Happy Valentines Day!

I hope you're staying warm wherever you are. Here's a pic to show you what it looks like here. Winter slammed us again yesterday, dumping about 8 more inches of snow on us. Coupled with a falling temperature and gusty winds, it was not a pleasant day. Schools, offices, and businesses began closing about noon yesterday and are still closed today. Right now, it's sunny, cloudless, and so bright you need sunglasses outside. By tonight, they're predicting more lake effect snow. Even though I grew up in this area and am used to snow, I have had enough!

Our Frog Pond Fiber Arts meeting scheduled for last night was cancelled. Major bummer! The library we meet at closed at 5 pm last night and is still closed today. I'll call tomorrow to see if we can reschedule our meeting to later in the month.

I knit a few rows on the Mystery Pi shawl. I'm not really in the mood to work on it. Probably because I keep making mistakes with the Clue #4 pattern and having to correct it. It's not that hard so I don't understand why I'm not getting it. Clue #5 was supposed to come out last Friday. It still hasn't been posted. Hope everything is ok with the designer, Renee.

I started another pair of socks with some Regia sock yarn from my stash. These are my February socks. I have a goal to knit one pair of socks every month. So far I've made December and January. It's been so cold I really could use more pairs of wool socks. By next winter, I should have a drawerful.

Shetland handspun

The green Shetland is finished! The color is the color of grass in the springtime. I was surprised how much blue came out of the yarn when I washed it. Finished product: 414 yards/4.0 ounces. I'm getting pretty consistent at producing a 400 yard skein of 2 ply from 4.0 ounces of fiber. Next on my wheel may be the Fleece Artist merino that Jess brought me from Nova Scotia. I'm thinking that to make this 1.5 ounce braid of merino go further I might ply it with some silk. I've got some silk hankies that would go beautifully with it. If I get enough yardage, I'll knit a lace scarf for me.

The Smoke Ring tube scarf is done and blocked. It turned out beautifully. If I can get someone to take a picture of me wearing it, I'll post it on my blog soon.

The Fish Cat Toy Pattern is Here!

After being test-knitted by four people, the fish cat toy pattern is ready to be turned loose. If you can knit, purl, increase, and decrease, you can knit this simple pattern. All you need is about 12 yards of worsted weight yarn and U.S. size 7 knitting needles.

I've included instructions to knit both the smaller goldfish version and the larger fish.

Sorry, this one isn't free. Each pattern sold will help pay for the supplies I use to make cat toys, beds, and such for Pet Refuge. (That is, what's left after Paypal deducts their fees.)

The pattern is available in my Ravelry pattern store.  

All money raised by sales of this pattern will be donated to Pet Refuge. 

For more information, visit my Ravelry pattern store to see all my available designs, current pricing information, and purchase pattern downloads.

Too Many Lace Patterns

There are too many new lace knitting patterns on the market! This is not really a complaint. It's great having this problem, but...I don't have enough money to buy everything. LOL! It makes it very hard to decide which one I want to knit next.

I just got a new design from JoLene Treace called Three Flowers. It has three different lace scarf patterns named after flowers. I like Violet the best. JoLene posted information about this new pattern on a list I read. Once I looked at it, I was a gonner. Trouble is, I also saw a picture of her Charlotte Stole. I bought that too. Check JoLene's blog for pictures of both. The ironic thing this is JoLene and I both live in Indiana but I had to order the patterns from a shop in Oregon!

My friend, Elizabeth, isn't helping. Wednesday night she showed me a copy of the Winter 2007 Wild Fibers magazine with a new Evelyn A. Clark shawl pattern in it. Evelyn won the Buffalo Gold design contest with her Heartland Lace Shawl. The design looks like buffalo hoof prints and she even knitted it with buffalo yarn. I love her patterns! No chart in the magazine though Evelyn says there is one available. Buffalo Gold's website says they will be posting the chart. I emailed to find out when and will it be free or for sale. I find it easier to knit lace from charts, not lengthy written instructions. Elizabeth, being the enabler she is, also gave me an extra copy of the new Rowan (#41) that has a new Sharon Miller design called Anice Shawl on page 11. I am spoiled for choice!

The Smoke Ring is 95% finished. Just a few rows yet to knit so I can wash, block, and wear it. It's still really cold here and continues to snow a little more almost every day. It hit 20 degrees today for the first time in days. It feels like a heat wave! How cold it feels is relative. When it's warm and the temp falls to freezing, it feels really cold. When temps have been below zero and hovering in the single digits for days, freezing (32 degrees F) feels warm.

I've given up waiting for the extra skein of yarn for the Mystery Pi. I'll wind up the other ball I have so I can resume knitting on Clue #4. I'm glad Renee is not releasing Clue #5 until Monday. It should give me time to catch up. I'm working on a 36" circular and the shawl looks like a bag.

The Fish Cat Toy pattern has been successfully test knitted by Marti, Vanessa, and Betty. Thanks, everyone, for doing this and catching a few errors that I missed. I'll post when the pattern is available.

Smoke Ring and a Surprise

To add insult to injury (as if 13" of snow wasn't enough), for the last few days both our temps and windchills have been below zero. Brr! A hat just doesn't cut it in this type of weather. It's been in the back of mind for some time to knit a tube type scarf---one that completely covers your head and neck. I went websearching for a free pattern yesterday. I started at Knitting Pattern Central, my favorite free pattern site that lists links for free patterns with pictures. (Forget patterns without pics. Don't you hate it when someone posts a free pattern without a picture? Who wants to knit something they can't see?) Trouble is, this is one of those items that masquerades under a number of names: cowl, hood, tube scarf, smoke ring... If I've missed any, let me know. LOL! Many times on the web, you have to know what something is called before you can search for it.

Here's what I found---a wonderful lace Smoke Ring pattern by Kathy Hinckley at Spindlicity. I cast it on the needles last night with some of Liz's hand dyed merino sock yarn. Isn't it pretty? The colors will go well with my down filled winter coat. I finished the bottom edge and one pattern repeat. It's knitting up quickly.
[11/3/09 This link no longer works. Spindlicity is no longer online. I don't know if it is temporary or permanent.]

Progress report: I finished spinning half of the green Shetland yesterday. It's a fast spin! I'm hoping to get the rest of it spun soon. Ideally, I'd like to get it plyed so I can show it off tomorrow night. If not, I'll take a bobbinful along to show. The Mystery Pi shawl is stalled. I finished clue #3 and started on clue #4 and 576 stitches per round. The first ball of yarn is almost gone. Two balls of yarn will clearly not be enough to complete this shawl. I'm waiting patiently (or trying to) for the yarn I ordered last week to arrive. If the dyelot is off, I'll be able to blend it in with the second ball of yarn I have. If it doesn't arrive by the end of the week, I'll probably join the second ball, cross my fingers, and hope for the best. Clue #5, the edging, comes out on Friday.

Surprise! Here's a teaser pic of the fish cat toy I've been working on. What do you think? Does it say "essence of fish"? Or does it need more work? I have a couple of ideas for making the fish longer or knitting a striped one too. I'd like to find a few knitters to test the pattern before I turn it loose on the blog. Stay warm!

More info on spinning silk hankies

Several people have asked me for more information on spinning silk hankies. I'm new at this and have given some basic directions in my last post. For those who'd like more information with pictures, click here on Knitty and Spin-Off to go to these articles.

I bought dyed Mawata silk hankies from Elizabeth Shreeves of Lone Tree Wools at her booth at Michigan Fiber Fest last August. She had laundry baskets full of bags of hand dyed silk hankies. It was very hard to choose just a few to buy. LOL! I don't have a webaddress or email addy for her, only a mailing address in Iowa and a long distance phone number. I won't post either online without her permission. If you'd like her contact information, email me at junkyarn AT yahoo DOT com and I'll send it to you.

Fiber Frolic and spinning silk hankies

I've been busy the last few days getting ready for a Fiber Frolic (aka knit and spin in) held at Jessica's house yesterday. I went early to help get ready for the crowd. I took my spinning wheel, lots of spinning fiber to sell/trade, things for the swap table, a donation for the door prize basket, and a huge pot of vegetarian chili. I'm so glad I went early! The roads were fairly clear, the sun was trying to shine, and it was only 10 degrees. After I was safely at Jess's, the wind began howling, banging against the house, and we had white out conditions for a while. (Must have been the cold front that was supposed to come through. Later, my husband told me our winter weather warning had been changed to a BLIZZARD warning! Yikes!) We were afraid the weather would keep people away. Not so, it wasn't long before they began to arrive. In all, eleven people braved the brutal weather conditions to attend. Peggy Coffey and her friend, Svenja, drove the farthest from LaPorte. That must have been a long, cold drive. You'll find pictures of the event on my friend Liz's blog. Jess will no doubt post some on her blog when she recovers from having us all over. LOL!

There were 7 spinning wheels whirring away, 1 drop spindler, and a number of knitters. I spun some lime green Shetland on my Majacraft Little Gem wheel (see picture above). We showed off our handspun, spinning fibers, completed knitting projects, etc. Jess hung a string across her patio door to display her completed Cameron Shawl, Elizabeth's Hap Shawl, and Liz's Flower Basket Shawl (knit from her hand dyed, handspun singles). All of them are gorgeous!

I did a short demo on spinning silk hankies on a drop spindle using silk hankies I purchased last year at Michigan Fiber Fest. The lady at the booth showed me how to pull one thin layer from the hankie and pull it into a roving. It's easy. (Before you start, make sure you lotion your hands thoroughly. The silk will catch on any dry skin.) After you pull off one hankie, put your fingers through the center to make a hole, and start pulling your hands apart to extend the fiber. You'll have to pull hard as this stuff is strong! Keep drafting until you get it as thin as you like. WARNING: Once you pull your roving, do not try to move the pile or you will have a knotty mess! (Ask me how I know? LOL!) Break the circle of roving, attach one end to a small, lightweight, drop spindle and start spinning. Silk is so long and strong that it won't break as you're spinning it as other fibers can. It's also "grabby" enough that it's easy to join a new piece. One hankie will spin a lot of very thin singles. If you don't spin, you can even knit from unspun silk roving. I sent the remaining silk hankies home with Aubrey and Liz to spin. They're both hooked on silk! I won't miss it as I bought more than one package in Allegan. Liz called me later to let me know that she had spun 3 hankies on the Bosworth featherweight spindle she got last week. I am such a fiber enabler!

I cleaned out my fiber bins and took a huge bag of roving to swap/sell. A lot of it found new homes but was replaced with 4 new ones! 1) The blue/white roving on the left is 9 oz of Columbia/Merino (80/20) blend from the door prize basket. 2) The center one is of 4 oz of a frosty looking Shetland/black llama mix, a trade from Peggy Coffey. 3) The colorful roving on the right is Liz's (Chocolate Princess) hand dyed BFL top from the swap table. 4) The blue braid in the front is 1.5 ounces of Fleece Artist merino sliver in Blueberry Mist. This was a gift from Jess. She was in Nova Scotia recently and found a yarn shop that stocks Fleece Artist products from nearby Halifax. This shop carries some colorways that are dyed specially for their shop. The blueberry colorway is one of them! This will be the next fiber on my wheel! I'll knit it up into something special just for me. I also snagged the Yarn Harlot's book, At Knit's End from the swap table. I have an autographed copy of her first book. I am so looking forward to reading this one.

No one went home without at least one new knitting or spinning goodie. In fact, we had such a good time that no one wanted to leave. LOL! Break up time was 3 pm but a number of us stayed later. We're already planning another Fiber Frolic for sometime in March. The drive home was even colder than my morning drive and snow was drifting across the road in many places. I made it safely home, warmed by thoughts of the wonderful day I had with some of the best friends a person could ever ask for!