Shawl spending time on the deck.......

This morning I finally got around to blocking the last shawl I knit out of my handspun. It's now spending time on the deck until it's totally dry.........which won't take long in 10% humidity, 90+ degree weather.........still thankful every single day that we no longer live on the east coast where we were born and grew up, that humidity was a killer.......of course the trade off is living in an area of high fire danger since it doesn't rain here for many months at a time. 

And yes, you're right I have not been complaining about fire season, yet, it started a couple months ago and will be for at least a couple more months. A couple of ODF copters flew over the house heading west yesterday afternoon, no buckets (for water) though, not sure where they were heading as I haven't heard of a fire in that direction.  I hate fire season..........

Hot day....perfect....

....perfect for blocking scarves that is....not perfect for spending time out in the sun. I waited until the sun passed the area I'd be sitting for skewering in blocking wires and pinning down both scarves. I used the blocking wires on the blue handspun knit scarf, just pins on the alpaca crocheted scarf......

Beautiful day......

It's a beautiful day.....a bit cooler, breezy, kind of feels like autumn.....although I understand this is temporary, will be very hot again by Friday. So, I'll take advantage of this good weather for the next 2 days - will spend Wednesday & Thursday dyeing BFL.

Just now I blocked two recently finished pieces; the traveling woman shawlette and another mesh crocheted scarf.

Here's some of my hand-dyed Polwarth I recently spun, I added in some sparkle with hand-dyed firestar. I'm not sure what I'll make with it yet, I've got 574 yards. Originally it was to be art yarn.....I added the firestar while  spinning the singles, added hand-dyed silk ribbon in plying and then tried to add a binder of rayon thread with beads in another ply. Well, it didn't work, I should have added the rayon thread with beads at the same time making it a 3 ply yarn. So halfway through I stopped the 3rd ply, ran it through the wheel again to unspin it a bit and pulled the thread with beads off. Then with no binder the silk ribbon wouldn't stay put so I pulled that out. What a lesson learned........

Current reading - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

More blocking underway....

More blocking here - the crocheted scarf in the background made from my handspun and the square in front knit for a friendship afghan for a friend who just lost her husband......he was a very talented lace knitter. I knit a basket weave design in her favorite color - chartreuse. My square is to be 12"x12" - I swatched (which I rarely do) and figured out how many stitches it should be - I knit it, measuring along the way - it still came out short - a perfect square but not 12" - argh! So, I'll see what happens after this blocking and it's relaxed again, if need be I'll crochet a trim around the edge to make it a little bigger.  Now on to the next project......

The best thing since.......

Oh my gosh - I love these blocking wires! I've had straight blocking wires for quite a while now but recently found these very thin flexible ones - they are outstanding! The perfect solution for edges like those on my shawl. This was the merino/tussah silk I spun from Butternut Woolens hand-dyed roving. The blocking wires are from InSpinKnitty on etsy. The pattern is called the Holden Shawlette by Mindy Wilkes, I found it on Ravelry. Obviously this is not a shawlette - I repeated the pattern 9 1/2 times to get a full size shawl. I think these colors will be great with jeans......little too warm out now for it but could wear it on the coast.

Busy as a bee........

Today I was as busy as a bee......I guess that saying means they're pretty busy. I started out with blocking the back and fronts of the knitted vest I'm working on. The next steps will be to sew the shoulder seams, pick up stitches along the sides for a patterned insert, then pick up the stitches on the centers fronts and neck and knit a pattern of slip stitches.

After the long boring job of pushing all those pins in to block the knitting I moved on to braiding, weighing, labeling, taking and editing pictures of hand-dyed roving - over 22 pounds of it. Good job to do while catching up on dvr'd tv programs. I used my new photo cube from Harbor Freight Co, it's a fold up white cube with a circular hole in one side. I laid a braid of each colorway in the cube and took the pictures - they turned out nice, I'm happy with my purchase. Then on to tying decorative yarn on 64 felted soaps and tagging them.

Tomorrow I've got to put all the acid dye supplies away.....dyes, tables, steamers, roaster, squirt bottles, buckets, etc. Rain and cooler weather on coming in so it's time to put it away. Am hoping to work on another cute idea I have, will post a picture if they turn out.