Persistent Knitter

I have a new e-spinner. It’s the miniSpinner from Hansen Crafts

Here it is in it’s new travel bag with lots of other great stuff:

Click on the pictures to see notes about what’s where in the bag.

My thoughts are quickly going past Christmas Knitting (still finishing up the orange cable sweater, but also knit a hat) and to what I’ll be knitting for the Madrona Fiber Arts festival coming up. I’ve been looking at some fair isle patterns, and came across this great blog post with pics of how to do a crochet steek:

http://exercisebeforeknitting.com/2009/11/09/fair-isle-style-steekingthe-quick-and-dirty-tutorial/

Now … what to make as my Madrona project? Hmm….

a new sweater for alex. I’m aiming for it being a Christmas present :)

self proclaimed as “a really good knitter” :)

I made this sweater a while back for a friend, and here’s a pic of the baby wearing it. If I remember right I made the pattern a little bit longer than it called for, as based on my gauge it was going to be wider than it was supposed to be (which was perfect because I wanted it a little larger so that it’d be the right size when fall and winter arrived).

Pattern can be seen at Ravelry here:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/helena-2

or at Knitty (where it’s free)!

http://knitty.com/ISSUEsummer08/PATThelena.html

Knitting is taking a backseat to spinning these days – I finally received my Schacht Matchless anniversary edition spinning wheel.

I knit. I spin. I write greasemonkey scripts in my spare time.  What I apparently don’t do much lately is blog.  :)

I updated my little greasemonkey script that selects defaults on the Paypal Shipping page when you use USPS.  Script contains ways to set your default package size, weight and origination zip.  It also now will set the mailing date based on what time it is. If it’s after 5pm; it will automatically select tomorrow’s date for you. Go here to view, and install:

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/13595

See – I still knit! :) I’ve been working on this one since around April. I’m into the boring body where it’s all one color and stockinette. There’s a chance I might run out of yarn, but I’ll deal with that if I need to. I might finish the sleeves first instead of the body as it’d be easier to make the sleeves in stockinette and add patternwork to the body to hide any dye lot changes necessary if I have to get a new ball of yarn.

Pattern: Dale 16411 (on Ravelry)

Color substitution for the main color: Dark pink instead of the tomato red. So far I think it’s worked out really well.

Flowers from a farmer’s market. A guy I work with is going to create a Pastel painting from this image.

to distract you from lack of knitting content :)