Wednesday.

Otherwise known as the day I should be spending at home due to the white death, but instead I'm at work. Bah.

Regardless. I'm at work, and I'm working (HA!) and later this afternoon I have to drive to Dublin, the freakin' Bermuda Triangle of Columbus in the snow. Wish me luck.

I made it through another few rows in the Luna Moth last night. They're taking a lot longer now than they were last week. Eh. And!! I decided that for the summery shawl for the wedding, I've got some fantastic bright blue pima cotton/silk finger weight to work with. There are a couple patterns I'm thinking about, but I think it's down to either Swallowtail, Shetland Triangle (from Wrap Style), or Cleite from Twist Collective. We'll see. I'm way excited! Except for the part about Dublin...

Tuesday.

The first half of my wheel came in the mail yesterday - my niddy noddy, and a pound of fiber. The actual wheel itself is scheduled to be delivered on Thursday. So it's not here yet. But that's okay. I'll go home Thursday, put it together, and spin some. And then some more on Friday. Saturday morning I'll take it all apart, and go stain it. !! And I'm going to work on refining the PVC swift with my little brother, too. So, exciting.

I'm taking a class for work right now - it's every Monday night for three months. And they're awfully boring. Last night was especially rough - so after the first break, I pulled out my emergency sock. You know, the one I started a month ago and still haven't made it past the arch expansion? Yep, that one. I worked on it while focusing on making eye contact with the instructor (I've never knit in a meeting/class before, so it was a new thing!) and now I'm almost finished with the arch. Ten more rounds, and I get to start the heel. :)

And the Luna Moth - I think it finally clicked. I knit two rows last night, and I only needed the chart a few times. That's way exciting for me. I'm about halfway through my 3rd repeat. I might get a summery shawl finished in time for the wedding at this rate!

Today is my birthday. Which is a very important day in the bubble in which I live. :)

And, because it is my birthday, I bought myself something special. (Ok, so really my dad's birthday money bought me something special.)

Isn't is lovely? It's an Ashford Kiwi. And I'm going to finish it with one of these colors. Aren't they lovely too?! I think I've settled on the Antique Jade, but I could change my mind when I see these in person.

Beyond the excitement of the new wheel, I'm also way totally excited about the loaf of bread I baked last night! (I bake bread. Fairly frequently, actually. You kinda have to when your partner can't eat wheat products.) I used a sourdough starter, and a white rice flour mix. And, magically, the taste and the texture was exactly that of English Muffins. Love in loaf shape.

Today is a whole new day. I wouldn't quite say a whole new world, but the hope and excitement traveling over the air waves makes it feel as such.

Watched the inauguration on the fellyvision yesterday. Rae says she watched all day long. I only got to see about an hours worth, but it was enough. Yes, I cried, but just a tear or two.

I haven't knitted in ages, it seems. I decided that the Gail was too much lace much too soon. So I dropped back to the LunaMoth. I like it. I'm working it up in Knitpicks Palette, a hunter green. I was hoping to finish a shawl in time for Rae's cousin's wedding, but hunter green isn't such a great spring wedding color. Maybe I'll zip through the rest of this one, and start another simple-like shawl with the alpaca. But that would require some knitterly ninja focus.

Which I definitely don't have right now. Largely because I've been reading the last few days. Over the weekend, I read The Friday Night Knitting Club; it was okay. I'm glad I didn't buy it, because I'll never have the desire to read it again. To be honest, I wouldn't have read it the first time if it wasn't about knitters. ... Not that it was a bad book, because it wasn't. I've definitely been exposed to worse books. (Notice I didn't say I read them; I didn't. I promptly put them down.) It was a light, fluffy read with very little focus required. It was good for the moment. I also got a knitting mystery book. I'm intrigued to see how that one turns out. And I'm reading the Golden Compass, which has been on the to-read list since high school. And we're working our way through the Lemony Snicket series. We bought them because I thought Renee would enjoy them, but turns out I like children's lit too! They're also light and fluffy. I will say, though, that the style has gotten droll and too repetitive. I think I've finished book 9 or 10, and I'm about done for a while. And we picked up several small business starting/owning/managing/accounting/etc books that I'll need to work my way through, taking notes and such.

Maybe I won't get to that second shawl... :)

My new fiber came in the mail yesterday. I opened it at work. I had to! There was no option. And I'm so glad I did, because it's entirely delightfully and squishy and amazing.

I think the BFL is my favorite, right now. The color is spot-on, exactly what I was hoping for. The 8 oz bag of it is awesome to look at. We touch-tested them last night. Rae likes the merino/tencel best, and I don't blame her. It's way shiny, and way squishy, and slick feeling. The bamboo is similar, but not quite as slick. The BFL, my favorite, is just as squishy but it has more grab to it. (Well, it's not superwash and it's not mixed with a slick plant fiber so that makes total sense.) And I appreciate the grabiness.

I finished the first oz of the colored fiber last night, and then wound it off onto *gasp* our new ballwinder! I'm currently designing (just in my head) a way to create a lazy kate that works well with the ballwinder. I've got some ideas. I'm splitting the second half into quarters to spin it, and I just started that last night. I'm still enamoured with how pretty it is!

So, my favorite thing about spinning - the dyed top I've used the most is all brightly colored with intense contrasting colors. In fact, when Rae first saw the ball of the Louet, she said, "That's ugly. You're never making me anything from that ball of clown barf." Which is totally HIGHlarios, because now every time she sees the finished skein she asks me what I'm making for her. I can't wait to see it knitted up. So see the complete transformation from ball of clown barf to beautiful cowl. :)

I did sit down with the lace on Tuesday. And that involved ripping it all out. And then I knit back to where I was again (but it didn't involve any tinking at all) and started the second pattern repeat. That didn't go so well. Turns out, I'd been purling my yos and my knits together on the way back when I wasn't paying attention. So I ripped out another 2 or 3 rows, and soon I'll be ready to start the second repeat.

I didn't spin at all on Tuesday. I was very proud of me.

Wednesday was knit night! And I took my spinning. Well, I took socks too, but. Those are boring right now. They're perfectly in the middle of the lace and spinning on the need-to-pay-attention spectrum, and apparently I don't want that right now. I did work on them when I was at the dentist yesterday morning, but. That hardly counts.

Okay, one last time - ahh! My yarn is so pretty! I'm somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 the way finished with the first half of the dyed merino. That's exciting. I ordered more fiber from Spunky Eclectic to finish the stuff - some dark BFL to ply with it. And then I ordered more top, just for fun!! I got some white merino/bamboo, some white merino/tencel, and a handpainted Romney. So, in addition to lots of spinning, I'm going to have to do some dying. I think I'm okay with that. :)

I hope my package gets here, like, tomorrow. Woo! Except that since I'm working on the lace again tonight, it's not like I'm going to finish the whole 2 oz of the merino anytime soon. Eek!

Ha!

Yes, ignoring the lace!

Until tonight, damn it. I'm going to sit down and work on it. Yesterday, I spun some of my next roving (uhh, which I'll tell you all about); tomorrow is knit night and there is no way I'm going to take it with me then. I'll take socks to work on. Or the wrap, or maybe even the bag I hate. So, tonight the f*ing lace.

The spinning, oh my goodness! I'm using my latest spindle (I say that like I've got a collection - really just 4, and only two of them are usable (by me) and one of those is annoying) anyway, I'm using this

spindle (which is entirely delightful and utterly awesome) and a lovely .9 oz weight. I've got 2oz of roving I picked up in Tennesse - it's blue, red, blue, orange, yellow, red, etc. I'm spinning it at about ... say, a light lace weight, maybe. I'll have to get out the WPI tool. It's so skinny, and it's so pretty, and it's really been pretty consistent. I spun for a few hours last night, watching tvontheinternet, and The History of India on PBS. Then Rae got home (from her first day!) and she made me stop. And by that, I mean it's good that someone fed me.

It's really pretty. I ripped the roving into two pieces, lengthwise, to work with. I'm going to aim for spinning the two sections of the dyed roving, and then one more piece of either some white that I have, or maybe purchase some natural color fiber, and then do a three ply. Ohh, and I think I'm going to buy some bamboo! Yikes!

I totally finished my first complete skein of handspun! It's 4 oz (uhh, give or take a bit), 159 yds, and entirely delightful! I think it looks like fall in the Jellico Mountains. It took entirely forever to finish. The first 1/3 was spun quite some time ago, and it ended up a light dk weight; the last bulk of it was spun over last weekend, and it's a heavy worsted/light bulky. I'm working on finding a project for it; probably a textured cowl, or short scarf.
And now I'm way excited to get into my second skein! I've got about 2 oz, I think, of a very bright roving that I'll likely ply with a bright white. Definitely.

That lace shawl? I sat down with it last night. Only got through about 6 pattern rows, but I had to tink back at least halfway through each row. Plus, I spent 45 minutes trying to figure out why the row I was on didn't match stitch count, etc. I feel like I've spent forever on it, but really I haven't. I'm just a slow lace knitter right now. I'll be starting the second repeat tonight. We'll see how that works out. I think I've got it figured out, though.

The lace, though, has definitely increased my urge to spin. It's way easy to ignore the lace when I've got some some delightful roving to play with!

January 2nd, the day we all say, "Yes! Of course! I will go to the gym! I will stop eating! I will stop smoking! I will stop buying designer shoes!"

So, those aren't actually my goals for the year. Mine are, I think, not in any order:

1. Finish a kitting project that requires commitment. Afghan, lace shawl, sweater, knee socks, and such would all count.
2. Buy a house. Well, okay. I'd like to own a house by June, 2010. So, be well on my way to owning a house.
3. Write a business plan. Perhaps start a business. Renee and I would really like to have somewhere to employ ourselves. Or, at least, her.
4. And, of course, go to the gym. ;)

That lace shawl - not coming along at all. I think I might have to frog and start over. I was doing okay, but then my chart got jostled and I'm not sure what row I should be on... eh. :) I've got all year, right? Those socks? I've only knit about 3 rounds over the last week. That bag? I still hate purling. I might never finish it. But the spinning - I picked that up again yesterday. I feel that I'm doing better than I was when I stopped before. So there's one positive thing.