Desperate Measures, Desperate Times

Well, there's no good excuse for neglecting my blog for so long, but I'll put it down to grief, combined with the holidays. Since I'm a glass artist by trade, the holiday season is my busiest, and I often make about half of my annual income between October and the end of December. Combine that with the fact that since Nancy and my mother died I've found it hard to do anything at all some days, and then the holidays, a tree full of family history...well. What with one thing and another, its a blur.

I'm embarrassed to say it, but not only didn't I post to my spinning blog for way too long, but I didn't even spin! In fact, the horrible truth is that I knit with commercial yarn, which I rarely do, and I knit my way into several good sized projects, and so now I've got a last sleeve of a sweater, a hood with attached scarf, and about 8 inches of a second sweater on the needles, and none of them hand spun! Desperate measures for desperate times. At least I did something fibery, right?

Finally, though, the fog is beginning to clear, and a new year is dawning. Along with it, hopefully, some clear spots between the moodiness, and some totally handmade projects on the needles!



First up, I'm continuing to work on these mittens; I cast on in the summer when Mom and Nancy were sick, using tiny, tiny needles, looking for something that was so absorbing that I couldn't think about other things while I knit it. Eventually I had to set it aside, as more pressing things took over. Its taken me a little while to be ready to face these again, but I love the process, and the pattern, and it really is nice to have something so absorbing, and cheerful. Plus, now I want to wear the mittens!

You can see the back of the mitten on the left, and the palm of the mitten on the right. I'm knitting them simultaneously, from both ends of the dark colored balls, and two matching rainbow balls. Quite a tangle! Lots of tiny needles! The beautiful rainbow alpaca yarn was a gift from my very talented Secret Pal, if you remember that One Skein exchange from awhile back. She blogs at http://www.froghollow.typepad.com .

Next up is an over-the-top yarn I spun a long time ago for a spinning contest and just got back about a week ago. I love the bright and crazy colors, so I cast on immediately for mittens for my goddaughter who is 7. She'll keel over in a fit of pink ecstasy when she sees the color!

I got this wacky yarn by combining two separate and equally high-spirited colorways; one ply from roving I had dyed in yellow-orange-pink progression, and the other in purple-magenta-pink progression. Then, in a fit of silliness, I plied them together.


It took me about an hour of looking at this yarn to decide to knit it up just as it is; I contemplated combining it with a second color, something dark and plain, or maybe light and fuzzy...but in the end, pure crazy won out.

I know; all this is from vintage spinning, nothing recent. That's true, but one thing at a time. At least I'm knitting hand spun yarn. And I'm starting to feel the urge to spin again, so presumably in the next week or so I'll have something to show for the irrepresible creative spirit, the healing of a little bit of time passing, and the new year arrriving, with all of its promise.