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The Shepherd’s Vest is done! I handed it off to Tina on Saturday.

Sure do hope it fits. I’m so used to being able to do try-ons as I go when I knit for myself and The Man.

I think it turned out really well.

The yarn being two colors gives a nice marled effect and provides enough textural interest without any cabling or patterned stitches.

It hopefully will serve as a dependable go-with-everything extra layer.

Can never have too many sweaters like that.

And so now it’s on to the next project!

This is the rest of the half-fleece I bought back in November. Just freshly washed up.

It has a nice range of colors that I’ve sorted into light, medium and dark batches.

I’ve already used some of it to knit some socks (because it’s just so easy to cast on for more standard recipe socks).

But I’ve already got a couple more skeins in standby, and I’m thinking of a sweater.

A Shades of Gray sweater. Dark to light, or light to dark.

Light and soft and simple.

It’s been a tough week for knitting and spinning.

I’ve got keyboard fatigue, and the fingers have been rebelling.

And I’ve also had a little bit of a setback on the Shepherd’s Vest. Had to rip back to the armpits on the front.

The yarn has changed enough in grist to make the fabric considerably thinner,, so I’ve had to rethink my completion strategy.

I’m going to go down an needle size, choose the thickest of the remaining yarn, and take another shot at completing it this week.

I’ll just have to feel out the gauge as I go.

This weeks stashbusting:

It’s a double coated shetland, softly spun and then navajo plied. I just love the variety of colors and textures in it.

To me it looks kind of nutty, or spicy.  It has real character.

The expo was a lot of fun, but man am I beat!
Should have gotten some photos of my classes and all the show and tell stuff I brought,, but things were moving too fast….

When I finally did get a little downtime Saturday I checked out the vendors at the trade show

And visited with some alpacas,

Then sat down and did some spinning. (They had a corner of the gym set aside for spinners)

The Shepherd’s vest doesn’t look like much in this photo, but is coming along nicely- just about got the back done-

This is the Skein of the Week-
I’m really pleased with it, but don’t have a knitting project in mind yet. Will kind of depend on how much of this same thing I have a mind to produce…
It’s about 2.7 oz and 235 yards of soft, fluffy oatmeal-y goodness.

That’s all for now- Have a good week!

This past week I had a birthday.

It wasn’t one of those big, “round number birthdays”, but it is significant in a woolish type of way.

You see- a long time back, The Man promised me that by the time I was 40, I’d have sheep!

So 2010 is the year.

We’ve gotta get refocused on the fencing and make it happen.

Anyway, for the 39th, I got a great reference book-

Alden has a ton of experience, and is very opinionated, so it makes even the technical bits amusing.
Wouldn’t give it to a very beginner, as it might make the process seem really intimidating, but It’s a good read.

I’ve been busy this week getting my act together for the classes I’m teaching next weekend (is it really next weekend already! Yeeks!)
Lots of samples and tools to organize, etc, etc.

And in the midst of this, I am still making some progress on knitting projects-

One sock down-

And up to the armpits on the Shepherd’ Vest!

The Great Stash Reduction continues, albeit slowly.

More on that next week-