Knit Girllls Spin-a-long

A few months a go I was lucky enough to participate in the April spin-a-long for the Knitgirllls. The lovely Tempted dyed a few sheep's worth of super-wash Blue Face Leicester wool for us all and it was fun to see how different ever one spun the yarn and how it all knit up.
Here is what I did with my 4 o.z. of purple, blue and white with hints of pink:


Singles spun from the full braid, not split.


I then navajo plied the yarn so I would get color blocks as an effect.


I knit it up into some Albina (I'm calling them SALbina) armwarmers. If you spin this pattern is awesome for plugging your numbers into to get all the math done. I almost wish it was half excel spread sheet so it would literally do the math for you. Hmm. Maybe some day.

house hold and office odds and ends

I love thrift shoping. I love looking at the cool things and figuring out where they came from as well as finding something that fits in the bare spots in our home.

Like this terrific thread painting someone spent a lot of time making at one point. It has gorgeous harvest gold colors:

Some jars I picked up to start terrariums in for our office -- 1 month later they still look pretty much the same. I'm hoping for some moss growth. I also wanted to find some fimo to make wee gnomes for them but no luck in my house.


Lately I've been busy with items to spruce up my new office at work after my recent promotion.
I found this great cross-stitch kit from 1975 and got busy stitching turtles:


I bought 2 prints by a student (they depict Philadelphia and traveling to from and around center city). She just graduated this year and worked super hard the whole time she was here. I hope her career goes succesfully!

And I covered an old magnet board from ikea in some light green woodgrain fabric. I also made button magnets to match:

I hung up some curtains, bought a gerbera daisy, and started that big ole green plant from a cutting a year a go! look at how much it's grown!

cozies. i love them.

made some tissue box cozies for the cold season this spring out of hand-spun.

Late Winter Spinning

I spent time spinning this late winter, trying to get closer on my quest for a nice fingering weight yarn while keeping the fiber stash under control.

I spun all my singles up, playing with ideas of what colors to ply with what.



I plied the mixed color with some cranberry singles to get this gorgeous yarn:

The multicolor is from Woolgatherings -- I highly recommend her fiber, was not compacted, spun smoothly and she has gorgeous color sense. This was BFL silk, combined with a cranberry braid I picked up from Clover Leaf Farms at Maryland Sheep and Wool a few years ago.

Then I spun up the white corriedale all on it's own. I love this fiber. I want more of it. It spun like a breeze.


I also spun my cloudlover fiber up from the Fallmageddon swap we did on the Knit Girlll's board on ravelry. Plied with najavo plying technique:

cat sweater mania

I saw a cat sweater from the 1986 Holiday Vogue Knitting that I had to have.
Classic 80's, loose fit, giant tube of a sweater with a ridiculous picture on it.

So I did what any reasonably crazy person would do and ordered my copy of the out of print magazine off of ebay and bought the yarn while I waited 2 weeks for it to get here from Canada. Of course I needed to make sure I got suitable yarn for such a sweater that I want to last a while and wear well -- I went with Vanna's Choice.

Finally my 1986 Vogue Knitting Holiday issue got here. Chock full of terrific advertising:



I cast on immediately and with in one weekend had half a sweater back done:


Here's me starting the front with my cat sweater on the needles, cat chart on the legs, and fat kitty cat hanging out with me.


Here's my 2/3rd of the way done front. I'm almost at the nose!!


Trying to pick out the right eye color:


And then it was done:

from christmas to now, f.o. parade

Been absent from here for the past 2 months because of the large amount of projects and work going on in life.
Since Christmas we have: started playing another MMO and stopped, paused work on the house while we rebuild our finances to start on the next area, joined a gym and many more things.
Since the last time I posted I was given some new job responsibilities which was very good for me. keeps me entertained and out of trouble at work but it is also stressful and without a pay-raise or title change. I keep looking at it from the standpoint that I am still very fortunate to have a job and that things will get better.

I have also joined the 11 shawls in 2011 group to help kill off some of my lace stash while making beautiful things. I joined the group to try and keep me motivated to make larger projects while also working on smaller items on the train. Inspired by dryactivebeast I've also decided to kick the butt of any unfinished objects I still have to complete (the scrapghan, the tempted sweater, and the candy corn knee highs).

So the FO parade begins:

a sweet hat out of shelter yarn for Matt's noggin


a reusable coffee sleeve from the leftovers - the pattern is from the lovely Sarahlou who gave it to me as a barter for a pattern layout (as well as her other patterns):


then the Hera Mountain Ridge shawl (the colors were inspired by a friend from my graduate courses who does lovely portrait paintings as well as abstracts. It took a long time to get through all that garter then the feather and fan. This is shawl 1 of 11 for 2011. Here it is from beginning to end:

here's Otis helping me photograph it:



A gaptastic cowl for the coworker who left and who's job responsibilities I enherited:



Some flip-top mittens with flip top thumbs for a commission:


2 strands of crocheted heart garland for valentine's day -- one of the fun and challenging things about having a house is not having any holiday decorations. Especially where we are everyone, and I mean everyone, decorates for holidays.


Then I spun this Frabjous fibers into some heavy fingering weight yarn and knit it into a Wendyknit's Argus shawlette for the knitgirllls shawlette swap. The middle photo best shows the color.




And while I was in a lovey-dovey mood from my heart garland I also finally remember to take better photos of the Lovebug socks I knit out of Tempted's goodgrrl yarn in the Pin Up colorway. (p.s. she is dying a butt-ton of fiber for a Knitgirllls spin-a-long and she also does custom orders).



Frsh off the needles we have a handspun pair of dragon gloves (if you look back 3 posts you can see the fiber I spun up for these)



I'm going to try and keep the blog more active in the new year. I think you will all be pretty psyched for one of the projects I just cast on and will share with you soon.

office redone

Here are some photos of our redone office (before and after) that we finished right before Christmas. Note the tree and other Christmas decor in the room.
So here's before:

the first one is before we ripped out the camel colored carpet and closet and closet doors.

This is the back corner (where the orange fabric chair is now, next to the futon).

This is where the bookshelf & desk are.

This is where our red closet and my desk and yarn wall are set up.

Now for the after photos:





http://www.flickr.com/photos/halfbisqued/5283592434/in/photostream/

The last photo is a shot of the ceiling madalion and new fan we put up to replace the really crappy brown fan that was up there.