Has it really been so long?

koolaid
Originally uploaded by Frith.

I'm coming at you live from Pinehurst, North Carolina, our temporary home while we close on our house in Carrboro (and finish selling our loft in Oakland).

Everybody's here at the in-laws place, including Coltrane's great-grandmother, who had enough of Hurricane Wilma and no electricity in Florida.

Let's see, I finished the shawl for great-grandmother, and she was thrilled with it. Pictures will be forthcoming as soon as I can catch her wearing it.

This little hunk of yarn was my first foray into spinning on my Schect hand spindle. Before I left California, I picked it up at Deep Color Studio (along with some blue-face Leicester) and they taught me the basics of using it.

I went a little nuts with the Kool-Aid. I tried one package of lime and 2 packages of blue lemonade, but it looked like the Incredible Hulk of yarn. So I over-dyed it with about 4 more packages of blue, and got this. It also turned out a little felted -- bear in mind that it had already been through a wash to set the twist in addition to two novice dyeing sessions. Poor yarn.

Then I abused it further by attempting to ply it with a thin strand of silver sparkly stuff. I really need to take a class in this stuff.

I'm planning on knitting this into a hat on its own, or pairing it with some crazy silver stuff I picked up at a yard sale and turning it into some psychotic scarf. We'll see.

I enjoyed the spinning, and I'm itching to get my hands on a wheel and see what that's like. Maybe I'll try to find some weekend spinning retreat somewhere in the state.

I've been working on Lady Eleanor still. Here she is:


This is color #150 of Noro Kureyon. I did add a square to the width, as the gauge is a little smaller than the La Lana the pattern (from Scarf Style) calls for. I may make it longer than the 32 rows of squares. I really love the color. Purple's not normally my thing, but the blues and greens are, and I love the subtle changes.

I've also cast on for some Natalya gauntlets in Rowan Calmer, a la Cari. I've only done about 5 cable things, so it's not worth photographing, really, but it's a pretty dark teal color. These are for me, 'cause I get cold easily. And I've always wanted to try Calmer. I'm using #7 needles because my arms and wrists are pretty small.