Project Updates, An "Awwww" and The Yarn Farm

We'll start with the "awww" portion of this post. Remember the toddler poncho I made for Miss Emily Juckes' first birthday. Well I got pics of her modelling it as she ventured out for pumpkins. Could she be any cuter?! That's mom's arm in the back so Miss Emily doesn't fall off the pumpkin wagon! And while this pic is too cute....







This one shows the poncho better. Yes Emily, I love the great pumpkin too.





As a follow up to the spinners retreat weekend, here is the MacAusland yarn I bought as it drys after being washed in dish soap and spun it in the washing machine. It made a huge difference! But now I have a yarn farm going on in my bathroom downstairs. And this is only half of it!








Now on to projects. There is lots on the go around here. Tim is away in China for 2 weeks so my knitting and spinning projects have taken over the house. Well that and I'm procrastinating. I am giving the dogs their fall grooming special. It's taken me 3 days. Day one was brushing, day two was baths and today is day three and they will get their haircuts. Here they are after their baths. I'm trying to get them to lay in the sun to dry out. Speaking of cute...

Okay on to projects. I felted the purse for my aunt made out of the Bernat Felting Natural Wool. It felted up with one run through the agitation cycle on my washer set to heavy duty. I just checked it then let it run through the rinse and spin cycles. I love it but found out my aunt wanted beige but then I talked to another aunt and now it's going to be for yet another aunt. Anyway, one more gift done. I think I'm going to sew in a zipper. It really makes it functional.

While at the spinning retreat what little knitting I did was on another pair of cable booties. These are for a friend. I made the cuff a little longer, doing 4 repeats of the pattern instead of just 2. I knew I could do this because I had yarn leftover the from the last pair I made. I use Knitpicks Wool of the Andes for this and it knits up really nicely.

Still working on the heat wave sock. The young lady I'm making these for has a size 10 foot. I knew she had larger feet so I only did 3 repeats of the pattern for the cuff so I'd be sure to have enough yarn. I love this pattern! I'm using Knitpicks Dancing Yarn for this project.

I'm also still working on the scarf for my nan and I'm really happy with how it is turning out. But I do have to be really focused when I knit it. I'm using Knitpicks Palette yarn and the pattern is Branching Out. It's a great pattern to start trying out lacy projects.
I also have at least 2 other UFOs that are for Christmas. I'll show them when I'm done. So as if all this wasn't enough, on Monday it was so freakin' cold that I nearly froze my hands off when I went outside with the dogs. So I wondered if I could quickly knit myself a pair of Fetching Fingerless Gloves. Now you may be saying to yourself, "CJ, are you insane?!" but wait, I have a rationale for this insanity. See I'm debating what to do for my niece and my friends daughter, ages 14 and 15. So I thought I'd see how quick these knit up and if they were quick then I'd do them each a pair with a matching hat and maybe even a scarf. I have some great fun fuzzy yarn I got from Granny Tan when she did some destashing. So it really was a test project. They do knit up super fast. I'm almost done the second one, just about 20 - 30 minutes more and I'll be done. I did these in a cotton thinking it would be good to wear when I'm knitting with wool and I had a chill... See, lots of good reason to have cast these on!

Happy knitting and spinning everyone!