zbyszkoknits

Finished up a few more things recently. Afghans for Afghans was asking for baby blankets, so I dug out some of my wool leftovers and some wool that I had bought to make myself a pair of felted slippers (but I have since changed my mind on colors). I used a corner of the Modern Quilt Wrap pattern for my block placement and knit up most of this blanket while watching football.



Since it has been cold enough for scarves around here lately, I dug out some of the blue-green Malabrigo that I bought last year and made a Just Enough Ruffles scarf.



I also finished up spinning the alpaca/silk roving that I bought from the Gale's Art booth at the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival last month. It is about 25 WPI and 260 yards/ 2 oz. The color is called "Deep Blue Sea" and is a mix of teal, purple, and green. I'm thinking that it will make a very pretty cowl.



I've got a whole ton of other projects on the needles - an amber colored cardigan for myself, some scarves, some socks .............

Finished up a cute top for my little niece. I tried to get a pic of her wearing it but she moves too fast. : )


I finished up spinning 8 oz. of some cochineal dyed CVM roving that I bought from Handspun by Stephania at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival. I spun it on one of the spindles that I bought at the festival. This is half of it:


Caught up on the first 4 episodes of Glee on Hulu this afternoon while spinning up some amber colored Wensleydale roving - not too much more left to spin and then I will see how much I have and can decide what it wants to be.

Have been doing a lot of spinning lately on my drop spindles. Last week Friday I picked up some gorgeous Mountain Colors Targhee Top in the peppergrass colorway and spun it up. I used the singles to knit up another Aestlight shawl which I finished yesterday:


I still have almost an ounce left of the handspun so maybe I'll make some wristwarmers or fingerless gloves.......

Went to Target yesterday for a few groceries and checked out the "Back to School" stuff while I was there. I found 2 pencil cases that are great for my knitting/spinning.

One $1.99 pencil case (9 in by 3.5 in by 2.5 in) makes a great project case for my sock knitting. There is a lot in there. : ) :
closed:


open:


The other one is smaller but it will hold an assortment of double point needles or my 1/2 oz Golding spindle with some fiber:

I spun up some more yarn last week from my fiber stash. I found a roll of teal with black roving that I bought probably 10 years ago that looked like it would be good to practice with. After I spun it up on my Golding spindle, I remembered that I had spun up another roll of the same color on my wheel a few years ago - or rather overspun, so I decided to ply the two together. I ended up with slightly over 400 yards if I counted the wraps correctly on my niddy noddy. I washed it and whapped it and hung it up to dry yesterday on the screen porch:


And today, my 2 new Golding spindles arrived - a tiny cherry .5 oz one and a 1.3 oz Celtic Ring 2. I dug out my samples from the Painted Rovings class that I took up at Siever's in 1999 to practice on and found the rovings that I had painted in the class for a shawl that I never got around to spinning up previously. Maybe now I finally will.

: )

I haven't been posting much over here although I have been knitting lots. At least I have been posting pics on Ravelry.

Among my other projects, I recently bought a Golding Celtic Ring spindle. On Friday I stopped in at the Sow's Ear and bought some Mauch Chunky roving to practice on and by Sunday night I had 2 ply yarn!


You can see the spindle better in this pic:


I am now spinning some teal with black flecks wool from some roving that has been in my stash for probably 9 or more years. I've gotten a lot done while my niece naps.

I also made 2 small spindles from some donut shaped beads - one is Amazonite and the other is teal glass. I used rubber grommets in the holes to fit them onto old paintbrush handles and bent some copper wire for the hooks. They are pretty light weight so I will have to practice a bit more before I attempt that bombyx silk roving that I found in my stash. : )

I keep forgetting to post over here. I have been on a green kick lately. I usually go for teals- all the bluey greens and greeny blues. A vast part of my stash iis in these shades.

But for the last few months, I have been attracted to the more yellowy spring greens. I thought it was just because of winter, but here it is June and I am still buying yarn in that color.

I 'm working on a scarf in some fingering weight cotton for myself - I've started over about half a dozen times so far, trying to find the perfect project for it. I've also started a tunic top from the latest Curvy Knits pamphlet for myself in some Naturally Caron Spa (an acrylic/ bamboo blend). Both are in that spring green color and not really far enough along for pics yet. I also did a scarf for my sister-in-law in the same green in the Spa.

One that I do have a pic of is a scarf in some green Malabrigo lace weight that my sister sent me. I knit up a scarf from Victorian Lace Today:


I also finished up a Baby Surprise Jacket using up the leftovers (plus a coordinating darker green of the Berocco Comfort DK) from my niece's sweater and bunny:

I've recently finished up 3 pairs of socks - for me, yay!

One is from some Malabrigo sock yarn that my sister gave me. Switcheroo socks from Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn:


These are my Pomatomus socks, done in Jojoland Melody Superwash:


And the last pair are some basic socks knit in Red Heart"s Heart and Sole in the Green Envy color:

I made a few things for my niece who is turning one at the end of this month. One is a Secret Garden sweater from an Alice Starmore pattern. I knit it up in Berroco Comfort DK so it will be machine washable and dryable:


I liked the Comfort DK so I picked up a few more balls and knit up a bunny from the Debbie Bliss Toy Knits book. I made up my own clothes though for the bunny as I wanted to use up some stash yarn, including some of the leftovers from the Secret Garden sweater. I also knit as much of the bunny as I could in the round, rather than flat as the pattern called for.

The bunny:


I also took another drop spindle spinning class this week. It was fun. Now I just have to practice so I don't forget how again. : )

I just finished up my Fylingdales Sweater from A Fine Fleece - sewed the buttons on today.


I never knit things in the yarn and color that is shown in the pattern picture but this time around, I had the exact yarn and color in my stash. The weird thing though is that the pattern said that I would need 9 skeins of the Blackwater Abbey yarn and I ended up using 5 and a half of the 10 skeins that I had. I find it hard to believe that a sweater as big as the one I made only took 1200 yards but I have enough left over to make a vest or something. I think that the yarn must have been breeding while it was in my stash. : )

I also finished up a scarf done in basic seed stitch. I needed something simple to knit while my baby niece was napping on my lap. I recycled the yarn from a shawl that I knit a few years ago that I never wore- if I remember correctly, it was Mountain Colors Mountain Goat.

I liked the first one that I knit up, so I tried it again. Only this time, I used some Jojoland Melody in teals that I had in my stash. I used 3.25 mm needles and did 10 repeats of the chart to get my 24 inches around. I used about 1.6 skeins of the yarn and the cowl ended up 16 inches long. There are 4 rows of garter stitch at the beginning and end. With the pattern stitch, it makes little scallops on either end.



I do have enough of the yarn to do some matching gloves. : )

I finally got around to knitting up the Ultra Alpaca Light that I treated myself to when my cat Valeria Victrix died back in August 2007. I knit up the Poppy Gloves from Knitting New Mittens and Gloves using some of the left over Wagtail Kid Mohair from my Wavy Feathers Wimple.


I ended up only using one of the skeins for the gloves so I decided to use the Pomatomus stitch pattern (http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEwinter05/PATTpomatomus.html) for another cowl. I cast on 96 stitches on size 4mm needles and did 4 rows of garter stitch before starting the Chart 1 pattern. I combined the Ultra Alpaca Light with more of the left over Wagtail since I didn't want to run out and buy another skein of the Ultra Alpaca. : )


There is still some of the Wagtail left- that skein just doesn't want to end. : )

I finished up the Triinu Scarf from Nancy Bush's Knitted Lace of Estonia. It was a fast knit. I used Schaeffer's Anne in a gorgeous copper shade and ended up with about 4 yards of the 560 yard skein left when I was done. I did add one extra repeat of the pattern so my scarf is about 70 inches long by 12 inches wide.





The color looked particularly nice against the teal sweater I was wearing yesterday - it almost glowed. : )

I finished up this cowl yesterday:


I used Wagtail Yarns Kid Mohair 4 ply on size 4 needles. The color was called "old gold" and is amazing. It constantly changes color depending on the light from old gold, greeny gold, bronze, copper, and even sage green. I have about 150 yards left from the 410 yards in the skein.

Unfortunately, it will be plenty cold enough here to wear it for some time yet.

The pattern came from: http://www.carylldesigns.com/wavy_feathers_wimple.htm

Finished up a new pair of gloves yesterday and just in time for the "bitter cold" coming this week . They are the Golden Bracelet Gloves from Knitting New Mittens and Gloves. I found a cone of cream/white Harrisville Shetland wool in my stash and dug out some leftover Shetland wool from some other projects for the colorwork. These went nice and fast even on 2.5 mm needles.

So I recently finished up a few things for myself after I finished up Christmas knitting.

I did the Garter and Eyelet Shapely Shawlette in some Pagewoods Farms St. Elias sock yarn - so soft since it is Blue-faced Leicester:


I also did one of those Noro Striped scarves for myself:


And I finished up the Goldengrove socks from Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarns:

So I haven't posted anything here for some time. I have been doing a lot of knitting though. I finished up a ton of Christmas knitting although I didn't take pics of some of the things. ( knitting stuff inside )

Finished up a pair of socks for my mom today. They knit up pretty fast as I started them on Friday. They are the Raindrop Lace Socks from Fibertrends done in Cascade Heritage sock yarn. I have just under a third of the skein left even though I made them to fit a size 9 1/2 shoe.



I rolled up a magazine inside the top sock so that the lace pattern would show up better. One of these days, I will get around to making some sock blockers that I can use when taking pictures of the socks. Otherwise I don't bother with blocking my socks.

Since mom doesn't do the Internet, I can post some of the birthday things that I am making for her. She likes purple, so there is a lot of it. : )( purple stuff )

Here's a better picture of the Cocoon lace Scarf:


You can see both sides - on the left, is the "wrong" side and on the right is the "right" side. I like both sides of this lace pattern with the "wrong" side slightly in the lead.

The scarf ended up after blocking to be about 9 inches wide by about 8 feet long. I had 1 gram of yarn left at the end - I did 31 repeats of the lace pattern.