Dreadful. I’m bordering on chatty tonight…

Anyhoo, I promised all y’all some pictures, so here ya go, in really no particular order:

O and I went to OFFF this past weekend. To get there we faced 180+ miles of this view:

It was much fun anyway. MUCH fun.

Um… At OFFF I finally got my mitts on some Socks That Rock. And holy crap does it ever. I need more. Lots more. Progress on The Sock as of Tuesday morning on the ferry:

and as of this morning:

and

(and no, I’m not really that flexible, and I’m sure I will hurt in some very interesting places tomorrow from that pose)

Sock #2 got started on the ferry on the way home:

Voila! The first finished piece of hand-knit-from-hand-spun!


Other than the pink sweater, that’s a fairly typical, and, for once, not horrendous representation of me. The pink sweater, tho, should send anyone who knows me well into fits of laughter. What/EVER/. I am man enough to embrace the pink.

Did I miss any pics? I kind of don’t think so. Maybe. If I did I’ll post ‘em later. Or tomorrow or something.

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Dare to compare!

This:

is the sample photo that I saw to choose the color for my Yummy Alpaca Yarn (see the post from earlier). The fiber in that picture is silk, which takes dye differently than does alpaca. I still love the colors in that pic, but I’m totally digging the way the alpaca came out. Yum-o-lilcious. Yes indeed.

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Oh.

My.

Gawd.

Rob said it, I echo that sentiment. Like ya wouldn’t believe. Check this out: Rob’s Black Dog, and look at the third picture down. And the fourth. And the fifth, while you’re at it.

Mine! It’s all mine! Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! All mine!

It doesn’t bear any resemblance to the color that I ordered, but it’s SOOOO freakin’ beautiful I just can’t stand it. It’s been on order for a bajillion years it seems like (3 months, maybe?), ‘cos they hand dyed that just for me. Me, I tell ya, it’s allll about me. Me me me me me.

Did I mention that it’s all about me?

(Threadbear has a ton of it on order, so you, too, can have some of your very own. but it will still be all about me. dontchoo forget that.)

And… In other news… I finally finished my very first hand-spun-hand-knit deeliebobber. It’s a scarf. Well, more of a cravat, actually, but whatever with semantics, it’s a thingy that goes around the neck, it’s soft, it doesn’t look like total shit, and I’m just thrilled to bits. So there.

And… my dog, it just doesn’t stop. A SOCK! Just one, but I’ll have the second one whipped out in mere days, so it’s all good. Socks That Rock is THE SHIT people. Seriously. If your local LYS doesn’t carry it, get thee down there and convince them to order it! Tina (Blue Moon Fiber Arts owner) doesn’t have a website (yet), but her email addy is blue moon fiber arts at hotmail dot com. Remove the spaces and stuff, and you’re golden. It is, bar none, the best sock yarn ever made. So there.

Pics to follow.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. I rember saying I wasn’t going to make any scarves. It’s probably even in print somewhere. But whatever with that. I did it anyway, and here it is, finished, blocked, and with all the mud washed out of it…

Ha! So there.

And, moving on, I finally had a few minutes to sit on my butt and spin in the past couple of days, and that’s exactly what I did. I’ve now got 122 yards of unbelievably soft (and holy-crap slippery) alpaca to show for it.

Two-ply even. Or uneven as the case may be, but that’s ok. I’m down with that. Now if I can just duplicate that another two, maybe three times I’ll have enough to actually *do* something with.

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Sigh. Today was the day for my weekly fix from ThreadBear, and Horrors! they didn’t have what I needed in stock. Crap! But… Rob knows me WAAAAY too well, and glibly suggested that I buy some more spinning fiber instead, and get the Lamb’s Pride when it comes in next week… So, I have an 8oz ball of 75% Suri alpaca/25% merino in super yummy cinnamony-natural-alpaca color. I have GOT to take some time off and spend a few days doing nothing but spinning. Absolutely have to. Damn. What a hardship.

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I finally broke down and made some fish sorta like these. Mine, of course, are cuter…

And my Denise interchangeable needles came in (thanks, once again, to the ThreadBear guys), and I’ve been having a heyday with those. They’re very nice to work with, other than being kinda pointy.

Have made a little bit ‘o progress on almost everything (except that damn Perfect Pie shawl, which languishes, unloved and ignored, on the couch. I keep hoping the cat will finish it for me), so it’s all good. With any luck I’ll be able to post some pix of all the stuff in progress and the newly finished stuff this weekend. There’s been too much going on recently to deal with a lot of knitting and picture taking and posting, but I’m still here, plugging away at it all. Promise.

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Gotta love it. I found a pattern for a nice, boxy, cable-y sweater a few weeks ago, and started hunting for The Perfect Yarn [tm] for it… You know how these things go. The pattern calls for Lamb’s Pride bulky, which is a perfectly nice yarn. And reasonably cheap as these things go. But no. I haaaaad to look around and see if I could find something ‘better’. HA!

Next thing I know a skein of lovely stormy grey Rowan Polar had jumped into my basket, just begging to be swatched so it could demonstrate its perfection for me.

Now, if you haven’t had any personal experience with Polar, it’s the kind of soft you just want to get naked and roll around on. Seriously.

So I swatched both of them. The Lamb’s Pride was fine, as expected. The Polar was absolutely heavenly. Buuuutttt…….

It fuzzes. And pills. Something fierce. DAMMIT! Alas, I will have to spend $80 less on the sweater and knit it with the Lamb’s Pride. One of the rare moments when the vastly less expensive yarn turns out to be the vastly better choice for the project. Gotta love that.

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Holy CRAP it’s been a busy/stressful/hellish few weeks. What with the server crapping out at the office (guess who got to build the new one? - if it’s not immediately clear to you, think on it for a bit. It’ll come to you. If not, get some help. Seriously.), the hell that is the current custody sitch with my kidlet (don’t ask, just know it aint pretty), and Barb’s wedding (which was ohmygod beautiful and wonderful and all good), so I really haven’t done shit knit-wise in what feels like a bajillion years.

Yesterday, in between being really really sick, and moving the wood pile (’cos you KNOW that’s a good idea when you’re sick), I did manage to knit a bit here and there. I finished the first of the Indulgence scarves. Yeah. I did say First Of. I have another three scarves worth on order from the ThreadBear guys, which, if the fiber fairies are lookin’ out for my fat ass, will be sitting on my doorstep when I get home.

I also made progress on the self-striping sock that I’ve been “working on” since last Christmas. I turned the heel on it, and might even have it done before this Christmas. So a pair is a possiblilty, by, say, new years 2005… Maybe.

I get to go meet with my attorney this afternoon, which should provide some quality sittin’-on-my-ass-on-the-ferry-dock time this evening, so I’m sure more progress will happen on all knitting fronts.

Now if only I could just finish off all the stuff I’ve got in progress right now and not feel guilty about spinning up some new stuff and starting another batch of projects… Alas.

Fall dates for the Beavercraft weekend have been set! And will be up on the calendar in mere moments.

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