My First Giveaway!!!!

Yay! The post I have been waiting for!

To celebrate having blogged for one year (on April 26th) I am having my first giveaway! It took me awhile to decide what to give away, and in the end I had a little bit of help on that! I thought this was a fitting color as it is spring right now. And who doesn't love green? This is a shawlette that I recently knit up. It is made out of 100% worsted weight wool. To be eligible to win this shawl please leave no more than one comment, as well as contact info, at the end of this post.

I included a lot of photos so you have a good idea of what it looks like. Approximate measurements are 45 1/2 by 20 1/2 inches.

Not only can it be worn as a shawl, but it can be worn as a headscarf too.

Another option is as kerchief around the neck.

And last but not least, a view of the shawl laid out flat.

The deadline to enter my giveaway is 12 Noon, May 4th, 2010. Check back to see if you are a winner!

p.s. Many thanks to my lovely model! Couldn't have done it w/out you! :)

Note: This giveaway is now closed. Thanks to all who entered!

Spring Splendors 2

Catching Up

Hello everyone! No, I did not fall off the face of the earth. It has just been a hectic few weeks. My elder brother was married this past Friday! Mother and I sewed all the dresses for the gals in our family ( I think I might have mentioned that in an earlier post ). So we have been up to our necks in yards and yards of satin.....

The wedding was beautiful! It went smoothly and was so lovely. I cried a bit. I'm excited to have another sister now!

Here are some pictures of my latest bit of spinning. I have not worked on spinning a whole lot since we have been so busy. This batt here is a combination of merino/angora/angelica, and I do not know what else! My aunt bought it last summer at a Fiber Festival.

I know there are a few too many pictures of just my spindle here, but I couldn't decide which ones to cull. I liked them all. I did leave one out....

There are little bits of blue, turquoise, & purple, thread in here as well. I am trying to spin it up as thin as possible since I do not have a whole lot of the batt. We'll see what kind of yardage I come up with. Since I am drafting so fine, I find that I am having to spin it very fast otherwise my thread keeps breaking.

This morning while out and about we stopped at the gas station ten minutes or so from our house. The property out back of the station is owned by the farm next door. And it was chock full of sheep! I have no idea what kind they are. We are hoping to stop by sometime and see if maybe we can watch them shear their sheep.

About a month and a half back the sheep all had their lambs. But apparently this little fellow was just born recently. Isn't he sweet?

Here he is wiped out on his side, taking a little rest. He was rather wobbly on his legs.

I snapped this shot because I liked seeing the mommas leading their lambs off to the barn.

On the home front everything is growing like crazy. We have had some rain, and also warmer-than-usual weather.

The apple mint is spreading all over the place. It used to be contained in an old metal washtub at the end of the flowerbed. Well, some years back it jumped out and is now making itself at home where ever it pleases. If you ever decide to plant apple mint please remember that it is a very invasive plant. Since there is so much I will probably clip a bunch soon and dry it for tea. Apple mint is also a very hardy plant. When we were given our first plant it was just leaves and roots, a sad looking little slip of a plant. Not even any dirt clinging to the roots. We put it in a pail of water outside and forgot about it for quite some time. But it hung on and even flourished, despite the neglect.

Here is some yarn that is waiting to be made into another shawlette. Cascade 220.

The aforesaid shawlette pattern, but in a different colorway. Cascade 220 Quatro.

Oh, I am excited to share these pictures with you! This is the yarn that I dyed while it was still in the roving state before spinning it up on my drop spindle! Isn't it lovely?

It is about a worsted weight. 316.25 yards! My personal record on a drop spindle right now.

I don't remember if I shared this yarn yet or not. I know I did put up pictures of it when it was still on the spindle. This is 295yards. Merino/silk. It was a dream to spin up, so smooth and it shone beautifully in the light.

We'll see what I end up making with all these yarns. I am mainly spinning because I love doing it, not because I need the yarn. I don't think I could ever keep up with my demand for yarn! Not unless I were to get a spinning wheel.

Well, progress for the Fiber Festival is coming along beautifully. Things were kind of put on hold over the last few weeks but now I am back at it. I have some felting to do today, as well as knitting. I did knit up a little project yesterday that I am very excited about. But it falls under the category of "secret knitting" so I can't show you what it is yet. Sorry about that. Stay posted. :) I also forgot to take pictures of the completed bags hat I was knitting for the wedding. I only ended up making two, but I think they turned out adorable.

That is it for now! Have a great day!

Spring Splendors

Daffodils on the table.

Daffodils in their natural setting.


Newly planted fields.

Baby Killdeer.

I think they were hungry.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to all! Today we visited the church of some old friends. We had not been there in years and it was delightful to be there. They were short a musician and a song leader so I was able to play the piano for the service, and Dad led the singing. It was a nice treat to play their piano as the church has a Yamaha upright baby grand. The message was good. I took lots of notes, I will have to review them this evening. I think we will be going back there for the evening service.

This is most of the knitting that I have been doing the last 4 weeks or so. They are shawlettes, I still need to block them all. Come May I will be participating in a Fiber Festival, Lord willing. I have been working on different projects for that. It has been a little difficult fitting in time for knitting as we have been doing a lot of sewing for my brother's upcoming wedding.

But once the wedding is over I should have about a month to get everything accomplished. I have ideas coming out of my head left and right. Every time I get a new idea I write it down on my list. Otherwise I am sure to forget everything. But back to the shawls. They are a quick knit if you have plenty of time on your hands to do some steady knitting.

Nice four layer cake, eh?

This picture here is the knitting I did last night and this afternoon. My elder brother will be getting married in less then two weeks. We are making all of our dresses and I thought it would be kind of special if each of us gals had an elegant knitted bag to carry a few necessary essentials to the wedding. This particular bag is from "Knitting Little Luxuries." by Louisa Harding. I had to modify it a great deal because it called for chunky yarn and mine was very bulky. The bag is far from finished. I just took a quick in progress picture. It needs to be embellished with several knitted flowers and mother of pearl buttons, as well as a velvet ribbon to draw it shut. I made two little bags last night while watching "The Pianist". The flower I knit this afternoon. The bag can be made in less than an hour, as can the flower. I have a different type of bag in mind for the older gals in the family. But I still need to get to our LYS to find some elegant yarn.

It is making me a little dizzy just thinking of everything that needs to be done in the next ten days!