Picture pages, picture pages, lots of fun with picture pages

OK, here are a few pictures with no updates from my last post cause I haven't even picked up a set of needles since then.

First of all, here is a picture of my husband's sweater. At least part of it. This is the back.
Here's the beginning of one arm. Yes the arm is supposed to be another color, see! The picture is pretty horrible, but there is a cable running down the arm. It's 3 cables, the ones on either side pass under the middle one making it look like it's just pinched.
And now the hat that I got as a kit when me, my mom, and my sister went to a quilt festival. It was supposed to be solid yellowish, but I was getting bored with it and I added a green stripe. Unfortunately it's getting quite a ladder when I change needles. I seem to have gotten a little lazy about 10 rows ago and didn't realize it until I went to take pictures. Oh, and the yarn is in a yarntainer I got from my mom as part of my birthday present. It's pretty handy already.

This is the yarn I spun all by myself! It's my first attempt so I didn't quite get it even. And there's less then 20 yards so I have no idea what I'll do with it. This is the yarn from my sister that I got as a Christmas/birthday present. I think this will become a hat. I need to spin something that coordinates to have enough for a hat though. If you can't tell, that's an orange and a brown spun together along with a shimmery orange strand. It's really nice and a yarn I can actually use to make MYSELF a hat since it won't clash with the red hair! I can't wait.

That's all for now. More stuff when I get around to it. My husband and I are trying to get our house ready to sell though so there isn't much in the way of free time here. I just spent all day today power washing our deck. It looks gorgeous and I have nothing else to do until 8 tonight, but I just don't seem to have the energy to actually knit. I think I'll lay on the couch and veg out for a few hours!

I swear I still knit

Really I do! But for now you'll just ahve to take my word for it. No FOs in a long time. But that's ok, I've had far too much other stuff going on in my life. My husband finally came home from Iraq, which of course required a week long celebration (read: sat around the house for a week, didn't go to work, didn't knit, didn't read, didn't watch movies, just spent time with him). Then I just had my graduation this weekend. While that doesn't really explain the lack of knitting given that my sister is even more of an obsessive knitter then me. But, we spent one day with the kids being scientists and the other at graduation.

That still doesn't seem to cover all the time since my last post (how many months ago was that?). So, I have been doing some knitting. I'm working on an angora hat, which got stalled for a while when I got so bored with the color and decided it needed a stripe and it took me forever to get to the yarn store. I'm still working on my husband's sweater. I finished the back and started a sleeve, but that also got delayed until I went to the yarn store because I needed some not-so-slippery cable needles.

I've also delved into the world of spinning. Last time I was visiting Long Island, my sister gave me a 5 minute crash course where I found out that I wasn't really drafting the fiber. All problems solved! I finished a skein of 17 feet. I really thought with all the work I put into it it would have to be enough for a hat, but it was a scrawny 17 feet!! Oh well. I started another skein, this time spun quite a bit thinner. It's roving I got when Joshua and I went to Jamestown for a day during our week of celebration. We'll see how much I have and if I can make anything from it.

The rest of my time has been devoted to reading and flyball. Thanks to bookmooch I have more reading material then I could ever want. And flyball is just about the most fun you can have with a psychotic, ball-crazed dog. Trapper is still just learning, but we sure have a blast at class.

So, my birthday/graduation just past and I got some fantastic presents. My little sister didn't get me anything, but she's excused cause she brought me 5 or so Marian Keyes/Helen Fielding books to borrow for a while. My parents got me a double helix necklace and bracelet from Cold Spring Harbor for my birthday. My graduation present is going to be a quilt storage chest! My older sister gave me some hand spun yarn (that matches my Christmas present). I should have enough now to almost make a hat, I'll probably have to do trim in a coordinating color. I really want to spin something to use with it so it's totally hand spun. Then for graduation she gave me (then quickly took back) a half finished shawl. It has a double helix down the center and lace panels on either side. It will be gorgeous when it's finished. I think it was a mustard yellow color but it may have been more green, I can't quite remember.

I'll try to remember to take some pictures tonight and post something a little more fun (but I added hyperlinks this time so you all can play around a little).