WIP Wednesday

Yes - this one is finished.... but the other one isn't! And it's really not much to look at since I just cast on last night and worked on it for exactly 5 minutes or so.

And now - Back to SAFF!
I had such a great time at SAFF this year. Mom has decided that we might go to Maryland Sheep and Wool next year or the year after if I can get the time off. She went this past year and had a great time. But we should definitely talk about my haul from SAFF...



I bought this ACERO at the Brooks Farm booth - it's so yummy! The blue on the left is for E. and the rusty one is for me. Usually I buy pinks/reds, and I decided I needed to step out of the comfort zone.



Staying firmly in the comfort zone! This will be great fiber to spin - it's a corriedale blend that I'm going to save up for once I'm past the super-beginner stage.



And even more fiber! The natural is from the Ozark Mill booth and was incredibly cheap - it's a wool/alpaca blend so it's really soft too! The pink fiber is Lorna's Laces that Aimee bought me for my birthday along with the spinning basket to hang on my new wheel.

And because I just need to stretch it out, I'll post about my winnings from the Lupus Raffle next time... they're pretty awesome, although not quite as great as Christi's.....

SAFF Weekend!

Picture HEAVY!

Well, it was kind of a crazy weekend that started pretty early for me. Usually my work week is Wednesday through Saturday, but last week I took off beginning on Thursday evening to go to SAFF with Aimee and mom. We all met at Aimee's house Thursday evening, in preparation for the drive to Asheville on Friday. This is how it started...


me and mom snuggling yarn at aimee's early friday morning.

Friday morning it was POURING in Charlotte... and I have no pictures to prove this, you'll just have to take my word for it. We drove up to Asheville which, because of the rain, took forever, but once we crossed over the mountain it cleared up and became a beautiful day.

We couldn't check in to the Holiday Inn because our room wasn't ready yet - so we decided to go over to SAFF, which was just down the street, across from the Asheville Airport. (Here is the disclaimer - if I was a better blogger, I'd have more pictures, but I kept forgetting I had a camera!)... We had a great time! There were so many great things to see (and buy!)... and here's the proof:


SCHWAG!

Now, for those of you who might know me well enough - you might say to yourself "Why Olivia, if I didn't know any better, I'd say there were several BAGS of fiber and roving in the back of the picture.... I didn't know you were a spinner!" to which I would reply "That used to be true!"


The Evidence.

This is the plying head of a Lendrum - I don't actually have a picture of my wheel, which I wasted NO time in purchasing on Friday! She's still in the box - fresh out of the car. But here's some proof:


First handspun!

The right-side one has been plyed, the balls on the left, well, there was a small accident and we won't speak of it here.

That's it for now... I'll post some more later on, as I feel like I've been rambling on a bit...

Belated FO Friday

I don't have any NEW FO's to share, so I am going to go back and start posting about old FO's - cause I never posted about them in the first place....

Pattern: Branching Out on Knitty.com
Yarn: Elizabeth Lavold Silky Wool in Plum (1 skein)
Notes: This was my first lace pattern - once I figured it out it wasn't that hard, but the first time through it was a bear. It did teach me about important things like: lifelines and reading your knitting. I did knit this pattern twice - the picture above as a present for my grandmother and once again out of a true laceweight for my mom. It's a very pretty pattern and I am contemplating knitting it once again for me. I have only knit a couple of patterns more than once and I think it would be easier for me know that I have not knit it for quite a while - I just finished 2 pairs of monkeys back-to-back and finishing that last sock was difficult, because I was bored with the pattern!

no picture on purpose

OK - for this Wednesday's WIP, I bring you a SUPER SEKRIT project. Which basically means I can't really tell you much about it - except that I am working on it and it's more than half-way done.



So I'll leave you with this photo of a quilt I made.... yes, I'm crafty :)

It's called 'Puss in the Corner' and the pattern is from the book 'Quilts from The Quiltmaker's Gift'**. It's the first quilt I actually finished (we shall not speak of the other two quilts I started and abandoned), it's my everyday quilt and the colors make me happy! The blue on the quilt also inspired me to paint my bedroom the same color - I get lots of natural daylight in my room, so it's not dark at all!

**'The Quiltmakers Gift' is a beautifully illustrated children's book with a fantastic moral and great illustrations - there are 2 companion books with the quilt patterns - you can do a search on Amazon for them - and it looks like theres even more books now!

Finally a picture!

OK - here's the picture from the last post :)

But after spending Sunday afternoon knitting with the group at Knitch, it's now almost 6" - only 3.5 more to go!

WIP Wednesday

OK - I hope that the picture works - if not I may have to do something else.... Anyway, it's the U-Neck vest from "Fitted Knits" by Stephanie Japel and it's cruising along. It's probably about 5" and there's about 4 inches to go until the waffle stitch at the bodice....

That's it for today - more of course next week!

rock star moment

OK ya'll - I totally had a rockstar moment yesterday - Annie Modesitt friended ME on facebook..... muhahahahaha.

Nothing else going on right now - I may have to figure out how to post better pictures, cause I know tomorrow is WIP Wednesday and all my photos are at home....

FO

OK - I finally wove in the ends and finished this pullover vest for baby Chloe (cell phone included for size).
Pattern Mac & Me #088 - Brushed Alpaca Vest.
Size 2
Blue Sky Alpacas Brushed Suri - colorway Lollipop 1 skein.
Needles - denise 7's
Mods - none.

This was an easy knit - I think if I had knit it straight through it would have taken less than 6 hours all told. I knit it over 2 evenings and then spent 45 minutes or so weaving in ends.
I would totally knit this again - it was very easy :)

Peer Pressure

OK - I snapped up the blog title and hopefully this will become a super fabulous knitting blog. Can't really post any more at this time, cause I'm actually working.....