Not a Lot

This work thing cuts SERIOUSLY into my beading, knitting and spinning time. Also sleeping time. Not so much loving that part of it.

Also I've been crazy busy making samples for class proposals for June through August at the local bead store. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was mad crazy busy getting samples for February through May, but apparently it was about four months ago...

Well yes I know it's just this partial thingy - I didn't say I actually finished everything, did I? I had to give them something for their web-site, and the class descriptions or price won't change with the completion of the sample, so it'll have to do. Actually I'm sorta kinda pleased with this one - I think it could be a really fun kit or class after a bit more development.

Truly? I don't adore this one so much, as it's a bit simple and I'm bored with the technique, effective though it may be. The good thing is that it's pretty easy and is quite snazzy for a fairly new beader. No exceptional skills needed.

I like this one. Not especially difficult or even terribly clever, but it's effective and you can try out all those really expensive seed beads without using up the whole tube. And once again (I just have the leaves resting on a short strand of beads. With the price tag on, but I can crop photos, as you see), I can think of something a little more interesting to do with these little leaves than what you see here.

Now this is the one of which I'm most proud, unfinished though it is. You think there's a clasp outside the picture on the upper right? Not so much, just unfinished ends, one shorter than the other.  Oh yes, the reason I'm pleased with this? I've never seen anyone do something with herringbone stitch quite like this, and its not often that I really feel that I've done something new, but I have, I think. Not that I've seen everything that everyone in the world has done since the invention of Nymo B (my thread of most use, though I actually like Fireline better for most things), but I haven't seen anything like this.

Yes, I'm preening.

In other news, I haven't spun in over two weeks, which is sad in a way, since I really like spinning, but on the other hand, I was having a really hard time even thinking about keeping up with the yarn production, and I wasn't anyway, so it's not as if I actually need More Yarn Now. Although, on the other other hand, spun yarn takes up less room than unspun, and I'm sure I could use the space.

The cream cardigan is coming along nicely, and even though I really wanted a more tailored shape with set-in sleeves, I've spoiled myself for sewing the things in, so if I can't do top-down knitted-on set-in sleeves (and I can't, not without ripping both of them out completely), it'll just have to be a raglan. I've never been as happy with bottom-up knitted-in set-in sleeves (I did them once on a sweater for my ex-husband, which I thought he'd give back to me when we got divorced - and I sweartagawd I haven't thought of this in almost fourteen years - because he criticized it so heavily when I gave it to him, but when I asked, he replied with the appearance of surprise that he really liked it. Whatever. I bet he gave it to Goodwill the next day out of spite), so I generally avoid them.

I suppose I could do another of those raglan-saddle hybrids that I did in the blue cabled sweater a couple of months ago - I've barely begun the raglan shaping so I don't have to make up my mind just yet.

Meanwhile I'm noodling over the next knitting project, which ordinarily would have been Yet Another Sweater For Me, but in this instance (and this happens around once a year or so) it's not. I had a friend, a very good friend, with whom circumstances (his move to Boston, my last ex who didn't like him much) have allowed me to lose touch, and whose wife has just had a baby. I guess I need to make baby clothes.

Being Boston, and not being a fan of either giving or receiving newborn-sized clothes, adorable as they are (if you're lucky, the baby gets to wear them once), I'm looking towards winter, and so nine-to-twelve month sizing, I think. I'm rather taken with this hat, which of course needs a sweater to go with it. Something without a hood, which is a shame, as baby sweaters with hoods are so cute, though perhaps a hat with built-in scarf is more baby-hands-proof (baby hands have been known to push hoods down and rip beanies off) than a hood on a sweater. I'm thinking this one gets the message to her parents that I'm sorry we lost touch, and anyway, it's really attractive and I'll enjoy knitting it.

...

Also, the lack of time and sleep conspire to also produce lack of exercise, which my back, still fragile, really needs. I went walking at lunchtime today, but as we're having a cold snap for which I wasn't suitably dressed, it was less fun than you might imagine, though I did see that there's a Y about three blocks away.

...

Oh, and before I forget, a movie recommendation: Eagle Vs Shark, which if you liked Napoleon Dynamite, you may well like too. Thanks once again to my kids, who made me go to Blockbuster to get it (well, when I say "made", I really mean "asked", but still), because I certainly would never have picked it out myself.