The Gabby Knitter

Quick FO

My husband is finally done with the project he was working on for my father-in-law. It took a little longer then expected but now I have my computer back! I have so much to catch up on like showing off my Monkey Swap package that my wonderful swap pal sent me over a week ago. Also Chris so kindly gave me a Nice Matters award and now I will award to 5 people in an upcoming post. Today I thought I'd start out slow and show you a quick FO I finished up last week.

This is the Cat Wrap kit that I picked up from Morehouse Merino on the way home from Rhinebeck. It took me about 1 full day to finish the scarf (bulky yarn) and about 2 days to finish the hat.

I made this for my oldest son and Everyday since I'd finished it he kept asking me if it was cold enough outside to wear it.

Yesterday morning it was finally cold enough and he was so happy to get to wear it to school.

Tomorrow is Halloween so I think I'm going to skip Whirling Wednesday this week. I'll be back Thursday. Have a safe and Happy Halloween!

Whirling Wednesday: The Rhinebeck Edition

I had such a great time at Rhinebeck on Saturday. Katy, blogless Jean and Jean's sister Marybeth were kind enough to let me tag along again this year. I always have a blast with them. We all have young children so it wonderful to get together and have a mommy day off (we really need to that more often girls!). We also met up with Jess and a great time hangin' out with her for most of the day. I find there's very few people that you meet in life that totally get you and well Jess she gets me. Now this is the part you are totally going to hate me but I didn't take a single picture at Rhinebeck. I forgot the camera in the car and by the time I realized I had left it the wool fumes were getting to me and I just couldn't bring myself to go back and get. If you want to see some pictures go here, here,here and if you want a good laugh go here.

I saw a few bloggers while we were there Carole, Cynthia and her oh so cute baby Em, Ann, Julie even though I didn't quite know it was her, Chris,Sandy, and I finally got to meet blogless Denise who I have to say is very sweet. I know there's more but for some reason it escapes me so if I didn't mention you give a shout out.

I came back home with lots of fiber. I won't go into all of it because....well there's a lot and this would be a really long post and I'm not sure how much I want to own up to at this point. You will be seeing the fibers in some way shape or form in upcoming Whirling Wednesday posts.

Over last few days I did manage to spin up a little Rhinebeck fiber. It's merino but I have no idea where I got it. There's 4 oz there and it's about a Dk weight. The colors were fun which made it very entertaining to spin.

Very little yarn was bought but still more than I had intended.

This Briar Rose lace weight was my favorite yarn purchase. They aren't really colors I normally pick but it reminded me of all the beautiful fall colors we saw on the way up to Rhinebeck so I had to get you know  as a souvenir.

It was such a fun day but it went by way to fast. Can't wait to do it again next year!

A Quickie

My husband has sort of taken over the computer this week. So I haven't had any opportunity to blog. All I've had time for is a quick comment here or there and answering  a few e-mails. My husband isn't quite finished yet so I won't be able to post again until Tuesday.

I'm off to Rhinebeck this weekend. I'll be going with Katy again and her friend Jean and Jean's sister. We had such a great together last year. I can't wait to go. Only two more sleeps!

I'll be wearing this:

If you see me make sure to stop and say hello.

Have a great weekend all!

Socks and the meme comes to an end

This post a just a few days late but here are the finished socks as promised. I used the Loksins pattern on a size 1.5 Knitpicks Harmony circular ( which I highly recommend) and Dream in Color Smooshy sock yarn in the "Ruby River" colorway.  I loved the pattern and fell head over heels for the yarn. So glad I have a few more skeins in the stash. It's very soft and well.....smooshy!

Now for the end of the random/weird things about you meme. I believe we are up to the last three so here goes:

5. I have secret love of video games, especially my DS which I play at least a few times a week if not every day. My favorite games that I've recently played are My Sims, Zelda, and I just picked up Thrillville, which has proven to be a huge time suck.

6. I dislike vegetables except for peas and corn. I know they are healthy for me and believe me I've so tried to like them but I just can't eat them. The funny thing is when I was in high school I actually tried to become a vegetarian.

7. I have a bit of a knitting  bag obsession. I have at the very least enough knitting bags to hold all my wips and believe me I've got quite a few. My favorites are socks bags (are surprised). These are two of my newest bags:

This bag is from Schrodinger Originals which my husband bought for me for my birthday last month. What I love most about this bag is it's shape. It's the perfect shape and size to fit my yarn cake from the ball winder and my sock in progress. The sock that you see there is the early beginnings of a Marina Piccola sock out of another new favorite yarn, ShibuiKnits in the "Anime" colorway.

I purchased this bag in September from Moriah Ice Designs. It didn't arrive until a few weeks ago as it was a custom bag. Isn't cute? She has all kinds of really beautiful fabrics and makes them with all kinds of cool customizations. It's big enough for socks projects and has some great interior and exterior pockets which are great for knitting notions and other doodads. Also in the picture is the Garden Path sock and the yarn is Yarntini in the "Zenfindel" colorway. I know I've said before that I don't really like toe up socks but I saw this pattern and a few others that I really want to make so I figured I'd give it another go. It still weirds me out doing it this way because I've been doing top down for so long but so far so good.

That concludes the meme. I know this one has made the rounds a lot so I'm not sure who has done and who hasn't so I tag anyone who hasn't done it yet. Have a great night all!

Whirling Wednesday

Remember how last week I said my spinning mojo just kind of got up and went. Well this week it came back with a vengeance.

I spun these two skeins of merino/tencel that I bought from The Sheep Shed. They are 4 oz. of silky goodness a piece. Merino/tencel is one of my favorite blends to spin. It's soft like merino but with the silky sheen of the tencel. These will going up in the shop on Friday and there will also be a 15% off sale on all July/August yarns. I've got make some room for some the new yarns I'm planning.

Since my mojo came back I decided to do a little celebrating by way of a little stash enhancement.

On the left is some merino in the "Kelly" colorway (bet you can't guess why I was drawn to this fiber) from Fatcatknits and on the right is last months Spunky Club offering. I didn't receive it until Tuesday due to a mix up that Amy was very quick to fix.

This is the other roving from Fatcatknits that I got in the mail on Tuesday and I'm almost finished spinning it up. The colorway is called "whoopsie daisy" and I can't wait to ply it and see how the colors are going to come together.  I would have bought more fiber but I'm trying to save up for Rhinebeck which is only a week and a half away, yay!

I'll give you another quick 2 things about me as a continuation of the meme from yesterday. I'm up to 3 of the seven.

3. I hate to get dressed up. I don't like to wear skirts or dresses. Give me jeans and sweatshirts/sweaters any day!

4. I 'm not a big fan of traditional exercises but I love yoga. It helps me a lot in dealing with stress and the occasional panic attack and just give me a sense of over all well being.

That's it I'll be back Friday with 5-7 of the random facts about me and another finished pair of socks. Have a great night all.

Socktober FO

Since this is Socktober the main part of my knitting if not all my knitting will be socks, it's pretty much been that way lately though hasn't it? I just have so many wonderful socks yarns in my stash and there are so many sock patterns out there that I want to knit. I just can't seem to stop knitting the socks. Plus it's been very humid and unfall like so I haven't really felt like working on the two sweaters that are on the needles now.

So I thought I start off by showing you the socks I finished up on Thursday. I started them in August but I knit almost an entire sock in October so that still counts, right?

These are the Merino Lace socks from Favorite Socks. I used sock yarn from The Plucky Knitter  in the "Trench Town Rock" colorway and size a size 1 Knitpicks circular needle. I really liked the pattern but when I got about halfway done with the foot I realized that the purl stitch that was in the previous two charts should have also been carried down the foot and wasn't on the foot chart. As you all probably know by now I try to avoid frogging at all costs so rather than doing that I decided to go with it and leave it as a design feature. It would probably look better with the purl stitches as the kind of define the pattern but I think it looks OK with out them and they are very warm and comfy , so isn't that all that really counts?

Lastly I have been tagged twice for the same meme and here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger (Kelli and Amanda) and post rules

2. Share 7 facts about yourself, some random and some weird

3.Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names

4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So Instead of sharing all 7 a facts at once I figured few a day would be less boring for you and more fun for me. I'm pretty sure I've done this meme in some way shape or form but I think I have some more things I can share if I repeat myself, sorry in advance.

#1. The first  random/weird thing (I'm sure by now a lot of you already know) is I collect all things sheep. I have pajamas , stuffed sheep, and tea mugs. Today while I was out shopping with my daughter I found

sheepy slippers! I saw these when we were in Bath and Body Works and had to have them.

#2 I hate complete quiet. Something about it just creeps me out, because of this I sleep with my t.v. on every night.

Tomorrow I'll have some Socktober socks in progress to show. Have a great night all! 

Whirling Wednesday

I few a few finished yarns to show you. I actually finished them early last month but hadn't gotten a chance to talk about them and since I just have been spinning much I figured today would be the perfect day.

This is 4 oz of two ply merino wool. I bought the fiber from Fatcatknits, the colorway is "Playtime". It spun into a nice squishy sport weight yarn. I loved how this spun up and was seriously thinking about keeping for myself but I know I won't get around to knitting it up for quite a while so I figured I'd let someone else have the pleasure of knitting with it and so it will be going up in the shop on Friday.

I also bought the fiber for this from Fatcatknits. 4oz. of superwash Merino, the colorway is "Pride and Joy". It spun up into 2 ply sport and there's enough in there for a pair of socks. This too will be going up in the shop. I really do like the fibers over at Fatcatknits and if you haven't tried her fibers I highly recommend it, she has great customer service too!

I said in the beginning my spinning mojo just kind of got up and left. For the last few weeks I just haven't felt like spinning ( or at least as much as I usually do), so this morning after the kids left for school I decided to take matters into my own hands. I put on some spinning music (right now it's Fiest) and sat down at my wheel and started to spin.

First I spun some merino/tencel from The Sheep Shed on Gwenevere (Kromski Symphony)

and then I decided to take Georgia ( ashford traditional) for a spin. The fiber is merino that I handdyed in light greens and browns. This is actually a not so great picture, it's been cloudy today and not great for taking pictures.  Now I think my spinning mojo is starting to come back. Next week I'll at the very least have these finished to show you. Until then Happy Spinning!

Ariann

I was supposed to do a meme that both Kelli and Amanda tagged me with but it seems as thought the cold has come back for round 2 and my  heads been too foggy to think about 7 weird things about me. I'm not saying I don't have a lot of weird things about me but I can't think of which ones to share that I haven't already. So instead I figured I'd distract you all with some pictures of Ariann.

I have to say I love this sweater! It is the most comfy, cozy sweater I have ever knit. The Beaverslide yarn really bloomed once blocked and is now so very soft. It's the perfect sweater to throw on to go to the bus stop during the chilly fall mornings.

I did mess up on the back a bit, but it's not too noticeable although I'm sure that a fellow knitter could tell exactly where they are. I really didn't notice it until I started finishing the sweater and then I decided it just wasn't bad enough too rip out and I could live with it.

Lastly, a better picture of the front of the sweater and a really crappy picture of me. I'm not sure what that look on my face was for but whatever. I hope you all have a great night!