Mikknit

Now that I know she’s received the final package, I can reveal who I’ve been spoiling for Secret Pal 7.

Sharon at Knit & Stash was my secret pal. I really enjoyed finding and making gifts for her. Go check out her blog - she’s posted pictures of some pretty shawls she knit recently. So nice!

Secret Pal 8 signups start tomorrow, April 1. I think I’ll be doing it again.

I have a super-snuggly girl on my lap, so no knitting going on. Just snuggling. Nice day for it - it’s gray & rainy here.

My Jaywalkers with short-row heels. Knit in Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Potluck in Jewel. I love these socks and they get the Elvis seal of approval!

Handspun yarn for *my* Secret Pal. 100% wool handpainted roving from Creative Fibers, handspun and navajo plied. I love how it turned out, this picture doesn’t do it justice at all. Hopefully she’ll post a better picture of it when she gets the package and I can direct you over to her blog to see it. I had so much fun spinning this, and especially enjoyed plying it. I love navajo plying and I LOVE the results of that technique.

And just because they’re cute, here are the beasties:

It was brought to my attention that I didn’t blog about my second Secret Pal package. Whoops. So here are packages #2 and #3. My secret pal rocks!

Handspun yarn, a craft book, chopsticks, lotion and shower gel, hats for the kids, and already-consumed cookies. Click on the picture for mroe information.

Yummy soap and sticky notes. Again, clicky for more info.

My Secret Pal has revealed her identity - she is Kate from Rhymes With Orange. Kate, you are an awesome secret pal, just awesome. I hope your Secret Pal was as generous and thoughtful with her gifts as you were with yours.

I’ve decided that I really need to start leaving comments on the blogs I read. There are 38 (holy cow) blogs in my bloglines and there are only one or two that I regularly comment on. Clearly I need to start commenting more.

This is not a plea for more comments to be left on my blog, but I would love to hear from more of the people who visit me here!

I’ve been knitting a little but there’s not much progress to show - all of my knitting time this weekend was sucked up by orchestra rehearsal and a concert. Fun, but not knitting.

I’ve also been spinning some yarn for my secret pal (taking it right down to the wire, thank goodness Priority Mail gets from here to there in one to two days!), so I’ll post a photo of that once it’s plied and washed. Hopefully I’ll get the boy to take a nap this morning and work on that.

I needed to replace some of the yarn I pitched last night (and needed to de-stress a little!), so I started spinning my $2 Romney. I found a box of wool at the Textile Center of MN Garage Sale in 2004. It was labelled “Washed Romney Fleece, $10″. I thought it was a good price, so I grabbed it. When I was checking out, the checkout person saw a different label, on the other side of the box - “Washed Romney Fleece, $2″. So she charged me $2 for it! It sat and sat and sat, waiting patiently for my attention. I finally got to it this weekend.

Here’s the box. It was a bit more full originally - I’d already carded one or two batts’ worth of wool at this point.

Carding. That’s a Pat Greene Deb’s Deluxe, I believe. Love it! The wool carded up like a dream - minimal teasing needed to fluff it out, little to no second cuts or vegetable matter. So nice! A bit of dust that made me all sneezy, but not too bad.

This is what I spun up last night. I think that’s about 1.5 batts’ worth of wool. Looks like it’ll be about a light worsted weight once it’s plied. The bright white blob there is Mimi, investigating the bobbins. The spinning wheel lives in a spot inaccessible to cats and kids, so when it comes out everyone’s fascinated.

I’ve been doing some knitting, too. No progress pictures since there’s not much to see, but here’s a picture of what I’m making:

The Ladybird Bootees from Zoë Mellor’s 50 Baby Bootees to Knit. So cute, hopefully I’ve got the right gauge this time. I had to rip out my work from yesterday, so that would be why there are no progress pictures.

Speaking of knitting, I should go do some.

Hi, I’m an idiot. I wrote this three months ago. I had grand ideas to sort through everything and freeze out all the buggers while it was still cold as hell outside. Did I do anything? Nope.

Fast forward to this evening, when I spotted a small winged creature fluttering around in the upstairs hall. I squashed the beast, but I know he wasn’t alone. Once the kids were down for the count, I started in the wool/fabric/catchall room. Started putting yarn into ziploc bags, tossing odds and ends and yarns that I really thought were more at risk of infestation and the ones that I wanted an excuse to pitch. I brought down two garbage bags filled with ziplocs of yarn, and there’s more to come. I ran out of steam. There’s still a bin of handspun up there and a couple bins of assorted yarns. I wonder if they can get into Sterilite bins…

I’m honestly afraid to inspect the basement wool stash. That’s where the fleeces are. I put some of them in the space-saver bags a few years ago (I think I did my pregnancy nesting by carding wool). Well, those things have shitty seals - don’t count on them to stay shrunken. One of those bags has two small shetland fleeces from a friend’s flock and another has a gorgeous silvery-gray fleece that I bought at Shepherd’s Harvest right before I got pregnant with Grace. Some of the stuff that I’ve been looking forward to spinning for ages, in other words.

I need someone to come hold my hand while I go look down there.

What do I do if it’s been infested? Do I rewash the fleece and try to make the best of it, or do I pitch it?

I’m going to toss and turn thinking about this all night. Bleah.

Got a call from the Apple Store guy earlier, he *thinks* that it’s just a little $9 part that was damaged by the spill. Of course, even though the part might be cheap, the labor is still going to be spendy. He quoted me somewhere around $140 for part + labor. Still better than the $700+ it’d be for the logic board, though.

I suppose I’ll say that it’s a good idea I’d put myself on a yarn and fabric diet - I think I need to work down my stash significantly before I purchase anything else. It’s going to be very difficult to do this with a yarn shop less than 2 blocks from my house, but I will manage, I suppose. The fabric diet might be tougher, as I know approximately 324769902 pregnant women, most of whom are not finding out their baby’s gender before birth. A great plan, but I don’t have much gender-neutral fabric in my stash. There is a lot of white cotton interlock and natural hemp jersey, though, and I have a good selection of fabric dyes, so I guess I could make it work. I’ll just have to sew clothing instead of diapers - I don’t have any more hemp fleece or french terry, and not much sherpa (those are the best, most absorbent materials for diaper making, at least that I can afford).

I suppose if I get hard-up for fiber entertainment, I can work on my spinning. I’ve been working my way through some yellow-dyed wool, possibly an originally-grey Shetland, and it’s been a LONG time since I’ve done much spinning. My left heel goes numb pretty quickly from the treadling, so I can only spin for an hour or so before I have to switch projects. Of course, I also can’t spin during the day since babies like to stick their fingers in places where they could get pinched. Grace will stay clear of the wheel, but I don’t trust Arlo to do so. He’ll have to be a bit older and have some impulse control before I feel safe spinning with him around.

Hopefully I’ll be back online with my iBook by the end of the weekend!

i won’t be writing this week - a bottle of diet coke got spilled on my laptop and it’s in for repairs. whee.

i finished the jaywalkers and I love them, and I’m around the heel on the first flamingo sock. I switched back to 2 circs on that once i finished the jaywalker - much more my speed.

i need to knit some soakers, one or two for arlo to replace the one that got lost and the one that went through the wash, and one for my friend’s daughter to trade for some diapers. Of course, the patterns for the soakers are on my ibook :-/ Same goes for my Sockapaloooza pal’s info and the patterns I was considering for her socks. Dangit. Guess I might actually have to work from a *gasp* book or make something up. Whee!

Send “cheap repair” vibes, please!

This is the view from my back door this morning:

I could barely open the door to take this - I think we’ve got about 4″ standing on the porch. A perfect day for staying home and knitting.

I’ll be working on this:

Opal Rainforest in Flamingo. Trying the magic loop method since Jaywalker #2 is still on my size 1 circs. I don’t love it, but it’s gotten easier since I finished the ribbing. Pink is not my color, generally, but I’ll wear any color on my feet. I am becoming more and more enamoured of the pink, though.

I was knitting on it the other day at Borealis, and Abby (the owner) said “That’s some bright yarn!” Now if a woman with electric blue hair calls something bright, it must be very loud!

I need to take teething boy upstairs for a nap. Wish me luck.

I took some photos over the weekend and have just not been able to find time to put them on the computer. I fought the boy down for a nap and *finally* got some time to do it.

First of all, Grace’s Robin Hood Jacket:

That is such a difficult sweater to get a picture of. Now that the sun’s come back from the netherworld, maybe I’ll be able to get outside and get a shot of the sweater off the model (i.e. not moving) and get better details.

Next, the PINK sweater:

The neckband won’t fit over her head. I need to undo the bindoff and either do a sewn bindoff or rip out the whole neckband and add more stitches. Dang, that kid has a big head.

My Jaywalker:

As you can see, I changed it to a short-row heel. I should’ve done the heel over fewer stitches or not made it as deep, but it fits well enough. Fits my foot better than a flap heel would. I’m most of the way done with the leg portion of sock #2, but haven’t been doing much knitting this week.

I’ve been sewing instead. I whipped this up last night:

Doesn’t look like much, but here’s the inside:

The outside is a cotton/poly twill, the inside is a cotton batik. There are 6 pockets and a magnetic snap closure. I meant to put a key clip in but forgot (as usual). It’s a surprise gift for someone, and I hope she really likes it. I’m very tempted to keep it for myself… good thing I’ve got lots of both fabrics left. I could make bags like this over and over again, except for the handles. It’s quite a pain to turn the handle tubes right side out, but Chris helped me.

Off to mail the bag!