Knit Night!!!

So, the first ever knit night was oh so much fun. We ate munchies, although I think I might be the one who ate the most and knit the least, talked a LOT, and did some knitting.We started small because I had no idea how this would turn out. I figured if people enjoy themselves and want to get together again...GREAT! and then we can invite more people!I think we may have even converted my sister in law to knitting...I've been trying to two years or so now (that's who's lap I'm sitting on...I don't normally sit on just anyone for photo ops :-) She's working on a modern log cabin blanket from Mason Dixon. I bought some dishcloth cotton and needles for teaching people to night. That's my new go to teaching project since the scarf requires too much commitment for my liking, and I think you learn more doing the dishcloth where you start with 4 stitches and increase doing yo's up to about 43 then decrease doing k2tog yo k2tog till you're back down to 4. People seem to feel like they can do a lot more after this dishcloth pattern than they do after learning a plain garter stitch scarf...but...anyway.
Sarah didn't think her first knitting attempt dishcloth was even enough. She was chatty (which is why we love her) and always seemed to forget the yo on the same side. Soooo when she said she wanted to rip it out and start over, I made her take a picture with it first....can't lose your first knit right! Then, we ripped it and helped her cast on again with take home yarn for homework...hmmmm I've got to call that Sarah and see how she's doing...hmmmm come to think of it she hasn't answered my emails....hmmmm :-P

Next knit night will be soon!

Debbie's mini disclaimer hehe: Knit night was actually Monday April 7th....but I haven't posted because I was waiting to make sure that everyone was OK with having their pictures posted online. I haven't heard back from everyone so there are some photos missing...I didn't want to leave people out...but I really didn't want to post people online without permission.

Spring is in the air!

I started some plants from seed a few weeks ago..hmmmm March 20th. Some onions, some lettuce (don't ask me what I was thinking there) some tomatoes and some peppers. Here's what my tray looks like now.
The tomatoes are really the only thing that I'm paying any attention to....for obvious reasons :-)I planted two types of tomato plants Earlianna and Beefsteak. The Earlianna plants are the ones here and they look much nicer than the Beefsteak ones at this point. I only ended up with three of the Beefsteak type germinating, while all the Earlianna did very well (so far) and also, the Beefsteak ones have gotten taller and a little more spindly.
These just popped up this morning! I had lost all hope for the peppers, but must say I'm still pleased, since I only paid $14.22 for all my seed starting mix, little potting tray and all the seeds (I got more seeds than just these...I got all the regular garden seeds too..except for a few that I couldn't find like sugar snap peas). Anyways, I figured that the peppers just weren't good seeds and wouldn't germinate, but when I moved the tray under the skylight this morning I noticed that this one little cell had 2 pepper seedlings in it. Maybe I'll be able to grow a pepper plant after all. I'm still doing better than I expected. I really expected this seed starting business to be just a fun attempt, and that I'd end up buying the tomato and pepper plants. We'll see, maybe some of these will survive long enough to make it out to the garden!

I love my third!

My third skein of handspun.

This is the one I've made straight from the beginning. Well, almost from the beginning. I got it AFTER the sheep. I got it in the form of dirty fleece from a bag which I washed, and carded and spun. And now here is it. These pictures are from right after spinning last week. Before I "set the twist"

Here is it sitting with it's buddies, my first and second skeins, you can see how they compare. I've not being trying for any particular weight, I'm just trying to spin something...so whatever I get is what I get. This new one has turned out to be a very fine weight. I'm guessing somewhere around fingerling weight...but that's just my guess as I hold it up to other yarns in my basket of stash...maybe dk weight?It's now hanging from the pot rack in my kitchen with a soup can slung in the loop to weight it down to set the twist...I forgot to do that last week...oops...I hope that doesn't mess things up.I'm off again this week to spin a little bit more, I couldn't finish all that I had last week. So we'll see how this week goes.