Friday, July 20, 2007

Current projects and a defense of my sleeping arrangements

This post is all about the yarn; my current projects. Things I plan to finish or start; and my thoughts on the projects.

  • #1 priority is "Sue's thing". Sue reads this so I won't say what it is. I just need to finish part of it and then wash said thing, then mail it to her before her birthday (still a couple weeks away). Hey, I can mail it to her next Thursday, we'll be running errands with Chuck anyway.
  • I need to "finish" - actually cook, the yarn I spun (about 25 yards or so) last week. It's a nice creamy Columbia/Dorset blend; it's spun up a lot nicer than I expected. It will eventually become legwarmers or fingerless gloves, I'm not sure which, but it will be MINE. I am terrible about making things for myself (as in, I never do). Then I'm going to spin some more.
  • Which leads me to the next item: spin up the gray Romney blend yarn I got from R.H. Lindsay (http://www.rhlindsaywool.com/products/index.htm ). Specifically, it's "Light Grey/Silver Scoured Carded Sliver" in a Romney Perendale blend. It's very pretty to look at and the micron count (ie itch factor) is low enough that I ought to be able to wear it next to skin (think hat, gloves, or the infamous legwarmers I've been planning).
  • I also want to spin up the new "Domestic 56 wool top" - it was only $6 a pound but it is very soft and tasty looking. I'm seeing beautiful thick yarn.
  • I always have my "Take along" project in "Knitty", my brightly colored, tie-dyed tote bag. It's the Feather and Fan shawl in the autumn colors. Sighted people who see me working on it smile, they tell me they like the colors, and they enjoy petting it. I'm the knitter who's always shoving the project at admirers, demanding they feel it. Everyone seems to like it, women look at it covetously, and I still like it. That's no small feat. After hours of time and thousands of stitches, many times I get absolutely sick of the pattern and colors, and I can't wait to gift it. I love fall colors, the pattern is the perfect level of difficulty, and I still love my shawl (estimated finished size, 5-6 feet by 2 feet wide). It's about half done. It's my take-along. I work on it while I wait and wait on deliveries and rides.
  • My last goals - make myself a nice warm hat (maybe with my leftover shawl yarn - it's merino). scarf (a cheerful yellow that didn't work in the shawl), legwarmers (with handspun yarn) and gloves. I'm toying with fingerless gloves and maybe a pair of mittens. When it's cold here in Houston, it's COLD. We're not acclimated, so we feel it a lot more than a "Yankee" (tongue firmly in cheek).

I don't have anything in the works for Ron. He's "good". I knit him a lovely alpaca/wool blend hat (he's gotten compliments and requests for the store name), but he's very partial to the cheap acrylic boy's ski mask I bought at Walmart for $2. OK. I bought him a foam head (storage for a hat that kept getting crushed); it sits on the kitty condo. It's wearing the knit wool watch cap I made with the straw hat on top. He'd never wear a sweater, scarf, or gloves.

He also has last years' anniversary gift (he tends to like tools and warm things as gifts); a nice feather comforter. He's not using it now but he loves it. He gets chilly and likes to wrap up like a burrito in the winter. He loves to sleep on the heated mattress pad, with the heavy comforter on top, wrapped up so you can hardly see his bald spot.

Since we spend every day together, hours on end, we have seperate bedrooms. Ron never had his own bedroom, ever (he always shared), so he loves his "man-cave". I flail around at night, have insomnia (as he does), and throw my covers off periodically when I'm sleeping. Ron wraps up in his covers like a mummy, and listens to the TV in bed (like his Dad), while I think it's creepy nightmare fodder. We have a good marriage, with separate beds. It works. We're not that far apart.

He doesn't like afghans, all the ones I make him end up going to someone else. He's just not that impressed. Now the HAT, he loved that.

He's a good sport about feeling the yarn and the current projects. I'm happy. He's glad I'm creative and budget minded and all the other things that make me, me. I love him, too.

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