Tomten time

Molly's yarn arrived and I am knitting away. Starting to get a weird feeling about the amount I ordered-this first skein is almost gone. Hmmm...

Breaktime's over!

I've started some new things, and am enjoying working on them in this nice fall weather we are having!
There's my cardigan knit from one strand of Knitpicks Shadow and one of Cloud. This is the Midnight colorway and I am so in love with this yarn combo that I may never buy another ever again. The emerging fabric is fabulous. This pattern is my own that I am making up as I go with the help of BW's Knitting From the Top. Just a simple shallow V-necked cardi with a nice lace panel down the sleeves. I'm steeking the front because the thought of all that purling is scarier than the thought of cutting my knitting. Those are Harmony circs in 0 for those who care.
I've also knit a few squares for a sock yarn blanket. Since crochet and I are old friends, despite my replacing it with knitting, I intend to join the squares with crochet in some sort of unifying solid color once I have enough. Who knows when that will be...
Hmmm...what else...
I had to add some length to Jacob's Wallaby from last year. Note to self-always make children's cabled sweaters longer than you think they should be. Snipping that st and picking up and reknitting was nothing but grafting that staghorn cable back together was Not Easy and four tries later, I finally had to say "good enough". I wish I could have made it totally invisible! But he's four and wanted his sweater back, so I had to stop obsessing. Besides the yarn for his little sister's sweater is in the mail on it's way here! Can't wait!
Oh! And the Helgi mittens are finally done. I procrastinated way too long over that last thumb. But now they are in my brown coat pockets where they belong.
I'm still playing a lot of piano. In fact, I've started lessons again-after 15 years! I've played around with music for the last 30 years, and I think I'm finally mature enough to really learn this. So, I found a wonderful teacher who is putting me through the wringer and I am loving it. DD and I are hurrying to see who can get to the piano first when there's a free moment. :~)

School is in session

And there's been no knitting. None. Spinning either. I had some great projects going that I had yet to blog about, but now-it seems rather pointless to post pictures of what I'm NOT working on.
We are having a great year in school so far though, and I'm really glad about that :~) I consider myself very blessed to have this great opportunity to teach my children! My youngest is learning to read this fall and it is so exciting to see him work his way through the lessons!
C is in her second year of piano lessons and I decided to teach my boys the basics myself. The actual result of this worthy ambition is that I am practicing piano a lot myself. I think that's where my knitting time has gone...

Knit From Your Shelf begins

Since the sweater left the needles last Wednesday, I've knit and frogged a Helgi Mitten from Folk Knitting in Estonia. My first foray into serious two color knitting revealed these obvious gauge problems while I "found my rhythm". I swallowed hard and pulled it back to the thumb line and went up a needle size. However, I was so demoralized that I set it aside and knit up a pair of toddler sized CIC socks instead out of the leftover Paton's Classic.
They were really fast and soothed my outraged feelings immensely. I confess to casting on a larger pair this morning-no cables this time-just a simple 3 to 1 rib. Likely I'll use navy scraps for the heels and toes. I had to make myself stop after 5 inches worth or the mitten may never have seen the light of day again.

At long last

my Celtic Dreams sweater is done.

Ouch!

All this knitting on CD has left my right hand a little...unhappy. I'm taking frequent breaks and combing up some Merino to make up the third ply in the Polwarth blend yarn(gotta stretch that some since I have less than a pound) I had great hopes of finishing this project up before the month was out, but the hand problem may interfere. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
The good news is that I reviewed my Knit From Your Shelf list and it's shorter than I thought. I forgot about having knit a Moccasin Sock (yes, one-it was not my favorite. I intend to try it again in the future though since the notion of a refootable sock is very appealing) and a Moebius scarf. So, that takes care of Knitter's Almanac and Knitting Around. Leaving only-um, five books. That's one per month. These projects better be small!

Spinning

I've been doing a good bit of spinning lately. I unearthed some ancient fibers and am really enjoying them! The first is some Polwarth that I had blended with a bit of kid mohair and some angora. I keep a smallish amount of fiber near the wheel in a wine carrier that I bought at A C Moore. Let me assure you-this is lovely fiber! The wool is from Nancy Ortmann's flock-I've purchased their Targhee and Cormo as well. Fabulous! The blending was done by Wooly Knob and they did a superb job. I'm already on the third bobbin.
The next batch-you knew I'd have two batches going, right?-is this lovely gray Corriedale from Dan-Vir farm(sorry neither if these shepherds have web pages-email me for contact info) this is from a fleece I purchased back in '05. Since I bought more from them at SAFF since then, I figured it was time to get going on this one. Spinning another three ply with this fiber-just like the one above. That's what I like to knit-so that's what I spin!

And then here's a little update on Celtic Dreams. Almost to the cuff on that sleeve!!!