Ever since it was mentioned on a podcast I listened to a week or so ago, I’ve been thinking about rereading the Little House books. I read them all when I was a kid but that was a while ago now (at least 20 years, I’ll say) so I’m due to read them again. I ordered the first five this week and they got here much sooner than I expected. I already started the first book Thursday night.
This week was pretty tough. I had six classes (I’m down to five now) and some of them were pretty trying. Next week promises to be much more fun.
I bought these flowers a while ago. They’re dead now but they were cheap and fun while they lasted. I couldn’t resist the lovely fall colors.
I spun up this Pigeonroof Romney like I was in a race a few weeks ago. The whole 4oz was spun, plied and set in less than a week. I was very tempted to knit something with it too, just for fun but I decided to save it. I’m not sure if the Romney will be scratchy against my skin. I’ve read that this Pigeonroof’s Romney isn’t, but I can’t remember where.
The colorway is Green Ocean and I pulled it out to spin because every time I get another AVFKW Fiber Club shipment I have to make more room in my very full fiber box. The next shipment isn’t due for a few weeks, but when it does come I wonder which bump of fiber will have to be turned into yarn next?
I went yarn and fabric shopping last week and finally picked up some Noro Silk Garden sock. Lots of my friends have been raving about it, but because I never managed to find any colorways I liked, or any stores that had it in stock, I hadn’t bought any until now.
I also picked up a skein of laceweight that I’ve been knitting with since Sunday night, but it’s one of those colorways that just doesn’t photograph well, so more on that some other time.
(I left the fabric part of the shopping to my friend. You can see her haul here.)
I don’t think I talked about this hat when I made it, but I was in a bit of a silk phase (I still kind of am). It’s made out of yarn (Fyberspates) that Ysolda gave me when she stayed in Montreal about a year and a half ago. It’s BFL and Silk in a 60/40 mix, though I may be making that last part up. The pattern is Woolly Wormhead’s Strawberry Joe. The result is a cozy hat that’s nice to wear on chilly, wet days. The best part is that it isn’t as hot as a wool hat, but it still keeps my head warm.
I’ve been wearing this hat a lot lately. When you make a hat in the summer there’s no telling how much use you’ll get out of it when the weather turns again and honestly, I wasn’t entirely sure that I’d be okay wearing a pointy hat, but I actually love it.
The most amusing thing about these photos is the difference in my hair length and the color of the leaves on my outside wall. The first one was taken a few days ago and the second was taken just after the hat came off the needles.
I’m really busy this month. I have classes nearly everyday and some of them are stressing me out. I’m trying to keep sane by reminding myself what’s important to me. For example, impressing people and anything preceded by the phrase “high profile” would not be on the list, while friends, creating things that please and satisfy me and drinking lots of new and exciting teas are right on top.
I always start drinking more tea this time of year. A seventh cup of tea on a chilly day goes down way easier than a second cup of coffee, I wager. (In fact, I kind of wish I could test out that theory tomorrow.)
I’ve been drinking a lot of loose leaf tea from here. Large steaming cups of creamy Earl Grey, almond infused white tea with licorice (so much more delicious than it first sounded) and banana flavored chamomile are some of my favorites.
As for the hours I have to be in class, a friend has recommended a nice little cafe nearby and the chilliness of the classrooms make knitwear an absolute necessity, so I’ve got that going for me.
You can vote for my arm warmers starting today on Ravelry for the AVFKW mitten contest. I don’t really expect to win since the other entries look a lot more intricate than mine. The intricacy of mine was in the spinning which you can’t readily see.
Whether I win or not, it was fun to have a goal to knit and spin the arm warmers by and I’ve certainly been getting lot of use out of them these past few weeks.
Quite a while ago I said I’d post about my Cinnamon Grace scarf, but it never got blocked and the more I looked at it the more I just wanted to rip it out and start over on a new project. (It didn’t help that I realized that I knit the edging on backwards).
I love my Tangerine Nightsong (also made out of Sundara FSM) so I’m looking for another triangular shawl pattern. I have a ton of them in my Ravelry queue, it’s just a matter of choosing one. Any suggestions?
The sky is a crazy shade of orange right now and I have spooky plans for tonight. Honestly, what I really want to do is curl up at home with my new 1,000 yard skein of laceweight and eat pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, but instead I’ll be making carrot soup, covering myself with handknits and going to see Hidden Cameras with one of my favorite people. Things could certainly be worse.
I’m going to try posting every day for the month of November. We’ll see how that goes.
Happy Halloween!
I hadn’t made a pair of socks for myself since July, and since I found myself in Toronto last month to see U2 and had a bit of free time during the day, I went to Lettuce Knit and bought myself some Koigu. I really liked knitting with it on the Punctuated Rib socks I made for my mom back in August.
I used the Escher pattern from Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarns. I think I’ve pretty much got my money’s worth out of that book now that I’ve made three different pairs of socks from it. It really does have some great patterns for handpainted yarn (just like the title says, go figure) and I know I’ll be pulling it off the shelf again soon since my mom has specifically requested more socks from it.
The skeins of Koigu I chose reminded me of both the fall season and Sesame Street, specifically Bert & Ernie.
Speaking of socks, I’ve already started another pair from the new Cookie A book that I bought a few Fridays ago after a stressful week of classes. I needed something that was simple (socks) yet complex (tons of cables) to hold my interest. School has been okay so far (my session is officially half over and I’ve even received some grades already) but there are some things about it that get under my skin too.
The new socks are pretty much the polar opposite of these, colorwise. But no peeking until they’re done! I have a week of crazy assignments and awesome concerts ahead of me, but I’m hoping to work on them whenever I can.
I mentioned in my last post that October was a pretty light month for my classes. This week is the lightest. I have a sweet little 15 hour week, which means lots of knitting and spinning time. It’s getting quite cold (I think we even had something that resembled snow flurries last night) and like most other knitters I’ve been enjoying pulling treasures out of my overflowing basket of knitwear.
I’m a fan of year round knitting, but you have to admit that no matter what you knit in the summer a huge part of it is hampered by the fact that you can’t wear it right away. At this time of year I’m always caught between wanting to knit brand new things for the coming winter and trying to balance that out by considering the winter things I knit over the summer. Right now it all comes down to a toss up between wearing the mittens I made back in June and casting on some brand new handspun mittens. I guess you can never have too many…
