Peace, spinning, & knitting

After many days with overexcited children I am now alone for a few days. They were quite happy to be going back to their dad's, and because of pretty constant bickering... I was excited too.

I finished the EZ BSJ! I was watching the skein of Fiesta Boomerang dwindle (the color is caribbean, not alaska) and hoping I would have enough, but no. I finished off the edges with a little bit of handspun. My fiber of the month from Spunky Eclectic - it's the lovely merino/tencel blend dyed in the Colorado colorway. I spun it into a 3-ply so it's a little more bulky and rumpled the edge a little, but it's blocking right now and doesn't look bad. The shoulder seems were the issue for me. I suck at seaming garter stitch. Others seem to find it easier than I do, if there's a trick, I haven't found it yet (and I've been looking). My solution was to single chain crochet along the top. I only had enough remaining yarn to do the seams, nothing around the neck. Now, I'm contemplating crochet around the rest of the opening. Hmmm. Have to think about that a little more.




After my adventure to my LYS to spend my most generous gift certificate, and a conversation with Anne - yarn goddess - applied I-cord will become the neck treatment. And I found the perfect buttons there, too! I got some Brown Sheep for felted clogs, some Fortissima for Priscilla Gibson-Roberts Scandinavian socks (I got the Vogue Ultimate Sock Book for the holidays too). Some beautiful Hempathy just because I've always wanted to try it, and some Noro Iro.




It has been cloudy for days so I only have relatively crappy indoor shots of Odessa. The lovely top



And the side



I love this hat! It is so soft and pleasing.

My first toe-up sock in Interlacements Tiny Toes. Right now I find it more fiddly than a top-down. Maybe after I get going a bit I'll be more fond of it.



I'm almost done with Bowen's pair of socks and, for the first time ever, I found I have a "bad" skein of Opal! No problems through the fist sock, but I've found four places where the yarn was almost split completely. It's at regular intervals, so it seems to be a machine glitch, but it was pissing me off. I'm saving the scraps for invisible cast-ons. I hate throwing away yarn.

I've started Bowen's sweater. Since it's raining (a good thing, here in the drought) I'm hunkered down with piles of knitting around me. I'll have to do a little housework soon, my parents are coming on Wednesday - which means I'm bunking with Chicky - and her room is a mess. Most of the time I deal with the children's rooms by not looking in them. I may have to go stand in her room for a minute to get motivated.