and I'm not just talking about my dress size!

It's time to slim down the WIPs. I've been concentrating on getting my project table down, especially on the knitting side. I'm wanting to either start something new or resurrect a UFO to finish up but I need to get some of the projects OFF the table first! I've made quite a lot of progress on my projects up there and several are almost finished. I'm really starting to see the benefit in keeping the number of WIPs down so that a lot of progress can be seen on a *few* things rather than a little progress on a *lot* of things.

The Felted Tote Bag is almost ready to be thrown into the washer. It was like knitting a whole freakin' sweater! I ended up running out of my Lopi stash leftovers and had to buy 2 new skeins of Lamb's Pride Chunky to finish the straps. Yesterday was a holiday from work for me so I spent it at the yarn store knitting up one of the straps and eating scones! The required nap-in-the-middle-of-the-day-just-because-I-can interrupted my progress on the second strap, though, but that's part of it being a holiday.

I'm really humming on my pair of toe-up Lorna's Laces socks. The second sock is about 30 rounds from the heel turning. This is my carry along project and I'm hoping to get this pair finished this week. I *NEED* more wool socks...it's been cold! I also plan to finish up Kelly's second sock this week since it's so little anyway and it wouldn't take long at all.

The Knitty Design has languished unswatched. I started thinking about it some more but it's not clicking into place yet. I think that I have too many other items still on my platter to give it the attention it deserves, so it will go by the wayside for a bit. I've decided to take it off the Project Table for a while.

My Ship's Project Hat is about 5" tall and I'll be starting the decreases soon for the crown. I'm in a bit of a quandry about my charity knitting projects. I only feel that I have time to devote to one charity, with a personal goal of knitting a minimum of one item per month. A new knitting guild has started up on my side of town and they have adopted a local charitable cause for preemie babies. I think that I would rather spend my time supporting this cause and switch from the Ship's Project. So many things to knit and so little time.

I've also been spinning up a storm on my GCNI fiber. I wouldn't call my Stacey Rothrock spindle a production spindle, but I'm really enjoying the look of it as I spin. I have thought about switching spindles to my Tabachek mini or my Bosworth mini Bossie since either one of those will be a longer spinning tool. I'm almost finished with the second spindle full. I wound the first spindle full off onto a dowel and left the end of it unspun. I will then join this to the second copfull of yarn and then wind this one long continuous single onto my nostepinde as if I were making a center pull ball. Since this is going to be a 2 ply yarn, I'm just going to ply it from the nostepinde using the 2 ends so I don't have to worry about mismatching amounts of singles.

Work has been CRAZY! I think I'm only averaging one blog per week now. Anyway...let's catch up on the latest, shall we?

Check out Kate's latest Cheesylove pattern in Knitty. Fabulous!

My sister gave me a gift certificate to my LYS, Stitches and Scones, so Kelly and I went over there Sat and I purchased 2 books, A Season's Tale by Kim Hargreaves and Knitting Fair Isle Mittens & Gloves by Carol Rasmussen Noble.


I really like many of the designs in A Season's Tale. They are more tailored and shaped with set in sleeves and most are of the shorter length which I really like. Several patterns have multiple necklines which you can knit and all patterns include nice schematics and measurements. Probably the biggest complaint I have is that the picture of the pattern is not necessarily shown with the written instructions. You have to read the caption for the picture to see which sweater you're really looking at.

Knitting FI Mittens & Gloves is a pretty versatile book. It includes a basic pattern for mittens, fingerless gloves, and regular gloves. You are then directed to the many charts to choose and insert your design. The patterns are meant to use Shetland yarn, but any fingering weight yarn should give you a comparable gauge of around 8st and 8 rows per inch. The different patterns are well photographed but the downfall is that the actual chart you use for knitting is printed with colored squares, not symbols. It would make it a bit difficult to photocopy and keep all your colors straight.

On another front, I've been fairly productive with my fiber work. I'm getting ready to knit my second LL Embers sock and I've started Kelly's second Regia sock. I had a slight detour this weekend while I knitted Kelly a pair of mittens on a whim. My spinning of the GCNI Constellation fiber is continuing and I'm slowly knitting on the afghan. I've even been chugging along on the felted Lopi tote, but I'm not sure I'm going to have enough yarn to make the bigger size tote which I would rather make than the smaller one. However, I'm going to use up what I have and make it work. I'm not really interested in buying any more yarn, although I suppose one more ball would be all it would take to extend it to the size I really want!

I still can't seem to get the second end of my Polar scarf trimmed out in that eyelash yarn. I don't know what the hold up is for me on that one. I probably just need to make myself sit down and DO it. After all, it won't take that long to knit 5 or 6 rows of eyelash across 20 some stitches.

My Project Table seems to be working out well for me to keep all my projects straight. It only lists the things that are in the forefront that I want to keep working on and get finished. It doesn't include all my UFO's and stash...that would drive me Nuts! At some point I want to come to terms with some of the stash that I have and decide whether I want to keep it or not...but not today!

Just so you know I haven't forgotten how to use my digital camera ...


From top to bottom: GCNI fiber being spun on a Stacey Rothrock spindle with the first copful wound off onto a dowel, Lorna's Laces Embers sock for me, Kelly's Regia/LL sock

Well, I've not had much time to blog this week. It's cold and snowy here and work has been CRAZY! Mike ended up with a slight case of pneumonia but the 3rd antibiotic finally started working. He's doing better and flew to Vegas for the CES show this week.

Anyway, I've been making decent progress on my fiber projects. I've got a couple of more inches to go on the leg of the first sock of the Lorna's Laces and I've finished the first spindle full of the GCNI fiber and have started the second. The color I'm spinning now is called Constellation and I'm thinking that I will spin up my other GCNI fiber and make fair isle socks. I have 3 other 4oz batches of GCNI fiber in various colors which I don't fully remember right now. This fiber is so much FUN to spin! I'm practicing long draw as much as I can with it in an attempt to get my yarn density DOWN. That plus the fiber prep is bound to help out that situation.

I went to the yarn store Saturday and purchased a ball of Regia sock yarn that Kelly helped pick out and have started making her a pair of socks. Her feet seem to get cold in her cotton socks so I decided it was time that she had a proper pair of wool socks. I also picked up a skein of Lorna's Laces Sport in a solid color to knit the heels and toes. I decided to knit this pair on 2 circulars. I've always been a dpn fan but my Brittany US1's are tied up in my Lorna Laces socks and they are starting to bend somewhat as well. So, necessity being the mother of invention pushed me to go the 2 circular route. It wasn't too bad, I must say. Anyway, I tried the first sock on her last night and it fit! Now on to making the second one.

Today is the first official day of the Stashalong project being held on the Productive Spinners list. I had gotten a bit of a head start on my Paton's Afghan, but now it's official! I don't think I have a targeted ending date for this afghan...I just want to keep working on it steadily and make progress.

It's back to work time for me. I'll have to say that my holiday shutdown was pretty miserable, though, since both Mike and Kelly were sick. Kelly is better now, but Mike is still sick. I sent him back to the doctor this morning so hopefully we'll have some better/stronger medicine for him soon. He's on his second antibiotic since the beginning of December and he's still feverish, weak, and coughing non-stop. He has to leave Monday to spend all next week in Vegas on his feet every day at the Consumer Electronics Show and he needs to show a marked improvement by the weekend.

Anyway, onto other news. Today is Wendy's birthday so drop by and wish her a good one. Mike and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary Dec 30th. We actually remembered it on the correct day this year! (We're not real good about remembering things like that.) I actually got quite a bit of fiber work done over the shutdown. I'm now knitting on a pair of Lorna's Laces socks for me and this yarn is HEAVENLY! I'll try and get a picture up soon.

During my search through the stash for my Paton's Afghan Kit, I came across more sock yarn! I thought that I had pulled all the sock yarn out to keep separately, but apparently not. Oh well, one can never have enough sock yarn! And just to prove that point, I started spinning up my first batch of Running Moon Farm's GCNI fiber into...what else...sock yarn! I'm using one of my Stacey Rothrock spindles and I'm having a blast! I'll also try and get a picture up soon of this.

You have to go check out Stasia's post today regarding intarsia in the round. Great info! Also check out the sock she's knitting. Fabulous!