Okay, Enough already! I've been sick twice this season and that's two times too many! Whine whine. This time, my Dr actually had me off work from Wednesday till tomorrow, Monday. Guess he didn't like the temperature that I had or the way I sounded or looked. I'm just hoping that work managed okay since we are beyond tight when it comes to staffing.... I'm the only full time RN left.. the others are all prn and she and I are the ones who take call.. the others don't. Any way.......

Needless to say, spinning didn't get done and knitting was just barely finished today.

These are the socks that I just finished. CherryTree Hill sock yarn in River Run. Such a lovely blue/green combination. The flash actually made the colors a bit brighter than they really are which is typical of flash, unfortunately.

Next up, for taking with me, is a pair of red socks. I'm debating on whether to knit them out of yarn I got from Spirit-Trail that is in shades of red. The other yarn is Anne by Schaefer Yarns and it is in bright red, dark red, royal blue and black. HHuummmm.

My stay at home project is going to be a baby blanket for a friend's first Grandbaby. The color is a nice soft yellow in a washable wool. As for a pattern, I haven't quite decided yet. I have a pamphlet from Ann Norling and I've also had the book series by Barbara Walker, recommended as a great library of different stitch patterns so I can actually create one of my own.

Now, if I can just NOT get sick again! hehehe

This is my loaner wheel for my spinning class since I don't own a wheel of my own... yet. It's a Louet S75. Very nice wheel and it works smoothly. now as for the spinner ... hehe I'm still slowly getting things working.

If you look at the bobbin on the lower left you can see a bit of the first spinning wheel attempt. Lots of too much twist and not feeding the fiber through to the bobbin fast enough... then there is the smaller bit at the bottom of the bobbin... after talking to the instructor, I learned a slightly different way to work my hands and it worked. That bottom bit of yarn actually looks like a nice single ply. Not great but nice.

As for knitting, believe it or not, I only knitted one night this last week. I was too tired after work to do anything other than eat dinner, watch some TV and crash into bed. I'm getting the hang of things, I think. I need to find where things have been hidden/kept and continue to get things rearranged and set up where they can be found easily and continue to learn what the heck I'm supposed to be doing.

I'm totally off from work this weekend. It is fun not worrying about my pager going off or the phone ringing. After getting this note posted, it will be time to relax and knit on the second sock of this current pair.

What are you all up to?

Well.... my works is going totally crazy right now but my regular life is resting quietly like my spindle currently is against the back of my chair. All I can say is that I have some of the best co-workers a woman could ever ask for and we are all making things work amazingly well.

This is a picture of my very first spindle of yarn. Thick and thin and no where near perfect but an absolute blast to make. We received about 2 ounces of roving in class and I bought an additional 4 of medium gray. Nice price for practice since it was only $1.50 an ounce.

I don't think I'll ever knit anything out of the practice yarn since it is so imperfect but I definitely am enjoying this.

It's a little difficult getting your hands coordinated with keeping the spindle spinning and the yarn fibers pulling so I'm hoping that using a wheel will be easier since you will be able to keep the wheel moving with your foot/feet. I also need to remember to keep my hands further apart than I think they need to be due to the length of the actual fiber. I also need to figure out which hands wants to be the holder and which wants to be draw the fibers forward.... hhuummm... PRACTICE!!

Today, I saw the wheels we will be using next week. One is an Ashford Joy, another looks like an Ashford Traveler, and then there are two more Castle style wheels that I don't recognize the style of. We'll get to take our practice wheel home with us to practice on and then we switch with the other students... well, actually, 2 in the class have their own wheels so they might not be taking one of the class wheels home but they will get to try out the different ones.

As for knitting... First sock of the next pair is done and the second stock has been started. Real life has been very nasty and has kept me from my knitting time... working 10 hours, 18 hours, 10 hours, then a day off then another 10 hours on Friday. Sorta makes you too tired to actually pick up the needles. POUT

I did find out something interesting this am. When I went to get socks to wear... I'm wearing red slacks.... I realized that I had no hand knit socks in red! Fortunately, I have just purchased some lovely yarn from Spirit-Trail
Fiberworks. I bought the last of the red that she had and it arrived a few days ago. Absolutely lovely and it will be next up for my sock project. I definitely need some RED socks.


Thank heavens for my knitting and good friends.

Yup, pink, blue, gray and white. Another pair or socks out of Rellana's Flotte Socke. As you can see, my current addiction is making socks. They do work up fairly quickly and are small enough to carry easily wherever you go.

This pair is almost a perfect match in the striping. Looks like I might have been a row off starting around the gusset as one sock wound up without the few rounds of pink right at the tip. Oh well, that is hidden in my shoes so I'm happy with the way they turned out.

I wish I had taken a picture of the yarn before I started knitting with it. While we were driving back from our latest SCA camping event, we were making a pit stop for us and a fuel stop for the truck.... I left my knitting bag inside the truck with a sleeping Hu'an, my friend's 4 month old Irish Wolfhound Puppy. Needless to say, she didn't sleep while we were gone... she got into my knitting bag and took out this skein of yarn. hehehe She didn't chew through the yarn and it wasn't soggy so I must have caught her early but it definitely was a tangled mess. LOL Took me about 12 hours to untangle it and get it wound up into a center pull ball.

This weekend, I'll be on call at work so don't know how much knitting I'll get done. The following two weekends... wooohooooo, my spinning class starts! I'm really looking forward to it. I know... just what I need; another addiction. I don't have my own wheel but will be renting one for the class.

Now, back to knitting my next pair of socks....