Glimpses of spring, and a pictures of my most recent projects.

Hello again!!!

Time seems to have gotten away from me! I cant believe it has been almost a month or a little longer since I last blogged!! I have been busy working and knitting and spinning!

Spring is blossoming all around us right now and I love seeing all the plants and trees come to life after laying dormant all winter. Its fun to wake up in the morning to the sounds of birds happily chirping away as the set about making their nests. I love waking up in the morning in the spring with my window open and the fresh air blowing in. Recently our weather has turned a bit cooler than it had been we had a week of 80 degree weather so now 50s and 60s feel a bit chilly. :) But it is still lovely weather for April!! :) :)

Here are some pictures I snapped today after I was done mowing the lawn. :)

This is a purple sand cherry.

Pink daffodil

This one just started opening today.

Such a bright cheerful shade of yellow!!!

The sky is a very bright blue today. :)

These tulips are purple but they aren't quite ready to bloom yet.

I also thought that you might want to see the projects that I am currently working on and the ones that I have finished in the past few months.

I have not had as much time for knitting as I would like but I still have managed to get quite a bit squeezed in. I finished my socks I was working on as well and a pair of mitts and a pair of leg warmers.

I recently started knitting another juneberry triangle this one is for my mom. It is in a lovely shade of gray with tan undertones the yarn is a merino cashmere blend that purchased from knitpicks. I am almost done with chart B but I still have 2 more charts before the body of the shawl is complete and then there is a edging chart. It is a beautiful shawl and I really enjoy knitting the pattern.
I have also started knitting one of the kits that I received for Christmas. It is called the Cozy Cacoon Shrug the yarn color for the kit I have is purple. I am loving the pattern so far although it is a little different switching between a worsted weight yarn and a lace weight yarn.

Well here are pictures of all my projects that I mentioned and an updated picture of my counted cross stitch that I have been working on.

On the spinning front I have plied all of my merino that is in the green and blue teal color way. I am almost done plying the last of the  merino silk blend that I am spinning up for my  mom it is going to be a lovely lace weight yarn when I am done plying it. I will be sure to take pictures of them when I have taken them off the spindles and put them into skanes.

Well that's all for now hope you all have a Blessed Easter!!!

Hello again!

Sorry I have been so remiss in blogging lately. I started a full time Nanny position last fall and it is keeping very busy, but I am enjoying taking care of the baby. :)

I have been busy finishing up projects that I have started and left off to knit on new things. Some of the things I have finished are the leg warmers I was knitting for my mom and I also finished my sweet fern mitts. :)

I recently started and finished knitting my first pair of socks. I was very excited about knitting my first pair of socks, I started them and couldn't seem to put them down!!! I finished the first sock in about a week and then I left off on the other on for a bit but it didn't take me long to start and finish it. This was my first time wearing hand knit socks and it was extra special with the fact that I had made them!! :)

I also have been working away on my cross stitch I am now on the last page and I have the first three pages back stitched. It is looking quite lovely and I am thinking of adding a verse to the top of it once I have finished it. I am planning on framing my cross stitch when I am done with it and hanging it somewhere in our house. :) My family is looking forward to seeing it finished.

I don't have any pictures uploaded yet because the batteries in the camera are currently charging, but when the batteries are finished charging I will upload pictures to the bottom of this post.

I have also finished spinning the black merino silk that I bought last may. I took a break from spinning it to work on spinning some thicker yarns. I started spinning it again this week and it didn't take me long to finish it up. :) I am looking forward to plying it and seeing what the weight and yardage is. :) :) I also have finished spinning and plying the green, blue, and teal merino wool that I hand dyed. the colors aren't quite as vibrant as I would have liked but all in all I am happy with the end product. It is all plied and I just need to set the twist.

I have been enjoying the past few days of warm spring weather. I am looking forward to when its warm enough to take the baby out in the stroller for walks. :) I love fresh air and I am looking forward to when it is warm enough to go out and weed in the garden and get the spring cleaning done in the flower beds.

I am waiting for a recent yarn order to arrive so I can knit up 2 pairs of mitts that a lady ordered from me and I also ordered some more yarn to make myself another juneberry shawl! :) I have started a juneberry  shawl for my mom that is made with a cashmere, merino wool blend. I have finished chart a and I am blazing through chart b. It is such a fun pattern to knit and now that I have made it once already I find that I can sit back and enjoy knitting it more now that I don't have to concentrate so much on making sure I know what all the symbols mean. :) I cannot wait to knit myself another juneberry shawl.

I have the yarn to make myself 3 more pairs of socks and a pair of beaded knee socks for my mom. I cannot wait to start on the beaded knee socks. I have not done a pattern with beads in it yet so it will be a fun experience for me.

Well that's all I have for now I will make sure to add pictures soon.

Hello!!

I hope everyone is surviving the heat of summer. I have been busy spinning and knitting the last few weeks and I feel like I have gotten a lot accomplished. I have been working on some dish cloths for my aunt which has been fun because I have been experimenting with new dish cloth patterns. I love to try new patterns and I have been loving the fact that my knitting knowledge is finally at a level where I can print off a pattern and be able to look at it and know what all the abbreviations mean and be able to knit the more complicated patterns without needing to ask a more experienced knitter for help.

A lovely basket of dish cloths!

I thought I would spread them all out so you could see them.

These colors were specifically asked for.
These are the new denim yarns from sugar and cream.

I have also been working on my Juneberry shawl which I showed pictures of in a previous post. I haven't taken any pictures of the progress of my juneberry as the needles I am using are circulars and they are a little shorter in length than I should have had. But I will be making the juneberry again for my mom so I am hoping to be able to picture document my progress as I knit that one.

I mentioned in my last post that I had finished 2 more reversibles and here are the pictures of them. I think they all turned out adorable. Pardon the amount of pictures of them, I wanted everyone to get an idea of what they looked like. :)

This is the lion and elephant.

Isnt he cute??

They are made so that one side tucks up into the other to maket he body portion.

And this one is called the sisters.

I made the sisters for a lady at my church and she gave it to her granddaughter. I'm excited to make more and I hope that I will eventually be able to make a few to tuck away for when I get married and have children of my own.

On the spinning front I have been spinning 2 different types of fiber. I am working on  merino silk blend that I am spinning lace weight and I have already spun up a spindle full that is waiting for me  to spin up another one so that I can ply it together.

Here is the fiber before I started spinning it.

And here are some pictures of the first spindle full. : )

The silk adds a nice sheen to the fiber.

I have also been working on spinning up some pure alpaca that a friend gave me. I have about a pound of this alpaca and it is a lovely white color. Here are some pictures of the alpaca and also of the first bobbin that I have spun up. :)

As you can see I am spinning it up very fine.

I recently finished spinning up 2ozs of some merino that I got at a fiber festival last fall and I hand painted it myself. I really enjoyed spinning fiber that I had dyed myself it just makes the yarn a little more special when you have put that much work into it. Here are some pictures of the roving and the first spindle of plied yarn. I am excited to see the finished yarn and knit it up into something special for myself.

This roving and yarn is shades of green,teal and white.

The colors aren't exactly as bright as I had wanted but I still love the way it turned out.

Lastly I will leave you with a picture of baby toy I made its called a bunny blanket buddy.

I hope you enjoyed my post and I look forward to any comments people leave. I hope you enjoy your week. :)

Spring and a bit of lace knitting.

Spring is arriving! I am so happy that the weather is starting to warm up. I was beginning to think that it would never stop snowing! I enjoy the snow but only till about January and then I am ready for the start of warm weather. Well while it has been slowly warming up outside I have been working on my first lace project!! I was given some fingering weight hand spun yarn for my birthday and was contemplating what to make with it when I was invited to a lady's tea and was told that it was going to be formal wear. I was excited because I knew I had the perfect dress the only problem was that the dress is sleeveless. So I decided that the solution was to make a shrug to go with the dress! So I set to work on making a shrug. The pattern I decided to use I got off ravelry  and the pattern is called the reading in bed shrug. It is a pretty simple lace work with the pattern only on the right side. I was glad that the pattern was simple because this was my first lace project. I had a blast knitting it I will tell you that once I got started I couldn't put it down. It was hard for me to put it down and work on other projects and because of that I completed this shrug in about 2 days of just knitting on and off through out the day. The yarn I was using is called violet dawn and it is so pretty.

This is the yarn! :) isn't it lovely?

Here are some pictures of the finished project. I hope you enjoy them.



It has some lovely self striping going on that added some depth to the piece. :)



The lace pattern is called the traveling leaf pattern

And here is the finished work!!!

I hope ya'll are enjoying the beautiful spring weather!!