Annie Knits

The New Interweave or Point, Counterpoint

About half the posts I've read on Ravelry have panned the new Interweave magazine.  The other half sing its praises.  Half call for Eunny Jang's head on a knitted platter, the other half like the magazine's new look and themed layouts. 

I was inclined to post in several groups who were panning the magazine, especially the LimenViolet group (where where after Eunny came and asked people to be specific about their concerns, the tone got a lot nicer)  but I decided to wait and actually peruse the magazine rather than going off half cocked.   Because, generally, I like reading my Interweave knits.  And I almost always find something in it I'd add to my queue.

Here's what I think after digesting the issue for several days and comparing it to some of the old issues I have edited by Pam Allen.

I kind of really like it.   I enjoyed Franklin Habit's article about School House Press.  There wasn't a lot in the article that I wasn't at least vaguely aware of, but it is nicely written and makes me want to go to knitting camp.

While the wrap on the left isn't super innovative, I like the colors and the pattern and the idea of doing color work that doesn't have to fit someone.  And the piece on the right is a great layering piece.  I love the square neck.  I have a biggish head and a lot of hair and a square neck balances that for me.  Also, it's good on us biggish girls. 

These patterns are written for two yarns I've been wanting to try -- Blue Sky dyed cotton and Mission Falls cotton.  I'm not much of a summer yarn knitter, but these two may get my nod.  And as to the color complaints?  I'd love the Delft top (the one on the left) in a pink/green/orange combo, wouldn't you? It would like visually vibrate, man (grin).   And Mission Falls comes in great greens and is pretty reasonable. 

This top is done in Berroco Seduce, another yarn we've gotten in that I'd like to try.  A little spendy, but fun.   What I like about this top is its simplicity -- kind of like summer reading.  And if you don't like it in these pictures on a twig of a model?  Go check out the Interweave galleries.  They show the top on real people (and give their measurements... yikes.)

Love slip stitch patterns, good layering piece again.    It's done in silk, but you could sub Ella Rae Silkience with a little fudging and get a gorgeous piece for a fraction of the price.

I have several summer tops in this silhouette and it's very flattering for my shall we say fluffy body type.  And here, I think I've found an error in the magazine.  The pattern calls for Tilli Thomas Fil de la Mer which is like 16 st. to the inch.   But in looking around on the net, I've found a Tilli Thomas yarn called Voile de la Mer which matches the yarn description in the pattern :  70% silk, 30% sea cell.  We'll go with that.  So fingering weight summer yarn with great drape?  I'll have to think about that and get back to you.  Because at $18 bucks a pop for 12 skeins to make my size?  Ain't gonna happen.  (Maybe Nashua June, or Rowan Glace?)

And I LOVE THIS.  It's Rowan Cash Cotton, and you'd have the pattern memorized in like two repeats.  I think it's a great layering piece.  Not really for summer in St. Louis, I guess, but definitely all of the other seasons.

So, overall?  Thumbs up.  The patterns are classy and interesting and mostly something you'd actually knit. 

Unlike this...

What a difference 6 months makes!  (scroll down)

This is my favorite plant right now -- Variegated Solomon's Seal.  (Don't you love my mulch croc?)  The first view is from above, the second from the front so you can see it's row of bell-shaped flowers under the leaves.  It will lie flatter later in the season, but now it's reaching for the sun.  Cheerful, don't you think?  And variegated.  I like my plants like I like my yarns.

Speaking of yarn.  Just finished plying this.  It's the Totally Tubular in this entry.  Another scroll-down.  It's the one on the right.  This yarn is worsted weight (mostly) so I got about 290 yards out of that tube.  I didn't spin it according to the directions though -- they wanted me to split up each colored bit and spin two roughly similar singles and then ply.  I didn't have a place to put the two pieces to keep them in order so I didn't do that.  But now I have an empty tube, so I'll try their method for the second tube.   

This yarn is  smooshy and wooly.  It will have to wait until the fall.

Progress

Knitting, spinning, and otherwise.

Knitting first. 

The astute among you will remember the Baby Surprise Jacket I was knitting.  For the baby born in January.  Um, right.  Well, I couldn't have given him anything but the flu in February.  And I didn't do much work on it anyway... Early this week, like when I couldn't sleep at night over the construction of our new mantel (pics to follow), I decided something.  With which many of you will likely disagree.  I think the BSJ is kind of knitterly.  As in knitters like it and like the idea of it and like the genius of it.  Knitters like how it shows off yarn.  We like the little decrease lines.  We like folding it and sewing it together.  Non-knitters?  Not so much.  They see a garter stitch jacket without much shaping.   Period.    Plus -- my stitch count is off somehow and I can't figure it out!   So, I'll work on that  and wait for a knitter to have a wee one.

Plan B.  Begun at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. 

It's the King Cole cabled baby jacket I made for my nephew a year and a half ago.  The yarn is Dream in Color Classy Worsted in the Strange Forest colorway.  Weird color for a baby?  I guess -- but this jacket is a size 2 (which is apparently the next size up from a 2T... whatever).  Perfect color for a little boy digging in the rocks at the playground, I think.  And it's superwash.  Cha ching!   Hopefully he'll be able to get a few season's wear out of it too.  Roll it up when you're one and perfect when you're two.  I'm crossing my fingers.

Spinning?

   

I plied singles spun from roving from Hello Yarn's Roving of the Month club (January, I think) with singles from roving from Sakeena via The Loopy Ewe.  About 4 oz. each I think.   I got heavy worsted yarn that shades through light and dark greens, yellow green,  salmon, and pink.   As you can see, when the yellow green and the salmon get plied together, the yarn reads orange.  Kinda crazy, kinda fun.  I love it.  Of course, the scarf is the ubiquitous Irish Hiking Scarf -- Hello Yarn again.    And it is soft and heavy and warm.  Yum.

Otherwise?

The construction continues.  We are in the home stretch... begun January 14th, supposed to end by the 30th of March.  I'll be surprised if they make that deadline, but we can all hope, can't we?  What kept me up?  The mantle that you see bears only passing resemblance to the carpenter's first try at it...  which I thought looked more like a prop.  Here, you look:

 

Hmm.  Well, here in the pictures there isn't a ton of difference.  In person?  The legs on the first one (on the right) were spindly and it didn't sit far enough off of the wall.  So I had them re build it.  Which was a hard thing for me -- I'm not big on confrontation. 

But I'm much happier now.

My favorite things about this project so far?

The slate in the fireplace and at the front door, the new wood floors, and the fact that we closed up an opening leading to our room (much quieter back there now).
 

I Just Have No Inclination to Blog...

When my camera is on the fritz!  I can't get a good picture of my knitting or my spinning to save my life.  And it's not like I don't have things to say (read gripe/comment/preach about) 'cause I do!  It's just that I usually get motivated to get on here by pictures.

So.  Here are some cruddy, kid-camera pics. 

Motivated by Carole and Margene and their NaSpiMoMo (yay, it's extended for another month!), I spun my little heart out this month.  And knitted it all up! 

Here are the 8 oz of Crown Mountain Farms Yak and Merino mix.  Spun up I think into a heavy worsted weight (I used 9s for the scarf).  The pattern is my own (more on that later) and this yarn is the softest thing ever.  I mean, one of my trademark sayings at the shop when someone complains about wool being a tad scratchy is, "Well, we aren't going to knit underpants out of it are we?  'Cause if we are, then, yeah, it's scratchy..."  Baby, you could knit underpants out of this stuff.  And hoooboy is it warm.  Just in time for it to be 72 degrees here.  Yeah, right.  We are going to get some thumping storms tonight I'm thinkin'.

And here is my short row scarf.  She met Rachel (the roving was dyed by Rachel at Dyeabolical) on her maiden voyage too!  On Saturday night.  When it was still COLD!  Ahem.  I used up every last bit of the yarn I spun from the 4oz of roving and I think that the scarf is the perfect pattern to show the color changes in this yarn.  I used 5s so I guess the yarn was maybe DK weight?  I don't know and I didn't measure the wraps before I used it all up.  I'm a baaaad spinner.

Ok.  The true color of this roving and the yarn I spun from it is somewhere in between the colors in  these pictures (darn kid's camera).  The greens are like what's shown in the picture on the left, but the picture on the right shows the browns better.  Oh well.   It's called Triple Play Roving and the colorway is called Mint Chocolate.  And it is.  Really.  It's wool (they include what I think are the names of the sheep...don't you just love that?) and rayon and tussah silk and silk noil.  I got yarn a lot like Rowan Summer Tweed.   

I got the roving and these two Totally Tubular Spinning kits when I clicked to The Bellwether from Ravelry the other night.  It all came within about 2 days and the service and representation of the products was great.  Go and shop there.  The kits come with stranded patterns too, and instructions on spinning up the tube of stuff to get that approximate yarn.  Too much fun, don't you think? 

And today is Mardi Gras.  Later today I'll get the 40 Days for Others blog up and running and you can sign up and post there to your heart's content. 

I think I'll be knitting up some handspun for charity!

Did You Ever Just Want To...

• Kick your children right out into the cold?  Because they know that, every school day of their lives, they get up at 6:30 a.m. and we all leave for school at 7:15 a.m.  This time frame does not waver.  It does not change.  It is the same every day.  So why do then, dear readers, do children act perplexed and personally affronted when you start to bellow around 7:20 a.m.?  Why do they whine, "I thought you were waiting for me!"  or  "I didn't know we were ready to leave!" or "Could you just wait a minute, Mom?  I'm busy!"  or "Did someone pack me a lunch?"  Yes, right out to the street, I say.  Right out to the curb.  Growl.
• Spin.  'Cause it's all I ever want to do.  Witness.  (Ignore the time stamps on these pictures -- we inserted a new battery and voila!  Wrong times on everything and no way to fix it.  No way that we want to take the time to learn that is...)This is Adrian's soy silk and wool blend.  You saw it in a bag last time I posted.  I've got about 270 yards of this soft and yummy stuff.  I'm thinking a neck warmer.    Here are singles of my Christmas yak and merino blend and of Rachel's Dance Mistress BFL.  I'm having a blast exploring how different fibers and blends spin up.  Now.  Would someone please post all of this to the NaSpMoMo group on Ravelry.  'Cause I'm definitely spinning my fingers off this month, and loving it.  But I really have not been making time to post new stuff to Ravelry.  The Flicker learning curve is kicking my hiney.
• Knit like the wind!  We are having a knitalong at the shop for the Kauni Cardigan.  Sandy has ordered tons of the Effektgarn (and sold out of tons too) and round about 20 of us are knitting versions of this stranded cardigan.  We're meeting Friday nights to work out the kinks.  See mine hanging in the shop?   It's alongside of Fiona's Icarus.  Gorgeous.  (Rachel took this picture and posted it.  Rachel is a way better blogger than I am.)  Here is my Kauni Cardigan Version 2.0:  Modifications?  Well, colorways for starters.  I'm using colors EV and EM instead of the rainbow.  Um, who needs two of those?  That's not to say that you do not need one.  Also, I've taken 4 stitch tall peeries from the Traditional Fair Isle  Knitting book by Sheila McGregor and I'm dropping them in instead of using the square pattern throughout.  I'm thinking kind of controlled random here -- she's got two entire pages of these little guys and I'll just pick and choose according to my mood.  Maybe, gasp, the sleeves won't even match.  Who knows.  What I kept were the 6 rows of straight knitting between each pattern.  Whew.  I was worried that the colors would read Christmas but they don't so far.  Even if they do... I like Christmas.  Also, I did two inches of 2x2 corrugated ribbing, rather than 1.5 inches of 1x1.  Me likey.
• Knit some more!    I made quite a bit of progress on this twirley scarf out of my handspun while getting 3RD PLACE!! at a trivia night on Saturday.  This is our team's personal best, and we could've won if Bridgett's little one hadn't had a fever.  We tanked on the Pope round and she would have known them all.  Darn kid fevers!  (M is fine now -- I'm not that cold hearted.  She danced down the aisle for kid's liturgy on Sunday... cutest thing ever.  Really.)  I bet Lucia would have been good too.  Darn her living in Connecticut  Massachusetts!
• Move into a hotel where you have a chance at clean and peace and quiet?     This is the current state of my living/dining room.  Yesterday, Mark and the guys (as I am fond of calling them) used a saw and a jack hammer to dig out that channel you see running across the room.  Hmm.  "Dig" is a pleasant sounding word which implies gardening and bucolic, satisfying scraping sounds.  "Dig" is the wrong word for what happened inside my house yesterday.  "Pummel" is wrong too.  "Blast" is a little too quick for yesterday's 3 hour marathon metallic banging, stone-smashing, saw-blade screeching, foundation shaking event.  It was at the very least unpleasant.  The dogs are full of dust as this is an area that is hard to block off as it has the bedrooms and the bathrooms in it.  End date?  March 31st.  But it will be lovely.  Patience.
• Believe in the supernatural.  'Cause here is the picture I took not two seconds before the one above:  Haven't you seen all those Discovery Channel and Sci Fi Channel shows where they prove places are haunted using pictures with orbs just like these?!

Way to Go, Girls!

Sheesh.  I went and read this and now my bloglines are up to like 867 New Items.  This happens to me every year -- I'm not sure what it will take for me to learn the lesson.  Do not follow every link these girls lay before me!

Yesterday's knitting was limited to nearly completing a pair of fetching mitts out of my hand spun.  Dance Mistress tencel blend to be more specific. 

And I learned a lesson.  The gauge of the item one knits from the beginning of the skein of hand spun yarn can vary widely from the gauge of the item one knits from the middle of the skein of hand spun yarn.  Case in point.  You be the judge.

You might say, "But you must have knit a different number of rounds between cabling!"

To which I'd say, "Nope."

And the stitch gauge isn't even that different.  It's row gauge.  Spun tighter, maybe?  Plied tighter?  Does that influence row gauge and not stitch gauge?  It's a mystery to me. 

Oh, I'll wear them regardless, because they are wicked soft and warm warm warm.  My hands have been cold for days on end now.  I've taken to wearing husband's sweatshirts so I can pull the sleeves down over my freezing fists.  Now I have Mardi Gras colored mitts to wear.  Almost.  I'll finish that thumb and weave in ends after this post.  And I still have some wonky hand spun to make into something.  Like 50 yards or so including what's yet to be plied up.  What else should I make?  By tomorrow?  I'm thinking Caliometry.  Or a third mitt that just might match one of the two I have...

Speaking of tomorrow.  It's January 6th... Epiphany ... you know, the beginning of Carnival Season.  Which culminates in Fat Tuesday.  Which is followed by Ash Wednesday.  Which means another season of Lent.  Which means 40 Days For Others.  I think I'll start a blog for it this year.  Anyone have any charity knitting they want to accomplish?  I already have two sweaters, a scarf, and two hats to throw in the ring.

This year I'll knit for the St. Vincent de Paul Church homeless outreach.  They like real wool for their contributions.  Dennis tells me that wool is warmer, and his recipients don't tend to wash, or even keep their stuff year to year.  "They don't have cabinets to keep it in, you know, " he said.   

Um, he's right.  So.  Wool it will be.  Hats mostly is what he needs.  But he'll take any knits.  They have lots of men, but can distribute items to families as well.  They also take bedrolls -- quilted and knit.  So we can piece knit or sewn squares for bedrolls too.  I'm contemplating asking for squares... give me some time to figure that out, k?  Anyone else want to knit for charity this winter?

And What Fibery Things Have I been Up To?

You get three guesses.  And two of those don't count.

      

My nephew got me this Crown Mountain Farms yak and merino roving for Christmas (I provided his mom with the web site and said anything fun to spin!).  He came over on New Year's Day to help spin it up.

It's working up to be a pretty rustic single with slubs of what I think are the yak (the dark brown stuff) as it spins totally differently from the merino.  That's not a bad thing.  I'll ply  two together, I think, for a soft kind of rag wool effect. 

This is exactly as it appears -- I joined Adrien's fiber club and here is the Dec. 07 installment.  It's a lovely, soft soy silk wool blend.  I can hardly wait to get my hands in this, let me tell you.  Anyone else spun it yet?

And here are the Rachel rovings.  From the top left:  Dance Mistress superwash bfl, Helebore superwash bfl, "Couldn't hit the side of a..." tencel blend, and Dance Mistress tencel blend. 

Her concern about the tencel and how it would spin prompted me to use my first free morning in weeks thusly:

This crummy shot doesn't show the shineyness of it, but the colors are pretty good.  Rachel felt like it kept breaking when she dyed it and was worried it would behave in the same manner on the wheel.  I did not have that problem at all -- 'cause as you can see I've removed my tensioner all together.  It wants to be rather thicker than I've been spinning my wools, but ... well ... duh.  It's not wool.  I kind of really like it.  I'm nearly done with the three pieces she gave me to play with.  Maybe I'll have it worked up into something fun by the party on Sunday. 

Oh, all right.  There has indeed been knitting.  The Hemlock is done and gifted.  I need to sort around and find the pictures.  This swirly scarf, though, is my current obsession.  It's out of my own spun yarn.  Which I heart.

Rachel's roving again, and neither of us can remember the name of it.  Something Dyeabolical, I'm sure.  I like how this scarf shows the yarn shading through color combinations.   It is soft and it makes me happy.  And that is what counts after all.

Ahem. Where Were We?

Oh.  Right.  Rabelry... which I shall now un-renounce.  Due primarily to a lovely forum for spinners which has redeemed the place for me entirely. 

I went on and asked about my Louet S90, which came to me as you will remember used and without documention.  And for a song, come to find out.  No complaining here.  One gal even sent me a PDF of the original documentation for the thing.  I can now fold her up, (in theory, 'cause she gets too much use to be folded up, but if I were to want to take her somewheres, I could now with ease) oil her and manipulate the tension better... you know.  All the tricks.  And I can do this.

That there is some plyed up yarn.  Yee haw!  Oh.  Ahem.  Sorry.  I know it's early in the morning -- well, actually, it shouldn't be that early.  Except we mess with the time and it takes the dogs and I and the kids like a week to get back on schedule and someone has to get sick in the process and we all are crabby for a week. 

The swift measures 4 feet per revolution -- that's about a  150 yards there and more on the bobbin.  And I have this cake of 180 yards.

Yep.  It even knits up kinda nice.  I'm thinking of using it for the yoke of a sweater (it's very soft) with the body of the sweater being this (5th color down on the right -- a deep, bright orange).  I'm getting like 5 1/2 stitches to the inch on US5s.  And while this first plying attempt isn't particularly perfect looking in the cake, it is perfectly lovely and smooth knit up.  And I guess that's what matters, right?

Did I ever show you the roving?  It's a mohair/wool blend from Buckwheat Bridge Angoras and it's carded (or combed?) into layers:  green, chocolate, barn red, and bright orange.  The green and the orange are duller and stickier (must be the wool) and the brown and red are shiney and can really be pulled out as you spin.  I've been trying to get stretches of just green and just orange separated by sections that mix in the brown and red barber-pole style.   It's kind of working.  And it keeps me endlessly amused, and isn't that the whole point of the thing, anyway?

Yes -- it's An Unoriginal Hat.  She's right -- took one evening.  This one's out of some "The New Periwinkle" colored yarn, and how I came about having this yarn only Rabbitch knows for sure...  I've got to blog about that tomorrow.  Daughter walked by the screen as I was looking at the pattern, newly posted, and she said, "Oh, that's cute.  Can it be in blue?"  Well, you all know what happens when progeny actually wants hand-knitted items.  A stash-diving we went and everything else was dropped.  She's worn it and gotten compliments already...

There is another one on the needles -- Malabrigo chunky.  Oh yeah.  And next to that we have "Mistress of Dance" sock yarn.  The story goes that Rachel was dying this yarn in a colorway inspired by me and one of my trek sock bags, when she noticed that it was a perfect Mardi Gras color combination and then she remembered that Deborah had lamented that dyers always added one extra color and mucked up the gold purple green Mardi Gras colorways in yarn.  So Rachel stopped.  And my yarn was Deborah's.  At least I got a skein before they were all snapped up... ***grin***

Are you wondering about the polar bear book and the Moon Sand in the background of many of these pictures?  Dear Son's been down with a fluish snotty thing for 3 days -- we've pulled out all the toys and activities.  Because Cheetos and Mythbusters can only get you so far when you're stuck in the house for 3 days. 

So, It's Unanimous Then?

Rabelry is great -- for the yarn and pattern and knitting tools.  The forums?  Not so much.  At least not right now.  Thanks, peeps.  Love you!

And enough of the crabby stuff.  What follows is a list of a few of the things that currently make me happy.  In no particular order.

Karamichelle, fellow Knitorious Knit Night Knitster, made me this bag.  I heart it.  Actually, I shamelessly begged her to make me one out of this fabric and she graciously and for her own safety obliged.  I'm nagging her to make me an Ann Butler bag.  (hey... I'll buy the fabric and pattern!) Wish me luck.

It's about 10" by 10.5" -- perfect for carrying around the Monkey Socks in progress.

My Louet S90.  This is the wheel I bought slightly used after I finished my spinning class.  I didn't get any documentation on the thing and I think it folds up and I totally do not care.  I love it and I'm spinning the finest singles on it I've ever been able to spin (in my long and illustrous 4 week spinning career **grin**).

They are kind of out of focus here, but yum.  Recognize the Rhinebeck Roving?  Oh yeah.  And this wheel came with a swift attached -- see it folded down on the back?  I will be able to measure the yardage of my spinning with this -- as opposed to an umbrella swift which constantly changes circumference. 

One bobbin mostly full, one to fill, one to ply, and one for Dear Daughter...

 

How about a wheel naming contest?  There'll be sock yarn in it for the name I like best... Leave your suggestion in the comments.

And here is the Rebuilding Greensburg Afghan I volunteered to piece.  Sandy and Rachel at the shop helped me crochet the squares together, and now I just have to run a crochet border around the outside to even it up.  It is ... interesting.  Actually it is very soft and it is the mish mash one would expect from an afghan pieced together from squares knitted by knitters from all the world, apparently.  There is a lot of love in these afghans.  I'll send it back to Laura tomorrow.

And I did find the coolest Halloween decorations ever.  No, Mindy, sorry.  I'm not sharing!

Aren't they silly?  We had our annual Halloween party this weekend.  Here is a picture of the cast of characters.

We have, from left to right:  Bast (Cat Goddess from Egypt?), a Strawberry (see the straws?), a fairy princess, Mother Nature, a witch, a ballerina-princess-butterfly-pirate, a sleepy person, a hoodlum, and two hoodlums with masks.

And right in the middle of the party, I had to leave to pick up Dear Daughter's date for her school's Fall Ball.  Second verse, same as the first.  Only with a pink sweater as the weather has cooled down some.

Yes, this time I was in on the whole thing.  On the way to the restaurant (South City Diner for you St. Louisans)  from his house, Date Boy regaled us with the stories of the deaths of each of the dictators of the Axis powers during World War II.   Daughter told him it was all so interesting.  I maintained a straight face and kept quiet.  They ate at the Diner, I picked them up and took them to the dance, they danced, and I took them home.  He leaned over, patted her on the shoulder, and told her it was nice to see her again and went inside.  And that was that.  I'm getting killed with cuteness over here.  Just killed.   Now, she's grounded because of a lack of truthfullness about having turned in back assignments in word-processing class, but it was sure fun while it lasted.

And finally, lucky for me!  Dear son Trick-or-Treated twice this weekend (if you hate it when people verb nouns, then ... well ... sorry).  Today he is a school.

His bag full of candy is home with me.  I will watch it very carefully...

Beef, It's What's for Diner!

I had a slower day today; only the grocery, a workout, and an hour in the school library.  So...

We're having pot roast and chocolate and butterscotch chip cookies for dinner!  Not necessarily in that order.

The pot roast is easy.  Brown a good roast in olive oil.  Put it in a crock pot and add:  4 cloves garlic, some celery, a few carrots, a chopped onion, half a bottle of V8 and half a bottle of red wine -- I used a really good Tuscan something or other.  Cook on high for 5 hours.  Then add pearl onions, baby carrots and mushrooms.  Cook some more.  I think I'll serve this over egg noodles since we just had mashed potatoes, but either is good.  You can chill it and heat later if you want to skim the fat.

The cookies are Amanda's secret recipe (except for the butterscotch chips -- they called for me to take me home from the grocery store today and I did) and she can share it  if she wants to.  Let's just say they are good. 

The weather is blustery, but not cool yet.  It made me want to work in the kitchen, I guess.

And... shhh.  I don't want to jinx this.  I unwound my singles from their bobbin this morning?  And I soaked them to set the twist?  And I kind of like them.  I'm planning on a small shawl as I have no idea how much yarn I have (no niddy noddy yet). 

This yarn  is certainly nowhere near perfect.  Hand spun indeed.  But the second skein (the one on top) is tons better than the first and that's really all you can ask for, isn't it? 

I, for one, am enchanted.

And, in case you forgot...

Do You Remember Your First Love?

You know, it was all you could think about.  You spent all your spare time (and even some that wasn't spare) pondering that obsession.  Maybe he was a little squeaky, and the outcome was probably a little rocky, at least at first.  But, ah, the fixation of it all.

You've been wondering where I was?  (Well, maybe some of you have been wondering!)  Here is the current black hole of my time.  And here is the first yarn I'm willing to photograph.  It's from Rachel's roving and I'm very very very happy.  Now.  Onto plying.

Knitting?  Yeah, yeah..

I'm nearly finished with Kauni.  Really, like two hours away from wearing the dang thing.  So what do I do?  Cast on a Log Cabin blanket with the left over Dream in Color (Rocketry is finished... and hanging at the shop.  Pics later.)  Deborah and I think alike -- we discussed just this phenomenon at Knit Night the other night...  nearly finished with a project?  Cast on something else and make what's nearly done wait in the corner, we say!  No rhyme or reason, just plain ornery I guess.

So.  Maybe blogging will get more detailed and less of a drive-by sometime soon.  Or maybe not.  I'm off to Rhinebeck in less than two weeks after all... and there's roving in them thar hills!