Sunday, September 21, 2008

Unexpected blog break

Did you miss me??

Where have I been??

I'm just not making the time to sit down and write anything.
School, "Annie" rehearsal, stuff going on at Church, meetings and other family events have kept me away from
blogland.


Let's look at pictures:
Here is the baby sweater that I entered in the
Picton Fall Fair, that won 2nd prize:


It was knit about 7 months ago with my nephew in mind--and has now finally been sent off to him. I hope it still fits.
It's the Hickory Dickory Dot pattern from Juju and Lolo (Anny Purls). I knit this as a test knit for her pattern which is now available on her site.

Yarn:
I did a yarn trade with Chrissy of the Manic Purl Podcast. She mentioned my
Tealicious yarn in episode 3 of her podcast, and I reminded her recently that the yarn was still up for grabs in the shop.
She traded me for this:


It's her own hand-dyed from her new shop YarnSprout. It's a Merino/Seacell blend dyed with
natural dyes. It's called "Chocolate Raspberry Mousse" and I just LOVE it.
She also gave me a cute little stitch saver
keychain (which is a crochet hook to catch those dropped stitches, while on the go).

I finished up a skein of
handspun:


It's
Superwash Merino in the "50's Diner" colourway of Turquoise and Red, that didn't sell in my shop.
It's very
squooshy

I started a hat from my
handspun:


The orange yarn is from my
PippiKneeSocks roving in the "Peepers" colourway.
The grey is hand-washed, hand-carded, hand-spun Shetland fleece from a local Shetland farm.
It is a 3 ply yarn, my first attempt at long-draw spinning. It's not too bad, but I could use more practice--which is good because I have to card and spin a lot more yarn to finish this hat.

The pattern is the Morning Coffee Toque, by PippiKneeSocks.
I can't wait to finish it

:)

I am still skeining away to finish up the dyeing for Robyns' Nest--the October Sock Club and another colourway for her shop.
Go here and buy a Sock Club spot if you are so inclined :)


Other than that, there is not too much going on (ha ha--as I think of my list of things to do: skein yarn, dye yarn, manage the family stuff, take care of Church responsibilities as Chair of our Board with a New Pastor starting next week, Play rehearsal, sleeping somewhere in there).

There is not much knitting going on--I actually only have 1 sock project on the go (GASP, SHOCK) and have yet to pick out my fall sweater.

I was thinking of this:


and had decided to start--but then realized that I really don't like pullovers--there I said it.
I love sweaters, but I tend to wear one in the morning when I'm cold, then take it off an hour later after chasing kids and overheating, then I want it when I'm cooking and then I'm too hot again.

Cardigans are good for me--so I think I might knit this



or this


Which one do you think???

I can't decide.
I have 6 skeins of Cascade 220--so I can't knit up a huge sweater. I have been looking around on
Ravelry and these ones might just work.

I'm still undecided but I have time since it's not cold here--yet

:)

6 comments:

Unknown said...

You've certainly been busy. I like the top cardigan.

Sophia said...

ooooh wow Ann, I love all of those sweater choices! I would wear a pullover or a button up :)
where do I place my order? hehe
I have missed you here in blogland so thanks for posting.
you will have to give me a refresher course in "the beginning knitter" bc maybe then I could learn how to purl...and make little hats. :)

Anonymous said...

Love the first cardigan :)

cafepress.com/hitsandhobbies said...

First - love both cardigans, but would probably choose the first one.
Second - I, too, love the LOOK of pull over sweaters, but - alas - I get way too hot way too fast too. And all the pulling on and off messes the hair even more than it was and I also worry about forgetting my sweater if I've taken it off when away from home somewhere.
Cardigans - it's the way to go for me!

Michelle said...

Hey Anne-Marie,
Not sure if you remember me - I'm a friend of Janna's - Anyways, last night in my American Lit class we were reading some poem from the 1600's that compared spinning wool to the Spirit's work in us, and the prof was saying "it's hard for us to understand this, because no one knows anything about wool anymore. No one spins it by hand, it's all big machines.. no one uses flowers and berries to dye it, it's all chemicals...etc, etc" and then I was thinking about how ubelievably sad that all is.. until I rememebered that YOU do all that, and for some reason that gave me a little bit of hope that just MAYBE we can hang on to some of these wonderful, natural, creative things, and not end up in a sterile Jetson's world, run by robots. (Though I would like to have their housekeeper!)
Michelle
ps - I love the last cardi!
pps - Wow, that was long. Sorry!

Taylor said...

I actually like the pull-over. It doesn't seem as bulky and I could wear a sexy cami underneath. I'd make it something other than green, though.