On my street

For the last few weeks we have had road construction on our street. The city is putting down new storm drain pipes and sewer it seems. What a mess this is, they are now right in front of my house and I am not sure I can get out of the driveway today. It looks like a great day to sit around and spin and knit.

I have been working on the purple socks some, the second one is almost ready to turn the heel. Turning the heel is one of my all time favorite knitting things to do. It seems like magic and is so much fun to see it become a sock. My cats love yarn. This one is Ginger. Sydney did not feel like posing today.

Here are the Opal lace socks I have been working on. I started these as 2 socks on one needle, but the pattern just will not work that way, so I am doing one as magic loop, my favorite way to knit socks and the other on dpns, since I only have one size 0 circ long enough for magic loop. I have been busy all week, I have done some more spinning, boy do I love it, and I have started knitting a hoodie for boy herd #4 with my spun yarn. I like the way it is turning out. I also painted 4 new spindles. I am going to start selling them on ebay.

I am pretty happy with the spinning, here is one of the skeins, I have 3 so far each is about 80 yards of 2 ply bulky. It is think and thin, I really like the look and the way it is knitting up. I will get some picutres of it going soon.

Lace the day away

If anyone hasn't noticed it has become a lace obsession this summer. I love lace, its amazing that creating a few holes can make such beautiful fabric. I have several lace projects going right now, a pair of lace opal socks, 2 lace tops and I am starting the mystery shawl along. I have never knitted a shawl before and I like the mystery concept. Here is my test swatch. I used silkessense microfiber, which feels very much like silk. It is more of a sport weight, on size 8 needles. I wasn't sure if it would block but it seems to be ok. The blocked size is 6.5 X 3 with one repeat. I like this pattern I think with another repeat it would make a lovely scarf, I just may do that.

Here is one of the lace tops I am working on, it is from Knitting magazine. I am using Patons Grace on this. I like this cotton yarn.
Someone on the knitting list asked about the bernat cammo sock yarn, yes it stripes this is what it looks like.

Beat the heat

It has been hot, hot, hot. Last week was around 103 every day, so that makes it a perfect for the AC unit to quit, and since it was so very hot we had to wait in line to get it fixed. It was going to be days so we went away for the weekend. My parents have a little place near Flaming George. That is where we went. It was rainy and cool, just about perfect as far as I am concerned. While we were there we took a hike below the dam along the green river. The day was overcast so picture taking was excellent. Without sun reflection on the water you could see how clear it was, and the bonus was we could see the fish! We were even able to photograph a few. I got quite a bit of knitting done, pictures of that will be coming tomorrow as well as a few pictures of my spinning. I am really enjoying the spinning, it is very addictive.

Don't Blink

All I did was blink, I am sure of it, I blinked and 4 days were gone. Poof just gone. I have no idea where they went. It was Friday last night I am sure of it, I don't have a clue how I woke up to a Wednesday morning.

I decided last week to add some spunk to my plain little hand made spindle. So I painted this.

That was so much fun I decided to paint another and another......

Pretty soon I had this.




It was fun. What can I say I tend to be a little compulsive. I used to do decorative painting in the day, I taught classes, did craft fairs, designed a little. So that might explain where a bit of the time went. And then.................................
I got this in the mail Monday. I guess that pretty well sums up my lost time.

I did What??

I am so amazed with myself today. I got up at 6 am this morning, to ride my bike before it got too hot. I really should say we since the better half got up with me. We had a great ride, a little windy but good. It was short only 12 miles. Oh and did I say, I did it without having a morning cup of coffee. Yah, I was really shocked too.

The only bad thing was I forgot to grab the camera dang it. So....Today from the bike will really be from the Sunday trip to the gardens.



I had to include this one of the boy herd. They actually seem to enjoy the gardens, even though they would never admit that.


My knitting is getting nowhere. I really have too many projects going. My first thought was to assign each project a day, but I realized that I have more projects than days of the week...So...
I am going to have to pick one, well maybe two projects and FINISH them, before I move on to the others, and no more STARTING. Nope no new projects until I finish something. Purple sock is half way to being a pair. I really need to finish it first, then there are my opal socks, and the orange socks, and the tank top, and the lacy pullover....Oh and the spinning.....See it never ends.

Salt lake valley from the Red Butte Gardens 

Summer Garden

Sunday we took a family trip to the Red Butte Gardens. It is a fantastic place full of flowers, herbs, garden ideas, ponds, ducks, fish. It also links to the Bonneville Shoreline trail, and several other wilderness trails above Salt lake City. It was very hot but enjoyable. I got about 2 hours of walking and looking out of the boy herd, which is pretty good for such a hot day. I would love to transform my yard to gardens like that with very little grass. We have a good start in the back yard and we have a lovely pond. Now all I need is money, which at the moment there is never enough of. Here is a picture of the boy herd having "negotiations" as they called it. I think they were scheming on a way to get home early. This is in the childrens garden area.

I am learning all kinds of new things. I have figured out links, pictures, now I need to figure out how to add buttons. For fun I added a picture of my first attempts at spinning taken out by my pond. the skeins on the left are my first attempts at plying, the rest are my singles in progression. It is getting better, I wish the roving had been nicer, but I have more on order that I should get the first of next week. I think its not too bad for my first attempts with a drop spindle.

From the bike. I wish I could spin like that 

Time?

I would like to know who keeps stealing my time away. I swear I was only learning to spin for an hour. Not five, really, I swear ! I am not good at time management, I am not good at organization at all. I am very good at starting projects, but not at finishing. I try, I really do, but somewhere in my right brained self I just get lost in the process.

I am learning to spin with a drop spindle. I love the process, I can do it until my arms are about to fall off. I am doing a decent job of it too. I still need to learn to control it better, my singles are a little overspun, but getting more consistent. My first attempt was very bad. I seem to be able to spin thinner now. I have not decided which spindle I like better, bottom whorl or top, I made me several. I can spin longer with a bottom whorl, but thinner and more consistent with a top.
Once I get some decent roving I think I will do a good job of it.

Anyone who has good suggestions on time management let me know.