February Stuff

Ok. So I decided to get into shape this week. Actually, I've been gearing myself up to it for awhile, but today was the day I finally started. I went to Mountain High and got some shoes, Salomon XA Pro something or other running shoes with Gortex cuz it's wet out. And I bought some sweatpants that are soo terribly comfortable I'll have a hard time wearing anything else! LOL!So this afternoon I went to Morgan Middle School and walked a bit around the track. Briskly walked, actually. Then I ran half a lap, walked half a lap three times and then walked home. It took all of 20 minutes and I realized that my leg muscles have nooooo idea what running is all about! So. I'm hoping to be able to slowly build up to real running and not just this stop and start thing.

Knitting items of note:

I finally broke down and bought the yarn to make the Klaralund. I've been wanting to make this sweater for about 2 years, but couldn't justify spending that much on yarn (Noro Silk Garden is not extraordinarily expensive, but there's not a heck of a lot of yardage per skein.) I had tried a couple of times to knit it with my handspun, but never had enough of anything. I finished this on Wednesday and wore it Thursday and thoroughly adore it. I'm so glad I knit this!!!!

Pattern: Klaralund from Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton Hand Knitting Collection Book Two
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden in 245
Needles: Size 8
Joy Factor: Yipee!!!

I am now working on a pretty green wrap for the shop. And a pair of socks that I'm certain will be the death of me! I love the pattern, but it is seriously taking forever to knit!!!!

Also, I've joined Facebook and have been hanging out there a bit lately. And I've started playing Guild Wars. Talk about a time suck!!! It's way fun though. My character is named Cludda the Deathles and is a Ranger/Elementalist. Right now she's a level 15. It's taking forever to level now. Grrrrr.....

Finally a New Post!

Hello all! Been knitting and painting and haven't had a chance to put anything on here! Also, I got Guild Wars and have been playing that quite a bit. I am still keeping up with laundry and dishes and work, though, so I don't feel too bad about the hours I spend online killing skales and Grawls and Charrs.

Anyway, I finally broke down and bought some of the new Noro Silk Garden sock yarn. It's GLORIOUS!I love how the colors came out totally different from one sock to the other. One has a lot of pink and one has a lot of orange.

Pattern: Whitby from Knitting on the Road
Designer: Nancy Bush
Yarn: Noro Silk Garden Sock in 284
Needles: Size 3

Also, I finally used up my 12th Planet handspun corriedale that I got at the Shepherd's Extravaganza last year.

Pattern: Notions Purse
Designer: Me
Yarn: The 12th Planet Coiled Yarn
Needles: 9 circulars

I had a really hard time trying to figure out what to do with this coiled yarn, especially since I had so little yardage. It finally came to me when I was hunting around my dining room table for my yarn needles tin. It's lined with black cotton inside and has a snap closure.

Pattern: Felicity
Designer: Wanette Clyde
Yarn: The 12th Planet 2 ply
Needles: Sizes 4 and 5 16" circulars

I totally love this pattern! I went down a needles size on both and added 20 stitches because my handspun was sport weight and not worsted.

Pattern: Moria Cowl
Designer: Me
Yarn: The 12th Planet 2 ply
Needles: Size 5 16" circulars

I really enjoyed designing and knitting this. The colors and the way it fits reminded me of Moria. The leaf pattern is from an old pattern book that I have and after the first repeat I started taking out some of the decreases and adding rows so the leaves get bigger and bigger.

I've also knit a few things for the LYS. You can see them at The Dancing Ewe Yarn and Teas or at the Ravelry link to your right.

Ok. I guess that's all for now. It's snowing as I type this morning. I'm glad.

Stuff That's Happened...

So. Long time, no chat. Lots has been going on. Since the Kittitas County Fair we've had two massive spin-ins. The Fall Fiber Festival in Ellensburg in October was an amazing success. We had many come for the day and many more that heard about the event through the local paper and through random comments at our local farmer's market. Also, we had several gals visit who heard about it on Ravelry! Only two of the pictures I took weren't blurry, so here they are.

Everyone and their wheels!

Janelle creating some beautiful yarn.

Also, we had the Veteran's Day Spin In at Terry's house out in the country east of Ellensburg. I did get some good pictures from there. A lot of ladies were there and all of them had beautiful wheels and even more beautiful fleece to spin! Terry made some lovely lamb soup and someone brought pumpkin cookies (my favorite kind!) and there was plenty of coffee!. So here's some pics from the event:

My wheel in the sunshine.

Terry spinning on her Polonaise.

Some of Terry's sheep enjoying the sun.

A couple of weeks ago everyone at work went to the Wild Horse Wind Farm just east of town. While there I got some awesome photos.

The Kittitas Valley from the wind farm's meeting hall.

An old windmill with the new windmill behind. I like the old one better.

And then a few days ago we had one of the most amazing skies I've ever seen and so I took pictures of that so I could paint it.


About a month ago I decided to try my hand at painting with watercolors. I must say that I thoroughly enjoy it and have created several paintings already. If you go to my Flickr site you can view them there. Below is the first one I did which I gave to my dear friend Wendy for her birthday. It's of a garden in Montana (Great Falls maybe? Could have been Helena. Don't remember.)


So I would have let you all know about my knitting adventures, but it's taken two hours just to get this far and now it's time for bed. Good night and dream of the knitting to come!!!

Kittitas County Fair 2008

So, I spent most of last week at the Kittitas County Fair manning the Fiber Arts division with Mary and Wendy and Sue and Julie and Lynette and Amy. Yeah! It was really fun. I got only two red ribbons, the rest were blue and I won Best of Class for my 12th Planet Coiled Yarn. Mary won Best of Class and Superintendent Choice for her 1/2 Project Basket. She got all blues on her stuff, too!




Hope to see you next year!

Fire and Butterflies

I've been working on a lot of different stuff. Unfortunately, I have only successfully completed a few things. It seems like every time I start a project that I think is going to work out, it doesn't. And now that it's super hot out, I'm not much in the mood to knit or spin at all. I did some sewing, but even that didn't turn out all that great.

Here is the final pics of the Socks for Veronik that I actually started in January and finished finally last month.

YARN: Aracaunia Ranco Multi
NEEDLES: Size 1 double points
PATTERN: Socks for Veronik from Interweave Knits Holiday 2007

I loved the pattern and I love knitting with this yarn. But the socks started felted within a few hours of wearing them, so I won't be able to put them into the fair. Bummer.

Also, I used the Light My Fire yarn that I spun dk weight and knit a cute vest. It went very fast and is really comfortable. And it fits perfectly.

YARN: Handspun Superwash Merino in the Light My Fire colorway.
NEEDLES: Size 5 and 7 24" circulars
PATTERN: Tank Top, Long Version from Twilleys of Stamford, catalog 455
SIZE: Big enough to fit me! LOL!

I really love the way the yarn striped and how different it is from front to back. I have quite a bit left over, so I'm going to knit some socks to go with it.

Mostly my mind has been on God and what He's doing in the church, here locally and throughout the world. And I've been reading a lot. I just finished a book called Blessed Child by Bill Bright and Ted Dekker (Ted Dekker is one of my most favorite authors!) It was very intense and really made me want to see the Kingdom of God in a new way. The other books I'm reading is Red Moon Rising by Pete Greig and Under the Overpass by Mike Yankoski. I keep wondering what I can do that is daring for God, like these guys.

I was leaving this morning for church and discovered a visitor in my lilies next to the front door. He was having way too much fun and didn't mind me watching him, so I ran back inside and grabbed my camera, hoping he wouldn't fly away. When I got back outside, he wasn't in my lilies anymore, but I saw him hopping about on the lilies next door. I crept over there and got some awesome shots of him.
It wasn't long before my cat, Gus, decided he wanted to know what was up. He crept up to the deck above the flowers and stalked the butterfly for several minutes. He made a jump for the little visitor, but looked more like a falling brick than a ferocious cat and didn't get the snack he was looking for.


BTW: The cabin in the banner is the Olmstead family cabin at Olmstead State Park off the Kittitas Highway. I went with a rather large crew from work and volunteered time to pull weeds and lay chipped wood on the trails. It was really fun, despite the heat and the mosquitos. They would love to have volunteers out there any Wednesday and Saturday. For information, just click this link!

Sorry!

I have really been neglecting this! No posts since May and it's already July! I will try to remedy that this week and get some new pics up of fun stuff I've done and projects I've finished, etc. It's super hot here, like in the 100s quite a bit. It cooled off for Independence Day, even had a beautiful thunder and lightning show that morning!

I'm going to leave y'all with a picture from the local Dachshund's on Parade and I'll be back in action here shortly!

Not Too Sick to Knit

I have spent the last week in bed with mononucleosis. But, I have not been too sick to knit and have finished two projects! Yeah! The first is the lovely Tangled Yoke Cardigan:

PATTERN: Tangled Yoke Cardigan from Interweave Knits
YARN: Rowan Felted Tweed in Phantom
NEEDLES: Size 5, 4, and 0

This pattern took me a little over a month to complete. I purchased the 10 balls of yarn that the pattern called for, but only used 7. Also, I used size 4 24" circulars and size 0 double points instead of purchasing the 40" circulars that they wanted me to. I did use the size 5 40" circs, though, in order to fit all the stitches on there once you get the sleeves added. The pattern was very simple to follow. I truly love this sweater more than any other I've knitted to date. Particularly because there are no seams anywhere. I hate sewing up seams!

The other project I finished was the Frock Camisole:
PATTERN: Frock Camisole from Interweave Knits
YARN: Royal Llama Silk
NEEDLES: Size 7

This pattern was super easy and only took about a week and a half to knit. The size ended up being perfect. I used all 7 of the balls of yarn I bought, with enough left over to make some wrist warmers. The yarn was great. Really soft and not at all itchy. The color is great also.

A little while ago, I used some left over Blue Sky Alpaca Alpaca Silk to make these Wristlettos that I found in a recent copy of Spin Off Magazine. I really like them and plan to knit a couple more pairs in different colors.
Some other stuff I did, was last week I went to The Dancing Ewe's one year anniversary dinner at The Palace. It was really fun. Several of us brought knitting and I got to hang out with some really great ladies who love to knit. There were door prizes and cake and yummy food, also.

I also got a skein done of the Light My Fire fiber I bought over in Puyallup. The results are awesome and I'm excited to knit with it. I'm going to knit a vest, I think.


Ok. That's all for now. Mary and I were both too ill to go to the Fiber with a Twist Spin-In down in Richland. The first time we've missed it in years! Oh, well. I have enough fiber to spin and yarn to knit and if I'd gone, I'd have only spent money! LOL!