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!!!

Giveaway!!

I am so excited that I have been blogging for almost a year!!! On December 9th it will be my one year anniversary and what better way to celebrate it than to have a giveaway! :)

Now the giveaway will start today and last until December 31st at 12 noon. All you need to do is comment and leave your contact info.

So now you are asking what am I giving away? Well I recently decided I wanted to try my hand at designing a cowl and my first attempt came out beautifully so I decided that I would giveaway a cowl with my own design! I do not have any pictures of it right now as I just started knitting it yesterday but I will add pictures throughout the month so you can see the progress. And I will be doing a post telling about the first cowl I made. It is very exciting to be giving away one of my very own design!!


I will tell you a little about the cowl and the yarn I am using. The yarn is from Knitpicks and it is the Shimmer hand painted lace yarn and it is 70% baby alpaca and 30% silk. It is in the spice colorway and it is a beautiful combination of browns, rust, and gold tones.  The lace pattern I am using is called the dropping elm lace and I found it in the aware knits book and fell in love with the leaves.


Well I am going to knit some more on the cowl now and Lord willing I will add some pictures of it within the next few day. :)

Looking forward to picking the winner!!!

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. :)

Happy 4th of July!

I hope ya'll had a wonderful holiday! My family and I went camping for the weekend and got to much sun but I had a wonderful holiday celebrating Americas freedom! The last month I have been working on my spinning and I have done some knitting but the majority of my time has been taken up with spinning. I have spun up a spindle full of the merino silk blend I'm guessing that I spun up about 2 oz. but I'm not sure on the exact amount. I love how the colors have come out in it as I have spun. I am spinning this merino silk in a lace weight and I will ply it together so I have a 2 ply yarn. I have also been spinning on my alpaca roving and I'm spinning that lace weight also. I know that is a lot of work to do 2 lace weight spinning projects at the same time but I am enjoying it so far. I have been spinning the merino silk but now that I have a spindle full I have switched to the alpaca. I will have to let the twist on the merino blend sit awhile so that it can relax, other wise it will tangle up with itself when I go to ply it.  In the knitting area I have knitted some more on my juneberry triangle and I am almost done with the last chart and then I will only have the edging chart left! I am super excited to get it done it looks so fuzzy and warm I almost wish it was cooler out so I can snuggle up with it. But I am enjoying the warm weather. I have finished 2 more reversible and I am working on a third one. I know that is a lot  of reversible toys to make but I still will need to make at least 3 or 4 more. I know a lot of people having babies this year! But I enjoy making them. So far I have made the turtle and frog which is featured in a blog I did a few months ago and I have done the lion/elephant and the sisters. The lion and elephant took me the longest because that one had the most  parts on it so that was a little more time consuming.  But they all turned out adorable and I am very happy about how they have all turned out. Well that's all I haev for now I hop ya'll have a good week.

Knitting,spinning and future projects.

Hello!!

 I know I am not very regular in blogging but I hope to remedy that this year. I recently went to a fiber festival with my mom and we had a good time. This was my moms first fiber festival and I am glad it was on the small side as she got overwhelmed by all the fiber,yarn and animals. I am glad she enjoyed it and she was able to purchase some things. We bought 4 oz of Merino wool blended with Tussah silk. It is a gorgeous black with silver spread though out it.



This is the Tussah Silk Merino Wool blend.



I love the colors if this. I am hoping to spin it a lace weight.

And this is some Mohair I also was able to get at the Fiber festival. I have worked with Mohair before but it was a black and grey color this is the more common natural color.

Here is some Angora that i purchased last year in august the color is called broken torte. It is a white color with some cream and tan spread though out it. I am not sure yet what i am going to use this for but i am enjoying spinning it up, Angora is one of the harder fibers to spin because it comes is locks in stead of a roving.

Here is a partially made reversible from the Itty Bitty Toys book.I am making the sisters reversible. The pink part is the dress for one side of the doll and the periwinkle color is the other side of the dress. I am making this pair of sisters for a lady at my church she is giving it to her granddaughter and I am trying to make it look like the girl and her sister.  I will make sure to post some pictures of the finished project.

These 2 balls of yarn are part of an order i put into Knit Picks. The one on the right is Knit Picks Capra Cashmere Yarn in the Platinum color and the one on the left is Swish Worsted Yarn in the Tidepool heather. The Cashmere blend I will be making the Juneberry Triangle, and the Swish worsted I will be making a pair of leg warmers for my mom for this winter.

Some of you might remember the cross stitch I had talked about a few posts back?? Well it has come along nicely the last couple of months. I finished the first page of the pattern and started on the second. I am very happy with the way it is turning out and I cannot wait to see the finished product! I love cross stitching but back stitching is not my favorite part and the thought of having this huge project done but still have to back stitch it was a little intimidating to I decided that as I finished each page of the pattern I would go through and back stitch as much of that page as I could so that I could save my self time and headaches down the road.

I still have alot to do but I am very happy with the way it looks so far.

And here is my Juneberry Triangle!! I am very excited with my progress. This is a charted knitting pattern and I have never worked a charted pattern before so it was a little intimidating at first but I have a friend who is an experienced knitter and she got me started on this pattern. I have completed the first chart and I am about half way through the second. This pattern has a lot of stitches that I'm not familiar with so it will be a very big learning experience for me. But I am so looking forward to the finished project!

Here is another shot of my angora.

And last but certainly not least here is a picture of the 100% alpaca that was given to me by a friend. I have a little over a pound of it and I plan to leave it the natural color because i think it is beautiful! I am spinning it as thin as I can in hopes of getting a 2 ply lace weight. I am hoping to make a long sleeved shrug for my grandma.

Well that's all I have for now but hope fully I will not allow myself to go so long between posts!