Beginnings, Middles, and Ends -

Yeah, but I am going to start with the ends first - or in other words Finished Objects! Holy Cow! This is June typing here. . . anyway I got a couple of things finished, not big things, but every knitted object counts, right?!

Here we have two pairs of Fetching's - I was mistakenly calling them Knucks, which is another pattern all together -Doh! to me.

I really, really like this pattern, it's a really fast knit (one in an afternoon) but, I think the first pair, the red ones, are quite short. Which is good for typing and working, but for reading or just hanging out as my Mom does I thought they would be too short. So it was a ripping party again at chez June's . I added more rows after the knuckle cable (6 all together) then another cable and four more rows to bring them up to the first knuckle on your (Caryn's) hand. Caryn and Mom have approximately same hand. Here is another shot, using our hands as models. I'm sure you know, but my hands are the short stubby fingers and Caryn has the nice long fingers here!
Now we come to the middle, and everybody scream with me!

Dang it! One inch forward and three inches back is the way this sweater goes:
Can we all say rip?! This is the way I put in lifelines I guess. . . I use a much, much, much smaller needle then rip away:

And now you can see that yes, I did put it in straight on that row. The initial problem was that I was supposed to decrease on the neck edge and increase on the side edge. Well, I decreased on both as we were watching a movie, and I wasn't paying attention! Yah, simple stockinette, no problem. . . ?? You think? Ok, so I am now up to the armhole, but I got bored and wanted to start this before I have to go back to work tomorrow (gag me!):

Starting is the hardest part on these, don'tcha know! So, look at that center - see how big the circle is? It's huge! This one starts with a cast on of 24 stitches. It's crazy, but here it is:
Size 20 Manuella thread on size 2.0mm needles, up to row 9 - this is a Christmas present (or maybe birthday) for next year for my sister! I am debating on going down to 1.75 mm but, haven't decided yet. I'm thinking it looks ok, and I may just continue -

Hope you all had a Happy Turkey Day, can we say no more Turkey left at chez June's!? Yeah, three meals in a row and it's all gone! Well, I make Turkey pie for the last hurrah, and it's a great way to end it!

Blue Man Group Rocks!

Caryn talked me into buying tickets to see The Blue Man Group at the Sommet Center in Nashville. I have to say that I was skeptical that I would like this, you know, I'm kinda getting older, but in fact it was a blast! We went into downtown Nashville and walked Broadway for twenty minutes looking for a reputable restaurant to have dinner.

We followed a couple of hookers (and not the crocheting kind) for four blocks until we ducked into a Bar & Grill that we walked straight through and out to the alley way back to the street! Ok, so off we go, back on the other side of the street and twenty minutes later, we finally went into Merchants Restaurant (which is the first one we came to out of the parking garage, I might add). The food was fabulous, and the desert even better! (Chocolate chip bread pudding, OMG Yum!) Ok now we are on our way back up the street to the Sommet Center - we had crappy seats, because dear ole' Mom didn't understand the seating chart, and there were some very old people (I mean older than me) sitting next to Caryn that were definitely not into loud rock music, (What the heck were they doing there???) but, we still had a great time! Rock on!! Caryn most definitely gets me out of my box, and I thank God everyday that she is in my life.

So, since I am on a kid roll here look at the pictures both Bryan (on top) and Caryn have done in their senior year in High School Art with charcoal:
They get all their talent from their Daddy-O. The doggy in the picture is our Holley dog, our first dog, and a Golden Retriever in her last months with us.

Tuesday, Chris and Caryn are going to UK for a school tour and to pick up Bryan for the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday. Yeah! Bryan is coming home! It has been decided that I will stay home with the animals since it is an all day affair, and therefore, we won't be coming home to a mess. They do fine during a normal day away - 10 hours or so, but we haven't ever done more that that, so, since I am cooking for Thursday dinner, I will stay. Look at what I am planning on as one of our deserts:
This is definitely another thing out of my box, usually I only have pumpkin pie -

Ok, since this is a fiber blog, lookey what I am trying to spin into lace weight yarn for the upcoming Spring Shawl Surprice starting in January.

I have been really really trying to spin from the fold, I am not doing that well with it, but I will keep trying! I think I am going to start over and work on the Jensen, since I have the lace flyer for that wheel, it's just that I have this on her right now:
More Colette, but I have the next coming week almost entirely off, and just our immediate family to tend to, so I should be able to get it going I think. I will give it one more try on my Rose and just see. Just so you know, I never end up doing KAL's as they go, I always wait until the entire project is revealed to be sure I really want to do it!

Speaking of which, look at this fingering weight that I bought:
to make these Marvelous Mitts.

I think I have a pink problem! Not to mention a yarn problem. . . and a fiber problem. . .

Anyway, time to help put groceries away, so I want to say Happy Thanksgiving to All the Americans that might be reading this!!! And have a good upcoming week to everyone.

Weekends are Too Short!

We are pretty sure that this guy:

did a big stomp and cut our electric fence that we use to keep these guys:

In the yard! Our neighbors just got themselves a new little Dachshund puppy to replace the Dachshund Doggy they had for 10 years that passed away two months ago. Poor Ginger has been running for her life and we didn't even know it, until one morning I found Bailey in their yard! What a way to start the morning, let me tell ya.

So, yesterday was spent looking for the break in the wire. . . and roaming Walmart to find radio wire and batteries for collars. Then standing in line at Walmart to buy new batteries. Standing at the customer service desk at Lowes to have someone help me find radio wire. Standing at the customer service desk at Tractor Supply Co. to find radio wire. . . HOW can everyone be out of the same thing at the same time?!!! Drive to Bowling Green to get radio wire. . . Chris finished fence, June takes a nap!

On to better things! I finished up this bobbin of Colette on Friday night:

This stuff is just like Georgia, and almost spins herself! She is a mix I think, and definitely feels different than Georgia did, but she is mindless spinning and I need that by Friday evenings!

And I know you all remember this as I just showed it to you last week, but this was fun to spin up too. It was 3.5 ounces of mixed mediums that an Etsy Seller put together. (I'm an addict, and I haven't given Etsy up yet.)

We just watched Mr. Brooks - oh what a good movie! While we watched Kevin Costner killing people, I made this:

I am up to the thumb on the left hand, it is a really quick knit, and I have to say I love how these are turning out. What do you think I heard after Caryn saw what I was working on? MoM! What are you doing? What about my sweater? Well, her sweater is up to 20" on the left front, and I am off to finish that now - Have a good week everyone!

It's a Plying Party -who's got the Beer?

The beer might help me out here! I got my singles of the "In the Pink" batt all wound up in preparation for a battle with plying from a center pull single ball. I was a knuckle head and didn't undo the woolee winder to wind this off, and let me tell ya, it started the war off and the yarn was winning in this round, but here is the end result:

You may have noticed that my tone was not all that hopeful for a successful campaign! I have had major bad luck with doing this successfully in the past, and whole chunk of singles normally ended up in the trash. I had mentioned my dilemma of a:) knitting with singles I knew would bias, or b:) plying from a center pull ball to RoLynn on Tuesday night (we go to a stitch and b*tch at Barnes and Nobel on Tuesday night) and she had a lot of suggestions. One of which was to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n my treadling which was in fact what I did, but gosh it was hard to do! And besides that, I only have so much time to do this!!

See, I noticed that what happens is that I have a twist going in front of me making the yarn going into the oriface and a twist going on behind my fingers coming from the ball itself. That is my major problem, controlling the ball twist too:

Now, Caryn took four pictures and this is the only one that you can see what I mean, although this shot only has one twist behind. We need to practice our close up shots, I think! Anyhoo, this is my major complaint in plying this way, and if there are any suggestions about how to control that second ball twist, I may find I can do this a little better next time! I think I was the victorious one, though as I did go s-l-o-w and ended up with this:
I have a few spots that aren't that great, but hey, when the war was over I guess I didn't need that beer after all. Here it is in the skein form, with a total of 142 yards of approximate dk/light worsted weight:

It's drying now from a soak in soapy water and maybe next week I can show you the start on the knucks!