This post will be quick, with the ultimate purpose of showing off my newest Handspun...

Back in September the guild had a dyeing party, I dyed a skein of previously hand-spun wool in blues and greens, and some Blue Face Leicester roving, putting half of it hung into a pot of blue/teal dye and then after that I laying it into an electric chafing dish used as a double boiler with a little water in the top and sprinkled over it with some hot pink dye powder.

The last few weeks I've slowly turned it into this...

As of this morning, I finally turned it into this...

I'm fairly pleased with the results. I really like the results of the color. I might have been happier had I spun it a little more even, but it's still passable. Hopefully setting the twist will help relax some of the areas that laid compressed on the bobbin too long, evening out the weight of the yarn and balancing the ply.

I haven't set the twist yet because our pipes were frozen this morning. The pipes are now un-frozen (three cheers for indoor plumbing!!) thanks to slightly warmer temps, working heat tape, and a father and a BIL that trekked out to the pump-house to MAKE it work. But the window of opportunity has passed and I'll have to wait to set the twist until later this evening.

Over the last few months I developed a serious case of startitis that was threatening to become chronic.

I didn't even bring a project with me on my trip - is that crazy or what? And while I deeply enjoyed the yarn store in Edinburgh, I found myself preferring to help others more than purchasing yarn myself. (of course the recent purchase of an expensive plane ticket and the terrible exchange rate from earlier this summer might have helped to stave off the yarn buying temptations... with the current exchange rate I'm not sure I would have been as misguided strong)

It's been awhile since I've knitted something I felt REALLY good about and REALLY enjoyed knitting. It's also been awhile since I chose a pattern to just sit and knit up - lately it's been mostly designing and editing. Maybe that's why I was losing interest and turning more to my weaving?

About a week ago I decided that I really wanted to knit something and at the encouragement of my mother, I decided that something warm and bright for winter might be just in order for my Secret Sister gift I needed last Tuesday.

Going to the stash we dug up some "Sleeping Dragon Yarn" it's a merino sock yarn that my mom had acquired in a yarn swap or stash buster sometime ago. It's in lovely bright pinks, oranges and yellows, but as it wasn't superwash it hadn't been used yet (Both mom and I prefer superwash for socks, so that the bottoms don't threaten to felt, and they can be dropped in the Washing machine.)

Once I selected the yarn and decided to make mittens for the elderly woman who is my secret sister, I went over to
Ravelry to find a pattern.

Of course when I go looking for one thing, I'm bound to stumble on something else that would be so much better, first I saw some adorable lace gloves in a nice oldfashioned lace pattern, and then I spotted the Knotty Gloves of course with my terrible soft spot for cables and I couldn't resist these. After finishing them and lightly blocking them, they just finished drying in time to wrap for the party Tuesday evening!

The weekend before Thanksgiving was the second and last day of our annual Spinner's and Weaver's guild show-and-sale! It always goes very well with little left over in the end. We started with around 65 rugs, and ended with 13 or 14. Our dishtowel table that began with the towels pushing and shoving each other just to get a peek out from the bottom of the pile, was to the point of spreading the towels as thin as possible just to make it look like we still had a few!

Here's a photo of our room after the first day - though we'd already sold many of our rugs and dishtowels and were starting to spread things out to fill empty spots.

I put out 15 towels and came home with only 2, one of those two was put out in the last 2 hours of the sale. The other was marked as a 'table runner' for the majority of the sale. There were so many people that saw it, and said "Oh that's pretty... but it's a table runner...", despite the fact that it's ALSO 100% cotton, the same color, and texture as the dishtowel and only 4" longer, for some reason just because it was declared a 'table runner' that's what it MUST be, and couldn't possibly be used for ANYTHING else.

All in all I sold 13 dishtowels and a Christmas ornament. And now have money for some Christmas presents! (and more yarn!!)

Above is almost everything I put out at the sale, there was one more dishcloth that I decided to put out after the photo was taken. My workmanship wasn't quite up to my preferred standards, but the ones like it went SO fast and were SO well liked I figured someone might like to have it more than they cared that one border didn't quite match the other (it was a little shorter than the other from being woven tighter).

It most like the navy and white dishtowel in this photo:

Except instead of white bands on the border it had red bands.
These were done for our guild's color and weave challenge this year.

I made enough money to buy some Christmas presents - which was good since I didn't have a lot of time to MAKE them this year! (dishtowels don't work for everybody ;-) ) Of course once you see all the the lovely items for sale there's not always much left of your earnings by time the sale's over... This year I resisted temptation, well... mostly...

Next year I intend to have some blankets and rugs woven. The blankets will be a 'big ticket' item which will hopefully bring in more money for the number of hours spent weaving.

On the knitting front, I knitted 4 little Christmas ornaments using the knitted and felted ornaments and garland for my pattern. I went down to a size 2 needle and knitted it on sport weight yarn (patons "brilliant"), I played with some beading on them and didn't really know what design I would knit onto them until I cast on, and didn't use any patterns for the designs. It was the seat-of-the-pants method that I'm all too well acquainted with.

I was pleased with how they came out. My dad has already hung the 3 I had left around the house - the first of our Christmas decorating.

I feel so festive now.