Oh Dear neglected blog...

The crazy times at work are over, so I can start to give you back some of the attention that you deserve.

Months have passed since I have last had time for decent post. I've had a laptop break, and been upgraded. I've workd tons of overtime at work, and I've spent time at both Old Grouchy, my pre-WWII Lithuanian wheel, and my spindles.

The Ravolympics were last month, and I did manage to do one of the projects that I had planned, to spin and knit an entire shawl. The camera portion of my BlackBerry was dirty at the time, so I don't have any good photos, I need to re-take pics of the finished shawl. I spun the thinnest that I remember ever spinning in my life. The yarn wound up cobweb weight, and I left the Merino/Bamboo blend as singles. I could have made a two ply and kept it as in the laceweight category. I still have a large portion of the yarn yet, which I'm thinking of plying back upon itself to make it a two ply.

I've also started another mystery shawl. I know, I know, but I never finish them. I always get a late start, and fall behind, make a mistake, and never finish them. But I'm trying hard this time. Its the Evenstar Mystery KAL, designed by Susan Pandorf, who does such wonderful and complex shawls. I know, I've started (but not finished) a few. I'm using some of the Alpaca Silk lace yarn that Steve got me for Christmas years ago, the same yarn and color that I knit Aeolin with last year. So far so good. I'm only 6 rows from being done with the current clue, but there are over 520 stitches each row at this point, and I need to switch over to a longer circular needle.

Also on the needles right now I have Citron. When the issue came out in December, I didn't see the appeal of this shawlett. Well, besides the yarn it was knit from Mmmmm. But since I've been spinning, I have odd amounts of handspun yarns in small amounts of heavylace/light fingerling that I need to use up, and I'm unofficially participating in the 10 shawls in 2010 knit-along.

One good thing about all the overtime that I have had to work over the last 3 months is that they decided (for once) to pay us out for our time, as opposed to having us bank it in comp time. I wound up with enough money to upgrade my wheel. I am now the proud owner of an Ashford Kiwi, which arrived last night, and is sitting in pieces in the living room waiting until I can stein the wood and paint the wheel part.