Hello! Been awhile, hasn’t it? I had a nice relaxing time over the holidays, with just a little work sprinkled in. I spent Christmas at my parents’ house, and packed way more knitting than could possibly have been knit in three days away. My sisters and I decorated cookies, and filled our parents’ stockings for the first time (I think they liked it), and helped with the cooking for a very quiet Christmas dinner with no guests. The extended family usually comes over for a huge dinner, but it’s a pretty big do and my parents just weren’t up to it this year. At first I was a little disappointed that the tradition was broken, but it was really nice not to worry about cleaning the house and getting everything ready for guests!
I’m a big fan of the week between Christmas and New Year’s – it really feels like it’s okay to be perfectly slothful, even if you need to work for a couple days that week. Dale and I went to Ikea to scope out a new couch on the Wednesday before New Years’ – pro-tip? Don’t! Luckily we didn’t actually need to buy anything, the lineups for the cash registers were insane. (We did end up ordering the couch from the Ikea website, they had a new year’s day flash sale! Hooray new couch!) New Year’s was spent at home, doing a lot of cleaning, playing new video games (thank you!) and drinking hard ciders.
Since I didn’t get to it before Christmas, I cast on a new pair of Fiber Trends Felted Clogs for Dale! His last pair had been worn to death and he even managed to wear a hole straight through the sole on one of them. I picked up some navy Cascade 220 (1 skein was enough) and light grey Galway (2 skeins) to work up a new pair.
The finished unfelted slippers look so funny, don’t they? But this Fiber Trends pattern really is just the best – clever shaping, super fast, always turn out well! My only complaint is that you really do need to follow the pattern carefully, so no stuffing this project into my purse for on-the-go knitting. Perfect for loafing around at home knitting time. It took me until last week to actually felt them – excuse any fluff on them, of course they’re already in use ;)
They aren’t felted quite as firmly as his old pair, but those ones have been through quite a few washes since they were first made, and probably tightened up more every time. I love that contrast band around the opening!
Alas, back to reality is tough as it always is. I’m a bit between projects at the moment, and had a bit of a tough time last week trying to figure out what I need to do in the next little while. There’s yarn on its way for some upcoming deadlines, but it’s not here yet, and I don’t want to get toooooo far into a brand new project at the moment. Solutions?
Work on my colour work sweater – both sleeves are done, so it’s just about time to join for the yoke.
Also, spinning! It’s been ages since I’ve had time to sit at my wheel, and I really missed it. For awhile my spinning stash was pretty low and uninspiring, but I’ve restocked with some very pretty fibres.
The Mountain Colors targhee wool was really lovely to spin. Targhee has an interesting matte quality to it, and is quite sticky (the wool fibres want to clump together) but also very springy and elastic, making for easy long draw drafting. I divided the top into 2 pieces, then spun each separately aiming for a 2ply fingering weight. We’ll see how it ends up after the plying, I’m pretty out of practice.
In addition to the targhee, I also spun up the green-blue-white braid on the left side of my spinning basket there – it’s Polwarth wool from Pigeonroof Studios. I’ve always wanted to try Krista’s yarns, and this fiber was on sale in her Etsy shop awhile back. Spinning the polwarth right after the targhee was pretty educational! Polwarth has more sheen than targhee, and is a little bit more slippery. It was really fast and easy to spin! I split the top into 2 pieces and spun them separately again, but a bit thicker for a 2ply worsted-ish weight.
I’m not one for resolutions, but this spinning jag has me wanting to spin a LOT more this year! A numbered series of skeins for the year is pretty appealing. I even ordered the jumbo plying head for my Lendrum yesterday. Unfortunately it’s out of stock for a few weeks, but I’m pretty excited about it. Speaking of which, I should go do some plying.
