Confessions of Fidgety Fingers

The fiber fun continues. I have finished the fingerless mittens. I think they would have looked nicer in a yarn with more of a sheen, as I feel this would show off the twists for the faux cables. The sweater jacket for my wife is coming along. I have about nine inches of the body knitted. I hope that I have enough yarn. This is a new pattern, and I initally had to restart as using one strand was too light and wouldn't weigh enough, so now I'm using two strands. The yarn in the pictures is actually lighter than the actual color. The yarn is actually a dark teal. My next project is a pair of mittens for my great aunt-in-law. They are cabled, and the first of the many Christmas presents for this year. I'm hoping to not be knitting every spare minute in November and December this year, so I'm starting early in my holiday knitting. Since my last posting, my wife and I participated in a community yard sale. It was nice and relaxing. We sold a whopping $3.00 of stuf...

There have been a lot of things going on since my last posting. I forgot to put in my last post that I have gotten yet another book on knitting. I received "Cables Untangled: An Exploration of Cable Knitting" by Melissa Leapman. I had seen this in the book store before, but had decided not to buy it then. I had really liked the cable sampler afghan/blanket. It is in my Ravlery queue, but I know I have some other knitting to complete before I can start that. Two weekends ago (April 26) my wife and I had a yard sale to help fund raise for the breast cancer walks that we do. The yard sale was fairly successful. We earned over $900. There was a few issues with the weather. We had a downpour just after lunch, and then a nice rain storm as we had closed up and were packing up. We would have not been able to do as well, if it was for the help from a good friend of ours, and her son. I'm slowly making progress on my two knitting projects. I have almost finished one of t...

Well it was a productive weekend, fiberwise. On Saturday, I bound off my sampler scarf, and weaved in the few ends I had. Once that was done, I finished off the kumihimo braid I was working on, and wrapped the end. I measured it, and I have a total of 17 feet. This should get me about 8 necklace cords, which isn't too bad. Since I had finished projects, that means I need new projects. After pondering the items I had queued in ravelry, and came up with a sweater coat for my wife, and "wristers" (think fingerless mittens) for me.

It has been a good weekend for me. My wife and I went to coronation. In the medieval recreation group, we change kings every six months. This isn't true for all kingdoms, but it is for the kingdom in which I'm currently living. During the second court of the new king and queen, I took over the position of Kingdom Waterbearer. It is now my responsibility to make sure that there is water, and other refreshments available to the fighters at all kingdom level events. I will also be asked to help with providing this service to many other events. The other good thing that happened is that I had gotten a late birthday check from my in-laws. I bought two things with the check. One is a new knitting needle set . The wood is so pretty. I can't wait to cast on a new project and use them.

I'm slowly making progress on my scarf. I have finished the first skein of yarn, and if I'm only doing three repeats of the patterns, then I'm on my last repeat. Once I get through this repeat, then I will test the length, and see if it is going to be long enough. I had my kumihimo class. It didn't go as well as I was hoping, but it was a learning experience. I have picked up a few things that I will want to do for the next time. The discs I made for the class were a bit rough, and I'm sure I can improve the quality of the discs, with a few simple changes in the process of making the discs, and in the tools that I used. I was using embroidery floss for the strands of fiber, and I had them wound on the paperboard floss bobbins. Even though it will cost more, I really think that if I provided EZ-bobbins instead, then a lot of the issues with tangling fibers will be solved. I also know that if I had given myself more time in prep, and had set up the first braid ...

I can't believe that it has been over a month since I last posted. Unfortunately I can't say I have gotten a lot done in that time. I did finish the glove-mittens for my wife. She has used them during several mornings in February and a couple in early March. My only issue with the pattern is that I think the pinkie is a little tight. I think this can be fixed by adding a stitch, at most two to the pinky, and therefore the whole hand. I'm still working on my scarf. I would have more of it done, but it is still my away from home project, so I get any where from one to five hours of work on it a week. I have been using my home time to work on a class I will be teaching for my local SCA group on kumihimo . This has been good, because it has gotten my butt in gear on a project I have been meaning to do for a while. I mention in a posting back on September 23, 2007 that my wife and I had gotten an award called the Red Raven. We received them on elastic cording. I have ...

It has been a while since I have posted. I would like to say that it is completely because I'm too busy, but I have been rather lazy about posting. I did receive the book of 25 sock designs by Interweave press. Several of them look wonderful, but I have yet to even cast on a sock yet. I have one of my wife's glove-mitts done, and it is looking pretty nice. She had picked a wedgewood colored yarn with dark blue, white and red flecks. It knits up quite nicely. I'm also working on a scarf for me. It is a sampler scarf with four patters (basket weave, sugar cubes, seed and divided square). It is in a gray, slightly, shiny yarn. It is coming a long nicely, as I'm in to my second of four sets of the pattern. The directions call for three pattern sets, but I think I will want it longer than that. After I'm finished these items, I'm going to start on my wife's sweater jacket. I have started this twice already, but I think the pattern is bit beyond me at th...