Sunny days

Between chores, I steal a few moments to sit and spin by the window.

There is something so enticing about the autumn sun.
Maybe it's knowing the fall rain is bound to come soon.

Romney rolags were done last spring and are destined to become winter mittens for family members.


Words

What words to describe these two?

 

Sweet?

 (This is Lexus)

 

Innocent?

 (This is Penny)

 

Adorable?

 

Cute?

 

 

Well, those are not the words I'm using now that I've seen what they are capable of.

 

In the half hour that we took for our dinner last night, they had the audacity to grab fiber that I had worked on all day to dye and were ready to list in my shop and do their thing with it.

 

 

The yellow top was too much of a mess for the camera.

 

What were they thinking?

I guess this will be mine to spin some day when I can find this funny!!

 

No, seriously, I'm over it now. They are full of energy, curiosity and they need to learn some manners...but we'll get there.

KnitEast 2013

Have you ever felt such an unexplainable pull towards something that you could not ignore it?

Such a thing happened this morning.

While on Ravelry, I saw a post that said Knit East 2013 now open for registration.

Curious as I am, I had a look and totally was convinced that I should sign up!

 

Since hubby would be looking after the crew on his own, I thought I would run this by him and he totally encouraged me to register right there and then.

So I did.

 

clic here for more info

 

I've signed up for two early morning Yoga for knitters classes (what a treat!) as well as

Design your own shawl

Welts, Pleats and Points

Inventive Colour

(fingers crossed that my choices are all accepted

but it really would not matter since there are so many great classes to choose from)

 

You can read all about it here on Ravelry.

 

Wanna sign up too?

Back home

The K-W Knitter's Fair was all that I hoped it would be and then some.

As usual, I arrived just before the doors opened and there was already a line-up even though it was raining.

We knitters are not going to let a little rain stop us from a knitter's fair!

As usual, all the vendors were so enticing, so inviting with many colourful yarns everywhere.

The only thing that could ruin the event would be a nagging small scale migraine that blew up to an exploding one by noon. But I did get a few hours of great fun looking and feeling everything in front of me.

I was very good this year and did not purchase any yarn...ya I know...why go to a knitter's fair if you're not going to get yarn. But I still have some yarn from the other years I went and I promised myself I would knit that before I brought anymore in the house.

But no worry, I did get a few things.

 

Books

 

Mohair roving...I did spin all the fiber that I've bought this past year.

And I do have a thing for Wellington's mohair roving.

I dream of making a throw with the mohair that I have spun so far. At first I thought I would use it for a shawl but I prefer the idea of cuddling up on the sofa with a nice mohair throw...I'll have to get to that one of these days.

Oh, I must add that I worked really hard to not to buy more blue and green,

which is what I grab first every time!

I changed my mind four times before I settled on this

wonderful peach and pink box full (250 g) of roving.

16'' circular needles to make hats with fat yarns.

And a shawl pin.

 

And I did find the beads I was looking for.

This means learning how to add beads to my knitting!

 

Now, to get to the purchase of the day!

I hesitated, I turned around in circle trying to talk myself out of it...but in the end a little voice said: ''Just get it over with, you know you want one, just go ahead and pay the nice lady over there''.

And so I did.

I'm still wondering if I did the right thing.

Will I use it once and put it away?

Will I even use it at all?

Will I enjoy it as much as my spinning wheel...I keep thinking it will be providing me with more reasons to spin. I can knit with the yarns I produce and now I'll be able to weave the yarns as well.

Ya, I did the right thing.

I think.

 

And a couple days with our son is always nice.

A few FOs and some spinning

I've been busy with all sorts of things. It's starting to wind down a bit...phew!
Have you noticed that our evenings are getting shorter? A sure sign of the end of summer.
So I've been doing most of my knitting and spinning in the evenings.

This first knit has been finished for a while and I've had the chance to wear it often.
What do you get when you mix

garter stitch

with stripes

and lace?

This shawl is a winning recipe. It has the right amount of casual feel and enough lace to make it feel dressy.

(blocking on a double bed...it's big!!)

 

Pattern is Cameo. I like the size. Lots of comfort there. I like to carry a shawl with me when we go to restaurants or other places where they keep the air conditioners on frigid!

 

 The colourways are Blue Jeans and Limette. Both my hand dyed yarns.

 

 I like that it's asymmetrical. Larger on one side, where the lace edge is.

 

 A crescent shape shawl called Unleaving in 100% home grown, home dyed alpaca!

 

 This pattern also has lots of garter stitch with a lace edge.

 

Can you see that alpaca halo? mmm

Took me only a week to knit it. You only need to memorize the 18 stitches for the lace edge, the rest is garter stitch.

 

After several weeks of no spinning, I'm so happy to be back at it.

It's been one year since I brought my spinning wheel home. If I was the kind of person to have regrets in life...I would wish that I had started spinning many many years ago!

What a great creative outlet.

These are the yarns spun this week.

All three are Bulky yarn, navajo plied (3 plies).

I love spinning this weight.

 

 

You've no doubt noticed that the purple/pink yarn in the back is a huge ball! It's actually 3 four ounce tops spun together. The other two are 4 ounces of superwash merino each.

I could not wind it on my Jumbo ball winder...just too much yarn so I wound it by hand on my gadget...what is it called again?

 Secret knitting

I had to start knitting with my bulky yarns and I've been working on a pattern...had to be something that required no more than 60-70 meters of bulky yarn...almost ready to reveal the results!

 

A trip to the Kitchener-Waterloo area is planned this weekend to visit our son...really it's to be visiting sonny boy.

It happens to be the K-W Knitter's Fair too...just a coincidence (hihihi)!!

I'll be spending a few hours in the booth of my LYS on saturday to help out and the rest of the time wandering about to explore the many vendors.

It will be the perfect place to find the right beads for a shawl that I'd like to knit.

I also just received my Spin-off magazine...it will make great reading for the trip.

Should be another great weekend!

Enjoy yours!