I Believe Spring has Sprung!

We have had many false starts...

...more false starts than I care to mention. I mean, c'mon! I have two pictures of SPRING SNOW here!

Even so, I know that Lap Naps

and Coffee Cravings

always give way to sunbathing

and squirrel stalking!

Eventually, if you can make it through the rain (and snow) showers of spring, you might even be rewarded by some pretty!

Winter in northeast Ohio always feels a lot longer than it should be, but I think we are over the hump...I see the sun this morning, and it's supposed to be rather warm today!
So even though it may still drizzle and spit,
I'll take it and wonder, "Now, what shall I knit?"

Anything special or spring-y on your needles? Tell me about it!

Thanks for stopping by, and Knit in Good Health!

PS - My apologies, no knitting at all today. BUT, I have finished spinning 60 grams of the BFL! Yay! I see some lovely lace in my future!

Red Acrylic does not photograph well...

I have friends, and then I have knitting friends. My knitting friends are local and from all over the world. My local knitting friends love to get together and share stories, laughter, and sometimes yarn at least once a week. Some of us have favorite yarns, and some of us will knit with whatever we can get our hands on, and some of us are anti-acrylic, for various reasons.

I am pro-acrylic, for various reasons. I like acrylic for toys, and also for afghans. If it's going to be treated roughly, or it might need to be washed on a regular basis, or it's going to someone who doesn't treasure items crafted of fine fibers that will shrink in the wash, then it's absolutely acrylic, all the way! And for baby things. Baby things need to be washed, and new mommies do not need any special-care items in with their laundry! So, there you have it. I knit with acrylic.

Recently, I have been knitting with a LOT of acrylic. There was a charity scarf a few months ago...

There have been many toys and decorations...

And even an afghan...

Are you seeing the theme? Yeah. Acrylic, and especially RED acrylic, reflects all light, natural and otherwise, in a big way. It's a real pain in the camera to photograph! The stitch definition, the design, the everything, it just gets lost in all that reflected light! Ugh! Still, I keep using it...sometimes it's just gotta be red, and sometimes it's just gotta be acrylic. And, no matter how much I play with a photo on the computer, taming that flaming red is not a skill that I have mastered. Sigh! But, I think I'm getting a little better. This sweater and hat are proof of that (I hope)...

Do any of my fellow bloggers have any hints for lighting that might help? I have a feeling that my love affair with red is not over, and I'd like to be able to take good pics of my FOs, even if they are red! I'm open to any and all suggestions. If no suggestions appear, I suppose you should consider wearing your shades to this blog! It is what it is... B^P

Thanks for stopping by, and Knit in Good Health, with the yarn (and the color) of your choosing!

Take THAT, SMS!

Two mitts, now finished - Boo-yah! Take a look and see for yourself:

Here they are, nestling a warm cuppa joe on a chilly evening...

...and here they are in the company of a very good guitar...

..and here they are on the mailbox. On the mailbox? That's right, on the mailbox...I really don't know why either...it just seemed like a nice, sunny place to enjoy the moment...

As you can see, the finished mitts are taking some time to see the sights and relax a bit before they will be put to heavy use in the fall and winter. I mean, they'll see lots of sights then, too...but it'll be hard to enjoy the finer things when they are hard at work, warming hands and arms...or being stuffed into pockets!

I hope that you are warm and content, wherever you may be today! Here, it's notsowarm, but it could be colder, so I'll take what I can get. :) Thanks for stopping by, and Knit in Good Health!

Thank you to JS and NN, for letting me interrupt your days last week to take photos of your hands and guitar.

Why am I so dizzy?

Why AM I so dizzy?!?

THAT's a loaded question! There are sooo many possible answers...but there's one that I like best, and it has to do with this:

It's a 4oz braid (not sure if it's really a "braid"...it didn't look braided...but it's 4.1oz) of Blue-Faced Lester wool in the color "Crayon Box!" I acquired it from a friend's destash a couple years back, and my recent spinning success had me anxious to break it out, so I did!

I weighed it carefully, then I split the long, thick roving into four, much thinner pieces to spin from...White Cat supervised the whole procedure...

I weighed each bit, and they turned out pretty even: 26g, 30g, 31g and 32g. I'm not sure how I will ply this, but I will ply it. I enjoyed the Navajo ply that I did with the pink, and I think that is my best option for using up every last bit of this beautiful stuff...so I labeled each bunch, and put it into baggies, slipping a tag onto the "start" end of each bagful...

And then I started spinning. Oh. My. Gosh. Soooo fun! Every color change is like a new piece of adventure, and I can hardly stop myself once I start! This photo represents the first 5 grams (or so), but I have spun my way through about 15 grams at this point!

I'm spinning it slightly thicker than I did my last yarn, and I'm using the 41g spindle, and I am having a blast! That means that my knitting time has been a little more limited, but I'm ok with that. There is still knitting time. There will always be knitting time. And spinning time. And crochet time...hmmm, if I keep up all this crafting, I suppose I'll have to quit my job eventually! But not anytime soon, thankfully. :) 

I'll try to bring you spinning updates, but I get so wrapped up in my spindle that I just forget to take photos...it's just mesmerizing. It's therapeutic. It's meditative...well, until a cat tries to help anyway! lol!

Until next time, thanks for stopping by, and Knit (and SPIN) in Good Health!

From fluff to finished, first time!

Some of you will remember this post about 18 grams of fluffy fibers that I started to spin on my pink, top whorl, resin spindle about a month ago...

Well, I spun and I spun, and I spun up some more. 

Then I plied it all up, 'til my shoulders were sore.

Then I wound it, and washed it, and hung it to dry,

And I skeined it up nicely, and admired its plies.

Then I thunk and I thunk, 'til my thinker was sore...

I had to knit it up, but what was it for?

Turns out, it's a scarf of beads and light lace - 

To be worn in warm weather, close to the face...

The beads, how they sparkle! The colors, how pretty!

But it's still much too cold for light lace in my city. :(

So, for now, there it sits, as I wait for warm weather -

As cold, gray and rainy makes me don dumb, ol' sweaters...

Still, I long for the days of warm, sunny and breezy...

Days when no part of my body will freezy!

I'll adorn my bare neck with some light, beaded lace - 

To be worn in warm weather, close to my face.

I must say, I am a little bit excited to wear this one! I'm also a little bit excited that the weather seems to be (finally) getting ready to make that beautiful turn from winter to warm...it's such a beautiful time of year! Walks and outdoor knitting, and fiber festivals, are all in my very immediate future! Perhaps I'll purchase more fiber to spin this year...? I think I am getting the hang of this!

What are you looking forward to as the weather changes?

Thanks for stopping by, and Knit in Good Health!

S.M.S.

SMS. Does it mean anything to you? It meant nothing to me when I cast on my latest pair of socks in this yarn:

I love the colors of this yarn (colorway: Thyme, very "spring"-y), but I have always struggled with using Serenity Sock-Weight for socks. It's thinner than your average sock yarn...well, it's thinner than the sock yarns I usually knit with, at least...and it's a little splitty. I have to knit with size 0 (2.0mm) needles to get a sturdy fabric that will stand up to footwear!

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with knitting socks on size 0 needles. My "go-to" for socks, however, is 64 sts around on size 1 (2.25mm) needles, preferably DPNs. My favorite 0s are magic loop, and there's nothing wrong with that either, but I know that I have to cast on more stitches (tighter gauge and all, yada yada yada). Technically, I should probably do a swatch, but have you met me? Yeah, I am fairly "anti-swatch" in my knitting. I apparently enjoy "cutting off my nose to spite my face." (I rarely use white yarn...all that blood...this is a habit I should think about changing.) No matter how painful my last gauge-less project was, when I knit socks I simply cast on, knit on, soldier on...no gauge check, no matter what. Sooooo, true to form, I just cast on these socks, 72 sts (8 more than 64...that should be enough, right?!?):

Of course I made changes to the pattern straight away. I am really not a fan of the wavy garter stitch cuff that comes with most of these types of lace sock patterns, so I started with a 2x2 rib, for 12 rows, because that's my favorite for sock cuffs. Then, as always, I dove into the pattern, and things were going well for 64 rows...until I put the cuff on my arm to stretch the lace a bit and admire the work...it was snug. 

On my ARM, it was snug. It was not going to ever go over my heel or fit around my leg. *sigh!* I thought about frogging. I thought about it a LOT. I thought about frogging 64 rows of 72 stitches (I've frogged more) in these lovely spring colors as the sock rested on my arm...then I had an idea. The Grinch got a wonderful, awful idea! Hmm, no, wait...that's a whole different story...

Still, I got an idea. Perhaps, this was not what I thought it was for. Perhaps, it was something a little bit more...more? More what? More smaller! What's smaller than a breadbox (or a sock), and would look good on my arm?

Of course! Fingerless mitts! Just increase for a thumb over here...

That looks good, now finish up the hand, add some more ribbing, and go back to add the rest of the thumb, and TADAAAA! A fingerless glove! A be-a-u-ti-ful, fingerless glove!!!

There's still a problem, though. I have two hands. That was a lot of stitches, for a lot of rows, for a  single fingerless glove. Oh, no! I have Second Mitt Syndrome! (Ya know, just like Second Sock Syndrome, but with mitts. Not SSS, but SMS.)

So, thank you, but please put away your IT advice...and will someone come and cast on that second sock mitt for me? I am NOT feelin' it! Maybe I need to start something else...like a pair of socks...*sigh!*

Thanks for stopping by, and Knit in Good Health!

"I bite the ears off..."

This is a darling girl, our Peanut:

A princess among princesses, who prefers her pajamas...

...even in the middle of the day. (Actually, that's not such a bad idea. I feel like putting my pajamas back on right now! What's the harm, really?) Peanut recently discovered that, if you color some eggs

...and if you put out carrots for the Easter Bunny...

...you might wake up with a pretty cool basket (or 3!), full of yummy treats!

We had so much fun, watching her color eggs...

...and helping her hunt for eggs...

...and eat chocolate (Peanut said, "I bite the ears off the bunny!," with an impish grin...every. single. time...so stinkin' cute!)

There was lots of time to play, both inside and out...

...and we all slept hard when naptime and bedtimes rolled around...shhh!

Oh, and there was knitting, too!

She made a wash cloth for her baths. I may have helped...just a little (and then forgotten to take a photo - doh!). It was a really fun trip. Pop Pop and I were sad to leave, but we have so many new memories! Two years old is just magical, and I can't wait for the next trip. I guess I'll pass the time by knitting...I know, big surprise, right? lol!

How was your Easter, or spring break, or last weekend? I hope there was something to celebrate, and that you made some fun, new memories with your loved ones! Thanks for stopping by, and Knit in Good Health!

Lots to tell...

Lots to tell, no time to tell it! Yikes! But here is the long and the short of it all (mostly the short, I hope!).

Over the Easter weekend, we went to visit Peanut! 

(Insert wild, grandparent-powered laughter and applause here.)

We had a great time, and even took two (count 'em, 2!) days off of work. There were giggles, snuggles, wiggles and puggles, and lots of time to just bask in the glory of two years old. I have lots of pictures to share (and maybe a video or two?), but I haven' had the time to go through and pick the best of the best, or do any editing. I hope to have that all done by Saturday's post, but if I were you, I might think twice about holding my breath, waiting for that...it is what it is. =/

In the meantime, here's a pair of socks I finished for Mork on Friday morning, just before we piled in the car for our trip:

And here's a pair for Mindy that were knit on the way to and from (we spent a total of 18 hours in the car between Friday and Monday...again I say, "Yikes!")

Yes, that second pair is just short socks (like Dollface's socks from last week), and those don't take 18 hours, but I did more than knit in the car. There were also crossword puzzles, and of course white-knuckled-worrying while stop-and-going through some construction zones.

I know, I know. None of that is as wonderful as Peanut, so here's a shot to hold you over until I can get to the editing and uploading of the more than 220 photos and videos that I shot over the course of our 65-hour grandparenting marathon:

Is there anything better? I think not! Knitting and Peanut for the better part of three days is such a good thing...I can only hope that your holiday weekend was half as good as mine!

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope I'll see you on Saturday for the rest of the story!

Knit in Good Health, friends!