DSCF7230, originally uploaded by criosa.

(apparently red-eye settings do odd things to his eyes)

I’ve been working on the stashbusting baby blanket on and off for a while now. nothing too exciting - just a big pink rectangle of stockinette. was figuring I’d end up finding a baby to give it to (my cousin’s due in November - so if she has another girl, I’d have a gift at the ready). It’s been on my desk (I worked on it the other night while listening to the first chapter of Twilight.), but I tossed it onto the floor while trying to clean my desk off earlier.

hmmm… maybe I’ll be keeping it:

that was earlier.

this is now.

(and if my sister’s reading this, the blue up in the corner is the hat he pulled out so he could sleep on the other hat.)

so, you may recall I’m attempting to make the stash smaller (as evidenced by the StashDown counter over there in the sidebar). I’ve been trying to keep it close, but I know there’ll be some inaccuracies.

So I downloaded my stash from Ravelry and totaled it up. apparently I currently have 19.12 kg of stash. I’ve destashed quite a bit, but I didn’t think I had acquired that much new yarn. No idea what my actual destash total is, but according to Ravelry, I’ve acquired 3.9 kg. Granted, the other part of StashDown is actually USING the stash (knitting from stash. huh. fancy that.) - and it looks like I have 4.7 kg wrapped up in WIPs. well, I suppose with some luck, I’ll end up with a smaller (albeit barely) stash.

Note that as I was not spinning at the start of the year, the fiber & handspun stash are not included. (nor are we discussing that until next year)

as for the other half of the goal (reduce WIPs): yeah, that needs some serious help. I will need to become a knitting machine between now and the New Year if I want to get anywhere near close to that goal.

ps. Thursday will be my 4 year blogiversary.

I have been knitting lately, just seems pretty boring working on the eternal WIPs. I’ve been heading down to Burnsville on and off the last few weeks to knit with Nancy & Rina and whoever else happens to be there. I went to Drunken Knitting Night at Merlin’s Rest with Kim and Becky from dance (and we encountered Dave, also from dance. He was one of the musicians, not knitting.) oh, and I knit ’round the campfire at my cousin’s fall gathering last weekend, where I was told that the two petals of the flower washcloth looked more like a bra or bikini top. hadn’t realized that, but he was oh-so-right.

Projects I’ve been working on lately have been the Positive Energy Stole (mostly at Burnsville), seaming the HP POA scarf, the flower washcloth, the short-row scarf of doom (aka Sea Lettuce) and the Zucca blanket. I bought a few needles for needle felting and a bit of blue fiber (I haven’t made anything more than a couple blobs yet) - I blame my sister for that. (ever since she got interested, I’ve had it in my head that I need to copy her. I figure I’ll add some designs to a felted bag or something in the future.) In spinning news, I finished the Miss Babs fiber and have started one of the Seawools from Creatively Dyed.

In non-knitting news, I wandered (well, drove) around the Twin Cities today for a quilting shop hop.
This is what I got:

and this is what the finished quilt would look like:

I only got the fabric for the squares right now (I can buy a kit with all the fabric for the borders and such to finish it up), and I only have 6 of the squares. (missing the yellow & green square in the center right and the green one with the red X in the center top). I’m thinking I might make a table runner or something instead of the quilt as shown.

I also fell in love with one of the shops (located next to All About Yarn) Block of the Month quilts:

It’ll be queen sized when finished - which is perfect since that’s what size my bed is (which is also good cuz the kitties try to crowd me - usually one on either side of me). It started in September (with the medallion in the center), so I’m not too far behind.

and, in parting, some kitty pics…

Wolfie napping (or attempting to, before I found him and grabbed the camera) on the treadle of my wheel

dinner time. Wolfie ways nearly twice as much as Kashka. though most of him is still fluff.

after a rather long hiatus (I think the last time I actually spun on the wheel was early August), I resumed spinning up the Miss Babs wool/silk that I bought at Midwest Folk & Fiber back in July. the black’s been spun up for a while, the green was in time-out (it broke. I get frustrated when it breaks mid-spin and sometimes have an impossible time rejoining things)

This is what I’m spinning:

(I realize I never posted about my overindulgence in fiber at Midwest Folk & Fiber. If you’re on Ravelry, you can see the loot here. um, yeah. I may have gone a bit overboard.)

I think I spun up about half of the green tonight (so around 1 oz). my ‘pinching’ finger is giving me grief now. I need to remember to not overdo it - especially after such a long break.

in good news, Wolfgang doesn’t seem overly interested in the spinning or the fiber. he sat on the arm of the sofa for a while supervising, but didn’t try to play with anything. good to know. he did, however, decide that the alpaca-shaped WPI tool would be a good toy - for all of two seconds until he knocked it off the sofa and into a knitting project bag…

oh, and yes, the kitties are still getting along pretty well. see:

(that’s actually from mid-September. I need to get a better pic of them)