Imma spinnin' fool

Just before Christmas last year I learned how to spin, I even took a class at my LYS and for Christmas my mother got me two spindles, and some roving (which is sitting in a air tight container because it's too precious to do anything with yet), and I've been spinning like there is no tomorrow.

My Mom and I even spent an hour on etsy looking for more roving after I had run out of the super soft merino super wash I had bought from Alpaca Direct. We found really nice roving from a seller called Fiber Yummy. Every time I spin with it it makes me giggle. Not only is the color very nice, but it separates easily for an even yarn (I'm a new spinner so the concept of a producing an even yarn is new to me). And even spun up it looks really nice, wonderful transition between a strange grayish color, lavender, and green. I can't wait to get done spinning it so I can knit it into something. Too bad there are things like sleep, eating, human interaction, and other that are preventing me from just sitting at home and spin.

In other linky news (since this post is full of links, and I like even numbers) a friend of mine has shown me a very funny online cat comic, The Lumps . The comics don't really follow any sort of time line, so you can jump in whenever. Basically it's about two cats brothers, Ebenezer and Snooch, and the little antics they get into. It's cute. Look at it.

Now I'm going back to working on my spinning. I'm sure I can spin and still carry on a conversation with my Mom over the internet. I mean, how hard can it possibly be?

The Project

Last year for Christmas my mother bought me a 365 knitting stitches a year calender. I love that thing. Every day it shows you a picture of a new knitting stitch with the instructions on the side. Lil' old me thought, "I should make a swatch every day and at the end of the year put it all together for a blanket!" What did I do? I made about 20 little swatches and then gave up.
But not this year!
I'm am determined to make a blanket using this calender and nothing is going to stop me. Well...the last 15 days that I haven't been knitting might, but I'm keeping an optimistic view on all this, and will have a nice blanket to cuddle up with by the end of the year.
Hopefully....

Ugh *headdesk*

That is pretty much the way I feel right now. Just, ugh. I'm so tired from Christmas and shopping, and knitting that all I want to do is sleep for the next 2 weeks.

Christmas was amazingly wonderful though. I got more stuff then I know what to do with. All my goodies from my Mom and sister for instance are still sitting in their giant box by my desk because I have no room for them. My Mother got me a ton of sock yarn from KnitPicks, as well as their cup cozy kit, which now gives me 23 more balls of yarn that I simply can not fit into my stash bin. Even with me sitting on it, it just won't fit. So they are in the box.

She also got me the most amazing drop spindles; one top whorl and one bottom whorl. They are from the Ma & Pa Spindle website. These suckers spin for nearly ever. And it makes such smooth single ply's that I keep grinning at my work in awe and periodically running to family members to shout, "Look at it! It's amazing!" The in-laws don't really understand my excitement.
I've decided that the next logical step is to buy a modest student spinning wheel, and then a sheep.

Stil pretending

I'm still pretending it's not December.

I'm pretty much done with most of my major knitting, including the scarf for the sister, but now I have to make 2 felted slippers, and manage to crank out a pair of socks within the week because the lady I have been making them decided she needed one more pair. *growl* Oh, and make a pair of fingerless gloves for my sister-in-law. But I'm not worried about those. I have a 4 hours pattern that will be a cinch to knit up.

Now if only I could find something to make or buy for the brother-in-law. But I'm still good...it's not December after all.

*sticks fingers in ears* Lalalala, I can't hear you December

It's December.
I'm not sure where all the extra days went, but I'm sure someone else stole them. Thus I am ignoring the fact that it's December and am happily walking around in my ignorance. It's sorta working for me.

My list of knitted gifts has been dramatically shortened and some items have been thrown out the window in favor if other, less time consuming projects. Like Pinky's Hat and Scarf set that I was going to make which has been transformed into a charming pair of French Press Felted Slippers; in pink naturally. With flowery buttons I'm thinking...or maybe little skulls...we'll see.
The husbands Hat/glove set is done, although I'll have to fix a few things on both. Apparently he doesn't want the circulation in his fingers to be cut off; I told him he needs to stop being such a baby.
My sister Maggie is now only getting a scarf, made out of this fuzzy yarn that I've had at the bottom of my stash for ages. It was going to be turned into arm warmers to go with the sweater our Mom made her, but you know how things go.
Katie is getting store bought socks. I don't think I'll have the time to actually make her the Bell Mitts, even though I'm thinking she would love them.
As for Chamaguchi (Brianne is her actual name but I met her online and that was her username, ergo she's Chamaguchi to me. =3 ) orange scarf, it's pretty much been at the same 6 inches that it was at in June. I'm horrible with motivation. But the way I see it, she doesn't actually know about the scarf, so I can just send it to her next year, right? Right? Anybody?

In unrelated news I am pretty much done with my shopping for the rest of my family. Safe for of course the in-laws. But when a whole family doesn't really have any interests or hobbies it's hard to shop for them! At this point I'm ready to give them all a packet of socks and call it a day.

The Amazing Scarf

A few months ago I thought my friend how to knit. She's still not very good at it, but getting there. When Pinky first learned she joked that her first scarf was going to look horrible, with holes all over the place. "We'll just fold it in half, and wherever there is a hole we'll put a button on the other side. You'll have a button up scarf, no biggie," I teased her. And thus was born the idea of The Amazing Scarf; or TAS for short.

It going to be a project that we are going to work on together, sending the scarf back and forth between us. Each time that we have the scarf we will work on it a little bit (for as many rows as we want), using a different pattern then the one used before. We're also making it multi-colored. Once it's all done we'll be adding pompoms, tassels, buttons, googly-eyes (as per Pinkys' request), and anything else that we could possibly think of to put into a scarf.

Now as a fellow knitter, or even as a fellow human, you might wonder "Why the hell would they do this? That's going to be hideous." And you're right, it IS going to be hideous. But we're doing this because we can. Because it gives us something funny to do when we are out of other meaningful knitting projects. And it will be a great way for both of us to expand our knitting pattern horizon (her more so then me).

We used to send this scarf via mail since she moved to Florida right before we started the scarf, but now she's back in Washington State so we don't have to anymore. Although as long as it takes that girl to make one friggen patch we might as well be. >.> Anyways, I was going to post an entry about it every time that a section was finished but pretty much spaced out about it....so here are all the posts up to now.




This section was done by me. It was the start of our scarf. I had this color left over from my first pair of socks (the ones that turned out like fish) and figured it was a great color to start with.




This charming part was done by Pinky. I think you can still see some of mine on there, but who cares.

That was done by me. I liked the color, and didn't want to put green into it just yet. The funny thing is that once Pinky got it she texted me something along the lines of "You know that's our school colors, right?" I didn't even think about that. xD

Yes, this last section is also that same pretty blue. But Pinky took the picture with the BlackBerry and I'm guessing the lighting was horrible. I like the checker board look of it though.

Now she's working with a glittery white yarn, and I can't wait to see what she comes up with. Why the glitter yarn? Because Pinky wanted glitter on the yarn, and who am I to deny her that joy?

The Christmas list

For the past 2 years of my obsessive knitting I've made a Christmas list. Each year I start a little earlier, thinking I'll get everything done in plenty of time for Christmas with maybe even enough left over for me to make myself something. Every year, that turned out to be wrong.
This year my list is simple enough;

Brandon - Gloves and Hat
Maggie - Gloves and Hat
Cierra - Hat and scarf
Katie - Bella Mitts (yes, I have an actual pattern in mind!)
Chamaguchi - The orange scarf.

What have I accomplished so far? Brandon's hat. But I need to fix it a little because it doesn't even really fit him.
When did I start this list? In September. Yes, September!! I am that far behind already! *panic* Christmas may as well be tomorrow for all the good this friggen list is doing me. *headdesk* Damn....