Midnight Knitting and Whats on my Needles

I had a chance to go to Midnight Knitting with a great group of knitters here in Jacksonville at Knitwitz. I am a person that goes to bed at 8:30 but I made it. Of course I had the help of Starbucks and lots of good companionship.

We paid $10.00 for the food and drinks. Met some lovely ladies and one very nice man but he is an "ENABLER" so you want to stay away from him. I was doing good just knitting and talking, then I made the mistake of looking at this pattern of a fantastic felted overnight bag from NORO. He got up and went to see the price and then brought it back to me to look at closer. The pattern is 2 color, you will knit 36 inches wide and 27 inches tall just to get the finished felted size.

I brought the pattern just to keep him quiet. (If you believe that).

The night was going on nicely and a lady came over to show me the handdyed roving by a local dyer. It was so pretty. I went over to look and saw two different colorways that I liked then I went back to my seat and my knitting. Before you know it, the "ENABLER" struck again and came back with one of the colorways that I had been looking at, for me to feel. You would probably say that I should have resisted and really I tried but I found that I was standing in line buying a pound of it.

This is merino top from http://www.creativelydyed.com/ .

It will take me two days to wake up but I had a ball and would do it again if I had the chance.

I told you that I would tell you what is on my needles. I finished my slinky socks. They were fun and I plan on making another pair. I also finished the Bainbridge neckwarmer that I made with some of my handdyed, handspun yarn. This goes with the hat I made and showed you in one of my previous post.

Now I am working very hard on the Norah Gaughan Elodie shrug pattern. I am using Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in Salmon Berry Red. It is my plan to use this as a bed jacket. One of the problems with traveling all the time is that a robe heavy enough to keep me warm in hotel rooms with uneven heating, takes up valuable space and gets in the way. I wanted something to put around my shoulders that would not fall off while I was spinning, weaving, knitting or reading in bed. A shrug seemed the perfect solution. There is an error in the foundation row of the pattern but I found out about it on Ravelry and went to the website to get the errata. The color is very rich. I had people come up to me all evening to look at my progress. They said that they were sitting across the room and it was so very pretty.

I will probably start on a pair of socks today because I need something small to keep in the car and the shrug is getting large.

I am still spinning on the merino super wash that I am trying to spin up and hopefully get dyed for a present for my daughter.

As to what I am reading, if you have not had a chance to look at the book, Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning by Judith MacKenzie McCuin, you should take a peek. She came to my weaving guild and gave a talk. I was impressed and everyone, but me, was buying her book and having her sign it. The title was just not calling my name and there was too many people around the table for me to look at the book. Then I started listening to podcast that kept talking about it so I used my gift certificate from Amazon and brought it as well as "The Yarn Lover's guide to hand dyeing by Linda La Belle". Judith's book has made me very excited about spinning and dying. Her plying and dying section has got my creative juice aflame.

Until next time, keep crafting