Recently in spinning Category

Yes, I know this is a bit fuzzy and too dark, but hey, I gotta show y'all that I'm alive and knitting. Pattern is Dawn Brocco's Cable Clog sock and it's one of my favorite pattern. A good amount of twisted knit pattern, and yet enough sockinette knitting not to bore you to tears. I'm using Cestari Sock yarn - my first time with it. Appearance is on the rustic side. I'm eager to see how well it holds up under hard wear. I think I might have enough to make a triplet set, but we'll see.

I decided to go ahead and get the Schacht Ladybug Wheel because I want one that is portable, and besides, the church bazaar is coming up in just a few months and I need time to get familiar with it so I can be more at ease with demonstrating and answering questions. And I think I've finally found a nice home for the Majacraft Little Gem. I'll have to thank Knitting Banter in part for changing the think process regarding the MJ Little Gem. Now I need to apply this to my job search . . .

Some people just do the most darnedst thing. I'm pretty sure this sort of thing wouldn't happen on the DC Metro, but one never knows . . .

THIS is the moment a group of Thrill seekers hiJack-son a London tube train.

Passengers were left open-mouthed when a group of commuters - including a suited man - got up from their seats and performed the dance featured in Michael Jackson's music video for hit Thriller.

[From Thrillseekers hiJack-son train | The Sun |HomePage|News]

So, I've gotten the needed extra rows all knit onto the sweater bottom, and now I'm ready to graft it back on. A tedious job to be sure, but it's gotta be done.

Hubby and I are going over friends' home for Super Bowl game. And I need a good mindless project. I could work on the back of the Mendocino cardigan, but I'm not quite in the mood for battling with slightly stiff yarn. I do have something in mind for mindless knitting.

Here's what I envision for this swatch of my handspun yarn, knit with 4.00mm needles: a pullover with a placket. I've been looking through my magazines and patterns, and browsed through Ravelry for a nice, simple pattern. I couldn't quite find the one pattern to unite all desired features, so I'm gong to have to sort of just take a bit from each and pull it all together. Wish me luck!

Yes, that's the yarn that is used for my online avatar and in the image above . . .

Since I finished the shawl, I'e been freed up to move on to other projects. So, I restarted my sock knitting, with Back to Basics socks. The directions are different enough that I just had to try it, and this will keep me going until the 2nd edition of Cat Bordhi's new sock book is available (it seems that 1st edition sold out quickly and I haven't been able to find it locally). I had actually gotten up t the gusset shaping, when I realized if I kept going on as directed, the foot would be longer than my actual foot length. So I measured the gauge and it turns out that I'm 1 stitch more in rows and stitches per inch. Auuuuggghhh! I had to rip back almost all way to about 2 inches above the toe section and there I'll get the shaping started. If this doesn't work, I'm going to have to go down a size in needles. Not really looking forward to this.

And it seems that I've been suckered into helping out at the bazaar in the craft section. I'm supposed to be bringing my spinning wheel and you know, demonstrate or something. I'm concerned about my ability to explain all these to visitors and having them be able to understand me, but I'll worry about this later. It occurred to me that my fleece sample book would be good to take along. It also occurred to me that I still haven't assembled the pages from Exchange 2 and Exchange 3, even though the Exchange 3 package was concluded in 2001. Life sure has a funny way of interfering, doesn't it? I found the box for Exchange 2 in the other bedroom's closet, still unopened. Wow . . . a package for me that arrived in the mail 8 years ago! Since I've been out of work for too long and can't just go off buying fiber and yarn and checking the mail, it felt good to have an anticipated delivery. And I found the boxes for Exchange 1 and 3 in the garage (whew - that means there's a little more free room for junk).

Now, my job is to get all those samples washed up, put in the washed locks next to the in-grease locks, and spin up some of those samples. I'm going to be combing some of these, but it seems silly to use my big combs for such a tiny bit of samples. I'm looking into getting mini-combs. I'm shocked, shocked at how some of these cost. The cheapest costs $75. Why the high prices? Know where I can score a set of used mini-combs?

I've been lying low the past few weeks, because well, I'm in a rut. I haven't really done much knitting the past month, especially since I discovered that mistake I made with my FI vest. It's really amazing how a stupid mistake can spoil one's knitting mojo. And I've been spinning, mostly. But who wants to see bobbins of plain ol' white LolaYarn?

I do have other excuse - we've been doing some rearranging of our living room. We got fed up with Comcast, and Verizon FiOS is n ow available in our area, so we decided to make the switch. That meant moving the dresser over to another spot, cutting in holes to run the cable out from the garage up to the living room, assembling the IKEA tv cabinet, moving the big tv out from my office (fortunately, Hubby didn't throw out his back).

Today is day 3 and we lovelovelove our new FiOS service. They arrived earlier than the scheduled appointment time, didn't spend too long mucking around with the cables and such, and made sure the tv and net service were working. And when we ran into a couple problems such as channels not displaying properly on our bedroom tv, they were very courteous and walked hubby through resetting the set box. Comcast is going to have to do a lot of work to bring back customers who've left them.

So, we're looking forward to being more social - having people coming over to watch movies and such with us. And yes, I'm starting to fix up my corner of the sofa - moved the knitting sand next to it (after going through the waste yarn and such in it, off course). In the inner pocket, I have an old tape measure, a blunt needle, scissor, a few dpns. All that's left is for my knitting mojo to return.

Oh, and of course, I've got a spinning wheel sitting there so that my hands will not be idle while I watch tv. What more could one ask for?