Pics and bugs

Here she is:



It is amazingly soft and comfortable. I love it!

In other news, I hate mosquitoes. I'm seriously thinking of luring some bats to my house to cut down on the vile beasts. I can't even weed my garden without being chomped.

I have a pic of the cashmere singles:



Plied and washed, they are the softest, most delicate yarns I've ever made. I'm so excited to knit them up.

C'est fini!

My Zoe Cardi is done! I'm pretty happy with it, though I had forgotten that silk likes to grow when wet :) I should be able to get a picture of it tomorrow. I even had three buttons that fit with it!

It's warm, but the short sleeves keep it from being too steamy, and it's perfect for being in air conditioning on a hot day. I think it will go well with jeans too.

Now I'm need the Grandma's blessing so I can swatch for the Sprossling.

The yarn for the Lembas & Lace swap has now been spun, plied, washed and dried. I finally get to start working on the lace itself. I'm super excited for my scheme: a center of leaves with little openwork that moves to more openwork leaves, and (hopefully) a leaf border.

Exciting!

Almost there

I still have a spindle and a half to spin up - I haven't gotten a lot of spinning time recently. Then I need to ply and finish the yarn, and I'm off to the knitting. It can't be soon enough!

I'm plugging away at the Zoe cardi. I'm so excited for it to be finished! I have about 5 inches left of the body, and that's it. I don't have any buttons for it yet, but that won't stop me from considering it done.

For my next trick (!), I'm planning on the Sprossling sweater by Anne Hanson. I've seen so many beautiful ones, I can't resist any longer. Add to that a ravelry destash of enough yarn for a large sized one, and I'm there. I think I'll actually try to follow directions this time and knit the thing in pieces. This will only be the second sweater in pieces I've ever knit, and I'm a little nervous about the seaming up. I'll just have to take it nice and easy. At least knitting it in pieces will make it able to be brought on the bus!

Learnin'

I was able to float on my back yesterday! So, now I can float face up and face down, plus I can swim across the pool without touching the bottom. I can do freestyle and breaststroke (though not very well), and my newest thing is trying to swim down to the bottom of the pool and stay there. I find it interesting that I used to sink to the bottom when I was trying to float, and now I keep floating when I'm trying to go to the bottom. Sigh!

I called my dad for father's day and he told me the story of the tattoo he just got. I would like to get one, but I'm afraid I'll be allergic to the ink, since I have a nickle allergy. Who knows; maybe I'll be able to get one someday.

I only have 3 more spindles to spin up for the L&L swap on Ravelry. Then I'll need to ply them and wash them...hopefully nothing crazy happens when they get washed. I can't wait to get into the knitting part of this project. I'm so excited for it - I hope that it looks as good as I'm hoping!

DP's going to get me the audio book of Children of Hurin as a present; it's read by Christopher Lee, and I'm hoping that his reading of it makes it better than it was to read. I did not care for the way the story was put together. I had wanted the book so I could read the story without flipping through the Unfinished Tales and the Silmarillion, but I don't like how the language was dumbed down. The poetry was lost in the combined version, making it less sweeping and heartbreaking...or at least so I thought. We shall see how the audiobook sounds.

Sweaters - proof

I was having a hard time getting good pics of Dunkle's cardi for some reason, but here it is:





The color is a bit off, even though I took the pictures outside in natural light - ah well. My sister loved it, and so did everyone I showed it to :) I ended up using the buttons DP had chosen, and everyone seemed to think they fit with the rest of the sweater, so no problems there. For the steek, I decided that instead of tacking it down, I'd use stitch witchery (small strips of fusible interfacing) to keep the steeks from popping up. I had to cut it even thinner, but it worked like a charm. I tried to take pictures, but I couldn't get a good one, so you'll just have to imagine it :)

I'm about 7.5 inches into the body of the zoe cardi; here's a couple of process shots:





I love how it's knitting up, but I'm mostly using it as bus knitting, so it's slowed down quite a bit. I did the neck and sleeve edgings already so that I can use every bit of the yarn I have left for the body. I'm short waisted, so I think that I'll have enough. Webs doesn't have the same color anymore, and no one on Ravelry is destashing it. I could buy a skein or two from a couple of other places, but beside the dye lot being different, I'd have to pay an arm and a leg for shipping. Sigh.

On the book front, I'm waiting for Gates of Fire (it's supposed to be delivered today), a book about the Spartans at Thermopylae. That battle has been one of my favorites ever since I first heard about it (3rd grade?), and after reading this description of the battle on the Silver Key blog, I went to Amazon and ordered it. Yes, I realize that battle and war are horrible, but like generations of people for thousands of years, hearing the stories of brave men gives me goosebumps.

Reading The Silver Key and The Blog That Time Forgot makes me feel almost brave enough to post some of my essays on Tolkien, so you may see one or two in the future.

Speaking of TBtTF, read this entry on Howard and his views of women. As Sam would say, for a lot of people this is an eye opener, and no mistake.

Of course!

I just realized that I could spin up the Stansborough/Gotland/Jacob for the Tour de Fleece! This will keep me from doing things with it while I should be working on something else, and give me something to look forward to as well. Huzzah!

Year of the sweater?

So, I'm working on two sock monkeys for DP's sister's kids and spinning yarn for my Lembas and Lace partner, and Friday I decided to cast on for a short sleeved cardigan for myself. It's the Zoe Cardi and I've already finished the yoke. Now it's just 15 inches of body :) I'm using Cascade Pima Silk in a dark grey color. I bought it a couple of years ago for some project that I can't even remember, and I've tried to make various things with it, but nothing ever really stuck. I love its hand; it's soft and supple.

I realized that this will be the 5th sweater I've made this year - 2 Liesls, my Olympics v-neck, Dunkle's cardi, and now this. For a person who doesn't make sweaters, I'm making a lot!

On that note, I've finished Dunkle's cardi but still need to sew buttons on. I have some buttons that DP chose, but I'm not sure they're right - they may be too bright. DP also told me that he'd try to find an infusion for my button box, which would be wonderful. I'm getting low on fun buttons.

I'm spinning up the fiber for the L&L swap; I have 6 spindles spun up, and I need about 18 more. I'm using my charkha - it's the first time I've used it for a large scale project. It's definitely a different way to spin, especially since I'm used to spinning with the fiber supply in my right hand and the charkha pretty much requires you to spin with the fiber in your left hand. You need a very soft touch.

I also got some Stansborough and some Gotland from International Fleeces. I can't recommend them enough! Beautiful fibers, beautiful packaging and super fast shipping. The Stansborough is the fiber the cloaks were spun from in the LotR movies, and while I have gripes with the movies, I did like the cloaks :) Stansboroughs were bred down from Gotlands, I think, and so I also got some Gotland. I bought a little Jacob because I've never spun it, and when the fibers all got here, I realized they all go together! I have an idea for a shawl using all of them...but it will have to wait until I get this other fiber spun and plied!

So I started the weekend with one project on the needles and one on the spindle, and ended with double that. Not bad for a weekend's work ;)

Life's too short

To knit purl rows. I decided that I'll be steeking Dunkle's cardi, because my purling back rows on the stockinette were utterly slow. I'm 13 centimeters back into the plain knitting, so soon I'll be at the button bands.

I got my partner assignment for the Lembas and Lace swap on Ravelry. I'm pretty excited about it; I have a pattern kind of worked up, though I'll need to spin up the yarn first. It's more fun to spin the yarn than to buy it, the same way it's more fun to make up the pattern instead of following one. Huzzah!

We got a pool for the yard this year - it's actually deep enough to swim in, so DP is teaching me. I actually made my way across yesterday without touching the bottom!