It came!

DP's Kindle Fire came today! I was a bit bummed because it didn't come with the special gift message, but oh well. He likes it well enough, especially for what he's planning to use it for, but it does have some issues. If you put documents in the cloud, you can't access them. Only things you bought from Amazon are accessible. Lame!

I got to play with it when he took a nap...it's pretty neat. Ravelry looks great, and the colors are amazing. Since we have Prime, I watched a bit of Soylet Green (for free). Awesome.

I'm working on that seed stitch cowl for DP's mom, but it's going slow. I love what seed stitch looks like, I just don't like stitching it :)

I dowloaded the latest Fall in Full Color patter from Knitspot, and it's great. It's actually two patterns, cowls, and they look perfect for gift giving or self making. I'm debating whether or not to join the club for next season - Bare Naked, I think it is. The club with the yarn is just way too expensive unless I don't buy any other yarn for the year, but I'm not sure if it's worth buying without the yarn. We'll see.

Fun fact

Knitting with 4 strands of splitty dk is somewhat problematic on Denise needles :)

It didn't work

I decided to spin thin and triple ply, but the yarn is really only a heavy worsted, or maybe a bulky. Certainly not super bulky.

Soooo...I'm going to try to knit with 4 strands held together and see what happens. It means I'll be making this cowl in beige instead of cappuccino, but beggars can't be choosers!

Spinning

The eternal question - is it better to spin a thinner singles and triple ply for thickness, or to try to spin a bulky weight that ends up thick and thin?

And another thing

DP called me to tell me that his mom needs me to knit a cowl for her to give to someone :) The only problem is that it calls for super bulky and I don't have anything that big. Sooo...I need to spin the yarn,wash and dry it, then knit it into a seed stitch cowl. Eep!

Yarn for my MIL

My mother in law found Ravelry a couple of days ago, and she is kind of overwhelmed by all the patterns :) She wanted a free pattern for a crochet scarf, and she came up with over 2000 to choose from!

Besides that, her stash is pretty low, so DP and I will be raiding my stash for some goodies. The only problem is that most of my yarn is fingering weight, and she was planning on using it to make gifts. They'd be nice, but take longer, and she has nine siblings to craft for. I also need to check if she has a ball winder; it would suck to have tons of yarn but have to wind it all by hand (witness the reason I bought a ball winder four years ago).

I'm going to see if she wants any of my cotton yarn. I just don't knit with it enough to make it worthwhile.

Some of my yarn is also a bit...natural...so it would be better for gloves or mittens than for hats or cowls.

Off to stash dive!

Despite the allergies

Every day brings us closer to getting our cat! We found a cat that I am less allergic to, and we'll be picking her up after Christmas. It's very exciting, but kind of scary - another creature to care for.

We have to confab with my sister on what accouterments we'll need for the kitten; my sister is my resident cat expert. DP was talking about how excited he was about the cat yesterday - a good sign.