My grandfather left his body just before 7pm on December 25th after a thankfully short illness.

He was a sweet and gentle man and the memory of his 92 years on this earth will be cherished by his family. His children were with him when he passed and he allowed me the gift of a chance to say goodbye the day before. I’m so grateful for having had that opportunity with my last grandparent.

Thank you for being at my wedding Grandpa. I’m sure going to miss your smile and your light. I’ll just have to keep you in my heart until I see you again.

As a married woman a torrid love affair seems out of the question these days but knitting is an interesting mistress. That hat in the last post? Totally lit my flame when it came to knitting again. I suddenly found myself wanting to cast on EVERYTHING and not just for me but for anyone and everyone I know!

Which also led to wanting to buy ALL THE YARN for just about anything and everything. Since THAT is completely out of the question with the current budget at Casa de Zarzuela I decided to go shopping in my own stash and do a bit of reorganizing (didn’t hurt that there was also an impending visit from Mom & Dad!). In the midst of that reorganizing I found a bag full of cream colored Patons Classic wool that I apparently bought in Princeton in 2006 at the bargain basement price of $3.77/skein! At the time I believe I had an aran sweater in mind but I’ve also had thoughts of knitting a Hemlock Ring blanket with it for quite some time.

So I cast on as soon as I finished the hat.

And I couldn’t put the thing down.

In less than a week? Finito! And I did the whole chart too.

(It even forced me to go out and finally buy a blocking solution that did not require stripping a bed. I still miss the extra bed though.)

Who will be the owner of this? Well… I can’t tell you since they haven’t unwrapped it yet.

For now I’m going to cast on for the next project…

Do you ever find yourself knitting away and not really loving it? I’ve really been in a bit of a slump this year knit-wise. There of course have been some mighty big distractions in my life (hello major move and new career choices!) but I really hadn’t found myself in love with my knitting lately.

Then this came along.

I recently took a trip to Harrisville Designs only because we passed signs for it on the way to the Pumpkin Festival or I never would have known it was so close! We ended up out in that area again for a work event for HWJF recently so I took a little detour. I’ll tell you more about some of the reasoning behind that trip in another post, but while I was there I picked up this skein of Shelter

and the pattern above. Lately I’ve only been interested in knitting things that are fairly simple, don’t take much time and produce a quick result. The cables in this hat might not necessarily be in keeping with these thoughts but it’s only a hat so how bad could it be?

It wasn’t bad at all. It was down right inspiring!

I forgot how much I love cables. I forgot how awesome it can be to look at a chart and see where the twists and turns will take you only to have them show up in the thing sitting in your lap. Cables in knitting are an amazing journey that I love to travel. This hat reminded me of this.

I just love the way the decreases came together at the top!

I made it for HWJF (as might be obvious by the color choice) and finished it in 3 days. This wasn’t the simplest of knits so the timeline tells you how much I couldn’t put this down.

He wore it to the Christmas parade we had in town the other day.

In fact, I think I need to make a second one for myself. But this project lit a fire under me for many other things…

I told you there were a lot of people having babies around me lately. One of them was the Matron of Honor at my wedding last year.

Baby number three for her arrived in September. Nevermind that I just finished her sweater recently.

I dyed and spun up some superwash merino as I had done for the previous two. Only this time I underestimated the amount of fiber I’d need for the thickness of yarn I spun because I ran out with only a few more rows to go! But all was not lost. I’ve made two of these sweaters so far and they have all been for children of the same Mom. I found leftovers from the first one

And used them to complete number 3! That’s right. Yarn from this child’s older sisters sweater completed hers. I’m not sure if that’s weird, but since they were complementary and I didn’t have any more fiber on hand it seemed like the best option. I figured I’d find buttons that would bring it all together.

And then I remembered that I don’t have easy access to NYC and my usual button places any more! I haven’t looked at big box stores for buttons in awhile but the selection? Pathetic!! I couldn’t believe it. Luckily, Joanne’s seems to still have at least a wider selection than Michael’s or the like and I found something cute to make it all work.

And just for fun, here’s a mosaic of all three sweaters I’ve made for these siblings starting with the youngest and going to the oldest from left to right.

I’d like to say this is the last of the baby knits you’ll see here for awhile but there are at least 3 more on the way that I know of at this moment so this is not the end by a long shot!

Just in case you haven’t seen it elsewhere, I’m having a sale in my Artfire & Etsy shops this weekend!

Use code “THANKSGIVING” for free shipping on everything in both shops excluding the 2012 fiber club. That includes the sale section on Artfire which makes for some great deals.

Happy Shopping and I hope y’all had a great Thanksgiving! More knitting to come next post.

Awhile back on plurk a bunch of people decided to do a shawl swap and I decided to jump on the bandwagon. What really drew me in was that the yarn used to make the shawl had to be handspun! We were paired up and the person I would be making a shawl for was someone I had never “met” online. After a few messages back and forth I finally thought I had a feel for what she might like and got to work dyeing.

Lucky for me (and my swap partner) I had just gotten some 75/25 blend of BFL/Silk into the shop to try! OMG people if you have not spun this blend before GO GET SOME!! And ya know, there might be some here or here that you could try. But seriously no matter where you get it from go get some and try it! I love this blend so much! It has the spinning ease of superwash merino with that beautiful shine of silk and everything you love about BFL all in one blend! If you haven’t figured it out by now I *really* enjoyed spinning this up. While the colors of the top didn’t come out quite as saturated as I would have liked, I held out hope that my partner would like it.

Then I took a look through her Ravelry queue/wishlist and stumbled upon the Peacock Shawlette pattern. What a great match for the color yarn I’d come up with! I set to knitting as soon as the yarn was dry (didn’t hurt that I was already pushing the deadline and I happened to be home sick anyway). I’ve never knit a shawl from the long edge up before but I really enjoyed it! The cast on was a bit fiddly but once I watched the video that the designer included with the pattern it was no problem figuring it out. And to have the rows get shorter instead of longer with a deadline looming? Awesome!

My downtime at home helped me finish the knitting in just under a week (a record for progress on the knitting front for me lately). I suddenly realized that my usual “blocking board” aka our spare bed left us when we moved to NH, so I had to take advantage of sheet changing day, a warm apartment and a fan set to high to get it blocked and ready to send.

In a few hours it was dry and ready for a photo shoot.

By the time you read this the shawl will be happily residing in Colorado with its new owner! But I’m totally going to have to make one of these for myself…

Ever get completely sucked in by a knit? I started this on Saturday.

It’s a hemlock ring blanket. I can’t seem to put it down. I’ve already knit over 223 yards of yarn on it today alone.

I think the knitting mojo is back.

You may or may not know that Stitches, our delightful angora rabbit, has cancer for the third time. I’m not sure that I have said that “out loud” here, but tumor number three was found shortly after we moved to NH and around the time of my Dad’s stroke in the spring so it may have just been too much at the moment.

She had surgery for this same tumor twice while we were in NJ and after a lot of wrestling with the thought we decided not to seek treatment this time around. It wasn’t one of those decision you make and you say out loud or you sign a contract for. It’s one of those decisions that’s just been hanging in the ether for awhile. And even though we did not make the decision lightly and it means that the end of her life is more certain, we think it’s for the best.

That definitely doesn’t make it easy. And waiting for the inevitable is excruciating at best. We know what to look for after discussions with various people. She’ll start to loose weight (which I’m beginning to accept has begun) and a day will come when she’ll stop eating and it will be time to do the same for her that we had to do for Simba last December. I’m dreading that day. I know it’s coming but I dread it with all my heart.

I recently picked her up, which I hadn’t done in awhile and had a good look/feel of the area. The tumor is about as big as the palm of my hand right now. You’d never know anything was wrong with her from looking at her. She’s still happily munching away and laying in the hallway or bouncing around the house like she always does. But I cried. A lot. And I finally did something I’ve been putting off for awhile. I sent for her medical records from NJ. When the time comes I want the new vet to know that she wasn’t neglected.

My friend Diane knows about all this. Diane is one of the sweetest people you would ever meet and I’m lucky to have her in my life. She’s got her hands full with her own life stuff right now and yet she found the time to do this:

At the Southern Adirondack Festival there was a vendor selling needle felting kits. Diane bought the bunny and with some of Stitches fiber and a few pictures she made it into a life like replica of our little girl!!

How amazing is that? Even the ears are perfect!

I’m going to cherish this forever. And when our baby is no longer with us it will be a sweet reminder of the little life we tried so hard to save.

Thank you Diane. From the bottom of my heart.

Bet you didn’t expect to hear from me again so soon, eh? Well I’m announcing a contest for the shop today and thought this would be a good place to explain it in depth since other forums only allow 140 characters. So here it is!

Contained in that tote bag is a wonderful fiber/yarn related prize for a lucky winner (and you get the bag too)! That lucky winner could be YOU! The prize has at least a $50 value, possibly more depending on how entries go. It might also be adjusted depending on whether the winner is a spinner or a knitter (or maybe both). This contest begins today (November 1st) and will run until December 31st with a winner chosen on Jan. 1, 2012.

So how do you get your chance to win? You can enter in several ways:

— Tweet, Plurk, G+, Facebook, Blog, post on Ravelry or find some other way to promote this contest to others. Make sure I see your entry and EACH time your name will be thrown in the hat.

— Make a purchase in either the Artfire or Etsy shops from now until Dec. 31st. Do that and your name will be thrown in the hat THREE times.

— Do a random act of kindness and send me an email at Zarzuelasfibers [at] gmail [dot] com to tell me about it. What’s a random act of kindness? Something you do for someone that you may not even know without expectation of reward. Pay for the coffee of the person behind you at the drive through. Give someone you don’t know a gift. Donate to a food pantry. The possibilities are endless! Do something like this and tell me about it and I’ll put your name in the hat FIVE times.

Why am I doing this? It’s been a great year for Zarzuela’s Fibers and for me. Without your support none of what I’ve accomplished would be possible. The best way I know to express my gratitude is to give something back to you. And if we can spread that good will throughout the fiber community and beyond, what could be better? This is the time of year to look back and remember just how lucky we are and give something back where we can. Won’t you join me?

Wishing you and yours a spectacular end of 2011 and beyond!

As we are still tourists in our new land we decided that we had to go visit the Keene, NH pumpkin festival on the 22nd. We weren’t disappointed either! What a festival!

Never have I ever seen so many carved pumpkins in one place!

Glad I didn’t have that guy’s job though!

There was food and music as well and even though the weather wasn’t the greatest we had an amazing time. Keene is a really fun little town too.

The greatest thing about it? The sense of community. Something like this event wouldn’t be possible just anywhere. No one disturbed the displays, everyone was contributing to the attempt to break the world record (you are asked to bring a carved pumpkin to the festival!). It was amazing.

There was even pumpkin bowling!

And when night fell it got even better!

Come to the Pumpkin Festival you must!

See the complete set of photos we took here.

Wishing you all a happy and safe Halloween!