bad blogger

I have become a spinner!! I love doing it and I get started on a color and I just go until I finish. This is what I made yesterday and this morning. I got this roving at the VT sheep and wool festival last weekend. I love going and besides the vast amount of wool that I came home with I had other exciting things happen. I met some blogging friends in person!! Pippi Knee Socks was there selling her beautiful hand dyed fiber and yarn and Amy from Spunky Eclectic was right next door to her. Amy is the first person I bought roving from and I happened to have the first yarn I had spun with me so it was neat to show it to her and meet her.
My good friend Brigette was there with her handspun and beautiful felted containers. She won first prize for the vase she entered at the festival. Pretty cool.

Here is a picture of my new identity which has taken up most of my time for the past month...nursing student Heather:

I love school and have been learning really great things. It has been a big adjustment for my family to have me gone most of the week. It is like having a full time job without the pay and homework! I do get a little knitting done on the side but not as rapidly as I used to! Here are the promised picutres from my vacation knitting back in August. I finished the motego bay scarf from IK. It was the first time using Handmaiden Sea Silk and as nice as it is to wear and feel it was kind of a pain to knit with. I do love how the scarf came out. I still haven't decided if i want to go with the fringe or not- we'll see.

This little bag is now felted along with three others just like it in different colors. I love things i can whip out in a day- it made for good vacation knitting and now I have a few things made for my fall craft fair.

I made a quick pair of socks out of Noro which I traded with a friend for a massage. She is a great friend who i only see for short periods of time each summer when we go to the island so I wanted her to have something nice to take home until next year!

This last photo is something I am so proud of. My first cabled project! I was afraid of cables and now that I tried it I can't belive it has taken me so long. I am already half way through another hat! This one is made out of some handspun I bought at the NH sheep and wool. I am keeping this project for myself! I want to become braver with the cabling but most of them seem to be on charts and I haven't started with charts yet. They give me anxiety to think that I have to follow them when usually I am knitting with three young'uns running around. We'll see.

I have the body finished on my cardigan sweater and will start on the sleeves this week. I hope to have a finished object to show you soon.

i'm back!

It's another pictureless post. I was away on vacation and actually have alot to show you as i worked hard to finish things up and i did my first cabling project. I can't believe it took my so long! We came home to a jungle of a garden and tons of food to process and I start full time nursing school tomorrow. I have been frantically trying to get my desk in order and I wish I had time to clean the house once before it gets ignored for the year but alas, there are not enough hours in the day and it was worth it to be with my family for vacation. I will update later this week with the knitting photos and send warm, hardworking thoughts my way!

very little progress

I don't have much new work to show. I have been bogged down with freezing food from the garden and getting the kids to the water as much as possible. I decided to bail on the Harry Potter sock swap as I had to get a new blogger address for it and i just don't feel like I can handle any more right now.
My drama for the day is that a large bird flew into my windshield this morning and four hours later I found it in the back of my pickup still alive. It was a Pileated Woodpecker and it was just stunning. I was in town and it was roasting hot and I didn't know what to do and I felt very guilty for being the one to injure it in the first place. I finally found a nature center that took it and was going to get it to the bird rescue place so I do hope it will survive. It distressed me way more than I thought it would have. Anyway...in the world of knitting I am just plugging away at the two pairs of socks, two scarves and one sweater I have already posted about. I did manage to make two little felted bags. I am going on vacation for a week in a couple of days and am hoping to finish a few of these things before I go. I hope to have something to show soon. Hope everyone is having a fun summer.

Sock Swap 2!!

I just couldn't help myself and i joined the Harry Potter sock swap 2. It was so exciting to have someone make me socks and it was fun to get a package together for someone else so... here are the answers to my questions.

Hogwarts Sock Swap Questionnaire

Second Years

1. What Hogwarts house have you been sorted into?

Gryffindor

2. Shoe size? Foot length? Foot circumference?

Shoe size- 9 ladies, Foot length 9 1/2 inches, circumference- 9-9 1/2 inches.

3. List your three favorite sock yarns.

a.Koigu

b.claudia's handpaint

c.fleece artist

4. Would you like to try a new brand of sock yarn? If so, which brand?

i would love to!! No particular brand- surprise me!!

5. Do you prefer variegated or solid sock yarn?
Variegated.


6. What colors would you like to add to your sock yarn stash?

Any. I like purples and greens. (Also reds, oranges etc!)

7. What kind of sock patterns do you gravitate toward? Lace? Ribbed? Fair Isle?

Ribbed, plain. Sock knitting is my travel knitting so it is great when it is simple to follow. I have done a little lace and loved it but it would need to be a simple pattern.

8. Do you have any allergies? (smoke, animals, etc.)

no.

9. Will your socks be exposed to cigarette smoke or animals as you knit them?


An old dog who does not touch the yarn.
10. Are you willing to have an international Hogwarts Sock Pal?
yes.

Owl Post!

I have an awesome Harry Potter sock swap pal! I opened my mailbox the other morning and look what I found!


There were HP candies that were promptly gobbled up by little people, a pair of Brittany DPN's, stitchmarkers that are so lovely I could wear them for jewelry and the yarn leftover from the socks she made- enough for me to make another pair for one of the boys! The socks you ask...


are beautiful! They were immediately on my feet and they fit perfectly. I am so touched that someone made me a pair of socks because I know how much work goes into them. thanks so much Erin.
I really enjoyed this swap thing and look foward to doing it again. There is a HP sock swap 2 if anyone missed out the first time.

it's raining, it's pouring

We finally had a rain free day and the kids and I hit the beach. I did manage to take a few pictures too! This is the Montego Scarf from IK summer issue. It is the first time I have used Seasilk and it is quite luxurious. I find that it is a little slippery so I can't work on the project for too long at a time or my fingers ache. I hope to get it done soon so it can be a summer accessory.


This next scarf is made with two skeins of Koigu I had in the stash. I loved the colors so much that I didn't want to put them on my feet- I wanted to see them so... The pattern is called the Twisted Rib scarf by Mountain Colors. This pattern would be lovely in the Bearfoot yarn also.


This is a cardigan sweater I am hoping to have done for fall. It is made with the Lavold wool/silk blend and the yarn is really soft. It knits up nicer than I expected from the feel of the skein. The gauge was only measured in width and there was no gauge for length so I hope it works. The pattern has me knitting until I reach a certain number of stitches (after increases) instead of to a certain number of inches so we'll see. If it doesn't work for me I have a nice gift for someone smaller!

This next picture is really exciting for me- it is my first few skeins of handspun yarn! I LOVE spinning! I had used up some random roving from someone when I first tried it a month ago and it was really hard to draft. I decided to order nice roving and it has just been great! I spun up the blue/green in a few days and all 4 oz of the darker wool in one day. I have more ordered and it is challenging to wait for it to arrive. If there was a local source (I am sure there is, I just haven't sniffed it out yet!) I would already be fast at work. I told my husband we will save money this way because I get to enjoy the fiber twice when I spin it and then knit it!
I got the roving from Amy at Spunky Eclectic online. The lighter colors were Falkland top which is so soft and the darker is BFL wool. I ordered more BFL and a little Merino to try out next. I can't tell you how proud I am of these two skeins of yarn and I can't believe they came from my own two hands!
Anyway... This last photo is just a treat from our Vermont summer. The delphiniums love our climate and grow beautifully. Hope everyone else is surrounded by flowers these days!

Rain rain go away...

So it looks as if we may have a rain free day here in Vermont! We have had rain every day for weeks and there are parts of the state that are flooding and needing Federal help. I hope to get some pictures today when the sun finally shines. I have been working on a couple of projects through this gray period although nothing is completed. I bought my first skein of Sea silk and it is gorgeous! I am making the Montego Scarf project out of Interweave Knits Summer 07. The yarn is a little slippery and I can only work on it for so long before my hands get sore from holding so tight to the yarn. I am still plugging away at my Koigu scarf and a pair of socks made from Mama E's cyber fiber. Beautiful colors she uses! The most exciting thing that has happened is I am spinning again. I spun up a bunch of white Romney last month for the first time and then for some reason I couldn't seem to spin anymore. It turns out that the flyer wasn't spinning and once I figured that out (a month later!) I have been spinning away and I love it! My first skein is drying right now. This is just a quick check in as I have been away from the blog for a while but I will get pics up soon!