Warp speed ahead!

Folks, I have to tell you, the holidays were rough. Then, getting back up to speed at work was rough. Then, I got assigned to wrangle 7 different vendors working on the same project during the same week, all on property, in different buildings. It's a little bit out of control, and the stress is giving me heartburn.

But on the crafting front, things are going well. I attended Knit Night at my LYS last week, which was fun in a quiet, old lady kind of way. I cast on some new fingerless gloves (don't judge me), but it took me forever because apparently a) I can't count and b) I can't follow a written pattern. It was a rough night... but the gloves are going to be pretty, even if the yarn did stain my fingers bright pink.

It doesn't look very bright, but it is, in real life. The pattern is Zombie viXen, because I thought the pattern was pretty, not because I'm a fan of zombies... The yarn is apparently Lola-doodle's hand painted yarn. I picked it up at Colorful Yarns in Centennial, because I was overwhelmed by wool fumes and the color was so pretty. I think it'll look nice with this pattern, though.








I got some yarn from the LYS for a chunky lace shawl that I've been eyeing for a little while. I wanted to do a natural color of yarn, and this blend had alpaca in it and it's basically perfect. I'd have a picture of the shawl but it's soaking right now so that I can block it and it'll look pretty for the actual picture.

Then, I attended a Stitch and Bitch in Denver, which was a much rowdier kind of fun. We talked about reusable tampons, why you should never put popcorn kernels down the garbage disposal, and born-again virgins. I think I'll be going back next week. I just worked on this cowl that I've had on the needles for a while, because I didn't have time to go home and get another project, and it needs to get done anyway. It's going to be really long, but that's what I was going for.

The pattern is September cowl, which my sister thinks doesn't really look like much of a pattern. I guess she's not much of a fan, which is fine, because it's for me, not her. The yarn is Galileo, from Knitpicks. It's very shiny, and I like it, in general.








Let's see, then there's the Jimmy Beans Downton Abbey KAL. Which is, you guessed it, another pair of fingerless mitts. Listen, I don't want to hear that you think I have a problem. It's only a problem if it's hurting someone.

I'm a little late joining the KAL, because it took FOREVER for my yarn to come in. It's this month's color of the month from Lorna's Laces, which is "A River Runs Through It" on their Sportmate base. I really dig the color and the yarn both.









Then there's many things to catch up on.

I finished the body of the laceweight sweater to the armpits. It does, as I suspected, take a LOT of time to make any kind of progress. On the other hand, the pattern is quite enchanting. And would be more so, if I could quit crossing the cables the wrong effing way. I don't want to talk about it.

You know what else I don't want to talk about? The fact that I finished the ENTIRE BODY of this sweater, sewed up the shoulders and started getting ready for the sleeves and then tried it on. Turns out it wasn't going to fit the way I wanted it to. So I... Ripped. It. ALL. OUT. That wasn't painful at all. And then I had to order a couple more skeins of yarn so that I'll definitely have enough.

But let's DO talk about these adorable little stitch markers that my parents got me for Christmas. Well, they didn't arrive by Christmas, they arrived several weeks later. But they were shipped from Israel, and they're adorable little vegetables on wheels! I thought they were Cinderella carriages when I saw them on Etsy. I find that I am enamored of the fact that there's a little artichoke on wheels. And a bell pepper on wheels. And an eggplant on wheels. It's just so cute!

OOH! And we can talk about the precious little counting bracelets that I made. They're definitely cute. And I love using them. Even for the stripy horror sweater. I found that the original counting bracelet that I made wasn't... working. The beads had holes that weren't big enough for ribbon or something with a higher coefficient of friction. So I found these slightly more grown up version of pony beads. Well, I think so, anyway.

Oh! And we can talk about how I spun half a braid of polwarth into these fabulous singles! They're very pretty, and the braid has more colors in it than the ones shown here. But I really love polwarth wool. I don't know what it is, but it's got all kind of qualities I enjoy. Like, it's squishy, and easy to spin. It feels nice when it's done, too. I like it.

Ok, well that's a lot of pictures. I hope you like them! I'll try to do this more often than once a month so it doesn't happen again, though