I get my glory in the desert rain

This Aeolian shawl took me four months from start to finish.  I spun the yarn, merino/tencel blend, in about a month and then three months to knit.  I only added beads to the bottom parts, which I still found extremely tedious.  The last row with beads took me four hours to knit.  I omitted the last row and went straight to the cast off with a single strand in fear of running out of yarn.  I do think that this will be my most favorite shawl that I have ever and will ever knit.

Summer Shawls

This summer I knit two beautiful shawls that have made their way heavily into my wardrobe rotation. The first one is Andrea’s Shawl from Through the Loops knit in a mystery fiber and a merino/seawool blend from Frabjous Fibers. I love how the colors play off one another; I do however wish it came out bigger. It was completely my fault since I neglected to swatch and read the pattern specs. It is still a lovely size to wrap around my neck and add a little extra pop of color to my outfit.



The second shawl which felt like it took forever was Citron. I added many more sections than the pattern called for since I was looking to use up almost all my yarn for this. I made the ruffle section a bit longer also. I love how this came out! This is such a lovely pattern that will showcase any handspun yarn beautifully. Fair warning though, this project is a bit boring with all those stockinette rows.

Merry Christmas

Wishing everyone who celebrates a very merry Christmas!

Happy Halloween!

I am woefully behind at posting; I really do wish that the computer was in a better spot at home so that I could work on the blog while being in the same room as Scott. I have almost three handspun shawls, two trips, and Rhinebeck to blog about. Hopefully I can get into a rhythm and bang them out. Before I get too far behind and it just appears to be silly, here’s our house decorated for Halloween!








I also made some cookies from a cookie-pop mold for Halloween.

I love Halloween; it is such a fun time of year!  Scott and I go all out decorating the house waiting to scare everyone that comes.  Unfortunately since we live on a dead end not many kids come down our road.  They don’t know what they are missing!

Sheep cookies

Every July my spinning guild has a wonderful pot luck dinner to celebrate the summer and just relax with wonderful people. I usually bring a dessert since I always come straight from work and can never swing home before the dinner. This year I wanted to make sheep cookies from the cookie cutter Scott gave me for my birthday. I always use Alton Brown’s sugar cookie recipe for any cookie I want to roll out. I find that his cookie holds the shape well and is easily amended. I make linzer tarts out of this recipe and add lime zest to pair with the raspberry jam. For these I added a teaspoon of vanilla.

I outline the cookie with some icing, I used Sugar Cookie Frosting from i am baker and americolor food coloring.



Then I flood the cookie.



Add the lighter color.



Then add details.





They were a huge hit at the dinner.

Spinning the summer away

As always this summer blew right by me. Part of me always dreads the summer and the non stop busy days at work that the summer reading program brings. Add to that a family emergency (everything is good now) and nonstop weekend shifts I have barely had any time this summer. My vegetable garden is doing well but sadly I have not uploaded any photos of that lately. My other gardens are full of weeds and struggling but since those don’t give me my beloved tomatoes I’m not that concerned at the moment. Back in July I did participate in Tour De Fleece, just not the way I would have wanted. I had lofty goals that were squashed when the more important aspects of life came about. I was just happy to find a few moments of calm and spin whatever I could. Last year I was unable to attend Rhinebeck so my friends picked out a bump of fiber so I wouldn’t be left out. They came back with this:

Frabjous Fibers Mermaid Tail in “Purple People Eater,” it is a blend of wool and seacell.





That’s 696 yards of a heavy lace weight that will be paired with this mystery fiber:






That’s 670 yards of a heavy lace weight, maybe merino/tencel.



I spun these two for Andrea’s Shawl from Through the Loops. I really like how they look together and think they will make a lovely shawl.

I also joined All Spun Up’s summer spin along; the colorway is “Down to Earth” a merino/silk blend.





I managed a very thin lace weight, 1,150 yards out of 4 ounces. This has knit up into a beautiful and very large Citron that is nearly finished; it was placed on scrap yarn in order to start my Andrea’s Shawl for the Through the Loops KAL.

Next up cookies!

Gift Giving

The last few projects I’ve made have all been gifts, which isn’t like me at all. I usually knit for myself and hardly give anything to anyone but there were a few special occasions that just begged to have something made. First up my knitting group has been cooking up some babies so I found the perfect gifts for the little shower we gave them.




Smith and the wee mushroom went to a dear friend who loves all things hedgehogs and mushrooms.





Peanut went to my other dear friend who loves elephants. This was my first foray into sewing stuffed animals. The directions were not very clear and caused much grumbling and ripping out of seams, but in the end I was able to find a photo tutorial that helped greatly. I still wasn’t able to piece it together in the order that is instructed but with much fudging he came out alright.

I also made another one for my cousin’s daughter’s christening.



While we were on vacation (more on that in another post that I’m still writing up) one of my coworkers discovered that she has breast cancer. She is currently going through chemotherapy and is expected to make a full recovery. I knew that she was nervous about loosing her hair and found the wig to be incredibly hot and itchy so I thought that a nice cotton hat would help.




I was able to knit this in under a week, just in time to give it to her before I transferred buildings. I hope that this hat comforts her during her recovery.