duh.

While pondering what to do with the Madli's shawl that needed to go bye-bye, I kept wishing I could find a travel project that was as perfect as the Estonian Garden Wrap that I knit while we were in Hawaii a couple of years ago.

Suddenly, a forehead-smacking moment! Since that Estonian Garden Wrap was given as a gift last Christmas, why don't I just knit that pattern again, in this yarn? Yeah, that's the ticket!

:::rip rip rip::: went Madli, saving the iridescent beads which will probably be substituted for the nupps on the Estonian Garden Wrap.

I'm not sure if there's enough time to start the new project before we leave, but it feels good to have a plan for that lovely Woolen Rabbit yarn. Meanwhile, I started a Just Enough Ruffles scarf in burgundy angora. Should be a fun little project with a nicely wearable result.

with a little effort

It's been a while since Leah did any spinning, so when she sat down recently to spin yarns for an intended xmas gift, she was a bit rusty. Thick and thin chunky yarn, not what she was aiming for but still perfectly usable. This skein includes some C*eye*ber Fiber BFL Leah received as a gift from our favorite LYS, Creative Fibers, and also some angora. And some plying by a friend.

By the second skein, she was getting back into the swing of things, putting more twist in, drafting better. This skein includes angora rec'd as a gift from Chris at Woolybuns when Leah wrote an article about angora rabbits for Spindlicity a couple of years ago, and also some llama down received as a gift from Lars and Gayle at West Mountain Farm.

And by the third skein, big improvement! This is alpaca that Leah received as thanks for being a spinning demonstrator at Burgis Brook Alpacas' open house last year.

All three skeins were given to a friend yesterday. On the way home from a knit night with friends, which followed a knitting afternoon at a local NICU with a friend and her wee preemie, Leah told me she already started spinning something else. She raided the fiber stash and chose a beautiful pound of roving that we got at the Fiber Twist this fall. She says spinning is the perfect thing to do while listening to Louisa May Alcott books on her iPod, courtesy of Librivox.

I, meanwhile, am enjoying a lull in the workload, happily knitting along on Sylvi. I'm almost to the halfway point on the back and expect to finish the second sleeve today. Not bad for only being a week into this project! The flowers will be added as surface decoration later. I'm up to the 2nd flower, the one toward the right at hip level. I'm using the mindless sleeves as social knitting and working on the back when I can concentrate on the chart.

Xmas-induced vagueness alert: Yesterday, I again experienced the wild and wonderful generosity of fiber fanatics. This time, I met up with someone for one thing and left with significantly more than expected, because yarny people are just nice like that. :-)

Y'know what I did on Sunday? All of the past year's knitting projects that didn't have a specific destination were placed into a box and offered for anyone who wanted them at the xmas festivities with Scott's side of the family. There were stranded mittens, a lace wrap, two pairs of socks, a few scarves, and a bunch of neckwarmers. What fun to see the ensuing feeding frenzy! Such a great feeling to see many of those things adopted by people who love them and will put them to good use!

mixing it up

When my mom was in Italy this summer, she bought some yarn. It's a blue-green colorway with little flaggy bits hanging off one of the plies -- nice colors, but difficult texture. She tried knitting something with it and it didn't work out well at all, so she handed it to me with the challenge to figure out what to do with it. I tried a variety of needle sizes and a variety of stitches. No luck. My suggestion? Hook it up with a bunch of yarns of varying but cohesive colors and textures to make a wrap, something similar to Jane Thornley's Green Before the Gold (scroll down), maybe, although possibly knit lengthwise.

This project will need lots of scrap balls of yarn. You know what that means, don't you? Stash diving!

So, into the leftovers box we went, my trusty yarn-diving companion and I. Crappy pic in the artificial light this early morning, but given that I now have a cough that's every bit as bad as Jesse's and the Nyquil (which helped me sleep last night, for the first time in three nights) has me feeling all loosey goosey this morning, so be it. :-) Anyway, mom's yarn is in the center, still with ballband. Leah and I chose bluey-greens. Some purples worked their way in there, because we just can't help our purple-loving selves, and some cream alpaca too. Not all of these balls will make the final cut, but I'll hand this collection over to mom soon and see what happens next.

Found some treasures in that stash and tidied things up (untangled, rewound) while we were in there too.



You know what happened this week? I found myself with exactly one...ONE!...project on the needles. It's a bulky thing, though, and wasn't suitable for grabbing quickly to take along as a small project to work on while I was waiting to pick Leah up from the American Red Cross babysitting course. Socks to the rescue! It's been a while since I was actively knitting socks and the time has come to bump up production again, so here we go while I decide what else to cast on, since I know full well that I need multiple projects to fit different moods and settings. Fun to look at all the options and anticipate a cast-on frenzy while I mix it up and get some new projects in motion.

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I wish the blog had a scratch and sniff option because Scott is baking bread with Asiago cheese, white wine, sauteed onions and garlic. It smells so incredibly good. Can't wait to taste it.