Hooray!! Santa whispered in hubby's ear found a way for me to get my spinning wheel NOW! Well yesterday actually. I ordered the Kromski Minstrel from Winderwood Farm. I'm so excited. Bob said I could have it in as few as 3 days (which I think is HIGHLY unlikely since we are in the middle of the holidays) but certainly in a week. Squee! I'm so excited. Wait, did I say that already. Oh, who cares. I'm SO EXCITED!
Ok, if I'm going to do this yarn diet, I figured I better set some rules ("they're really more like guidelines") for myself.
Rule 1: The diet starts now. Although technically the last time I bought yarn was 3 days ago, I'm officially starting to count from today.
Rule 2: I will not purchase yarn for any new projects until
a. April 15 (might as well use another significant date to keep things simple) OR
b. I have enough money for a wheel and what ever I need to get started spinning (roving, books, videos, etc)
Rule 3: If I run out of yarn for a project currently underway or one started from stash, I can buy enough yarn to finish that project.
Rule 4: I will save the money not spent on yarn towards the purchase of a new spinning wheel.
Four rules sounds like enough. Should I change my mind about the wheel at any time in the next 4 months, I'm going to stick to the diet. The purpose for the diet is two fold: save money for a wheel AND reduce stash. For motivation, I'm going to put one of those nifty counter things on my sidebar to help track how long I can stick to the diet. I imagine this will be infinitely easier than any food related diet I've ever stuck to. There's plenty of stash to dive into and hopefully enough variety to keep me interested. Wish me luck.
Hooray! I finished Mr. Greenjeans and it turned out fabulous!
I had just enough yarn with the 5 skeins of Patons Classic Wool. There was maybe a quarter of a ball left in the end. I followed the pattern except for 2 things: I messed up when I started the cabled part of the body, starting with a cable column rather than a plain column, but unless you were familiar with the pattern, I didn't think anyone would notice; and I didn't switch to smaller needles for the cables on the sleeves. The body was pulling in so much, I was afraid the sleeves would be too tight. In the end I think it would have been fine to use the smaller needles. After washing, the cables loosened up quite a bit and the sweater fits perfectly. Can't wait to wear it Christmas day!
Now I'm working to finish the socks I've been slogging away at all summer. The Drops Tube Socks are officially not tube socks since I turned a short row heel, but I haven't come up with a new name of for them.
I came thisclose to ripping the Jaywalkers because I just couldn't get motivated with them. I love the yarn and hated that it wasn't getting knitted up. However, I just couldn't rip them and now I'm glad I didn't.
I've gotten past the heel turn and am getting into the rhythm of the pattern now. The socks are moving along much quicker now. The problem with both patterns is that they require me to pay at least a bit of attention and count some amount of stitches on every row. I just haven't had enough quiet time to ingrain the patterns into my brain and fingers. Hopefully now, though, they'll start going faster.
I started on the Ali Bag. Since I couldn't find the yarn called for in colors I liked and for a price I wanted to pay, I opted to use 4 strands of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes.
This appears to be working fine, except I grossly miscalculated the amounts of yarn I'll need and already run out of the 2 main colors!
Luckily KP has them in stock and I was able to get my order in before they closed for the holidays. They shipped a few days ago so I should have them late next week.
Montego Bay has been frogged and the yarn re purposed into a Chevron Scarf. Mom had picked out some Sockotta yarn for me to make her a scarf we saw on display the Ball & Skein. I tried knitting the pattern from the shop. Hated it. Tried 2 more patterns, hated them. The yarn just wasn't cutting it on it's own. The cotton was too stiff, the colors were to jacquard. In steps some Sea Silk (formerly Montego Bay) and Joelle Hoverson's Chevron Scarf pattern (from this book) and voila
lovely, pretty, soft scarf. I'm not crazy about knitting scarves, they seem to take forever. But I think this will be really nice when it's done and mom will love it.
One other finished object to report.
An Irish Hiking Hat knit in Patons Shetland Chunky. Turned out a little too small to line it as the pattern calls for. But it's nice and cozy even without the lining (and it looks super cute if I do say so myself). I added a seed stitch border so it covers my ears nicely. This was a super fast knit, I think it might have taken a weekend. I will definitely be knitting this one again. Next time with a few more rows on the crown to allow for lining.
Only one item of stash enhancement to report
A skein of Araucania Ranco Multy. The colors are gorgeous. The Ravens yarn is still waiting in the wings. I'm committed to getting these socks off the needles before starting another project.
I've decided to go on a yarn diet for awhile. I've got a good amount of sock stash and yarn for several other small projects to keep me busy for at least a few months. The reason for the diet? Apart from motivation to use up some of my stash, I've decided I want to get a spinning wheel. The seed was planted decades ago. In my Grandma Miller's spare bedroom was a spinning wheel. I loved looking at it. It fascinated my child's mind, although I never got around to asking Grandma about it. This past spring, a locally made spinning wheel was auctioned off at our library's spring auction. And the seed started to sprout. The wheel was gorgeous. A Saxony style (think of Rumpelstiltskin's wheel or look here for examples). But I knew nothing about wheels and was hesitant. My sister and I were bidding together against another lady. We had no idea what it was worth, but knew our budget. R (the gutsier sister) kept bidding well past our budget, leaving me somewhat quaking in my boots knowing I'd be the one expected to learn to use it if we got it. (Un)fortunately we ended up not winning it in the end. In hindsight, now that I've started researching wheels, I see that she got it for a steal (if I recall it went just under $300). I was somewhat relieved, but still...the idea of a wheel was intriguing. I see bloggers like the Yarn Harlot & Wendy and hear podcasters like Kim & Lime and Violet all talking about their spinning and the sprout grows the tiniest bit at each mention. I see fabulous rovings on Etsy and think of the beautiful potential it has. Then along comes Ravelry (the Mecca of knitters) and see all the gorgeous fabulous handspun yarns my fellow knitters are creating. Now the sprout has got roots and at least a pair of leaves. So I decide to just do a little bit of poking around on the internet and see what wheels are out there and get an idea of what I might like. It's overwhelming! There's so many choices! But each day, I'm feeling more and more like this is the next step I want to take in my fiber journey and so I look and research some more. At the moment, I'm leaning heavily towards a Kromski Minstrel castle wheel. It's small size will fit my space much better than a Saxony but it's old world look suits my aesthetic better than a modern portable wheel. It's going to be awhile before I save enough for the wheel of my dreams (and why settle for less, right?) For now, I'm reading everything I can about wheels and spinning. Then, in a few months when I've saved enough money, we'll see if this mighty sprout is still niggling away at me or if the phase has passed. More on this subject to follow, I'm sure.
And now, wishing everyone out there a very Merry Christmas and a peaceful and joyous New Year!
So dad and I went to the feed store Saturday to stock up on birdseed for the winter. Apparently, not a moment too soon since this is the scene I awoke to this morning. 
It's November 19th for goodness sake! The weathermen were all calling for rain and a few flurries. We got an inch of snow. Very wet sloppy snow. Weird but very pretty.
I've been knitting up a storm, but as usual for this time of year, none of it can be posted here until after Christmas, hee hee. Well, not quite none. Here's the felted clogs finished.
These are going to my husband's aunt for Christmas. Check out the bottoms
The faux suede works like a charm! I "soled" the bottoms of my clogs and it's made a huge difference.
I finished the Melly's Cousin Bag
So cute. I've gotten a ton of compliments on it. It's a bit on the small side for me. Only my bare essentials fit in it. So I hopped back over to Sharon's site and picked up the Ali Bag pattern. She has it shown in a red colorway and a grey colorway. I'm leaning towards blue with green and purple pipes. I'm still looking at yarns. And since it's going to cost at least $50 for the yarn, it will probably wait until I've finished Christmas shopping.
Sadly, there's been no progress on Mr Greenjeans. I really need to finish my Christmas knitting so I can get back to working on it since I would love to wear it for Christmas. And then there's this...
Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Heavyweight RAVEN KORPPI!!! SQUEE!! I'm not a total STR junky, but I do adore their color sense. So a few weeks ago a reminder popped up in my email that said "STR Raven". I couldn't remember what the hell I set the reminder for, but I had put a link in the reminder and it took me to Blue Moon's site. There was nothing there about Ravens. So I hopped on the Ravelry Socks that Rawk group and found a RAGING discussion about when the Ravens would be up. Turns out they had some sort of trouble and the update didn't go up until evening. I happened to be there when the yarns started showing up. It was AWESOME! And the whole group spirit on Ravelry at the same time made it feel even more like a party. So what are the Ravens? Blue Moon did this whole line of colors based on black. Go look. It is PHENOMENAL. And the pictures don't even do the yarn justice. The colors are intense, almost iridescent. I WILL be getting more of this gorgeous stuff. For now, I had to content myself with one skein. It's going to be mittens. I couldn't hide this something this fantastic in shoes! So it's my carrot on a stick right now. I have to finish my Christmas knitting and Mr Greenjeans before I can start the mittens. Well, maybe just finish the Christmas knitting. We'll see how long I can hold out!
I finally got more Bare to dye. Here's my latest batch
My friend at the yarn store gets first choice, then the rest will be going up on Etsy later this week. I'm taking better notes so I can try to replicate colors in the future. I'm getting to the point I like so many of the colors, I don't want to let them go! Edna told me she was able to get undyed yarn from one of her suppliers. I'm anxious to see what it's like. I love the KP yarn, but it would be nice to have another source as well.
Hubby and I are on vacation this week. We have few plans, which is just how I like it. I've got books and magazines to get caught up on and tons of knitting! Mr. Greenjeans is cruising along. The body is finished and I'm halfway down the first sleeve.
And it looks like I'm not going to run out of yarn, YAY!
In anticipation of loads of knitting time I treated myself to one of Sharon's She-Knits bag patterns, Melly's Cousins Bag. I've ordered Berkshire Bulky in Coffee Bean and Tan from Webs and it should be here Monday or Tuesday. Speaking of Sharon, she's got a group over on Ravelry knitting the Felted Clogs. Mine are starting to develop a hole in the heel so I decided to join in. I picked up some Patons Classic wool in Leaf Green and Old Gold on sale at Michael's.
I also snagged some faux suede on Ebay with the hope of sewing soles to the bottoms for reinforcement. It was cheap so I won't feel bad if my plan doesn't work. I still have 2 pair of socks and the v-neck shell on my needles too! I'd say I've got PLENTY to keep my busy.
Still on the major clean-up kick. I thoroughly cleaned and reorganized the sewing/craft room. Many bits and bobs were tossed, sold, given away or re-purposed. I finished the Tumbler quilt I started last year.
I decided I would never finish the log cabin rug I was making for the kitchen, so I bound it off and it's now a perfectly sized mat for under the cat's food dish.
I'm seriously considering frogging the Montego Bay Scarf. It spites me after all the trouble I went through to get the pattern and how lovely the SeaSilk yarn is. But I was looking at it today, thinking, even if I finish this, I'll never wear it. It would be a serious waste of beautiful yarn to knit something to sit in a drawer. But, I don't have any other ideas for the yarn either. Perhaps a stole. But I already tried it once in the Huck Lace shawl and didn't like it. For now, it's neatly tucked away in a drawer until I decide if I will finish it or frog it.
When Quinn was a baby, she had a favorite toy. A pink sparkle ball. She carried it around in her mouth all the time.
(Note that the ball is almost as big as her head!) We joked she was just about like Gollum "My precious!". Sadly, the sparkle ball was lost rather quickly as often happens with little cat toys. We tried in vain to find her another sparkle ball. They were all so flimsy they'd fall apart in no time and have to be taken away lest the cats eat them. Craft store pompoms were a half hearted substitute. But nothing seemed to please her as much as her original sparkle ball.
Quinn is now 6 and it's been at least 5 years since we've seen that ball. Then, this weekend while we were in the midst of our fall cleaning, I turned the sofa over to attach new sliders to the feet. Lo and behold, there stuck in the underframe of the sofa was the sparkle ball.
All is good in the world. At least it was for about 6 hours on Saturday. It appears, though, that the sparkle ball is once again lost.
Hooray! The heat has finally broken and it's starting to feel like fall. This week the daytime temps were in the 50s and 60s and it's been down into the 30s at night! AWESOME. Some people have their spring cleaning. For me it's fall cleaning. The cold weather really puts me in the mood to spiff up and throw out. We steam cleaned the carpets on Friday, did the curtains and windows yesterday, as well as washing all the woodwork and rearranging the furniture. Today I'm going through all my old quilting and knitting magazines getting ready to sell the ones I don't need/want any more.
I've not gotten much knitting done the last few days with all this cleaning and now my wrist is buggered up from something I did (probably over exertion) so there will be no knitting today. Instead, pictures of what I have managed to get done:
Hubby's (impossible to photograph) sweater
He requested, plain and black. So there it is. Plain. and Black. Black does not photograph at all well. The sweater is nearly done. I have about half of the bottom hem left to bind off and a few ends to sew in and it's finished. I'm doing a sewn bind off that I saw on Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Glossary dvd. It keeps your ribbing nice and stretchy without looking sloppy. For me, though, it seems to take forever to execute. But the results are well worth the extra time if it means the difference between getting the sweater over your head or ripping your ears off because the neck opening won't stretch.
I've been devoting about equal time to the black sweater and Mr. Greenjeans. I'm still just loving this pattern. 
I changed up the cable section just a bit. I'm working the cable every 6 rows rather than every 4. The look is only slightly different...
But it should save me just a bit of time over all. The cables are great. It's just a 4 stitch cable and I'm able to do them without a cable needle as described in the pattern. But there are a lot of cables and those rows still go really slow for me. A few extra plain rows in between crosses is a simple, barely noticeable time saver.
I've worked only a few more rows on the V-neck shell. I would still like to get it done to wear as a vest this fall, but I'm thinking I'll be happy if I finish it by the end of the year.
I do like this project, but cotton still is not by favorite fiber to knit with. This yarn (Aunt Lydia's Denim) is certainly one of my favorite cottons, but I still can't seem to get motivated to finish it.
No pictures of the socks. Neither the Jaywalkers nor the "not" Tube Socks have shown much progress. I've spent too much time working on the big projects and almost no time traveling to get any work done on the socks. Would have loved to have the Jaywalkers done for Halloween since they are in my Halloween yarn, but it ain't gonna happen.
As I've mentioned, I've been reading through the Cat Who series and trying to collect the books. Well, I managed to score the entire series in on Ebay for less than $20 including shipping!! All but one are hardback. 2 of the short story collections were missing, but I already had those. I am thrilled to bits. I'm still on Post Office since I've had almost no time to read this last week. And when I do sit down to read, I invariably fall asleep. This should keep me busy for months!
Finally, progress on the Drops Tube Socks.
Although I've got to come up with a new name since they are no longer tube socks. I did, in the end, decide to put in a short row heel. I'm also only going to put the pattern on the top side of the foot so the sole is nice and smooth.
Jaywalkers in Jack.
I'm so thrilled with how this yarn is knitting up. I fell in love with it when I dyed it and am even more smitten by it knitted up. And this pattern is great. I can see why so many people have knit these.
I spent my weekend dyeing. Here's 5 skeins of Patons Classic Merino Wool, originally Winter White, dyed up for the Mr. Greenjeans sweater.
I had some issues with this yarn. Originally it was too bright.
So I overdyed it with a small amount of black and brown dye. Now it's perfect.
I also dyed up the last of my sock yarn for my friend's shop.
From left to right: Americana, After the Rain, and Shire. I'm going to have to dye up another Shire for myself, love those colors!
I got EZ's Knitting Around DVD set, Harry Potter & the OOTP DVD, and the books Teach Yourself Visually Spinning and the Harmony Guides Knit & Purl. 
The family gift exchange was great. Everyone enjoyed their gifts. My sister gave me the Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVD (one of my absolute FAVORITE series. She also pointed out you can go here and get rifftracks for recent movies. I'll be checking these out for sure.)
She made scrapbooks for both my sister and I. It was so touching I couldn't even look at it without choking up. I have looked at it since then and it's wonderful.
Chock full of memories. I will treasure it always.
