New on the needles.....

New on the needles is the Sampler Cowl.  This is out of my own hand-dyed, handspun - merino/tussah silk. I'll probably have enough to either knit a matching hat or fingerless mitts, or both. I'll work on this in the evenings while we watch tv. Here's the link to the free pattern on Ravelry - Sampler Cowl

Almost forgot

 I almost forgot to take pictures of the circle scarf I blocked this morning - it didn't take but 4 hours to dry outside. This scarf is Pei by Michele Wang - it only takes around 225 yards of a fingering weight or sport weight yarn. Perfect for those small amounts of handspun still on my shelves. I knit this out of handspun merino/tussah from Ashland Bay in the concord colorway - it was leftover from a bigger project.

Here is it doubled around the neck.  I can see there will be more of these in my future - fast knits and a great use of smaller amounts of handspun from fun fibers I/ve spun.

Love this shawl

Here's the shawl that was blocked yesterday - I love it. I spun the yarn out of some mystery fiber I received in a raffle basket at a conference. This will make a lovely spring shawl but I think if I wore it over brown it would work for autumn too. I might have to knit this pattern again in the not too distant future..........but first back to mukluk knitting for holiday gifts........

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..........

Blocking......a necesssary job

Yesterday I blocked two of the shawlettes knit a few months back - it's a necessary chore or the lovely lace design will be totally lost and the knit item will just look like a scrunchy mess. These are still pinned out, can't wait to unpin them and see how they turned out. These are holiday gifts for later in the year - I can show them as these two don't read my blog but once I start blocking other ones they will not be seen here as they are also gifts.  The shawlette I started last week is almost finished, the peachy one, I worked on it while riding in the car on our road trip.

Yesterday I also did another chore, a dreaded one...........weighing out a big order of roving to sell in one of my etsy shops. Sam helped me which makes the job goes three times as fast as just one person doing it - as he says, we have a 'process'. Then I spent much time on administrivia putting it into inventory and updating the etsy shop. So, glad to have that behind me........until I place the next order........or decide to call it quits on the roving side of my business.........

Happy Father's Day to all the father's out there. I miss my Dad terribly, we lost him in 2007.

Ginkgo Shawl

I wanted to finish the ginkgo shawl last night but just couldn't knit the last 2 rows and bind off - too tuckered out. So, this morning I did something so unlike me - I knit, usually knitting is reserved for evenings and knitting/spinning get-together's. I had a goal to get it blocked today as the temp would be 90 and very dry - the shawl will be dry in a matter of hours. I could have waited 'til the weekend when it's supposed to be 100 but then I won't want to be outside putting those blocking wires and pins in. I hope I love this shawl after it's blocked, I like it now but I want to love it. The ginkgo leaf is in the foreground, I guess I expected it to show up a bit more. I was picking autumn colors but I do wish I had picked colors closer in value. If I love this once finished I have plans to spin yarn to make another using plum and chartreuse.....unless I change my mind......which may very well happen......

This pattern is the Ginkgo Shawl by Connie Peng from yellowcosmo designs. It can be found on Ravelry and bought there.......I noticed it was $4 as opposed to the $6 I paid locally.....will remember to check on Ravelry first in the future. It was fun to look at others who have knit it and the color combinations they picked out. Some added more ginkgo leaves, which I loved. Some knit the leaf in a totally different color, loved that effect too. Ideas for the next one I knit...........

Change of plans

 Change in plans yesterday in the ball of yarn I planned to use for the next shawlette. I was just a bit too worried about how the striping would turn out. I wasted a lot of time fretting over it before I pulled out this ball of Zauberball singles in reds. Yes, this will make a striking shawlette.

Current fruit infused water in the pitcher - mandarins and limes.......very light and fresh tasting......I need to buy some other fruit and some mint soon........

I'm still here........

.....just been gone so hadn't posted. I didn't take many pictures this past 9 days but here are a few showing what I've been up to.

The major reason for the longer than usual trip to the beach cottage was to paint - argh. I've painted so many houses over the last 38 years - I'm tired of it - I don't want to paint anymore, but it must be done. Since we bought this house 5 years ago we've been slowly updating/fixing it up. We need to get the nasty smelly carpet out of there and lay some composite flooring but first we need to paint all the windows, doors, trim, baseboard, doorjambs, etc.  I love stained wood trim but this was an ugly dark color so we decided to paint it white. What a job!  First a deglosser to clean it off and prep it for paint, then a primer, then at least 2 coats of paint, in some areas 3 and even a few spots needed 4. Here's Sam taking down the blinds in prep for painting.

Here's Sam putting the blinds back up after we painted - we painted every single window/trim and door jamb/trim in the house. The doors are started, baseboard to come on another trip over but that's a quick painting job in comparison to all the windows in the house....much of the baseboard we pulled out to paint.  Unfortunately we can't do anything about the black windows and grids that are in-between the panes - we just have to live with those.  I love how much bigger the rooms look now. I should have taken a pic of the hallway - it must be only 14 feet long, very narrow and it has 6 doors in it - yes 6 doors!  It looks so much better without all that dark wood.

Here's the dining room put back together....ignore those leaves all over the floor that were blown in the back door.

I don't remember if I posted a pic of the quilted placemats actually in use or not so here they are.

I may have shown one of these tables before, just had to share again as these are my favorite types of tables and I have several of them and will buy more if I see them at a good price. I remember my grandmother having one by her back door when I was growing up. Sam says I brake for any kind of small table but especially these. I don't know what era they originally came from - the 30's or maybe 40's???  Anyone know?

I finished knitting a pair of sox - my second in this colorway as one pair are a gift.

I started another pair of sox just because there always has to be a pair of sox on the needles.

Started another secret project with dropped stitches.

I snuck in a few hours to weave and finish off the towel warp over at the beach cottage......that day I was really tired of painting.........

Here's the pile of towels just pulled off the loom, different colored wefts, some plaids, some solids....now these need to be washed and hemmed.

Fire over near Bandon Dunes Golf Resort this past week while we were at the beach cottage (pic pulled from the local paper website). I had been painting windows on the back side of the house, finished up and walked to the front door and saw smoke enveloping us. Silly me not having fire on the mind over there - they can just as easily have fires as we can here in the valley. Fire started on the beach by someone with an illegal fire, it caught the beach grass and gorse on fire which is highly flammable. Luckily the fire was put out quickly before spreading.  The town and miles around it burned to the ground in 1936, from 30 miles inland right to the beach.

Final shot of wind surfers.  Sorry it's so hard to see, we were far away and I only had my phone with me to take the shot. There are windsurfers with the sails on their boards and there are the ones being pulled along by kites. This spot is famous for windsurfing - it's just north of Gold Beach, around an hour south of our place.

So now I deal with, as I call it, re-entry - have much to do as I have cataract surgery this week and since I'm not getting the standard lens but getting a premium one that will give me a better range of vision and correct my astigmatism I have some restrictions on close up work/reading for a week. Last night after getting home I pulled and boxed up orders so they're ready to mail tomorrow. Today I will be tackling the huge Ashland Bay roving order that came in over 2 weeks ago that I ignored......I'm out of way too many colors in the shop so I must deal with it now.

Slipper sox

These are super comfy thick slipper sox - they're made using worsted wool, I'm using Lamb's Pride Bulky. These are super fast to knit.  I'm making these and another pair for gifts for my nieces - can see the need for a pair on my feet in the not too distant future. The free pattern is by Veronica Van - it's available on Ravelry.

Shawl - almost ready for a milk run

The Milk Run Shawl is almost completed. I'm in the process of binding off now. Took two pictures trying to get the ruffled edge but it only shows so-so in photos.

Had a minor crisis knitting two evenings ago - the cord on my 60" long circular needle pulled out of the end when I only had around 10" left to knit on the last row. Many stitches fell off, and there were yarnovers in those stitches - yikes! So, I gingerly set it aside and shed a few tears wondering how to tackle the repair without having to back out several rows of probably around 1000 stitches (I made my shawl much bigger than the pattern). Yesterday I superglued the cable back in, which I knew wouldn't work for any real knitting but thought it would be ok for trying to work the repair. I kept going back and forth in the area where the stitches had dropped and eventually got everything close to being correct. In the yarn over areas there might be twists in the wrong direction but it will never show because it sits to the back of the ruffle. So, now I'm very carefully binding off with hopes the superglue holds the cable until I'm finished - 1/3 of the way through, so far, so good.

I finally started weaving on the towel warp I put on before we went to the coast for 9 days - felt good to be throwing the shuttle.....in-between running up and down the stairs doing laundry and packing up orders.....

Before it got unbearably hot this morning I worked outside on blocking the shawl recently spun and knit. It dried in no time laying out on the blocking foam on the patio table. Here it is blocked......I can't wait for cool weather to wear it.....or a trip over the mountain range to the much cooler coast......