One Third Bound Off

Here's the state of the Niebling melange. I don't think it is going to stretch out right. Oh well! The edge I've done thus far is ruffly (not what I wanted, so I'm making a tighter edge from now on.

New Project

I'm trying to use up some yarn that doesn't seem to have much attraction quality. It is a nice silk blend, but the colors just aren't terribly exciting, so I decided to do another Swing scarf project and so it seems to be looking better paired with a brown yarn.  Here is what it looks like.

Another One Off the List

Okay, so this is a doily that I started using the haor of my newest cat. I have been spinning it on a little spindle and today I decided to  do a few more rows and bind it off/ The color is a bit yellower than it looks here, and it has quite a halo.

Finished Object! Yea!

So I finished my shawl today.

Making Applesauce as Fast As I Can

I've been too tired to make any apple sauce this weekend, but I need to get on it. We have a huge old crate of apples and the good ones are still on the tree, but Callie's on top of the situation - she'll hold my feet to the fire!

Sick!

So, in the last month I've been sick more days that I have been well! I have this ugly cold that just won't let go. Every night I go to bed thinking, okay, so tomorrow I'll be well, but I wake up coughing my innards out and feeling exhausted. This has made work go poorly and makes me feel like a drag. I am a drag. Literally. I drag to work, I drag back and I sit the rest of the day. The only good thing about it is I can knit as long as I don't have to make major decisions or produce complicated patterns.

So as far as the vest I was working on goes, I hit a complicated decision, which means I am at a standstill for the moment. I want to make it a cardigan, thus I have to add sleeves, but,  I don't really want rings around my fatty arms, so that means I'm going to have to knit sleeves vertically instead of horizontally and I can't seem to find a pattern for that.(At least not one that I like). No problem usually, except right now I can't even tell my colleagues the right date for meetings (that's too many numbers for my cold benumbed brain to deal with), so obviously now is not the time to be inventing a swing version of a completely innovated sleeve. Here's what it looks like so far:

I have been trying to decide which buttons to use. I have four of the lower dichroic glass buttons that are green and 6 of the ones on top (which I think look better, - but I just hate to have left overs and don't know if I'll find another project for the green ones - again too complex a decision for the brain at present.)

So anyway - with all this idleness and brainlessness, I decided to go through fibber McGee's closet and look for that darned yellow yarn I can't find. I still can't find it, of course, but the attempt caused me to sort through most of the fiber that I've got. It was one way to try and make myself not buy more yarn, but of course that didn't work at all - I discovered there were a few color combinations I was actually missing (besides yellow), so Cherry Tree Hill to the rescue! - More yarn is on the way! ( I sure don't know where I am going to put it!)

I went through all the yarn in my closet and also pulled out all the dreaded unfinished projects that were languishing there. (Languishing sounds so nice, doesn't it, like they are lounging around in comfort, when they were really stuffed into plastic grocery bags, crammed into corners and generally smooshed under the weight of the yarns that I have shoehorned into whatever excess space I could find. (And there will be no pictures of that, it is too embarrassing! Move along m'am there's nothing to see here...)

But back to the topic - I pulled out several dozen unfinished projects, tore out a few that I knew I would never want to touch again and made a hit list of most of the others. So I have a top 30 hit list to work on until I have brain capacity again. (And yes the Niebling is on the list - but it is not one to play with with a numbed out noggin!)

Here's the one I pulled out of the dust to play with. (Chosen because it didn't have too much more work to be done on it, because I could figure out more or less what I originally had in mind and because it didn't involve much cogitation.)  It's a shawl made of cherry tree hill (I think) merino and some random wool done in a square. I was on the first black section when I pulled it out of the closet and am now on the last ball of cherry tree hill variegated.

Part of the goal of this project is to use up some of the overly abundant quantities of yarn in the house (especially since more is on the way, so I had chosen a ball of darker red and black along with the one remaining ball of variegated merino to subtract from the stash. I will also need to find a little bit of black for the bind off as I want a thin black picoted edge around this last row of variegated feather and fan that I have just begun in the composited photo below.

The picture above is an "artist's rendition", since I don't have enough long size six circular needles to spread the whole thing out. It'll look better when I can stretch it out and show the patterns a little bit better too. The waviness of the black is intentional and will be accompanied by a wavy edge over a feather and fan pattern in the final red section. (I'm using Susanna Lewis' number 52  from a historic sampler in the Brooklyn museum. It should be nice and warm for the winter. So far two balls of yarn have been used (I think about 12 are coming, so I'd better get to work! I wonder what I can do with 9 balls of yarn really, really fast!)

Art on Display

It is opening day for the art exhibit at our co-op - so here is the display.

Unfortunately the overview shot is out of focus, but it still gives a sense of the exhibit.

The works are by my mom and myself and we were fortunate to be given the central part of the wall where we will be more visible.

More words later - we are off to the Renaissance fest!

And this is an update on the vest!