My sad neglected blog... & yarn winding (!)

Ahh....freedom. Today's the first day in over a month when I'm not doing the work of two people at my job. This means I have time for things like email, aim, and updating! Highlights of the last month's worth of knitting: I started and finally finished the pink keyhole scarf for my grandmother. More details will be coming, but let's just say I've been working on that since Christmas, but I always had trouble finding the motivation to finish. I've cast on for more projects than I care to mention right now, as I seem to be going through an extreme case of knitters ADD. I'm trying to make another Lelah but I can't find the perfect yarn. I put aside my Central Park Hoodie (no small feat, considering I'm a whopping 2 rows into it) to work on a mother's day gift for my mother, which will be completed in the next few days. Combining sewn elements with fulled knitting and needle felted embellishments, it's a true test of my craftiness. This is a knitting blog, after all. If it were a sewing blog, I wouldn't have the numerous wounds on my hands and fingers caused my sharp needles and too much force.

And now for some pics! As these are the only pics I have uploaded to my work computer, you're going to be treated to the laborious process I went through preparing some Valley Yarns yarn for knitting. I originally bought it in a big cone, meant for machine knitting. Since the whole thing only cost about $25, it was worth it. First I had to wash the yarn, to get the machine oil off it. I unwound the cone into three huge hanks and tied them off at intervals so they wouldn't get tangled. After a soak in my bathtub (new apartment! I finally have a bathtub!!) I hung it to dry, which took forever. Then came the winding. And winding. And winding. It took forever. Well, I should use the present tense there, actually, because at the time of this posting I still have one hank hanging in my hallway (it's a decoration, I swear!) because I can't bear the thought of winding it. I think I have about 15 variously sized balls right now.

Unfortunately, once I swatched with this yarn I realized it was the wrong yarn for the project I had in mind. I love this color, but it's definitely on the scratchy side (it's 100% wool). So I think I'm going to use it to make my first ever top-down raglan sweater, coming to a theatre near you....whenever I finish the many other WIPs I have going on right now.