Spinning and Stitches

I hadn't spun in months when I sat down the other day to spin up some of my Lisa Souza merino in Fresh Avocado. This yarn is for a basic sweater with short row shaping in the bust. On the whole, I have been satisfied with my results. I am still relatively new to spinning on a wheel, and my yarn is a bit uneven at times because of it. I feel I need to make time to spin at least once a week so I can maintain the skills I have acquired and perhaps to move myself along towards mastery :)

Also, I have made the decision not to go to Stitches West this year. With the big move coming up, I just can't justify laying out all that money to travel up to Santa Clara and/or purchasing yarn or fiber. I love Stitches West and hope to attend next year...

That's it for now. It's not much, but I don't want to give in to procrastination!

I'm back! ...I think :)

Hello world,

Happy 2012!

A great deal of stuff has happened since the last update, so let me sum things up: soon to be divorced, working full time, mothering three loving girls, packing for a downsize move to an apartment, lost weight, gained the weight back but trying to lose it again, knit some, crocheted some, and spun some... though not nearly enough to satisfy. TBR pile is again growing but I am making the shift to ebooks to save space.

I continue to be blessed by loving family and AMAZING friends!

I took advantage of the year-end sale at WEBS to score some pretty sock yarn. Not that I am in danger of running out of sock yarn, mind you, but I can't resist an affordable opportunity to sample new sock yarns!

I am saving up for a Kindle. For now, I use both Kindle and Nook apps on my ipod and PC. There are a lot of great free books available and I have to restrain myself so the digital TBR pile doesn't get out of control.

I also have purchased several ebooks recently:
*CHRISTMAS MOON by Elizabeth Lane
*DULCIE'S GIFT, THE COURTSHIP OF IZZY MCCREE, BLACKTHORNE and the HIGHLANDERS bundle by Ruth Langan

I recently finished WILD BOY: MY LIFE IN DURAN DURAN by Andy Taylor. Great read! As a longtime Duran Duran fan, I devoured this book and it really put certain events into context and showed the human side of these 80s icons. Now if only the other members of Duran Duran would write their memoirs, I would be all set :) My daughter expressed interest in reading this book, but I advised her that a great deal of the pop culture references would be completely lost on anyone who wasn't a part of that era. Plus, there are several F-bombs and she is only 11 :)

As for my crafts...
*Knitting on a pair of socks for my oldest daughter (her feet are bigger than mine) out of a self striping yarn made by Cascade.
*Crocheting a giant granny square lapghan out of a Pound of Love.
*Spinning up some merino from Lisa Souza in the fresh avocado colorway for the rest of a sweater I am working on for myself. (Time permitting I will edit this post to include more links.)

That's it for now! Love to everyone :)

It's never too late to make a resolution!

I'm in mourning because I can't make it up to Stitches West this weekend so I have decided to distract myself buy reorganizing my bedroom closet and with it, the stash. What I didn't realize, or was in denial about, was the fact that I have close to 40 knitting and or crochet books, but have maybe knit or crocheted from a total of 6... ugh! My resolution therefore, is to use these books. I can't say I won't be getting more in the future (thank you paperbackswap.com) but I will make more of an effort to explore what I have and hopefully put it to use! That's my story and I am sticking to it!

WIP-Dancing project finished :)

So I finished that old Hallowig, finally! This isn't such a complicated project and it went quickly once I sat down and knit so I really don't know what my problem was LOL!

Ravelympics!

At the moment, I have completed the Aerial Unwind event. I have also entered two projects in the WIP-Dancing. I know without a doubt that I will finish at least one (the Hallowig). The other, however, is a pair of socks (Nanners) I had to rip back to the toe, so we'll see...

So something is up wth my computer...

(Updated: Something is still funky with my computer but I managed to pull the picture directly from my phone.) Presenting my current project for Ravelympics - WIP Dancing! This Hallowig was started way back in September 2008 and I am just now getting around to finishing it LOL! I'm trying to figure out how to get this picture up on Ravelry without saving to my computer (problem solved for now -- but I need a new computer LOL).

Smell This!

Ok, so the ability to transmit scent via the web is still a ways off... I just wanted to post a quick shout out to a super creative fun person who makes amazing soap! This is Dawn's site...


All of her scents are yummy including DIRT! Yup, you read correctly. Dawn has created a soap which invokes the smell of rich, clean earth. I really dig it!