Fresh off the needles...

Just finished these today. These are the AllSpunUp handspun socks I've been working on. With a car ride to Poulsbo and back yesterday afternoon, I ended up having an abundance of knitting time and was able to get these done.

Also, my wheel has found a new home. I'll be shipping her to it on Monday. I'm very thankful to have had her, but I'm also looking forward to the new one.



In the mean time I'm checking these guys off and getting started on finishing the next UFO knitting project on my list:

#2. Hubby's work socks (currently about 60% done).

If I push it, I may be able to finish all of my unfinished sock projects by the time the new wheel comes. It's good I'm getting them done now. I probably wont want to pick up a pair of needles for 2-3 weeks after the Minstrel arrives.

Amazing...

I love summer in the Pacific Northwest. It's warm enough for t-shirts, but the heat is rarely uncomfortable. It still rains, but not enough to bother the spirit (the wind is a nuisance some years-but that's another story). The green things grow with speed far surpassing the speed at which I am capable of weeding, and it's just lovely....



I even have some delicate little strawberries turning red- I don't know if I will end up with enough strawberries to make anything yummy, still, if I see one single deer come near them this year I may have to buy a gun. Mmmm... venison steaks (with home-made strawberry jam?).



I still have not planted any annuals in the flower bed (shame on me) but I'm heading out later today to buy some. I'm really not the gardening type but seeing as we're trying to sell the house I'm going to give it my best shot this year.



The lavender is blooming everywhere I look and I'm encouraged when I see fuzzy little bumblebees swarming all over it. Lavender is so popular around this area. The neighboring town of Sequim is preparing for it's annual Lavender Festival next month and even if you're not particularly nutters about lavender the smell is really something you can appreciate. Walking into one of the stores on the lavender farms is an experience. The first breath you take when you walk through the door is intoxicating (in a good way).

Aside from the plant life I noticed that the snow is nearly gone from the mountains. I'm going to try keeping myself motivated to work on and inside the house through July and maybe if enough work is done by then, August can become a month of rewarding our household with hiking, fishing and camping. Mid to late August is spectacular around here, especially if you head out west and up into the mountains. The Olympic National Park is one of the many reasons I can't picture myself living anywhere but the Pacific Northwest.

The knitting is coming along well, if I get enough work done today I might be able to make it through the heel turn of my second sock. I've also been spinning (just barely) with a drop spindle, but it's very slow in coming. I miss spinning on a wheel. Badly.

The waiting begins...

I have only had an ad (for the sale of the Joy) in the paper for a day now. No calls. Seriously dissappointing... did I mention I'm not very patient when it comes to this kind of thing?

Yesterday morning when I woke up I immeadiately went to the paper-box to get the paper to check my ad and found that my ad wasn't there. So right off I called the paper and placed an ad (the old-fashioned way) as my online ad placement was unsuccessful.

This morning was a repeat of yesterday morning except that my ad was there. I was very pleased, except for not having a single call about the wheel all day long. I was hysterical every time the phone rang (I even threw myself from the shower, dripping, to answer a call).



Alas, day one is over, there's six more to go till the ad is over.

In all this time I don't think I realized how attached I've become to this wheel. I desperately want it sold, but in the mean time I keep entertaining the thought of getting it out because I want to spin so much. I've even been entertaining the thought that if it doesn't sell in a week that maybe I should just keep selling handspun 'till I make enough to buy the wheel I want to replace it with. It might not actually take that long when considering that the Etsy shop has been doing pretty good- at least when you consider how slow I am (some of the sellers on Etsy seem to be able to pump out gorgeous handspun like machines or sweat-shop laborers... as much as I love spinning I don't want to be chained to my wheel). If I get a yarn or two out every week I might even be able to afford the new wheel come mid-autumn.

My mind just keeps going around and around the situation. I've even thought about throwing my moral compass out the window and just buying the wheel I want, but I know it's wrong. I even know that my husband would ultimately let me get away with it (dissapproving as he would be) but I don't want to dissappoint him. For once, I think I'd also like to not be dissappointed in myself, which I would be if I bought a new wheel without selling the old one.

I hope day two of waiting goes better than day one.

On a better note, I'm getting a lot more knitting done. I hadn't quite put it together that the reason my knitting has been going so slow was because I've been spinning so much. The last couple of days I've been working on a pair of socks.

I'm knitting them with this handspun BFL yarn bought from Allspunup on Etsy. They're turning out really beautiful. I'm going to wait to post pictures of them untill they're all finished. I imagine I'll be done with them in another 2-3 days. After that I'll be finishing a pair of socks for my hubby.

I'm actually a little glad I'm so far behind in my knitting. As long as I can keep my focus on knitting, it should help me to keep my mind off of the other thing.

Taking a break...

I've been spinning like a crazy lady lately and here are a few of my latest efforts. This one is about 255 yards of handspun/hand-dyed 2-ply BFL fingering-DK weight yarn in deep olive greens, dark grey and plum.



The second is 340 yards of handspun/hand-dyed 2-ply superwash merino sock yarn. I love the colors: there's browns, golden browns and just about every beautiful rosey shade of pink from pale petal pink to deep magenta. If I had given this one a fun name it would have been Rosey Cotton Dancin'.



And this last one just came off the wheel late this afternoon. It's just over 275 yards of handspun/hand-dyed 2-ply BFL sock yarn in yellows, light greens and navy blue. This one really surprised me. When I first saw the roving after I dyed it I thought it was hideous.
However, it decided that it was going to turn out lovely no matter what I thought of it. Shame on me for judging it so harshly.




It also happens to be the last one off the Joy. I am taking a short break (hopefully short) from spinning while I put the Joy up for sale and purchase a new wheel. I hope the Joy sells quickly because I'm not known for my patience when it comes to spinning/knitting goodies. At least it should give me some time to work on the house and catch up on my knitting (I have loads of socks that need finishing).

I have done a lot of reading and asking around in forums and with all that information, decided that a Kromski Minstrel (with the mahogany finish- it's just too pretty to pass up) will be my next wheel. Wish me luck!

So much for plans...

I'm such a fickle person...

Yesterday, I was planning on waiting till I had the last yarn done before doing a listing. This morning my plan went out the window along with my patience, and I just decided to go ahead and list the 5 things that were ready (the two yarns from yesterday's post and 3 of the four SW merino rovings- I should be able to list the fourth one tomorrow).

The first yarn from the yesterday's post is aready sold... Get 'em while they're hot! =)

Soon...

Just a quick note to say that there will be a shop update soon. It will be my biggest update so far, which is good, because it will probably be my only update for the month of June. I might sneak something in near the end of June but I'm not going to push myself too hard, as my husband and I are trying to get our home ready to sell.

There will be this one- a gorgeous handspun navajo 3-ply sock yarn. It's very colorful and if I remember correctly there is about 380 yards here.



There will also be this one- A 2-ply handspun SW merino sock yarn (fingering/DK weight). It's beautiful, with blues, browns, greens and white. This one totals roughly 330 yards and is going to be very difficult for me to sell. It's very, very pretty.





There will also be another 2-ply handspun BFL sock yarn, in plum, olive green and dark grey (it should be on the wheel in another couple of days) as well as four hand dyed SuperWash merino rovings for sale (also very pretty).

Tentatively, the update will happen no later than June 14th. It should give me plenty of time to finish everything and allow for a sufficient window of drying time. I'm kind of waiting to get my new reading glasses before I do the update- my eyes have been giving me too much trouble to sit at the computer for that long without them.

Surprise

I have been with my husband for over eight years and it amazes me how often he can still surprise me.

Most of the time my husband treats my knitting with indifference. And sometimes even with out-and-out loathing. He sees it as something that takes time away from productivity around the house and from, well... him.

He didn't much appreciate the socks I've knit for him (he thanked me, but looked at them kind of distainfully at the same time- only wearing them when he's out of other clean socks) and I had pretty much given up on the idea of knitting anything else for him. Period. When suddenly, he threw me a curve ball.

A few weeks ago he actually asked me to knit socks for him for his work. He's entering into a management position and he wants to have 'nicer-looking' socks. In the stupor that followed his request I think I repeatedly (perhaps as many as 5 or 6 times) asked him, "What? Are you sure? Are you really, really sure that you want me to knit you socks?".

Sure enough, he really did. Then, just a few days ago, he tells me that one of his co-workers' wives was due to have a baby any time and he asked me if I would knit something for their baby. I can't accurately describe how busy I've been between spinning for the next Etsy shop update and getting the house ready to sell, but somehow, between everything else, I rose to the challenge.



This is the Ribbed Baby Jacket, from this book by Debbie Bliss. I found the pattern available as a free download on Ravelry. It's adorable, though I made a few modifications to the pattern because there were way too many things about the design that bothered me on a fundamental level (which, of course, I realized when I was already 2/3 of the way through the first time I knit it).

Also, when my husband first asked me to do this, we weren't sure if it was to be a boy or a girl, so I had bought yarn that could go either way. I ended up girli-fying it by embroidering little daisies on it with some left-over cherry tree hill sock yarn. Which I think turned out very cute.



I've really enjoyed this little knit, and have been thinking about knitting another one soon. I feel flattered that my husband asked me to do this, though I also kind of hope he doesn't get used to the idea of asking me knit things for other people. =)