FO Pix

This is my kitty bed that I made for Petfinders. It's off in the mail..yay!


This is Cassie in her new poncho! I'm glad I didn't frog it. The crochet edging and the fringe really made it straighten up. whew!

Knitting On TV

HA! Just now on Desperate Housewives, the one who's cheating on her husband with the gardener..well, her Mother-In-Law is visiting and she was knitting! I have no idea what horrible ugly yellow and mauve horror it was she was making, but she was actually knitting not just going through the motions.
I love when I spot something like this. I'm such a dork.

Gangsta Knitter Video

Maybe it's because I'm sick today and woozy on meds, but this (click the post title...it's a link to the video) made me laugh waaay too hard.

OK, I am going to resist the urge to frog the Harlot Poncho. Cassie
doesn't care if it's a little crooked down the back so I'll just
fringe the thing and send it on it's way. I WILL make another one
starting with a larger neck opening though, and hopefully this one
will stretch over her shoulders without going all wonky. I really
think it's a size issue more than a pattern or gauge issue.
Pics of that and of the finished kitty bed for petfinders coming soon!

Poncho Problem

I spent most of the weekend working on A Very
Harlot Poncho for my niece Cassie. I almost finished it too. It
just needs crochet edging and some fringe. It's doing a weird thing
though. The front line of eyelets will be straight and the line down
the back ends up crooked. I counted stitches and it's totally
symmetrical. Maybe blocking will solve the issue, but did anyone else
have this problem? Did I cast on too few stitches to start with and
the shoulder area is too small so it's stretching funny? It looks ok
laying flat. It just doesn't line up when it's on. She doesn't care
and loves it anyway so I guess I shouldn't care either, but it's
bothering me. Oh well. I'll get some pics once the fringe is on
tomorrow.
Tonight I need to finish my kitty bed for Petfinders so I can get that
mailed off this week then it's back to work on Klaralund and after
that I'm starting a fake Ab-Fab Throw for my sister's birthday. Sorry
I'm a really boring knitter this week. I'll make up for it with
pictures tomorrow!

This weekend Husband Boy and I went to Petit Jean State Park. On the way we tried to visit a yarn store in the little town of Ola. I was interested in going there because they are the only Schaefer Yarn stockist in this area and because well, I'm always interested in seeing a new yarn store.
Unfortunately it was closed, but I got some pictures of the main street, the shop window, and the front door signs. The one there just above the red ribbon reads "no shirt, no shoes, no service!" I guess shirtless, shoeless people trying to buy Red Heart yarn is a problem in Ola.
I got lots of knitting done in the hotel Saturday night and on Friday while waiting for my Mom to come out of the doctor's office. Klaralund is now officially half done! I have a back and a sleeve. (sorry, no pics of that today) I'm casting on for the other sleeve tonight. I also recently finished off Pierre Le Pug's doggie sweater, but haven't been able to drop it off yet. There are plans for me to go up to Fayetteville sometime at the end of this week so I'll have pics of him modeling the finished product then. I've sucked another person into the Arkansas Knitting Mafia...my friend Michelle (Pierre's owner) has started work on her first scarf. I'm going to show her how to fringe the scarf and take her to the LYS.
OK, must go do actual work now.
If you're interested, the rest of the non-knitting pics from the state park trip are here.

YAY for ebay! I got a copy of "Spinning Wool Basics and Beyond" on vhs for $10 cheaper than retail including the shipping. So that should help me out with the spinning technique.
I feel like I make decent yarn now, but I haven't tried to spin anything smaller than worsted weight and haven't tried to ply anything yet. I'm wishing I had more time to do it, but it seems like every time I get going something comes up that interrupts me. I guess this happens with the knitting too, but its not as big a deal to put down the knitting as it is to stop the spinning then leave and come back to try to get into it again. It's looking like I may be off work every friday this month, so maybe that will give me some time.
This weekend I got one full bobbin of decent yarn and half a bobbin of questionable yarn spun. I ended up not dying anything yet because if I'm going to make a mess I figure I'll wait and make a BIG mess. Plus it was rainy and humid and I was afraid it would take forever to dry whatever I did.
Mostly I ended up knitting on Klaralund. I got another few inches on the body finished. The plan is to do another sleeve next, then the rest of the body. Everyone keeps calling this a quick knit but it seems to be taking me FOREVER plus 4 days. (Of course I can't always get in an hour a day of uninterrupted knitting much less the 3-4 hours a day I know some people manage.)
Friday I went to the not so local yarn store in Fayetteville as planned. They had a bunch of Collinette Point 5 which made me feel a little better about my thick and thin spun accidents. I ended up getting four more balls of keuryon in color 52 which I'll put with the 10 in my stash and it may turn into Butterfly unless I see another pattern I like better between now and the time I finish Klaralund.

Klaralunding
I must be a really slow knitter. I worked on a Klaralund body section last night from 7-10 while watching Lost and Law & Order SVU and regular Law & Order. That's 3 hours of knitting and I only had about six inches of 22in wide stockinette to show for it! (I'm starting to think I should take this down the street to my neighbor the machine knitting lady's house, but that would be cheating.) So far I have a nice Klaralund sleeve and I guess about 1/4 of a front or back. I'm starting to get bored working on it, but then I see all the nice finished ones at the yahoo group and that makes me want to finish it soon. I'll keep working on it for at least an hour a day and maybe it'll be done before xmas.
Spinning
I haven't been spinning very much. I feel like I need at least an hour or so to sit down with it, but I can't seem to find the time. The wheel is in the sewing room which has no tv. I have lots of tv watching that I do in the evenings and knitting that I do while I watch the tv. I can't haul the wheel out to the room with the tv in it because I have cats that will no doubt become fascinated and fling themselves at the moving parts...plus I still need to really pay attention while I spin and I can't do that while watching shows.
I'm off work all day tomorrow and the weekend. It's supposed to rain a lot so hopefully I can finish spinning up a skein or two and play around with the kool-aid dying. That's the plan anyway. Look forward to pictures if that happens :)

Tomorrow my friend Candy and I are going to Fayetteville to the yarn store there and to Target. Sadly, we have no Target and no real yarn store here in Ft. Smith. Supposedly there are plans for both in the next couple of years, but I'm not holding my breath. The lady who is talking about opening a yarn store does the knitting classes at Hobby Lobby and seems like kind of a kook. I can't imagine a bank giving her a business loan. Who knows though maybe she's got savings for it or something. I'd try to open one myself if Husband Boy had a reliable job to pay all the household bills. Ahh some day!

Yarn Spinning Update

Morning Glory Yarn & Fiber

I suck and forgot the camera yesterday for the country yarn store expidition. :(
It was actually pretty easy to find the place. The directions were perfect right down to the dogs letting us know when we arrived. They had 4 super cute doggies who all came around by the time we were ready to leave.
Jan was really super nice! She showed me all the wheels and let me watch her spin & ply so I have a better idea what I was doing wrong. (I was treadleing too fast and letting it get too much twist before it fed onto the bobbin, then when I started to treadle slower I wasn't letting it get enough twist before I let it go and I was trying to use too much fiber at once.) She said if I'm having trouble with anything just call her or come up with my wheel and she'll help me.
They sell Louet and Ashford wheels. She had a great wheel, an Elizabeth, and a Joy set up in the shop, then two different Louet wheels that I didn't get the model numbers of. I think if I ever get a wheel other than the fiber starter I'll get a Louet...they were just nicer, more modern looking, and have the same tension setup as my Babe.
Jan's husband (who's name I can't remember..I'm terrible with that stuff) showed up after a while, but he mostly stayed out on the porch with Steve. Then they went to look at the sheep and the Llama and the highland cows. I was busy shopping so I didn't get to see the cows :( Maybe next time I will. I ended up getting some larger size dpn's that I'd been looking for, (11's & 13's) an extra 16in size 7 addi turbo circular needle, a spinning reference card/spiral book thing, and some wool wash stuff that smells like lavendar.
The only yarn they sell is the Green Mountain Spinnery line. Most of these yarns were pretty nice, and if I'd had more money I would have gotten some. They also had several different spinning fibers...everything from cashmere to yak, several blends, dyes, drop-spindle kits, and even weaving looms and supplies. I'll be back for sure.