Saturday, February 21, 2009

Check it out!

New spinning books on the horizon: this summer and this fall (all about spindling!). Hurray!!

Friday, February 20, 2009

Crafter's block, plus goals update

Hi! Glad you are emerging from the winter icks. We're doing all right here. DS wants to learn to spin on the wheel so may try that soon. DD thus far hasn't done more than twirl the spindle and treadle the (empty) wheel but I'm encouraged by her early interest.

I've been having crafter's block for a while now. It took me lots of tries to get a Shawl Ministry project to stick with; it's a lap robe using the Babette Blanket pattern but in less thrilling colors. I'm smitten with the brights but they need some projects with more subdued colors.

I started a few projects with lovely cotton, but as usual, it makes me sore if it's anything bigger than a tawashi. So I'm going to weave with it instead.

The Big Rectangle? Poor thing. First I realized I had enough yarn but not in enough colors (what gives, I always have too many colors in too small amounts) . . . so I decided to weave a rectangle shawl. But that was giving me something probably too heavy (when I know more about weaving, I'll be able to get around that, I imagine). I considered this sweater and still am, along with some other wraps: Mananita, Nina, and Belinda. The trick: I need to use stash because I'm getting my fleece at the end of April and suddenly that seems soon. Must make room.

I've been doing Navajo spindle spinning and loving it. Really all I want to do is spin a lot and knit and weave some . . . so that's another challenge for using up the stash. Hmm. I was very moved a few weeks ago by a story of a homeless person barehanded; I felt a strong urge to "whip" up a zillion mittens to cover all those cold hands. But I'm not sure if it wouldn't be better to raise some money to help instead (I'm also always leery of repetitive strain injuries, so any project that involves me whipping out lots of something, well, doesn't usually happen).

Bye for now, C

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Still Alive

Hi Cindy,

After well over a week of being sick, followed by DH being sick, I'm finally almost back to normal. I caught a nasty bug last month, right after DH's birthday and ended up missing 4 days of work over 2 weeks and the cough hung on for quite a while afterwards. I went to Urgent Care the second day and it still hung on for over a week. It didn't go away until I went again and got antibiotics. That seem to kick it.

Surprisingly I didn't do much knitting during all my sick time home, just lots of sleeping and resting. I've started back at it the last week or so. Today will be the first day my friend and I go down to the gym again after both of us being sick.

As you may have seen on the news we have a very important visitor in town today. Actually he arrived yesterday afternoon. It is hard to seen in this picture but there is snow on top of Four Peaks in the background (near the tail of the plane). Pretty cool. He's speaking at Dobson High, a couple of miles from our house. We talked briefly about trying to get tickets but we would have had to get there Sunday night to stand in line until 10 am Monday. They had about 1000 people show up and only 500 tickets.
I've got a post coming about some wedding knitting/crafting I'm doing for a friend. She's getting married in June and I've made few things in prep for the shower.
More soon, A

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Need help with a sweater?

Try Farli's blocking service! (or perhaps she's ready to advise on button placement ?? )

Start 'em Young, Part 1

DD trying out a spindle with a leader attached. :D