A bit of progress

It's so difficult for me to maintain motivation when working on a large project such as a sweater. I've been working on the back on my trips lately and I'm getting very close to where I have to begin decreasing for the armholes.
I began the sleeves as a project to leave at home, since I'm doing both sleeves (and as such, 2 balls of yarn are hanging off it) on the same needle at once. I will admit, doing it this way is tedious but I think I'm more likely to get it done and do it right since I'm going at the same row on each sleeve at the same time. Then, when I'm done with these two, it's only the front and putting the sweater together that remains. :)

Seriously Yummy yarns

MMMMMMM...I unpacked some seriously yummy yarns from New Zealand today. This naturally colored oatmeal wool is asking to be an Aran or Gansey, I just will have to listen to hear exactly what! And I got some soft Possum and Merino blend yarn that will tell me what it needs and wants to be later on, I have 8 colors and they're so very soft. But my big question is: What do these two beauties want to be? If they were reskeined in a smaller skein size, they'd come out looking like Koigu...those sneeky Canadians make their yarn look random just by using a different skein size than the one that they used when they dyed the yarn. But that's ok, I still love it! This is really beautiful and I want to make something special from it so I'll even take suggestions! My first thought was a lacy stole or shawl, but I just don't know. I have enough to do pretty much anything. Any thoughts?

A FI / FO

I just love doing Fair Isle Knitting, and with the hat I finished, I finally feel a bit more confident about knitting two-handed. I really enjoyed working on this, although it ended up a bit too big for me (I did knit to gauge, too) so after I block it, if it's too large still, I might carefully give it a dryer ride to tighten it up just a bit. This pattern is the St. George Street Hat from "The Art of Fair Isle Knitting" from the Kendig Cottage store. I'm still working on the Aran sweater, I'm less than 2 inches from starting armhole decreases on the back and plan to start the sleeves on the same needle to work on at home (I've been taking the back with me when I fly to work on).

Lots of work, not enough knitting

The last week, I've been working an awful lot, 4 long days! I've been to Denver quite a number of times, Eagle (Colorado-where the pictures of the tower and airplane on the ramp were taken), Oklahoma City, and then back to Baltimore. Tomorrow I do it again, the 2nd day of this 2 day trip ends up being 17 hours start to finish with 4 legs and I'm just too tired to function the day after. These pictures don't do anything for the natural beauty of the region, when I took them there had been no snow for quite awhile, but this week they've had nearly 2 feet. I have gotten a bit of knitting done, I have about 12 inches done of hubby's sweater's back, and the Fair-Isle hat is nearing completion, but it's all been done in a blur of sleep deprivation. I'll try to get more pictures up next week as I only fly 2 days.

Ok, it's pretty, but I'd rather be warm

Or, for that matter, I'd rather be on a beach somewhere, or even in Fresno pruning roses and cleaning out gutters (lol). These pictures are what we awoke to this morning, I'd guess that there's nearly 2 feet of snow on our table out there on the deck. The other picture is leading out to the woods behind our house, very snowy and beautiful, but nonetheless, it's snow.
I've quite enjoyed the mild winter we've had so far this year and wasn't really ready for the rain to turn solid. Still, since our dance classes were cancelled for today there's nowhere we have to go until work tomorrow so it's a day to relax and not have to drive in this mess. Our street hasn't been plowed out yet anyway. It would be a perfect day to put on a pot of soup and have a cup of tea and sit watching the coldness outside while knitting, however I probably should get working on the taxes instead. Maybe I'll give myself rewards as I slog through the paperwork of getting to knit a couple of rows every so often. Knit on!

An Overdue Update

My apologies to everyone for being a bad blogger as of late...my schedule of work and business and other items that are going on in my life (dancing lessons and reenactment season starting which necessitates some wardrobe additions and adjustments since I'm not the same size as I was last fall) have pushed blogging to the background, I'm afraid. I've still been knitting, in fact, I have recently made my bedroom more knitting-friendly with the addition of a brighter lamp next to the bed. Now I can work on larger projects that aren't good for traveling in the evenings when I'm home.
I have managed to get a couple of small, traveling projects completed, this scarf is the hand spun corriedale that I showed as it was in progress earlier this past fall. The socks are made of Blue Face Leceister wool and are so very soft! I'm still allergic to wool on my skin so I have liners ready to go with them.

The latest projects to go on the needles are this Aran sweater for my dear husband. He picked out the yarn (yes, it's true, it isn't handspun..I didn't have the time to spin all the wool for this sweater which I wanted to start for him while it was still cold out.
This is my first attempt at cables and I have to tell you that I'm really enjoying it! It's slow going compared to some other kinds of knitting, but watching the pattern emerge row by row makes it all worthwhile. This is the back pictured, I'm maybe 1/4 done with the back section, so as you can see, I just started.This next project is a fair Isle hat that I'm doing as an experiment in color. I'm teaching myself to knit two-handed...and I'll tell you already that before I got the new lamp, I made a couple of chart-reading mistakes on the colors which are shaded very subtly on the chart. Now that I have sufficient light to be able to see, I'll get the hat going with the right color combinations. Of course, I'm doing it in my own colorways, they're a bit bright for my taste, but we'll have to see what it looks like when I'm done. I know that my DS likes funky hats, so I can always "gift" it to him if I don't like it.