Sad

I've mentioned this before, but our house came with a cat, Sneaky.
Sneaky was always an indoor/outdoor kitty. We didn't change that when we moved into the house. He tended to take off for a couple days every fall. We always worried; he always came back.

Sneaky has been missing now for almost a week.

Very sad.

Like he said, prepping for Halloween

JoAnne Fabrics for yarn for fingerless gloves, fleece and felt; $26.00.
Blank truckers hat at meshhat.com to glue the felt cut outs onto; $14.00.
Prepping for Halloween (what my husband called this photo on Flickr) . . .

You guessed it.

Priceless.

The small one has been told (in advance) that no, he can't wear the costume to dinner.

Look at this mess - and some not mess

Here it is - I even spread it out a little bit so you can see what's under the piles. It's really quite the mountain.

And here's the finished spinning. 2 lb. of Gotland and 8 oz. of superfine alpaca. It's hard to take a good picture of black fibers, but I think you can get a sense of how soft this stuff is.
It also comes in chocolate brown . . . . mmmmmm earthtone vest.

Done with the alpaca

That 8 oz. spun up really quickly, and it's so soft and heavy! I love it. 8 oz. isn't enough to do much though.
And I'm too tired to take a darn picture of it tonight.
So now what?
Yeah, I'm looking at more colors for the next color spinning project.
I'm in love with Ruby Merino from Copper Moose. Purple Orchid is lovely too. Together, perhaps not so much, and I've already done that last year. Maybe 1/2 lb. the Ruby or the Purple Orchid as poison with Plum and Navy. Sadly, CM doesn't do 1/4 lb. and it's not in my nature (or within my closet constraints) to stash fleece. . .

What am I doing???
My knitting basket looks like the Knitting Muse barfed in it; I can't buy fleece. I must knit, I must conquer my Don Adams fear of that stupid stars jacket and finish some things.
Yeah, that's what I'll do.
I promise, tomorrow a snap of that completed spinning and my train wreck of a knitting basket. They say you can be a wonderful example or a terrible warning . . . I'm veering into terrible warning territory these days.
:)

Ash

Here's the uncut fleece for the vest - I'm just going to make it a pull over. We have a mesh hat on order and I have some felt to glue the design onto it. I've made the fingerless gloves already (as you can see below) and he'll wear jeans and sneakers and his backpack. I think we can get Piki to stay on his shoulder, maybe with pipe cleaners.
Now we just need a poke ball.

Finally some pictures

So, here's the tunic - if you click on this to get the larger image, you should be able to get a sense of the design.


Poor Yarn or Death (formerly the Mad Crocheter) - she's fighting the good fight with linen. I told her she might not be ready to work with such a non-cooperative fiber as linen, because despite all the needle changes the gauge is still wonky. I told her maybe to try a different stitch, like linen stitch (it must have that name for a reason, right?). I think that if she plays with the linen and does some swatching, she might get the final piece of understanding hand (fiber content + gauge + stitch pattern). I've promised to show her how to do linen stitch in person, because as she pointed out "I've seen it described and it STILL doesn't make sense to me". Like knitting with beads; I get that.
And this spinning - it's the super soft black alpaca. I only have 8 oz. so it should be spun and plied by the weekend.
And for final fun - I get to go to Jo-Anne's this weekend to start putting together this year's Halloween costume. Yup, you guessed it, Ash Ketchem. My wonderful spouse managed to talk him out of wanting to go as Pikachu, and man, that would have been a tough costume to make!

White with blue, looking for a new lace pattern

Maybe I'm inspired by the fact that it's dyed blue, but I like KnitPicks Candle Flame Scarf Pattern. Probably double the size and work the beads up the center of the flames.
Not really branching out, is it?

More bad snaps - think this will go with white?

I'm thinking of a shawl, probably Bare fingering weight in white. These blues make me think of the shadows on bright clean snow. I got 4 of the lighter and one of the darker - for the darkest parts of the shadows - and now I just have to find the right lace pattern. I'm tired of the pattern I've been using for the Matrix.
Feel free to shoot me lace ideas or arguments about the color choices. I'm in love with these beads - I'm such a poor photographer, I really can't do them justice. They're so lively for little pieces of glass. Very fun. Once they're in the piece I don't think the difference in the 2 colors will be as stark as it might look when they're in the tubes.

No, really, I'm still working on stuff

What a busy fall it's been and fall doesn't really start until the 22nd. Here's the Gotland - washing is a challenge, this stuff felts if you look at it funny! - and the Iron Matrix. Not a spectacular picture, but I'm more than 1/2 done.

So very slow

And no pictures either.
Sorry for the large dose of lame - I'm done spinning the Gotland, just going to ply it tonight and then set it. Almost halfway done with the Iron Matrix, everything else has been backseated for those. I sense that I'm close to cresting this project hill I've been on.

This weekend we made chicken tacos (fried chicken, lime/chili mayonese, lettuce and tomatos - it's really quite awesome) - my husband made up a great copy of this recipe from our favorite faux Mexican restaurant that involves not having to fry the chicken. The small one suggested that we put it on the internet for others to enjoy, maybe I'll do that sometime.