Mail Call!

On Monday I received my June Spunky Club shipment and it is wonderful! She has such great colors. This one is called Tulip (and indeed resembles its namesake) but also works as good firefighter colors. I spun up more than half of it last night and I think it will be the yarn for Little Man's winter mittens. One random discovery I figured out while putting away my wheel is that I can spin my much desired thin yarn if I'm standing up. I do have a single treadle so this is possible but not really a comfortable option for long-term -- any suggestions? I'm thinking it's the room to pull out a longer draw that is letting met get down to the thinner gauge.

SCOUTs SWAG SPOILER AHEAD

Today's mail brought the June Scout's Swag shipment. A beautiful teal blue almost solid BFL and a cabled Cookie sock pattern. I'm sure it will be December before I have the two of them done but they will be stunning. I'm still intending on making a pair of Monkey socks out of the April selection. My camera battery is DOA so here's someone else's pic and here's a closeup of the pattern.

In WIP news, I should be casting off the body of the SKB today. I checked and I have two more skeins of yarn (one hidden benefit of losing weight is using less yarn) so I'm going to do the long sleeve version. Which means this will be done sometime this fall, knowing me. Clapotis is coming along as well. I just started the straight section after doing a few extra repeats of the increases.

Tuesday was my 30th birthday and we enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Sergio's Sarava. We had the full works (drink, apps, soup, entree, dessert and wine) and it was a wonderful birthday present. Wee children were with our new babysitter and it felt like old times. Yesterday we had wonderful weather for a birthday party and it was a great time as well. A friend gave me some scrumptious Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn in electrified sherbet colors that will be the most awesome Melinda socks of all time. She also included some beautiful blue stitch markers which are my first non-utilitarian markers. I will enjoy them Melissa, thank you!

Now I am off to pack, tomorrow we leave for a week in Baltimore.

JCC's Self Portrait and a Tended Yard

No knitting updates (it continues on much the same) but we did get our brush pile ground up this week and I am thrilled with the results. JCC had to take some pics after I did mine and his are priceless.





These are the after photos -- just imagine piles of brush throughout the ravine and you'll appreciate my joy at their absence.



The epitome of a 4.5 year old boy.

Knitting on the SNB (and it's huge size 5 needles) has wounded me -- I have a hole in my finger. Ouch. So instead of knitting I am spending my evening uploading pics of my stash. Fun fun.

In a Knitting Mood

Finally the urge to knit has struck again and I am busy cranking out the stitches. I picked the Simple Knitted Bodice back up and have just finished the lace band. Working the lace on size 3 needles with a worsted weight yarn leaves my wrist sore but the result is lovely.



Next for easy knitting in the company of others I've started another Clapotis. This time in a sport weight silk/merino named Tokyo by Interlacements on size 4 needles. Both of these projects were ones I decided on last summer and bought the yarn for at Stitches Midwest. I figure I can't responsibly visit another fiber festival until I've caught up with those purchases so I'm hoping to get these finished up over the next month.

Finished Just in Time

Just in time for Father's Day, 4 months late for his birthday. (Those are socks hanging there in case you can't tell.)






And here are JCC and I in the jungle posing by the ferns. I'm laughing as he's trying to get me to sniff the ferns (I have him trained to sniff flowers for photos). Yeah, I know he's cuter.



Lastly I have a drop stitch scarf out of my Forecast handspun. I was running late to my SnB and needed something requiring little thought to work on. This seemed to fit the bill. I can't wait for my next Spunky Club fiber to arrive. It's fun seeing what great colors she creates.

Spinning Away

Spinning has been an interesting pursuit for me because even though I don't do it very often my improvements seem exponential from time to time. Maybe it's because I've been doing some reading and thinking about it in the off time, but the results are getting closer and closer to what I want.



The first thing I spun up was the February installment of the Spunky Club, a merino named Forecast. I tried a technique from The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook (awesome awesome book) and divided my roving by color and spun one bobbin mostly blue and the other mostly brown. I then plied them together. Or at least that's what I intended on doing. The actual result is so loosely plied it's humorous. But that's ok as the spinning itself was pretty good. It's spun enough that it didn't come apart when I was taking it off of the bobbin and yet isn't kinky.



Next I spun up another thing of roving from HPY. This time without nearly the amount of cursing as the last time. I tried a different technique and spun from the fold and found that this made it much much easier to deal with the slippery merino. I was trying different draws on this one and it's not as consistent as I would like, but overall it's strong and beautiful.

On Saturday instead of hanging with my usual knit cronies I visited The Cast on Cafe in Willoughby, OH with a mama friend. What a great shop! Despite my resolve to not buy yarn (ha) I bought some beautiful cotton crepe for some sort of tank. Usually at yarn shops I am amazed at the yarns but sad at the prices but she had some wonderful stuff for decent prices and I will definitely be going back.

I'm currently debating whether to knit Sizzle or a basic tank from the store's pattern. I got gauge and cast on for Sizzle but somehow my gauge in seed stitch is way off from my stockinette. I have frogged and am going to try again with a smaller needle and hope for the best.