Movember

Crazy, crazy life has gotten away from me. I've been up to some crafty stuff, fear not, but I haven't had much time for posting.

So the latest and greatest, to get your giggle on:

Yes, that's a finger 'stache. Super, right? Here's a close-up:

It was too big for me, so the guy with the moustache gets to keep it. I think his finger is distorting it because it was nice and even before his giant knuckle got into it.

Recently I finished this messenger bag in lovely Malabrigo worsted, and then I felted it (on purpose). I'm going to needle-felt on the flap, but I haven't decided on the design yet, so it's sort of in limbo at the moment:

It's more purse-sized than giant-bag-of-endless-proportions-sized, and I think it will be good for carrying around knitting projects. Do you think that's sort of a form of cannibalism? Using a knitted item to carry around future knitted items? It seems a little bit wrong. I'll do it anyway.

So I've had this BEEEEEEAUTIFUL roving for a while. Well, it's actually combed top, but it's lovely either way. It's a bi-bfl / silk blend and I've recently heard that it was a mistake. It was supposed to be a single colour of bfl, but when it was blended (a beautiful grey ... I don't know what the problem was), it was less desirable and the vendor didn't want it. So the distributor added in the silk and there you have it:

They aren't the best photos, but you can see that it was a pound. I think I've spun close to 600 yards now. I decided on two-ply. So that really means that I've spun 1200 yards. WOW! I'm not sure whether my first 400 and my third (and weeks later) attempt at 144 yards are the same weight, but I'm going to apply some basic math - if I have the yards and the weight, I can find the weight per yard, and figure out how close they are. If they're close, it's all good. If they're not so close, I have more spinning to do and I'll then have two-ply in two weights. Goodness me! That was a lesson in delayed spinning, then, wasn't it?

In other news, I am coming to the end of a work project, and to the end of a business. In both cases, there are people (okay, women) who want to see my wedding photos. That's not so easy. My wedding album weighs more than my leg and I don't port it around much. Back in the last century, when I got married, we didn't have an option to request digital files. So today I ventured into the box o' album and took pictures of the pictures. It didn't work out all that great, but short of inviting all these women to my house to view the massive album, this is the solution.

Still married. Still love him. Still think we'll be married forever.

Piggies!

Cute, right? The white one is Steve and the tan-and-white one is Mr. Bigglesworth. They're rad and they're brothers and they couldn't be more different.

This photo is from when they were about 1.5 months old, so they're pretty wee. They're about two months old now and quite a bit bigger. Still babies, but growing more and more.

Mr. Bigglesworth is a cuddler. The child in the house LOVES him and loves to cuddle with him on the couch. My job is to socialize Steve. He's a little bit spastic and loves to poop and pee all over you while you have him on your lap. We're (almost) always prepared with a towel.

They LOVE parsley, cilantro and carrot tops, and they're awfully fond of (non-iceberg) lettuce, green beans and bell peppers. It's fun to feed them because they love it so much, and then they hop all over the place (it's called popcorning - google it!) and look all happy.

Steve has had a really good sniff of my Malabrigo wool and I was a bit worried he'd chomp my messenger-bag-in-progress, but he really just wanted to smell and walk on it a bit. I thought about putting him in the bag-in-progress, but knowing his pooping proclivity, I decided against it.

I really ought to go work on that bag-in-progress so I have a picture of something knitted to post, oughtn't I?

Catch-up and bags

It has occurred to me that while I've been fawning over my homespun angora for the past few weeks, I haven't actually posted about it. It's ridiculously soft. I have a very limited amount (I think it was fifty-something yards), but it has to be used as soon as possible. Such a dream.

I also have a new project to report. It's a market bag made of cotton and I know that it reminded my Nan of the type of bag they used during the war, so I made it for her.

I'm very distracted at the moment. We got two baby guinea pigs today and THEY. ARE. SO. CUTE.  They'll be in my next post.

Of knitting and knitted things

This is a little late in coming, but I had a birthday in August and got this:

Somehow I had to fit it into my stash spot, which also houses the Wii equipment, and which was sorely coming close to running out of space:

So I did this and added labels to keep myself sane, and so far it's working really well. It has also freed up space in the Wii equipment box for other things, and forces me to exercise every time I want to look at my yarn and fleece because it's upstairs now:

Did you see that rainbowy one in the birthday photo? That's Knitpicks Chroma in the worsted weight and it's a single ply, very soft and kind of fun to work with. A little bit Malabrigo-ish, but not quite as divine. I made these armwarmers for my kid and they're fuzzing a little bit, so I'm glad I didn't commit to a whole sweater with it, but for more gently-worn items, it'll be a great yarn to go back to, provided you don't care about consistency between garments or within a garment (there's no rhyme or reason to the striping):

Aside from my travel project, I have nothing on the needles now, which means I can get back to spinning for a bit. It's BFL/silk and it's lovely. I did my sampling and now I need to spin all the singles so I can get on with it. Or maybe not all of them, but a good enough chunk that I can make something fun. I'm thinking a Haruni. It's written for a fingering weight of 14 wraps per inch, so hopefully my singles are close and I can make a lovely natural oatmeal-grayish Haruni. I haven't measured my first single because it's not off the bobbin yet, but if it's not fingering weight, it's pretty darn close.

Sweater fun and other random things

Most important first - - the February Lady Sweater is finished!

I used Cascade 220 in the worsted weight, and I loved the gray, but there were only 4 balls when I saw it on sale in Oregon. I knew it wanted to be a sweater, so I picked up 2 of the purple as well, and devised this striping pattern to make the most of what I had, and to make it a little more fun for the young person it was going to be given to.

Nanna stepped up and posted the buttons, which are too bling-y for an adult (most adults, anyway), but perfect for a 'tween. She loves 'em!

It was a little worrisome to think that I had done 20 repeats of the lace pattern and that it might wind up being a cropped sweater ... but the beauty of lace is how it grows when you block it! I couldn't believe how perfectly-sized it came out in the end. Just wide enough and just long enough. Now if only she would stop growing....

This is my dog:

See the ridge on his back? He's a ridgeback. Rhodesian Ridgeback. The hair grows backwards there. It's pretty cool. He's a hundred twenty pounds of child-nipping awesome. It's not awesome that he nips children, but he is awesome. My English friend would be cross that I said that. I mean my dog is brilliant. Now that doesn't sound right, does it? He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, after all. He can't catch food thrown directly at his face for the life of him ... he lets it hit him in the face and then he races around trying to find it. You'd think he had no nose or eyes. Anyway, that was random.

This is the September 2011 Whipsaw four-wheeling trip, and the market bag being knit on the trip. It's not much of a bag at this point, but it will be soon!

There was no snow at Whipsaw this time. Over 30 degrees during the day and about 10 (probably) at night. It was warmer (again) at night than Manning Park, which was negative a hundred at night. I swear.

I'm going to go spin something.