Spinning

The wonderful thing about having a knitter in the family is that it's perfectly acceptable to give yarn as a gift.  So this will be going to my Aunt and I do hope she'll like it.

This is fiber that I picked up during the 2012 Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival.  It's from the Steam Valley Fiber Farm and it is 80% Border Leicester and 20% Mohair. It is spun to a light DK/Sport weight and I'll be gifting about 160 yards.

It's amazing how little touches can make something handmade look professional.  In this case, it's the label!  I took some plain blue card stock and put all of the necessary information on it (weight, fiber type, yardage.) It went from looking like a plain old skein that I made in my living room to a skein that could easily be bought in a store!

Next time on the blog: Home made doggie treats.  Beaker needs to give gifts to his friends and family too!

Thanks for reading,
Care

Christmas Cheer!

I know I've been radio silent for a while, but there has been a lot going on over here including Christmas knitting!  This next project went to their intended recipients Friday night so they are finally in the clear to be posted.

Those little darlings are called podster gloves.  My group of friends that meets once a month to drink wine and talk politics have requested them for two years now.  These gloves are particularly awesome because they are perfectly designed to use with a touch screen smart phone.  There's even a flap for the thumb!

What am I working on right now?  Well, I have some excellent hand spun yarn that will be a gift for a knitting Aunt and several other knitting projects in the works.  We'll see if it all comes together in time for the big day.

Thanks for stopping by!

Mission: Christmas

I'll admit it. This time of year when I'm working on my Christmas knitting projects, the theme song to Mission Impossible often sneaks into my head.  Every year, I seem to either under plan, over estimate my knitting speed, or worse -- both.  This year, between a wedding, a funeral and a strategic career move that resulted in temporary unemployment, I'm definitely looking at the third scenario.

All that said, I still remain optimistic that I will be able to finish in time.  The cowl I showed you yesterday was a good confidence booster because I ended up casting off yesterday before bed.  The picture below shows the finished cowl and my next project.

So, that little tiny skein above the cowl? yeah, that's my next project.  This will NOT be flying off the needles like the wonderful, soft, squishy cowl. That little skein and its twin will be turned into finger-less gloves with a mitten cover. I'm hoping that by tomorrow, I'll be up to the hand part of the glove.  

Once this Christmas rush is over, I'll be looking into starting my own designs. It's a little overwhelming diving into all of the design books and stitch dictionary, but I definitely think I'm ready for the challenge.  But first things first -- Let's finish this marathon of knitting in time for Dec. 25! 

A New Adventure

Welcome and thanks for joining me. I'm really happy you are here.

You see, I've recently experienced a lot of changes in my life. This means that I'm going to try something new. Because that's what you do when your whole world is turned upside down: you turn lemons into lemonade.  However, lemonade at the end of November seems like a really silly thing to make since the weather is turning so cold.  So, instead of the lemonade, I'll be making mittens, sweaters, socks, cowls, and well, you get the picture.

I get that I'm nearly a decade behind some of the bloggers that inspire me the most, but I figure that's not a good enough reason to shy away from writing about knitting.

I'm currently in the familiar Christmas knitting frenzy. The list has been made, the yarns have been chosen and the knitting has started. Since I highly doubt the recipient will be reading this post anytime soon, I'm including a picture of the cowl she'll be getting.

The yarn is 100% Alpaca fiber so it is very soft and fluffy. If everything goes according to plan, this should be off the needles some time tomorrow.  We'll see...