Spinning Sue

Season's Greetings

Have a good one, whichever holiday you celebrate.

Saturday Sky

Still misty but we have slightly wider horizons today!
The white blobs in the field are sheepies.

Socks, Lizards & Secret Santa

Pair numero 12 of the year. 200Sox comes to an end for me with this pair. Knit on 2.5mm Brittany Birch dpns with yarn from Fyberspates gifted to me by Terri my SP8 spoiler. Top down with short row heels. I really like these.

I've started Lizard Ridge from Knitty. I've also ordered a fair whack of the Noro Kureyon yarn I'll need for it too. So I won't be breaking my Knit From Your Stash pledge next year. This first square is colour #52 and is yummy! The pattern is quite simple really but looks impressive.

Finally, we do a Secret Santa thing at work but our own little twist on it is that we all buy gifts from the Pound Shop and only spend £1.00. Every year sees some really fabulous gifts and some that are absolutely spot on for the recipient. I was extremely lucky this year. The person who drew my name out of the hat is the husband of a fibre artist! For my secret santa gift he went stash diving in his wife's stash and gave me some merino for spinning - how lucky am I? Thanks again Brian.

Thanks SP!

Two posts in one day? Hmmmmm... methinks Spinning Sue is on hols from work!

Updated fog picture. Its even heavier now than it was this morning. Sounds as though its quite widespread too. Laura in London has a foggy view of the M1 and Silvia can't see the field at the back of her house up north in Yorkshire.

The postie bought a lovely surprise today - a parcel from my SP9!! Love the card! It's a stripey snowman err... cat with a real stripey cat next to it. Cocoa, sweets and some gorgeous body products. Fantastic wash cloth and two balls of Sugar & Cream! Like most knitters, I always want the stuff I can't get locally and I've read lots on the 'net about this yarn and now I have some. Fab colours too! Thank you SP9 for such a lovely parcel!

Bleak

In the bleak midwinter indeed!

This is the result of recent mild weather and lots of rain followed by quite a dramatic drop in temperature. Fog. It's not as thick as last night. We even made the regional news last night as a place where visibility would be particularly bad. They said 50 metres but I think it was even less than that.

Ooopsie!

Having felt all virtuous yesterday after deciding to join Wendy's Knit From Your Stash 2007, I now need to make a confession.

No, no, its not the Noro Kureyon/Lizard Ridge clause I snuck into the last post when no-one was looking.

Its all about sock yarn clubs...

I belong to two...

Posh Yarn and Fyberspates.

Oops!

So from January to October, there will indeed be yarn coming into the house. But I won't be paying for it next year. Does that make it okay?

Ah... no... didn't think so...

Oops!

Knittage!

There has been some!

And I'm blogging about it!

Both seem to be rare things lately.

Fyberspates socks. We now have a sock and a half. These will be finished well before the end of the year and that means I'll have completed the little goal I set myself when I joined 200Sox. I wanted to knit 12 pairs of socks this year. Hurrah!

I've also completed the back and started the front of Turbulence from Knitting Nature. Not very exciting yet, I'm afraid. I'm always surprised at how quickly knitting grows when I actually put some time and effort into it!

I found out on Friday that my boss is planning to take her full year's worth of maternity leave which means I'll be covering her job for another 6 months. Good news on the bank balance front not so good for the stress levels! The thought of another 6 months at a higher pay rate has prompted me to think about upgrading a few things. First thing I've started lusting over is one of these. If I stick to my saving plan it could be mine by the end of January...

Which brings me to Wendy's latest idea. Knit From Your Stash 2007. I don't have a huge stash but I do have more than enough yarn (particularly sock yarn) and spinning fibre to keep me going for quite a while. So I think I'll join in but I'm going to adapt Wendy's rules to suit me better.

My rules for Knit from your stash 2007:

1. The Knit-From-Your-Stash-a-Thon will start January 1, 2007 and run through December 31, 2007 -- a period of twelve months.

2. I will not buy any yarn during that period, with the following exceptions:

    2.a. Sock yarn does not count. What? You think we are made of stone?

    2.b. If someone asks for a specific knitted gift that I really and truly do not have the yarn for, I may buy yarn to knit that gift.

    2.c. If I'm knitting something and run out of yarn, I may purchase enough to complete the project. Edited to add: I've just started buying yarn for Lizard Ridge (only 4 balls bought so far) so I WILL be buying more Noro Kureyon for this! Does that make me a cheat before I even start? :-)

    2.d. I get one "Get Out of Jail Free" card -- I'm allowed to fall off the wagon one time. I will use this for Woolfest.

3. I'm allowed to receive gifts of yarn but I'm going to cut back on swaps.

4. Spinning fiber of any sort is exempt but only if it is for a specific purpose. Weaving yarn is also exempt but, once again, only for a specific purpose.

Now I feel virtuous!

Saturday Sky

Saturday Sky

Weaving And A Bit Of Spinning

Snappy and original title that is!

The good news - I don't have a chest infection. Just a virus that has caused inflammation of the tissue and muscle around where the ribs join the breast bone. Its not really painful just uncomfortable. The treatment? Ibuprofen. Not very glamorous is it? Ah well.

Weaving!

I took my first piece of weaving off the loom a while ago. It is only a sample so it doesn't look like anything. It changed a lot when it was 'wet finished' (or fulled). The cloth tightened up a bit and the weaving looks more even. The overall dimensions shrank a bit which is only to be expected. I used Jamieson's Ultra and it has made a nice drapey fabric.

Mum requested a woven scarf in cream with a chevron pattern. I said I couldn't do that yet and she said 'you'll figure it out!' Errr... thanks Ma! Well actually she was right and I did. :-) I'm using a point twill threading for the warp and that gives a horizontal zig zag pattern - not really obvious in this picture. The warp is some undyed 4ply merino from Texere and the weft is some undyed blue-faced leicester that I spun. I think its going to be a lovely squishy, warm scarf!

This is a pic of the blue-faced leicester as it was being spun. Its come out as roughly DK weight yarn with a few thinner and thicker bits. It's weaving up nicely though and the yarn is definitely giving the scarf character!