Hey everyone, just checking in to say hi! I haven't posted here yet, though I've been meaning to. Sunday is fast approaching and I plan to spend some quality knitting time with my saddle shouldered (well - I'm hoping I can figure out the whole saddle shoulder thing - I've got the Knitters Workshop and various other - knit-in-one-piece type books to help me figure it all out, but I could very possibly whimp out and make a raglan) cardigan.

Here's the progress a couple of days ago. I've started sleeve #2 (because it's kind of necessary) and am hoping to be able to get started on the whole yoke shaping thing soon.

The yarn is my own handspun - a 4 ply that's knitting up to 20sts/4". It's done in alpaca/camel down/tussah silk/angora wool blend.

Wish me luck! I really hope I can figure this out.

Thanks!

Abi

I thought I should check in and update on some projects. Working on things for myself on Sunday afternoons or evenings is helping me to stay on track with personal projects. However, I've been really busy the last couple of Sundays and so haven't had a lot of knitting time.

Two Sundays ago, I had out of town company. The day before we went to the FingerLakes Fiber Arts Festival in Hemlock NY. Did anyone else go? I earned a few ribbons for things I entered, posted photos on my Garden Of Eve blog. Would you believe the only things I came home with were 5 pewter buttons?

This Sunday, my hubby was one sick puppy. My daughter had just landed a job (Thank God!) and needed some career clothing. So, I took her shopping for basics she could build on and left him to a quiet house.

I did complete the front part of my project, sewed the shoulders and have started the button band. No photos cause I don't want someone to see it yet. *G* I won't be started any new projects for myself until this is done. I'm not sure about those buttons I bought. I came home, went through a container of buttons my Mom used to collect and found some that match the color of my wool perfectly... hmmmm!

Eve

It's Sunday and I look forward to working on my afghan again. I love the yarn, Lamb’s Pride Bulky. The color is oatmeal. I love the pattern, Pure and Simple from Fiber Trends Easy Baby Blanket pattern collection 2 . And I love the afghan. Ever since it was about 3 feet long I have been using it to warm myself. My house is finally getting cool enough again that I can snuggle up under it. It is now about 5 feet long and I have 7 skeins left. I am not sure how long I am going to go but it is ALL mine.

(The one mistake I made was being to lazy to minimize the problem of different dye lots, see the line) My daughter likes my afghan too so I am afraid she might be using it when I want it. So along with the fact that this has been so enjoyable to knit I bought more Lambs Pride Bulky in the Blue Magic colorway and started a second on using the Waves of Blue pattern from the same booklet.

My other project for myself the Ballet Camisole, I am not so fond of. Although the yarn, Knit Picks Shine Sport is a dream to knit with I find the stockinette on circulars boring. I have a feeling I will never end up wearing it when I am done. This is how far I have gotten:

I have a lot to do today but I know that I will have some time for some "Selfish Knitting" tonight during Desperate Housewives.

Jeremy

Well, here's a pic (finally!) of my Beethoven's Variations on a Dickey, from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Around, in progress:
















The turtleneck is finished and so is half the back, one side and almost half the front. I'm surprised at how quickly it's knitting up, and I really like the way it looks so far. I just hope I have enough yarn to finish! :)

It's official. I'm a knitter. The other day I saw a reference to this blog (SSK) and I had to think what they meant by Slip Slip Knit.....then it dawned on me.....Selfish Sunday Knitters! heheheheheheh

I'll not post a pic this time as the LIP (Lace In Progress..heheheh) is the same size as the last picture basically. I havn't been able to knit more than 1 repeat (1/3rd a row) since the marathon 5 hr knitting I did that Sunday. I was so wound up in the pattern, the repeats, the constant frogging....that I didn't take enough breaks to stretch out my hands. That coupled with a move up on the size of needles and my super controling grip that I'm trying to relax (VBG) caused me to be in agony much of the week. I thought for sure that I was going to have to have the hands amputated!!! heheh Let me tell you, there's not much sympathy for knitting related injuries around here. So all this adds up to no knitting, sporadic spinning and a grumpy fiber gal for a week. Sunday night I was able to do some spinning again and on Tuesday I made it through our spinning guild meeting. By the time the weekend arrives I should be back to knitting full force...with breaks and stretching. ;) I don't ever want to go through that again.

On the Fiber front....I ordered some Merino/Tussah Silk laps from a special person we know and they should be here any day I am assured. (Tis good to know as the postman is starting to avoid me.) I'm so excited about it I'm fairly bouncing around. I'm already dreaming of some dyeing I can do with it....heheheh I feel some SSS....Selfish Saturday Silk coming on. Thankfully the rain season has begun and I can spend more time working with fiber indoors without feeling guilty. Unfortunately I still have some 6 bags of fleece that need a primary washing to get the stench off as I don't know if it will ruin them if they stay "in the stink" over winter. (They're in the shed...not the house. Thank goodness!)

Well gang...I'm off to get ready for work. Hope all the projects are moving faster than mine! hehe

Wheee!!! I was knitting for a couple hours this morning and I started blocking the 2 year Merino sweater :)

Here's a pic of how far I've come on the Yukon Sox (SOCK for the moment ~ I do believe I'll have SSS on this one (second sock syndrome). But, I knit 24 rows on it this morning so am pleased. Only 2.5 more inches on the foot before I can decrease for the toe. I won't be casting on the second sock right away on this one, I know. Besides, I need to wash and block this one to be sure it fits well and the yarn does what I think it *should* do, which is bloom properly and soften up considerably.

Now onto the truly exciting (for me, anyway!) THE 2 YEAR MERINO SWEATER IS BLOCKED AND DRYING AS WE SPEAK!!!! Well, I'm out of room for the back but I'm blocking both sleeves and the front. I'll block the back tomorrow :)

And here's the pic of what it's supposed to look like (Vogue Knitting Fall 2003) and a cable detail:

The yarn is a heathery purple merino I got from Zeilinger Woolen Mills forever ago and it was wonderful to work with. The big cable in the pattern was easy and fun to do! I've made the huge bulky knitted vest from the cover of this issue of Vogue Knitting (in brown wool with deer antler buttons) and there's at least one more sweater in that issue that I'd like to make.

Most of the time, Vogue Knitting has at LEAST one project I'd like to make but sometimes an issue will come along and I hate everything in it.

It probably looks like I'm a purple freak or something from the sox and the sweater, but I'm not. I've never bought one thing to wear ever that was purple but the alpaca/wool/nylon sock yarn was a cast off from hubby's sock knitting operation and seemed too good to pass up and, well, the merino was yummy!

So, it won't be long till the sock and the merino sweater are done, and I still need to finish the Soft Twist Cotton Tee, which I'm going to try to do this week. THEN I can cast on something NEW...so much more fun than UFO's, dontcha think?

COME ON LADIES......LET'S SEE WHATCHA GOT!

Well, it was more like Selfish Sunday Swatching than actual knitting, but at least I did cast on my EZ "Variations on Beethoven's Dickey" in my alpaca handspun and I even took some time from my gift knitting this week to work on it during my commute. I now have a scant couple of inches of neck ribbing (not even worth photographing at this point), but I've set it aside till this Sunday to get my mom's birthday gift finished and frog the last inch or two of my m-i-l's Christmas scarf so I can re-do it the right way (do not ask -- I'm sure I could make the change I want some other way, but it would bother me that it didn't look perfect and it would probably take nearly as much time as frogging and re-knitting...yes, I'm obsessive and anal about certain things, and this seems to have become one of them LOL). I'm so glad I started on the dickey, though, and I can't wait to get back to working on it. I promise a photo once there's more than a microscopic amount of fabric to look at! http://splindarella05.blogspot.com/

I'm sorry I'm late posting. I'll be better and "on time" from now on. lol. I didn't realize until late yesterday that the blog was up and going so I missed out on signing in until today. Now I'll apologise for the fuzzy blurry pictures.....I'm having problems with my fingers falling asleep and loosing my grasp on things this week...so picture taking is "interesting" to say the least. (So is knitting for that matter!)

I decided that I wanted to learn how to knit lace so that is what I'm doing with my "SSK" time. I chose the Children of Lir Stole pattern from the book "Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls" by Martha Waterman. Mainly I chose it because it isn't that large and the stitches seemed to "make sense". I'm a fairly new knitter and learned by making simple socks on tiny sock needles. These larger needles feel huge! (Larger was the plan for learning. lol) As I meet a new stitch I look it up and go for it. The fewer new stitches in the pattern....the faster I memorize how to do them. So far there has only been one new stitch...dbl dec....but it's early days yet. lol

This was started on Saturday night and I posted about it at my blog on Sunday with two whole rows completed. Of course it took me several tries and several froggings before I remembered to use stitch markers. It wasn't until Sunday evening, after 5 more rip outs,(yes....still on row 2 or 3) that I realized there must be a problem with the pattern. I looked online and sure enough.....the pattern in the book said to cast on with 73 stitches....the correction on the internet states to use 83! Things have progressed since then and I'm on row 8 now. (and using a life line!)This picture shows a "lacey" line of holes........I sincerely hope that they are suppose to look like that and that it's not a case of me just making a really regular mistake! Ah, if it were easy, I wouldn't enjoy it so much!

Finished some projects...

With the idea of working on things for myself, I spend a good part of Sunday on knitting projects.
I bound off a triangle scarf which is drying at the moment, so no photo just yet. I also closed the toe and wove in tail ends of yarn on two pairs of socks I'd completed a while ago and had just set aside.

The red pair is the result of a pattern I've been working on and I'm pleased at how they turned out. I finally have red socks for myself!





The brown pair are made from worsted weight wool I dyed. I made them for me, but I have a feeling my daughter is going to try to swipe them for wearing with boots. No matter, I have more of the same yarn. *G*


I have a secret project I'm working, can't say what it is nor show photos. Although the project is for me, I don't want the person I got the wool from to see it. I can say that the Sinderella spun this wool for a friend and I love, love, love it, beautiful yarn!

Not really a Selfish Sunday thing.... but I had a visitor on Sunday and she brought me some rather interesting yarn. You can see it by going to my blog Garden Of Eve

I'm stumped about what to make for her... any suggestions would be appreciated.

Eve

Thanks, everyone, for your encouragement about using my handspun for my first selfish Sunday knitting project! Here are a couple of photos of the sky-blue glitzy alpaca (from Winding Creek Alpacas and Llamas...NAYY, but I just LOVE their rovings!!!) I'll be turning into an EZ-inspired dickie:




















Here's my skein hanging to dry. Look, Mom -- not too much twist!




















I also just got some more Winding Creek roving in the mail today, this time in a 100% alpaca blue/purple blended colorway. I figure if I run short of yarn with my skein of sky-blue, I can always spin up the blue/purple and use both to make the dickie. Although, if anyone has a good way of measuring handspun yardage that doesn't involve a niddy-noddy (which I don't own) or one of those cool balance-thingys (which I'd love to get but have been too cheap to invest in so far), please let me know. :)

I'm so excited to be using this yarn. It's easily the softest, nicest yarn I've ever spun, and I can't wait to wear it next to my skin. I'll definitely be getting up early on Sunday to get in some extra knitting time!

http://splindarella05.blogspot.com/

Let's get some content up in here!

Well, photo content anyway! Here is a basket of my own handspun. The blue and white is a yummy merino/angora/alpaca/mohair and metallic blend and there's enough yardage there maybe for a capelet (420 yds), the dk brown next to it is 200 yards of Shetland for a scarf.

The orange stuff is spindle spun wool fingering weight (396 yds) for socks I think, the grey/white is jacob & mohair spindle spun and plied together that I might make mittens out of but there's only 150 yds so I will need to add something to it for that even though it's bulky. Thing is, I don't really wear mittens a lot but fingerless mitts would work for me and there should be enough. I really like that particular yarn a lot ~ it's very soft and cozy.

The brown near the top is an angora/alpaca blend that doesn't know what it wants to be yet with only 228 yards. Probably a scarf since it's sooooo next to the skin super soft! The green is wool/mohair spindle spun with 398 yards, DK weight. It might make nice Bum Around the House socks or slippers :)

And the bright blue is a romney silk blend, spindle spun with only 100 yards. I have a bright green I spun up on a spindle too that I got in a swap so that would go well and make a cool bag but I kinda hate to felt spindle spun stuff. Hmmm...all together, the 2 would be like 320 yards and might make a cute hat although I honestly don't wear too many hats but maybe if it were cute enough I would!

Here's a picture of me knitting at my Mom's house a couple years ago...before I decided I NEEDED to open a yarn shop and would just blissfully knit and knit for no good reason at all ;> That is my preferred knitting position...cross-legged on the couch! I tend to prop my needles up in my lap (on my little fat rolls...hahahah!) and I'm a continental knitter. When I started knitting, I just naturally knit continental and didn't even know what they heck I was doing for years! I also had twisted stitches till I figured out the "right" way to purl.

Back to fiber...That is a pic of my very first handspun. Mom plied it for me cuz I was afraid to ply! I have about 500 yards, spindle spun on a turkish and it's destined to be a cape or small poncho of some sort. Pretty crazy yarn, eh? This will be my first SSK project after the sox and the merino cabled sweater that needs to be put together.

I have another basket of quite a few small spindle spun skeins...ranging from like 40 yards to about 100. Three of them go well together and are merino/silk so those will end up being something since it's about 300 yards all together. I think I'd like to make a modular knit something or other with my small skeins, as soon as I collect enough of them to make some sort of thing that isn't a scarf! It's so hard to decide what to do with small skeins...well, for me anyway cuz I don't want to felt my handspun!

If I *did* change my mind about that, I could make myriad Very Cool Bags. I tend not to like unfelted bags...they just seem to floppy for me usually. Sigh. I could just keep collecting small skeins and then make a nice cozy lap throw or Totally Bitchin Pillows for the couch. Maybe I could make cuffs that I could wear with the basic black sweater but that sounds sort of dorky, I dunno.

Maybe I'll make a totally What Kind of Hippy Is That Crazy Woman SKIRT...and wear it to my shop with leg warmers in the winter and some kind of heavy doc marten type of shoes. Then all the people in my home town could nod their heads and agree that they were all right about me after all! I know those women at the dollar store across the street look out at me all the time and gossip. I swear, I am NOT paranoid! They DO that! I have to keep up my unseemly appearances, even at 42 years of age! So I could make the crazy skirt, but mix in some "normal" yarn so as not to hurt anyone's eyes and thereby fool people into thinking it was a carefully planned & executed design. Ack...there's that whole stripe ordeal though. Maybe I *will* have to carefully plan and execute in order to minimize the fluffy appearance that would happen if I wore horizontal stripes.

Anyway, enough of my blabbing, eh? If anyone has ideas for really different and cool small projects, bring 'em on! Obviously, I need some help!

Let's Get Selfish!

Wow, you know I was just looking forward to Sunday morning and thinking about which WIP to work on for my selfish knitting time, and I realized I have absolutely NOTHING on the needles for myself! I do, however, have a baby bib for a shower gift, a stole for a Christmas present, a scarf, a pullover, and a list of projects a mile long, all for other people. Sheesh!

So, my first big decision is what should I cast on for my very own self? Here's what I'm thinking about; please feel free to comment and help me with my choice!

• A moebius scarf made from a skein of gorgeous, soft, autumn-colors handpainted yarn that I got in a swap.
• An Elizabeth Zimmermann dickey made from sky-blue alpaca that I spun myself on my Louet wheel.
• A Pi in Your Sleeves shawl made from Schoolhouse Press unspun Icelandic wool in dark grey (a pretty big, kinda intimidating selfish project -- don't know if I'm up to starting off with this one....)
• Or maybe something else...?

Hi Leah!

It is wonderful, you did a great job and I am happy to be one of your Selfish Sunday Knitters! My husband says we should go to church and knit----------this from the man who has not been in 20 years at least!!! LOL!!! op

I'd like to extend a welcome and an invite to all knitters who never take time to knit for themselves to join this blog and post their projects here:) Please EMAIL ME for an invite!

Also...HEARTY THANKS TO Splindarella and Page for giving me a hand...they'll be receiving knitting prizes from the dye studio:)

This is what I worked on Sunday morning and some yesterday ~ the Yukon Leaves sock pattern from Boogie Knits. I finished the leg yesterday afternoon and started on the heel, which is way different than any other heel I've worked in a sock so far. My husband (sock machine knitter) called it a "Pouch Heel"...it has a band and no gusset so was remarkably simple to work. We'll see how it fits, eh?

My other Sunday projects are spinning and then knitting a Shetland shawl that I started for the Tour de Fleece challenge, and finishing my gorgeous cabled merino pull-over (Vogue Knitting pattern) that just needs to be blocked then sewn together and finished at the neck. I've been working on this for a couple years so I think today I'll block it out since it's dry and sunny so I can have it ready to finish for Sunday morning:)

WHAT ARE YOUR SELFISH SUNDAY PROJECTS?