Catching up

When you spend as much time online as I do, a few days of involuntary absence leaves a lot of catching up to do. I'm still not up to speed on the blogs I regularly read, or on messages that I need to answer, but I can at least post a few pics here.

In between doing the Headless Chicken Routine, and other errands while I was offline, I had time to spin some more cotton. The top hank came from a natural Tri-Color roving (purchased from Meilke's Farm, and not terribly long ago, given that 8 ozs was $16.95). My roving spun up to 328 yds. I love how the browns and greens show up after boiling the yarn. The cream cotton came from a little baggie with no tag. It's 186 yards.

I think this shot actually shows the colors better.

Here's the cotton output so far- all of the yarns are natural and undyed except for the blue, which is recycled blue jean cotton. If anyone knows where to get more of this stuff, please let me know (not for me, I'm on the buying moratorium still, but I've had inquiries). I have a couple of balls of plain green, and pounds and pounds of plain brown roving on hand, and I haven't tired of spinning it yet, so there will be more added to the railing (including the 2 hanks that are drying in the bathroom now).

I also had time to knit during my many modem/router based day trips. This hat was knit from lots of little balls of leftover handspun. If I didn't know it already, it would be ample proof that I am drawn to watermelon colorways. I used up yarn spun from four different rovings in this hat, which is my usual fingering pattern (140 sts), with the added texture of random rounds of *K 2 tog, YO* thrown in just for fun. It's joining the others in the BT'oKT.

I'm throwing this shot in just for fun, and because I love these colors.

And last, but certainly not least- my herb and tomato pots are showing signs of life. We set the tray in my south office window, and though we haven't had a lot of sunshine lately, we've had enough. The first and second pots on the left have heirloom tomatoes (so does the third, but nothing is showing there yet). The first pot on the right has chives. The middle has parsley (which has not sprouted, and may have mildewed. If nothing happens in the next few days, I'll replant). The last pot on the right (sounds like a gardening horror flick, doesn't it?) has basil. Spring may actually be on the way!

The first day of the rest of the month...

... also happens to be the last day of the rest of the month. Oh well. I have a few days to do some of the things that went by the wayside while I was feverishly working on the MG rewrite, and getting a bunch of festival workshop proposals sent in, and trying to arrange classes and workshops for my March trip to Snohomish. I don't suppose this calm will last very long, but while it does, I'm going to try to rest up before we leave for SoCal. My cold is on the wane (it stayed strictly in the nasal vicinity, without settling in the chest, so it was annoying, but otherwise unremarkable)(well, I remarked a lot, but that's the way I am).

 I've also had a bit of time for knitting. I finished this pair of leftover socks, and they'll go winging their way to happy feet tomorrow.

 I decided to try the mitered square hat with heavier yarn and bigger needles. This yarn is Plymouth Boku. It's my usual mitered square hat recipe, except that I used size 8 needles, and only did 2 rows of 8 mitered squares. The crown has 80 sts. The measurements are the same. I think it turned out beautifully.

 And I still love the look of the decreases.

I cast on another with leftover Noro. Noro is a sneaky yarn- you can fall in love with a ball for the lovely peaches and golds and rusts, only to find an entire center section of chartreuse. That happened with this yarn, which looks to be soothing cool colors and oceany and all, and then suddenly, with no warning, there was this huge swath of scarlet. I looked at it for a bit, and then I snipped it out. The red just didn't belong in this hat, and it will be very happy in some other leftover hat, I'm sure.

This version of these hats knits up very very quickly. Woohoo for TBTo'KT!

Tomorrow, I'll probably have pics of some sewing projects that I'm finishing up.

BTO'KT and Astrological Confusion

 I finished the latest pair of leftover socks. Cool, no? These are all yarns that I bought at the  '09 Sock Summit (the peachy/brown ones are Koigu mill ends, words that still cause a flutter in my heart).

The Big Tub O' Knitted Things is starting to fill up again. Three pairs of the socks are slated for specific people (though they will still reside in the BYO'TK until it's Gifting Time- and so far, that time is Christmas '11), but the hats are all free floaters, available whenever I need a gift.

I have another hat cast on, but it is currently demoted to Road Trip Status because I'm putting together a couple of new workshops, and it's Workshop Proposal Season. I need knitted samples of the new projects for photography, so they're the priority for my evening knitting now.

My daytime priority is still the revision of my MG Fantasy. I finished another 5-chapter block yesterday, and I intend to complete the revision by the end of the month (not just because I promised my agent that I would do so, but because my travel season is starting- Fearless Fair Isle Knitting will be out in Feb, and I have plane trips planned for both February and March, so things are going to get busy very soon).

In the meantime, I don't care what they say, I will always be a Libra.