A Few Sheep Shy of a Farm

Progress!

The first sleeve is finished and I’ve started the 2nd one. There is a possibility that this project will be finished over the weekend. The sweater almost certainly will, what is in question is what will go with the sweater? Hat, mittens, booties? We shall see.

Not much else to report right now, still feeling a a project slump. Perhaps a few more days of not doing so much will turn this around. . . . .

Have a great weekend, I’ll post again on Monday!

And that is why you should always knit baby gifts ahead of schedule!

My friend here at work that I’ve been working on the first of the baby gifts for had her daughter earlier this week, 3 weeks early! Both are fine, no complications and she weighs 7lb 13oz so not exactly tiny! Perhaps the Dr was wrong about the date?

So now I’m working frantically at getting the sweater finished so I can try to persuade someone in HR to give me her home address so I can send it to her! I had planned to finish it before she went out so I could give it to here while she was still here . . . but you know what they say about the best laid plans . . . .

I’m headed over to Mind’s Eye tonight for the spinning group, though since my current spinning project is on the Jensen wheel I’ll be knitting at group for a while. Not that I don’t have 600 other projects I’d like to start but I’m trying to do better about pacing myself!

I’ve been bringing my knitting with me lots of places lately and wearing some of the things I’ve made and I’m surprised at how many knitters I’ve been meeting. I think there are a lot of closet knitters, who don’t knit in public and aren’t active/vocal on the internet. There are more of us than I thought! I’ve “discovered” two more knitters just this week! Of course now I’m trying to get them all on line!

Speaking of online, have you seen that Clara has added a spot to make donations at KR? I made one yesterday via Paypal and it was easy to do . . . check it out!

Oh, and I got an email this morning, The Co-op at Iron Horse Farm is open and having a Valentine’s Day sale! I have bought fiber from Debbie and its wonderful stuff and she is the breeder I got my adorable buns from; I highly reccommend her!

I’ve also noticed that some of my links are broken, and since I’ve gotten tons of new once lately through both my own efforts and from other peoples, I hope to update the links page in the near future. Perhaps as soon as next week but since it depends on a number of other things getting taken care of before I’ll have time . . . . but I’ll let you know when it does happen!

Just think, tomorrow is Friday!!!!

Yikes! It’s been days since I posted last!

Sorry to be away for so long! I’ve been kinda busy at work and with a bunch of projects at home . . . however I haven’t been doing any knitting or spinning to speak of.

Actually, I’m feeling a little burnt out on the fiber stuff right now. I think this is the backlash of doing so many holiday gifts! I’ve been working a bit on DH’s hat (which he requested!) He’s asked for something of an unusual shape and I had to puzzle my way through portions of it. I think I have it figured out and will likely have it done in the next couple of days.

I have been spending some time at the gym, walking at a little bit of running so far. I’ll be working slowly back up to what I used to be able to do . . . and I’m doing better about what I eat and keeping track of it so I know when I can have a treat (and don’t worry, there will be treats) I’m probably more food/treat motivated than my dog is. He runs on a combination of praise and prey drive. I don’t have any of the latter and while praise is nice, pastry is better!

I now have a bet going with one of my co-workers over who can lose 5lbs by the end of February. We haven’t decided what the prize will be yet, but I’m sure we’ll come up with something good!

Yipe! The socks still fit

for all of you who have been waiting on the edge of your seat to find out what happened with the socks I put in the dryer, mine still fit!

I’m wearing them right now and they are fine.

Getting out

Last night I was invited to J’s for dinner before the Spinning Group at Minds Eye, she made a Yummy! polenta with tomato and mushrooms topped with goat cheese. Thanks J it was wonderful!

We then headed over to the group, what fun! There was a nice mix of people there this week and we had fun working on projects and chatting. An all around nice night out!

Getting it in Gear

I had planned to go to the gym before going to J’s, but I couldn’t find my bag of gym stuff that I knew was at the office! Well, no sneaks or sweats, no gym. So I did head over to City Sports and buy myself some new sneaks! (the others were about to be replaced anyway), of course, I found the bag and the old shoes when I got to work this morning! Isn’t that ususally how it works?

I’m working on a new plan, since I need to start getting some exercise, I used to go to the gym a lot, but not for a while now . . . . so my plan is this:

1. Pick a 5K roadrace somewhere nearby that is happening in Late May or Early June.

2. Start going to the gym and walking on the treadmill (1-2 weeks)

3. Once the walking has gotten me moving a bit, start a run/walk program like the one on Runner’s World’s website.

4. Once I can run a bit I can start the 8 week training program for building up to a 5K.

5. As incentive to continue over the summer, I plan to sign up for the Tuft’s 10K in October.

The other part of my plan is to try to corrupt 1-3 other people into doing it with me! I’ve suggested it to M and we’ll see what she decides, I may also suggest it to DH and see if I can get him back to the gym.

The part about doing it with others isn’t a “lets plan to run together thing” its a lets pick a training program and then pester each other into sticking with it thing. Hey, anyone here interested in doing a “virtual running group”???

Knitting & Spinning:

Not much progress on either the shawl or the yarn. Guess I have some catching up to do the next couple of days. I did start a hat for DH, he wants one just like the one I just made for my cousin. I’ll be working on it at lunch today.

I’ll post over the weekend if I make any progress.

Guess that answers that . . .

No knitting while on Jury Duty, at least not where I went!

I had jury duty yesterday. I had brought a couple of small projects, socks and a hat, on bamboo and Bryspun needles. They made it through the metal detector just fine, but the yarn was sticking out of the bag just a bit and she saw it and asked if I had knitting needles . . . . I showed them to her but she said she’d have to take them. Come on, a pair of size 2 bryspuns is about as dangerous as a toothpick or a drinking straw! So I got to sit for 6 hours with no knitting! I had brought a couple of books but can you imagine how much I could have done with 6 hours of uninterrupted knitting time?!

I understand, civic duty, as important as voting . . . . all the rest, but there should be a better way of doing this. They didn’t need any of us, we never saw the inside of the court room. And perhaps most annoying, we didn’t even get a lunch break. Someone came in about 10:15 and said if we wanted to go get coffee we should be back in 20 min. but they never said that was the only break we would get or our only chance to get something to eat. After that we didn’t hear from them again until they came to tell us we could go. It would have been nice if they could have come in and given us something of an update every couple of hours . . . .

end rant

Knitting Update: Tuesday night I cast on the hat for my cousin and yesterday afternoon (after I got home ) I was able to finish it. Just a basic watch cap, knit top-down in dark purple with a dark green and dark blue stripe. I’ll either mail it to him or take it to him over the weekend, depending on how much time we have.

No progress on the shawl to report. It will be tomorrow night before I have another chance to work on it. I did bring the pattern to work and hope to have a chance to enlarge the chart to make it easier to work from, that should speed things up considerably.

I spent a large amount of the time I had yesterday reading Nancy Bush’s Folk Socks. Interesting book. The historical information she presents is a nice background to the patterns. Since I’m also in the process of reading “Women’s work: the First 20,000 years, its interesting to have several perspectives on the history of our hobby. Rutt is next on my list.

Anyway, since one of my projects this year is to learn how to do something other than the one sock pattern I know, I’m going to try the classic socks, one heel and toe combination at a time until I’ve gone through them. There are also several pairs of socks in there I want to try. Guess I know what my sock knitting will be the next few months.

I also realized last night, I should probably be planning for a few pairs of cotton socks, for the warmer weather . . . . hmm, guess I’ll need to rethink my sock strategy.

Oh, and has anyone else out there had socks made from sock yarn start to loose their elasticity after only 4-6 wearings? I’ve got 2 pair here that just aren’t bouncing back. I put them in the clothes dryer after washing them the other night and that seemed to pull them back in, but as we haven’t tried them on since, I don’t know if they were shrunk beyond repair. What is the solution to this? Do they have to be handwashed instead of machine washed dispite the label? Do they do in the dryer every so often? Any suggestions?

Time to go get caught up on work. More tomorrow . . .