It's that time again.

Moving time!

Yesterday morning my husband brought in the first load of empty boxes to be filled. While I'm very excited to be buying a home and moving someplace nicer than where we are now, I can still feel myself groan inwardly when it comes time to pack up the house. (I'm thinking the groaning is a little louder this time. After all, this is the second time we've moved this year.) I managed to get these boxes filled and several of our shelves emptied and now there's already a new carload of boxes waiting to be filled. Fun times.

In between packing up boxes, I managed to get the Freckle Face Fibers merino/silk plied. This morning I skeined and washed it. Pictures to come as soon as it's dry.

And although I didn't have any time to knit yesterday, I did have time to take a picture of my second sock progress. This afternoon, we're driving into town to sign papers at the escrow company. One of the things I don't mind about the 1 1/2 hour drive to town is the knitting time I gain when hubs is doing the driving. I plan on making this sock grow today.

Hopefully I'll also be able to sneak in some spinning time too. I'm into the last half of some gorgeous Pigeonroof Studios corriedale. I'm thanking my lucky stars that I bought two bumps. I know I'll be keeping one of them for sure.

A first...

Another week has gone by speedy quick, and while I've been doing a fabulous job of keeping up on the laundry and household chores, I don't have that much to show in the knitting & spinning department. I did finish spinning a braid of delicious merino/silk from Freckle Face Fibers.

And today I managed to finish knitting the first of my longjohn socks. Here is Miss Allie posing with the sock. :)

In an attempt to avoid second sock syndrome I cast on the second sock right away, but just a few rounds into the cuff the unthinkable happened....

Somehow, when trying to place my knitting on the floor, I accidentally stabbed myself in the hand with a dpn. I really nailed myself hard too. It hurts. I really dislike injuring my hands. It makes cooking and doing dishes rather unpleasant. I can't believe I received this injury while knitting. It's definitely a first.

So, right now I'm taking a little break from my knitting and enjoying some live music. This weekend is the celebration of Bella's birthday in Forks and there is a lot going on in the park that's next to our house. As far as I know, there are several Twilight-oriented vendors, a Twilight look-a-like contest and live music all day (which has so far been a lot better than I anticipated).

I don't know how much more fiber stuff I'll be able to get done in the next week. The home we're buying is (I think) supposed to close next Friday. I am very excited. I'm thankful that we we've been comfortable in our rental over the last 7 months, but I'm thrilled that we'll have a place we can really call home again.

p.s. It really, really irritates me when half of my post is in one font and half of it in another. I've tried several times to fix it, but it just wont go. Errrg.

Camping

For me, summer isn't summer without a good camping trip. Our family hasn't had a good camping trip for a long time (I'm guessing over 4 years) and this summer we decided to finally change that. A few weeks ago we bought a tent trailer, which we thought would be perfect for our little family. This weekend we took it out for the first time.

Although our trip was a little rough around the edges the tent trailer worked out perfectly. We camped at Lake Crescent, which isn't very far away from where we live and is very beautiful all year round. It is surrounded by mountains and forests,

which are crawling (quite literally) with beautiful wildlife,

and the lake itself is breathtaking. Most of the time it's too cold for swimming, but it's very refreshing in late July through August.

Our oldest had a great time. She went kayaking and swimming out on the lake and had a particularly great time catching (and releasing) itty-bitty trout in the creek by our camping spot.

For me, the weekend was quiet. Usually I would spend the majority of my time outdoors, but this time around with a six-week-old baby in tow and chilly winds blowing outside, I ended up spending most of my time relaxing with her inside the trailer...

And between naps and snuggling I managed to knit half a sock over the weekend. The yarn is the mystery fish polwarth which I spun earlier this summer and the pattern is the Longjohn Sock pattern by Anne Hanson. I didn't know what to expect from this yarn and pattern combination but so far I'm loving how they're coming along.

Catching Up: Part II

As promised, here is my post of recent finished objects. Starting with the yarn, here is one of my finished spins from the Tour de Fleece.

This is a fingering weight, chain-plied yarn spun from WoolPig Crafts hand dyed Merino in the Fern Gully colorway. I'm guessing that Gladys takes a lot of care when dyeing her fibers because this roving was an absolute pleasure to spin. The colors in this one were a lot of fun too. It kept making me think of sandy beaches, palm trees and bananas.

The next spin is from a fiber buried deep in the stash. It's All Spun Up sw merino/alpaca from a SAL she had a while ago. Because the fiber is one of my all time favorite blends I bought a double dose and was saving this one for a special occasion, which ended up being this year's Tour de Fleece as well. For this one I chose to pre-draft the whole braid and spin it from end to end. It's also a chain-plied fingering weight yarn.

There are more on the wheel now, one of which I will have pictures of as soon as it is finished.

Now to the knitting. Pretty much all of the knitting I accomplished over the late spring and summer has been for Allie. The first is a sweater set knit from yummy Funky Carolina merino that was spun a long time ago. The yarn had been sitting in the stash waiting to become a shawl (so I thought), but as I went through the stash searching for baby sweater yarn I changed my mind, thinking that it was the precise amount of girl-y I was looking for.

The hat is my modified version of Simple Newborn Hat with a Touch of Lace by Ginny Foreman and the sweater is the Top Down Raglan Baby Sweater by Carole Barenys (both links go to their free patterns). I really enjoyed both of these patterns but I have to say that the sweater pattern is fast becoming my favorite for utilizing handspun in baby knits. It's a very easy knit and it showcases handspun yarns beautifully. So beautifully that I had to knit two...

This one was knit from Funky Carolina merino handspun by Laurs of Bee Mice Elf and gifted to me during the summer round of the Funky Junkies handspun swap. I fell so hard for this yarn when I opened the package that I wound it up immediately and began knitting. It worked out perfectly combined with this pattern.

Lastly, I just finished this hat last week. It's the Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap (pattern also free) and I knit it with leftover handspun sock yarn. It's a great pattern and it looks so cute on Allie. It's also great for using up those leftover scraps of yarn.

So, that's all I have finished for now. I'm still knitting and spinning as I get things cleaned, organized and packed for moving. I should have more to share soon.