Results Are In!

Just a quick recap before my house wakes up and gets crazy:

1. Notifications are mailed out on whether or not my items entered in the NYS Fair placed.

Boo-Yaa!  All 5 entries were accepted and I received 2nd place for lace, 4th for afghan and honorable mentions for knitted accessory and my 2 handspun submissions!  I am so pleased.

2. Notifications are emailed out on whether or not I got in to the 2012 Knitter's Review Retreat

Boo-Yaa (#2)!  At 9:27 pm last night I got word that I have a confirmed spot at this year's retreat!  I will be taking Mary Scott Huff's Sassy Selbu Mittens workshop and Sivia Harding's Design Your Own Sideways-Knit Shawlette workshop. I'm very excited for this but a little nervous too because I've never been to this retreat before.



3. The August pattern for the Fall in Full Color knitspot subscription club is released

Without spoiling too much this month's release is pretty damn cool.  The pattern will eventually be shared here and the yarn is perfect for someone in my family.  I've already got it set aside as future gift knitting.



4. My husband flies home after a week long business trip in Texas

He got in about 10 minutes late but no complaints here.  It's great to have him back and no work trips for a while.

5. Family that I haven't seen in forever are getting in late Friday night

They made it here with no issues other than running into a butt-load (yes, that's a technical term) of construction traffic.  So glad to be able to spend time with them this week.


6. It's my last day of work before a week long vacation

Ahhh.  9 days of no work.  I am so loving this already!


 Last night I went to bed thinking about everything that happened in one day.  It was just an amazing day and I am so thankful.  

One Day To Go

There is so much happening tomorrow, August 17th:

1. Notifications are mailed out on whether or not my items entered in the NYS Fair placed.
2. Notifications are emailed out on whether or not I got in to the 2012 Knitter's Review Retreat
3. The August pattern for the Fall in Full Color knitspot subscription club is released
4. My husband flies home after a week long business trip in Texas
5. Family that I haven't seen in forever are getting in late Friday night
6. It's my last day of work before a week long vacation

I am going to distract myself by diving into work during the day and getting back to work on the final parts of the cardigan tonight.  The problem is I keep getting further distracted by gorgeous yarn that came home with me yesterday:

That amazing yarn is going to eventually become a Spiral Blanket of Awesomeness and I'm just itching to get started!  I can understand why people come down with cases of start-itus.  I am so there.  Thankfully my To Do list is shouting at me louder with due dates so . . . first finish the cardigan, knit up some mitts, then I can dive into spiral blanket of awesomeness.  It's so hard being responsible.

Deadlines Force Progress

Will all of the event based crafting behind me I'm now able to focus on some of my deadline projects.  I loved how Tour de Fleece and Ravellenics are so goal orientated and let me focus solely on what I want to do because for most of the year I'm working on my To Do list.  My list is completely organic and as soon as I cross a few items off I usually re-write the list again.  It's not a looming thing, it's an organizational thing.  There is just so much I want to knit and spin that if I didn't have a list to refer to I would become very overwhelmed.  The best part is that I already have all of my Christmas knitting projects done.  Boo-yaa!

After taking Sandi Wiseheart's class on knitting sweaters that fit at the retreat in March my big goal for this year was to do exactly that.  My Mom was a willing participant and has allowed me to measure her several times throughout this process.  We picked out the cardigan pattern together and shopped for the yarn during the Yarn Cupboard's Black Friday sale last year.  Here birthday is September 3rd and I should have plenty of time to get it done by then.  I've got all the pieces done and they're blocking/drying on my spare bed right now:

It's taking a while to dry and while I could have probably just thrown it in the dryer for a few minutes I decided to let it lay so I could knit another small project:

While I was waiting for my Ravellenics medals I read the description for the "single skein sprint" and realized that I had too much yarn leftover to really qualify for it.  I weighed the first hat and then my leftover yarn so I could make sure I had enough for a second hat.  I had more than enough so I made a matching hat for my husband by adding 2 stitches to each DPN and an extra pattern repeat.  I had only a yard or two of yarn left so I feel much better now about the whole thing.






Tonight while my cardigan pieces are still drying I'm planning to spin some alpaca on my wheel.  I haven't had a whole lot of luck with alpaca in the past so this is definitely going to be a learning experience for me and an exercise in patience!

Ravellenics Gold

I still can't believe I finished but here's a wrap up on my 2 projects for Ravellenics.

Will's Orange Hat

This is yarn that my son picked out in person at the Yarn Cupboard.  He said he wanted a hat with "swirlies" so I tried to find the best pattern possible.  None were perfect so I picked one for inspiration and just made up my own.  He loved it and now my husband wants one for himself using the leftover yarn:

For this project I received gold medals for the following events:

Squall

This was the January 2012 shipment for the Fall in Full Color Knitspot subscription club and it's been sitting in my stash/queue for a while on purpose.  I couldn't decide if I wanted to trade a different month's yarn for another skein to make the larger size or just knit the shawlette with just the one skein I already had.  Finally it came down to what was easiest: knit it up as is and mark it as done!

The cast on was rough and the first chart took forever to get through but after that I was flying.  I finished up my knitting at 10:30 pm and decided to wait until the next day to do the cast off.  It was tricky so I needed good lighting and full concentration to make sure it looked right.  Super happy that I did that because the final piece is just right.

For this project I received gold medals for the following events:

That's it for challenge knitting for me for this year.  I'm pleased with my efforts but I'm looking forward to regular knitting and spinning for a while.  I have a few deadlines to work with but I should be just fine.

Finish Line In Sight

As of last night, I have 60 rows left until I'm finished knitting my squall for Ravellenics.  That makes 10 rows per day, blocking on Saturday then final pictures on Sunday.  I can do this!

That's my progress as of Friday morning.  I knit for on and off throughout the day on Saturday and I'm now in the middle of the first body chart.  I've passed the point where each row felt like it took 30 minutes and now I'm flying!  I can't even imagine knitting an adult sweater for Ravellenics unless I took the entire time off from work and knit 10 hours a day.  That's just crazy-pants!

Today we're supposed to get rain for most the day so my plan is to finish my son's hat and then work on squall some more.  Here's 4 rows of his hat:

This is also a Ravellenics project but it's super quick so I'm in no rush here.  I'm not even sure if it will fit yet.  I could probably knit the hat, have him try it on, rip it out and knit it again within an hour or two.  That's the beauty of crazy thick yarn!

Ravellenics Project

This is the first year that I'm participating in Ravellenics and I am not sure if I'm going to medal.  I gave myself a good challenge with knitting Squall out of New Hue Handspuns yarn that I received for the January 2012 shipment for the Fall in Full Color Knitspot subscription club:

In 4 nights of knitting I've got about 20 rows done.  The good news is that it's all decreasing from here after the 305 stitch cast on but I'm not sure if I have enough time to finish.  It's definitely not mindless knitting. 

As a side note, I got the single yarn option for the FIFC 2011 club, the double yarn option for her Bare Naked Club and the single yarn option for the FIFC 2012 club.  That means I'll be getting shipments each month until January of next year.  My plan for next year is to still do the clubs but just as pattern only so that I can use stash yarn and my handspun each month.


While shopping at the Yarn Cupboard this past Saturday my son fell in love with some bright orange Burly Spun yarn from Brown Sheep.  The gauge is about 2 stitches to the inch so I had some difficulty finding a pattern that would work.  I ended up using a basic cabled hat for inspiration and I'm making it up as I go.  My son has a large head so the adult small size should be perfect for him.  I'll post pictures as soon as it's done.  This was a last minute addition to my Ravellenics projects but I should be able to finish it very quickly.