No Mystic Waters Here

I spun up the second ball of hand dyed roving I had. However after looking at the dimensions of the Mystic Waters Shawl, which is GINORMOUS!!, I won't be using this yarn. Boo hoo sniff sniff! It would be too close to call on the final yardage. I know I wouldn't be able to replicate this particular dye since it was done over a year ago and I don't want to spend all that time knitting the shawl and then running out. So, I need to find another project for this one. I also need to figure out what to use for the Mystic Waters. Back to the drawing board or the spinning wheel as it may be!

Finally! A Project to Do!!

When I signed up for Spun Stitches, I went through my stash to see what I already had spun to make a shawl. I found this 4 oz skein of BFL, approx 706 yards, single ply between lace and fingering weight. I have been looking for a pattern to knit with it. The other day, I was reading the group posts and I saw the mention of MysticWatersKAL. It was an "AHA" moment. I loved the name of the shawl and the color of the yarn seemed to fit. However, I needed 1200 meters. So back I went into the stash. You have to realize that most of my stash is buried in boxes from a recent move and it is not easily accessible. Anyway, not only did I find another 4 oz of roving that I dyed at the same time but also some beads that would match! EUREKA!! It was serendipity!!
So here is the skein wound into a ball waiting to be cast on and here is the ball of roving waiting to be spun. I know what I'm doing this weekend. I want to spin the second skein so that I can alternate the two skeins in the shawl in case of any variance in thickness of the yarn. If I spin the second skein at approx the same lace to fingering weight, I should have just a teeny bit over what I need for the shawl. Blind faith I tell you! (Not only in the spinning but in the knitting...it's a mystery shawl. ) Keep your fingers crossed! I am excited to be knitting this. I tell you it was meant to be! Haha.

FO: BOOtiful Socks :-D

Finished!! My first attempt at 2 socks on circular needles; see previous posts. The pattern is Peaks & Valleys socks by Mountain Colors. The yarn is Mountain Colors Bearfoot color Sapphire Trail. It is navy with bits of orange, red and green throughout. Very nice color for this time of year; mysteriously dark and spooky :-D The yarn is 60% Superwash Wool, 25% Mohair, and 15% Nylon. It has a cushy, slightly fuzzy feel and will be nice and cozy to wear. Especially since it is 37 degrees right now as I type this. BRRR!! Fall is here, folks!
Finishing 2 pairs of socks this week, my new sock bag is empty. I love this little bag from Knowknits; I purchased mine from here. I LOVE collecting different bags for knitting and the hot pink of this one really made me smile. It is a lightweight nylon bag which has a snap clip if you want to attach it to a purse or your beltloop if you walk and knit. (Okay, how many people actually do that? It's kind of like rubbing your stomach and patting your head.) Also there is a small loop inside to run your yarn thru so the yarn ball stays down in the bag and there are no tangles. It's a fun little bag.


Updates: Since I mentioned Socks on Sunday posts, have you noticed that it hasn't worked out that way? Oh well! Sometimes life gets in the way of our better plans. And although I don't have any socks on the needles right now....oooh the horrors! Don't worry; I have enough sock yarn to last centuries and I'll be starting a new pair soon!


Also re: Pumpkin Patch socks...they will be frogged and going to a knitting friend of mine who loves them and wants to make them for herself. I love it when things can go to a good home!
The socks that were my trick will be her treat. Such a deal! Happy knitting, everyone!

FO: One Less Pair of Socks on the Needles!

YIPPEE!! The nights are supposed to get down in the 40's and high 30's this week so these socks will feel oh so cozy! They are made from Austerman from my stash; sorry no label for the colorway. They have a great feel to them...very soft although I really cannot tell the difference of knitting them with the aloe and jojoba oil in the yarn. However, I do LOVE the soft tweedy colors in their yarns. I knit a pair for me in the Denim colorway that I really liked until I caught my 11 year old son (whose feet are bigger than mine), wearing them while playing basketball in the driveway. He was doing so without any shoes. He stretched them out and they showed a lot of wear on the heels from the concrete. GRRR! They are now his socks. So I had to get busy on this pair for me. I just did a simple 2 x 2 ribbing for the cuffs.
Introducing my new sock blockers! I never block my socks to dry. I just dry them flat. However I wanted a way to showcase them better for blog pictures. Thanks to Maryann

I made some quick, easy and inexpensive sock blockers out of a plastic placemat from Walmart. Yes, it is not greatly attractive (I do so love the wooden ones), but when showing socks, the blocker is covered anyway. I could not resist doing this for around $1.50. Look on Maryann's website for her great instructions. I simplified it by just taking a knit sock that fit me and tracing around it on the placemat and cutting it out and then making a duplicate. It took less than 10 minutes and only one placemat. Such a deal!

A Change of Scenery

I've had a "little one" home from school for the past two days with a 102 degree temp. She decided to reside in the sitting area off the kitchen where she had the dubious honor of "Queen of the Remote Control." This is my usual spinning area where I can watch hummingbirds, birds and critters out this window. Don't you just love Mother Nature's valance curtains? I do. Anyway, after being overloaded with cartoons, I decided for sanity's sake to try a new venue.
I moved my spinning wheel to the living room. It was a blustery rainy day and this was the view from the front window. A little dreary and not many critters out today except for a few hardy birds, chipmunks and squirrels. Usually we have a deer gathering and squirrel a palooza going on. However, if I looked out the back window, this was the gorgeous view taken at the same dreary time of day with no sunlight. Mother Nature is awesome! It just made the day seem so much brighter. What an impact a slightly different view makes! Hmm...maybe that's a lesson to be remembered in everyday life. I hope you have a bright spot in your dreary days too!

Spinning My Wheels

If you have read my blog when I first started posting, you would already know that I am currently a production spinner. So as much as I would love to be knitting my own things and spinning my own stash, a lot of my time is spent, "spinning my wheels". Haha. Actually, I do all my spinning on my Schacht Matchless wheel which I named Sadie. She was a birthday gift from my family a few years back and I really love that wheel! .... and my family :-D

Here is the latest order that I shippped out today to here. The colors just made me smile when I saw them all together and I thought I'd share. Back to work...I have 70 4 oz skeins to complete by a December deadline and only 8 of these 20 in the picture above count toward that total!

Take time for yourself to do something enjoyable today!

Back to the Pumpkin Patch or the Frog Pond

After looking at the Pumpkin Patch socks this morning, I have decided that I am not going to knit any further. They will be a project that never was. Haha. Life is too short to be working on socks I won't wear. Oh well, it's one less project in my stash now! On to other things I do enjoy!

Have a good day!

Trick or Treat; Smell My Feet...

I was all excited when I pulled this out of my stash from here. I thought that I would love to get it done for Socktoberfest and SAM4. It is The Pumpkin Patch kit from one of Blackberry Ridge's Sock of the Month Collections. (You can purchase the kit separately, as I did).

Anyway, I believe the trick is on me. The yarn is 100% wool in what they call medium weight. It has a nice feel and loft; the colors are great, brown and the orange is a bit duller in person than in the photo. The pattern is adorable and looks like fun to do. So what's the trick?

The problem is, the yarn is a lot heavier than I am used to knitting socks with and I know that I would be way too warm in them with the double stranding of the colorwork. Hence, I don't want people to be able to "smell my feet". :-O I am done with the leg and am starting the heel. I may just finish the rest of the sock out of pattern and with one yarn to make it less dense. It is a really thick sock! It could practically stand up on its own! I am curious to see if it softens a bit with washing. Or it may be the socks that never get done. I'm not sure that I'd wear them. I am definately going to put them on the backburner for awhile. However, in the spirit of the season, I wanted to share the cute jack o' lanterns.

Noro Scarves in Progress

I should be spinning, I should be socking, what I have been doing is scarfing. (not food, although the chocolate chip oatmeal cookies have been disappearing much too quickly :-) I was cruising Ravelry and I saw two scarves that I wanted to try. So on Monday, I grabbed three balls of Noro Silk Garden #244 and started the Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf by Karen Baumer. It is a quick and fun scarf to knit with all garter stitch and I am 2/3 finished just picking it up here and there this week. I'll post it when it is finished. Hopefully, I can get a better picture; it is really dreary today.

As if one scarf project were not enough, I became fascinated by this striped Noro scarf also found on Ravelry. A neat feature of Ravelry (if you haven't joined yet, you may want to get on the list), is that they have pictures of FO's or WIP's of certain patterns people are doing. So instead of doing a web search through a lot of blogs, you can pull up a file and see for example, 100's of color combinations for this scarf. I was fascinated by the play of the colors; it looked like so much fun! So I just had to cast on!

Last night (Friday), I gathered 4 balls of Noro Silk Garden: 2 of #86, and one each of #244 and #245 and started this scarf done in 1 x 1 ribbing. It is a surprise scarf because you don't know what color combinations are going to line up with each other. I am excited to see what happens which is a good thing because it will be finished faster that way! Haha. I'll share more pictures as it progresses. I can already see me trying at least another one of these in a different colorway, or two or three...heehee.

In the meantime, check out Ravelry or you can also see an explanation and a GOBSMACKING GORGEOUS!! example on this blog. Thank you so much Ravelry and Jared for the awesome inspiration! I'm off to knit!

Self Imposed Stash Busting

The heat is on, not only outside right now (this is October, isn't it??) but also in my mind. I like challenges so I am going to challenge myself to a yarn diet from this day October 8th 2007 until March 16th, 2008. Why March 16th? I don't know...maybe because it's my birthday. "It's my birthday; I can buy yarn if I want to." Hmmm...sounds similar to a song. Haha. No I actually wanted the fall/ winter months to regroup and to work on what I have and that date popped into my head.

The only purchases allowed to be made are for completing existing projects and/or for gifts. Also, if there is a class that I REALLY want to learn something special, then I can purchase the items needed. Okay? Things are getting busy here and the weeks are flying by. Before I know it, the holidays will be here and there will be snow on the ground. I tend to go into "nesting" mode during the winter where I just want to stay in and hibernate. So, while hibernating this winter, I want to challenge myself to refocus on what I already have. I want to see how much progress I can make without adding more to the mix.

The same diet goes for spinning fiber. I have TONS. So I would like to see what I can do with what I have. So stay tuned for my frantic endeavors to reorganize and to get things done.

Added Note: The past few weeks I started an unintentional trend on my blog, Sunday Socks. In the interest of not being buried alive by my sock yarn stash, I would like to continue to show progress on my sock knitting with Sunday posts.

Sunday Already??? Socks Update and New Gadget

WOW!! This week went fast! It's Sunday again and the sun tea is brewing. It is near 90 in Norhteast IN and humid today; the normal high is low 70's for this time of year. So I am taking advantage of the sun tea weather for as long as I can!



Here is an update of the socks from last Sunday. The pattern is Mountain Color's Peaks and Valleys Socks and the yarn is their Bearfoot in Sapphire Trail colorway. This week's picture is more accurate of the colorway. The main color is navy with bits of red, green and orange interspersed. It's a great colorway for fall and winter and the yarn is so cozy!



I want to share a few interesting things about this particular pair of socks. My LYS had a class the past two Saturday mornings of knitting two socks at a time on one circular needle. Since I have never tried the "Magic Loop" method and I have never tried socks on anything other than double points, I thought I'd give it a whirl.



Well, let me tell you, you could hear the neurons "pinging" in my brain as they were growing! I really enjoyed the class. It was challenging to learn two socks at a time on one circular needle, in a patterned cuff and instep and with a dark colored yarn. I love challenges; bring it on! It was fascinating for me to see how to switch the stitches around to fit the sock in progress especially after the heel and picking up the gusset. It is amazing how Sarah Hauschka's mind works. How in the world did she come up with this Magic Loop idea? It's so totally twisted but cool! There is a book, The Magic Loop, which describes the process written by Sara Hauschka and Bev Galeskas published by Fiber Trends. Check your LYS and give it a try.



I decided that I would like to try a few more pairs of socks with this method to get it "implanted" in my brain. I don't know if it will be my method of choice for socks since I have a great rhythm established with double point needles. I'd like to see if I could get a rhthym going with this method. However, it is really fun to have a pair of socks completed at the same time! I am glad that I learned this method; I love learning new things.



There are two other things I learned during this class that I would like to share with you. First, I learned the Twisted German Cast On which is very stretchy and I would like to try this again on a few pairs of socks. If this is something you are interested in, an online search provides you with LOTS of information. Go for it! I also learned about a new gadget to fix my boo boo's. What boo boo's you ask? The ones when I am tired and knitting at night with dark yarn and too lazy to go get the Ott Light. The next morning, they kind of humble you by smacking you right in the face like DUH!! :-D Here was a nifty little gadget called the Seed Stitcher: (Heads up! Lea-ann might be changing the name.) However, you can check it out here and see how it works.

http://www.knittingtoday.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=KT&Product_Code=20011&Product_Count=&Category_Code=

I have to admit, I am a gadget and gizmo gal. This little gizmo is a nifty little handknitter's helper. How does it work? Well, in a nutshell, it reminds me of a Push You Pull Me (the two headed llama on Dr. Doolittle) What?? You also don't remember the giant pink sea snail?? Ok, ok...I know...I need some more sleep! Haha.

Anyway, when dropping a stitch off the needle to knit or purl back up into place, you insert this two headed hook into the stitch below the one you want to fix. Then working up the ladders of yarn, if you pull the head thru, you make a knit stitch. If you push the other head thru, you make a purl stitch. It is very cool, very simple and will work on different gauges of yarn without splitting the yarn. I tried it on fingering weight. Also, you don't have to stop and figure out which way the crochet hook or knitting needle has to go into the stitch to get the stitch you want. It takes a bit to get the hang of it but this will be a staple in my knitting tools bag.

What's For Breakfast?

While making my breakfast this morning as the sun was starting to come up, my Collie, Simba, started whining which means there is a deer close to the house. This little buck was eating breakfast at the birdfeeder right outside my dining room window (hence, the fuzzy picture...it was taken thru the screen and the window).

Our yard is a haven for deer and other critters and having the "herding" instinct inbred, Simba likes to patrol the top of the hill and "herd" the deer to the woods. He never follows them into the woods. In fact, they are so used to him that they will stand on the perimeter of our woods and nonchalantly continue to eat or frolick and ignore him. Too funny! We have "regulars" in our yard which we name including Long Tail ( a young buck) and Mama who gave birth to twins in our yard this year. At any given time day or night, we have deer sightings and if they are not visible, they are easily heard thru the deer paths in the woods. Last winter when a big snowstorm came in, we had 30 deer bed down in our yard.

I have been busy spinning a production order this week so there is not much done on my knitting endeavors. I guess the spinning is appropriate since it is National Spinning and Weaving Week. However I am anxious to start spinning up some of my fiber festival finds for some sweater knitting! I accumulated quite the stash of hand dyed roving from MI Sheep and Wool and from Midwest Folk Art andFiber Festival. If I leave it in plain sight, it looks at me with little puppy dog eyes begging to be spun into luscious yarn. So it is stashed away for now but I swear I keep hearing tiny voices saying, "Spin me. You know you want to. Think how great I will look in a sweater. Think how much fun you'll have...you know you love my colors..." Enough already! There are things and deadlines I HAVE to get finished first. My resolve is faltering but I must move onward and make some progress. So back to spinning I go with daydreams of getting to my own spinning and knitting soon.