What Have I been doing??

Can not believe it has been that long since I have posted....what have I been doing...besides suffering from this sinus thing left over from the cold I had at Christmas. We are finally getting some warmer temperatures but with it wind and blowing snow, we have had a couple days of welcome sun. RH had just dug a path for the female llamas and alpacas to get from the barn out to pasture and after today will have to do it again, although it is warm enough he can maybe get the bobcat going and not have to do it by hand, girls were sure happy to out sunning themselves. O.K. this is what I have been up to

I did get some of the roving spun, I had separated it into two lengthwise but after spinning for a while am thinking I should have split it a couple more times as I am getting long stretches of white but will keep spinning this bobbin the same, had weighted out the roving so I hopefully will have close to the same on yardage on both bobbins and am thinking of splitting the other length for the second bobbin a couple more times before I spin it and see whether it gives me a bit more color. We will see. Should have had it all spun but got carried away knitting other things......

Made up a couple of kids hats and a few kids mitts, am not a mitt knitter but decided to just get at it and become a mitt knitter, there are so many other more interesting things to knit, maybe if I put some pattern or colorwork in the mitt knitting it would become more interesting....hmmmm   we will see, made up one of the sheep hats but yarn was a little thicker than I usually use so might have to rip it back a bit on the top and shorten it a bit, had not made one for ages as the last session of doing a couple large orders of these hats I could not even look at the pattern for a while. I found a pattern for crocheted hats so crocheted a few to see how they turned out, had planned on making a childs hat but it turned out larger than they said so fits an adult so will have to do a bit of adjusting. Also crocheted a few flowers, trying to decide whether to put flowers on the hats.  Then I got at what I have been wanting to knit........

Have not knit this much colorwork for years but loved this hat, some of the colors are so close I end up knitting along not seeing that the color has changed, took me ages to knit the ear flaps, don't know how many times I ripped out and started again. I ordered the kit from Knit Picks and the yarn in the kit was Palette which is a fingering weight and is very loosely spun which at first I did not like but now am realizing why it is loosely spun as when you are knitting

with the yarn and moving it around to change colors you put more twist into it. Now if I was a picker when I knit and not a thrower it would go a lot faster....that is another thing I am going to learn to do, colorwork would knit a lot faster. Right now have to rip a bit back as I should not knit at night when I need to change colors, knit a couple of rows before I noticed there was a color change, some of the colors are so close at night it is hard to see when they change....now I had considered just leaving it as the color is really my choice.....right??.....but after sleeping on it have decided I will rip the rows back and reknit it and smack myself a couple of times to remind self to check the color before starting a row. I find the hardest part is starting a new pattern, once I make sure the first row of pattern is correct you can follow it and it goes fast. It is addicting, I have it on the end of the kitchen table so I do not have any cat help and I keep getting sucked over to it when I should be doing something else....pots are boiling over on the stove...dogs are left on the step wanting to come in etc. etc.......and I really have to get the fibre together to take to the mill or I will not get it in to the alpaca run they do and I will have to wait until fall. Well off to get at the rest of the day...........will try not to spend the whole day knitting on the hat.