Spinning, Knitting and Weaving update

Sorry for not posting lately, knitting, spinning and weaving has been pretty slow lately. My husband had neck surgery on August 24th and I brought my knitting with me to work on while he was in surgery. Then the 25th, and 26th I spent trying to prepare for the hurricane and cleaning the house. On the 27th I wished my oldest son a happy 31st birthday, then drove to Worchester MA with my neighbor to pick up my husband from the hospital. On August 28th the hurricane sent us a lot of rain, which caused the power to go out. Later that night when I went downstair to the basement to get the camping stove to cook our dinner on I found that my basement was filling up with water from the drain in the basement floor. Since we had no power there was no way to pump the water out. So water continued to fill my basement and ruin items that was stored down there, as well as my husband hobby room. On August 30th, in the afternoon the power came back on and we were able to see the full damage in the basement. The morning of August 31st, I went to the hardware store and bought a sump pump and started pumping the water out of the basement, and sweeping water towards the sump pump as the water went down. When things were slow I'd do a little spinning, or knitting a little at night, but not very much as I wasn't able to keep my eyes open for very long.

Then Sept 5th and 6th it started raining again and water started flooding our basement again. Sept 7th we called Roto Rooter to come out and hopefully help us get the drain unclogged or what ever was cause rain water do up the drain and into the basement. Roto Rooter had to set up an appointment for the next day to have the drainage pipes in our drain field back flushed to try and fix the problem. The afternoon I had to go and buy a second sump pump as the first one couldn't keep up with the water that was flowing into the basement. August 8th Roto Rooter came back out and tried to back flush the drainage pipes but couldn't get his equipment into the pipe very far, so tried to send special camera into the pipe to find out what the problem was. Problem was the PVC Pipes were crushed so the water had no where to go except into the drain in our basement. Anyway's after all this we finally got the pipes fixed on Sept 9th and now the water is drained out of the basement and I'm now trying to clean up the basement and remove all the wet distroyed items, such as wet boxes, rugs, books, drywall, wood, installation, etc. Thank goodness the water didn't get high enough to ruin our boiler/heater.

Now in the evenings and early mornings I'm picking up my knitting again. I'm very close to finishing the shawl I started when my husband was in surgery on August 24th, and I'm about halfway finished knitting on the scarf from my previous blog posts. I did manage to go to a spinning day in Ashburnham MA on Sept 10th, from 10 am to 12 noon, that was the most spinning I had done since before my husband went in for surgery. I will try to knit more now but I still have lot more cleaning and work in the basement to do, so the knitting and spinning will be a little sparse for a while.

Ginny

Mountain Sunset Scarf4

Mountain Sunset Scarf4, a photo by virginiasaccurso@yahoo.com on Flickr.

After many days of not getting around to knitting on this scarf. This morning I was able to sit down and knit on it for a little while. I have now 265 rows knitted on it and today I knitted 4 1/4 inches.

For a scarf that is knitted from single plied yarn, that was spun on a drop spindle, I think its coming a long nicely.

Mountain Sunset Scarf3

Mountain Sunset Scarf3, a photo by virginiasaccurso@yahoo.com on Flickr.

I just stopped knitting for the night and this is what I have to show. I only knit 4 inches total today though. I didn't measure the total length of the scarf.

I have knit a total of 228 rows now on this scarf, it seems a lot but really its not. I don't know just how many rows I will need to knit before I bind off. I just know I have quite a few more rows to go.

Mountain Sunset Scarf2

Mountain Sunset Scarf2, a photo by virginiasaccurso@yahoo.com on Flickr.

I took this picture after I started knitting on the scarf this morning. Then right after the picture I started knitting on it again.

Last night I when I stopped knitting this scarf measured 16 5/8 inches. Tonight when I stopped it measured 20 7/8 inches.

I've come a long ways in 6 days!

Mountain Sunset Scarf2

Well, I was going to take a picture of my scarf tonight, to show how much further along I am. I think its too late to take pictures right now. I did knit 3 1/2 inches on my scarf today though. So if my calculations are correct, I should have 16 1/2 inches. I just measured to be sure and I have 16 5/8 inches;................okay so I was 1/8 of an inch off. LOL Hopefully tomorrow I'll get more knitting done on this scarf. I will take a picture tomorrow of my progress on this scarf.

I also spun more Australian Bond Somemore Batts today, and started plying up another 2 ply lace weight skein. I almost had that skein all plied up, but had to stop to cook dinner. I hope tomorrow to finish plying up this skein, wind it off and then wash it.

Mountain Sunset Scarf1

Mountain Sunset Scarf1, a photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/38484177@N04/ on Flickr.

Last night after I posted, I went back to knitting and continued knitting through the GOP Debate.

Then first thing this morning I started knitting again. I started around 6:30 am and stopped knitting around 8:12 am. When I stopped knitting this morning I was at row 108 after 4 days of knitting.

Then tonight I went back to knitting on this scarf again. Today I've knit another 5 inches, so in 3 days I've knit 13 inches. I'm stopped for the night at row 123.

Mountain Sunset Scarf

Mountain Sunset Scarf, a photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/38484177@N04/ on Flickr.

Since starting this scarf on Tuesday night, I've come along way. The green marker represents what I knit yesterday and Tuesday night when I first started on this scarf. Today I've knit from the marke up to where the needle is and that represents 32 rows, from this morning to now. I only stopped knitting to take this picture and blog a little about it.

When I first started this scarf I wanted something that was a no brainer pattern. One that I'd memorize and wouldn't need a pattern to follow. I remembered knitting a baby blanket years ago for my ex-sister-in-law when she was pregnant with her second daughter, and how easy that pattern was to remember. I no longer had that pattern but I remembered it was similar to the Old Shale, or Feather and Fan stitch.

So without further ado, here's the beginning of my take on both of these patterns.