Confessions of Fidgety Fingers

Well I have finished my first skein. I still have a lot of the roving to spin, but my first spindle got too full for me to spin any more. I Andean plied it. I think I may use it to knit a hot water bottle cozy. Before I get to the ugly pictures, I was out walking around the house and saw these crocuses. They are about a week and a half old now, but it has been really nice outside lately, and I couldn't resist the picture. So earlier this week I tried to step over a chair and struck my toe in it. I got a nasty bruise, but my wife and I don't think I broke it, it was still rather sore for that day. The first picture is what it looked like a few hours after I hit it, and the second picture is what it looked like the next day. We have five cats, so I figured I would introduce some of them. First is Dewi. She is the smallest of our cats, weighing in at only twelve pounds. Next is Hammie. He is the youngest of our fur-kids and quite often hyper. Pala is our fat kitty. She l...

My knitting has been progressing.  I have finished the red band that was in my last post, as well as the white band and I'm starting on a black band.  As I get further along  will take another picture.  I am about halfway through the broken rib scarf.  I have started another scarf, a 3x3 rib, that will be a Christmas present for a another extended family member. I was putting away some of my Christmas presents and found a book on spinning yarn that my wife gave me.  This got me to want to try my hand at spinning again.  I have taken a few classes in the past, so I grabbed one of my spindals and some roving that I bought many years back.  I'm still having some issues with a consistant thickness, but it should be some interesting yarn when I'm done.  I have no idea what I'm going to do with the yarn, but practice isn't a bad thing. I got my first freelance project done.  I was having trouble maing sure that I was working on the project effectively, so I started moving...

I was listening the the Cast On podcast today and she played a song that I liked called "Code Monkey" by Jonathan Coulton .  I find this musician very funny, but admittedly I have a rather twisted sense of humor.  Some of his other songs that I like are "Re: Your Brains", "Ikea", "Mandelbrot Set", "Bacteria" and "That Spells DNA".

I have gotten a bit done on the baby blanket for which I was commissioned.  It is turning out rather nicely I think.  It currently measures about 10.5 inches across, and the request was for it to be about 48 inches square. The other project that I'm working on is a scarf for a friend of the family.  It is the first present that I'm knitting for Christmas.   It is an early start, but I have a few small, easy travel knitting projects for Christmas presents, so I'm using them as filler knitting, when I have only short periods of time to knit.

It has gotten cold down here in Atlanta.  For the last two days we haven't gotten out of the mid 30's (F).  Thats has made me think of hot drinks that I enjoy.  I'm currently sitting with a nice hot cup of cocoa, but I just finished making some Spiced Tang Tea mix.  I didn't quite follow this recipie, as I looked at the spice rack and added in some allspice and cardimon. As I sip my plain hot cocoa, I'm wondering what I can add to spice it up.  I know I could add some flavored booze, or some cinnamon, or nutmeg.  I have to go looking and see what I can find for suggestions.

For those of you have who read this blog in the past, you may notice that I have added in ads to the right.  I'm not sure how I feel about them yet, so I'm going to play with it for a while and see what happens.

As promised the commissioned baby hat.

Many months back I decided I wanted to try Twitter . While I was working, and had things to say, I did good at posting my 140 or characters or less. Since then I created a Plurk account. I haven't been as good about posting to my Plurk account , as I don't have as many followers there. For those of you who don't know, microblogging is a way to just put a short, 140 character or less, posting to a site, where others can see what you are doing at the time. A few posts back I mentioned a baby hat and blanket that I was commissioned to do. I just finished the hat this weekend. I haven't taken the time to take pictures of it yet, but I will get a picture soon, and I will post it as soon as I do. I'm pretty happy with the hat. I started the blanket today. It will be concentric squares, starting with black, using narrow bands of white to separate the black and red sections.

My lovely wife bought me a takadai for Christmas.  OK actualy this is a Christmas, birthday, anniversary present combination.  It arrived shortly after Christmas, as FedEx wanted to hold on to it for a little while.  I haven't had a chance to warp it up yet, but as soon as I get a few projects taken care of, and figure out what i want to braid, I will have it warped up.  i ahven't taken any pictures of it, but she bought it from www.lucets.com .  You can find a picture of it here .

Well it has ben an interesting year.  There has been good moment and bad monents.  Overall I have to say that it was a good year.  I got several projects done, and learned new things.  I maybe out of work, but I had been wanting to leave that job anyway. I have been wanting to post thing for a while as I have finished the folowing items before christmas.  The last present I had to knit was a hot water bottle cozy for my wife.  It was done with a hand dyed worsted weight wool.  This project knitted up nicely, but the neck of it seems a bit long and a bit tight.  This is good to know, as I will be making another one for my great aunt in-law for Christmas 2009. Hammie looks so cute looking over the chair. The other project I knitted was a Checken Viking hat.  I have to say this is my least favorite item that I have knitted.  The overall size of it is good, but the earflaps are a little forward for me, as the back of them come to about the back of my ears.  The legs on the side are rather ...