Fiber Friday

So, when I thought about posting something today, I had some really great ideas... but now as the day has progressed, I completely lost it! And you know what "they" say... if you can't remember it, it probably wasn't important. But is anything I blog about terribly important? Hypothetical.

How about some pictures!

Ok, first order of business... MUST get rid of all projects that have not seen the light of day in over 3 months. By getting rid of, I mean, unwinding them back into balls, and putting them back into the stash bin until they find a new object to become.

Exhibit A:



Exhibit B:



Now...that's what I call quick and easy spring cleaning :D
Sad to have to unwind all this mess, but even sadder to let good yarn go to waste on something I'm not satisfied with or am bored of knitting on.

I got a nice fiber package on Wednesday!!! Yay packages.
Nothing super fancy (this time around), but everything was practical and purchased for specific projects, which, in the past, I had a bad habit of not doing. Total rookie move. Who hasn't done this? :D

I decided that since I was off today, that I'd just do what I normally would do to relax ... wind yarn cakes! hahahaa Kidding?

Here's my layout for a relaxing fiber afternoon - some yarn, my laptop, my mp3 player (loaded with the latest knitting podcasts) hahaaaa, my cell phone, my planner (not usually, but I was doing my time sheet today), some grub, a cold beverage, a book/magazine (which I never get around to reading outside with all the hundred other things I've brought outside!), and a couple of knitting projects.



Here's the box of bootie:
I like how it looks like someone drop-kicked my box! No respect, I tell you! :P



The first project I'm going to work on [after my vintage sweater of course *wink, wink*] is going to be an Elizabeth Zimmerman Raglan sweater. So I purchased some Cascade Ecological Wool for this future project because you get a lot of bang for your buck. I won't link you, cause this stuff is easy to find. I'll probably only link to the small indie folks.

I still can't believe the yardage on this stuff *gasping for air* Sheesh!



And the finished yarn cake-



Oh, and a quick shout-out to my ever so crafty husband. He made the little skein holder thing-a-ma-bob that I'm too lazy to look up the official name for. He pieced this together earlier in the year for me, and I just got around to starting to use it again, after a few malfunctions hahaaaa

This DEFINITELY came in handy winding these monstrosities! It really gets the job done :) And totally made winding this yarn up a breeze.



Needless to say, after winding all this up, I was totally over this "relaxing" process hahahaaa My arm felt like it was about to fall off!

Here's two more hanks that I got to as well because they were small-
This color is gorgeous! It's "Mahogany Mix" Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine in freakin' DK weight... I'm totally a glutton for punishment. I have a hat in mind for this ;)



Ok, enough of that.
Now onto what I've actually been working on!

So these are the infamous "Dashing" men's fingerless gloves from Knitty (I forgot which issue). These are for my hubby (but I can also fit them!). I told him ages ago that I'd make him something, and now I've finally gotten around to it. I've only been knitting for about 2 yrs, give me a break!

One down, one to go. The yellow thread on the side of the finished mitt is for a future thumb hole. I'm going to knit them both around the same time.



Here is a closer zoom in on the yarn I used and the nice cable action that is going on.

For these mitts, I'm using 1 skein of  nice, scratchy Tahki Donegal Tweed. It's rrreeeaaallllyyy nice :) I have another skein of this for myself in yellow that I bought over a year ago. I plan on making myself some fingerless gloves (maybe this pattern) or a hat with it after this is done.



And since we are on this close-up, let me point out these little lifesavers. The little purple tube that is attached to the other mitt is fan-freakin-tastic. They are dpn (double point needle) protectors, purchased from Knit Picks, but I think they are also available from Nancy's Knit Knacks.

And this is how it works-
Pop off the end...



Pop off the other end...



And there you go! All your needles still in their place! *phew*



I'm also still working on the Lady's Panelled Effect Jumper. I knit on that outside in the daylight, because the yarn is dark, tiny, and hard to see inside our poorly lit house! I also need to be totally w/out distractions when I work on it because there is a lot of counting going on. The pattern is easy, it's just also very easy to forget where you are! If you look at my sweater, you'll see it littered with stitch markers. If I didn't do that, there would be no way *sigh* The pattern is also not particularly easy to memorize, so pooh!

Anyway... so that is it for now!
Happy weekend :D