Just in Time for Stitches West?

Do any of you remember this post, when I received my merino roving from Scout dyed in the "Pomegranate" colorway?

Well, I happened to pull a bag out with what I had spun of it and realized I only had a few feet left to spin! So the other night, I focused my efforts on spindling up the rest of the roving. I cheated a bit in that Lil' Emp decided he wanted to spin, so he actually spun up some of it. So here are his efforts:



And here, all my Pomegranate roving, ALL SPUN UP!!! I sure hope it will be enough for a pair of socks!

So now that I've spun up a whole braid of roving, does this mean I get to buy more at Stitches West?! OK, for the record, Nartian and IrishGirlieKnits--NO Addi Clicks, NO Signature DPNs, NO patterns, NO MORE ROVING (I already got the Pigeon Roof Studios bonus last time at Article Pract and supported our local artist!) SOCK CAMP! SOCK CAMP! SOCK CAMP!!!

The good thing is that, though I willl be at SW this whole weekend, at least I will be kept busy working and hopefully won't have time to do too much damage. It is not realistic to think I will not purchase a thing, but I think it is reasonable to try and be much more controlled this time around! We'll see...

TWO MORE DAYS!!!! I'm sooooo excited!

ETA: ok, we often say we shouldn't present all 'nos' to little kids. So on the positive side: YES, I may purchase a reasonable amount of STR (a couple for gifts, maybe one or two for me...), YES, I may purchase a spindle (it's my Carolina Homespun/Stitches/TKGA tradition!), and perhaps one or two other special somethings...I will have fun! I will see great friends!

YPF, so why not!

I kinda don't have any new yarn purchases to post!-lol! Well, I did post most of my new yarn last night, but since it is YPF, I will show our latest Rockin' Sock Club-yes, the last of the year...And, as earlier mentioned, I have the little bits of yarn and Yarn Wench roving I spun them from. The rovings are "Faulkland Wool", which spins up more easily than merino, yet has a bit rougher hand. I'm not as afraid of non-merino wools, since I have been able to successfully wear my Ribby Pulli close to the skin without irritation.

Here they are:

Gothic Nightfall 2-this was difficult to get a good color representation of. Alot of highlights in the yarn show up as light shades of color, when the color is a bit darker and flatter.

This is Orchid Smoke 1-yes, very typically me...

Last is the Amethyst-Topaz Variation 2 that I added on to my order. I had waffled on it, resisted, and in the long-run (yeah, after reading the description of "lilacs, golds and olives") thought-how can I NOT get this colorway?! It is actually a bit lighter than my medium tone palette preferences, but it is still gorgeous!

And last, the end of the Rockin' Sock Club 2007 club kit:
And even wound it into a cake already!!! (Can you tell I am dying to start this Cat Bordhi pattern?!)...
Final GPA?...Yeah, a 2.o-I think that's about what I got last year...!

Still not over, but a few things complete...

Phew! I got this second pair of Fetchings done for my friend by Christmas Eve! I actually finished them over the prior weekend, but still had 2 purses to make for her two girls!


Instead, I cheated. I used the one purse that was 99% completed for my other friend's daughter, since I wouldn't be seeing her right away. Just had to pick up stitches along the bottom, then cast them off. Since I ran out of the purple color, I used black, but then decided I needed to do the same at the top to balance the colors. On Sunday (yes, the day before it was to be gifted!), it went into the washer, then out to dry. I stuck it by the heat vent and crossed my fingers...

while I feverishly crocheted this...
OK, so it was another change of plans-instead of a felted bag, I did a crocheted cupcake purse. I had been naughtily procrastinating, checking out Ravelry, when I came across some crocheted cupcake purse pics. I decided that this was cute, I had the yarn in my stash, and by-golly, this couldn't take longer than a felted purse! And besides, then I wouldn't have to wash it and hope it dried in time! So in a way, I made up for the fact that I had used up valuable knitting time playing on Ravelry!

Actually, the pattern choices I found on Ravelry were both $4 patterns and I struggled over which to get. One pattern was also offered as a set of purses-all 5 patterns for $10! But I needed the pattern NOW and I wasn't sure how quickly the PDF would get sent to me! Should I wing it? It seemed simple enough...should I take the chance I'd get the pattern by the next day (folks, I think this was Saturday or at the earliest Friday night-late night-like 2-3am morning kinda late...) Besides this, where was my reason? I was supposedly doing this with very short time left and I was supposed to be justifying my enormous stash and somehow trying to make amends for all my yarny spending by saving money knitting my stash as gifts!

OK, I'm kinda proud of myself...after the "brilliant" idea of googling for a freebie pattern of this sort (hey-it was late, I was tired and it took that long to figure it out-DUH!), I found this pattern by Cynthia Gurisko! Thanks heavens for Google, Crochetville, free patterns and clever people willing to share!

I went down 2 hook sizes, knit the bottom in Cotton Fleece (Lamb's Pride) and the top with leftover Ella Rae (remember the felted slippers?...)...I severely increased the top, ( 4 evenly spaced increase per row for the first several cupcake top rows vs. the single increase per row instructed in the pattern...). And I was pretty darn pleased with it at 4am on Christmas Eve as I watched the Smurfs and then some other wannabe Smurfly type cartoon that followed...

So I still have a felted purse to make, and another pair of fetchings (for my bros GF), some Dashings for a friend who whines about how I never knit him anything, Dashings for my good friend's son who got me a Wii for Little Emperor with a two days notice (it wasn't planned, but worked out well...spoiled LE!), Fetchings for my quilt teacher who liked the first pair I was working on, so how could I not offer to make her some?, and a pair of Dashing for my bro (another thank-you for his awesome favor of drawing up some designs for LE's school to use for t-shirts and what-not...)

And when am I planning on starting Twist or swatching for my Secret of the Stole II? Yeah, I'm insane and don't know if these will ever happen! Keeping my fingers crossed and my needles moving!

And amidst the planning, wrapping, knitting for Christmas, I received my naughty, me-being-out-of-control Yarn Wench purchase of (not the original 2 I ordered, but) THREE bags of roving! If you care what colorways they are, I'll post them later. Right now I'm too lazy to go look again. I think one was amethyst something-or-other, gothic whatever, and orchid somesuch name...Beauties, aren't they? Oh-how about this...I did get around to sneaking a bit of spinning in to see how they'd look, so I'll show them with their names later...
And I also got me and Nartian's "Digetessa" kits! I'm only showing one because, well...you know, they look identical except one was wrapped in brown tissue paper and the other in green...the Digetessa and accompanying special-dyed Woolmeise yarn! And these yummy gingerbready tasting droplets attached!

And for now, I'll leave you with this...the guest of the Christmas Season! No, don't be fooled-it's not the Bob of Ravelry fame, but my canine niece, Nico! Here she is, wondering where her masters are and why she was dumped off at the Mouse Hutch!

Merry, Merry everyone! And have a wonderful 2008! Maybe I'll post again before 2007 comes to a close, and I hope everyone had a good Chanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, or whatever you celebrate during this time of year!