That Cursed Sweater and Kool-aid spinning

So, work has been very frustrating for the last couple weeks (to say the least!) which is why there have been no posts since Razoir's b-day. But today I must post something to prove I am alive and creating. I have been knitting or spinning at least an hour every night, just to get rid of that nervous energy and unwind. I am finding that with age, I don't handle stress very well, even just compared to a couple years ago. Like many of you know, I have developed jaw problems due to clenching (from stress) and recently it has gotten worse with tension headaches and just pain in general. I think its time to quit the job, sell the house and move out to the country. I'm always planning my hobby farm and fibre studio...it's only a matter of time and money :)

To keep me sane at work I've also been checking out more blogs and reviews over the net - also, I am completely hooked on podcasts! It's like the fibre community I always needed - right there in my itunes. My favourites are Pixie Purls, KnitCast, The Fibre Cast and Knitting News. I love it that these knitters/spinners are just as obsessed about fibre as I am...makes me think I am not going loopy after all!

So, the last week or so I have been working on some socks and let me tell you, they are a peice of work! I think they look hilarious because the yarn is totally loud and I've actually run out of it so I had to use another crazy yarn to finish them. I'm nearly done so I'll post a photo tomorrow - until then, here are some other updates:

My ongoing sweater...sigh. What is up with this sweater? It is totally cursed because I just can't seem to get it finished! I'm so close, I just have to finish up the one sleeve, sew it up and put the zipper in. How difficult can that be? For some reason I have a block there - I must get past it...This is how far I've gotten so far...



Kool-aid yarn!! A couple weeks ago I dyed my left over roving with kool-aid - my first attempt at dying ever. And I think I found my calling because I just had so much fun! Next time I'm going to try painting the yarn to get more variation (I ended up mooshing the colours all together -oops!) The only thing is that the wool still smells really strongly like kool-aid. Is that going to go away? Maybe I didn't soak it long enough at the end...I'm not sure. But I sure am having fun spinning it. It really makes me want to get a wheel and learn to ply.



Here are a couple examples of my first attempts at spinning. I was really pleased with the plyed yarn, but the others look pretty funny. I just wanted to document them before they get tossed.





My blog has defenitely become my knitting/spinning haven, so I am thinking of changing some parts of this blog template and I'm going to try to make my own graphics. I just have to figure out some html. Yikes, that should be fun...not!

Well, the sun is out and it's time to go enjoy a day of gardening and chores. Have a great weekend!