Sunday, December 29, 2013

Not A New Year's Resolution!

I like the idea of New Year's and fresh starts and throwing off the bad habits of the old year. But I also think we set ourselves up to fail if we start making resolutions. So instead of a resolution, I'm making a, shall we say, re-energization. And it's going to start with the 12 billion skeins of handspun that I've spun and done nothing with.

I don't know many other spinners, so I don't know if we all do the same thing, but when I get a bump of fiber, I have a vague notion of what I want to do with it (weight, fractal, n-ply, etc) and spin it accordingly. Then I wash it and thwack it and skein it up and put it in my yarn cabinet, and that's the end of it. The whole act of spinning it feels like a finished project to me.

I've knit exactly 3 things with my handspun. This cat (the one in front - ha!), for a friend who was going through chemotherapy:
I'm adorable!
These mitts, for a spinners' swap on Ravelry (last year):
I look better on hands than on a windowsill.
And this scarf, for a spinners' swap on Ravelry (this year):
I need to be blocked!
I counted, and I have 36 skeins of handspun sitting in my yarn cabinet! Shameful! So as part of my re-energization, I wound all of those skeins into center-pull balls, so they'll be ready for me to knit up. Here's the chaos of yesterday:

All wound up with someplace to go! Look how pretty!


It shouldn't be that hard to find a nice pattern for these. I'm thinking maybe (MAYBE) I'll try to use one handspun each month. Is that too resolution-y? We'll see.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

What Could Be Better? Cakes...and Knitting!

Cakes and cupcakes are all good, in my opinion, but these are all amazing. Check out this list.
Too pretty to eat!!