Look! I'm posting!

Hey everyone, sorry for the long absence! I've just been busier than a one legged man in an @$$ kicking contest. Work has been so hectic it's just not even funny! Most nights I get home and just collapse. There has been some spinning, and some knitting. Not hardly any picture taking though. I've just been exhausted! I'm doing my job, and most of the duties of a lovely lady who went away to go have a gorgeous little baby boy. So I get to work, hit the decks running, and don't stop until it's time to go home. It seems that the work is coming in faster than I can get it done, and I'm seriously feeling like I'm just barely keeping my head above water. And then there is the fact that I just haven't been sleeping enough. Most days it seems that I'm operating on about 4-5 hours of sleep - sometimes more, usually less. And it's been taking a toll.

Anyway - here is some of the stuff that I've been working on just lately...I said there has been spinning, and I can even prove it - here's 800 yards of handspun. It's a three ply yarn, and what happens when you take three different fibers, spin them up separately, and ply them all together.

The fiber on the top is a silk/wool blend that I got from my friend Leah of Yarn or a Tale. The roving was listed as seconds, and a great deal, so I bought a bunch of it, and dyed most of it. Not the easiest stuff to spin, some really short fibers in there - but it's added the plumpest ply to the mix.

The fiber in the middle is some of my own handdyed Optim which adds a lovely bit of softness. Have I mentioned that I love to spin Optim?

And the fiber on the bottom is a lovely silk/rambo batt that I picked up off of e-bay from Crystal Creek Fibers. I became acquainted with her fiber right before my birthday, a box came in the mail, with Fiber written on the outside! It was actually addressed to my daughter, but I knew it had to be for me :-) Turned out my oldest son had sent me about a ton of raw angora, and a lovely silk/rambo roving that I can't wait to get started on spinning, with a Hippity Pappity B'duthduth day note in it. Then I saw this batt on e-bay, and knew I wanted more. It's gorgeous stuff to spin! A huge 10 oz batt of lovely rambo silkiness. Mmmmmmmm.

I'm calling the yarn Plumpy Plum, I have 800 yards of it in this one skein - I'm spinning more because I want a nice long sleeved sweater or jacket out of it. Definitely next to skin soft, so am thinking more sweater. I've been wanting to try a saddle shoulder type pullover from EZ - or maybe another Box the Compass...

And I've been knitting too! I started the Chevron Shadows Vest from the latest issue of Knitters magazine. I'm using my own handspun - the Ethereal that I spun up last January... My notes tell me that it's 10 ozs - 1050 yards of three ply yarn - two plies of handdyed CVM (need to get some more of that!) and one ply of handdyed silk.

Here's the front in all of it's unblocked glory....













And here's the back. I knit the vest as the pattern dictated, but found that the side panels needed to be a lot wider -



so I took the three needle bindoff out, and created a nice little Mod U for the underarms. It gives a really nice effect in the underarm area I think. Not that anyone will see it too much. But it's definitely a nice little detail - very gansey-esque little gusset type detail.

Oh, yeah, I decided to put sleeves on it too. I'm really hoping I have enough yarn. I think I do. But it might be a close call. If necessary though I can always do a 3/4 length sleeve. We'll just have to see how that works out.

Other than work being crazy busy all day every day, and not getting enough sleep, and being exhausted a lot of the time, things have been fine. The kids are fine, we have one kitten left that we've decided to keep, the other two went to good homes, where they are happy. The one we kept is the lightest one.

Anyway - I guess that's it for this installment. I guess something is better than nothing right?