Hockey Time

With Anna officially a Hockey cheerleader, you can imagine where I'm spending two nights a week for the next several months.  Yup, an icy finger numbing ice rink.  I get to watch this...

and  this...

All the while I'm working on various knitting projects.  I keep forgetting to wear my own fingerless mitts to keep my hands warm.  Crazy!  I'm knitting Anna's fingerless mitts.  At this rate, I should have the second pair done in before the first of the year.  Check out what I bring to the games...

I have Anna's mitts on top.  Underneath them you can see my own mittens, I've worn them for two years and they are clearly my favoriets.  In the knitting bag on the left, you can just see a second sock that is waiting for the foot to be finished.  So once that mitt is done, look out, the sock will be next.  And I broke down this weekend and got a pair of sturdy warm boots to wear at the games.  I just couldn't keep my feet warm enough, even wearing hand knit socks.  So now I will be set, my feet will be warm in my new boots and if i can only remember to bring my own fingerless mitts I'll be fine!

Look who else was having fun at the game...might have been knowing that hot chocolate was near on the horizon!

Shocking Spinning Knitting Content

I know, this is supposed to be primarily a knitting/spinning blog. Well life happens, and while I'd love to spin and knit full time, unless i win the lottery, that isn't going to happen. And having two girls, a job, and my mom living with us, sometimes my crafting takes more of a back seat than I would like. But onward...I give you proof that I am still spinning....and knitting....

Isn't this basket of fluff just lovely? It is a beautiful tealy blue green with just hints of purple sprinkled throughout. It is Polwarth and spinning up nicely. When I was predrafting I wondered if may have felted just a bit, but once I started spinning it, everything worked out well.

This is the first full bobbin of the blue/green fiber, nestled in a bed of the softest squishiest cream yarn. I think the cream would be a nice base for some stranded work. I'm thinking of coming up with another hat to make up kits for, maybe this would be a good start for it.

I finished these yarns last week, moving from the left, I have two skeins of this, I call it Storm Lake, I can not take a good picture of this, it has much more blue than green in real life. The red is one of three nice size skeins of a Tuscany red colorway. It is Lorna Laces and I bought this roving on vacation in Colorado this summer. Next to it I have 2 skeins of Kodiak. I spun it before and loved how it turned out. And finally I have one skein of a beautiful St. Patrick green wool silk blend that I think is yummy.

I've also been knitting. This is a present for my cousin who is marvelous. She watches my girls when I need some help and is generally the kindest and most loving person I know. So Heidi is going to be the recipient of one of my few knitted Christmas gifts this year. This is the Advent Scarf from 2010. It was done on Ravelry as a KAL last year. A pattern per day was released for the month of December, resulting in a large and beautiful scarf/shawl. I knew I couldn't manage to knit a pattern a day, so started working on the 2010 scarf in November. Even with that, I'm only on the 9th day of the pattern. From the results I read on Ravelry, I know this is a very large scarf/shawl and so I'm planning on knitting about 18 days of the patterns, maybe 20.  So I'm hopeful this will be finished before I meet Heidi to celebrate.

And finally, what every photographer needs, is a good assistant or two.  Emily decided she could take better pictures than me (probably can).  Anna helped stretch out the knitting as needed.  And while Emily was taking her pictures, I took one of her.  So hopefully this confirms that I'm still spinning and knitting.  Let me know what you are working on...or even what you would like to see that I'm doing...always interesting to hear from readers.