Author: denisemor

Ready or Not, Here it Comes!

denisemor 1 January 3, 2016

Happy New Year to you all!

We ushered in 2016 quietly here- no parties out in the sheep shed that I’m aware of, though you never know what those crazy chickens are up to in the coop after hours….

As 2015 was drawing to a close, it occurred to me recently that I’m a bit behind in fleece processing.
Come March or April, the boys are going to be looking for haircuts, and I still have a couple unwashed fleeces from last spring tucked in a closet!
So I got down to it on new year’s eve and washed some Griff. He’s got the greasiest of my fleeces, so I did a stovetop washing to get a little heat boost.

So now I have some lovely freshly washed caramel colored fleece hanging out air-drying in our bathtub.

which is almost as good as having a sheep in the house 🙂

In other news, I’m now up to 7 skeins of chain plied Chone yarn (just over 20 oz). Really like the yarn but am still uncertain of what I’m going to make out of it. I’m waffling on Burr.

And I really thought I’d have my argyle socks done by new year’s, but it’s taking longer than expected.
It’s all going just fine,, but all those ends! Ohmygosh there are SO MANY ENDS!
I have one sock done to show you-

And it fits!

Here is a shot of the gusset.

In theory, the second half of the second sock should go faster, but I guess we’ll see.
Stay tuned.

Go Hawks!

Fleece Navidad!

denisemor 2 December 25, 2015

Back from the Stormy Coast

denisemor 0 December 20, 2015

Spent most of the last week down in Cannon Beach, Oregon, where the weather was dramatic and alternately gorgeous and awful.

Here is some of the gorgeousness-

Great time of year to go, though- as we had the place almost completely to ourselves!

I got a fair bit of argyling done while we were there, too

(Yep. Sadie pup came with!)
Done with the patterned part of the first sock, and on to number 2-

There have been a few setbacks that cost me some time (I’ve learned that ripping back and re-knitting intarsia is kind of a bugger),and I’ve learned that I need to be vigilant about checking for symmetry after completing each row.

But I’m starting to get the hang of it. I’m becoming an Argyler!

Gonna have to get me more Zauberball.

Crazy ZauberGyle!

denisemor 2 December 12, 2015

The urge to Argyle is strong, so I’m going with it.

The up-side of having a fairly robust stash is that when you need to get something started quick, there are usually yarn options at hand!

For this particular venture, I selected some leftover Crazy Zauberball, and coordinated with a couple of neutrals.

Working from a cool old Bear Brand pattern booklet from 1950 as a general guide

and my own computer-generated chart (because I wanted a stitch count that was a little different from the booklet options)

I cast on and got started argyling!

Here is the back-

Neat, eh?

Intarsia is a little fussy because of all the strands that tend to get tangled up as you interlock them going back and forth, but I think the result is going to be worth it.