Woo Hoo! A Handspun Hat

I finally ripped back and added some rows to Mr. J's hat -- I love it! The pattern is the Earwarmer Hat from LTK. I am very happy with how my spinning is progressing. It's taken long enough!



And now the sock. . . notice the size difference. Any suggestions? I am loathe to rip out a finished sock.

The Candy Fairy Visits

In our house the Candy Fairy visits Halloween night and removes all candy and leaves a present for each child. This year they each got a cape plus one wee one for a dolly. A local homeschooling mama made them and while they weren't cheap I am happy to support her and not have to worry about the conditions in which they were made or when they're going to fall apart.


My own bit of happiness -- Hanna Andersson Mary-Janes

There has been a bit of knitting. I'm working on a hat for Little Man out of some of my handspun. I finished the hat but it is a little too small (Is there anyone who can just knit a project without having to rip back? I am envious!) However this is my first project with my handspun that looks good! I'm so happy. And then today I did some spinning and was able to get a nice lace weight that I could ply. Little Man also spun his first lumpy bumpy skein. Sniff sniff. Hopefully the first of many. Pics of the hat coming soon.

July??

I can't believe July is over -- I'm not sure I've even knit more than a row or two. No spinning at all. Instead we visited my family in Baltimore, I exercised a ton and read quite a few books. I'm organizing a Waldorf class to meet one day a week in the fall if you know of anyone that's interested.

Now that Ohio's farms are finally churning out the food we've been spending our weekends eating our way through the local veggies. On Saturdays the kids and I hit our local farmer's market for produce, on Sunday we get our CSA pick-up and the rest of the week I cook it all up. I'm looking to add in one other CSA in the hopes that I can stop the need to visit Whole Foods mid way through the week. While we've been doing many of these things for years, my passion to use the food well has been spurned on by reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I think it presents farming in a pretty idealistic manner, however it was still enjoyable and thought provoking. Last week's lesson -- okra does not work well roasted. Bleh! Tough as leather.

Unfortunately, my own garden has not done well. I think I got everything in too late and then our local groundhog ate many things. Now I'm just waiting for my tomatoes to ripen.



The daylillies are almost over but here are three pretty ones:







Now the missing pics from last post:


Spunky Club Handspun


Cherry Tree Hill Sock Yarn from Melissa


Cascade Sierra bought from a yarn store gift cert. from my brother! Destined to be a Tomato.



On Sunday we did haircuts! This is his Robby (my brother) in training cut.



Muffin batter bowl licking!

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.

The Crafting Blahs

The finished skein from last week's post

The doldrums of February combined with a very active January find me with NOTHING on the needles or wheel. I cast on a balaclava for Chris but ripped it as I was foolishly attempting to knit from memory and was doing k2p2 instead of k2p3 even though I had a ton of stitches. You'd think I would have been proactive enough to consult the pattern after an inch or so of thinking "Gee, that looks awfully big." But no I waited until I had 3 inches completed.

Instead I've been reading and sleeping. :) I do much of my crafting in the evenings after both children are asleep but now that I've given up caffeine I find myself going to bed an hour or so earlier. I guess it's good to be getting the rest my body needs but my brain is craving a bit more.

Reading wise I've devoured a bunch of cooking books -- Eat to Live by Joel Furhman, Julie & Julia by Julie Powell and Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl. All three are good reads. I read the first two during the same week which made for an interesting juxtaposition as they are at the opposite ends of the eating spectrum. The former proposing a vegan, nutrient dense, low-fat diet and the other cooking offal in butter and cream. We're trying out the program outlined in Eat to Live and are doing pretty well -- we may be exhibiting a green tinge from all of the salad we are eating but otherwise feel satiated and healthy.

I do expect happy crafting days ahead of me as I have a large KnitPicks order coming my way with yarn for Chris's striped scarf, a surprise hat and a ton of dye for my Tunis roving. I also was lucky enough to have some spinning questions answered by a lovely and talented spinner. I can't wait to read the next post about drafting. I have more HPY fiber on the way as well as some other yummy stuff to spin and will test out her suggestions.

Thanks to the blizzard outside tomorrow will be our third day in a row home. Normally we are home on Tuesdays but get out and be merry the others. Today was surprisingly pleasant and hopefully tomorrow will be more of the same.

Lastly, I have to mention that my vacuum died the other week and I replaced it with the Roomba (for those that wanted a report, this is a Remanufactured Roomba Discovery) that my heart has been coveting. I LOVE it. It freaking rocks. I was doubtful that it would stand up to the fur but it does a great job even if I do have to empty it after every use. Now my only problem is figuring out how to keep Little Girl from turning it on every ten minutes. Hopefully the novelty will wear off soon.

Vivid Violet

roving with bits of lemon yellow throughout. Isn't it pretty? And oh so soft. Spinning is really an amazing thing -- time seems to evaporate when I'm doing it. I don't know if it's just because I'm learning and spend so much time thinking about what I'm doing or if it's just a magical craft in general. I've managed to solve my overtwist problem but now feel like I'm spending more time predrafting the roving than actually spinning. If you have advice please comment.



Pile o' baby hats awaiting to be delivered. (Babies have already arrived.)

HPY -- yum!

Doesn't it look yummy? I don't think I have enough to make a vest but I think I'll make a clapotis out of it to wear with my cape.



And the pretty roving. Unfortunately I think it's *too* nice for my spinning skills as it is a PITA to join and getting the intial bit going took a good twenty curse words. I'm halfway through the ball and am just hoping it doesn't all come apart when I take it from the bobbin to the niddy.

The red scarf is done. I just washed it (in the machine as it's superwash and I figure this is how its designated college student will treat it) and am hoping that I can get a few more inches out of it via blocking. 3 skeins only got me 44 inches which is a bit too short in my opinion.

Next up in the knitting front are *more* felted mocs and then some baby items. I had to put the HPY away so I wouldn't accidentaly cast on in a moment of weakness.



Obligatory cute kid pic.

What Happens in Baltimore, Stays in Baltimore

Well, knitting presents anyway. We were in MD for 12 days enjoying the normal holiday festivities. One of my lovely aunts bought the following for a $1 at an estate sale.



Yep, a handmade wheel and an unpictured spindle for one dollar! I made her a pair of felted slippers for a thank you but didn't manage to get pic. I did get a pic of another multidirectional scarf I made for a friend out of my last bit of blue/green/gray 100purewool. However the wheel has to stay in Bmore until my parents venture north in the spring. I had two children, a large suitcase, a large duffel and two carry on bags to drag through the airport yesterday and a wheel just wasn't in the cards.





Wee baby sweater, awaiting a baby to be born tomorrow! I am now DONE with this colorway -- one sweater for me, one baby sweater and a scarf is overkill.


Detail of the Irish Hiking Scarf I'm making for the red scarf project. It is turning out lovely but it does get a bit tedious.

While I was gone my HPY order arrived -- a much speedier turnaround than last time. The roving is BEAUTIFUL but my attempt at brown/blue yarn is just not what I wanted. Too much brown. Pics coming soon!

Handspun

I started spinning last summer but got put off after I read an advanced spinning book that said the way I was taught was the wrong way to learn. Even though I had been quite happy with my spinning up until that point. This ended my spinning career until I picked up Shannon Okey's Spin to Knit and read about the same technique I had been taught. So I figured I might as well spin up all of the yummy fibers I bought at Stitches last summer. To make it a little easier on myself I bought another bobbin, the lazy kate rack missing from my wheel, a new brake strap (mine dry rotted) and a beautiful niddy noddy from Hello Yarn (who has some seriously rockin customer service -- same day shipping). I then spun up my purple and black bump from Grafton Fiber and knitted up Panta.



The batt was heaven to spin and I was happy to find that it was not horribly overspun as I was afraid. It is quite the thick and thin but worked up fine for the headband. Small children and I have been outside quite a bit in the snow and this is a nice replacement for my fleece earwarmer. The whole experience was so pleasant I'm going to spin up my black alpaca and then knit something for the little boy with it and the rest of the purple/back yarn from above.



He's been asking "When will it snow again since April?" He's a happy boy!


Little elf