all the news that's fit to knit

Howdy all!
Well after nearly a month of no posts, I have a great deal to report on, but no camera with which to do it. So you'll have to bear with me until I can figure out the picture situation. With the notable exception of seeing my beloved sister and my favorite niece my holidays were the absolute pits. I can't go into detail here (it's simply too horrid to publish, even in a blog only one person reads), but suffice it to say that I have to seriously re-think my holiday plans for next year. On the positive side, as I noted, I got to see my sweet sister. She's definitely on the knitting road folks, and I'm so proud! She learned to knit in the round in under an hour! I hope she's working away on that hat and those mittens right now. I also helped my niece finish her first knitted piece ever, a little flower to pin to her messenger bag. My heart swells with pride people! I'm representin' the knit! It helped my mood considerably that dear sis bought me the yummiest skeins of koigu. mmmmmmm koigu. Thanks to you my dear *HUG* And. And! my lovely gf bought me a swift. Finally a swift! It's a tabletop "nifty swift" from Aurora (sorry, couldn't find link to the company) and I love love love love love it. I have already used it about a dozen times. so nice! It accommodates most skeins and doesn't need a clamp. Now I just need a ball winder....
In knitting news I have ripped and re-worked the intarsia on the Weasely sweater twice and still hate it, but I'm almost done, I just have the shoulder grafting and the sleeves left to do. But I may run out of yarn and I already bought out the LYS of this colorway. sigh. I may have to order some from the internet. I hate doing that, as I would much rather give Linda my business. But the sweater must go on! I loathe intarsia. I keep pulling it too tight and it looks messy and puffy. icky icky poo.
In other news I am down to the body section on my handspun merino top-down raglan. I need to spin more in order to finish it. I LOVE this pattern, so easy to follow and modify. I've started a second one in cascade 22o heathered green that I'm nearly done with. just the bottom ribbing and the sleeves left. I should finish it this weekend. My mother gave me a lovely gift certificate to my LYS that bought me more than enough yarn for this sweater, the last skein left in the store of Elsepeth Lavold for the Weasley, and a set of dpns for the sleeves. happy happy joy joy. There, I just dated myself (more or less) for anyone who got the Ren and Stimpy ref.
As far as I could tell all my friends and family liked their holiday knits. I'm not sure I'm going to go that far next year. Sooooooooo much lost work time, but I learned so much from doing them.
Now that we are back and I have the remainder of January off from work, I will not be blogging that much. Why, you ask, when I will have all that free time? Au contraire my sweets, I will be even busier working on the dissertation, the four grant proposals I'm writing, and taking research trips around the country. I also hope to get the article out soon! This is particularly sad as we finally joined the 21st century and got DSL. I can finally upload pics without it taking an hour. Now, if only I had a camera with which to take said pictures....Can you tell I'm counting the days until tax rebates? But I should save that money for Maryland Sheep and Wool. Fleeces, beautiful fleeces!!!!!!!!!!! To use with the new drum carder! So wish me a busy January. Don't worry, I'll check in occasionally, but after I finish the Cascade 220 top-down I may not be knitting that much this month(GASP) ok, so I might be, but I'm trying to balance it. really.
In February I will be starting a KAL for the amazing snuggles project. Not only will it use up all the horrid acrylic in the group stash, but it's an incredible project deserving of all knitters' attention. Check it out. I'm off to do multiple LOC searches! yay DSL! TTFN

Lacy goodness for all!

The wonders of technology and my inability to make the most of them never cease to amaze me. I finally have some images of kiri, some lace-weight spinning I'm working on, and sundry other things. However the amount of camera wrangling I went through to obtain these mediocre images is truly mind boggling. I haven't said much about kiri because I am a little shy about showing you my first big lace project. Especially since I need to re-block. But I love Polly's pattern, it's so easy and fun and provides a sophisticated shawl with minimal effort. Especially when you use DK weight and size 6 needles. If you've never tried a shawl before, I highly recommend kiri, as so many other ravelers and bloggers have noted. I am almost done with holiday knitting. Can you hear my wrists breathing a sigh of relief? But the big news, dear reader, the big news is I got my solstice present early. Yes, the gf read my mind and splurged. I am now the proud owner of a Strauch petite drum carder. I managed to card up the entire half-fleece I've been working on for weeks with hand cards in only a couple of hours. I have scratched knuckles, pricked fingers (mostly because I ignore directions printed on machinery with ridiculous abandon) and am deliriously happy. The gf told me she thought the real present would be letting me play with it for 2 weeks before we head home for the family holidays. I love her. She really gets it, even though there's not a single fiber lovin' bone in her body. I guess I should say she gets me. As you can see from this picture, one of our furry babies decided she would help me card. She's our little helper girl, this one. Sorry about that image, I took it at night and my best attempts at photoshopping it could not help the humungous glare issue. Kitty cuteness trumps bad glare any day!

So in terms of holiday knitting, I only (HA!) have a sweater, a hat, a marley's ghost scarf, and a shawl to finish. In two weeks. No problem. Did I mention I'm spinning the yarn for marley's ghost? And I have to give it to the recipient in two days? And I'm only about 1/3 of the way done. Because I ran out of yarn. And I haven't spun up more yet. Can you tell what I'll be doing tonight? Ok, enough angst...more yarn. I just bought this, probably one of my last yarn purchases for quite some time, mostly because I couldn't stand knowing there was malabrigo laceweight at the LYS and I didn't try to get some of it for my very own. So here, I give you 2 skeins of fabulous turquoise malabrigo lace. I'm doing the large rectangle with leaf pattern from VLT. I'm only two repeats in and I LOVE the pattern (I have since I bought the book, I just didn't feel ready to tackle it until now) and I am head over heels completely infatuated with this yarn. I won't discuss my thoughts about it on this blog, because they're just too racy. I'll leave it to your imagination. Maybe that's more dangerous....hey, yarn! This is black merino and silver silk spun into a lace-weight single. I'm lovin' this fiber combo. It's prepared rovings from Louet. I bought a whole pound. YUM!

The second image is some cinnamon-colored alpaca I bought at Maryland Sheep and Wool this year. More lace-weight, although I think I'll ply this, would put it more at a fingering or DK weight...but since I like heavier shawls, that's not a problem!

ok, enough with the yarn pron, I'm off for now. I need to re-shoot the madiera lace, it keeps arguing with me about its closeups. Finicky thing!