Have you ever been in a knitting funk? Well, I'm there right now. I have three shawls ONT and am at sticky spots in all of them. To make matters worse, I really want to cast on for the Moonfleet shawl because my yarn is sooooo pretty and the Spoiler photos of Clue 1 posted on Ravelry are really tempting.
To distract myself, I've been playing around with a new drop spindle, purchased at Maryland Sheep and Wool. It's a Bosworth Mini in Marblewood. The roving is merino/tencel dyed by cloudlover over on Etsy. DS#1 purchased it for my b'day in January. I'm spinning this for the Spindler's group May challenge - paintings and roving. Here's my roving and here's the painting: Georgia O'Keefe Lake George, Early Moonrise Spring, 1930 There's only a little more left to spin and I'll have to figure out how to ply it on a spindle.....never done that before! Maybe that will shock me out of my knitting funk and get me back to my sticks and string!
and offered even more enticing merchandise! (please see below)
The above includes -
8 ounces of Persimmon Tree roving (multi-color)
4 ounces of Icelandic roving (natural)
Spanish Peacock Snowflake spindle in Holly/Bloodwood
Bosworth Mini in Marblewood/Cochin Rosewood
Brooks Farm Acero-2 skeins
Miss Babs Bamboo Baby in Plum
2 pairs of Signature Needles - 3 & 5
In addition to the booty, 5 members of the Cindy Knitters group met up. There were actually 7 of us there, but we didn't know it until after we all got home. Next year we'll be more organized about getting the word out.
Several of us CVGs (Central Virginia Girls)on Ravelry, drove out to beautiful Palmyra on Saturday. The weather was perfect-sunny, cloudless, and not too hot/cold....perfect weather for visiting Juniper Moon Farm and meeting their flock of sheep and angora goats. Juniper Moon is home of the "LambCam". Go to their website and check it out!
We had to feed them, of course... ..and meet Ernie, the Hunk of Cotswold.
Then we went over and sat down with the flock while they grazed. Aren't the kids adorable?
Judy managed to get one settled onto her lap. He stayed there for such a long time, we forgot he was there! I think Judy would have liked to slip him into her bag and bring him home!
The joy of the day was compounded upon arriving home and checking the mailbox. My Moonfleet KAL yarn arrived from The Unique Sheep. It's their Eos yarn in Seashell Gradiance.
What's the perfect ending for a perfect day? I didn't have to cook dinner! Here's hoping for many more of the same!
....a yard again! Yippee! This morning DH, DSs#2 & #3 and I raked all of the leaves in the backyard and my flower beds. Thank goodness - I can see green on the ground again. It was getting a little depressing looking at all those brown leaves.
There's no knitting news to report other than I've been in a little slump recently. I'm off-pace for the 10 shawls in 2010. I think Ravelympics did me in. To help me recover and perhaps inspire me again, there have been a couple of yarn-related purchases and trades, just as a form of therapy, mind you!
This is a Wollmeise 100% Kunderbundt "Therapy Bag" containing the "We're Different" colors of Petersilie(parsley), Merlot, Birkenrinde (birch tree), Versuchskaninchen blue (Agatha maybe?), and Baba Jaga, (deep reds, black and fuschia)....feeling a little better, thanks...wouldn't you?
This is Dream in Color "Starry" from a TLE update. I want to make WendyKnit's Miss Woodhouse shawl with it.
Surely these will get me a-knitting again....and soon, I hope!
.....and I did not....and I'd been so good about posting each week, too! But we've been having fun around here, so all is good! Here's a little recap.
I finished three items for the Ravelympics, but TWO of them were froggings. The other was a simple big needle shawl, which did not qualify for the 10 Shawls in 2010 because I read yards and saw meters.....stupid Customary units. It's pretty & warm & a little glitzy though, so that's ok. I almost finished the Circular Vest. It's being bound off now, but I'll probably have to go back and add a few more rounds. Who can ever really tell with cotton? I really hope I still like it when I'm done.....please....let me like it!
New yarn pr*n: The vertical yarn is Sanguine Gryphon Skinny Bugga! and Bugga! All of the horizontal yarn is all WD Wollmeise. It's all very pretty, but lately I've come to realize that I may never be able to purchase a "first run" skein of Wollmeise again. Getting up at 3:00 a.m. doesn't work very well when you have to stay alert all day teaching 9-10 y.os and for the life of me, I can't hit TLE WM updates. No 3:00 a.m. updates also means there's no chance to buy lace weight. Are there no WDs in lace weight? Certainly there must be a few somewhere.....why not make WD lace weight bags too? Just a thought....(fyi - I just learned that there were Lace Bags in today's update! Who knew?!?)
And finally - family stuff. As I write this, I am trying to upload two videos to Flickr, both of my boys in their high school's production of Peter Pan (dress rehearsal video-please excuse the boinginess of the first one!). DS#2 plays Mr. Darling. His video is posted first. DS#3 plays Captain Hook. His will be posted second. They are our babies-our twins - and both seniors. As we waited to go into the auditorium last night, I have to admit that my heart was very full....full of happiness for them, love and pride for their accomplishments, and a little twinge of whatever it is you feel at transition points like this. **sigh** I hope you'll enjoy the excerpts - we certainly do!
The Ravelympics are at a halfway point and I've managed to complete three of my four entries. Of course, TWO of them were frogging projects, but they do count as FOs. This morning, I casted off the Opening Ceremonies shawlette. It's having a bath right now & will be blocked momentarily.
The big finisher of the week was not a Ravelympics project. On Tuesday, Day 13 of 13 total snow days, I completed and blocked the Enchanted Wood KAL shawl. None of the photos of the finished shawl do justice to the beautiful colors in the yarn, so to remind you of what a great job dyer Kelly did, I'm re-posting photos of the yarn skeins, the inspiration, and the best of FO photos I have. I was a little worried about pooling the brown section, but now I love every inch of its almost 60 inch wingspan. I've signed up for another Unique Sheep KAL, Moonfleet, and think you should, too! Unique Sheep Luxe yarn in custom dyed Winter Sunset
