Houston, we have a FO in site. . .

Hi to everyone out there in blog land - it has finally turned into normal weather around here, although if we ever make up the water tables you will hear a little grumbling about muddy paws again! The other morning it was so cool looking outside that I tried to catch the beauty of the beginning of the day with Blazer as the model:

If you click on that you can see how badly the pasture has deteriorated this past summer. We are working on seeding and praying for rain now! Don't worry about the pony tho, we feed him hay we purchase from our neighbors, with sweet feed and mineral block each night. Have any of you noticed that we have spoiled pampered pets?

Anyway, as the title above states, I have actually finished one of my wips! Lordy bee! Can you even believe it? Well, it's true, check out the Yogo Socks below:

I'm a little disgruntled that I didn't notice they didn't match insides, but what the hay - who is really going to notice that? I got really good color on these shots! So, these are pretty true, at least on my monitor. That's an Eye of the Partridge Heel, which is a little wide on my feet, but I hope to get some Birkenstock's to show these off with -

Here's another perspective with the cables really showing off:

I have one really good shot that makes my legs look like a mannequins legs, but I chose to keep that one to myself. :)

After getting up super early for a Saturday, and running into work for a few hours, Caryn met me at the plant and we went to the International Festival they had in downtown Bowling Green. It was a lot of fun seeing all the different ethnicities of our little town. I was totally exhausted, partly due to stress from work, and from my shot the night before, so we didn't make it to the Bon Dance that my co-worker's were in, but I did manage to find this African Grass basket:
See, now I have a place to put this:
And is that not too pretty! I finally, finally, finally got the colors to look right! Of course you can't tell what the heck it is unless I tell you it's the Helmlock Ring Blankie that I am making for Caryn. I am twelve rows short of being done, but right now I have 536 stitches on the needle and it increases to 608, only two more increase rows to go! I'm hoping for another FO next week, I don't know though as work is killing me right now. I can't wait to retire, and Chris says that can be as soon as we only have one child in college - whoo hoo! That would be two years!

Well, that's it for today, so, I leave you with this shot of: Here's lookin' at you kid!

Bailey has abandonment issues and has to be sure we are still here. She checks on us every 10 minutes or so. . . silly doggie. Nitro is more interested in the backyard, but don't tell Bailey. She thinks he's checking out her legs. . .

My Cup Runneth Over . . .

It is so cool to have friends that will drop everything on a Saturday afternoon, just to come over and visit. I had some sock yarn that I offered to trade/or give to Ashley, a friend from my knitting group. Somehow, RoLynn, (Ashley's Mom) met Peggy on the internet, who is another friend of mine, and she knew about our group of knitters from meeting me on the internet and now we are all great friends. Isn't that cool? I mean what did we all do before this technology was available, anyway?

Anyway, I digress. . . as usual, I know. So, Ashley and RoLynn came to visit yesterday and it was really so fun to sit around and talk knitting and spinning with other people that "get it" and well, it was just cool. So, RoLynn traded me some wool for some sock yarn, Lookey what she gave me:

Silk and Cotton:
And straight Silk:

And Mohair:
So tell me, how does a person who has only known you for approximately two or three months get every color you love in one fell swoop?! I love them all, but I am a bit worried about the silk and the silk and cotton, as those are fibers I have not spun before! Well, they will just have to come back over to help teach me! :)

The Helmlock is almost a finished object:

The rows are definitely long now, and I only have so much free time don'tcha know! I hope to finish this week- I am getting kind of anxious to see it blocked out - plus I am trying to finish that sock and my Kai Cardigan is now being worked on again since I figured out the V-Neck shaping on it and I am on my way - I hope to post about that soon. How many of you guys really know the procedure of creating your neckline in the round? Yeah, there isn't much published on it is there? So, maybe my findings will help.

Chris has continued to finish up the barn now that it is not 100 degrees plus outside, he was playing with Bailey and Caryn got this really good shot of him at lunch yesterday:


I was so proud of my daughter, Caryn this past week. She joined the National Honor Society at school, this year. (I think she finally understands that it helps with scholarships and such when applying to colleges.) The team took a trip to Bowling Green on Thursday for team debates and exams competing with the other schools in our district. Well, she got second place with her testing for spelling. We thought it was pretty cool!

A Little Progress on Helmlock

I've seen this lap robe done in several different weights of yarn and in a huge arrangement of colors, they are all just lovely! I have made a little progress on mine, I have finished ball two of the throw, and today I plan to wind up the third and final color.

This is the best color representation that I could get, it's crazy what a little bit of shadow will do to your color!! Look:

That is not acurate at all! I mean - yuck! I have a little better color sense than that! I actually found all the Malabrigo tags and the colors being use are: Amoroso, (Reds) Rhodesian (the golds) and Autumn Forest for the greens. I have purchased another skein of the Autumn Forest, as I am sure I don't have enough with just one skein. Here it is in progress:

I have also been working on stitch markers and the color yellow was requested. Did I have any yellow? Well, no. So, I bought a few beads and drops and jump rings. Tell me what you honestly think about these, I personally am not too sure.

I like a maker to simply mark the next repeat, one jump ring and one bead,

others like to make jewelry out of them, so just let me know your thoughts on this. And I made this row marker quite a while ago, but while I am asking opinons, tell me your thoughts on this too!!Knit Picks wooden needles arrived too, I am hoping to try them out with the Icelandic Lace Shawl. I ordered some laceweight mohair from Japan, and it took so long to get here, (pictures of that next week) that I ordered the yarn pack from Sarah at Sarah's Yarn's (only $25 including postage, how can I refuse?) Even if I do have a mountain of fingering weight yarn:



I guess there are a few worsted weights in there too. Our local knitting group will be working on EZ's Totem Jacket as a group this Fall and Winter, and those patterns came in as well. So, we should all be learning some new things very soon!

Something Old, Something New -

We took our first college tour yesterday with Caryn at the University of Louisville, which means we got up, on a Saturday at 5:00 am to drive 2 hours to UofL and sit and listen to all these professors going on and on about how wonderful their school is. And actually, I really like the academics and all that UofL has to offer in their programs for Caryn. I just hate the campus and how totally industrialized it is. So, we went away a bit disenchanted (again) but, like we said before she has to make this decision, not us and whatever she decides is fine.

Ok, so the picture content is going to be what I could take on the fly this morning to try and put this together while the dh is away doing the grocery shopping (yeah, I know, it's weird but he likes to go do it, and he spends way less money than I do, so it works for us!). I have started the Hemlock Ring doily/blanket that Jared has made so infamous. See his blog here: Brooklyn Tweed

Is that gorgeous or what? There is also a KAL for this on Yahoogroups, and if you need that link let me know, as I am being lazy here. So, anyway, I didn't want to buy more yarn (as I have closets full of it) and so I am using up the leftover Malabrigio from the B4 Bag, which of course I don't have enough of so this I am using three colors for this and I hope it will look ok in the end - Here it is in progress:

Center Flower:

And this is where you start the feather and fan portion of the blanket, and so, I started my second color here - this is a burnt gold, and after the burnt gold I plan to use a forest green of sorts, the gold and green really really go well together, but do you all like this?



Well, you know, if it's truly ugly in the end, I will just keep it for ourselves and not really let it out of the house. Who doesn't have some "fugly" at their house somewhere right?

I also got my heel turned on the Yogo Socks yesterday:

and I'm on my way to the toe - maybe during football this afternoon I will get there!

And here as a final note is painted desert after washing:

Definitely looks dull after all this brightness, but I still think it will work in the fairisle I have planned. Oh, and are you noticing that I finally have the pixal thing worked out, so the photo doesn't overwhelm you when you click on it??!! Hmmmn? Ok, so hope you all have a good week!

Dyeing Can be Quite Trying!

Hey guys!! Well, here it is a week later and can you believe that we finally got a couple of rain showers here! Wow, who knew that the weather was such an event in Franklin, KY? The temperatures have come down (yeah, to the 80's and 90's) and we are enjoying huge reductions in humidity so all is well again. We are still in drought conditions, but we have a little hope now!

Caryn has made her choice in the naming of this dyed wool and yarn. She chose Peggy's entry of Painted Desert. So, Peggy, the next time you come to knitting night at B&N I will have the yarn waiting for you! On this same vein, I have to show you all what a cool thing my sister in law, Carol sent to me:I was so darned impressed with this that I am going to send Carol the other skein of the Denim sock yarn! As you all know, I am a bit impaired when it comes to my photos and this combination just knocked my socks off!

Ok, so I got a lot of Painted Desert spun up and then I started to ply:

I think I am partial to these colors - what do you think? lol! Here is some on the Jumbo Bobbin:
After completion, I wound it up on the yarn skeiner, and this showed me that I got 346.5 yards out of this run,
but it also showed me that I had extra dye in the skein - Damn it!
I sort of tension the yarn coming off the bobbin as it goes onto the skeiner, which is how the extra came off like this. But, this skein is the most perfectly balanced skein I have ever made (doesn't that just figure).


so, I was in quite a quandary, what do I do now? Well, I don't want to go to all the work and have it run in a sweater, so I am washing the wool again. . . and again until it doesn't run any longer. Here is the skein pre-washed and a bit fuzzy with Georgia:

If I get to it, I will try to put up the skein after the wash later! What a drag! I have ordered some citric acid powder and some retayne to try to avoid this issue in the future. I just hope enough of the dye will remain to make this a fight worth fighting!