Anybody lurking around still? 
Here’s what I’ve done for spinning:
This is blue merino roving that I bought from the Bendigo Wool show. I had 150g of it and managed to spin them into 2 bobbins of very fine singles- a great improvement from slubby thick/thin singles!
Then I plied them together:
Looks good no? I’m so proud of my first, non slubby handspun!
I wrote down the yardage but misplaced it (whats new?) and will have to reskein it to find out the yardage again. Grrr.
Now for pictures of little Chubbs who fell asleep at the table in Nad’s arms:
He’s into sucking his thumb nowadays and has been very interested in his toes/feet. He would grab on to them and stare at them while gurgling to himself! Very very cute.
And this is what I’ve been doing with myself these few days:
I’m designing some knitwear for kids! This is the first ‘sample’ I’m knitting up.
It took many days of planning and rough sketches before I sat down to start knitting this. (Actually, I was trying to finish a shawl as a gift to my neighbour for her wedding before I cast on *yet* another project.)
While writing this pattern this morning, I did the calculations and wrote everything down. BUT, had to rip back 3 times because I couldn’t get the stitch counts correct!
It was when I spoke to Lulu over msn that I realised that I had written;
8 x 8 = 48
on the very top of the pattern.
-__________-
And I am supposed to be one of the top students in maths class!
I must say, however, that I have new respect for all the knitwear designers out there who have amazing designs offered for free. It takes A LOT of patience and calculations to get stitch counts correct! To translate a design from a sketch on paper to a ‘real’ knitted garment takes a lot of brain juice and time. The generosity and ingenuity of these many designers warms my heart and I think one should never take free patterns (or even paid ones for that matter) for granted, let alone breaching copyrights and doing other despicable acts like selling them illegally etc. Doing such things will only discourage designers and jeopardise the availability of these free patterns.
I am trying to give back to this awesome community of knitters by coming up with these patterns which I hope will not cause me too much anguish and time to write. I might have to look for some test knitters but will advertise for it after I’ve knitted up a successful sample.
The yarn in this project is Malabrigo Merino Worsted, one of my favourite yarn (seeing how I’m selling it in my store). And the colourway is also one of my most favouritestestest – Oceanos.
I’ve been winding my skeins by hand into yarn balls instead of using the ballwinder to wind them into yarn cakes. Although I risk having the skein slipping from my knees while I catch falling children/ wipe their snotty noses/ die from a myocardial infarction, I still prefer the feel of a ball to a cake in my hands. If ya know wad I mean.
Besides, a yarn ball is harder and I can fling it in the direction of Nad’s head when he says something unpleasant to my ear. Tee hee.
