Mandi's mittens!

First of all, I had a smudge on the lens of my camera and did not realize it when taking the photos. I need to remember to retake them and repost.

So it seems that all things Twilight are the rage - and most especially Bella's Mittens! Mandi has read all the books and since she's still stuck in the "cold, white north" of Maine I decided to make a pair for her.

The next pair I make I think I will use a bulkier yarn. I also hope the next yarn I use doesn't color my hands that way this did. I used a yarn from Knit Picks and love their yarns. But this one left my hands a blue-ish green when I worked with it.

I now have the mittens soaking in water to help exhaust the dye used for this yarn. I really don't think Mandi will want to walk around with blue/green hands the rest of the winter. :o)

Ugh!

So, I was approached about making color guard uniforms. They showed me some pictures and wanted a sample made. As rough as it is I think I managed to do a decent job for my first time sewing lycra!

And yes, when you look at the actual garment and my sample I manage to reverse the top piece. LOL That will be changed if I make them for the guard. I ended up cutting the top portion away from the middle 2 times in the midst of tweaking the fit. It was also made with the largest measurements given to me for the group. My dress form doesn't go that big so it's kind of big for the form.

They didn't want the "skirt" on the back of the outfit, but wanted more of a pallazo pant for the bottom. I left them unhemmed for them to take a look and let me know where they want the hem to fall.

I'll be starting their flags tomorrow. I have all the material for one set. For the second set I'm waiting on a second color of silk from them.

As promised...

Here are some photos of the Navajo plied yarn I spun recently. I've never done a Navajo ply and have wanted to try it. I watched a few videos on You Tube and then just went for it. I actually think I did better on my first skein than my second. I had a tendency to over spin on my second skein. ugh Oh well, more practice will help that.

Calm before the storm...

No, not another wind storm. It's the calm before our daughter gets here to visit.

Since we knew she was coming down the first week of January, we decided to wait on our big holiday meal until she got here. It was only 3 of us, I figured we'd have lots of leftovers so why not wait for her to be here to help. ;o)

She should make it to the house about 10 pm Sunday night. I'm looking forward to spending some "Mom and me" time with her. She'll help with the cooking and we always have fun with that.

We have her Christmas gifts here for her to open too.

Sadly, she leaves on Friday. But, it's better to see her for a few days rather than not at all. Having been a military family for over 24 years we roll with the punches. We also learned that you can celebrate on different days too. It won't be the first time we've done Christmas at another time of the year.

Windy days...

As you can see by the photos we had some high winds here! I have no idea when the tree went since I did not hear it. Looked out the window, saw it and hollered something about holey excrement. ;o) No wonder we had weather alerts.

I have actually taken time to spin some the past few days and I enjoy that time! Will take photos to share soon. I've been spinning some alpaca and some merino cross breed wool.

I'm really excited to have some merino roving on the way to me from Paradise Fibers. I'm not sure how long the sale price will last, but if you buy 16 oz or more of the undyed merino it is only 90 cents and ounce!!!! Snapped up 2 pounds for myself.

Now I have colors dancing around in my head. I also have to decide if I want to dye it as roving or spin it and then dye. I have one colorway in mind that I hope I can pull it off as nice as it looks in my head. I want to do a light, light ice blue and some silver. I'm looking for that impression of a cold, snowy day. (can you tell I miss Maine?!)

Spinning will go on the waiting list though now. We have company coming in tomorrow, they leave on Sunday morning and Sunday night our daughter comes in to visit! It's been a long time since we've seen Mandi. I haven't seen her since April '08 and my husband hasn't seen her since Nov '07. We held off on the big holiday dinner since it was just 3 of us here. While Mandi is here we will be doing the big dinner and it sounds like she can't wait to have all that home cooking too.

Here's to the New Year being wonderful for each and every one of you!