First Post!

Hello all! This is my second attempt at maintaining a blog and I certainly hope that I will be able to keep this one up. I previously used wordpress and I had a heck of a time figuring out how to get the pictures to come out right but blogger is MUCH easier for me to understand. For the most part I intend to use this blog as a place to discuss any fiber related activities of mine, currently knitting and spinning.

Tonight is my second ever spinning class and I am very excited because tonight we get wheels. Last week Maggie sent us home with drop spindles... no offense but I find wheels much more interesting. I think I will save any further spinning discussion for my next post because I will be able to include pictures of the wheel and discussion of my spinning mishaps.

I am currently working on three knitting projects:

• A pair of Aran braided socks for my grandma

There is actually a story behind the socks for my grandma. I don't know her sock size, only her shoe size. So I borrowed Val's Sensational Knitted Socks which has a table that allows you to determine the necessary number of stitches for each size. The socks are to be a Christmas gift, and they aren't late! Grandma lives in Kansas and is only now able to come out here and visit because of all the snow and then a cold that she had. I will be giving them to her tomorrow; she will try them on and (HOPEFULLY) they will fit. Then I will finish up the toe decreases before she leaves to return home on Sunday, I think. This pattern really did not interest me and I had to force myself to finish them at all. The original plan was for me to knit another pair for myself but I certainly don't see that happening.

• An Alexander McQueen Knockoff sweater by Calista Yoo

The sweater is beautiful. I'm knitting it with the Andean Treasure that the pattern is written for. For those who don't know it is from KnitPicks and made of baby alpaca! I really love the pattern and the yarn. My only hope and desire is that I am able to seam the pieces together correctly and have a wearable object. Up until now I have not knit anything but hats for myself. This is my second sweater attempt, the first had numerous mistakes that I would notice more than others but enough that I wouldn't wear it. Right now it is in exile at the back of the closet.

• A Rectangular Cover Shawl from KnitPicks

The shawl is knit with lace weight Shadow yarn from Knitpicks. I had to downsize on the needles two whole numbers because I felt that the other two sizes made the shawl much to hole-y and the pattern would not have been discernable. To compensate for the much smaller size of the shawl I added on a few repeats and ran into some problems there because some of the repeats overlap each other. To make a long story short I was missing about 8 stitches for a full repeat and was too far along to rip back and cast on 8 more stitches. I made a few modifications to the pattern and will live with the fact that my shawl will be ever so different from any one else who knit from this pattern.

Remarkably, all of the pictures shown here are very close to the actual colors of the yarn, at least on my monitor. I took MANY pictures before deciding to post the few that I did. Mostly, the pictures that I took were too blurry to actually be able to see the pattern. I will try to keep posting relatively clear pictures because I feel that part of what makes a great blog is the pictures.

I'm very excited for tonights spinning class so I think I'll go knit and try to calm myself before heading out! Stay tuned for much more information than you ever wanted to know about my spinning escapades....