2 FO’s and New Needles

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Finished the baby socks.  As you can see they are definitely not matchy matchy ;P, but close enough that you can tell they are a set.  I used Knit Picks Options double pointed needles size 0, and the yarn was Premier Wool-Free Sock yarn in the Vegas Lights colorway.  They were well loved.   Anyone know if they make baby sock blockers?

I bought some yarn for a Chemo hat for a friend who is dealing with breast cancer.  I went to Hobby Lobby and chose Yarn Bee Snuggle Up in the silver colorway and Yarn Bee Cloud 9 in the cream colorway, Hobby Lobby had a sale on their yarn and I like their yarn :).  They are both soft yarns and together they are extremely soft.  There is another hat pattern I want to knit and the designer said she will put it back up on Ravelry.  I will post more about it when it’s up.  Raverly is such a wonderful knitting community where we all share our love of knitting, crocheting, spinning and other fibery creativeness.  This pattern I used is a Lion Brand Yarn free pattern called Fun-Fur – Mircospun Knit Chemo Cap.  I used a size 10 bamboo 16″circular needle and a set of size 10 double pointed needles when I got to the crown.

Flexi Flips

 

I bit the bullet and bought a set of bamboo Addi Flexi-Flips size 0’s to knit socks with and they came in the mail today (my local yarn shop didn’t carry them.)  Altho’ I enjoy knitting the socks, I hate the using the regular double pointed needles and I never learned to knit using the magic loop method.  These are kinda like a combination of those methods and I thought I would give it a try.  They are a bit pricey at $32 dollars a set.  There are 3 needles in the set with a flexible cord that bends so that you can knit small radius round items items like socks. 🙂  Hopefully I will enjoy this method much better.

General Conference – Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

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General Conference was wonderful yesterday and I am waiting for it to start today for the peace and instruction it gives.  For both days, it is 11:00am to 1:00pm and 3:00pm to 5:00pm central time USA.  If you missed these times and would like to see it, you can always go view it at the link where they will be available to be viewed.

Two times a year we have General Conference where our Prophet and Apostles and other Church leaders speak to us.   I look forward to this time in April and October.

Spinning Wheel Acquisition

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A friend of mine passed away a couple of months ago and her husband said she had asked that I be given her spinning wheel and all her fiber.  I wasn’t sure what kind of wheel it was and when I received it today I had to put some of it back together, but it is a Kromski Polonaise.   It’s a beautiful Mahogany finished wheel and will look much nicer when I get it cleaned up from all the dust that has taken up residence on it,  I honestly don’t know that she ever spun on it but she loved fibery things.  I will figure out more about it and add it to my wheel collection and spin on it.  This one appears to be able to be used as a double band drive or a scotch tension.  There was a number (wheel number?) date and signature on the bottom, will have to investigate that.   The band was not on the wheel so I will try to figure out making it work as a scotch tension, but I can say the wheel moves very freely, I have a feeling this will be a really nice wheel to spin on.  Hehe , I think my Rick Reeves wheel is a little jealous, you can see it in the back ground doing a photo bomb :).

I did start the 2nd baby sock.  Starting little socks is not my favorite thing to do because it is easy to twist when joining in the round with so few stitches on double pointed needles so I take extra time and care when starting them, hate frogging (for my non knitting friends, frogging is ripping it out, think ribbit, ribbit to rippit rippit :P).  The rest should be much more relaxing to knit ;).  Hoping to have it finished by Friday.  🙂

HFO!

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2nd Pair Baby Socks HFO Ok, I finished the first sock in the new yarn.  Still larger than I hoped for but a little smaller than the last one.  I got all the colors in the one sock lol, but the color changes are short so it all works out, and looks like I won’t have to do too much yarn management to start the 2nd sock in about the same place.   I did a kitchner toe on this one instead of just pulling the stitches together as per the pattern, because I didn’t like the original toe.  This one looks so much nicer and rounded :).

Looks a little weird to have all the reds, oranges, pinks and yellow for them to have thrown in a green – looks a little out of place to me, but they didn’t ask me :P.   I will start on the 2nd sock, probably tomorrow, too tired tonight to deal with casting on tiny socks on tiny double pointed needles and making sure I didn’t twist anything.  They might not end up being matchy matchy, but I think they will be close enough.

 

1st Robin, It’s Spring! + Drop Stitch Shawl KAL

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Soooo happy!!!  I have been waiting to see the Robins return, and I saw my first Robin today!!  Welcome Spring!!!  Sorry the color in the picture is not very good :(.

I follow a blog Muddling Through Life and she is having a KAL, (knit-a-long for my non knitting friends.)  It looks so pretty, so I dug out some very deep (meaning I’ve had it a very long time :P) stash.  The above picture shows the yarn, it is a synthetic yarn unfortunately, but it is a fingering weight.  It is some my mom sent me from South Korea when she was working for the Air Force as a non military personnel civil Service employee, years ago.  It is a large skein at 8 oz, it is a beautiful light lavender even tho it shows up like a grey in the picture.  I did have to go buy some new needles because I didn’t have any 40″ needles.  I now have a pair of ChiaoGoo size 7 red lace circulars. 🙂  The pattern calls for a size 8 but I have to go down a size to get gauge because I am a little bit of a loose knitter.  I wanted some ChiaoGoo bamboo needles (my needles of choice) but they were out and I wanted to get this started so I settled for the stainless steel.

I have also started the Welcome New Born Socks , from a previous post, now using the new sock weight yarn (rather than the baby weight) and they are definitely smaller :).  I’ll post a picture of my progress in a couple of days and we should see the answer to my one of my questions about how much of the repeatable colors you can get in a little sock :P.

FO!

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I finished the socks I was knitting for an infant I am watching for a few months.  Altho’ these went pretty fast (because they are small :P), they really were not small enough to be newborn, they would probably fit more like a 12 to 18 month old.  But maybe it’s because I used a baby yarn that is a bit thicker than a sock yarn.

So, to give this pattern the benefit of the doubt, I picked up a sock yarn from Hobby Lobby (they were having a 30% off all their yarn sale this week :)).  It is Premier Yarns, color Vegas Lights and is acrylic, so her mom can just throw it in the washer and dryer.  I will give this another try before I move on to another pattern.  I’m interested to see how the colors work up in a very small pair of socks.  Wondering if I can even get all the colors in one little sock or if I will have to do yarn management to get them to turn out more or less the same.  Otherwise she can be like the teens and have mismatched socks, which have been the rage for more than several years.

I haven’t seen the robins yet, but maybe I just missed them?  I usually see the males staking out small territories they then defend from other males so they can try to lure a female Robin to their area. The females show up  2 weeks after the males.  I expect to see the male Robins very soon, we have been having upper 40’s and lower 50’s days , it is so wonderful!!  I love Spring!

HFO Object and Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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I started this “newborn” sock on Friday evening, so much for it being newborn tho’.  I used some (very) deep stash, Red Heart Pompadour yarn, and size 0 double pointed needles (because it’s too small for my 9 inch circs), but honestly this is not a newborn size, this would fit a 12 to 18 month old :(.  It was a different kind of heel so that was interesting, but this won’t fit the little one I knit it for for several months out :P.  I did start the 2nd sock so I won’t have 2nd sock syndrome 🙂 and it’s all sock practice, right?  They are a pretty quick knit, because they are so small :P.  I’d rather not go down to 00 size needles, so maybe finding a finer yarn would be best for my next try.  Still a nice sock tho’.

I can’t give you the pattern info because I forgot where I got it, ugh!  I looked but couldn’t not find the source, I did post the first page so if you feel inclined to search farther than I did on Ravelry and the internet (and I did search), you can do that.  The copy-write says 2013.

I woke up to about 2 inches of fluffy snow this morning.  It was starting to melt by the time I went to Church and was blowing off the trees because it was a very light powder snow.  I was so excited by the warmer weather I forgot we can get snow here through April.  On Friday, I also saw some geese, the Robins can’t be far behind :).

Project Done!

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My project was my Little Lace Cat’s Paw Scarf design with my hand spun yarn.  I’ve knit this little scarf several times and still enjoy it.  The colors on the scarf are blown out, it really is a medium teal color instead of the lighter color that shows.

I am working on spinning on my Rick Reeves spinning wheel, but the tension is a bit finicky (it’s a double band drive tensioned wheel and I’m use to scotch tension).  I won’t give up, I’ll get it eventually, it’s the only wheel I have at the moment that does not need some repairs, so learn on it I must :P.  I’ve got quite a bit of practice fiber, so I will keep working on it and save my nice fiber for after I have the learning curve down :).

Our weather has gotten much better, rain instead of snow and we have been in the 30’s, 40’s, and today and tomorrow lower 50’s!!  WOOT Spring is almost here, we will be back in the 30’s and 40’s after today.  I say almost because we can still get snow through April.  But I will be keeping an eye open now for the Robins, who are my true signal that Spring is finally here :).  I love Spring!

Still More Snow! Working on a Project

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More snow mid Feb 2019

Yes more snow!  It’s been snowing since sometime last night and they say will continue until sometime tonight.  We are expected to get between 4 to 6 inches.  I left this picture a little bigger than normal, so you could see the snow flakes, I could have made the picture bigger but you can still see all the white dots in the picture :).  I can’t believe I actually got a picture of the snow falling!  But, you know there is always a but, it’s because they are huge flakes :P.  I took this a littler earlier around 1 pm.  Also it looks like more snow this coming week and next Sunday, sigh.

I am working on a project with the yarn I spun from the rolags, but won’t comment on it yet.  When it’s done and safely in the mail, I will post a picture.

Hope if anyone else is getting snow from this rather large storm, that you are safe and warm :).