The radio silence around here has not been all together intended. I’ve been studying my yoga, reading (things other than assignments which is rather unusual for me), dealing with wedding plans and family and a metric buttload of snow in two different storms, etc. etc. etc. February is always a tough month for me for some reason. I always seem to get sick at least once and this year it really held on for far too long. But that illness actually led to some self discovery oddly enough…

Anyway, the biggest factor in the lack of blogging has mostly been the lack of daylight for photographs (which also, not so coincidentally turned my 365 projects into an epic fail once again). I just couldn’t ever seem to get decent pictures of what I was working on and when I did have time in daylight hours it seemed like there was always some form of water falling from the sky!

But finally, finally!! There was sun this past weekend (and snow of course) so I can finally show you some of what I’ve been working on lately. First up was an Ishbel of my very own.

My Ishbel

Pattern: Ishbel
Yarn: Pigeonroof Studios Cassiopeia, surf colorway
Needles: US 5
Knit: Feb. 1-10, 2010

First of all, a huge THANK YOU to my dear friend Sairy for giving me this delicious yarn!! It’s got CASHMERE in it people! And could the color be more perfect for me?? I think not!

Ishbel is a lovely pattern to knit, even twice! I particularly love how the top edge curves so that it stays around the neck quite nicely. I’ve worn this quite a bit since I finished it and it’s really like a lovely warm hug around my neck.

And did I mention it has CASHMERE in it?!?! Hello?!?!?

Next up, my shawlette for the latest Zarzuela’s Fibers Spinalong!

Traveling Woman

Pattern: Traveling Woman by Liz Abinante
Yarn: Handspun! In my Purple Midnight colorway – 100% merino, two ply
Needles: US 5
Knit: Feb. 10-16, 2010

Since I never did post a pic, here’s the finished yarn:

While I’m very happy with the end result I do think that there are some serious problems with this pattern. I’ve been far too busy to keep track of such things, but fair warning should you choose to knit this pattern. Be careful with the written directions. Either that or I just simply can’t count which, of course, is entirely possible.

This project was a great reminder of how nice it is to knit with your own handspun for me. It was a fairly quick project too. I spun the yarn in just a couple of days and had the shawl knitted up during my commute in short order too. Considering how long the yarn for my wedding shawl has been taking, this was blissful relief.

Speaking of the wedding shawl yarn… I made it my project for the recent Ravelympics. And I FINISHED it!! Seriously!! Aunt Cookie can start to breathe a little bit again now. More on that next time!

But before I go… a little gratitude to send out to the universe. A year ago today I found out about the health situation that was most of my focus last year. This time last year, I could not even begin to imagine how that night would change my life. Through all the fear and anguish of those next 3 months leading up to my surgery and through my recovery I’ve emerged on the other side of it all far stronger and with a focus and direction I never could have expected. Thank you to all of you who listened to me, supported me and encouraged me through the darkest of those days. The next time life gets hard, I hope I can remember your love and compassion and know that it will all be ok. Thank you for that gift.

So another holiday is in the books and we survived it all. I finally found out on Xmas eve that it would only be me, HWJF and my parents for dinner. That worked out just fine but we’ll be eating leftovers for quite a while. I made 4 pies! Ah well. Plenty to get us through the next holiday.

Now that the gifting is done I can show you the last of what I knit for Christmas. This one I’m rather proud of.

Mom’s Ishbel

Pattern: Ishbel
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Luscious Silk, 1 skein in Winter Solstice
Needles: US6
Knit: 11.17-11.22.09
Mods: I had to leave out the last 2 rows of the last chart in order to have enough yarn for the bind off.

Despite needing to leave out a couple of rows (again! What is up with me and small shawls and running out of yarn?!) I think this turned out pretty darn well. Knitting with this silk was simply heavenly.

It’s good to have someone in your life that is allergic to wool so you have an excuse to knit with the really good stuff.

As I knit this I thought that it might end up being something that Mom would want to wear to our wedding. That was almost the first thing out of her mouth when she opened it. Great minds!

I rarely knit a pattern more than once but I think I need one of these for me at some point! We’ll see when I can find the time.

Speaking of knitting something more than once. How ’bout 3 times!!

Dad & HWJF’s Flip top gloves

Pattern: Urban Necessity Gloves by Colleen Michele Meagher
Yarn: Cascade 220
Needles: US6
Knit: 10.30-11.30.09 and again 12.16-12.21.09
Mods: I did these very plainly without any cables on the flaps

I knit a pair of these for my grandfather last Christmas and when my Dad and HWJF saw them they both dropped major hints about maybe wanting a pair for themselves. I bought the yarn almost immediately but didn’t get around to knitting them until the holidays. I had specifically planned them for my Dad but when HWJF asked me to knit a pair of socks for his Mom I thought his were going to have to wait. Luckily I had a little time before the big day so I cranked them out. Both seem to be very happy with them and my Dad may need them for an upcoming work project so I’m glad I got them done!

HWJF and I decided to skip exchanging gifts this year because we have a lot of wedding expenses to cover these days. Jewelry has been the big one lately. We ordered and received our wedding bands already! And I have a new engagement ring. Yes, a new ring. You see, about 30 seconds after I found my ring and he proposed HWJF was already telling me how this was just a “starter” ring and that he knew it wasn’t what I wanted but we would get what I wanted later. At the time, I really didn’t know what I wanted in an engagement ring (read: we went into 3 stores in NJ and I left the last one balling my eyes out because they made me feel like an ass for not knowing jack about diamonds or anything that went with them.) and since we really were thinking that we wanted to get married on 10.10.10 we were both figuring we’d better get the ball rolling.

At the time, I thought he was nuts and I never thought I’d change it. But when we started looking at wedding bands I really wanted something that went together with my engagement ring well. So in the end, we had the diamond from my ring reset with a couple of new friends to go with the wedding band. When it came to his band, we just made sure it was platinum like my rings and found something he liked. So here’s his band:

Here’s my new engagement ring:

And here’s my wedding band:

And since I can’t resist, here’s what they look like together:

I’m *very* happy with how they all turned out. We’ll need to double check the sizing this summer but it’s nice to have another thing pretty much off the checklist.

————————————-

And now the time of year has come where I usually take a look back and see what I’ve done as far as crafting goes. I had several goals for the year. And then that whole surgery thing happened and they all pretty much went out the window. But I’m really ok with that. Sometimes there are just much more important things to focus on. I did finish three sweaters though…

And I’m still hopeful that there might be one more just under the deadline.

There were socks as always:

The cowl bug definitely bit me too!

Frankly I’m amazed I finished as much as I did in some ways. Spinning definitely took a hit this year but I did make a few nice yarns.

All in all, I’d say that isn’t bad for a year that had some serious ups and downs.

My goals for the new year? My first goal is to get some old WIP off the needles. After that it’s going to be all wedding knitting all the time until it’s done. There’s only a little over 9 months to go!

Next time, a look back at the decade that was as we look toward the next one!