Still working on my tote project

Well, several weeks of having this blog has shown me that I'm not any more reliable at posting to it than I am to writing to friends, though it's honestly not for lack of caring. So while I have a few minutes, I thought I'd post an update on the various projects that I'm working on.

I'm still swatching for the scarf exchange. Still on the fence about whether to use the koigu (below) or wait for the silk to come in. (which still hasn't come in.... pfft)

So in the meantime, I'm trying to finish the tote exchange project. It's a felted tote from Sally Melville's book on color (book 3 of the Knitting Experience), made with Paton's classic wool in black, threaded through with Kureyon. I've taken a number of pictures of the almost finished bag, from both the inside and outside.
The inside pics were for the tote exchange blog, because I accidentally let my pal know who I was. (It's not that I don't understand the concept of "secret"---it's the mechanics that seem to throw me.) So I haven't wanted to show her the actual bag, just tease a bit. But since I'm not sure anyone has really found this blog yet, I'll post the outside pics here as well.

Course, they're still pretty close up. I took them with the idea that I could still post them without giving too much away. Maybe I will. When finished, the bag will be felted, and then, because my pal likes the Noni bags with the big flowers on them, I'm making several roses in the kureyon to felt and sew on.

Otherwise, I'm excited about taking a spinning class tomorrow and next week. More on that (including pics) in my next post!

(non) progress on the scarf exchange project

One of my works in progress is a scarf for the international scarf exchange III, and after ascertaining that my downstream pal (who's in Australia---how cool is that?) likes 100% natural fibers, I picked out a nice Koigu 100% merino from my stash. I was excited because I even had 2 skeins in my pal's liked color of green (with traces of other colors she also said she liked). I picked out a pattern and got ready to start.

So I wound my yarn into center pull balls, and I've been working on a swatch using some leftover Koigu in another color and.....I'm underwhelmed. Y'know how you get an idea about something in your mind and no matter how "ok" the thing that you're working on is, it's just not going to make you happy because it's not what you have in your mind? Well, I think I want to make my pal a scarf that has some silk in it.

And the Koigu , while even a little glossy looking, just doesn't have any silk in it. And I love Koigu, which I've used happily on other projects. But I think I have to recognize that this combo of yarn and pattern is just *not* going to make me happy right now.

'Course the bummer is that I'd previously declared a moratorium on ordering new yarn until I've used up some of what I have in my stash. And, other than some Cascade fingering silk in the wrong color, I don't really have anything that I think would work for my pal in my stash.

What a dilemma!?! Or at least it would be if I had any willpower at all.

Happily (or unhappily, depending on whether you're my secret pal or my scale), I don't. So I've gone ahead and ordered some Cascade fingering silk in better colors and some Marjaana (I think) wool-silk blend. At least it was all on sale. Perhaps when it gets here, it will be nice and tell me that at least some of it wants to be a scarf and what pattern it would like to be worked into. In the meantime, I think the Koigu is going back into the stash. I don't think it's too disapointed. I think it really wants to be gloves anyway.

The inescapable pictures of my cats

Until I manage to get the pictures of my current projects out of the camera and into the computer, I thought I'd give the perhaps 3 people who've accidently wandered by this blog something to look at with pictures of my cats. Because they're cute, and I love them, and, well, it's not like I didn't warn you there'd eventually be cat pictures!
This is Ellinor, my alpha kitty and the grand dame of the three:

This is Charlotte, who's a little more nervous, but very sweet: And this is Emma, my wild child:

About computers, frustrations, and old projects

My first post looks so forlorn all by it's lonesome, so I thought I'd add a bit about some already finished projects that I actually have pictures of. Although, it's really not taking the pictures that holds me up. Taking the pictures I can do. Posting the pictures I can do. It's downloading the pictures off the memory card and out of the camera into the computer that has me stumped.

For the pictures of the bag I knit for the first scarf exchange (I participated in; really the second scarf exchange) and the first tote exchange, I ended up taking the card to a drug store and copying the pics to a disk there. It worked fine (if slow), but it's a step I don't really need to take, since the software to download the pics to my computer came with the camera. I really just need load it onto my laptop.

So why don't I, you ask? Fear, FEAR, I say. For as long as I've had to work with computers for various jobs (and I have, and I do) and as comfortable as I've become editing and even working with graphics (and I am), when there's not an IT department backing me up, I'm terrified that I'm going to somehow kill my computer. Maybe it's wishful thinking for all the times I've been frustrated and wanted to not so much kill my computer as torture it slowly until it begs for mercy. Unfortunately, I've never been able to find little feet on the thing that I could hold to a fire!

But hope does spring eternal. I have faith that I will, eventually, gather my courage and install my software. After all, I even have a blog now. (though it took me 3 tries to get that stupid little emoticon to sit where I wanted it!)

And in the meantime, here are some photos of old projects to tide us all over. Above is the scarf and hat I made for the previous scarf exchange, and below and to the side are the two sides of the last tote.

just getting started

Being something of a "late adopter" (according to my marketing classes), I've resisted starting a blog for a long time. But I'm finally persuaded by the number of knitting and spinning friends who's blogs I read and enjoy. So here goes---taking the plunge. Wish me luck!