Here she is.......almost finished...with my Sanity intact...I think??

Well we had another big snow storm, lots of snow and blowing snow to replace the snow drifts RH had just cleared away so he is at it again but this time the temps are up so snow is wet and heavy. Hopefully this is our last big snowfall!! Am more than ready for green grass and my flowers!!

On the weekend when the snow was coming down and wind howling I decided to just ignore the weather and get the sweater finished no matter what, what a knitting adventure I tell you!! As the gauge they had for the sweater did not work I had to figure out how many inches they got with their gauge and add extra rows as I went along hoping I would have a wearable sweater for someone, is really hard when you are working on so many stitches but I got it finished up to the shoulders and then picked up the stitches to knit all the way around the sweater opening to make the shawl collar and finish down the fronts and cast off and could not believe it almost fit, right now is a bit snug around the hip area but we will see after I get it washed and blocked, I did make it a bit longer than the pattern said so that could be the problem. The pattern was designed to be open with a tie belt but I am going to put a zipper in up to where the shawl collar starts. love the shawl collar. What a great feeling to finish it and see that it all came together!! Just have to get all the ends woven in and get it blocked.I just noticed the picture looks a bit out of proportion at the angle I took it, will have to get a better picture when it is blocked.

At one of the Christmas markets I ordered a yarn pot from a potter who had his table there and I just picked it up the other day and I love it! It works so great, now am not having my ball of yarn rolling all over the place. Used it when I was finishing the sweater. Pot is heavy enough it will not move unless you move it, he put two holes in it so I could put two small balls of wool in it if I was knitting with two colors.....I think...will have to try it.

No flowers outside right now but the African violets in the house are making up for it, could not believe the bloom on this plant, does this mean spring flowers are just around the corner......but then the Christmas cactus also have blooms on them.......who can I believe??????

Sanity Hanging by a Thread!!

Finally after over a week of can not see in front of your face fog we have sunshine and warmer temps, hope this is a sign spring is just around the corner. When we have fog that thick we have very week internet service or none at all, yesterday we had the sun come out for a bit but our power was off and on so much we had no internet. Now today hopefully everything is working again.
    Now to the Gallatin Sweater...........this is where I am now.

I had knit the sleeve without pattern but then decided it was too plain so I ripped it back and put a pattern in then knit what tan wool I had waiting for more that I had ordered, when the yarn came it was a different dye lot so I knit one row of dark brown just incase it would show the difference and now I am ready to knit the white with some pattern in it, now it has pattern in the back and on each front....................I am going to be juggling eight balls of yarn ...............yup....trying hard to keep my sanity!! plus have to figure out how many rows to knit as I am not getting gauge, so I have counted all the rows they knit on the pattern and figured out how many inches they got with their rows per inch etc. etc. hoping I am on the right track, if this sweater fits it is going to be a miracle. If I make this again it will be in pieces, if I had knit this one in pieces I could have completed a front and seen whether it was going to fit rather than do the whole sweater and then find it does not fit.  Will be so glad to get it finished!!

Meanwhile have been carding some alpaca fibre and llama fibre and pulling it into roving. The grey is the alpaca and I carded it with some grey superwash merino and the brown is the llama carded with the same grey superwash merino, it is so soft, can not wait to spin it up.  Have lots of fibre to card up, love my Patrick Green Supercard!!

This is my kitty T.V. I hung a seed bell right outside the window so the cats can sit and watch the birds, the cats are so brave when they have the glass between them, they sit there chattering at the birds but if I let them outside they are afraid of the birds which is o.k. by me.
   Well here is hoping I can post this as I have been having a terrible time getting the pictures onto the site which means my internet is not that fast yet. Hopefully this is goodbye snow and hello spring!!

Spinning and Knitting!!

The weather has warmed up a bit so have been out in the garage sorting some white llama fibre to wash before sending it to the processors. Fingers were frozen by the time I had enough fibre in the wash bags but got it done as it is soaking in the washer. I wanted to card some fibre down in the workroom but it is so dry down there the fibre is flying all over so thought if I wash some fibre and have it on the rack it will give me enough humidity.
     Meanwhile I plyed the singles I finished spinning last night from the roving I got for Christmas from daughter M.J. For the first bobbin I spun I had just divided the roving into two but was getting long stretches of white so the next bobbin I divided the other half of the roving into two before I spun it and the colors worked better, but who knows what it will look like knit up. She has been washed and is now drying. Out of the 220/4oz roving I have 290 yds of yarn, now to look at a few patterns and decide what to knit out of it....thinking of a lacey scarf....will see. 

Now onto the Gallatin Sweater..............I managed to find a size six small round needle to knit the sleeves in the round, had to borrow it from something else I was knitting, so got the sleeve knit putting the same pattern as on the bottom of the sweater on the bottom of the sleeve, I had decided to knit the sleeves in the tan color with no more pattern but when I went to wind another ball of tan into a ball found I only had one ball left, not enough tan color to finish the sweater but had a lot of the natural color so knit the remainder of the sleeve in the natural......am deciding whether I like that or not.........finally I went onto Raverly to check and see if anyone else was knitting this sweater and if it was only me that was having problems........17 people knitting the sweater........

Ravelry: Project Gallery for Gallatin Coat pattern by Nina Isaacson      everyone is having problems and unless they had ordered more yarn they were short too......so have decided that I will knit up what tan yarn I have and have ordered more of the tan yarn to finish the sweater. It can have a little time out while I am waiting for more yarn. I am also having gauge issues with the rows per inch...and so are other people.  I had increased a few rows in the length as I went along for the body but have been concerned with the arm length. I have been making notes as I go along as I really like this sweater and the yarn they used in the kit so would like to knit another one......who knows who this one will fit when I am finished.
    I know this is crazy...........but I did control myself...........when the workmen came to replace the shingles on the house yesterday (that the wild wind blew off a couple weeks ago) one of the workmen was wearing a sweater knit with the heavy yarn with neat patterns on it...........I don't know whether it was that it was so cold out.........or I quickly regained sanity...........but I put down my pencil and graft paper and went into the other room............I really wanted to go out and quickly copy the patterns he had on his sweater............What can I say........there are enough stories going around about the crazy lady who lives on the hill...........but you know.....if it had not been so cold out.........

Does this look like Spring to you??

It looks like Christmas to me!! All my Christmas cactus are in bloom. It is -20 here right now but the sun is shining so you can fool yourself into believing it is warmer. We were supposed to get a warm day during the last week but do not know who got it as we didn't. Hurry up Spring!!

I have the Gallatin Coat from KnitPicks knit up to where the sleeves are supposed to join and then you finish the sleeves as you knit the yokes. The owl chart knit up fast as it was a non-directional pattern, it is just really heavy when you are knitting the back and fronts together, hard on the back. I started a sleeve which is knit in the round on four double points, got the cuff finished and just realized I have to change to size 6mm needles and do not have any in the house (that I can find) so do I continue with the 5.5mm needles or wait until I can get somewhere to buy some 6mm needles, trying to think of somewhere near that would have needles that I do not have to drive over an hour to buy them.......what would happen.....if I just increased a few more stitches to make the gauge....am off to measure the difference in my knit gauge between the 5.5mm and the 6mm needles. I changed the pattern in the sleeves as I think the original pattern is just too busy for me, makes just too much going on in the sweater, so will match the sleeves to the bottom of the sweater past the first pattern knit and then knit in plain stocking stitch in the dark tan.  Anyway....that is the plan...will see as I knit along. Off to measure the gauge difference between 5.5mm needles and 6mm needles.
 

Do I need this stress....isn't the weather enough stress!!

One more day and then it is the month of March....please let the weather get warmer...hopefully spring is not far away. It has been so cold, we had a warm day last week...or was it the week before?...I am hanging onto my sanity by a thread!! O.K....the warm day...the wind arrived...not a breeze...nope could not have a nice breeze...hurricane force winds!! First we heard something whopping on the north side of the house.......soffiting is loose on the peak of the roof....then the noise on the roof and there go the shingles...into the siding on the back of the garage...damaging the siding...well we better phone and leave a message with the insurance agent so we will be first in line to have the appraiser out. He came out and now we have to wait until warmer weather so we get the repairs done. We went to town the next day and there were trucks and trailers in the ditches all along the highway.

   I had purchased this sweater kit from Knitpicks before Christmas and decided to get it out and knit on it taking a break from the colorwork hats. I do not know if it is just me but I have a terrible time with their patterns. The sweater, they call the Gallatin Coat has a cute shawl type collar which I loved when I seen it, the sweater is knit all in one, no side seams which is O.K. but with the heavy yarn it is really heavy to manage while you are knitting. They had a chart with a deer to knit around the body and as I wanted to use some of my Alpaca yarn to knit another sweater later I thought I would chart out a llama and knit it into this sweater. so charted out the llama and knit a swatch and could see where a couple stitches should be changed. . O.K this is great and away I went with my knitting............the first llama faces the front.....then the second llama is reversed to face center back........and then the next llama is knit facing the llama on the back...and then the next llama in the pattern is turned around again to face the front.........now is it my brain or what...this is bloody hard to keep track of!!!!!! Now if the fronts and back were knit separately this would not be that bad but when you have 146 stitches on your needle in thick heavy yarn.... and you are trying to manage four separate small balls of yarn for each pattern along each row......now I do not give up very often but after knitting and ripping back I have finally decided my life is too short and my back is aching....so have decided I love owls and they have a chart for an owl that is not directional so that is what is going on the sweater!! And I knit the first two rows without a problem. I am not giving up on the llamas and am plotting out how I will knit them into a sweater as I work on knitting the owls into this one. One solution would be to knit the sweater body in three pieces or another thought just came to me...maybe the solution would be to put llamas on the front and another non-directional pattern on the back. I also had a problem with the chart for the band across the bottom and I finally added one more row to the chart and charted out my own pattern. now I read ahead to the directions on how they knit the sleeves......the sleeves are knit in the round....and then are attached and knit up with the front and back yokes.......we will see when I get to that point. I normally do not have a problem following a pattern...so is it the pattern.....or is it the senior moment of my life...I am blaming it on the winter weather we have had this year....that is my story and I am sticking to it!!

There she is Finished...we will say good bye to her!!

O.K. here she is all finished and blocked!! Before I washed and blocked her "Majesty" Miss Andean Chullo Hat she just seemed too long and bulky but when washed and blocked she settled down a bit and hung down nicely at the back, before that she could not decide what she wanted to do and ended up just sticking half way inbetween, but still am thinking I might take a pattern out, but love them all the way they are....we will see on the next one, but for sure will not make the I-cord so long on the top of the hat before the tassel is put on. The thing I will change is the ear flaps, they are too long so will just shorten them up by one pattern. have already started another hat and have been trying to tighten up the stitches  around the outside of edge of the ear flap as it was hard to attach the i-cord properly. This time I will organize the pattern instructions a bit and hopefully not have to do so  much ripping back with this one. I had so much trouble with 

matching the yarn to the colors on the chart.....the color for the deep purple looked navy on the chart, think I have it sorted out. so she has had enough time on the blog so will get at something else!! But this stranded knitting is addicting so will keep a project on the go taking residence on the end of the table ready to suck me in. I also got the yarn in the natural shades of brown, tan and creams to knit the hat and I better get organized on that one I tell you, if I thought all these colors were a problem....the natural shades could be a nightmare.

  

Now to sorting fibre to go to the mill to be made into roving, this is Black Mommy Alpacas fleece and it did not matter what light I took a picture under it turned out this grey color and it is black! black! I was trying to get a picture of the crimp in it but was hard, she has the softest crimpy fibre, now the decision is what male to bred her to this spring so her baby has this same great fibre. All her fibre is washed and cleaned of debris and in a bag ready to go. now onto the white llama fibre. Warm weather has moved in so I can get out to the workshop and do some sorting and get it washed up too. I am sure I washed up some llama fibre last fall ready to ship....or was I just dreaming I did?? Will have to go have a look. should have had this all done and ready to go but with all our super cold weather there was no way to work out in the shop. Hoping this is the beginning of spring...I am dreaming aren't I???

Almost finished my Alpaca Hat!!

We had a few nice days and are now back to overcast and snow, spring can not come soon enough, although spring means working outside and I do not have all my fleece sorted to go to the mill to be processed. Did get a large bag of Alpaca away to the local mill in between snowstorms but have to get the rest ready to go, this mill likes to have it washed once so better get the washer full this morning of some black alpaca from Black Mommy, she has beautiful fibre with a nice crimp to it. Now baby Bella, am wondering is my life is long enough to get her fibre ready to be processed it is so full of stuff (nice way of saying crap). It will be shearing season again before I know it so better get last years tended to.

   Now the "Hat" almost finished, am just knitting the I-cord finish around the bottom which is sucking up a large portion of my time right now, I think a person has to figure out how to do a more stable edge for the bottom as this yarn is a bit fragile, will have to think on that for the next hat. now this hat is really long....I mean really long....I think it is meant to flop over and hang down at the back, the ear flaps also seem too long. Someone on Ravelery has made this hat and she said she would take some charts out when she knit it again as she found it way too big and I agree with her but for my first one I thought I would follow the pattern as it was and then make changes when I knit the next. now my views on how the pattern was written, they give you pattern choices to put in each section, love the chart patterns but....and this might be just me...the pattern is so fragmented...there is a bit on one page... then you have to go searching to find what comes next and then find you have missed some directions and have to rip back, plus I would cut little snippets from the yarn and tape them next to the color squares as you are always getting mixed up. I have a hard time knitting when I am in a state of confusion on what comes next and have to search for it...so will be writing the pattern out the way I want to knit it for the next hat. I know I keep saying the next hat but I will be knitting another one because I love knitting stranded knit and really if I had kept track of the time I spent actually knitting it was not that long, could not really knit at night as it was hard to see the color changes but I think if I organized it properly with the color snippets that would not be a problem. This is the first time I have knitted I-cord right onto an item and they have you knit the I-cord for three inches for the tassel on the earflap then you increase a few stitches and leave half the stitches on a holder and continue around knitting the I-cord along the bottom and then when you get to the end you graft the stitches to the stitches on the holder. (Hope you understand this) what I was a bit miffed at was they did not say anything in the instructions about how to proceed when you got to the second earflap (or maybe I have not found it yet) but I just knit off to a I-cord to match the one on the other earflap after I had increased and left half the stitches to be picked up to continue around. So that is where I am now and hopefully will finish it today. Am actually looking forward to starting on another one.if this one is just too large for me to wear.....I will stuff it and use it as a decorative cushion!! While I was knitting the "hat" I also knit five pair of slipper socks and another hat I had started a bit ago. Well am off to finish the I-cord and get the directions organized for another one.