New acquisition

See here the Victoria S96 cozy between her sisters (or are spinning wheels male?). In February I decided that I wanted a travel wheel to take places. Because I’m turning 40 this year I thought that this would be a perfect birthday present for myself. After I decided which wheel I wanted it took 5 weeks to order. The idea was to wait longer before spending so much money. That didn’t really work :)

I’ve used it daily. All my projects suffer greatly from this. Maybe it’s a good thing that I’m on vacation next week. That way my fingers and the wheel will get a break. Good thing I have managed to finish something. Even the totals aren’t as bad as expected considering the little I’ve done.

In the month of April I knitted 5 balls with a total length of 827 yards and a total weight of 8.7 ounces.

There were 16 projects in my project bin. Four projects are done and three are on the needles. I finished 42 of the 64 blocks for my Wolhemel blanket.

March results

I really don’t have much progress with my knitting. It shows in the totals for this month. The problem lies with my spinning. I enjoy it so much that I only allow myself 30 minutes a day. But I have made some neat stuff, don’t you think?



A friend gave me a big bag of fleece. We have no idea what kind of sheep it came from. It’s a white fleece with is rather soft and a dark one that itches. I’m still busy washing and carding it. The pink yarn is from the white sheep. It’s about 98 yards and dyed with a fake Kool Aid after spinning it.
The other one is BFL (132 yards, 100 grams) dyed with Kool Aid before spinning.

My household suffers as well. This kitchen was clean before I had another bright idea about dyeing. I simply move the dishes to one side, why wash? Just stack smartly and I can fit a lot on the counters.



And this is not the most ideal place to fill out a tax form. This won’t do next year.



In the month of March I knitted 3 balls with a total length of 390.4 yards and a total weight of 5.5 ounces.

There were 16 projects in my project bin. Three projects are done and three are on the needles. I finished 38 of the 64 blocks for my Wolhemel blanket.

Understanding from the outside world

Last night I went to the theater. As usual accompanied with a sock. It gives me something to do before the show starts and it often starts a conversation with somebody. This time an elderly lady sat next to me who responded immediately to my knitting. She even noticed that I was using wooden needles and how much better that is compared to plastic needles. No comments on the size of the needles which I found refreshing. As expected she started talking about her own knitting. She mentioned that she spins and dyes her own yarn and she makes bags out of that which she then felts in the washing machine. After I mentioned that I also spin she asked which brand spinning wheel I have. When I dropped the name Louet she nodded approvingly. I didn’t get a change to ask which spinning wheel she has, I do know she still spins.

For the first time I had a conversation with a total stranger who understood me. She only had a little trouble grasping the idea about starting a sock toe-up.

A month has passed

It’s been a month since I wrote something. I had started a shawl and was rather positive about finishing it in 16 days. Guess what? I didn’t finish it, not even close.
With entrelac I knit backwards so I don’t have to keep turning my work around. This means making a different movement than normal. This combined with a excessive use of the Ctrl+c and Ctrl+v combination at work pretty much made my left arm useless. I put it aside for now, it’ll be finished at some point.

Two weeks ago I took a workshop with Jacey Boggs.



It actually was a pretty tiring weekend. It was lots of fun and the days just flew by. I really got hooked on spinning again. This does take away time from my knitting I noticed.

Otherwise life has been peaceful. I am really glad that the weather is slowly getting warmer. Even if Spring means a lot of rain and wind.

February totals

In the month of January I knitted 9 balls with a total length of 1934 yards and a total weight of 15 ounces.

There were 16 projects in my project bin. Three projects are done and two are on the needles. I finished 33 of the 64 blocks for my Wolhemel blanket.

Let the Games begin

I think I might have mentioned before that I have a problem. If not, this is my confession. I decided to join the YarnHarlot in the Olympic knitting this year. She did it 4 years ago with lots of other knitters. This time I’m in. Will I succeed? Probably not.



I’ve decided to knit the Linden Wrap. This is one from my project bin, so that’s a good thing. The idea is to start when the flame is lit. Well, that’s something I didn’t do. I wasn’t about to wait until 3 am to cast on. I cast on around 10 in the morning on Saturday. You can keep at it until the flame goes out. That gives me 16 days. Only I won’t be home (during the day) the last weekend of February and I have other appointments to keep. Oh yeah and I have to work full time as well.

I’ll put everything else on hold for awhile and try to get it finished. Isn’t there something about joining and winning?

Meanwhile I’m quite fed up with this. Where is the nice weather?

Don’t do it doesn’t work

You’d think that after almost 40 years I should know myself pretty well. I believe that I should lower the number of projects that float around this house to an acceptable amount. In my mind that should be about 5.

Telling myself not to start anything new is like saying that I won’t eat chocolate any more. Two new projects jumped on the needles. How bad am I?

I started with Belle Nuit. Beautiful design and I should have known that a design by Sivia Harding wouldn’t be really simple. Beside the normal decreases en yarn overs it contains small cables, beads and the occasional purl stitch. In other words, not a project for a suspense movie.



And then I started with this. My only excuse is that this one takes a whole year to finish and that should be sufficient time.