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!!!