I finished off the Bella sweater on the ferry on the way to work yesterday, which was nice, because it’s been SO hot and that sweater is SO heavy. I could have put it away for a while, but damn it went fast. Must be those size 13 needles.

This morning I finished off the second sleeve for the mohair hoodie, and was all excited figuring I was ALMOST DONE. Ha! I had this silly idea that the hood was going to go really quick and that I’d be done before the end of the day. Not. Even. Close. 96 stitches, 13 inches worth, at 6 rows/inch. Yawn. But once I finish the hood all I will have left to do is sew the sleeves on and do the side seams. Really. That’s all. It’s gonna be another month, isn’t it? Don’t answer that.

And, on the spinning front, I now have two actual skeins of yarn drying. It’s pretty amazing to take a bag of fluff and suddenly have yarn. I still don’t have a spinning wheel, so am doing it with the hand spindle, but it’s going pretty well. I think I’m putting too much twist in it though, ‘cos it’s kinda curly when I unwind it off the spindle. As for getting a wheel: da boy and I are talking about a ROAD TRIP! I had the brilliant idea of driving down to Portland to get the wheel. We’d (hopefully) get to see our friends, and they’re cheaper in Oregon for whatever reason, and there’s no tax. All are very very good things. So it actully looks like having a wheel by the end of next week is a distinct possibility! Woo-hoo!

Any of y’all going to be around next weekend?

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She’s crafty all right. The ’she’ here being that kid of mine. Check it out, yo:

She did those all by herself. She picked and bought the yarn and the flip-flops (which are a women’s size 5 - they grow too fast!), and found a crochet hook and went to town. I’m proud of the Sproglet, I am.

And… In the spirit of never having idle hands and always learning something new, I present my latest project:

Ta-Daaa! I’m learnin’ to spin. With any luck I’ll have a wheel by the end of (the week) August, and will be able to make all kinds of wonderful yarns in the months to come. I’m awfully excited about the whole turnin’ a bag ‘o fluff into actual yarn thing. I’ll have to round up a bunch of spindles and some fiber for new-years, teach y’all how to do it too.

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How cool is *this*??? Check out the front page of Honeymoon designer Julia’s website, which has the close-ups of Barb’s tank on the left side! I’m hob-nobbin’ with the famous now! I just ’bout fell over dead when I saw that, and am still so excited I can’t sit still.

Hee! Had to share.

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WOW, so this is how it works! I thought I would join Holly in her crazy posting on the site!

I don’t have tons of cool pictures, but thought I would post the schedule. Holly created a cool calendar for us to put all of the dates on, but I’m still learning to use it. The calendar is at: www.beavercraft.org/calendar

Until it is up, here is the schedule Nancy pulled together:
July 11th - Sunday Jennifer house / Nancy food
July 22nd - Thursday Amy house / Jennifer food
August 8th - Sunday Denise house / Amy food
August 26th- Thursday Calli house / Denise food
Sept. 12th - Sunday Susie house / Calli food
Sept. 23rd - Thursday JoLea house / Susie food

Until I get photos of my own, I’ll post the cute new pattern and photo that Nancy sent out. Easy finger puppets for kids! So, I’m going to try to post the photo, but I’m not guaranteeing that I know how to do this.

Here are the directions, but I need Heidi’s help posting the photo. I uploaded the file successfully (called kidpuppet) to the local archive path, but when I go to imbed it, it does nothing!
Anyway…

Finger Puppets

For all:
Cast-on 10 stitches.
Garter stitch for 10 to 12 ridges. (depending on how tall you want it)
Do not bind-off. Instead cut an 8-inch tail and thread the stitches on your needle.
Pull tightly and begin to sew down the side of your finger puppet.
Weave in loose end into the inside of the puppet.

For cat:
Ears: Cast-on 4 stitches and bind-off immediately. Do this twice. Attach to puppet.
Tail: Cast-on 10 stitches and bind-off immediately. Attach to puppet.
Eyes/Nose/Mouth: Use a running stitch to create these.
Whiskers: Cut one piece of yarn about 3 inches long. Thread through nose and knot in the inside. Pull apart the plies and trim as desired.

For pig:
Ears: Cast-on 6 stitches and bind-off immediately. Do this twice. Fold down in half and sew in place before attaching them to the head.
Nose: Cast-on 6 stitches and bind-off immediately. Roll this into a ball and stitch into shape before attaching to the face.
Tail: Cast-on 10 stitches and bind-off immediately. Curl tail and stitch in place once it is attached to the rear of the puppet.
Eyes: Create by cross-stitching.

For bird:
Beak: Cast-on 10 stitches and immediately bind-off. Do this twice. Attach these 2 together at the base before attaching to the puppet�s face.
Wings: Cast-on 6 stitches and immediately bind-off. Do this twice and attach in place.
Crazy head feathers: Cut 3 pieces of yarn about 3 inches long. Thread through the top of the puppets head and knot.
Eyes: Create by cross-stitching.

Anyway, it’s my first attempt! - SUSIE

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Shazaam! I finally took a couple of pictures of the stuff that got finished last week, along with the hat I made for O this weekend, and the scarf that she made for her friend Meg this weekend. So. Check it out, yo:

That’d be the Scoop Neck Cardi from the Debbie Bliss Noro book, done up in Silk Garden. I looooove Silk Garden, and wish I made a LOT more money so I could have lots and lots and lots of sweaters made with it. It’s yummy.

A close-up of the colors of the SNC. Didn’t I tell you the Silk Garden was yummy? Yummy, I tell you. Yummy.

The cotton chenille flower washcloth that I finished knitting months ago, and just finally, last week, got around to finishing weaving the ends. Yeah, I totally lost focus on that project…

Here’s the O in the hat she asked me to make for her. I do love the felting thing. That sucker knit up in just a few hours, and she absolutely loves it. And yes, she picked the colors and the frou-frou. And…

The hat closer-up.

Next up we have the scarf that O painstakingly made for her friend Meg’s birthday. O was absolutely enthralled with that freakish ribbon stuff and HAD to make that scarf. HAD to, I tellya. I’m absolutely amazed that she stuck it out. I don’t think I could have done it - that stuff is absolute murder to work with. Here’s a close-up of it:

Here’s one of O, getting mighty tired of me taking pictures of her, where you can see the SHINY factor in the scarf, which isn’t quite as apparent in the other pix. That was all M could come up with to say about that “yarn”. “Hrm. It’s, uh, shiny. Wow.”
And last, but not least, we have PROGRESS on the Under the Hoodie from SNB. Yes we do. Finally. My goal is to have it FINISHED by the end of the weekend. ‘Cos then I can start some new stuff, no? So here ya go, one last pic:

So. How’s that for an update? After all that I need a beer.

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Where to start???

Guess the beginnig is as good a place as any…

On the ferry this morning I finished (totally and completely) not one, but THREE things! Barb’s tank:

Which, as you can see, fits perfectly! There was the deep fear that it was going to be too short - she tried it on yesterday, pre-blocking and before the straps were full length, and it hit right about the bottom of her ribs… Ipe! Guess that’s what she gets for bein’ 6′2″, no? So I finished off the straps to the proper length, and blocked it this morning, and voila! perfection. Much happiness all around on that one. Close-ups of the back and hem detail can be found in the gallery,

Aaannnnndddd…..

BABIES!!! There are Beavercraft offspring in the works! Not one, but TWO Beavercrafters are pregnant, and rumor has it a third is just about to be, so come spring there will be another gaggle of kidlets to be adorned with Beavercraft crafts. Hooray! Babies!

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I did manage to almost finish The Sweater last night - crocheted edgings can be mighty slow to work… It took me the second half of The Godfather and all of Whalerider to finish it. I got the ends woven in on the ferry this morning, and carried it into the office to get some opinions on button selection.

Conveniently, some ass-hat had turned the air conditioning in the building to “arctic”, so I have actually been wearing the sweater all day. In it’s unblocked-no-button-be-having state. And getting compliment after compliment on it. (I think the boys like it just because it’s low cut, but I could be wrong.)

So, thanks! to whoever it was decided to crank the AC! I didn’t figure I’d get to wear this thing anywhere near this soon, being that it’s a mohair/silk blend and it’s, what, July? Yeah, I think it’s July. Hooray for ass-hats!

and yeah, yeah, I’ll get it blocked and get some buttons on it and get a picture of it up on the website this weekend. Promise.

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Holy crapola. I did it again. Yesterday I had The Sweater all set to add the crocheted edgings, but, like a dork, forgot to bring the yarn with me. Today? Had the yarn. Good to go, right? Nope. The book is still sitting on the table, right next to where my knitting bag was sitting. I had picked it up, but must have set it back down again for whatever reason, ‘cos when I got to the ferry? No book. AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Tonight. Tonight I will finish that damn thing. And I will wear it tomorrow. Yes. That is the plan. And we all know how well things go when you have a cunning plan…

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I stayed up late last night watching the Godfather (no, I *still* haven’t seen it all the way through…) and putting the Scoop Neck Cardi together. I finished the actual knitting portion of our program on the ferry on the way to work yesterday, and moved on to the talent segment. It is finally all once piece! And my, but that is a deeply scoopy neck.

Imagine my consternation this morning, however, when I got on the ferry only to discover that I did not have even one, single, solidary shred of that yarn with me in order to do the crochet trim stuff. CRAP!!! Oh the frustration.

And then, those wonderful, magical guys at Threadbear did a bad, bad thing to me. I called up to see if they had the pure alpaca yarn from Great Adirondack, which they didn’t, but could and would happily order for me. But which color? Uh… I’ve only seen it in three colors. Turns out it comes in something crazy like 50 colors. They gave me a link to a site with pictures of most of the colorways, and now I desperately need about two grand for all the colors of this stuff that I didn’t know I needed. Cripes. How am I supposed to make a decision??? Oy.

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