Something besides knitting..

Well, I have now worked my way through all the hospitals with a PICU in this area (or at least the ones I'm willing to commute to) and still don't have a job. I have one more interview on Tuesday out in PA. I'll probably rent an apartment out there if I get it. Commuting on 78 during rush hour just isn't fun. Not to mention the backup at the bridge's toll booth. For those of you in AK and reading this.. if I don't get this one, look for me around the first week or Nov or so.. I have no idea what going back as a traveler will entail, but I'm sure you gals will figure it all out for me.

And.. well, this isn't knitting.. it's yarn.. The nice mail lady brought me these two skeins of possum worsted that were a swap with JPknits. The kitty is Opal.. the reason she looks so confused is that I NEVER let her play with my yarn. The nice UPS guy brought me the two bags of Noro Kureyon. My sister wants a Lady Eleanor blanket.. wonder if I can part with the Kureyon for her....

Pics..

Well, at least it was sunny today.. a little too sunny.. sorry about the shadows. Here are the pics of the SEX.

Yarn score...

Well, went up to CT to see family for the holiday. Imagine my surprise when I look up the web sites for local yarn stores and see this! Now.. I'm not one to get my hopes up.. but wow.. was this a find! First... the yarn store is cute! Well organized, well stocked, well staffed.. and staffed with just the nicest people you can meet. Denise was wonderful! The store has been there for over 20 years and she's had it for the past two or so. I could have gone nuts, if I hadn't been feeling guilty over the stash.. not to mention Rhinebeck is coming up. I even had to call a friend back in Jersey and ask if she wanted anything the prices were so good. I apoligize for the photos.. but I wanted to get pics up.. so I had to use a flash. Okay.. just looked and the pics are horrible.. I'll upload some in the morning.. but to tease. I got: 3 skeins of Debbie Bliss Pure Silk, 5 assorted colors of Crystal Palace Cotton Chenille for more washcloths, a bumble bee measuring tape and a skein of CTH supersock (that will be gloves, not socks). My aunt bought enough yarn for me to make her a sweater, and three skeins of an olive Cascade for slippers for my cousin. Of course, my mom went crazier over this than I did and bought enough yarn for three more baby sweaters. What a wonderful day of SEX.

Not much to do but knit..

Well, at the moment, I don't have much to do but sit around and knit.. so, let me show off a bit.

First, we have my Lady Eleanor. I'm using Noro Silk Garden and what you see in the upper right corner is what's left of the second skein. I'm in love with this project, but if all the greens stay on one side, I may need to do some cutting and pasting to get it a bit more even.


Next is Lucy. She's been felted and is the perfect length. I haven't used her yet, but that's just because as much as I love purple, my wardrobe doesn't seem to match it much. (not that there's much in my closet). Not to worry, once I start wearing my winter coat, she'll match perfectly.


For everyone who has ever looked at Brooks Farm's Duet and wondered what they can do with it.. well, here you go. The scarf is made lengthwise, with 330 stitches casted on. The hat is a bit smaller than I normally make them, but does go to just above my ears. That bit in front of the hat is all that's left from the 550 yard skein. Yeah, I cut it a bit close. I'm thinking of writing up the patterns for both and submitting them to Brooks Farm as "what to do with one skein". The patterning doesn' t show up well in the small photos.



Now, for everyone who has ever wanted to play with Burly Spun I present my not yet felted, felted rug. Pattern from "Felted Knits". I need to weave in a few more ends and then take it to mom's for felting. Truthfully, I'm a bit afraid to try and felt it. I love it already.

Last but not least is a plain old black hat. Made of a bit less than one skein of Galway. This is what kept me sane while my head was splitting. Even with a headache, I can't sit still, but knitting anything complicated is impossible.

The killer headache of the past few days seems to finally have broken and I can't thank my doc enough for thinking to give me an IM dose of pain med while in his office. I had to sit around the pharmacy and yell at my insurance carrier and benefits office for about an hour before the benefits people realized they forgot to put my payment into the computer so I could get my meds and not pay a small fortune. Without that dose, I'd have never made it.

Oops..

Just realized I haven't done anything with this for over a week.. I have lots of FO to show off, but at the moment, I'm fighting a three day headache.. so please bear with me for a few more days.

PA Endless Mt. Fiber Festival

So today, we drove 2 1/2 hours to get to the PA Endless Mt. Fiber Festival. It was a rather small fiber fest, which turned out to be good, since it was a first fair for all three of us. Not quite as many spinning supplies for sale as I had hoped, but tons and tons of fleeces, roving and even some pretty yarn. On the way home, we decided to try and get to a yarn/spinning shop, but without a map... well, I ended up a lot further south then I wanted. No problem.. called Twist, asked when they closed.. She closed at 4pm, but said she'd be there till 5pm. We get there around 4:05pm, Jena gets a quick lesson in a drop spindle, and we both walked out happy campers with our new spindles.

Pictures:


A wall of yarn... mmmmmm



Cute fluffy bunny... (not the one I got my angora from)


Largest darn bunny I've ever seen... something like 10 lbs of bunny.. he is the one I got my angora from. Now.. any clue how to spin angora?



Isn't he cute???? I want one of these!


Jena with one of the only friendly sheep we met.. the others all ran away from us. I don't think she knows I took this picture.

Look what the gnome left me..

My Spinning Gnome left a package on my front step today. Mmmmm... gnome mail. Included we find 4oz of yummy looking alpaca. Now.. here's my dilemma.. I'm still a very novice spinner and have issues drafting evenly.. and I don't want to ruin my beautiful alpaca. I think it will have to wait till I get a bit better at drafting. Also included was some white pear tea (which I'm going to brew with lunch) and these totally cute little silhouette target stickers. Much too small to use with my 9mm, but will be soooo much fun with a .22 rifle.



Then we see a random pair of mittens I made that have gone into the Dulaan bag. (guess I took the pic and never posted it)

It's Official..

I got the certified letter in the mail on Tuesday... I no longer have a job. Instead of firing me, they said I resigned because I was a no call/no show for my shifts. Funny thing about that.. I never had a schedule that extended past the day the strike started.

I'm not too upset over this, which just goes to show that even if I thought I was happy there, I probably wasn't. Dad isn't freaking out over it, which means I have all the loving support I need. And as I said before, it's a lot more knitting time. I'm more relaxed now that I don't have to worry about will I have a job afterwards. I'm sure that with the unions help I could fight this, but frankly, I don't wanna.

On the knitting side of things.. if I EVER say "lengthwise scarf" again, someone please shoot me. If this yarn wasn't so yummy I think I'd be insane by now. Why on earth would you want a scarf with over 300 stitches in a row??? UGH

I t's felted!

My Lucy bag is now felted after all of 10 minutes in the washing machine. I let it go for the cycle and figured I'd have to throw it back in again, NOPE... the Pastaza felted faster than any other yarn I've ever used, and felted down so well there's no hope of seeing my stitches. Lucy is currently hanging up to block at my mom's, so pictures when she comes home.

In other news, I tried the new Paton's SWS which is a 70/30 wool/soy blend in nicely varigated colours. This stuff is so soft.. no itch at all. I'm currently knitting up an easy hat with it, and will felt the remainder to see how it felts. I'm going to have to start collecting coupons for a certain chain craft store so I can start to collect this stuff.

Bit of this.. bit of that..

Well, in the FO corner we have a cute pair of kid mittens that have found their way into my Dulaan bag. Hopefully, I'll have a whole bag full of hats, mittens and sweaters by next July.

In the "taking forever" corner, we have my Shoalwater Shawl. I'm now at the point where one row takes me a good twenty minutes, so it's very slow going. I have 1 1/2 more repeats till I get to try the edging. It's a beautiful shawl, and I rented lots of movies from the library today, so hopefully I'll get a lot done this weekend (it's supposed to rain all weekend).

In the "I hope this works" corner, we have a finished swatch for the felted rug out of "Felted Knits". I'm REALLY hoping there's a mistake in the gauge as they printed it, otherwise, this is going to be a much longer rug then the directions say. I managed to get the unfelted gauge of 8 stitches and 13 rows to four inches, though I had to go up to 17s to do it. BUT... after felting the gauge square (and it says you only felt till it's tightened up, not till you can't see the stitches) I'm getting 9 1/2 and 18 rows per four inches, while the book says 24 rows in four inches. That's a really big difference. Anyone else ever made this thing???

And in our last corner.. design world; there are currently two projects just sitting there. One is a skein of Brooks Farms Duet(so soft.. so fuzzy.. I love this stuff) that I think is going to become a lengthwise garter stitch scarf, once I can get myself to sit down and cast on over 300 stitches. The other is a bunch of SWTC bamboo that I can't find the perfect pattern for, so I'm trying to come up with my own.. only problem is, everything I start I end up frogging.

The bonus for today was a trip to the dentist to get a crown fitted on... now that was over six hours ago and I still have a numb spot on my cheek, but on the plus side.. it hasn't started to ache yet.