In other January news, our regional spin retreat met at Lindenwood the final weekend of January. I brought a challenge project: 3.4 pounds of llama/merino fiber I had processed last summer.
Admittedly, I was intimidated by the amount of fiber, and wondered if and when I could ever get through it. Spin retreat was a great place to try, but it was so hard! There were so many distractions with lovely braids and bumps of yummy fiber. After my first bobbin was filled, I longed to spin anything else.
Singles on the mother lode
By the time I left, I had two bobbins completely filled and had started in on another. By the end of the week, I had four filled and started plying during the Super Bowl.
a lovely three-ply
I now have four skeins of approximately 600 yards triple plied, AND I'm really happy with it!
Then, in December, I got back my King's Road Cowl that appeared in Fall 2017 Love of Knitting. Great time of year to get it back! I've been wearing it a lot, and I like it.
King's Road Cowl I designed for Love of Knitting magazine, Fall 2017
My eldest came home for Thanksgiving, too! He's a freshman at University, and I've really missed him.
There's very little I can knit for him that he will wear. He doesn't wear many sweaters and is pretty much a minimalist. So, when he started speaking rhapsodies about The Last Jedi movie, and I saw this project on Ravelry, I cast on immediately.
This is The Star Wars Double Knit Scarf on Ravelry by Jessica Goddard. She knit the scarf and has the charts on the link, but doesn't teach how to do double knit.
Behind the neck is my favorite part: the Death Star and the Millenium Falcon
Well, I thought I had double knit color work. I have done double knit, and even designed a project that incorporated double knit with increases and decreases. I've also knit brioche, but I guess I've never done double knit color work. What a time consuming project! I calculated that each of the 85 inches took an hour to do.
I added his name on the end, to stave off thieves, and added the words behind the drones (someone else had already charted the drones -- it's not in the original charts).
Well, I had wanted to finish it by the time he went back to University of Nebraska, but I didn't. I mailed it the next week.
I spent much of November avoiding knitting and delving into new needlework worlds. I took a lesson in smocking and another lesson in bobbin lace, built my own bobbin lace pillow and started practicing.
Sweet, smocked baby bonnet
Embryonic Bobbin lace pillow
Completed Bobbin lace pillow. Woo! Woo!
Bobbin lace paraphernalia
Laura's first bobbin lace
I also tackled a 20-year-old cross stitch I had begun while I was pregnant with my first born. I think. I can't even remember. What I do remember is that I was drawn to the Delft-blue tones in this stitched Christmas plate.
I did all the blue-toned trees, the man dragging the Christmas tree, and the little cottage in the woods. Only then, did I realize, I was supposed to cross-stitch all the white snow on the white Aida cloth. This is an older counted cross-stitch design, so I guess I should just be thankful there wasn't 20 different white colored threads in the snow.
Yuck. White on white.
In any case, I packed it up and stuck it in a closet. Later, I stuck it in a BOX in a closet. But, each Christmas I would spend seconds thinking about it and wondering if I should dig it out.
This year I did. And, I finished it in two or three weeks. And, I got tendonitis in my right thumb as a present from the effort.
Was it worth it? I don't know. Ask me after my Occupational Therapy appointment tomorrow.
