the switch is made

i know i'll take heat for this, but the naughty queen (my sister) retrieved her hat. the exchange was with another scanky, acrylic cap that was in her closet, not for the original that i was subjected to. now, i know that i was weak. there can be no 'but ' after that statement. my only defense is that it is one less nasty cap in her possession.

she looks great it in! but i will agree, she and i are not hat people!

this is the lovely starry night. sadly the picture does not do it justice. it glimmers and sparkles so beautifully in the sunlight. eldest child would love a cap and fingerless mitts in the same pattern as the cap above. she knits, so i gently suggested that she could make them, since i made the yarn. oh foolish me, using rational thoughts with a teenager. i was met with an incredulous glare. what could i have been thinking? in light of the fact that said teenager wants my hand-spun, hand-made garments, i saw the light and let the subject go. at least i'll have one holiday gift done!

behind the wheel

so this month at the guild meeting, we (that would be amy the fiber goddess & I) decided that cc needed to experience the thrill of making yarn. or at least trying. you see, cc is buying fiber in large quantities. huge.
the side benefit is that i'll never run out of fiber to spin and my fiber-budget (isn't that an oxymoron) isn't impacted. but i digress.....
she finally agreed to give it a go, so we struck while the iron was hot. on an ashford traditional that amy had at the ready, she made her first yarn. she did great! i don't know if she's hooked yet, but we'll keep trying.

then there is the tale of my sister. a non-fibery kind of gal who stopped into visit wearing the nastiest, old, acrylic mickey-mouse cap.

i shuddered when i saw her. i offered to knit her a new one, i even tried to tempt her with this lovely, handspun merino

her response? 'i don't wear hats" after feeling my long,piercing glare...... she amended it to ' i don't look good in hats' well, i don't either and wearing the scankiest thing does not enhance the look! so i finally got her to agree to a trade, mickey for merino.

instead of just knitting a hat (which would have been the sensible choice, so not mine) i found this one in morehouse farms merino knits. it is the mozart trio, done in a frogman stitch. once i you-tubed the technique, i was off.

how lovely is that.

i'm now ready for the trade

nothing says love......

like wool!

it is beautiful (toot, toot) and it fits. two most important factors when producing a hand made item for your valentine. he had picked the yarn color ~knitpicks wool of the andes-thyme, and the pattern~ cabled vest, men's knit. there is always the chance that it could go wrong. like really reading the pattern and realizing that there is not a size that will fit him. between sizes.....do you change the gauge? and on which size?

as is often my path, i threw caution to the wind and chose the medium, which was the smaller size. i blocked generously and it fits perfectly.

i also realize that this was my opportunity to have all the karma in alignment for that exact outcome to occur and it will never return.

but at least this year, it was love.

malabrigo

so last evening cc, jessknits and i met at the local yarn shop for their annual sale. we didn't know

what was on sale, how much the sale was, why it was on sale...
you get the drift.
when you winter in upstate, all you need to know is: yarn. sale.

so we started with a basket, silly girls. then added a second basket as we made our way through the bulky's, worsted, dk's ... ohmy.

we filled and filled and filled.

then we sat and before us was a wall of malabrigo worsted. 20%off.

we went a tad crazy. other yarns went back. we only had eyes for the kettle dyed loveliness that is pure merino.

the green on my shoulder went home with jess. the mahogany that i'm sitting on came home with me. cc took paris nights.

i've already cast on.....

did you really want an answer to that?

so...... i've pulled the kauni out of mothballs. jessknits was over and brought hers (she had nothing else to knit) so i felt compelled (read~guilty)to get mine out. i finished one sleeve, at least as far as i want to go until i can try it on for fit. i was contemplating how to start the colorways for the other sleeve. my thought was always to just let the color go as they may. then i thought that i wanted the button bands to match the bottom. hmmmm, would there be enough to go the entire length? and what about that unopened ball..... what colors were lurking inside.

as i was sharing my dilemma with my honey, he weighed in with his feelings that the sleeves should match. with all the colors, that would bring a level of continuity and it wouldn't matter what happened with the collar and bands. the sleeves could pull it all together.

sometimes it just the right thing to do. darn it!

those things you'd never thought you'd do

i said that i would never knit a barbie item. never. ever.

well.....funny thing happened. awhile back i was obsessed with the mitten ornaments. made many. some day, i'll have a mitten tree, but that's another story.

so while i was in a yarn shop,accompanied by my partner (yes i know, big mistake) we saw sweater ornaments. it was suggested that this would be a nice accompaniment to the copious amounts of mittens that are lurking everywhere. so i did a quick search on raverly, found some left-over sock yarn and cast on. got all the way to the length of a shirt before i realized that i had a barbie outfit. it was too small for ken, so i added length to make it a dress.

the kids are thrilled. while i'm certain that it is destined to be buried in the bottom of the barbie box, never to see the light of day again, at least i knitted them a barbie outfit.

isn't it ironic....

to have finally fallen in love with a fiber that you destroyed???

this sweet batt of fiber came to me on the trip to freedom for the open house @the wool room. i fell in lust with a similar fiber at the fiber fest, but let it slip out of my hands and had dreamt of the color... the luster ... and thought this was 'close to it'

disappointment set in shortly after the fiber fumes wore off. there it was, a pile of fiber that i almost liked. what to do? well spin it of course.

the yarn was better, but still not my dream. i washed it and in careless way, tossed it into the front loader to wring itself dry.

then i pushed the wrong button. it rinsed. in warm water. for sixteen minutes.

the ties came loose and i had a pile of semi-felted wool pasta. while filled with remorse for my stupidity, i had little compassion for the yarn. it deserved better.

what to make? i wasn't sure if it would re-felt and i was limited in my yardage. socks! i could wear them to spin in and hey, i had the yarn.

casting on, i started to see the color changes. feel the softness. those subtle nuances of light and dark.

i fell in love.

alittle too ironic, yeh i really do think.

good things come to those who wait...

even if it's not patiently!!
for quite some time i have had grafton fibers darn pretty needles on my wish list. what (you may ask) is a wish list? it is a list kept on the computer of all those things that catch your fancy..... new needles, a swift, some fiber, books..... well, you see what i mean. why on the computer? well, those little pieces of paper are always getting lost (thrown out) so this simplifies it for everyone.
so.... i've looked at these at rhinebeck. held them. lusted after them. but just couldn't pay the price per pair.
this holiday, dear sweet cc gifted me with a set of dpn. in size 0. they were like toothpicks. even i had to admit that i may have made an error in the size i needed. but before i would...er could admit that, i happened over to their website to find a post holiday-sale of epic proportions. several sets of dpn, for about the cost of my one set.
so after a quick chat with cc, a new gift was ordered and today it arrived....










they pack in roving... how cool is that? and the needles...
worth the wait!!!!