inauguration

finished the mystery batt and bestowed a name upon it....

hard to see in the non-sunlight of upstate new york, but it is a medley of cranberry~pewter~blue and in honor of the events of this week, it is inauguration.

nice and fluffy, has a real 'hand-spun' look and feel. cc will be pleased and if not.... well possession is everything!

batts of mystery

cc won this lovely fiber at the guild auction. it is a hand-carded batt from the talented sandy of longmeadow farms. it really is a mish~mash of colors.... blue, red, bronze, silver, all tossed together into this ohsoeasy to spin product. i got right at it

here we have the single bobbin

and them both. i'm very interested to see how it ply's. i'm planning on doing this in a two ply. i enjoy spinning sandy' one-of-a-kind fiber. her goal is to have each batch be unique so that no two spinners will run into each other at a festival in their handspun garment and see their image. i admire the ideal, but it makes it challenging when you don't have quite enough to finish that one project.

my side benefit of cc's fiber purchases may be coming to an end. since she is coming to the meetings, we've ganged up on her, opps.... i mean we've gently encouraged her to give it a whirl ( pun intended). we may have a new addict, errr... spinner!

saturday's are for....

spinning! i love the third saturday. i long for it. it is circled in red on the calendar. my family is trained to know that nothing interferes with that day.
so this month......was the annual auction. and guess who won? cc! unbelievable. a beautiful batt of sandy's fiber. it's a triple win really.... i get to spin it, she gets to have the yarn and she gave me (really i just took it) a coupon towards, yep more fiber. here's the line up










i was able to finish this...










chili pepper from cloverleaf farms. i've got 2 ounces of this merino on a bobbin, so i immediately started cc's win. i'm interested to see how it comes out.
three weeks til the next meeting!

revisit

i have an eclectic love of music. it is the tapestry of my life, weaving images and events together in a random yet seamless way. considering that my formative years were marked with easy listening tunes, then there was the tragic john denver/barry manilow years, it all contributed to move me in a path of discovery. the classical from select choir, the pops, polkas and marches from band, the heavy metal when i found out radios had other stations. jazz, rap, salsa, i love to dabble in it all. which brings me to my knitting.

there is a bonjovi tune 'who says you can't go home' with a line about revisiting the past, going back ... and that is my focus for my fiber this year.

going back, looking at old books, magazines, patterns, fiber. something that i tried once and hated or tried and loved. playing around with different ideas and fabrics. mixing the jazz and reggae or tossing in a little aerosmith to pump it up.

jess was over for a new year's knit and brought along a 2005 vogue knitting magazine with several items that tickled her fancy. i'll admit, i thought she had gone off the deep end. vogue knitting? what could there be in that? well, lo and behold, i had the same magazine. a gift from an older and wiser knitter who thought i could some day find something in it's pages.
so my path this year is to reach back. try something old.

and maybe find something new.

what are you doing new year's, new year's eve

basking in projects done! the christmas hat for my sister.... lovely! it's from knitty winter 2007~three tams. yarn is: mc~ jo sharp silkwood tweed, cc~ noro kureyon, both from the stash. i think i acquired them from a close-out bin. worked in the round with a long-tail cast on. you tube saved my butt. i'm using this cast-on all the time now. it is easy, looks great and is a nice thing to have in that bag of tricks!

eldest child has her felted slippers. {she has been waiting since the spring for these} i started and realized that i was not going to have enough yarn. a quick call to lys, they were out. as i pondered my choices i reached for a long shot and called amy the fiber goddess. didn't she have an extra skein of pumpkin?
lesson learned...... you can never have enough tucked into that stash!

woodland nymph fiber, spun, awrapaho plied, drying. amazing color changes. it was an absolute dream to spin and i'm needing to do more. it is a wool/alpaca blend from sandy long. it will be the final piece of cc's holiday gift.

now to enjoy these last hours of 2008

twas the day before christmas

and all my knitting is done!

okay, that is a big fat lie.... but in my mind it's done. it was done, even those blasted bags that i agreed to knit/felt/finish at the last minute. in fact, here is the final batch

how cute are they? i can deliver those this evening then focus on the last holiday gift. a hat. well, it's really a tam from knitty.com

my sister was telling me that with the latest winter storm and Arctic cold, her hats were mia ( which knowing my sister means that they are buried under a pile of stuff, never to see the light of day again) she was telling me that she got a pull on cap at wal-mart (bleck) .... could i make her one? this was monday. the 22nd. of december.

so of course i am. she'll get it on the needles in a bag tomorrow, but it is an entertaining knit and seem like it will go quick. i had some stash yarn, jo sharp tweed in blues and you add noro to give a fair-isle effect while only carrying the two yarns. the pattern forced me to finally learn the long-tail cast-on. what did we do without the internet and youtube? love the cast on and will be adding it in the rotation.

so, the cookies are baked, snowman is made, family is watching holiday shows.....

i can knit.

never give it up

i was sitting in the waiting room of a providers office this week. it was a waiting room like none other i had been in. the ceiling was two stories high with tapestries and artwork displayed, the wood work was oak, the seating antique desks and benches with a few cushy chair tossed in. i was overwhelmed with all to look at. so i sat, and instead of immediately pulling out my yarn, i just sat. quietly. it was decadent. i had no thoughts in my brain, just the stillness of sitting. doing nothing. i'm not able to capture this sensation in my normal life. i can always feel the pull of some task left undone, or be pulled by someone needing my attention. it so reminded me of my yoga days, pregnant and non, when i just sat in the studio surrounded by peace. the tickling question now is how to put that back into my life. if only i had the peace to think that out!

soon i was reaching for the needles and yarn, casting on yet another mitten. they are so damn cute and so damn easy. i may fill the tree yet. i felt someone watching me and glanced up to see a women slightly older than me walking toward me. it was like she was drawn to me and nothing would block her path. she sat down and immediately started asking about my project, did i make my vest, how much i knitted and so on. she was completely focused on my yarn. she tole me that she had been a knitter, but upon returning to the workforce she had little time to spend on it. so she gave all her yarn and needles away. gone. i just stared at her. there must have been quite the look of shock on my face and she quickly explained that she needed the space and didn't want to keep moving stuff about. sadly, my turn arrived and we bid each other good day. my final words to her were to start knitting again, she smiled and said 'after seeing you, i just might'.

i can't imagine. no yarn. no needles. no fiber. when i got home, i hugged the stash!