Spring equals Spinning!

In Spinning News

After hibernating in my living room all winter with my Icarus shawl and several Christmas knitting projects, I once again have had the itch to spin. I hadn't really spun much at all over the holidays, and post-Christmas knitting was tantamount to a frenzied scramble to complete Icarus.

Recently I have been eyeing up my wheel. It sits in my living room and looks at me everyday, sadly and needfully. But I have been ignoring its silent pleas, in favor of a frustratingly boring shawl. But spring is here and with it comes the urge to set myself outside in my favorite rocking chair on the porch and spin away. In an effort to relcaim my office, I decided to move my fiber stash. In doing so I uncovered so much gorgeous fiber, which further got that proverbial--and literal--wheel to spinning.

Yesterday was so gorgeous--a whopping 65 degrees--that I threw open the windows and busted out the spinning wheel. So strong was my urge to spin that I spun up about 3 ounces, all in one afternoon! It was Spunky Eclectic's Lame Duck--I think it was the Fiber of the month in Novemeber. And of course it is BFL. I swear it is my favorite fiber to spin, hands down. Its easy, lustrous, and takes dye beautifully. Not to mention soft! Granted I have gotten some semi-itchy BFL (not from spunky), but for the most part its all been very soft. Definitely next-to-skin if you aren't hypersensitive about wool--and of course, if it is softly spun.

Here is Lame Duck, spun and washed:



And Thermograph Spunky FOTM, which is as a single 32 wpi:



Anywhoo....I have also been dyeing a little bit for my Etsy Shop, which definitely needs some repleneshing. Since I'm here alone with the kids my time has been very limited and the shop has suffered. But I do have some beginner spindle kits ready to go, they just need some dyed fiber thrown in. With the economy being what it is, my sales have slowed dramatically anyway. I would like to get back on that horse, however rickety she might be. I am crossing my fingers for another sunny day soon, so I can take pics of my fibers outside, where their color really comes through.



In Knitting News

In my last post I promised to post pics of some recent FOs, some dating to before Christmas!

Here is the doily that I knit for my mom for Christmas. I'm not a doily person, but she totally is and has not-so-subtly hinted that she wanted one for a while:



This was surprisingly easy to knit. The pattern is from A Gathering of Lace, compiled by the illustrious Meg Swansen. I had a hard time deciding what yarn to use, but ended up using (of all things) Aunt Lydia's Bamboo Crochet Thread. I'm not usually one for using crochet thread for knitted lace, but I love working with bamboo and really wanted to try this stuff. I was pleasantly surprised. Its so shiny and nicely spun, and it blocks like a DREAM. And its all of 3 bucks a ball!

I also knitted these super cute mittens for The Boy. He always complained that his hands were cold in his store-bought (gasp!) mittens, so I whipped these bad boys up, which are positively toasty. The pattern is from Knitting New Mittens, which I reviewed a while ago. They took only a couple of evenings to knit and are so friggin great I want to knit myself a pair straight away:


If you aren't familiar with thrums, they are basically bits of roving knit right into the fabric of the mitten. They produce a layer of fiber on the inside of the mitten which will gradually felt to the shape of the wearer's hand. Cozy! These are sloppy thrums, but here is a nice tutorial on how to do them neatly.

On a very positive note, Bloomsburg now has a fantastic knitting group! yay! If you are local, please join us! It meets the second and fourth Sunday of every month from 2-4 at Panerra. Its a wonderful bunch of gals and we always have a lot of fun. The time really flies! I am so happy that I now have a local group to knit with. I even went with one gal in our group to a LYS that I was unaware of, Swisher's Yarn Basket in Danville. Naturally I bought yarn. I came home with this, Aurucania Itata Multy:



And yarn for this:



I was so excited about yarn #2 (Louisa Harding's Grace Hand-dyed) that I cast on for Argosy before I even had a chance to snap a pic of the yarn alone. Its a silk/merino blend and is simply delectable. The scarf is actually completed already and is drying as I type! This project was super speedy. The pattern pretty much knits itself and the "lace" repeat is very easy to memorize. I'm not much of a scarf knitter (I find them too boring, and they end up as UFOs in the bottom of my knitting basket) but I do enjoy patterns that are knit on the bias.

As you can tell from my purchases, I was in the mood for spring. I was so blah-ed by the grey tediousness of Icarus that I just had to have something a little cheerier, and these yarns were certainly the ticket. And I'm not really even a pink kind of gal.

In Other News

Well things have been pretty crazy here at Casa Betzi. My inlaws have been visiting from Germany, and last weekend we went with them and my parents to DC to do the tourist thing. While we were there The Boy got pretty sick, and definitely got stuck with some kind of stomach bug. He was a trooper tho, and really got a kick out of riding the metro and checking out the Museum of Natural history.

The Boy and His Sister, puzzling over the abstract "water":



The Boy is definitely well enough to point out Hyena Poop to His Sister:



The Boy and Papa:



My parents were kind enough to stay a few extra days, as I had a very minor surgery scheduled. Nothing big, but it needed to be done. I had a harmless sebasceous cyst removed. It got infected a month or so ago and doc said it needed to come out. Of course it hurt like the dickens post-op, but a day later I was fine if I limited my movements (it was in an unfortunate location: right on my spine between my shoulder blades, where it seems like every muscle in your body is attached!).

Now that I'm on the mend The Girl caught Her Brother's stomach bug. I spent last night changing sheets and jammies! At least hubby comes home this weekend and things will start to calm down a little bit.

Well thats it for now! More next week on spinning for lace, the ravelry DIY Club of the Month, and more pics from DC (the botanical gardens!). And because I don't think you have had enough images in this post, here is the...


VIDEO OF THE WEEK!

This one is hard to intro, but suffice it to say the lady knits with 1000 strands of yarn at the same time. The "needles" she uses are tree branches and looks like it might be a smidge cumbersome: