Holiday Busy-Ness

It's not like I did a whole lot this past 4-day holiday weekend (yes, my company gave us off both Friday and Monday for the July 4th break). But I got a lot of fiber-related things moving.

Knitting, Knitting, Spinning, Spinning, Reading, Movie, Nico
Yes, today's blog entry is jam-packed with content, so I won't go blathering on about politics, queer pride or hot sex descriptions.

Knitting
First of all, I got some additional work done on the Malabrigo Silky Merino pullover.


The picture shows the front piece on the left and the completed back section on the right so that you can see how close I am to doing some arm-hole shaping.

You might have heard we're having a bit of a hot spell (which I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!), and this fabric is quite dense and warm, so I didn't do a whole lot of knitting on this one.

More Knitting
But I did do quite a bit of knitting on the yellow scarf using the pattern from Spin-Off.


I'm really liking this pattern and while I'm not sure someone would ever use the resulting scarf, I don't really care because I'm enjoying the knitting so much. The scarf is done in all 1x1 ribbing, and my handspun is a bit heavy and dense...the combination is making a rather thick and VERY warm scarf.

It looks fantastic, I just don't think it will be extremely useful.

Spinning
I'm continuing to spin up my latest purchase from Mindy (aka Puff-The-Magic-Rabbit - http://www.etsy.com/shop/puffthemagicrabbit?section_id=5225048), and I'm loving it more and more.


My photo just doesn't do justice to how rich and gorgeous this yarn is coming out. The blend of yarn is also exceptional (Mohair, Border Leicester, Silk) I just went and checked, and no one has yet purchased the same blend in Mindy's "Maple" colorway. I've decided that if I make it to the end of this roving, and it's still available, I will have to buy it.

More Spinning
My other spinning project (Black Bunny merino (?) from Carol) is a completely different experience, and also very satisfying.


The colorway for this fiber is also beautiful, but it's the vibrancy of colors that makes this one so interesting. I'm thinking that the resulting yarn from this project will make an extraordinary pair of socks...I just have to come up with a funky contrasting color for the toes and heels (see, I do think ahead to future projects sometimes!).

Reading
I've actually been reading two books (I'm not sure what all these two-at-a-time projects in my life is about), but I only finished one of them, and it was just brilliant.

















If you haven't read any of  Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, you MUST. If you haven't seen the movie of this first book, you MUST. The book is extremely well written, and a very compelling read. I had seen the movie first and even though I knew the ending and much of the story-line, I still loved reading the book. I can't wait to start the second in the trilogy (hopefully before the second movie comes out).

Nico
Nico was just hanging out on the Kaffe-fabric quilt, so I thought it was the perfect photo opportunity for this guy.


I'm not sure if I ever wrote about this publicly, but Nico was originally supposed to replace our last cat, Gage, in both our house and our hearts. Losing Gage was terribly sad for both Thaddeus and me and we hoped by finding another rescue cat that looked like Gage, we could lessen the grief.

Turns out that Nico is nothing like Gage, but he has filled a very different part of our hearts. Nico is much more independent than Gage, and he's got an aloof swagger about him that seems much more masculine than Gage. Gage hardly ate anything except for dry food, despite Thaddeus' best efforts to feed him table scraps, while Nico is always around when food is being prepared and will never forget to remind us when he's hungry.

We still miss Gage a lot, but it sure is nice to have Nico in our lives as well.