WWKIP outing and such

Well, this has been a very busy few days!  My boys left for Boy Scout Camp this morning, and so we've been all about getting ready for that since about Wednesday.  I have recovered from my knitting injury, but have felt like I've been fighting off the flu since about Wednesday.  I am hoping that's just about the screwy weather we've had this week--each day has been like living in a different climate altogether:  cool and breezy, temperate 80s, 1000% humidity and hot, hot, hot!, and today with low humidity and desert winds--feels like living on the sun!

Anyway, so much has been done since my last post!  My daughter and I attended the WWKIP event in Covington, GA yesterday, sponsored by the Covington Knitters.  It was miserably humid, but look at the monumental magnolia that we gathered under!  Yes, that's one trunk and a lower branch span of about  60 feet!  It was absolutely grand!  I made some new knitting friends, and my daughter and I will be stopping by the Covington Knitters' meeting next Saturday to check that out.

 And since I was spinning my little heart out on Wednesday and didn't get the OK to join the WIP Wednesday group until Thursday, I waited until the little get-together yesterday to start a new project, which I finished this morning.  The rust/gold/green/cream/burgundy yarn is my first-ever hand-spun yarn.  It spun up like some pretty funky "art yarn", but it is so great knit up that I am beside myself with joy!  My mother said, what can you do with only 75 yards of yarn?  So, I made mitts.  These are done in the Maine Morning Mitts pattern by Clara Parkes (The Knitter's Book of Yarn).  

The composition of the solid cream color is 100% sheep wool--probably blue faced lester--, and the composition of the handspun is 20% silk (sparkly gold that you probably can't see) and 80% coopersworth wool (worsted, between 11 and 14 WPI).

Then there is the stuff that I spent about 10 HOURS hand spinning on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday.  I'm so disappointed!!!!!  I bought the 4 oz roving (50% merino, 25% Tussah Silk, 25% bamboo, semi-worsted) at the Knitting Universe soiree in April.  It was burgundy and gold and just so soft and beautiful!  And then I started to spin.  It fought me on the S twist the whole time.  It didn't want to draft from the V and I ended up having to pre-draft almost the whole time.  ALL of the beautiful gold seemed to disappear and be replaced by a funky silver sheen that was from the, apparently, undyed silk that was hiding inside the rolag, making the single-ply look like a dirty pink.  The rolag was actually 4 pencil rovings wrapped up to look like a rolag.  When it was done, it seemed very flimsy; so even though I had enough to make a little cap-sleeve shrug (about 300 yards), I figured that the best thing to do for strength was to ply it with itself. 

Okay, well it was so excited to twist in the opposite direction that plying was a dream and ultimately the only good thing about this roving.  I had about 150 yards unfinished and thought that it felt a little scratchy, so I would finish it before knitting it instead of after.  Well, I used all of my favorite curse words the moment that the hand spun hit the hot water.  Suddenly I had a sink of crimson water!  All of that gorgeous dye was just sitting on the fiber.  The end result was that it pretty much dyed everything else, so any significant color variation that I had by plying it was G-O-N-E.  And then when it was all said and done, it came out so darned thick and fluffy that I now have 125 yards of 2-ply that is about a 10 WPI.  I am putting on my sad face for this one.  It's going in the stash to wait for me to be inspired. It's just a shiny, faded dusty rose.  :(

So now it's back to preemie hats because I've fallen behind on those and the lace scarf, and the Coral Columns vest, and the top-down raglan that I'm supposed to be redoing (that'll have to wait until my model gets back from Scout camp next week).  I think I have plenty of projects to keep my busy.

Oh, and did I mention that the stray cat fairy brought us a present on Friday?  They're about a month old.