Bounty!

My lovely friend Erin is heading across the country this summer, and in true nomadic style has sold or given away most of her possessions. Before she left home, she sent me a box packed to the gills with fleece and top and rovings and batts. This box had no straight lines left to it, the poor abused thing!

Here is my bounty:



(Please note that the red that is at the foot of my wheel and also dangling from the bobbin was not a part of the haul.)

Now, contained in those many many bags are some treasures, or so I hear tell. Angora/silk/wool blends, Romney, camel, to name but a few. And how excited am I? About as excited as this poor beleaguered box is empty:

Felting

Well, this weekend was quite productive knitting-wise. I managed to watch 30 hours of Torchwood/Doctor Who while completely ignoring the fact that it was Easter, which was awesome. I went yarn shopping on Saturday, scored a bunch of knitting needles for $10 at Value Village, got WAY too much yarn at Tangled Skeins, and got some black felt, some knitting needles, and two bundles of pretty pretty top to spin. And a freebie of some tangled sequin novelty yarn!

Anyway, that way too much yarn from Tangled Skeins was actually for a bunch of projects I intend to do quite quickly, for lo, I am going to felt. Saturday I knit an entire tea cozy--it is huge and in pieces on my dance studio floor. Sunday and yesterday I knit giant mittens. Sometime this week I will find my lingerie mesh bags, and these items will go in the washer with a pair of jeans while I close my eyes and pray to the knitting gods to be kind.

Pictures to follow of giant knit objets d'art.

Still no knitting.

I have indeed concentrated on bellydance for the last few weeks. I made some cowrie falls for a fellow dancer out of my handspun thick and thin slubby, and i knit a bit in my spare time on another Clapotis. However, I frogged that sucker--I had a disastrous needle fall out, and managed to miss picking up a stitch when trying to recover from it. Of course, I didn't really notice for oh, I don't know, eight rows? Gah. So I frogged the fucker and reballed the yarn. I am going to start over. It's goign to be my road trip scarf next weekend when my friend Danielle and I are driving to Montreal for a dance workshop.

Can't Knit, Must Dance!

Not much movement on the knitting front this week. Last week I was sick and canceled all my belly dance classes, which meant I got a LOT of knitting done. Right now I have to concentrate on belly dance because I'm performing at two different shows at the beginning of March, and doing a total of three solos. Eep! I need to get a few new costume pieces made as well, so there will be a lot of sewing involved, and possibly some spinning and cowrie fall making.

SO much knitting, so little time...

I have finally finished my first Clapotis. It was a fun knit, and I followed the pattern exactly, and I stayed up many late nights knitting furiously to get to the next spot to drop a stitch so I could have the pleasure of unravelling it. I made it from some of my homespun, which I'd made for exactlyt hat purpose. I had to dip into a second skein that I'd spun later to a different specification, so the very end looks a bit different, but it's still cool. I'm goign to make another one, but skinnier.



Right now I'm going to work on a few smaller instant gratification projects--I'm knitting Dashing out of the same stuff as I knit the Clapotis, for myself if my boyfriend decides he doesn't like them, and I'm going to knit Fetching for my mom out of some wool I spun just for her. Dashing is started, but Fetching is waiting for the wool to finish drying from the twist-setting.

I think I'm partially making this for my mom as a way to justify the way I overspent in the yarn store on Thursday. I've been sick all week, and I indulged in some roving retail therapy, and I really didn't have the money to spare to even buy one roving if I wanted to make a payment on my credit card like a good girl.

Dude, I spent it on roving instead. And so I'm making my mom something pretty.

Spinning Wheel!!!

I'm now the proud owner of an Ashford Traveller, with double treadle and double drive. It's currently sitting disassembled and partially stained on my kitchen table. It's a bit of a labour of love, and yes, I've been thinking that maybe I should have paid the extra $100 and gotten it shipped to me already laquered, but this way it's the colour I want it to be, and I'm better aquainted with all the pieces. I conditioned the wood, and then applied a lovely red oak stain. the last step will be the poly and the sanding and the poly again.

Oy.

New Project-itis

I've been working on a whole lot of other things instead of the alpaca mittens I started a while ago. Complicated Fair Isle knitting just isn't as relaxing in the evening after a draining day of work as it could be. For fun, I made the Yarn Harlot's "Unoriginal Hat," which was a nice fast knit and used up some of my stash. Yes, I didn't buy more yarn for it! I also started the Lady Eleanor Entrelac Stole from "Scarf Style" this week, and while the instructions were unclear enough in spots that I had to frog one section 3 times before I understood what I was doing, it's actually going really well. I'm using more of my handspun, so yay! for not buying more wool! And I've taught myself a cool new technique, so that's excellent.

On the way home form work on Thursday I was bad though, and I bought more fleece to spin. Only two hanks of alpaca merino! That's not overly bad.

Knitting Keeps me Sane!

Well, as sane as I ever am. I always need something to do with my hands, whether it's spinning, knitting, or something else. I can't even just sit and watch TV--I need to be doing something productive. I don't know if it's a compulsion, but I guess I feel like it's a waste of time if I'm sitting down in front of a show and I'm not actually DOING anything. TV isn't enough of a draw most times. When I was a kid, I would read and watch TV at the same time! I remember my dad getting angry with me for wasting electricity because he thought I wasn't paying attention to the TV so it didn't need to be on, but then I told him exactly what was going on in the show I was watching while reading, and he left me alone.

My friend Coyote says that if she's awake and there's not a beer in her hand, someone better be paying her, and I guess that's kind of like how I feel about working with my hands. If I'm awake and I'm not creating, I better be earning some money to keep a roof over my head. Or having sex. I just catn' have sex and knit at the same time either.

I'm Blogging thanks to Ravelry

One of the cool things about Ravelry is being able to link Blogger posts to it, and one's Flickr account. I guess I may as well take advantage of it!

I'm currently working on the Tiffany mittens from Knitty. I recently finished a sixth shawl, and my first Branching Out, also from Knitty.

I'm currently lacking any pictures, but perhaps I'll take some this weekend.