New News

Well, a lot of knitting has been underway. So much that I have no pictures. Sorry. Instead, I've figured out how to add a button to my sidebar! Yeah for me! By the time I have this blog thing all figured out they'll be obsolete. Anywho, the button is for the Spinning Wheel ring. Yep, I'm about to dive into the unknown waters of spinning my own yarn. Truthfully, I could not be more freakin' excited! I am currently keeping tabs on an ebay auction for a drop spindle and a 6oz bundle of dyed wool. Don't worry, it comes with two instruction booklets. Anyway, this auction ends six days from now! I don't know if I can wait that long!?! Forget the chaos in the world right now.....I must have roving! I suddenly became smitten with the idea of spinning while reading Stephanie's guest blogger yesterday. Maybe one day I will try to dye my own roving, but for now, just handling it properly will suffice!
Mom's sweater hasn't seen the light of day for at least two weeks now and I'm starting to feel guilty as I line up two more projects ahead of it. Well, its February in Florida. Winters over here anyway! She'll have it in time for next fall. Back to the roving.......there is one yarn store here that has spinning listed under its name. Its in Palm Harbor which isn't far away but a drive with two small kids who don't want to go in the first place. Do they have roving? Could it be? Wheels? Spindles? The last thing we need is to spend more money on fiber supplies but the thought of learning to spin alpaca roving myself sets my heart a-racin'!
More pictures and an update on spinning acquisitions tommorow.

The good news and the bad news.....

In the few days since my last post much has gone on. My husbands employer has gone bankrupt and is in the process of being acquired by another company. We have spent the past three months wondering if he will have a job. It has been, to say the least, very stressful. But where there is bad, thankfully there is good. Just as the cold Canadian winds blew all the way down south to us here in Tampa on Thursday night, I received an email from a lovely lady in Toronto named Stephanie. She informed me that I am a winner of a thank you gift for my MSF donation! Can you believe it? I've never won anything before! At least nothing as cool as yarn! Three whole skeins of.....guess what........KUERYON! Can you believe it?! The knitting goddess has smiled on this little knitter. I've spent the past 48 hours knitting anything that comes into my sight. A heart purse, a baby sweater, baby hat, booga bag, moms sweater, and even finishing a little vest I made for my son for easter last year (and is therefore too small now). I guess the stress from life and a large dose of PMS have sent me into a knitting frenzy and frankly, I'm surprised that I'm sitting here writing this instead of starting the baby sweater.

UGG!

UGG! 

Here is the first UGG bootie. It only took me a few hours to do. I worked on it at the local mall's playground while my kids played. While I was working on it a lovely woman came up to me and asked me if she could watch me as she was trying to teach herself how to knit. We sat there for a while and she told me she had crocheted several blankets for family and friends. I told her if she had the stick-to-it-iveness to crochet a whole blanket (bedspread size mind you) she could easily learn to knit anything. As we were both rounding up our kids, she mentioned she was heading right to the craft store to look at yarn!! Another yarn enabling moment.
A bit earlier, while the kids were playing, another little girl came up and started watching me and asking me what I was doing. I told her I was knitting and that you can make lots of stuff with some yarn and two needles like headbands, legwarmers, toys, sweaters.....She ran off and asked her mom if she could knit!
My husband would say, "great now your warping the children". Yesssssss, little children would all learn to knit if I were the ruler of the world! There would be Yarn store vacations and yarn bonuses! Free needles and patterns for everyone!
Bwah-hah-hah!!!!!

Suede and Plush 
Another purchase from the lys yesterday. A skein of Suede and Plush to make the baby Ugg booties listed on DIY.com. They are so cute! I'm making them for a friend who had a little boy so I'm leaving off the extra plush on the instep so it will look a little more manly.

Future Booga

 

Isn't it lovely? I am finally going to make myself a knitting project bag. I just hope its big enough. Instead of beginning with the bag, I want to start with the straps so I can use all possible yarn for the bag. Maybe I could also knit more for the bottom, making it wider but then I would most likely have to go back for more yarn. I also need to figure out if I've got size 10.5 dpns. Another trip to the lys might be inevitable.
On the moms sweater front, things are slowed down again. All the momentum I had going after finishing the bottom ribbing and neckband was halted when I began the sleeves. I did everything right, but the underarm (where I picked up the sts) doesn't look as neat as the rest of the arm. Also, I placed the marker (where the dec for the sleeve were to be made) in the middle of the underarm row, then joined (at the end of this row) and began knitting in the round. Well, after a few sets of decs, I realized that I was going to lose my beg of round spot to dec because I didn't have that marked and was worried that my sleeve would be lopsided as I worked it without knowing where the beg and end was! Am I going crazy? I think so. After two nights of staring at the underarm seam, I decided to pick up Maya's legwarmer which was coming along beautifully until I decided that it wasn't large enough width wise and increased sts helter skelter along two rows. Now, it is too wide. I will rip that back and start after the ribbing again. Sigh. So what do I do? Go to the yarn store for more projects! Someone....Anyone......Help Me!!!