spinning.

I have two finished skeins and one partially finished skein of yarn and am happy to say they will be my last done on a drop spindle!  I ordered my wheel and it should be here in another week or so.  After doing a bunch of research, I ordered an Ashford Kiwi from Flying Fibers.

Anyways, here are the finished (or semi-finished) skeins...

66yrds/wool:

72yds/wool:

115yds/wool (slightly unfinished but is now hanging up to dry):

All of these were hand dyed by me.  I'm not so crazy about the green or the yellow, they were mostly failed experiments.  All three came from the pound of roving my Mom got me for Christmas.  I have the rest of that pound and some Blue Faced Leicester already dyed and waiting for my wheel!  So excited...

christmas crafting

I have been on a ROLL when it comes to Christmas crafting. And by that I mean the one project I'm working on, well it's going much quicker than I had expected.

Now the things I have left to do are as follows NOTHING!:

• Finish Leonidas the Lion
• Finish embroidering the money cat and finish the hoop nicely
• Embroider another money cat on different fabric and possibly paint it
• Embroider a hoop for my grandmother (design has yet to be picked out)
• Crochet a T-Rex

Not toooo bad considering I have a whole month to do it!

I spent this weekend sick, and learning to spin.

These are the first skeins I've done:

Some more dyeing was done as well! (This spun into the more green of the two skeins pictured above)...

That's pretty much all I have right now. Here's progress on Leonidas...I really hope the person he's for doesn't look at this post!

I just purchased another pattern from Delicious Crochet, this time the T-Rex pattern. After working through Leonidas, I'm excited to start on this new one!

i am being ambitious!

I am being ambitious and have begun working on my Christmas presents BEFORE Thanksgiving. I am usually the person who is scrambling around two weeks before Christmas having to endure holiday shopping and traffic. I purchased my Dad's present online earlier today, began making his girlfriend's present and also started my Grandmother and Grandfather's presents.

I decided to make my Dad's girlfriend a nice scarf, seeing as though I don't see her too often, a super elaborate gift would just be awkward. I searched everywhere for a pattern that I considered nice enough and finally found one on Ravelry. Thankfully it was free and is surprisingly quick and easy to crochet. The pattern can be found here however, I don't know if that link will work unless you log in to Ravelry. It is the Queen Anne's Lace Scarf.

I'm using Bernat Mosaic in Medusa to make it, and it makes such a nice fall scarf. The colors are great. Here are some in progress pics...

I can't figure out why this top picture is so dark. Maybe my hand blocked the flash. Gah. Either way, the colors are more truly represented in the bottom picture!

I also began some star shaped, Penn State colored dishcloths for my Grandparents but no pictures of them yet! Hopefully tomorrow I will finish the scarf, complete a dishcloth and begin working on Leonidas the Lion, a pattern I just purchased from Delicious Crochet!

it's about that time!

It is time for winter hats (at least at night, during the day not so much)!

I am challenging myself to create hats from patterns that I have created. It is very much a learning process and very much a write down EVERYTHING you do process. This is the first pattern I have completed, however I am still planning on altering it to make a more tighter fighting hat and eliminating some of the increases and decreases. I personally prefer my hats to have extra space because I always tuck my hair into them, but most others I know prefer a tighter fit.

I used Patton's Chunky Wool and some scraps of black for the stripes. I also love the texture created by crocheting around the post. This was a new technique that I learned specifically to make this and I am so stoked that it was easier than it looked!

This is the back of the hat flattened out:

And here is the back of the hat actually on my insanely too small, child sized even though it said adult, head mannequin that can't even hold up the weight of the hat! I had to use scissors to anchor it. Gah.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!