I love my hubby!!! I use my Amazon wish list for many reasons. Foremost, I add books to it for me to remember a book that I’d like to get at some point – it doesn’t mean I’ll get it from Amazon – but it’s a good way to keep track of books I’d like. I know that other family have used the list to scope out gifts for birthdays and Christmas and all those good things. What’s nicest though is that hubby, who is a ferocious reader, orders a lot from Amazon. I don’t think he ever has any problem ordering enough to get up to the $39 free shipping threshold but what’s nicest is when he decides to go to my wish list and pick a few random (usually the newest items) from my wish list and orders them with his order. So yesterday, I came home to two new books:
The first book was Wendy Johnson’s new book “Toe-Up socks for Every Body”. I’ve merely had a chance to flip through it but I see some fabulous patterns in there. Mostly I fall back into my simple vanilla sock knitting slump when I decide on a pair of socks to knit and usually that’s just a result of me wanting socks to be simple, mindless, take-along knitting. My attempt to knit through her previous toe-up sock book as well as Cookie A.s book Sock Innovation really failed miserably. I completed one sock and have a second sock from the first book on the needles and I have a bit of the cuff done from one of the Cookie A. book. My patterned sock knitting success seems to have stalled…….. having said that, I do love a lot of the patterns in this book and I’m torn between picking up the previous pair of socks in progress or casting on something from the new book tonight. I like knitting my toe-up socks on 2 circs although, when it comes to top down socks, I’m all about my DPNs. So, as it is, my only set of sock knitting size of two Addi circs are stuck in that one in progress sock as mentioned above so I really should just bit the bullet and finish those socks first but starting a new pair of socks is so much more tempting. I guess the answer………… buy some more needles, eh? Buying more new needles is always the answer when we have startitis, isn’t it? Well, I will evaluate tonight and see where things take me.
My second surprise from the Amazon order was Rachel Herron’s book “How to Knit a Love Song”. 
I’ve been looking forward to getting a hold of a copy of this book for a while now, too so I’m really looking forward to the read. I love to read but I find that with my crazy schedule and my hobbies and attempts to make a real go of my chainmaille jewelry, there isn’t much time to sit back and relax with a book. My relax time is my knitting and spinning and that wins out over reading. So, I find stolen moments to read – five minutes here and 2 minutes there. Reading a book takes me a while and right now, I have this book as well as a Nora Roberts book on my night stand. They’ll last me for a while but I am looking forward to stealing those moments to read both of these books.
Knitting news………. Not a whole lot.
Spinning, yes, the spinning continues. I’ve become awfully obsessed with the LUST over a Schacht Matchless wheel although I would never, ever let go of my Ladybug. I love my bug and wouldn’t trade it for the world but somehow, the sirens are calling me saying “you need a second wheel”. You need a wheel in the home theatre down in the basement!!! Don’t think I’m about to go out and buy myself a new wheel. No money for any of that. LUST is the word. It’s definitely not a priority as I have a perfectly, wonderfully, beautiful and fun spinning wheel.
Recently, I spun up some some baby camel/silk. Gorgeous fluffy and soft stuff. I ended up having baby camel/silk fluff everywhere. I spun this skein for an Etsy friend. She ordered the fibre and had it delivered to me and in exchange for some of her gorgeous photography, I’ve been spinning up a few braids of fibre for her. I have a braid of Wensleydale left to spin. As for the baby camel/silk blend, as I said, it was very soft and fluffy. I found that separating the top down into smaller strips did leave a lot of fluff all over the place. Black pants are not recommended…. It drafted and spun beautifully and very quickly. There was no pre-drafting required. I spun it into a nice lofty 2-ply yarn that’s around a heavy DK/light worsted weight. I think I could have spun it very thin as well but that was not my goal for this particular yarn. The colours are rich and beautiful. The fibre came from FeltStudioUk.
Right now, I’m spinning for the Tappan Zee cardie from the latest Knitty. I’m a little further along than the picture shows. I’ve been using Crown Mountain Farms Corriedale pencil roving in the Ghost Dancer colourway. I split the bump in half and spun 4 oz on one bobbin and 4 oz on the other bobbin. I started plying last night and basically plied until most of one bobbin was full. Tonight, I will ply the rest onto another bobbin and hopefully I will have my first two skeins ready to go soon. I’m enjoying spinning the CMF pencil roving a whole lot. It’s such a mindless spin and as I’ve got lots of other stuff going on, when I sit down, once everyone is in bed, this is the perfect distraction. It provides me no further aggravation and that’s what I need at the moment. I don’t have a recent picture but here is a picture when I first started spinning the singles/
I’ve been working pretty hard on getting my jewelry web site (blog style with added pages such as a photo gallery etc) off the ground. I still have more work to do such as adding more pictures to the gallery and maybe writing an “About Me” page. But, even though I’m not quite done yet, I think I’m ready to say, pop on over to get a feel for the digs. I’m quite pleased with it at the moment, although I am rather fickle at times and may change it all around again. I’m not getting much traffic there at this point so I’m allowed to fiddle around with it and play…. See it here
I’m hoping for warmer weather soon!!! In warmer weather finished skeins dry faster. J See you all soon!!
