different numbers. As much as I enjoy sock knitting I have yet to find THE perfect formula for me and it's starting to bug me. I'm thinking I may have standards that are too high for a mere hand knit sock. :)

And with that this is the end of day 1. Stay tuned.

Once Upon A Time....

there was a blogger who blogged here. Every now and then she'd even post pictures!

Sorry about that. Things got a bit crazy there for a bit. Two birthdays and one move later and I think the dust has settled enough for me to come back.

Due to a very crazy move (sorry, no details) not all of our stuff is here which means for now you just get verbal blogging. The camera did not make it here but rest assured once it is there will be pictures! I suppose I could jsut use the husband's phone to take some but I really dislike it. I hate cell phone pictures and the one thing I notice about all the blogs I read and enjoy is picture quality. I'm aiminng for that here as well.

Since I was here last there has been a fish, two socks (not hey are not mates...one is an ankle sock and the other is calf length), a mystery design project (I'm designing! we'll see how long that lasts), some swatches for the Master Knitter program, and a soaker (working on that right now). I think that's it. Oh there was a headband (yes a headband....sorta...working on some dreads [or the courage to do them] and I wanted something to cover them with) which didn't work out and got frogged after many hours of knitting time. A neice has outgrown all her covers and I have been asked to supply some more so I'm thinking of casting on a wrap here in a bit.

So there you have my totally boring, pictureless update. I will be gone all weekend (camping! yay!) so don't think I've slipped back into not blogging when you don't hear from me. I swear, I wil be a better blogger!

Bottoms for K

Back in March my brother in law had a baby. She was early due to some health issues and as a result was a tiny little gal. She's now older (and past her due date) but still tiny. They sent out recent pictures the other night and her tinyness was apparent. The knitter in me thought, "I need to make her some pants!"
So I grabbed some random acrylic (they don't use cloth) and set to work. These will probably be a tad baggy in the body since I spaced and did increases in the backside (I should have just done short rows). Hopefully they fit though.
Specs:
Random acrylic
Newborn size
Backside increases
Garter cuff
Capri-ish length

I'm going to be making them a couple pairs. I hope they like them and they can use them!

As promised....

Knitting content. These be the latest shorties for the wee one. I did a different set up this time. I've been more willing to try out different options lately and I'm really glad I have been. I'm not so set in what works for me anymore and I'm enjoying what I'm getting.
Specs:
Cascade 220 in black for the trim annd Mosaic Moon Organic Wool in Sunny Days. Both were stash yarn and both were already used at some point. The last time I used the Mosaic Moon yarn was for a pair of newborn longies. It continues to amaze me how changing the size of a garment can change the look of the yarn. I'm really glad I picked the black for the trim. Last time I used red and it seemed to wash it out a bit. I like this look much more.
Size small with the backside increases an extended short rows. This was the first time doing this. I like it!
1x1 ribbing and a rolled cuff (though not as long as the pattern suggests).
Extra increases in the gusset for the crotch.

I have wondered how to get the crotch just so. All the pictures I have ever seen you can tell there is a crotch with gussets on them. Mine were hard to see. I tried getting tricky and pulling it forward for pictures but it just wasn't there. I think it was partially due to the fact that I never swatch and don't always use the right yarn. :D This time (just like on my last pair) I added extra increases. I think the number of stitches on this pair are the same for the size large (can't quite remember). I also moved my increase over. I changed it to the 2nd stitch and the 2nd to last. I think I get a much cleaner looking crotch.

On that note: Where else can one talk so much about non-holey, pretty crotches without blushing or being told to not talk dirty? :D

Spin me right round baby, right round...

I do have a knitting fo to show but only one picture made it off the camera for some reason so while I wait for the others I'll share something else!

I've been dying yarn (and it looks just like roving I dyed and then spun up...shockingly so) and spinning. Well not a ton of spinning. I finished up a very small single (maybe an ounce) a little bit ago and put it away. I used some up to make a small bag and liked it enough as a single that I decided to spin more up and keep it a 1 ply (more up meaning the rest of this ginormous 10 ounce ball I've been working on forever now).

A post was made a little bit ago on a board I frequent about youtube and spinning. It never dawned on me to watch spinning videos! I headed over there and watched a few. I'm surprised at how well I taught myself! There were a couple things I could do differently but it was more of a personal preference than an actual technique. Last night as I sat spinning I decided to try out some of the tricks and I have to say I am loving hand spinning even more. I'm getting better twist and more even thickness and I can go for longer chunks before stopping to wind up. I'm pretty impressed with myself and have been ripping through my mini balls like mad. It certainly has made it more enjoyable. Before it was such a stop and go process that I got bored easily. The new things I'm doing though make it all the more better.

Despite it's twisted appearance the skein shown has been washed and dried. I took it out of the ball for it's photo shoot though...I wanted something pretty and my tiny little cake was kind of sad looking. :)

A mile in these shoes

When we moved to the place we currently live the husband knew we had some relatives (on his side) but didn't know who or where. About a month after we moved here my father in law left us a message letting us know it was a cousin and he happened to be in our town! The husband called him up and we've become buddy buddy with them since then. The two grew up together, lived in the same house together (and seperately) at the one point, and went to shool together. They were childhood friends so this was a very nice surprise. When we first met up with them we got to meet his wife and found out they were pregnant with their first! That night after we got home I pulled out my knitting stuff. Naturally this baby needed something knit. They don't cloth diaper so that was out. I thought it presumptuous to knit nursing pads, blankets would take too long 9she was 36ish weeks when we irst met). Too young for toys. I needed something fast. I headed over to ravelry and happened upon the Magic Slippers pattern. It was perfect! I made the first one in a couple of hours one morning while the wee ones slept in. I think I wove in my ends at the 2 hour mark. SUPER fast. I even had yarn left over from my first nugget. That's how little yarn these take. I forgot about the second one (sort of..the first inch or so was done) until last week when we got a call about the blessing. I pulled everything out and finished it up that night. There is a slight difference in the two but I know why and it's easily remedied. I think if I make these again (which is very likely as they were a big hit!) I will add some length to them. These fit like ballet slippers and will very wuickly be outgrown. They are a tad on the short side in the back too. They are easy for a newborn to kick off and newborns don't kick a whole lot. This wee one kicked off the smaller one (the back is shorter on one) two or three times before we managed to get a decent shot.

Pattern: Magic Slippers

Needles: Size 1 dpn's

Yarn: Leftover Trekking XXL (from the husband's socks that he lost and is now on permanent no knit goods status for)

You can see the difference in height in that picture. When I did the first one I picked up a few too many stitches so I had extra decrease rounds in there. The second one I did correctly and didn't even think about it until it was too late. Oh well. I explained to the mama that if she gets it wet and then stretches it out and lets it dry she should be good to go.

I've picked up my Master's knitting stuff again. I whipped out 6 swatches so quickly I kind of got burnt out on it. I did one alst night and am working on one right now. I forgot how quickly these go! I'm debating how to go about these. Should I jsut knit them how I normally would and expect some resubmits? I mean part of this is having the chance of being told what you're doing wrong and fixing it. Or should I knit them to be as perfect/dead on as I can and send them int hat way and hope that minimizes my resubmits? I'm inclined to do both. The first because I want this to be a learning experience and I'd rather have them tell me what I need to fix based off how I currently knit. This is a tool to evaluate my current knitting style. If I always use a long tail cast on even when it's not the right one to use I should use that one for all my swatches unless it says not to. Use this to the fullest advantage you know? BUT I don't want to resubmit anything or have them think I'm a knitting idiot. The nervous school kid in me just wants to fit in and be told I'm cool and I knit well. :) But that's not an accurate portrayal of my knitting. I don't research various things. I do what works for me the same way every time. :)

I finished a sock the other day. I'm debating making it's mate. It was a top down and while it fits and I'm pleased with it I'm looking to change it. I want a perfect pattern and have yet to find it. I got to thinking the other day about doing one that did both top down and toe up techniques and was trying to figure out the logistics when I stumbled on a pattern that does just that! It wasn't a free pattern so I didn't pick it up but it just reaffirms I'm not crazy. :)

Down and Up Lace socks Funny thing is I've been working on a sock pattern witha very similar stitch pattern. Great minds think alike. ;)

Another one bites the dust

I'm on a roll with this thing called "finishing things you start". This is a very late trade set. Back when the littlest wee one was born we had a stint in time of no sleeping and colic. Normally a ring sling (which I own many) is the trick with my kids. However she was in and out so often that by the end of the day I was having to rethread the material through the rings and having fit issues (same as if you were pulling on a cotton shirt all day). I posted in search of a pouch and a mama offered to make me one. She did and got it to me (in a much more timely fashion than me I mgiht add!) and it saved my sanity. I've never been a pouch gal but apparently the youngest is. The original plan was I would make her a scarf out of my Donegal Tweed. Fast forward way too long and too many issues later we agreed to skip the scarf and go with some dishclothes. Seeing as I was so late on my end of the deal I wanted to make an artilery of rags. And so I did. I hope this ends up being fair! We have 1 ballband, 2 "idiot's dishcloths", and 2 tribbles (google any of those and you will find patterns but off the top of my head the ballband is on the Elmore-Pisgah site, the "idiot's dishcloth" is in a book [the name escapes me currently and I'm too lazy to go look at my bookshelf], and the tribbles are over at 1897 pearl). I managed to do the least amount of mods ever I think. :) The idiot ones are done in garter and I switched them up to stockinette (which I think lends to the less than square shape since my personal garter ones are much more square) and one of the tribbles is smaller (though that is even within the realm of the pattern since she says to go no smaller than 8 inches and that's what I did!). Other than that nothing was changed. Everything was done on size 5's and in Peaches and Cream Ombre (Peppercorn color). As soon as the forum we both use is open (down for server stuff) I'll shoot her a pm and let her know they are done, get her opinion on something, and then off they go! I hope she likes them. Knitting for other people makes me nervous.

And as for the soaker from yesterday. I sent the mama here to look because I was so nervous about it. When I approached her about doing it she only knew I was making something. I asked color preferences (though I already knew..just wanted to bbe sure) and various sizes on things and then set to work. I dyed the yarn myself with Kool-Aid and got colors very different than what I had planned. The husband kindly told me they looked like mold on pepto bismal. I think that tainted the whole project for me. lol I originally wanted to do a skirtie but it very much did not work out. I then opted for ruffly cuffs and some duplicate stitched design on the bum. After many failed tries at various things (I wanted the first letter of her name) with the husband letting me know they never looked like what I was aiming for him (I'm seeing a trend here) I gave up. I stuck it in my bag and stuck that in the closet. I had a hybrid soaker, a random purl round from the original idea, no working idea, and potentially ugly yarn. Talking to Dawn the other morning (after finishing the cuffs the night before) I decided to try and do a "belt" of sorts. I grabbed a crochet hook and started my way around with the intent to have extra length in the back to tie off in a bow. My first attempt failed because it was too tight and had no strretch anymore. So I took it out and tried again. When it was done it looked silly tied in a bow so I gave it a go making loops with the ends. It looked ok. My purl round was lifted though so you could see the purl bumps under the crocheted green (the color I used first). So I grabbed the pink and did another round with a flower on the end of that dangle. It works. Not my favorite thing but the mama loves it and wants it now. Like....yesterday now. A couple people have mentioned it looks like watermelons. I never thought of that! Honest to god the idea that I could do a watermelon theme with it totally escaped me! I was so caught up in it looking like pepto bismal I never saw that. Or thought it. Or had an inkling of it! I wish I had posted pics earlier and gotten ideas from people because I totally would have done black seeds on the bum and then had seed dangles or something. That's ok though. I'm done with that sucker. I am so looking forward to sending it off! I don't know why I had such trouble with this project! It wasn't even hard! When it gets to where it's going I'll be getting some action shots that I have been given the permission to post so stay tuned!

Another soaker

Two posts in one day. Surprising and rare huh? This is a hyrbid of sorts. I used the Curly Purly pattern for my numbers but the Picky Pants pattern for things like the waistband and short rows. The body is done on 8's and the cuffs on 2's and 3's.

I'll come tell more later. I've been madly posting it everywhere I can due to excitement to be DONE that I'm tired of repeating myself. :)

Tiny knitting

Sheesh! I've been trying to come post for days and something always come up! I'm finally here!

Stats: Newborn, 3 short row sets, Manos, Garter ridge cuffs, size 5's, 6's, and 8's (also used for the cuffs).

This is for Dawn. She is due to have another baby (boy!) here soon. Well not too soon....a couple months from now. I have had this Manos in my stash since I began knitting! I made S's first pair of shorties out of one skein and had originally bought two. I've been dying to use it up for the longest time now and had even start a wrap for us out of it. But it just wasn't "us". There was something that just never fit so it never got used. I decided to try it out again and what do you know! It works! And looks very nice if I do say so myself. I love the way this yarn knits up. It'sa slightly pilly yarn but for a newborn that shouldn't be an issue. I hope it fits and works for them. I haven't lanolized or blocked it. It takes at least 4 days to dry here so I'll let her do it. She knows this and is ok with it. :) I'm a slacker and have yet to get it in the mail but it should be at the latest tomorrow. Hopefully.

I have a couple more WIP's I'm so very close to finishing. They have been hounding me for the longest time now. Not because they are large or difficult. Mostly because I'm bad at gauging how long an item will take at times and I end up agreeing to do too much and my plate gets full. I'm really hoping to make some progress today. I finished up a part last night on one project that was taking a long time. I can officially say I think I am all ruffled out now!

Possibly dead

Remember this (pardon the crap photo)?

It used to look a tad different. You know..intact, bright red, less airy. It's about a year old now and as you can tell has seen a fair share of love. There are actually 2 holes present but the way everything lays there you don't notice it unless you're using it. Which poses my potential issue. To repair it or not? When I first noticed the hole I made a mental note to do a quick whipstitch andbe done with it. It got washed, tossed in the drawer, and then we moved. Then I needed to use it. We hand wash dishes so the hole quickly became larger and then it became 2. What once was small enough to put the tip of my finger in (which is where the hole started...point of pressure) is now large enough to fit many finger in. Do I fix it and save my fingers the possible amputation during dishwashing, do I leave it be and feel content that this rag has served us well, or do I toss it? Aside from the random finger stub/stab it's totally functional. I have others. I'll have more. I like this one though. :)