Lots of Knitting!

Last Week:
I managed to get in quite a bit of knitting this week, though not much spinning. The upcoming week should be the big spinning week for me as I have several "projects" that I need to get done!

I only managed to spin for a few hours Tuesday evening, but it was in fabulous company. A nice intimate group including some folks I hadn't seen for a while. I finished the generic "blue wool" from Little Barn. It's very soft and has a fabulous deep blue color with multi-colored undertones. Now, all I need to do is ply it and set the twist. I also had finished spinning the rest of the brown BFL earlier in the month, and I need to ply the last two bobbins of that as well.

Much of the time Tuesday was spent in "show and tell". In spite of the main focus being spinning, I found yet another knitting project to add to the large stack of "Project-in-Waiting" - the Lana Grossa "Panel Jacket" from the Royal Tweed booklet - Fall/Winter 2006 (it's the cover sweater). Amy is starting one and it's going to be absolutely stunning!

I knit a pair of baby booties for a friend of ours that just had a baby boy - I decided to to the booties in white fingering weight yarn and to make blue twisted cord ties for them. The best thing about baby booties is that they're VERY quick to knit up - instant gratification!

I finally completed the remaining rows of the Budding Lace 2 pattern on my Swallowtail Shawl - 14 rows total. I've started the Lily of the Valley Border 1 - I'm ready to start the 6th row of 12 for that pattern. I'll be starting my 3rd skein of yarn in this row as well. The challenging part of this pattern is the "purl 5 together" - I use the same method I did for the Maple Leaf Socks....I slip the first 4 stitches on the right needle, purl the 5th stitch, then bring each of the 4 I slipped back over the 5th stitch one at a time - it's MUCH easier than trying to do them all at once and I have less risk of "dropping" stitches since it's a more "controlled" technique.

The final thing I'm working on is a FABULOUS beaded scarf. I took a class yesterday morning at Hunt Country Yarns in Middleburg, "Knitting with Beads". I'd been waiting to take this class ever since it was first offered last October and it was well worth the wait. Classes from Bob are so much fun and you learn so much! Even "loading the yarn" with the beads wasn't as bad as I thought it would be - I used pre-strung beads, so I just had to tie the string to my yarn and "slide" the beads from the string onto the yarn.

Today:
This afternoon was spent knitting, eating, and chatting at my friend Amy's house with several other friends. Amy's friend, Terri, joined us as well, so we had quite a crowd. We had a blast! I got another row done on the Swallowtail Shawl as well as several more rows on my beaded scarf. Unfortunately, I goofed and had to rip out 16 rows...but at least it's a scarf and the rows are short - 30 stitches. I did manage to complete 10 rows in addition to the 16 rows that I had to knit twice, so I truly did make some progress.

Here's my progress on the beaded scarf - the overall picture on the left doesn't really show the varied colors in each of the glass beads. However, even though the closeup on the right is a bit out of focus, the varied colors within each bead are more easily seen.









I know, I know. I'm not making any progress on my stock pile of WIPs or UFOs. Trust me, they have not been forgotten! Sometimes you just have to start something new....or start small quick projects just to keep your knitting mojo going!