A belated bloggiversary...my blog is two! My first entry was Feb 17, 2004 so I'm a few days late, but hey, that's how my blog's been going these days. I'm so behind in writing about my projects and posting pictures.
I had an exhausting, but fun, weekend at Stitches West 2006. It was wonderful to meet up with some local knitters whom I've gotten to know through a sewing meetup. I'm usually by myself at these knitting and sewing conventions so it was fun to see it from a different perspective and get some suggestions and ideas on yarn to buy. And buy I did. I bought two skeins of Socks that Rock from Blue Moon Fiber Arts, 3 hanks of Primero from Brooks Farm (had bought two Thursday night and decided to go back and get one more on Saturday - bought the last hank, whew!), 50 grams of camel spun by Mongolian women from Nomad Yarns From Mongolia, bamboo from Habu, a hank of Italia Fingerpaints from Webs, some roving from Angora Cottage, a purse pattern and itty bitty size 000 Addis from Swallow hill Creations, and three patterns from White Lies Designs and one from Webs. I think that's it. Oh and I got some freebies from the banquet on Saturday night: one ball of Lily Chin's new yarn and a kit to make a teddy bear sweater (or two).
I also took classes on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday I learned a variety of cast-off techniques to make more interesting edges, and how to alter a sweater (lengthen or shorten) by cutting (eek!) and grafting. On Sunday I had an all-day class on finishing, which was too long. We learned different methods of joining and making buttonholes and she shared some info on blocking. I think next year I will not fill my entire weekend with classes, although I guess being in class kept me off the market floor.
I'm almost finished with the gift I'm knitting...yay. I've started on some cabled mittens from the Vogue Knitting to Go book Mittens and Gloves. It's a nice portable project. My goal is to have three knitting projects at a time: something small and portable, something easy that can be picked up and put down easily or worked on while watching TV, and something more challenging. I'm hoping to get back to my Elsebeth Lavold sweater as soon as the gift is completed. This sweater is ready to move into the easy phase (i.e., stockinette stitch) and then will get challenging again when I get to the cable motifs on the sleeves.
And I almost forgot...spinning! I'm going to a spinning party! The wonderful coordinator of our local knitting meetup is having a group of us over to her house for a spinning how-to/get-together. I'm ready. I have my wheel. I have some roving.
I haven't completely pushed my sewing out of the way. I picked up the unfinished Jalie polo shirt and made an alteration to the shoulder seam. I wanted to note the change on the traced off pattern, except I could not find it. Grrr. I have not been very good at keeping track of my traced off patterns. I do at least mark them with the name of the pattern, size, etc., but then they tend to get left on the cutting table, fall to the floor, or they find their way to the guest room bed (next to the cutting table) and promptly get lost among the piles of stuff. They go anywhere but the pattern envelope, where they belong. Bad.
So my blog is two. I've enjoyed having this forum to write about what I'm doing. I know my mom reads it (hi mom!) so it's a nice way to show her what I'm working on. Actually I've been blogging, in a sense, since 1997. It was then that I started a web page on geocities and when having a personal website was a novel idea. I began to keep a journal to let my family and friends know what we were up to. At first I updated the journal almost weekly and then...well, not so much. I think the last entry was in 2003. So when I stumbled upon some knitters' blogs two years ago, I thought I'd pick up the keyboard once again and do some writing. I don't blog as much as I'd like to, but I'm glad that I have this outlet and can meet other knitters and sewers in the process. I also like that the blog serves as a record of what I've made. I don't know how long I will continue to do this, but I hope blogspot doesn't go away before then. I guess I should also think about saving this blog in some sort of hard copy...just in case.
