an ent knits

I’m not sure I’d mentioned it here, but I spent the last couple of weeks looking for (and not finding) my skein of redwood bfl. I looked in all of the places where there’s supposed to be yarn, all the places where I keep spinning fiber, and four or five boxes labelled “misc bedroom” or “misc living room”. Three times, at least. Oh, and also all of my boxes of books, since I used yarn as padding in some of the odd spaces in some of them. I had about given up, figuring that the moving gremlins had won this round, and I was going to wind off the green Boogie laceweight and start my peacock feathers shawl. And then, last night, I went looking for my lazy kate. I was sure I’d unpacked it from my laundry-hamper-turned-wrapping-paper-holder, so I figured maybe it was under my bed (after, y’know, looking by the other spinning stuffs). And, lo and behold, there was yet another box labelled “misc bedroom”, which turned out to contain (among other things) my redwood bfl! Hurrah! (And then I looked again in the paper hamper thingy, and found the lazy kate. Turns out it’s shorter than I’d remembered, so it fit flat in the bottom.)

I was so excited that I had to immediately wind it into a ball and start knitting.

It’s not nearly that monochromatic. I suppose it’s the combination of my camera and the sun on my desk. But it’s a nice range of pink to brown, and really not a single color. Maybe the next picture I take will be more accurate.

And…I went to knitting at Kirsten‘s on Saturday, where I alternated between knitting on the autumn sunset shawl (now about 13 repeats long) and spinning from the silk cap I bought at Maryland. There are some really, really fine bits, but it’s sufficiently not-overplied that I figured I’d see what’d happen if I left it as a single ply. (It’s about time to not ply something, right?) I wound off the silk the other night, and it only broke once. Out of 115 circuits around my two-yard niddy-noddy. I was impressed.

Anyway, here ’tis, with a bus token for scale (about the same size as a quarter):

Mmm, silk.

So, I took a whole whack of pictures of the secret project I mentioned. Alas, the @#$% autofocus on my camera seemed to think that the people in the edges of the pictures should look better than the knitted item in the middle…And I somehow neglected to get a completely-finished picture.

At any rate, here ’tis, the hedgehog that Anj and Kirsten and I made as a birthday present for Jill. I knit the front, Anj knit a bit of the back and did the felting and stuffing (and needle-felting of eyes, which aren’t in that picture), and Kirsten knit most of the back. It was a lot of fun, and I think just about everyone at last week’s fiber night decided to knit one. (I’m even thinking I need to make one for myself…)

And I’m hoping that Jill will send me some pictures of the hedgehog with eyes.

**update: picture from Jill:**

I’ve been doing more knitting since then, too. I’ve found that the autumn sunset shawl is the perfect socialization knitting–just interesting enough that I don’t get too bored, but simple enough that I don’t have to divert attention away from talking to people. So I knit during fiber night, and at the park with some friends and their dog, and at Ben & Jerry’s when we went out for ice cream. (One of the ice cream people came over and asked about what I was knitting and whether I knew how to knit in the round. I said yes and pointed out that although I was using a circular, I was still knitting flat… I think he said he only knew how to knit scarves.)

Yet again, no accurate pictures, but here’s a picture from October so you have some idea what I’m talking about.

Picture it about twice that size.

I have knitting to show! Not all that much of it is recent, but I’ve resumed work on my ginormous green to-be-felted totebag:

Lest it decide to swallow my cat and start engulfing my armchair, I think I’m going to start the handles/straps after I finish the skein I joined on Saturday. It’ll be really nice to have this thing done…whenever that actually happens.

And…I know, my stated plan was to spin and knit from my stash and what I bought at Maryland and not buy more fiber until Rhinebeck, but I couldn’t resist this:

A very kind, generous person offered to buy roving mill-ends from Brown Sheep, at their factory, and send them to various other people at her cost. And I’m not to a point of being able to refuse pretty roving at $7/lb. So I now have two pounds of wool in that lovely cranberry color. I’m hoping it’ll turn into a sweater.

And, to continue the red, and just because it was there, I present a photo of one of the poppies I bought at the farmers’ market last Saturday:

I’m still unpacking, and this week’s knitting has been for a secret project, but I found this link for you:

today’s Six Chix

I can’t see myself in quite that situation for a while, though.

I have moved. There are still odds and ends (and all of my plants) at my old apartment, but I’m officially living at my new apartment now. I moved some essentials over on Saturday evening, and then devoted all of Sunday to moving (nearly all of) the rest of my stuff. Hiring movers for the furniture was a wonderful, wonderful idea… But last night was devoted to rearranging boxes and furniture–I only unpacked one or two boxes, maybe three if you count the “immediate kitchen stuff” box I unpacked this morning so I could make coffee. At this point, most of the stuff that belongs in the living room is in the living room, and most of the boxes in the bedroom either belong there or will eventually find homes in the kitchen. I was keeping most of the kitchen free so my landlord could install the washer and dryer this morning (!!). So, the four hours I spent reorganizing boxes and getting about half the furniture into the right places meant no knitting, but I have one picture from Saturday night to share:

if you click, it’ll get slightly larger

Yes, that’s the wheel set up before I unrolled my new mattress. (Of course, the only thing that hasn’t been moved in the moving-in and rearranging process is the lamp…)

And, while I’m posting, here’s the big excitement from a week or so before the intensive packing:

My christmas cactus, which I’ve had for about four years, finally decided to bloom this May. I’m not sure whether it wanted to be a Mothers’ Day cactus or a Memorial Day cactus, but it made me happy. I mean, I like having green plants around, and I don’t object to the all-green flowers that some of them have, but it’s nice when the plants that are supposed to have colorful flowers actually do so.