Still spinning

This is 50 grams of Optim (poor picture.. the colour is off wack). I'm stuck right now, until I ply some Merino to free up a couple of bobbins. So I'm done spinning for a day or two. I really quite enjoyed the spin so far! Thank you Mandie!

As well as spinning, today I was sewing, doing hair, and you name it. Everything but knitting!

We had to come up with a 50's costume for Mug for her school play... including false eyelashes and 2 different hairdos. I just loved this picture, but it was not the 'winning' hairdo.

It j-j-j-jiggled

The Lendrum that is. All I wanted was a solid, quiet wheel. And what I had was this mad shaky thing that would just go bonkers... Seemed like it had a harmonic shiver. Anyway, it turns out that the flier needed 2.1 grams of weight on the non-clip side. It was unbalanced. Cal gave me another flier to use while he was working with mine, and so I spun all night tonight. It's like a different wheel, completely. I'm happy now and soon I'll turn into one of those people who swear up and down that the Lendrum is the *only* wheel.

Mandie (Ewe Give Me The Knits) sent me a 100 gram sample of Optim that she'd dyed; a glorious 'Aquatic' (the perfect name for it, none other would do). I'd never spun it before, and had heard both positive and negative feedback on Optim (in general). Before I put it on the wheel, I finished up spinning the 100 grams of Merino that I had dyed and slightly felted. It was the perfect preamble for spinning Optim. I actually like its tendencies, and I was really comfortable spinning it. At first I thought I'd ply it with some black Suri Merino single that I spun a while ago, but I've got it so thin that I think I'll self-ply. It looks exactly like silk...



Ok, tonight was really special. Did you know that it was Earth Hour between 8 and 9pm? BF told me about it a while ago, and we decided that we were going to do it (turn out the lights). What we ended up doing was shutting everything in the house off for that hour, and we had a family snuggle and a big talk in the twilight. It was great, and we're going to have Earth Hour monthly.

Some great ideas come from Australia, don't you think?

Yo. Bison.

I got me some Buffalo Gold from far, far away!... Australia to be exact, from my friend Mandie. It's another post altogether, one I can't do justice to at 1:30am on Saturday morning.

So.. Introducing my bison version of the Heartland Lace Shawl, which I am knitting specifically to enter into the Calgary Stampede this summer. It's going well so far. I've already frogged 1/2 of chart 2 because I saw a missing y/o. So, all's well, right?



And we'll say goodbye for now, to:

Fiddlehead mittens (I so love you, mittens, but you have to wait for a little while); they are all silky, alpaca'ish goodness. Soft like you would not believe.



And, Fugly Mo, who i really have fallen in some kind of sick love with. Looks like a fuzzy, moldy stingray, huh?



I am so serious about the Heartland that alas, even SHE WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS is in brief hybernation (a small dark picture for your confusion). Ah... knitting. She's a harsh mistress at times.



Clearly I need to go to bed. I'm getting punchy.

OH.. Hela should have been ready today. I'm so going to that seamstress tomorrow to grab my sweater back.

Jackyll and Hide

Because he didn't want a balaclava with a 'face hole'; he wanted one with 'eye holes'... Jim thought that Aidan would really get excited about the Jackyll and Hide. I had spun some natural 3-ply BFL at Christmas (with my new Lendrum) so I decided to put it to good use...

Jim was right.. Aidan thinks it rocks. Which, I understand, is high praise.

Because it's finished and he loves it, I can guarantee that we will have weather no colder than -5 until next year.

Today I'm knitting mittens

The fiddlehead mittens that Dida is knitting are now on my needles too. Mine are eggplant Blue Sky Alpaca with Noro Silk Garden Lite which is starting out grey and running to burgundy. I hope that it works out, but we'll see. I was thinking of knitting on fugly mo, but it's still in the project bag; you know... I'm starting to love that fugly thing. It's growing on me. It could be a fungus.

Tonight I received an invite to a new Ravelry group called 'Year of Lace Unchained'. I'm gonna see how that goes. Unchained doesn't sound too bad sometimes.

Think I can get away with mixing my mittens? Asked by a woman who wears mismatched socks...

YOL - Hint 4

Short post.

IF you think that it would be a good idea to make a working copy of your pattern, please have the sense to check that the copy is a good one. Lets just say that you DON'T do that, then it's possible that the shaded purl stitches don't show up, and you knit every f'ing one of them. It makes quite a bit of difference in the center panel of the shawl.

To frog, or not to frog. That is the question.

I am officially grouchy.

YOL - Hint 3

When it looks totally fine, but you are looking at the chart, and it just isn't making sense; what this means is: Put down the lace and walk away.

Don't tink. Not yet.

Have a cup of tea. Perhaps decide that you are, in fact, reallllllly tired, and that it would be best to try again tomorrow.

You'll be amazed to find that when you look at everything again, your problem wasn't knitting the lace, but that charts look strange through crossed eyes.

I know this. Happened to me tonight.

Tomorrow is another day, right?

PS: I'm photo-journaling my knitting on flickr. So if you want to spoil anything for yourself (or not), then I warn you/invite you to find images there. I won't make a photographer, but you'll get the general idea.