challenge of the alps

I spun an entire bobbin of BFL today! Frogged a sleeve and the back of that cashmere sweater to come up with something like 1200 yards of lace weight cashmere, add that to the other 450 yards from the first sleeve and I have half the front to do yet... mm mm mm!

I spun a little bit of alpaca as well and did some (not nearly enough) housecleaning on my computer.

Tomorrow is ply day (and a visit to the dentist)

Happy crafting!

the nameless cloth

pattern: by Sue Schaefer for Harvest Moon Designs
yarn: Elmore-Pisgah peaches and cream
colors: mauve and verde green
needle: US6

I love this pattern. Thank you Sue (who recently had a celebration on her blog).

Happy Birthday Mom!

You deserved a great day. Hope there's many more healthy ones for you!

This is yours:

Pattern: Birthday cake by Kim for Monthly dishcloth KAL
Yarn: Lily Sugar and Cream
color: Wine
Needle: US6 Bamboo

This has been a super long week and I'm too tired to write about it..just suffice it to say that there was enough stress this week to drive me insane! Glad the week is over.....



Happy crafting!

more 'cat' news

From everything that I've read... I think our caterpillar is in the beginning or near the 5th instar stage and will be pupating soon. Therefore, tomorrow I'm going out to buy a proper place for it to pupate instead of the cereal box. It's eating a ton and pooping just as much. We're going to have to go flower hunting tomorrow again.

As I was eyeing up the habitat tonight, I spotted another crawler on the stem. You have to look at the sock needle (US2) to see this one. I think we had one of these earlier, but in trying to see it, I may have destroyed it, or perhaps this is the same one, but now large enough for my old eyeballs to see. Up to third instar this black swallowtail is supposed to look black with a white band (about mid-page) and this doesn't appear that way, but who knows.. maybe it's just a baby inch worm. Our house is becoming the worm home I think.

I took this picture of our big 'cat' agains the same knitting needles for comparison. The needle is blurry but the cat is clear enough.





In knitting news, I finally finished bamboozled from the mid-July KAL at monthly dishcloth KAL group

Pattern: Bamboozled by Andi Worthy
Yarn: Bernat Handicrafter Cotton Twists
Color: Summer
Needle Size US6

I like the pattern it just took me too long to finish this one. I of course gifted it today to my friend's mom who is returning to Argentina. She was here for 3 months and we all love to see her. This time my family was lucky as we were together several times during her visit. She is a joy to be with!

I like this yarn although it seems to untwist a bit more than S&C and P&C. Perhaps because the 4 plys are 4 different colors? But for my kitchen plans, this color will be perfect. I bought a 12 oz skein a while back at Joann's and this was the first that I used it.

I turned the heel on my sock today and am now officially on the foot. Knitting in the car passes the time, but isn't always the easiest for me on those little US2 bamboo dpns.....

They're a pair!

Pattern: Yarn Harlot's sock formula from Knitting Rules
Yarn: Plymouth Sockotta (this color in fact!)
Color: 5612 Bold Stripe
Needle: Size 2 bamboo dpns

The only change I made was to use 60 stitches instead of 64, since the only thin parts of my body are below my knees!

This is 8 lovely, yummy, soft, fluffy ounces of light fawn fiber from an alpaca named Franchesca who resides at Bay Springs Farm in Cape May NJ. This is what DD's friend convinced her mom to buy me while they were on vacation at the beach... I think I'll make her some mittens from it. Now I just have to figure out how to clean it! It's super soft though... really, really soft, like a cloud!

I'm plugging away on the Lucy Bag... and before I go to bed, I'll have finished the Monthly Dishcloth KAL.. and I'm happy to say that my prediction of the picture pattern was right on :-)

My SIL comes in one week... If I'm going to do that möbius scarf for her I better figure out the cast on, cuz I have a feeling it will take every free minute of time to finish it in one week.

Happy Crafting

FOs

Just a few pics to post and not much time to say more.


Pattern:Janet's Moss Ivy face cloth
Yarn: Sugar and Cream
Color: Hot Purple
Needles: Size 7 KPO

I was tardy with this one cuz we were at the beach when the mid-month KAL for the monthly dishcloth group started.



Pattern: Lion Brand's nana's bathmat with modifications
Yarn: Sugar and Cream
Color: Taupe and Warm Brown
Needles: Size 10.5 KPO

I don't know how to crochet so I didn't do the edging, nor did I follow their size, except for CO stitches, so I stopped when it was deep enough. However, it wasn't wide enough, so I picked up stitches along the purl ridges in brown and garter stitched on both sides.



Pattern: Princess Crown cloth
Yarn: Knit Picks Crayon
Color: Pink
Needle: Size 5 KPO

This is for DD for the bath. The yarn is so soft, but kind of like a bouclé and I really don't like knitting with it. Fortunately there isn't that much of it in my stash.. I have to say though it makes great spa cloths cuz it's so soft. But better to use where there is no picture to see... just regular knitting would work best I think.

I inventoried my cotton stash... it's a bit overwhelming.. Mostly sugar and cream, Tahki cotton classic and Plymouth Fantasy Naturale. Although there are some miscellaneous types in there as well. I still need to finish the index cards for the cotton and put a snip of each yarn on the card so I can see what colors will go together when I start that MD cotton blanket. When I'm finished that, the next to inventory is the wool. That will take a bit longer!

DD has another week of morning art classes. This time at the Baum School of Art. She loves it and is learning so much: warm colors, cool colors, color wheel, proportion. And I think there's a show near the end of the summer to exhibit the art work from all their summer classes.

Tuesday P and I did a hands on spinning demo at the Warren County Public Library. She brought 2 wheels and I brought mine and 3 drop spindles. We had fiber to be picked and fiber to be carded along with sets of handcarders and a flicker. The ladies tried everything from picking to carding to spinning... it was great fun. Of course, I forgot to take along my camera... sorry!

Since Tuesday I've washed the rest of the Targhee, the Peace Fleece, the rest of the Lincoln Longwool and today I'm working on the Polypay. My goal is to wash all the fleece I have in the next week so it's ready to pick and comb/card/spin!

OK... gotta get moving on this house. DS's family party is Saturday and we are in NO WAY ready for guests. I've been freecycling up a storm

and now the rest of the story

here are the other 2 cloths... of the three... well the third I decided I didn't want to finish and ripped it out. This is the second KAL that I've done that to in the past month. Once I saw the finished picture (yes i was behind in knitting) I though, I don't want to spend anymore time on that cloth and into the frog pond it went.


This one will go to my friend with the black and orange kitchen!

Pattern: Dragonfly and his Meal - Dishcloth Fun May KAL
Yarn: Lily's Sugar and Cream
Color: Hot Orange
Needle: Size 7 bamboo dpns


This is for a colleague who is having some worries right now. His son is marrying a wonderful woman in PEI next month and they plan on coming to the states for 6 months but then don't know where they'll be led. Unfortunately, there may be some issues to get her into the country to stay legally and honestly. Since they're both Bible college grads the honesty is the issue. They could easily lie to get her in, but that could also come back to bite them in the behind later so prayers go out to them for a solution to keep the newlyweds together!


Pattern: Prayer Hands by alli barrett
Yarn: LIly's Sugar and Cream
Color: Jute
Needle: Size 6 KP Options




We were at a wonderful birthday party yesterday for our 'cousin' as my kids refer to him, even though they aren't related at all. We just love this family to bits and couldn't be closer if we were blood related. The kids had a great time as usual!

Finally a picture of the beautimous flowers DH gave me for our anniversary. He knows I LOVE carnations and the colors are so pretty.. thanks honey a bunch in case you ever read this blog HAHAHA

Off to a wedding today. It's our day out since we couldn't get a sitter for the anniversary date (or Friday night for that matter) My sitters' have more social lives than we do... oh wait, we don't have a social life LOL!

Cloths, cloths, cloths

Pattern: Stepping Stones by Sue Schaeffer
Yarn: Lily's Sugar and Cream
Color: Need to check the ball band
Needle: Size 6 KP Options

I'm working on two other KALs right now and want to start a cloth for a friend whose birthday was today. (I fell asleep to early last night)

Our wedding anniversary was Tuesday and DH gave me a beautiful bouquet of carnations (they are my favorite) I'll post a picture later... Many different colors. DD helped him choose.

I bought some King Tut cotton yarn at ACMoore while I was there for something else. It was $5/skein and I got 10% off that too... so not bad $4.50 when it retails for $10.00/skein. The green will be for a möbius scarf for SIL (she loves apple green) the orange for placemats when our DR gets painted and the light blue, I don't know...only 200g so we'll see!

pictures to be added to this post later :-)

Yesterday was opening day

And I did open my puffy and intended to post last night, but plans were changed for me. Anyway here is the picture of my puffy package from my great partner, Ruth in Ohio. A birdhouse, and the pattern is from the book, Melissa's Garden. I really love the cloth. It's also knitted so beautifully! Along with the cloth was included a magnet with a bird and birdhouse (too perfect for that cloth) and a calendar that I can carry along in my bag. Brought me a bit more of spring :-) Thanks again Ruth... I love my goodies


This is the cloth I sent her. I included a little notepad as well but didn't take a picture of that. The pattern is Lacy Waves by Alli Barrett and I found it as part of the dishcloth calendar addendum. It's a blue and white ombre that I forget the name of. Knit on #7 needles



I started putting the blanket together today. I have one strip done.. I brought 2 home to work on (in the slight case I could find ANY free time) I still have 2 bathmats to finish... and of course the tie and poncho and a dishcloth from Rachel's KAL.
I was spinnning for about 20 minutes yesterday. It seems as though if I keep my hands really close together and peddle faster but let it in slower, there is less breaking. If I only had a decent chunk of time to work on that.

OK.. there's far too much work for me to do at home. I'll be lucky to knit or sew 1 stitch tonight!

Happy Earth Day. Spring has finally arrived!

and so the colors of the mid-month KAL from the Monthly Dishcloth KAL group say that as well.


Pattern: Diamond Drop Lace by Alli
Yarn: Lily's Sugar 'n Cream
Color: Playtime
Needle Size: 7

This one will go to my friend to whom I gave the other cloth that was very possibly the most difficult cloth I've made. Both have a lacy pattern and both were mid-month KAL from the Monthly Dishcloth KAL group. The other was with the color Over the Rainbow. My friend's kitchen is orange and I think that these cloths will look great in her kitchen. She loves the first cloth so much, she deserves a second!

I was spinning yesterday and today I plied about 400+ yards of Romney.. I want to take a break from Fuzzy and spin some of the Targhee I have up... maybe I'll shoot for a lace weight. My friend Lea has me contemplating making a shawl. I even bought some lace weight merino from a Pure wool coop.....

ACMoore has Lily's on sale this week 96¢ a skein... guess where I'm going? I also bought some Peaches and Cream double worsted weight from Elmore Pisgah so that I can make the Mason Dixon absorba the great bath mat. With my kids we need it!

Happy crafting!