The Sinister Scribe

Time seems to have sped up since Thanksgiving so briefly, before I run and jump into bed, here’s what I’ve been up to:

1. julienned my thumb with the new mandolin slicer thingy
2. cat nearly died (foam-rubber addiction)
3. fiber order arrived from Spinning Bunny
4. decided to finally knit the bald dog a sweater
5. put Sam on the hook for his electronic time (meet the min daily educational hours or no doing)
6. Saf yeast arrived… can’t wait to bake with it
7. finally got my Ravelry invite

The last one would explain the time warp. Holey moley I could get lost in there! Organizing stash, projects, queue those in the wings, find groups of similar knitters, find more patterns to put in the queue. Oy vey! This is a very bad thing. Very bad.

I would show you some pictures of doggies sweater and fibery bits… but I can’t find the camera cable. It was just here earlier today. So you just get a pic of some gorgeous red fall foliage. (the yarn I’m spinning now is kinda that color, maybe darker)

So I leave you with this great article at Utah’s Daily Herald on homeschooling kids in college. The girl mentioned in the opening is 14. Sam is 10. Ohhhhhh, I need to go lay down now.

G’Nite!

PS. Baroness Boo, I WILL call you! No, really!

Remember the alpaca roving I spun up only 10 days ago…? Well, here it is all knitted up into a cap for my WDH.

Yes, that is a smattering of snow you see! Amazing to think we were outside playing in the nearly 60 degree weather just the other day.

I wrote a quick note to Susan at the Spinning Bunny about the yarn I had spun from her fiber. Well, she said it looked great put it on her Customer Creations page. I’m the second from the bottom on the left)

Squeeeeee! I feel famous!

Friday was Sam’s 10th birthday party. This is him with the coveted DS game “Shadow the Hedgehog.” Can you tell he was excited?

Instead of cake, I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies and impaled the top cookie with 10 candles. This was served with icecream. Everyone seemed content with this deviation from tradition. Sam doesn’t really like cake so why should he have a birthday cake?

(Baroness Boo: Thank you so much for your call! We miss you and will try to call tomorrow evening)

Friday I also received in the mail 8 glorious ounces of merino top, pictured here with some of it spun into a 2-ply yarn. The Spinning Bunny calls this colorway “Sandstone.” By Saturday I had it nearly all spun up.  I plied the last bit with brown crochet cotton. The cotton disappears into the colors and the wool looks like boucle yarn. Kina neat. The two skeins pictured remind me of indian corn. I think I’ve talked myself into starting an Etsy shop to sell hand spun yarn. I’ve looked at several hand spun yarns out there now and I don’t think mine look too bad really. Whaddaya think? Would you buy these skeins?

Today I ventured into the local Asian market. Oh man! I’m glad I didn’t go there sooner. LOL! So many things I’ve been looking at online were there. Including a great mandolin slicer. Wowie! Zowie! I sliced many, many things very, very thin tonight. Don’t know how I’ve done with out one for so long. Best thing is that it was $7 cheaper there than online. Woot!

On a closing note: Today I challenged Sam to run one mile each day (on the dreadmill) for the next 6 days. Wish me luck! I gotta do something to start training for a 5K next year. :O

In an effort to preserve what semblance of sanity I have, I took a fiber break. I not only bought (at the CWSG Exhibition and Sale), but spun (and am now knitting with) some lucious, grey alpaca fiber. Woot! Here’s a close up shot of the yarn. It is soooo soft!  I’m going to attempt to knit my WDH a simple cap knit top-down like this pattern but with a twisted rib like this pattern. I hope I have enough yarn! I estimated that I spun up 67 yards (4 ounces)  and I’m using #11 needles.

Also in this picture are the never-ending-socks-of-blue. The leg portion is almost as long as the foot now. I so wanna just rib ‘em off and be done. But knee-high, hand-knitted socks would be just oh-so decadent.

Sorry for the horrid photo. I finished this yesterday night and didn’t get a chance all day to get a shot outside with it.

The instructions are found here at Heart Strings Fiber Arts. The yarn is Pitter Patter by Baby Bee in Angel white (Hobby Lobby brand I believe). Knitted on US #3 DPNs. The resulting fabric is a lot like chenille. Oh so snuggly soft. If it wouldn’t take fer-bleedin-ever, I’d knit meself a blanket or something out of it.

I changed the ears a bit from what the pattern calls for. I knew they had to be just right to bring out the personality of this yarn. I knitted 14 rows before beginning to decrease. Then, before attaching them, I folded the base in half. It really helped them stand up I think.

The tail is the i-cord variation sewed into a cap-like spiral, stuffed with a little yarn bits and sewn on securely. With this yarn, the sewing just disappears like magic!

So I’m going to have to make a few more of these. This one is for the neighbor’s son who turned two on Tuesday.

Are still on the needles… even after a year. I just finished the afterthought heels last night. they are so comfy. I really, really can’t wait to wear them.
I do knit on them now and then, really. But a lack of time coupled with a very fine yarn makes for veeeeeery slooooooooow progress. I very nearly decided to make them little footlet socks and stop here. But then you really couldn’t see the garter stitch rib well and I kinda like the way that looks soooooo… maybe they’ll be complete by next year.

I finally made one that looks like it is supposed to. Woot! It took a bit of futzing for me (until 2am one night) to get the turning right but by golly I did. First I had my forward and backward directions confused. Then I had to reallly lighten up on my weft tension. If there is any usable length to it, I’ll submit it as largess. (That’s why I used those colors )

The pattern is from Þóra’s website and is based on a Birka-Style motif. I chose it because it looked relatively simple as these things go. By that I mean the series of turns weren’t too complex for me to remember or take so long that I couldn’t get through one repetition quickly. I only used 20 cards instead of the 28 in Þóra’s pattern because I am lazy I wanted a narrower band. Once this one is done I’m going to do it again in a mahogany brown and a light sage green for Bob’s tan tunic.

Finally! They are done and on DS’s feet before he grew out of them.

He likes them and says they are comfy. I like that they are done and I can move on to my next knitting project guilt-free. I’ve been working on these for 7 months. Yikes!

And with that, I am off to bed. G’Nite y’all!

This is my new purse I made recently. The title “love handles” comes from the fact that this purse reminds that I am loved. The “raw materials” have a bit of history to them and I have one more thing to add still.

The grey shell was an italian sweater in its previous life. A couple of years ago, I was “kidnapped” by my friends and taken out to go thrift store shopping for clothes. They lovingly followed me around helping me find things. This was one of those finds. (Thanks, Tomi!) It had suffered a trip through the washer a while back and just never fit quite right again. So, it “suffered” another trip and became completely felted. The pockets (there is another one on the other side) are actually the cuffs and some of the sleeve.

The lining is from a pair of my son’s shorts he grew out of not too long ago. I cut off the legs with those wonderful pockets and saved them knowing I’d find a use for them eventually.

The pewter pin on the front is from my favorite Caidan King. It was a favor for something I did… I’ve forgotten exactly what already. :\ (what’s that about the memory being the second thing to go…?) He and his queen are wonderful people, both in and out of SCA life. It seemed to me that they went to exceptional lengths to outfit and educate themselves during their reign

The last little bit will be a turned walnut button. A leftover from a gambeson I made for Bob. He turned the button himself.

To make this passably complete, I need to add something of Jessie. Then I’ll add things as I come across them. Anyway, I really like this purse. It is comfortable to wear and it makes me smile.
Oh! The pattern. Well, it is based upon the article found here at Canadian Living. I’ve done a similar pattern in cotton print and didn’t like the way the seam ends up on the side of the purse (as opposed to the edge. So I just didn’t turn re-position those side seams after sewing them. I did the handles separately just because I had to piece them together to get enough length.