Feeling of accomplishment!

I finished the exotic fiber project I'd been working on lately. I began knitting it after finishing the spinning of the buffalo yarn on Sunday. This "Andean style" headband pattern is on the Spin-off website shown there using Paco-vicuna. My own version is made from baby camel, white yak, and buffalo down, all of which I found to be "fragile" yarns which were prone to breaking during the plying process depending on the pressure put upon them. The pattern was pretty easy, I just love doing color work and watching the pattern emerge from the chart! I still have to weave in the ends and block it, but I wanted to get a picture of it finished since I hadn't reported any real progress in awhile. I did have quite a challenge at binding-off loosely enough to make it stretchy but not too loosely so that it won't stay on when worn. The headband is a little bit big anyway, although I did a swatch with camel, the buffalo seems to stretch much more and with giving a generous bit of yarn for the stranding, the headband seems to have grown. It's still so soft that I want to pet it, and I'm sure that it'll get a lot of use come winter! In fact, this pattern is so easy that I'm thinking about some Merino ones in various colors for gifts-maybe 2006 or 7.

Now to work on the mind-numbing garter stitch shawl. It bores me, but I need to work on it none the less. The amount of UFO's (unfinished objects) around here is staggering, and on top of it I have a full plate of paperwork to do today. I'm going to give myself rewards as I get the chores done...perhaps an hour of paperwork rewarded by making a bobbin of the sample wools. I'm actually up to 9 spun samples now, and every time I go into the basement I make myself card another one! Now I'm getting behind on combing and spinning. Oh, for 48 hour days and the need to sleep to be diminished!