Quickie

I have no pictures. I'm sorry. Such are the travails of short winter days. Saturday should see a photo opportunity or two.

But, if you are a reader and a knitter, go now to the yoyoknits blog and have at her stash sale. She's selling off some of her yarn to help offset the cost of her little dog's surgery. While you're there, look at pictures of him. He's adorable. Just don't buy everything. I get paid tomorrow.

Aaaanyway. I'll be back Saturday with substantial progress on the cobblestone sweater, finished or nearly finished socks and scarves and an attempt at colorwork.

Evil

I have finally finished the main part of the knitting for the Sisyphus shrug (formerly the Kashmir thing) and on Friday afternoon I grafted the two sides together in the middle.

See it? See what's wrong? How it continues to mock me?

Here...maybe that's better.

I hate this shrug. A. Lot. When I die and go to hell, this shrug will be waiting there for me. I will knit on it all day and all night, and just when I think I am finished, it will fall into a heap of yarn at my feet and I will have to cast on again.

Knitting is still a little slower than I'd like, so there's not as much progress to show as one might hope. But I've got some (almost) finished socks, and a scarf that only needs to have the ends woven in. Look for a round of yule project updates which may or may not include photos of me burning this shrug so that it will no longer be able to haunt my dreams.

Oh, also...

Squeee!

We all know about Tuesdays..

And this week we return to our regularly scheduled spinning posts.

First, though, I had a couple of undyed batts. A package of food coloring and several hours later I had these:
This is "Fawkes" 4 oz. of lovely wool in peach, pink, red, orange, and a deep yellow.


I also bought 8 oz. of lovely, lovely alpaca from my LYS. I really wanted to dye it purple, but I know that when mixing colors, purple is pretty difficult to mix. Still, I took a chance, and the results were not entirely unsuccessful:

I decided to call this "Tanzanite." I wanted deeper colors, and more variation. Some places soaked up the red, and some took almost nothing but blue. But, overall, I think it's a passable bit of roving. Here, have a closer look:



As I started to spin the colors muted, and I began to worry there wouldn't be enough "oomph" to the finished yarn. So I spun up half the roving, wound it onto a seperate spool, and began the yarn for the second ply

With just a bit more "oomph" in it. I'd just like to go on record as saying that beads are really hard to spin into yarn. In fact, I kind of blame the beading action for my gimpy arm disaster of last week. So the spinning is still in time out. This Tuesday is going to have to be for knitting only.

Oh dear...

So. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that I was gone so long. There was sickness, there was job stuff, there was bad weather that made it hard to take pictures. But really, I've just been so lazy about posting. It's my fault. I'm sorry.

To make up for it, I've documented my recent case of startitis. Two weeks ago I got a pretty bad kick of it and cast on a sweater, a sock, a scarf, and a bag. I have yarn for two more scarves, a hat, and a pair of mittens on order. I took a running start at my Yule knitting, and was on the fast track to a stellar holiday knit season. See, look at this scarf:


But then, disaster. I came down with a bad case of whatever the hell happened to my wrist this summer. It. Hurt. So. Bad. Dear knitters, I was laid out. I could barely make it through work (where I have to count out money, which hurt me constantly and all day in a way I will not describe in words) and when I got home could not knit on the everlasting bagstopper:



I could not knit on these socks:


I couldn't even knit on my Cobblestone Pullover, which I thought was lovely and so warm.


I couldn't even make any progress on the infamous Kashmir Thing--which I have renamed the Sisyphus shrug.

I was so close to done. I could taste triumph. But again, the stone has rolled down the hill and I am knitless.

But it's been a week, and I'm starting to get back to knitting. It's going slowly, and I'm still hurting a bit, but I will not be brought low. For I am a knitter, and I have gifts to make. I will prevail.

I will also post more often. Even if I won't be knitting as fast.