Sunday, July 17, 2011

More Blocked Items

After Evenstar was finished, I decided to take advantage of my mats being  set up on the deck and blocked a couple more items.

My Dragon Scale Shawl was finished two years ago ~ sort of.  I had a major mishap with twenty rows of lace.  Those rows had to be frogged and re-knit twice to correct the problem.  I hated the shawl at that point, so I just did the six rows of garter stitch edging, bound off, and tossed it in a bag in my bedroom.  A couple months ago, I decided it wasn't fair to leave it like that.  I took it out, pulled out the edging, added two more repeats and re-knit the edging.  I'm much happier with it now and love it again. 

I had also used the same yarn to make a pair of socks to sort of match the dragon theme.  Shur'Tugal was a fun pattern to knit.  Here they are blocking.


Last Sunday was a beautiful day so we decided to take a ride.  We took the Lincoln.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Blocking My Evenstar Shawl

I'm doing a little happy dance over here.  I took advantage of a lovely warm day and blocked my finished Evenstar Shawl.  It was a bit of a challenge since I didn't have quite enough space on the eight 2 x 2 foot squares.  I need one more, but it worked out in the end.  I just blocked the two last spots after the rest was done.

Here's a picture of it while it was still pinned out on the deck.  The breeze was flipping the end mats up, so I had to weight them down a bit. 


Tonight is my knitting guild meeting and I'm planning to bring it for show and tell.  :)

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Fair Fun, Tour de Fleece Spinning, Downpours!

Friday was a rainy day with random thunderstorms in the morning and afternoon.  I was a little worried since I was doing a spinning/fiber demo with Happy Hands at the annual North Stonington Fair in CT during the afternoon and evening.  My wishing for the weather to clear seemed to be working as I packed the car and headed out.  Sadly, I guess I didn't wish hard enough.  We had downpours off and on the whole time we were in the Sheep Barn.  One of the worst cloudbursts/downpours was when it was time to pack up and go home.  I said a quick good night, grabbed my wheel I had covered with a big black trash bag, and made a mad dash when there was a lull in the storm. It started to downpour and I was still soaked by the time I got the wheel in the back seat.  Driving home was a bit of a challenge, but the rain tapered off about half way home. 

Saturday was a beautiful, warm day and we had lots of people coming through the barn. I even got to be a judge with Sandi for the Lead Line competition. 

Here's a picture of the bobbin after Saturday's spinning.  It was empty on Friday when I got there.  I still have about half the braid to do.  If I had spun this my regular thickness, I probably would have finished the braid.  I also got a little spindling in but don't have a picture of that yet.  The skein of yarn is the first 4 ounce braid which was finished Thursday evening at home.  It's 424 yards of Navajo ply. I'm quite happy with my Tour de Fleece progress so far.












Evenstar has 3 repeats left and the grafting of the two edges and then will be finished. I can't wait to soak and block this. My next project is to try to finish the "sweater that never ends" a/k/a my version of Ditto. The poor sweater has been two years in the making. Although, if you read my blog, you already know it was actually almost finished and semi-frogged due to sizing issues.

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Happy July 4th..... On Your Mark, Get Set, Spin!!

Tour de Fleece 2011 started this past Saturday, July 2.  It runs until Sunday, July 24th.  I'm participating but have a limited goal.  I joined 4 teams.  No trying to spin as much of a whole fleece as I can in 22 days this year.  Since I'm part of Corgi Hill Farm's team, I have to spin her fiber.  I had a hard time picking one from the stash, but the final choice was "Carnival Glass".  There's 8 ounces in my stash.  I'm not sure if I'll finish it all because it's coming out so fine.  The colors just pop out at you and the shine is gorgeous.  It's a Merino/Bamboo/Silk blend and spins like thinly poured melted butter.  ♥



Here's a picture of the 2 braids and three days of spinning.  I still have 1.45 ounces of braid one to spin. There was  little Wensleydale batt bite included with these and I plan to spin that on one of my spindles.  I need serious spindle practice time so I can improve that ability.

Both these fiber projects will be coming to North Stonington Fair in Connecticut with me this week. Happy Hands Fiber Arts is doing the fiber arts demo in the sheep barn on Thursday and Friday evening from 4:30 until 9p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to about 4 p.m. If you are in the area stop by and say hi.

Evenstar is almost off the needles.  I have 50 of the 56 edging repeats done as of last night.  Oooo!  the anticipation of having that finished!  I can't wait to block it with my interlocking boards.  The plan is to lay it out on the deck on a sunny day and have it dry super fast.

Today was busy with doctor appointments for me.  The eye doctor one went well.  Although, I need glasses for reading and doing the fine stuff like knitting lace.  :(  Hey, as I told some online friends, at least it's not bifocals or even trifocals.  :)

The other appointment was meh.  I got my diabetes meds tweaked and found out I've been taking my iron supplement too early in the day.  It conflicts with my thyroid med.  This explains why my butt has been dragging lately.  I've had no energy and just want to sleep a lot.  Now I've adjusted the schedule, I'm hoping for an energy burst to happen in a couple days.

That's if for me for now.  Enjoy the rest of the week if you are on vacation.  Stay cool in the heat.