Away and back again

Once again, it's far too long since my last blog post, but I have resolved now to do much better in the future. Resolved I tell you! The posts might get shorter, but they also just might get more interesting. As it is, I let things go for so long, and there is so much to write about and show photos of that I tend to rush thru without saying the things I want to say.

Things are moving right along with the knitting, although the spinning has been going along much more slowly, and the fibre preparation, despite the new drum carder, have almost ground to a halt. Not enough has been done to warrent photos. I've produced another few batts of the undyed grey corridale. Just more of the same, so it barely warrents a mention. I still haven't figured out what colour I'm going to go with. I'm actually considering leaving the majority of it grey, which would be a nice manly colour for Chris a vest or some such project, but then, given the interesting colours the grey wool produces, that just seems such a waste. I'm still deliberating.

I have managed to finish spinning up the fibre I got from "Kathy's Creations", which was a gorgeous colourway. I still need to ply it, and finish it of course, but the hard part is done. I spun it rather thin, but that doesn't really explain the time it took. I only worked on it a bit at a time, when my fingers were itching to spin, but just in short bursts and sometimes days apart. The knitting I've been doing has been the most time consuming thing going on. I could have had it finished much sooner had I not been in such a knitting frenzy lately.




Still, it's looking good so far. I plan to ply it up over the next few days, so it should be finished for the next blog post (the one I'm going to do SOON, remember?).

I finished the knitting part of the Bustaroony Cardi! Now for the dreaded stitching up. I haven't even started on that yet, even though I finished the final sleeve almost a week ago. With the weather getting cooler, it will provide some welcome warmth when I get it done. Added incentive...but man, I hate stitching up.

Having finished the Bustaroony, I had only the Salloon girl stockings left on the needles. With a bit of a holiday coming up, I had to get some other WIP's going. The first thing I did was drag the "Peace in the Hood" jacket out of hibernation. It had been in hibernation so long, I'd forgotten why I put it there. I think maybe because I needed to concentrate on my Christmas knitting, but I don't remember for sure. Unfortunately, I didn't write myself a note on Rav or even a date of when I put it in hibernation, so I'm only guessing here.

Anyway, I had made alot of progress on it. I had done the back, both fronts and both sleeves. I was at the point where I needed to start picking up stitches for the hoodie when we left for our short holiday over to Point Turton on the Yorke Peninsula here in South Australia. I got some knitting done on the hoodie there, and it looked like this on the day we left to come home:



After all the lace I've been doing lately (the shawl and the socks) and the intricate and constant textured/cabled work on the Bustaroony cardi, I found the knitting on the hoodie to be extremely dull, but it did make for excellent TV knitting, when I wanted to pay more attention to the show than to the knitting, so I mainly worked on it in the evenings when we were in the cabin watching the tele.

The Saloongirl stockings have probably gotten the bulk of my attention. I finished sock one, which is looking just great, and have moved right along on sock 2. I actually started sock two before finishing sock one, so that I wouldn't have to be starting it while on the road, and because sock one, when nearing completion, required me to transfer it off of the DPN's every few repeats to try them on, which was time consuming but necessary. However, it's not so convenient to be transferring needles and trying on socks on a road trip,so I wanted the second sock for times when I couldn't be doing the fiddly stuff.

But I did manage to get the first sock done except for the casting off part at the cabin, and was happy to have the second sock at the stage where I could take off and just start knitting. Here's another picture of the progress on the stockings right before we left for our trip home.





After getting home, I managed to get the casting off done on the first stocking:





(Please pardon the bad photos, but we haven't had much sun lately, requiring more indoor shots that just don't seem to have good lighting. Damn "save the planet" light bulbs don't help much with that.)

Which brings us to the "cigar" gloves, which I started right before the trip, and did manage to get quite a bit of work done on them. They are pretty easy, really, but require alot of 'waste yarn' to hold the stitches to be use later.

Here's the progress I made on the first glove during the trip:


Notice that I had put the pinky and thumb on waste yarn. But after I go home, I got the bright idea of using my Harmony needle cords to use as waste yarn instead, which worked out much better on the three middle fingers, and certainly sped up the process.






That first night after arriving home, I managed to finish the first glove, except for weaving in ends, but I haven't gotten a picture, and wil show that to you in the next post.

And of course, no post would be complete without a few holiday piccies.

Here's the lovely lighthouse at Corney Point, Yorke Peninsula, South Australia:


And a neat bit of rocky coast down the coastline south of Corney Point. The waves crash up onto the rocks, and a miniature waterfall is created when the tide is going out off of one of the rock shelves:



A picture of me standing over a beach near the cabin we stayed in in Point Turton:



And me standing near the rocky outcrop where the mini-waterfall is created (mentioned above). It's a beautiful and very secluded area.



A hazy sunrise from the varanda of the cabin we stayed in:



The rocks seen from the veranda of the cabin where we stayed. (Just sitting on the veranda and knitting was so enjoyable!!)



And of course, me knitting at a parking spot overlooking the beautiful western coastline of the boot at the foot of the Yorke Peninsula:



Hopefully, in the next blog entry, I will be able to at least show some progress made on finishing the Bustaroony, even if it is a bit optomistic to think I might actually have it done (remember, I'm dedicated to getting another post out SOON), more pictures of me using the new drum carder, and even some of the fibre I card in it actually spun up. I'd also love to have the spun merino from Kathy's Creations plyed. And I have tons of sewing to do for winter roundup, and would love to have the second "Saloongirl stocking" finished and ready to go, and in a perfect world, the "cigar" gloves as well.

Till next time :)