Box o’ yarn

I was cleaning up my fiber room (and, no, I didn’t finish) and took this lovely picture of my handspun yarn.

It’s one of two boxes of handspun I’ve filled up. This box is about 24 inches deep (too deep to fit on my storage rack). I just love all the colors–most are dyed, but the one big, dark brown skein is natural colored Coopworth from Hatchtown Farm. It’s Bergetta’s hoggett (first) fleece from about five years ago. I’ve got enough spun to make a sweater, but I haven’t actually knit anything yet.

So, what do you do when you’re knitting? If I had more people to hang out with, I could talk with them, but the times I can knit (usually late evening after the kids go to bed) are not condusive to haven’t company over. I could listen to audio books but I find most of them to be . . . slow or not well-read.

For most of my knitting I can both watch tv and knit at the same time, so I choose to watch tv. What’s on my watch list?

–We got Freaks and Geeks on Netflix. It’s a ton of fun, but some of the more painful moments hit too close to home. I got beaten up in HS gym class too many times to count. We’ve watched ep 1 and 2.

–Andy Barker, PI, is available for d/l at NBC.com. It’s laugh out loud funny, even upon a second viewing. The first two eps are a 10 on the funny meter, the third is a 7, but still worth watching.

–Bones is available on Fox.com and is best “watched” while knitting. The gory, gross, or boney parts are easily avoided by paying attention to your knits and purls. I love the characters (Angela and Hodgins are just *so* cute together) and the stories are interesting, even if a bit bizarre.

–Gray’s Anatomy is available at NBC.com. Gray’s is good for knitting, since it occasionally has blood and surgery, but the people are so beautiful, you’ll need to look up often.

–Blood Ties on Lifetime (also available to d/l on iTunes) is dark and a bit weird, but the people are beautiful.

–Friday Night Lights (at NBC.com) is a new find for me. I’m only on ep 4, but it’s good stuff. It’s especially good if you like football, but I’ve been told my my non-football-watching friends that they like it, too. Many, well-written characters and a compelling story.

Here are things in my to-be-watched queue. I don’t know if they’re good for knitting yet or not.

–Oz (HBO), the DVDs are in the queue.

–The Tudors (Showtime), starts this weekend.

–The Riches (F/X), I taped them and will get to them sometime.

–Eureka (SciFi), the first season ended last summer, with a second 13-ep season ordered for this summer. I’ve been told it was excellent, and will tape it when it reruns (which I’m sure will be before they start the second season).

Not much yarn, but a whole lot of tv.

I’m almost back from the dead. And, not the Grateful Dead either.

I haven’t done much over the last two weeks, with the flu and a cold one after another. You know that you’re life is sad when anti-nausea drugs make you joyful. And, when that was done I became enamored of faux-sudafed. I’m better now. It’s tough to attend two town budget meetings and a Planning Board meeting all in one week, while taking drugs, but I survived!

Additionally, I worked a bunch of days (and more in the coming two weeks, but I’ll tell you about that in a minute), found a great new tv show, and did some knitting. I’m behind on dyeing, but, hey, I couldn’t stand the smell while I was sick.

First, here are the Great Adirondak socks I’ve been working on. Please note the way the colors “pooled” or swirled.

Please note that this project is 100% complete in my progress bar. I’m very proud. I love this yarn and have started another pair.

Next, I continue to work on the cowl for the store. I love the way the colors play. No pooling in this yarn, but I think the colors are lovely.

The continuing saga of my very own handpainted socks continues. This is the third sock from the same skein. This is the yarn I’ll be using to teach my rainbow dyeing class next month. Email me for more info (the yarn and roving has already been ordered!)

Because I never have enough to do: I heard through the grapevine (specifically, one of my sisters got a message through her husband, from our cousin that his sister (also our cousin) had a baby boy on Saturday). Given that the message passed through two men, neither of which is the baby’s father, I have no further info. No name, weight or anything else. But, in celebration of the big event, I’m making organic cotton baby booties for said baby. Ecoknit cotton in light green knit in a generic baby bootie pattern.

I’ve been told that boiling the cotton will make the color deeper. Here’s the first bootie, pre-boiling:

To make sure I’m busy enough, Unique One is having two back-to-back knitting weekends here in Camden, ME. Three days each of knitting, knitting classes, shopping in Camden, great food and a discount at the store. Because we’re hosting a bunch of nice people from all over the country, it’s all hands on deck and I’ll be working full days Friday, Sat, Sun and Monday for the next two weeks. In case you want to join us for this fun-filled weekend, give the store a call at 1-888-691-8358 and/or check out the info page here. There are a few spaces still available.

Now that I’ve rambled about knitting, I’ll move on to tv. I watch a lot of tv. Sometimes it’s more than others; lately it hasn’t been much. I tape what I can and download other things. Here are some things you should catch (if you don’t already):

Rome–It’s nearing the end of the second season, so I bet it’ll be out on DVD by summer. It’s a short (12 ep) season and the first season was especially good. The second is ok, but not as spectacular. I’ve heard that in the name of authenticity they considered having all the costumes handspun. They couldn’t afford it, but the production values are spectacular.

Blood Ties–It’s a brand new show, available by the ep on iTunes. The two hour pilot was excellent–great writing, acting and production values. There’s enough depth to the characters to keep them interesting for a long time. Oh, and there are vampires, though that wasn’t why I found it worth watching.

Tonight I will sit and watch the second ep of Blood Ties and knit. The wind is whipping tonight, but I’m snug and happy!