Rippling Away The Blues

Thank goodness it is the end of February. While it is the shortest month, it always seems to be my least favorite. Poor February, it can't help its place as the last full month of winter--the month that everyone gets sick of the cold and just plain sick. The combination of cold and snow, along with a busy work schedule, gave me the February blues this week. Though it turned out to be nothing that a little sunshine, a mug of tea, and cozying up in my ripple blanket couldn't cure.


I made this little afghan almost two years ago, when the ripple craze swept the internet. At that time, it seemed like you couldn't look at any crafter's blog without seeing yet another of these afghans. As the pattern was so simple and yielded such cute results, I could not help but start one myself. For yarn, I used blue and green oddballs and scraps from my stash. Unfortunately, I only had enough to make a small lapghan, though it has served me well enough over the past two years.

So there I was this morning, sitting on the couch underneath my big picture window soaking up the sun--just me and my small ripple (and the mug of tea, of course)--when I realized that I must have accrued more blue and green yarn scraps in the two years since I worked on this blanket. A little digging through my scrap bag proved this to be true and I decided it was time to expand the ripple into a properly sized afghan.


I don't know how much farther I will get on this before my current yarn runs out. It is possible that this will become the never-ending project, usable but always waiting for more yarn to be truly finished. I do know that I am really enjoying to crochet each additional stripe; it is an easy pattern and the frequent turns keep it entertaining. So even if I do run out of yarn a while from now, it promises an enjoyable crochet experience in another two years.

Spun Spun

I spent a few nights on the spinning wheel since my post two weeks ago and spun up both the warm and cool groups of roving. Though the two groups of roving were similar in make-up (consisting of light, medium, and dark blues and purples), I ended up two skeins that do not look very related.


For the warm skein I worked the purples and blues into separate singles; each starting with the lightest shade and becoming progressively darker. I also threw in a little angelina to add some sparkle. I think that the plied yarn is quite beautiful, though it is a little difficult to see the color progression.


For the cool skein, I also did a color progression, but in a slightly different way. I spun all of the fiber into one single that started light purple, got darker, turned blue, then got lighter again. I then plied this with sequins and sewing thread. This is a technique that I am sure to use again, as I had a lot of fun putting this yarn together!


Now that the spinning is finished, I realize that I'm only halfway done with this challenge. My next step is to come up with a knitting project that highlights the character and color shifts in this yarn. I estimate each skein contains only 100 yards of worsted weight, so things can only get more interesting from here!

Messenger Owl

Having already discussed my mild obsession with Harry Potter, it may not surprise you that I will be employing an owl to deliver all of my love notes today (Valentine's Day). Muggle post simply cannot be trusted with such an important task. Instead of dealing with the hassle of the live version, however, I decided to go with a little amigurumi owl based on the pattern found here. She may not be the largest owl, but she certainly makes up for it in cuteness.


The drawback is that she cannot be trained to carry letters like a normal owl, i.e. using mice. After a day or two, though, I discovered that whispering a few kind words into her ear will get you in her good graces. At this point she will open her beak, allowing you to put your letter inside.


Unfortunately, she has absolutely no sense of direction whatsoever, so I fear that I will be delivering all of my love notes by hand this year.

Spin Spin

Although I own a spinning wheel, I would not consider myself much of a spinner. When I do spin, I'm the kind who likes to start the wheel and just see what happens. So when the spinning bug hit this week, I decided to hedge my bets and pick some fun colored roving, as well as some interesting add-ins. I have some roving in blues and purples--organized into warms and cools--to which I'm adding beads, sequins, angelina, and sewing thread:



I don't have too much of a plan for how I will spin this, but it certainly promises to be fun!

Obnoxiousocks

The obnoxiousocks are finished! For how worried I was at how they would come out, I'm pretty happy with the results.


My biggest concern was how the colors would pool, and while the socks are quite vibrant, the pooling adds interest without being busy. The stitch count was obviously just right, as the colors aligned every-other-row and were balanced. The vivid pink was always pair with the calm purple, the orange paired with the brown, and the yellow-green paired with the blue. The result was that only one color dominated at a time, allowing your eye to follow swirls of color up each sock.


As these socks do not have any Nylon content and are 100% wool, I don't foresee heavy wear outside of the house. But for those cold Wisconsin nights when I am curled up at home, you will probably find me wearing some bright and obnoxious socks.