Finishing weekend

It's been another frigid weekend. That makes for good weather to stay in and finish long postponed projects!


The most recent Baby Surprise Jacket was sewn together, buttons and all.



















Two baby sweaters that waited patiently for a very long time, had their buttons attached
.

Paul's Retrofit sweater became a finished, zippered sweater.

He modeled it, then promptly sat down to read. I guess he likes it!

(It is much better, now that it's the proper gauge, isn't it?)









My Rogue sweater got the sleeves sewn in, and the zipper inserted.

Girl of the House models it. She might borrow it, but it's too big for her, really.

Well, that took close to a year to complete. Whew...









And the "Easter Egg" roving was plyed, and is hanging to dry.

280 yards, 167 grams.












By the way, if you think using a tear away stabilizer would make zipper insertion easier, be really sure it tears away easily!

Also, a good tweezers is also a useful knitting accessory!

Just saying...

Paul worked all day Saturday, so Sunday was a mix of chores and relaxing.


Before starting the major work, we managed a scrumptious brunch.

Eggs Benedict, smashed potatoes and bloody Marys.

Well fueled, he went out and put new speakers in my truck, changed my oil, and chopped wood for our Sunday evening fire.

As I tell him regularly, "I love being married to a greasy guy!"


Whereas, I stayed in and did a bit of cooking. I prepared some casseroles that went right into the freezer for later, when we're more rushed.


I blocked out the body of Rogue. The failure of Retrofit had a positive benefit. I finally accomplished the finishing details on this sweater.

Pays to have a soccer player in the house.

How else would you block the hood?





While cooking, I started some crockpot dyeing.

This is the last of any white fiber I have in the house. A posh mix of alpaca, merino and silk.

(In desperation, I threw in some of the dark brown finn fleece around the edges. Don't know if that'll show any color at all?)

road knitting - Sioux Falls!

We drove out to Sioux Falls, SD last weekend to surprise Paul's brother for his birthday. And we did surprise him! Excellent planning on Coleen's part...

We had beautiful weather, and a fabulous time!

Even the dogs were invited!

We all went for a walk on Saturday, and we discovered they had several geocaches right in their local park.

They entertained us, as usual, in gourmet style.

Of course driving the four hours to Sioux Falls, and four hours back, gave me lots of knitting time!



I've got most of Rogue finished.

Just the seaming up, and zipper installation to go.












Got some sock knitting in, too.

This was the easiest knitting to do, on the road in the dark. I certainly couldn't do all that cabling in the dark!









Little dog was suspicious of my photo taking.

He's very protective of my foot model, Girl of the House.






On the dark evenings this week, I did more spinning than knitting.

I spun up the two ounces of black alpaca I purchased at Shepherd's Harvest back in May.

This was full of vegetation matter (VM), and quite dirty, same as the brown I spun up earlier this summer.

Turned out quite lovely after spinning and washing, however.




I passed the underplied CVM back through the spinning wheel, and it came out much nicer.









There's been a project of some silk caps I dyed, sitting half finished on my Saxony wheel. I know I started that project in 2007.

They finally yelled loud enough to grab my attention, and I finished spinning them up.

One ounce of silk caps, 300 yards of lace weight.

The colors are difficult to photo accurately, but I'm loving the blues!

I see a silk scarf in the near future...

company for the weekend

Ben was home from college this past weekend.

He brought someone for us to meet.

Here's Becky!



She passed all the tests: Homemade pizza eating, movie watching, being human furniture for the pets (both cats sat upon her - quite unusual), card game playing, and most of all - geocaching when it's 40 degrees and sleeting out! YAY Becky!





I managed some sewing this weekend.

Five more box bags.

I had to send for more zippers from ebay. Love that ebay - 100 random zippers for $10. Makes these little bags so much more affordable!





Not much knitting lately.

I have begun working on the collar for Osterdalen, finally.









Rogue has a few more rows. (After I ripped out the biased hemming)






Little dog didn't want Girl of the House to leave for school this morning.

Braces

Girl of the House had big happenings today.

Her braces were applied.


Here she is before leaving for school.











Here she is after her day at the orthodontist.

The rubber bands are her favorite color - teal. Isn't it cool they get to pick their bands?





In knitting news: while Osterdalen was blocking, I returned to Rogue.

After a few puzzled moments, trying to figure out where I was in the pattern, I reached the beginning of the sleeve cap.

One more lesson learned - if you aren't going to knit on a project for a month, leave yourself notes!





Big dog Paris has been having difficulties with maintaining ownership of his bed on the new flooring. Everyone wants a soft spot. At one point little dog Chip and calico girl Georgie were sharing with him. (Chip would prefer to play with me, rather than staying where he was for the picture.)

goodbye old friend

Goodbye to the first pair of socks I knitted from sock yarn. Opal sock yarn, knitted in the fall of 2000. Guess I got my money's worth and enjoyment from them.

Yes, I could darn these holes in the heel and toes.
But after seven and half years of regular wear, I guess it's time for them to go.







I'm enjoying knitting Rogue. I love the color - it's much prettier than this photo. (After sunset photography makes accurate color difficult.)








Last, but not least, Osterdalen continues to grow.

Only about 3 more inches of plain black stockinette to go.

slogging, slogging, slogging...

What do you do when you're slogging through 17 inches of black stockinette stitch in the dark evenings of winter?

After only seven inches of stockinette are done?






Why, start a new sweater, of course!!

The yarn for Rogue came in the mail - hurray! Harrisville Highland in Azure.

I bought it on weaving cones, skeined it off, and gave it a bath to eliminate the spinning oils. It blooms so nicely, becoming a much plumper yarn.

I'm off to start a sleeve/swatch.

I spun up the last seven ounces of my Shanghai NIghts (80% coopworth/20% silk threads) today. I was able to ply the whole batch into 514 yards of long-draw fluffiness. It's hanging in the bathroom drying.










I ordered the yarn for Rogue and Osterdalen yesterday.

I'll probably work on both at the same time. I like to knit two sweaters at a time. When I finish one skein of yarn, I move to the other sweater. That way, I don't get bored with knitting a single sweater - there is always variety!

I should start a handspun project, too. Hmmmmm....

We did one geocache today. Now we're just being lazy in front of the fire. I LOVE our Sundays.