Ready to Steek!

I haven't updated for a while so I thought I'd catch up. Not a lot has been going on. I figure it must be the good old winter slow time. I finally finished

knitting all of the sleeves, all 4 of them for the Norwegian sweaters that I've been knitting for my grand daughters. I have the ends woven in on all but 1 of the sleeves. I'm planning to have them finished for Valentine's Day. That gives me a date to shoot for. This is the last picture I'll take of the sweaters before I steek them. I've never done this before and I have to admit, It REALLY makes me nervous to think about taking scissors to them. I keep telling myself the I really don't have a choice if I ever hope to see the sweaters on the girls. Sorry for the dark pictures but I had to take them inside at night. There's not a lot of daylight around here after I get home from work.

I've been working on my Icarus shawl and am on the last half of the last chart. It shouldn't take too much time to finish it off. Since knitted lace doesn't look like much till it's blocked, I'll take pictures and post them when I'm done.


I also finished a pair of socks using Knit Picks Simple Stripes and Wendy's generic toe up sock pattern. I really like toe up socks better than top down. It took me a while to get the short rows right and Wendy's new detailed directions are great. They describe the short rows very clearly! Knitting socks with this pattern seemed to go really qickly. I was able to do a sock in about 2 or 3 evenings after work. Yea, working does bit into your knitting time but it also helps to fund the habit. I love this colorway, I'd tell you the name of it but I can't find the yarn band and I couldn't find the same yarn on Knit Picks site. I think these socks will look good with jeans.

DH and I went to the mountains, Tionesta, a couple of weekends ago and of course I
visited the
Reiland Farm and Shoppe. I picked up some wool/mohair roving for my sister-in-law to try. She has a spinning wheel and hasn't been having a lot of luck spinning. This is the same roving I used when I learned to spin and I thought the my sister-in-law might have an easier time spinning with it. I also found some 100% mohair pencil roving while I was there and picked up some to try spinning lace weight yarn. We'll see how it goes, I'll be sure to let you know. I'd love to knit a lace scarf out of handspun.

I've been spinning some Colonial Wool that I picked up a while back. The roving color
is called "Red Swirl" and has lots of colors in it. I have 1 bobin full at this point and have about 3/4 of a pound more to spin. Someday I'm going to have to knit something with my hand spun yarn. I don't have anything planned for it yet. If you have any suggestions I'd be happy to hear them.

A New Year - Happy 2007!

Welcome 2007 - a new year, a new adventure, more knitting!
I love the holidays and this year was not a disappointment. Christmas was filled with lots of family, lots of friends, lots of food and plenty to drink. A good time seemed to be had by all. I think having some little ones around always makes Christmas a good time. My granddaughters are now 1 and 3 years old and were great to share Christmas with.

Our family has a grab bag that is not mandatory to join. If you decide to join the grab bag, you choose a name on Christmas Eve and have a year to make the person a gift. Yes, all of the gifts are to be handmade. Any type of craft is acceptable except edible items (it's not acceptable to make someone a cake and call it a handmade item). When the family all gets together on Christmas Eve we exchange our gifts for the person chosen the year before. It's always (both years that we've been doing this) to see what everyone made for their grab bag person. This year we had handmade quilts, knitting needle organizers, a really cute Christmas decoration snowman made out of a glass block (the kind you use for windows), a hand knit scarf, a very masculine knitting bag for our male knitter, hand knit sweaters, and an oak stash box/ottoman. We seem to have a lot of talent in our family.

My gift for my grab bag person was the Irish Moss sweater that I blogged about earlier. I finally put the buttons on it and washed and blocked it. I loved the way it turned out. The Elsebeth Lavold silky wool created a nice, not too heavy and bulky, sweater that seemed to have a nice drape to it.



Here is a close up of the pattern. It's all done with twisted stitches and the pattern is very easy to memorize.

I was concerned about the recipient liking the color and design of the sweater but when she opened it, it certainly looked like it was to her liking.

Here is a picture of her with her sweater. It fit! I was so excited!!
Click on the picture to enlarge it if it's too dificult to see.

I was in a yarn shop with my DD the other day and almost bought more Elsebeth Lavold to make this sweater again for myself. I resisted though, there are a few other sweater's I have on my wish list to knit. Maybe I'll do Irish Moss again someday.

This is a picture of me opening my stash box. Yep, it's the one I was gifted in the family grab bag, Maybe your family should start one too! Michael did a super job! I absolutely love it and it looks great sitting beside my spinning wheel.

I've been plugging along on my Norweigan sweaters . Go ahead and look if you've forgotten what they look like, I'll wait. I have 3 out of 4 sleeves done and the 4th sleeve is started. I feel like I'm knitting for an octopus! The last sleeve shouldn't take too long and then I get to figure out steeking. I hope I don't trash the sweaters in the process. It makes me a bit nervous to consider taking scissors to 2 sweaters that took hours to knit.

Right after Christmas my granddaughters both had birthdays. The youngest turned 1 on December 29th and the oldest turned 3 on January 3rd. Happy Birthday Girls!! They enjoyed a joint birthday party at Chez Capers on New Year's Day. It was a great way to start out the year.


The birthday girlies!

I've been doing some more spinning and finished the gray wool/mohair that I purchased at Reiland's Shop. It looks very much like the first skein I plyed except it's thinner and more consistent. I'm getting better but there is still room for improvement. I think it just takes practice. I made 544 yards of 2 ply yarn that weighs 6 7/8 ounces. I'm not sure what the wpi are or what weight you would consider it to be, I'm thinking somwhere around a DK. I'll keep working on it! I love spinning! It seems to be very relaxing but I have a hard time deciding between knitting and spinning when I have the time for either. Working full time certainly puts a bite into your fiber arts time.

Well, I've got one more sleeve to finish so I'd better get to it. Hopefully it won't be 3 months before I blog again. Till then, take care and happy knitting!