And this week...

I was just very amuzed at the several commenters who seemed to believe a couple of posts back that I'm terribly prolific. Dear friends, you are very kind but deluded... my fault entirely.

All that stuff I listed was worked on slowly over several months. You see I have Startitis. Terrible disease. Wish I could develop a nice case of Finishit that would drive me to complete all unfinished projects before losing my mind and starting another. BUT alas, on any given day I have at least four or five projects going.

This week I have finished nothing:

1. The doll I pictured in the last posting. He now has a little sweater vest, a hat with a feather, flesh colored arms, and a bottom lip. He is, however, lacking clothing from the waist down and I still need to figure out how to give the poor fellow some eyelashes. I've noticed he also appears to have suffered from a terrible case of acne at some point so I need to give him a little facial surgery to smooth that out.

2. I am still working on the purple socks. I have turned the heel and am working my way up the ankle on one. The other is resting in the knitting bag waiting for me to remember it is there so it can keep up with it's sister.

3. I have messed around with a little of the white alpaca fiber. It wants to spin really thin but I've only messed around with it on a couple of different spindles and haven't tried it out on the wheel because...

4. The teal tussah/merino is still on the wheel. And just the first part of the first bobbin, I have not gotten appreciably closer to finishing it. And I noticed yesterday when I sat down at the wheel for about 5 minutes, there was actually some dust on the wheel. I have obviously been neglecting it.

5. BUT I've been working on the blue baby blanket. I've finished the second skein and have decided it's now time to try and ruin it by making a border from a third skein that I am knitting AROUND the outside of the entire blankie. The corners are YO, k, yo and I hope this works to keep it reasonably flat. IF not, there will be some serious frogging. I had to put it on a giant circular to make this work. I may end up switching it off to two long circulars.

6. And I have been working on my Shrug. I got the pattern at Knitting Addictions in North Carolina in June and have been searching for the right yarn since then. I knew I wanted it out of homespun. I knew it had to be bulky. BUT I did not have 330 yards of bulky in my collection. But my friend Taryn did and so I traded her a couple of skeins of sock yarn for her first wheel spun. Technically, I finished this last night. But I when I tried it on, it had 3/4 length sleeves which I don't like. So I picked up some smaller double-pointed needles and picked up around the end of one sleeve and am now lengthing the arms about 6 inches. The main needles for the project are size 17. It really was a quick knit and easy to do while watching the tube when I was feeling brain dead in the evenings.

7. I also cleared a spindle (so I could play with the alpaca) of some really lovely dark brown Corridale that I've had forever. I like it spun far better than I liked it in roving. I wound off onto one of the wheel bobbins and plan to spin up another spindleful over the next few weeks then ply them together. It should come out a nice worsted weight. No idea at this point how much yardage I will have in the end.

8. I met a real live weaver yesterday. There is a new art studio that opened up in Heathsville (Studio 202) and I went up to see what was up there as the sign said something about jewelry and fiber art. She has two floor looms and is working on warping the larger one. The smaller had the beginning of something lovely and linen. In her back room was an Inkle loom and she showed me straps and sashes and bookmarks she is making and mentioned that she might offer an inkle weaving class this winter. I told her I was most certainly interested if she did. I also offered to participate in or teach a beginner spinning class.

9. The cotton lace shawl was never touched this week.

10. The merino lace shawl was never touched this week.

11. I thought seriously about how to knit some pillow covers for my house out of my stash. Haven't started anything but cabled, knitted covers would look really cool (until covered with dog and cat hair). I also bought and day dreamed over a couple of the sweaters in the Fall Interweave Knit Magazine. I purchased and looked at the Interweave Felt Magazine. Unfortunately, I spent entirely too much time surfing the internet for felted dolls/sculptures and found surprisingly little related to what I'm doing with this elf.

And I keep looking at roving for sale... everywhere... and I am struggling not to break down and buy more. I MUST spin up at least some of what I have before I buy more. And The Fall Fiber Festival is coming around again in October. What is a girl to do?