booty

I got some booty(get your mind out of the gutter-pirate, not the other kind!). Mango moon has these spectacular circular needles called tattoo needles made out of bone and carved they have these cool cables that seem to be plastic cables covered with a satin fabric. I had to have them. I knit a little with them but was trying a stittch that didn't work well with these needles. They felt like bamboo and didn't snag at all! They would be great with any yarn that is great with bamboo imho.
The owners of our local yarn shop have really bent backwards to accomodate our guild and they give us discounts and then extra discounts on guild meeting days and now are giving us a special 50% off on a selected type of yarn on guild meeting days. Who wouldn't take advantage of that! This time it was 50% off any yarn put up in bobbins. I'm no fool I went for Adrienne Vittadini's Celia, a lightweight silk ribbon in a corally orange. I already have a pattern picked out for it and spring is looming. The winter projects will soon be stored in favor of springy stuff. So it may come up sooner in line than I think:-)
My freind Kristine of Strung out blog fame(excuse my computer ignorance,http://www.strung-out.blogspot.com/) Gave me this gorgeous skeinlet that was making her allergies flare. It is a wool, alpaca,angora blend that she spun herself. Thanks Kristine!!

navajo plying

I have been bad and not working on my handspun sweater.

I have tried my hand at Navajo plying though. Idefinitely need more practice but felt pretty comfortable with it after 30 or so yards. This is about 110 yds of worsted. you can see where I missed the boat but also where I got better:-) I definitely like it and want to see what it looks like knit up. I think I want to make a little notions or treasure bag out of it.

I have been working on some old and some new projects. I had two skeins of the louet opal(pearl?-whatever) that was called for in the new Interweave Knits sock pattern. The socks take only one skein, 200 + yds. I couldn't resist! They are so cute and this yarn is very similar to koigu in feel.

I've also been trying to finish the teal socks, Go with the Flow- by Evelyn Clark, from an older last summer I believe, IK. They are very fun to make.I will miss them when I'm finished. I'm that way with a good book,I miss the chatacters when it is over.

My sister in law is getting married in the summer so I'm designing a shawl in pink for her. It's in KSH and triangular beads from Earth Faire. I love their beads!!! They have the coolest beads. I will definitely be buying from them again. When my order came I got little sample packs of different kinds of beads they carry. Very good selling point! I found some beads I can't live without! Wish me luck with this I'm awfully tired of pushing long legnths of beads out of the way:-(

handspun shawl

My first handspun handknit was Fenna by Myrna Stahman with a few modifications of course. It was done in bulky two ply wild things wensleydale. I've made a few handspun hand knit items since then a hat, mittens , a short sleeved pullover.

This is my second handspun handknit shawl. The yarn for this is a merino silk spun into a single with my wheel and then plyed with a silk thread a la Galina Khemeleva. She spins hers on a russian spindle but mine was wheel spun. The single varied from cobweb to fingering so I chose Eveyln Clark's pattern A shetland triangle from one of the Piecework mags(winter 2004? maybe spring 2005). I feel the feather and fan is a very forgiving lace stitch;-)

I'm kind of excited about this! It is my one year spinning anniversary this month! I got my first spindle in Feb of last year and my wheel in March!

Now I need to get working on the mittens!! Once I get my mitten obsession over with I can go back to my forlorn handspun sweater:-)

Fixed

Gentleman's Fancy Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush (sans shaping)
Size 1/12 dpns
Sock! yarn from Lisa Souza's site(lisaknit.com) in the olive tones colorway.

The socks are fixed. Man! What a baby! It hardly took any time to fix em. Sheesh.

Someone has come to visit in our lake behind our house.

The socks, they are finished

The socks are finished but are a study in why you must make notes while knitting. If you look closely at the toes one is much wider than the other. I assumed that I changed the pattern, which I didn't, so I made a different toe on the second sock.

I will probably go back and fix it although right now I'm mad and won't. This is what happens every time I make a mistake, which is quite often. I think," Oh no one will notice. It will be fine. I'm not ripping. Oh it's driving me crazy. I better rip. Oh but I don't feel like it..." until I finally get a little distance and decide it is worth ripping because it will haunt me.

Next up the Shetland Triangle by Evelyn Clark in a Piecework mag. I'm doing it in my purple silk and merino handspun and it is pretty close to finishing.