Waiting on the Lamb

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Originally uploaded by SpinningMommy

Well, our Cotswold ewe, Gracie, should be ready to deliver any day, but as of yet, no lambs. And let me tell you, she would rather be out running around with the rest of the geepers than sheltering inside and staying dry.

My guess is that she is the only one that is bred, although Izzy might be. I'm really not sure. Time will tell, however.

As to what I'm knitting, the question is: What am I not knitting. I'm working on my Chinook shawl from KnitPicks. In pink, of course ( it was on sale ), I'm working on an Easter Egg Love dishcloth, and an accordian scarf. I just rotate through. Aren't my powers of concentration mindboggling?

Free Pattern - Pucker Up Cloth

Pucker Up Cloth

Materials Needed:

Size 6 knitting needles

Craft cotton, such as Peaches and Creme (Lilac Ombre shown here) or Sugar and Cream

Abbreviations used:

K= knit

P = purl

Yo = yarn over

K2 tog = knit two together

Cast on 31 stitches using long tail method, or method of choice.

Pattern is a multiple of 11 sts + 1

Rows 1-4: Knit

Row 5:K4, k1,*yo, k3, [k2 tog] x 2, k3, yo,k1. Repeat from * to last 4 stitches. k4

Row 6: k4, p23, k4

Row 7:knit

Row 8: k4, p23, k4

Repeat Rows 5-8 eight more times for a total of nine repeats.

Repeat Row 5

Knit 4 rows.

Bind off loosely

Weave in ends.

This is a smaller, easy to handle cloth that makes for a quick knit.

Breast Cancer Awareness Pin Knitting Pattern

In honor of my friends Carrie and Raema, and all women facing breast cancer, I worked up a quick and simple pattern for a knitted breast cancer awareness pin. Feel free to share it with a link to this page. Pink fingering weight yarn (I used Knit Picks Stroll), although any fingering weight will do Size 0 or 1 knitting needles Safety pin Cast on 40 stitches using your favorite cast on method. I used long tail. Knit 3 rows. Bind off. Weave in ends. Cross your ribbon over to form a loop, and use a scrap of your yarn to secure it. I just used a sharp yarn needle to tack it down. Attach to your pin, and you are done. It actually took me longer to bind this off than it did to knit it! Very quick and easy. You could do other memorial ribbons as well, just by changing the color.

Yearning for Spring

Once again, it is snowing here in the great Northeast. While it looks beautiful coming down, I can only wish that spring would come soon. Over on A Virtuous Woman website, they are gearing up for their second annual Proverbs 31 Spring Clean Challenge, and I'm more than looking forward to it. If there are any Christian women out there interested, go to and check it out. It starts March 1, and goes through the month of March. It's sort of a combination of house cleaning and heart cleaning.

In the meantime, I guess I will continue my usual winter routine of knitting, spinning and reading. Knitting at the moment is socks that were supposed to be done for Christmas, and some scarves. I'm spinning silk yarn, and reading "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffeneger, and "Animals Make Us Human" by Temple Grandin. I highly recommend the Grandin book if you have any animals, and the Niffeneger book if you want a great read that leaves you sobbing through the final third of it.

As much as I wish for great weather, though, I think that winter will be here for a bit, so I will leave you with the following blessing, which I LOVE!

May you have-
Walls for the wind,
and a roof for the rain,
and drinks beside the fire,
Laughter to cheer you, and all that your heart may desire.

Putting the Dyepot to Use

I had a lot of things planned for today, and dying wasn't one of them, but I just couldn't resist, in the end. I mixed up some peacock blue cushings dye, and threw in a bunch of Izzy's wool. I actually pulled it out a bit early to give it a bit of personality ( you know, dark here, light there). Then I threw in some of Sweet Pea's mohair that Deb W. gave me, right in to the partially exhausted pot, and tossed in some blue food coloring to fill it out a bit, and ended up getting a watercolor effect with blues and greens. I really like it.

Dog class starts tonight, so that will round out a full day. Then the final show of American Idol. I'm routing for Lambert, and Mark and Chris are for Gokey.

Out and About Today

I'm finally getting onto the swing of things, creating some new stuff. I've been working on not only my knitting and spinning, but have expanded into drawing and playing with watercolors. Sorry, still to embarrassed to post any pics yet. My main goal is to get more into mixed media. Don't five me wrong, I'll never give up my main stream stuff, but I'm trying to expand.

I ended up doing a fiber arts school program at the last minute today, which went very well, and me and the girls were talking about forming a local fiber arts co-op to sell some of our stuff, and go in together in advertising. Personally, I think this is great. We're all stay at home moms, and really trying hard to do what we love, but you can see from the frequency of my blogs, there is just not enough time in the day or energy in the body to do it all. We thought if we could join forces, we might stand a better shot at maintaining a good inventory. I guess we'll have to see where this goes.

One technique I really can't wait to try out is making cloth paper. The possibilities are endless. It looks like the basic recipe is to lay a piece of cloth on some wax paper ( shiny side up) and start putting on layers of tissue paper, ephemera, and whatever else, keeping it all together with diluted white glue. I am envisioning book covers, pillows, wall hangings, and wearable art. You can sew this stuff, paint it, stamp it, the full deal. If I can stop at the store for the glue and extra tissue paper, this will be tomorrow's art project.

Also, the real meat of summer begins for me tomorrow - the start of my dog training classes. Hopefully, we'll have another great group.

What I've Been Up To

Obviously I've not been blogging much in the last few months. Lots of fibro flare ups, sick relatives to help, and just the hassles of dealing with dial up since my laptop went down.

I've been doing quite a bit of spinning and knitting recently. One of my projects is a hat for my mom that I spun with merino and mohair that I got at Rhinebeck. I also spun and wove some merino/tencel for a scarf for my aunt. Most recently I've been studying Scandinavian designs and designing socks. I'm waiting for some Knitpicks sock yarn, and hopefully I'll have a pattern to share soon.

I've also done several school programs, including my first one with highschoolers, which scared the heck out of me. The kids were very good, though. Polite and genuinely interested. You could go into a lot more detail than with the littles, that's for sure.