Oh, looking for knitting? Though I wish I could show you something, I've only managed to knit maybe 5 rows on that sock I showed last week (so no pictorial update.) Instead its been all about the spinning.

As I mentioned in this post, I've finished my guild's holiday project fiber, and its now wound, and waiting for a book I purchased, along with a set of US5 Addi Lace needles. I know. I needed more Addi needles like I need Las Vegas real estate. But I've been wanting Addi's lace needles for a while.. like since I heard they were finally available. Problem was that when they were first made available, every knitter in the world wanted them too. So you can imagine how hard they were to find in stock, anywhere.

I finished up the green alpaca/merino/silk. "Not happy" would be my description of the final product. I started out plying 2 singles (from both ends of a center pull ball,) but was just miserable with how it looked under-spun, albeit perfectly balanced. So I decided to set aside the first little bit I started, and proceeded to navajo ply the rest. Sure I'm losing yardage by making it a three ply, but I kick ass at navajo plying.. if I do say so myself. I love the rhythm of its complexity. Once you learn how to do it, its not so hard after all. This yarn will sit on the bobbin until my new niddy noddy arrives. Yes.. I finally decided to buy a very basic, inexpensive Ashford niddy noddy, instead of killing my arm wrapping yarn around the bottom of a rubbermaid bin!

And I've picked up the self dyed green and purple corriedale again. I'm alternating colors, and spinning fairly thin since this will also be navajo plied into a self striping sock yarn. I have a long way to go, but if last night's spinning session is any measure, I may be able to get this done sooner than I imagined.

I do however, need to step away from the spinning for a short bit. I'm doing another contract project for KnitPicks, and I'd like to knock it out of the park pretty quickly. UPS delivered the yarn this morning, and the pattern has been printed and waiting in my basket for that to arrive. So tonight I'll cast on. And speaking of KnitPicks, my first contract project was received back in August with glowing praise by the powers that be (whew!) and the catalog that its in comes out in 7 days. Woo!

Lastly, I never blogged about this, and I'm not sure why! But I took part in Dish Rag Tag through the month of August. If you don't understand it, here it is in a nutshell. All participants were assigned to teams, where the captain of the team, and in our case, Carole, received the first box from Emily who hosted this fun race. In the box was two balls of dish rag cotton, a knitted dish cloth, and a small treat. You would keep the dish rag, use one of the balls of cotton to knit to send on to the next person in line, keep the other ball of cotton, then restock the box with two new balls of cotton and treat, then send on - as quickly as possible, trying to get through each of our team members, and back to Emily before the other teams.

I was lucky to be second in the race, receiving a fantastic orange/yellow/green dish rag from Carole, with a beautiful set of notecards. But I was in such a rush to knit, repack and mail on to KaKi, that I forgot to take pictures. I think KaKi was kind enough to take a picture of the dish rag I sent on to her.

Anyway, our team, Rag Racin' came in third! I really didn't think we'd place that well since our team had at least twice run into the postal service taking its sweet time delivering packages. So for coming in third, as part of the Rag Racin' team, I found this in my mailbox yesterday. How cute is that certificate? And the beaded row counter is beautiful. Thank you Emily!

Around a year ago on this day..

• Socks Unveiled! - 2005
• I'm SO there! - 2005
• Its 'bout damn time - 2005
• *rage* - 2005
• That anger is back again... - 2005
• ok, I rock - 2005

Posted in blogging, friends, knitting, shopping, spinning

Friday Craft Club - Week 4

Welcome to the house of ick.

Friday Craft Club - Week 5