What's up?!

Sorry for being so absent lately. I just haven't had the urge to blog. It might have something to do with the fact that it's been about 86 million degrees out lately and heat always slows me down. Or the fact that 4+ years of sleep deficit is finally catching up with me and I've been sleeping 10-12 hours on my days off.

Knitting has been slow. I'm still slogging along on the pair of socks I'm making for a Chrismas present. The Rivendell socks are due to be ripped and restarted....again....but I just haven't gotten to them. I did finish the Tulip sweater (did I mention that before?), but haven't started another one. What I really want to do is start a sweater since my huge order of Dream in Color finally arrived. But having a huge pile of wool on my lap in this heat has put me off starting on that project.

Spinning is another matter. The llama yarn that I'm sure I mentioned before is completely done. Twist is set and everything. Just have to measure the yardage. I also finished spinning and plying the BMFA merino/silk in Sea. Twist will be set tonight on that one. Last night, I spun on some Vesper merino/tencel in Jolly Roger. I'm pretty sure I can finish those singles off tonight as well, and maybe ply them tomorrow. So while I haven't been knitting, I've been spinning like crazy.

Tonight I'm headed over to a barbeque to celebrate a co-worker getting her BSN. She's been a tech at my hospital for a few years now, and she's awesome to work with. If you don't hear back from me, I've probably melted in the heat. If I don't melt tonight, then I surely will tomorrow afternoon when I head out to mow the lawn. I know it's supposed to be 99 tomorrow, but I can't let my lawn go until Wednesday. Phoebe is already refusing to wade through the jungle as it is.

the blahs....again

I've hit a time of knitting/spinning blahs. I'm pretty sure it corresponds to my work schedule since it always seems to hit during the week after I work the weekend. It's like my body just wants to physically shut down for a few days.

So there has been little to no progress on anything. Here's the current state of the projects.

Rivendell socks - Being working in DiC Smooshy in Happy Forest. The yarn acts completely differently than what I was expecting. I was thinking it would be a little thicker and "smooshier" like it feels in the skein. But once I started knitting with it, it seemed a lot thinner and more prone to splitting. Bizarre. I'm still working on the patterned part of the cuff, but once I get to the plain part these should just fly.

Turquoise Monkey socks - Done in STR lightweight in Turquoise. I'm 4 repeats into the leg of the first sock. These are what I take to work with me, so they're seeing the most action these days.

String shopping bag - Worked on this quite a bit on Monday. I'm getting close to finishing the bag part of the bag. How close? I don't know.....I'm too lazy to dig out my tape measure to find out.

Llama fiber - Haven't touched this since the first night I sat down to spin on it. Maybe this weekend in between studying for my CRRN certification.

I forced myself out of my malaise tonight and did two loads of laundry and a load of dishes, so maybe I can break myself out of the funk.

Oldest to Youngest

That's the order that these pictures will be presented.....finally.

First is the Big Yellow Taxi 2-ply sock yarn, handspun by me.


Handspun Monkey socks in CMF Sock Hop I've Got You Babe, handspun by me.


Sorbet Tulip baby sweater


Socks you can see from space. Monkey socks in STR lightweight Rockstar.


And now, the just completed Mystic Light shawl. Done in STR lightweight Oregon Red Clover Honey. The color is actually a little bit lighter, but I just soaked it and pinned it out to block. I thought I would be able to make this out of 2 skeins of the STR, but I had to break into the third skein for the last two rows of the pattern and the bind off. I should still have enough leftover to make myself a pair of short socks.


That's it for now.

no cookie!

I've been a bad blogger. Obviously, I haven't posted the pictures that I promised. They're still on my camera and I'll be taking a few more pictures to add to them this weekend.

Let's see. Where to start? How about with knitting!

Over the weekend at work, I cast on for the March RSC Leafling socks. I've got the ribbing done for the first sock on magic loop, but I got distracted. You see, E and I had done a joint order from Blue Moon together and my 5 skeins of STR had arrived. I've pretty much decided to make Monkey socks out of all the yarn so those were cast on Friday night at work in the Rockstar (aka Cotton Candy on Acid) colorway. I finished the first sock on Tuesday morning before I went to bed and I'm 2 repeats into the second sock. This is also a bit of an experiment, since I don't know if the lightweight STR has enough yardage to complete a pair of Monkey socks for my ski feet. I've got high hopes that it will since I had a decent amount of yarn leftover from by Lenore socks.

However, both socks have been put on hold since the 4th part of the Mystic Lights shawl pattern came out today. I've been working on that tonight, but it's progressing slowly since there is now patterning on the right and wrong sides of the fabric. I can't just mindlessly purl back on the wrong-sided rows.

I haven't started spinning anything since I finished the CMF Big Yellow Taxi. I'm planning on starting in on some llama roving from a lady in my hometown. I've got 3 different shades, so I think I'm going to three-ply it and make a tweedy yarn. Should be fun!

Letterboxing will also happen this weekend. I've sucked my dad into the hobby and even carved him his own signature stamp so when he finds a box he can stamp in. We'll probably have a 10-box day this weekend while my parents are visiting. Yay for increasing the F count!

And now it's back to the grindstone. I need to finish laundry so I have something to wear to work tonight.

busy weekend

It's been a busy weekend around here.

My friend, Sarah, who I visited last April out in Virginia has since moved back to Minnesota and drove down to visit me. She got here on Wednesday and she'll be leaving this afternoon. We've had fun just bumming around the house and watching movies.

And then Saturday I took her letterboxing. Managed to find three boxes at two different locations and the letterboxing bug that had lain dormant in my system during the winter reared its ugly head. I've got the clues for three more boxes printed out to be found later this week. I might add to that pile since I've got today (Sunday) off and then three days off this week before working the weekend again.

I've also been knitting and spinning like crazy. The Big Yellow Taxi/Hawkeye yarn is done. I just have to set the twist before I send it off to Mom. I also finished the second Monkey sock out of my handspun CMF I've Got You Babe. I do have pictures, but they're on my camera so you'll see them later. And I've been knitting like a fiend on the Mystic Lights shawl. I am actually managing to keep up with the clues. I finished the last few rows of clue one on Thursday night, but since the second clue had only come out on Wednesday, I didn't feel too bad about being slightly behind. I'm currently six rows into the second clue. Since Sarah's in bed, I'm planning on putting on a couple episodes of Voyager and seeing if I can get a couple more rows done before I hit the sack.

Oh! I also picked up the Yarn Harlot's latest book. I'm only 20 pages in or so, but it's already made me laugh at several different points. And I tried baking a chocolate-covered cherry cookie, and they came out sooooo good!

just breathe

I feel like that's what I need to do this weekend....breathe. All week long I felt like a coiled spring just being wound tighter and tighter. I kept expecting to snap, but managed to hold it together. Ten hours of sleep yesterday helped with the relaxation and about 4 hours of spinning so far tonight has helped as well. I'll probably be able to finish of the CMF roving I've been spinning tonight. Plying will commence tomorrow/later today (it's not tomorrow until I sleep, so for me I still count this as Friday).

As is the norm for the weekend I work and the following week, very little knitting has been accomplished. I always take a project to work with me, but I just haven't been motivated to pull it out of my bag. I did manage to turn the heel and start the gusset of my second handspun Monkey sock in the CMF colorway I've Got You Babe. Also got the body of the Sorbet Tulip Baby sweater complete.

Right now though I'm going to focus on my spinning. I've got CMF Big Yellow Taxi that I'm spinning into fingering weight. When I'm done with that, I'll hand it off to my mom and she's going to knit socks for my uncle Jim. He's a huge Hawkeye fan (the colors are gold, black and white), and he has been doing my taxes for me for free as long as I've been working (detasseling since I was 13). He was almost giddy about doing my taxes two years ago when I bought my house. So as thanks for all the years of work he's done for free for us, we're making handspun, handknit Hawkeye socks for him. I can't wait to see his face!

I'm off to get food, watch the last three episodes I've got of season 3 of Smallville, and spin some more.

another weekend post

I guess I must be feeling particularly chatty this weekend. Here's a pic of the second Tulip sweater I finished. It's in the Sweet Baby Boy colorway from Coldwater Collaborative.


And then tonight as I was spinning the first 4 oz of Big Yellow Taxi CMF roving, this is what I kept seeing through my wheel.


I had given her a new bone as a distraction from the ball of fiber rolling around on the floor, and every so often she would just look up at me through the wheel and wag her tail. Too cute!

another one for the finish-a-long

Early Saturday morning, I finished my January RSC socks. Yarn is STR lightweight in Dragon Dance. Pattern is Serendipity by Adrienne Fong. I knit the medium size and went up to size 2's. I'm kind of wishing that I would have done them on 1.5's since they're a little loose, but that could be the construction too. I followed the pattern and used the short-row heel and star toe....neither of which are my favorites, but the point of the sock club is to expand your horizons, right?

Here they are.


And the weekend of my birthday, my parents and their dogs came down to visit. That Saturday afternoon, all three puppies decided that the only place they wanted to be was in my big chair with me while I knit. Once they settled in, I couldn't really move. Want proof?


I don't know what I'm going to knit on tonight. I may spin some more since I got a lot done at SnB last night.

Holiday cheer!

Horked this off the Mason-Dixon Knitting blog. I just had to after I was snowed in out at E's on Friday and we were subjected to some really really BAD Christmas acappella music on the podsafe music network. Namely the people who don't understand that acappella means NO BACKGROUND MUSIC!!! So this is to make up for it. Comedy and good singing all in one.

I've also almost got my few Christmas presents that I'm knitting/spinning done.

First up is the Lost socks for my friend Sarah. She's moved back to Minnesota after going to school in Virginia Beach so while she used to say that she didn't like to wear socks, she's begging for them now. These are out of Yarntini's varigated sportweight in 4-8-15-16-23-42. Sarah had actually picked out something completely different, but I thought this was more appropriate since we're both such huge Lost fans.


Next is my Secret Santa scarf. This was done for a secret santa exchange at work and I ended up with one of the therapist who I know nothing about. So she's getting malabrigo. It's the One Row Handspun Scarf by Yarn Harlot done on size 8 needles in malabrigo worsted. The colorway is Azul Profundo.


And finally, I'm almost done spinning up the singles of Crown Mountain Farm's Sock Hop roving in Magic Carpet Ride. This is for my mom, so if it's not done by the time I head home on Friday I guess I'll just have to find a way to wedge the wheel in the car.

Guess that's it for now! If I don't post again soon, then everyone have a happy holiday!

letterboxing

So Eliza has sucked me into a new hobby called letterboxing. Basically, using a list of clues you find boxes people have hidden that contain stamps. You stamp your own journal using the stamp in the box, then stamp the logbook in the box with your own personal stamp. It usually involves a hike and some thinking to solve the clues. Well, we found one by my house, but messed up reading the rest of the clue and missed the second one. Tried another area where there are 4 planted, but the whole park is closed until next June. Tried to hit one more spot and the box was missing. So kind of a dud of a day, but tomorrow promises to be better.

Before I sleep tomorrow, I'm going to run back to the one we missed and try to find it. I know where we went wrong now. Gah!! I need another obsessive hobby like I need a hole in my head.

Back to knitting and spinning for the night.

spin spin spin

I've been spinning like a madwoman in the last couple of days. I finished off the Crown Mountain Farms sock hop roving in I've Got You Babe. The singles are still on the bobbins and I'll probably ply those tonight.

Once those singles were done, I started in on the CMF sock hop in Magic Carpet Ride for Mom's Christmas present. It's okay....she knows about it. The roving is actually really similar in color to the I've Got You Babe, but there's more white in this one. The whole thing is spinning up a little lighter. I started that Tuesday night and I'm almost done with the first four ounces.

My Chanticleer RPM is progressing nicely. I had to attend a focus group at work today and I managed to finish the gusset so the rest of the foot should just zip by....if I can pry myself away from my wheel.

As soon as the RPM is done, I'll move on to my other two projects with deadlines. I can't really talk about either one, but I will say that one is for a friend for Christmas and one's something that Eliza needs to keep poking me on so I'll stay motivated to complete it (or the several its).

And I think that's it for me at the moment! Off to watch the rest of season 2 of Corner Gas. Then I can borrow season 3 from Eliza tonight.

What to say

Things have been fairly quiet around here. I got back late Sunday night from a great weekend home with my parents. There was knitting and marching bands. Good times. Sadly, no pictures because I left my camera charging in my living room.

Knitting projects. Let's see. How about a numbered list?

1. Green Blanket of Doom - I'm over halfway done with the third stripe out of eleven (I think). I may end up making this shorter just to get it done by the end of October. I promised my friend that it would be first anniversary present. Just need to get my butt in gear.

2. Johnny Cash/June Carter chevron scarf - Love it, love the yarn, need to knit the green blanket instead. I pick this up when I've only got a couple of minutes to knit and can't finish a whole row of the giant blanket.

3. Chanticleer RPM - Just started the gusset of sock #1. This was my marching band watching knitting over the weekend. Got lots of comments from people sitting around me at the field show. It's pooling, but not in a bad way.

4. Cherie Amour - I've got 16 of the 31 rows done on the bottom of the sweater. I can't take this anywhere because I apparently can't count to 2 when other people are around. It's turning out great though.

5. Super Secret Project #2 - This is just in the planning stages, but I need to get going on it as there are several others waiting in the wings. All will be revealed in due time.....or should I say once upon a time?

And I think that's it! Back to the grindstone that is the green blanket.

Phoebe ate a camel

Or she tried to tonight out at Eliza's. There was this big box of camel fiber in the studio and Pheebes made a beeline for it, went up on her hind paws, and stuck her head as far down into the box as she could reach. It was pretty entertaining to watch until she got some in her mouth and wouldn't open up for me to pull it out. I got most of it out, but let's just say she got some extra fiber in her diet tonight. I'm hoping there's no bungee poo in the next couple of days.

I'm still working on the SSP, the second Super Monkey sock, and the green blanket. Eliza guilt-tripped me into starting on a sweater soon so that I can order some of the heathered sportweight from Sarah's Yarns for a Dale sweater.

MS3 is going to meet it end very soon. I've decided that I'm not going to finish it (or work on it) in the near future, so it will be off the needles by the weekend.

And I've decided that spinning needs to commence in the very near future. I realized that I haven't spun since I was in Des Moines in June. This must be remedied immediately. Especially since I've got four more Sock Hop rovings coming to me very soon. In fact I think I'm going to go start some laundry so I can have a clean uniform to wear tomorrow, then spin while I watch Ghost Hunters and Dinner: Impossible.

Life is good...

It's been a pretty decent weekend overall.

Friday started off with 2 hours of sleep after working all night, then driving to Des Moines. Mom and I got checked into our motel room, then met up with Cheryl and her knitting group at Borders for their knit night. I spent most of the time spinning up some more CMF roving in I Got You Babe and bought Spin to Knit. Back to the motel by 11 or so.

Saturday, Mom and I met Cheryl at Knitted Together and started our yarn crawl. We hit Knitted Together, Purls the Yarn Studio, and Creative Corner. No bad experiences and I came away with more yarn than I needed too (again) and two new knitting bags.

Then we headed across Des Moines to the surprise party for my Aunt Sandy's 60th birthday. She was shocked and spent the first half hour crying since she had no clue what was going on. Knitting happened while we were there and I've got a very interesting tan line thanks to sitting in the sun a little too long while I was knitting.

Drove back Saturday night and then took naps today so I'll be able to work tomorrow and Tuesday. My church's slow-pitch softball team won our second game of the season (just don't ask how many we've lost) and a group of us went out to Coldstone Creamery for ice cream afterwards.

Life is good.

It's done!!!...and a loss

I have a yard!!!!! The landscaper people came back today while I was sleeping and finished off the last 10 feet or so along my fence, so I now have a full backyard of grass (minus the underdeck area that they weren't supposed to take up but did).

The parents were here this weekend and we did a bunch of putzy stuff around the house. Namely, redid the inner workings of the other toilet (without a recurrence of the exploding toilet we had last time), fixed the plunger in the bathroom sink, put up a tomato cage in my garden, broke out the watering tractor and watered the heck out of my new sod, and Dad used the new powersprayer to stain my backyard fence. The deck will get stained the next time they come down to visit if I can find the stain.

Saturday afternoon/evening, a couple of losses almost happened. I spotted my dad's dog, Cozy, coming up the stairs with something red and fibery hanging out of her mouth. It was a piece of roving....my CMF roving that was still attached to the spinning wheel. She had DECIMATED close to 3 oz of the roving that I still had left to spin. I screamed, the dog ran, and that dog was very lucky my dad was there, or she would have been very dead. I was able to salvage most of the fiber and finished spinning it up last night. It was a pain in the butt, but it did get done. Now I just need to ply it.

I think that's it. I promise promise promise that I'll have pictures of the progression in the backyard tomorrow. I'm just too lazy to walk all the way out to the dining room and get my camera right now.

a night off...

...and then it's back to the saltmines. It rained again right before I got up this afternoon, so I wasn't able to mow down the weeds in the backyard like I wanted to.

I've spent the night knitting on squares for the Rebuilding Greensburg project. I mentioned this on the latest Lime &Violet podcast and just wanted to get the link up somewhere since I didn't have it with me at the time. I posted a comment on Laura's blog to give her a heads-up and got an email back. She said she hadn't had time to contact any podcasters about a plug for the project yet, so she was grateful we had mentioned it. But she's not an LnV listener! She told me she knew that would catch up to her someday, so hopefully this is the kick in the pants she needs to get her going.

I'm off to knit some more squares, watch my netflix movies that have been collecting dust for 2 weeks, and maybe start spinning the other half of my CMF roving. Is it crazy talk that I'm actually debating whether or not to contact the CMF people and let them know I'm interested in spinning their Sock Hop yarn?! I quizzed Minnie all about it last Thursday, but I don't know if I'm good enough yet or not. Hmmm....something more to ponder.

ugh

I'm tired, too full (ate at Applebee's for dinner, and I don't want to fold laundry. Plus I have a headache.

On the other hand, I did get a lot of spinning done tonight at Touche. In between laughing at Deawn, and commiserating with Eliza about drama that's going on, it was a good time.

Now I'm off to pop some tylenol, fold towels and sheets, and maybe spin some more. I want to get the first half of the CMF roving done tonight.

Oh! Almost forgot.....and it would be nice to forget.....my scrub tops that I ordered for work finally came today. So I'll be in my lovely shade of navy blue come July 1.

State of the Me address

Ok....I feel the need to blog since I'm in something of a funk right now. But I'll start off with the good stuff.

Pirates!! I know people haven't exactly cared for this movie, so I didn't go into it with high expectations. I think that's what helped me get through it. Minnie, you were right about that point you made last Thursday. Once I knew to look for it, it was easy to spot. I did love how some plot points were resolved. But I was disappointed in Cap'n Jack. He just kind of faded from the story and afterwards I found myself wondering....what happened to Jack!? My opinion? Good movie, but I'll wait for it to come out on dvd before I watch it again.

Mom and Dad came to visit this weekend and we got my garden planted and some housekeeping stuff done. I've got strawberries, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatos, green pepper, and rhubarb in my (hopefully!!) rabbit-proof garden. The dead vines were cleared out of my clematis, weeds were sprayed, garden hoses set out, dead front lawn raked and re-seeded, a picture hung, and lots of food eaten. Mom and I also cranked out some squares to donate to a lady making blankets for family's in Greensburg, KS. I'm planning on hitting up my stash for some more yarn so I can do a few more.

But other than that, I haven't really felt like doing much fiber-related. Mom also frogged my finished Grasshopper sock for me. I may re-do it, but top-down and without the leg gusset. I've been working on my Borg Queen sock and finally managed to turn the heel this afternoon.

I went to a party at a neighbor's last night and managed to finally meet two neighbors that I had met in the year since I moved into my house. Just took some Veggietales videos over to one couple who has a 3-year-old little girl named Grace. She's adorable! I also got to meet the neighbor cop's girlfriend....I'm not impressed. To hear her tell, she's a stylist for an advertising agency.....I'm reading that as she's a cosmetologist who sometimes works for an ad group when they need help. Especially when she said she's from Kansas City. How many big advertising/commercial-making groups are there in KC? Whatever. My parents saw her too and weren't too impressed. But I'm done with that.

Still spinning on the CMF roving. I haven't even made it through the first 4 oz yet. That'll hopefully come later this week.

Guess that's all for the moment. I'd better start getting ready for work tonight. At least it's only an 8-hour shift thanks to the holiday.

lots of pics!!

I don't know why I've been saving these up on my camera. Maybe I'm just getting lazy with the pictures.



First up is the ripple afghan out of Red Heart that I wrote about a few posts ago. RIPPP!!!!





Here's the bloody end. All of this got donated to my church's VBS along with other various skeins of stuff I'll never use.





And now this....last week I mowed my lawn. Then Phoebe wanted to go outside at 2 am. Pretty normal. Until she came in and I didn't have a white dog anymore.



Those are green paws people....green! My poor little tie-dyed dog. First she has a blue spot on her side from Miss V dripping dye on her, then her paws get tinged green from the cut grass. But she's white again after a much-needed bath.



Then comes the finished Jonagold roving. I haven't been able to find anymore of this. It's BMFA 50/50 merino/tencel in Jonagold. I ended up with about 550 yards of 2-ply. This is the stuff I managed to ply in the same direction I had spun the singles. But it came out okay!





And here's an indoor shot a little truer to color.





Finally. A shot of the Borg Queen Jaywalker. I'm calling these my One Mind, One Voice socks. What's more appropriate for the Borg than socks that pretty much every sock knitter on the planet has made?





I think that's it for now! I'm meeting k2p2 (Cheryl) from the LnV messageboards and some of her friends at Personal Threads in the morning, so maybe I should get some sleep. But I think I'll spin a little first.

No go for launch

Well, I got an email back from Blue Moon and was basically shot down. According to the lady who emailed me, they don't have any Sheep-2-Shoe kits and aren't offering any roving right now. Hmmm....then why did I just see over on Cookie A's blog that they're spinning up Sheep-2-Shoe kits?!? Very interesting.

I did manage to save the Jonagold roving. It's kind of lifeless right now, but it's not overtwisted at least.

I started my One Mind, One Voice Jaywalkers out of the Borg Queen sock yarn Miss Violet dyed up. I'm loving it. I showed the yarn to my pastor last night and once I explained it, he laughed. He actually talked about the Borg in his sermon on Sunday. I'm so glad I have a pastor who's a sci-fi geek!

Started spinning the Crown Mountain Farms Sock Hop fiber I got around Christmas time. Decided to start with My Boyfriend's Back. Gorgeous!! If I wouldn't have been hosting a couple of college girls at my house last night (they're part a touring bell choir), I so would have been on my computer and ordering more.

And finally....I might get another puppy. I heard on the news this morning that the Humane Society had raided a puppy mill and rescued over 150 puppies overnight. They're letting people adopt them starting Sunday and they're only asking half their normal donation for them. I'm seriously debating.

Off to bed!!