Progress

It's been a busy time around here and I'm only just now getting to the posting o' blog that I've been meaning to do for awhile. I fully intended to spend today relaxing (spinning) and finishing up a project (knitting) but that was not to be. I spent the day in true house wife glamour. Cleaning. Am I the only one who didn't know you could take apart the inside of the dishwasher and clean it? Or that it could possibly need to be done? Maybe it's because the darn thing didn't come with a manual. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.) Lately I've noticed an odor from inside the dishwasher if it's not run on a daily basis. I've tried running a couple of "cleaner" washes through it, but it just didn't go away. So today I did another one of those "cleaner" washes using CLR thinking that my work. Nope. Not to be. Then I vaguely remembered watching an episode of "How Clean is Your House" where Aggie was explaining to the home owner that she needed to take the filter out of the bottom of the dishwasher and clean it every so often. I thought at the time that maybe that was just a design feature of the European models, but today it came to mind again. I discovered that mine too can be dismantled and cleaned. I will not describe what I found in there.....but I don't think this things EVER been cleaned. (It came to us second hand.) Not that there's anything wrong with that.....I just discovered it could be cleaned myself. Who'd a thunk? I did spend a good amount of time clearing it of all the gunk and garbage and scrubbing it clean. So glamourous, I know. But hey...no more odor.

What else have I been up to lately? Mostly slogging around getting work done.
But I choose to remember the fun stuff. Like last week when I decided that I needed to clean off a few bobbins that had been resting for a while. I had been waiting for the "perfect" single to come along to ply with these and finally just decided to ply them on themselves. I've not plied from a center pull ball before so it was high time I did. It went suprisingly well, with little or no tangling. (Well, I've done it now. Next time they'll tangle like crazy!) So I give you the terrible pink which I care for not. Structurally, it's a nice yarn. Soft, springy and not glaringly bright. It's obviously a two ply and approximately 161 yds and 100% wool. It really isn't a bad yarn. I'm just not a "pink" person.

This one is a natural grey wool, and approximately 111 yards. In person, it's a muted grey and will stay in my stash for some small project or another, but in the pictures of it, it's showing silver. Pretty nice stuff too. The fiber was a gimme from a friend that was trying to encourage me to spin a couple of years ago. Little did she know that I needed NO encouragement at all. Can't seem to stop the habit now. lol

Here's my first completed glove ever. And yes, it's not suppose to have fingertips.;) I had a pair of wool gloves (without the finger tips) for quite a few years and I ususally wear them to drive when it's really cold out. Tucker thought they were tasty and now they don't do the job of keeping out the cold anymore. (I may have enough left of them to fix them, but I'm unsure.) I decided to dive in and knit myself a pair using the yarn created from the fiber Cindy sent me. I searched all over for just the perfect pattern as I needed the fingers in them, but no tips, wanted a plain ole stitch, no cables,ect and needed to be able to use my size 3 circ needle from Knit Picks as I don't seem to want to knit with anything else right now. ( I really need that Options needle set!) Anyhoo, many of you gave me great leads to some fabulous patterns, and now that I'm understanding glove construction a bit more, I'll definately be diving into more. The whole finger construction really intimated me, but wow! So easy! I was really suprised. I'm working on the second one every chance I can so soon they'll be working gloves!



The final work in progress is the green felted bag. You'll probably remember that this is my first bag project (but not my last) and is made from my handspun. I used THIS pattern. It didn't felt down as small as I was expecting but that turned out to be a good thing. It's probably due to my handspun. I fully intend to line this one probably with the fabric it's laying on. I'm not completely committed to that though, so it's waiting in the wings to be finished.

Well, I think that's about all in craft land right now. I'm going to wrap this one up so I can take care of a couple shorter (I know, I know!) posts and get the dinner done. Maybe I'll get some knitting in tonight before bed. Hmmm...maybe the laundry will fold itself so that can happen.