I know! An FO! It’s been ages.
This project… started on May 28,2012, is now finished. It’s currently visiting the kitchen sink for a nice soak:
Glamour shots and more info tomorrow.
*Yesterday’s post didn’t happen thanks to a cat that was spewing like a geyser in my dining room. Poor thing – she is okay today.
Cast on: 4/15/2012
Bind off: 5/8/2012
Needles: US 6 addi lace turbo, 32″
Yarn: Wollmeise 100% merion superwash, Der letzte Versuch colorway
mods: None.
Glamazon photoshoot:
Now to pack it up and mail it off to its new owner!
FINALLY, some spinning progress.
I don’t have this first one in a pre-spinning photo for some reason. I purchased it at SQUAM in 2009 when we went to help Jesh sell her spindles:
It’s approximately 400 yards, navajo-plied. Fiber is 100% superwash merino in the Michelle colorway from Kim at The Woolen Rabbit. Kim was at the table next to us and goodness she had Beatles themed colorways – I bought at least 3 braids from her. It was lovely to spin!
Next up is this fantastic merino/tencel blend from Tamara at Spincerely. I love Tamara’s merino/tencel – Sadie, one of the other moderators of the Ravelry Welcome Wagon sent me some of her fiber to spin as a custom spin job and I was hooked. I got to meet Tamara last year at WOOL and she is just wonderful.
Here’s the before shot:
LOOK HOW SHINY!
And the after:
Approximately 188 yards, navajo-plied, of 50/50 superwash merino/tencel in the Stained Glass colorway from Spincerely.
Here’s what is currently on the wheel:
This is the August Luminosity club shipment from Pigeonroof Studios. It is a 50/50 baby alpaca/superfine merino blend. I have a little less than 2 oz left to spin out of the 8 oz, so I’ll be plying that this weekend hopefully. I kinda overdid it last weekend on all the plying so my wrists were causing me great pain, but a week off seems to have helped. Now I can’t wait to PLY ALL THE THINGS.
Woo Hoo! Finally, some FOs!
First up, Empoisonnée by Yarnissima.
Cast On: 2/2/2010
Cast Off: 6/16/2011
Yarn: Wollmeise 100% in Single Malt
Needles: US 1.5 Addi Lace turbos
I love Yarnissima patterns. I have no idea what took me so long to finish these socks. I love them. I love the folded cuff even thought it drove me crazy while I was knitting them – I forgot the number 1 rule of following a pattern: FOLLOW THE PATTERN. Anyway, they are done. These are for sure, Rhinebeck socks. I didn’t think I would like this colorway of Wollmeise but I love it knit up.
Next up are the socks that I knit as a test knit for Yarnissima, Gush, or the June/July Mystery sock for the Solid Socks group on ravelry.
Cast On: 5/30/2011
Cast Off: 8/4/2011
Yarn: Kashmir by Fiber Optic Yarns, Raspberry colorway
Needle: US 1.5 Addi Lace
I LOVE these socks. Sharon got me the yarn this year at Maryland Sheep & Wool as I was unable to attend – and ooh she done good. Kashmir is an 80/10/10 blend of Superwash Merino/Cashmere/Nylon. We’ll also be getting this blend in our shop soon – we just have to dye it, but I love this sock base. So warm. Mmm. This colorway was very hard to capture correctly while photographing but I think I finally got it.
Whew. Two full pairs! Yay! I’m currently working on reknitting a pair of Dawn Gnot for the CSI: KAL – I hope to get past the first heel turn this weekend. More on Sunday hopefully!
While I have been making progress in my Christmas knitting and spinning projects, there was a minor setback this morning.
Let me preface this with, I am okay. I was in a car accident this morning. My car is driveable but needs to be repaired:
smooshy car
Smooshy honda fit!
We’re starting the long and tedious process of dealing with the insurance companies. But I am okay. I expect to be sore tomorrow but I am okay 
Let’s talk about something that is hmm not car accidents! I finished the first sock that I’m knitting at the request of MIL. It’s “brainless” from Yarnissima (That’s a ravelry link).
brainless sock #1
I’m still working my way through Rosebuddie for my niece. I’m almost done the last chart and then I can proceed to the edging.
Erika’s sweater is still in progress but I only have the sleeves left to work on – I need to rip out the 4 rows I knit on one to restart and use the jog-less stripe method to alternate the two skeins that I’m working from.
Erika's Ingenue
There was some stash enhancement after the Skein Maven’s trip to Woolbearers:
A skein of Tosh sock in Oxblood:
MadelineTosh Sock in Oxblood
and 3 balls of St. Denis Nordique to knit Juneberry with:
St. Denis Nordique
I’m going to stop here so I can go relax a bit before another day at the grindstone tomorrow – hopefully I can get to the second gusset on the socks for MILs co-worker.
After a marathon plying session – much like the one at WOOL this year (“still plying”), I have two new skeins of lovelyness to share!
two new skeins of handspun!
PRS July club shipment - Squall
First up, approx 540 yards of superwash merino from Pigeonroof Studios:
This was the July shipment of Krista’s regular fiber club, the colorway is “squall”.
540 yards of fingering weight Squall
Krista’s superwash merino is such a pleasure to spin – I always like to have some in my fiber stash!
Gale's Art BFL in Grape Vine
Second up is some BFL form Gale’s Art that I purchased at MD Sheep & Wool this past May:
156 yards of navajo plied Gale's Art BFL in Grape Vine
I spun this across the braid in order to get the longer swaths of color so that I could navajo ply it – I ended up with 158 yards of lurvely stripey goodness:
I am currently spinning some of the superwash BFL that Sharon and I dyed – it is glorious. I’m thinking of doing a coupon code for this weekend on etsy. Stay tuned here and at the etsy shop!
Hopefully my current spinning will be finished up over the weekend, I just need to remember to pack my niddy noddy and the ball winder!
Happy Thanksgiving for all of those that celebrate it!
Really, how does a whole month go by? Wow. Here’s what I’ve been up to:
1. Knitting my cousin’s wedding shawl, which came off of the needles yesterday
Erika's shawl - purity from Roman 43
Lace detail
I dropped 3 stitches on the final row of the edging and had to figure out how to pick them back up and somehow managed it. If I wasn’t a Knitter with a capital K before this, I most certainly am now.
2. Knitting a baby sweater for my niece, Marisa who joined us on June 5th.
handspun boheme for Marisa
The pattern is Boheme (ravelry link) and it was a quick knit, done in 3 days. I love knitting with handspun, I love the accidental striping that happens. I see more of these in my future, they are a great way to use up smaller hanks of handspun!
3. I’ve been dyeing fiber like it is going out of style. Sharon and I are trying to get an etsy shop up and running and I’ll post as soon as we get everything in order But here’s a teaser of some of the Falkland roving I dyed:
falkland sampler
I think I may just be addicted.
bagged up and ready to go
4. Finished two pairs of socks:
Zen toe-ups which took me over a year to finish because I hate the yarn (trekking xxl – a sin I know!).
zen toe-ups
and a pair of toe up monkey socks using yarn from my friend Debbie:
toe up popcicle monkeys
5. Some spinning has occurred but not much since I was focusing on Erika’s shawl.
Pigeonroof studios SW merino in Emperor
6. And a ton of test knitting for the girls over at Crafty Detour. The next sock in the series looks awesome and I can’t wait until they launch their CSI series
Skinny Bugga! in Beyer's Jewel Scarab
I’ll be knitting this pattern using skinny bugga! for the first time. I can’t wait to see how it knits up and how the sock turns out. So far all of Heather’s patters have been lovely!
Hopefully I’ll be back in a few days with more to blog about!
So the baby chalice blanket has been completed with time to spare!!! Yay! I’m finally at the tail end of the baby knitting marathon. I do have some sweaters I want to knit for my niece to be, but those are going to be sized 6 months and larger and will most likely be xmas presents. So without further ado . . .
Pattern: baby chalice blanket
Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Worsted Multi in Clara’s Garden
Cast on: 4/4/2010
Cast off: 4/27/2010
Needles: US 10 40″ Addi Turbo
Techniques: used Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind off
blanket after binding off
And of course I had a blocking assistant:
what do you mean I'm sitting on pins?
And after blocking, I am in love with the finished project!
Ready for snuggling
And a close up of the lace:
lace detail
My sister-in-law is due in early June but I will deliver this next weekend when I’m home next.
I’m still working away on the Empoisonnée socks from the fall 2008 Twist Collective. I’m using Wollmeise 100% superwash merino sock in the Single Malt colorway and I am in love.
poisonous malt sock
Detail:
cable detail
I simply love all of Marjan (or Yarnissima‘s) patterns. I am fortunate enough to be one of her many test knitters, and really, her patterns are the perfect match for the beautiful yarn that Claudia (or the Wollmeise) dyes.
Okay, so that’s all that I’ve finished/been working on. This weekend is Maryland Sheep & Wool, and I’ll be attending with Sharon, and it’s our first visit to MDS&W. I was sick last year, and it was right before Our Jessica’s surgery, so I ended up skipping, and then the other two halves of my brain, Sharon and Jessica, ended up not going. So sad. We will only be there on Saturday and may not stay the entire day. But first! We are staying at my parents’ house in PA tomorrow evening so it takes a bit of time off of our trip and we will be avoiding the I-95 corridor completely. YAY.
And now for the family stuff, my grandmother in law, Mom-Mom, the original Sarah P (she and I have the same initials, she is Sarah Matilda where I am Sarah Maria), at age 81, was diagnosed with breast cancer this month. She will be undergoing a mastectomy on May 5, so we will be trekking back home to visit with her. We were pleased to find out that it is not the same type of cancer that my mother-in-law had (inflammatory breast cancer), but it may have spread to her skin. So any and all good thoughts, prayers, mojo, juju, etc, is greatly appreciated at this time. I adopted John’s grandparents when we started dating (over 10 years ago), and refer to them as Grandmom, Mom-Mom and Pop-pop, since I lost all of my grandparents before the age of 10 (and my mom’s parents passed before I was born). I love them all dearly, but Mom-Mom and I are both Sarah’s with an H.
That’s it for now, I hope to have a post after MDS&W on Sunday so stay tuned!
These are apparently in reverse order!
And with a few days to spare in 2008, I finished my 14th pair of socks, a test knit for Yarnissima, which will be given to my sister as her xmas gift (which she knows about since I gave her one sock already!)
With 2009, I’m trying to remember to blog. We just moved in December, and while I’m still unpacking, things have calmed down considerably. I have time to spin and knit and enjoy time with my kitty, Haley. I’ve also joined up with my friends Jessica and Lindsey to help run the Plurk Craft 365 Flickr group! So far I’ve remember to post two days in a row!!!!!
Now for some knitting content, I’ve signed up for two KAL’s, one for La Digitessa and one for Leyburn Socks. The Leyburns will be out of Socks That Rock Lightweight and each person in the KAL is using a different colorway – so the results should be interesting! And of course, I drop everything and just cast on a pair of toe up no purl monkey socks in some STR LW in Christmas Balls:
I hope to finish these by the weekend, and make some progress on the Leyburns too. That is if I get more stuff unpacked/organized!
Happy new year!
Okay, so there has been much knitting going on!
I finished the first of the Charade socks:
These definitely need blocked, but I guess just wearing them around for a bit once the second sock is done will help in that department as I don't own blockers!
Second, I finished the first April-May Step by Step wrist warmer:
I like the stripes in the beginning more than the huge stripes going across the hand, but oh well. I doubt the second one is going to shape up as nice as this, I just did the increase row. I do like the pattern, except for the thumb (evil dpn's strike again). So I will be knitting the second one of these before I start the second sock of the Charades. I need to get started on the Waves scarf from knit picks as it is an xmas present and I tend to overly procrastinate.
May be stopping at Purl in NYC after the seminar I have to go to on Thursday. Stuff, what are you up to Thursday after work? Hopefully you see this! hehe.