Busy, Busy, Busy...

This past week I've been on Spring Break. For a whole week I didn't have to go to work, so I drove over 600 miles to rescue the remaining yarn stash and my pattern collection from my parent's house in Ohio. I've also gotten a large amount of knitting done on my works in progress while I was at home, gave Dot the Monster a mouth so she could talk to me, and have even started some new things as well.

In fact, I've gotten so much accomplished that I'm going to have to divide up last week's progress into two or three posts.  We'll see. I wanted to do nothing but knit while in Ohio on Vacation, but that may have been the 40 degree weather they were experiencing.  It was much nicer to knit in than the 8-+ degree weather we are having here in SC right now.

I finished 2 projects on Easter day.

The first was a pair of socks that I started at the end of January.

Pattern: Nanner Socks by Wendy Johnson
Yarn: Lime & Violet Sasquatch Super Sock in Just Ripe Nanners
Comments: I bought the yarn for these AGES ago back when I first started wasting all of my free time on Plurk.  I'm not even sure when the last time was that Lime & Violet were doing yarn, but I know this has been in my stash for ages.  So glad to have them done, kinda sad that I didn't make them just a smidge longer.  I have fat feet and always will, so I need to remember to make them just a bit longer so that I can actually wear them! These fit. Pull, tug and cram them onto your feet type of fit. Since yellow really isn't a color of mine (and I found 3 pairs of knit socks when cleaning my bedroom in Ohio) I decided to gift these to my little sister.  She has smaller feet than me, so she'll definitely be able to wear them.

After casting off the Nanner socks I immediately picked up the worsted wingspan I was working on and finished that off in less than 2 hours.

Pattern: Wingspan
Yarn: Bernat Mosaic in Waterfall
Comments: This was a great yarn for the price.  I picked it up when it was 40% off at A.C. Moore and had to do some ripping at the beginning when I messed it up.  I ripped the beginning out three times and the yarn still looks amazing!

I still love this pattern, especially with gradient and self stripping yarns. This shawl will be going to a friend in the future and I may make more for gifts because it's soooo quick and easy to knit!

Before leaving Ohio my mom picked up some felt for me so that we could give Dot the Monster a mouth.

Pattern: Dot the Dress Up Box Monster
Yarn: Handspun
Comments: Oh how I love handspun yarn. I used a superwash merino for the body (leftovers from another project) and less than 4 grams of a merino/silk blend for the ears and little eye patch. LOVE this monster! I definitely need to work on my seaming skills however.

At the beginning of this month I decided to knit up a pair of socks as part of a Knit-A-Long for the Knitting in Circles podcast.  It was a 56 stitch sock so it knit up SUPER FAST and as an added bonus it actually FIT Fiance's feet!  He now has a brand new pair of socks in boy colors for him to wear.  This I believe is his second pair of socks (the first pair was the Pomatomus Pattern that I knit AGES ago for him.)

Pattern: Crocodile Rock
Yarn: Knit Picks Felici Sport in Ecology
Comments: This was such a fast knit!  I cast them off last night (April 14th) so it was less than two weeks with one and a half socks knit in the last week alone! I absolutely love knitting socks out of sport weight.  I think I'll be buying some more and knitting a few more pairs for myself. Especially since sport weight socks means I can make socks that fit me with normal patterns!


A lot of finished projects huh?

Since I'm in a typing kinda mood I think I'll keep on going and make this one epic post!

If you remember, at the very end of March I wrote a post that said "I need to knit my March hat for the 12 hats in 2012 thing!" We'll I knit a hat!  I stash dove, I mixed and matched up a bunch of old cotton yarn in the stash and knit a hat that I am quite in love with!  I knit it up before March ended and yet I never got around to blogging!

For some reason I was on such a knitting/spinning high I never bothered to blog because it took away time from playing with fiber!

Wanna see the hat?

Pattern: Grace Lace Beret
Yarn: TLC Cotton Scraps
Comments: I knit this up with some blue and green cotton scraps I had in the stash for years now.  I used about 70 grams to make up this hat and since I have tons left I will be making a matching scarf to go with it!  Note to self: Start the scarf before you forget.

As far as works in progress go, as of this morning I have only ONE project on the needles!  Just one!  I made quite a bit of progress on that shawl as well while I was on.

I bought some of the little markers to use to keep myself motivated while working on larger projects. It helps me to feel like I'm accomplishing something because I can see how much I've knit up! From the marker to the end was the amount I knit while on Spring Break. Hopefully we'll see much more progress by the end of this coming week. :)

I've got a bunch of spinning to show and of course a stash update, but I think I will save those for tomorrow.  I hope you all have a great week! Happy knitting!

Loving Retail Therapy

Yes... It was a fairly rough weekend, but instead of resorting to drinking and wasting my money away on alcohol I decided that Yarn was a better purchase.

Friday I placed an online order with Knit Picks.  There was a kit that I had wanted ages ago and I decided my bad day was reason enough to make the purchase.  While waiting for this to arrive, something else showed up at my door.

It's the 2012 Into the Whirled Fiber club for the month of March.  After seeing the photos of all of the Into the Whirled club shipments I was dying to get my hands on the club fiber.  I am so glad that I decided to join because this is absolutely delicious!  It's 85% Polwarth, 15% Silk and is sooo soo soft, not to mention stunning.  I love the colors she used to dye this!

Then today, I got a text message after work.  "Hey, do you want to meet me at AC Moore?"  Yes, my yarn friend invited me to meet her at a big box craft store and help her 'pick out yarn.'  It all started out so well!  And then my friend went to the restroom.  While she was gone I managed to find about 9 skeins of yarn that I "needed."  Oh well!  I do love some retail therapy and I bought yarn to make some gifts for my family back home.  With Mothers and Fathers day just around the corner I need to get started now.  Right after that will come the holidays and my goal is to knit all my gifts this holiday season.  Aside from that, I will be getting married some time in all of this holiday mess so best to start out early!

Ready to see the photos of today's haul?

Something for Dad

Something for Erin

A present for Mom

Another unknown gift set.

I haven't planned out these gifts exactly yet, but I'm kicking around a few ideas with my spare time.  Since I only have a few projects on the needles at the moment I'm hoping to get them started soon!

Oh, and remember last Monday when I said I would be trying to spin 2 oz a week in order to have the raw alpaca finished before I went home for Easter?

This past weekend I plied up another 3.5 oz skein of alpaca!  That's 1.5 ounces MORE than I had planned on spinning last week!  If I can spin another 2 ounces this week I will be ahead of the game.  Whether or not that will happen I do not know, the allergies are working overtime right now and I have no desire to play with the raw fiber right now!

Hope everyone is having a great week so far.  Since I've been getting so much done lately you may see a few more blog posts out of me in the future. ;)


A lot more in this week!

Yarn Out:  3954 g (7589 y)

Yarn Destashed:  376 g

Yarn In:  1548 g

Yards Spun:  1907 y