It's not fair

Today it was 60 degrees. 60!!! Which I wouldn't mind, but it's the end of february (which means my BIRTHDAY is only a few days away March 3rd!!)and I have all this pretty wooly things I want to wear. Like this Calorimetry.





96 stitches on 7's. I forget how many repeats I did. Yarn is Filatura Di Crosa 127 Print. I still have some left over. I love making these. It takes a night to knit one up and hardly takes any yarn. I'm going to make another one out of handspun sometime.
But do you know what really isn't fair? That Mother nature decides to turn the heat up as soon as I start to seam my HUGE alpaca sweater. Which does not help at all. I want winter back. (and you know as soon as I post this, we're going to get hit with a HUGE storm. I'm ok with that;)

Spinning is addictive

I am finally on the heel flap of my mothers christmas sock. For a while, I thought I was in the black hole of knitting. I just kept knitting and knitting and knitting away and it refused to grow. But I beat it! take that sock!
When I wasn't working on that sock, I was spinning this
Sunny side up



The roving is from knit witch. I forget the name of the colorway but I know it's superwash merino.

I think it's about a dk weight. I loved spinning this up. the color is just so happy looking!
I also spun up 8 ounces of some roving from Dizzy sheep. I haven't finished it yet (I need to steam the last skein) but look at how nice and even it is!

As I spun more and more on this, my spinning got a lot better. So the first skein I spun, is somewhat thicker and less spun then the other 2. I think when I knit with it (maybe a scarf?) I'll just alternate the skeins so it looks even. But other then that, I adore it.

Sweater for a dog

A few days late, I finished Asta's sweater. I don't think she cared.


After I finished it (and wove in a ton of ends) she wore it all night. Normally she finds a way out of clothes within 3 minutes. But she loved it and didn't even try to get out of it. I think I might make a few more sweaters for her soon. It doesn't take a lot of yarn and she looks so adorable.

The pattern is my own. Knit on size 9's. The yarn I used is Valley yarns Berkshire in colors Pumpkin and red. I had bought 2 of the pumpkin and one of the red and didn't even touch the 2nd pumpkin and only used a tad of the red.

I knit it in two pieces, the back and the belly, then I seamed them and picked up stitches for the neck. The cable I did in intarsia. The reason I did that is that cables pull in fabric and if I had done it in fair isle, it would have pulled in even more. The belly was done in a k1p1 rib all the way, as was the neck.
I think it turned out great. Fits her wonderfully. And the most important thing, she loves it.

February 1st

January was hell. Hence the not blogging. Everything was going wrong. If it was bad, it seemed it happened. We moved my grandfather from a crappy assisted living place that did a bait and switch (they said one price when he moved in, and within a week, said that he need so much care and doubled the price (by the way, they didn't give him any extra care) into a much nicer that he can afford. That was an ordeal in itself which is a story for another post. All this time I'm still sick (still am, but mostly better) and all these other things are going wrong, like the pipes freezing when it was -4 outside, well, I really didn't feel like blogging. But today is the first of a (hopefully much better) month. So I'm going to hope that all that dreadfulness stays in January. During this craptastic month, I was doing a bit of knitting and a lot of spinning.
Zest for life


4 ounces of Rambouillet from Flawful fibers colorway Zest. It's about a sport weight, around 150 yards.

Frostbite


3 ounces of a SW merino Hanks in the hood Batt colorway Argyle. About 78 yards of a worsted.

Sherbet



4 ounces of some roving from Spinners hill that I got from Dizzy sheep. 130 (i think) yards of a worsted/dk.
I finished my hand spun scarf. All 104 inches of it. Yup, 104. It's so squishy!



This is my first ever wheel spun yarn. Spun from 8 ounces of some potluck roving in Vine maple from Paradise fibers. Double plied, I have no idea what the yardage was. Knit in a k1p1 rib slipping the first stitch knitwise on size 8's. Did I mention it's 104 inches?
I also knit a calorimetry that needs a button and to be sewn and photographed.

But everything has been pushed aside to work on this.


Now, some may think I'm insane for knitting this (and might I add, designing) but I figure people knit for babies, so what if I'm knitting a wool/alpaca sweater for my dog? It is her birthday after all. And well, I am insane.