Dutifully Ignoring Mother Nature

Yeah, it's snowing again. Still. So what? You think that's going to keep us home from Frog Girl's Spring Program, 80 miles away tonight? Ha, I say. Hah!

When I'm not eyeing the sky and grumbling, I've been knitting.

I finished the latest leftover hat. The texture holes show up more in this shot than they do in real life (the flash picks up the styrofoam). These are handspun yarns, I love how this hat came out.

And as always, I love the look of the decreases. I continued the *K2 tog, YO* up through the decreases- it looks okay, but I miss the spiderwebby effect. I probably won't do that again.

I experimented a bit with some wire wrapped earrings. The beads are all my own lampwork (leftover from my bead making obsession). I am finally running low on beads- I may have to fire up the torch again. I rather wish I could wear earrings (unfortunate metal sensitivity), but these are all going to good homes.

I've begun work designing Cassy's wedding shawl (title: Cassy's Wedding... sometimes the obvious name is the right one). After looking through my stitch dictionaries, I ended up winging a sample chart for the edging. I'm sure I'll have to knit several swatches before I get it right. I plan to knit the saw-tooth ends separately and then pick up the body stitches.

I'm excited to get started but it probably won't be today. Or tomorrow. or Thursday. Daytimes are for MG Fantasy 3.0, and the next few evenings are already scheduled. It's a good thing that the wedding isn't until July.

More of the same

More spinning, more knitting, more sneezing, more snow, more agonizing over changing the MG Fantasy into a 1st Person POV (which was my suggestion, and the absolute right way to go, but still tricky). Same old, same old.

I've had a hard time getting the true colors of the natural cotton yarns to show up in a photo, but I think this one captures it well. L-R: Cream Cotton 71yds, 2-Color Brown and Cream 129 yds, Buffalo Brown 127yds. Total: 110gr. I have given up on the cream cotton (which might be Pima)- it's extremely soft, and I love the color it boils out to, but it's hard to spin. The fiber comes out in clumps no matter which end I spin from, and it's a pain. I have about a pound of this stuff, and I think I'll put it up on eBay so some better spinner can do it justice. I'm sure not doing it.

It occurs to me that all of my photos make the yarn look like it's worsted weight. I thought I'd take a comparison pic- it's not all fingering weight, but most of it is thinner than sport (except for those fat spots, which I think adds *character*... yeah, character... that's it...).

I'm almost done with the latest leftover hat. I decided to carry the texture and striping up through the decreases, which throws off the decrease rows once in awhile. I'm not going to wrestle with evenly spaced decreases on the same row as the *K2tog,YO*. So there will be a couple of extra rows in the crown, but still, I think it'll look fine.

I think I'll take a break from leftover hats for awhile (or at least reserve them for travel knitting), because I have a wedding shawl to design and knit. I have plenty of time before the wedding, but I am known for skating deadlines, and it would be nice to have this one done early (given that Procrastination is my middle name, it's A Good Thing that I'm starting now).

P.S. The cold is better. I think I'm on the other side of this one- I give Zicam all of the credit (and bronchitis all of the blame- it's really true that once your immune system is compromised, you're vulnerable to very bug in the vicinity).

Shepherd's Harvest Class Signup is now open, and other stuff

The class signup for this year's Shepherd's Harvest Sheep and Wool Festival is now open. Go here to learn about the festival in general, and here for the full class list. This will be my first time at Shepherd's Harvest, but I've heard good things about the festival for years. On Saturday, I'm teaching a new class- All-Day Nordic Christmas Stocking, during which we will work on a stranded, toe-up Christmas Stocking, with an afterthought heel (the link has a pic). No prior sock knitting, or stranding experience is needed. You just have to be comfortable with knitting in the round. On Sunday morning, I'll be teaching my Writing Patterns for Publication class, which goes over formatting, submitting, photographing, and writing up patterns, and a lot more. No experience needed for that class either. I have heard a rumor about a booksigning in the afternoon on Sunday, but nothing firm on that yet. I'm excited to attend and teach, and I hope to see some of you there the weekend of May 7-8! And as always, the bad thing about teaching at these festivals is that I can't take classes myself. The roster is full of workshops I'd love to attend.

Speaking of going places- I've been invited back to SAFF, so I get to go to North Carolina in October again! Woohoo!

In between planning classes and trips, I've been doing a bit more knitting.

I finished the Opal Dumbledore socks. They turned out beautifully, if not particularly Dumbledoreish.

And I started another hat. I'm experimenting with a honeycomb slip-stitch pattern for the brim, and I'm using up more leftover yarns (this is old Knit Picks sportweight superwash sock yarn- discontinued long ago). I like how it's coming out. I plan to do the crown decreases in plain stockinette stitch. Next time, I'll work the purled rows in a contrasting color- that'll make those recesses pop.

But the biggest knitting project on my drawing board is a wedding shawl for The Wonderful Cassy, who is marrying Younger Son in July. I want to design and knit something spectacular for her- she has already expressed a preference for a rectangular shawl, and I'd like to incorporate some seashell/ocean design elements since the wedding will be in Oregon, at the beach. I'm excited about this undertaking, and since I'm not working on a lace book, or a shawl book, or any knitting book at all right now, I can share pictures as I work. It'll be an adventure!