Projects, projects, projects!

It has been a productive long weekend!  Once the monkey was finished and in his new habitat, I got busy with other projects.  The fish hat is always a fun project and the hand dyed wool I did a while back worked well.  The colors are lovely for the main color.  Next was the cup cozy.  Now I can finish the beret I started.  It should be a quick finish, as it is made with chunky wool from Kathy's sheep.

Dead fish hat 

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I love how the hand dyed wool looks with the solid stripes

Monkey cozy

Naner got into the coffee candy at spinning on Saturday and...

...got into my basket, found my new spindle, and
proceeded to teach himself how to spin.  He was
very dizzy and tired when I left.

Blue cotton on the left, blue plied with brown Fox Fibre
and my brown single.

I managed to spin and ply the blue cotton roving into yarn in August and then started the  Fox Fibre roving on Saturday.  Little Hortense is a great little wheel for cotton because she spins like a top, as does Naner!

Cheeky Monkey

I took the little guy to the shop and he was immediately nicknamed Naner by Kathy.  He loves being at the shop and enjoyed exploring.  He was particularly interested in learning how to knit, although he wanted to skip the cast on step and get right to knitting.  He loved the Spud & Chloë projects and tried on a couple of items.  Kathy found a banana and he was pretty happy making friends and settling in to his new environment.  Who knows what he will get into today with spinning?

Naner tried on the owl hat and felt very wise for a few seconds.

The sock made a good sleeping bag, however, Naner
thought his arms would get cold so...

...he wrapped himself in the cowl.

Naner was a challenging beginning knitting student.  He has good
taste in yarn, though.  Besides skipping the cast on, he didn't
want the yarn wound into a skein--knitting from the hank--really?

Kathy found a banana and I was able to leave knowing he was in good company!

Sock Monkey and Fat Rascals

After all the spinning, I finally got back to knitting.  The first project on the list was a shop sample.  I turned a regular monkey hat into a Sock Monkey Hat.  I think it came out pretty good.  My Sock Monkey gave it his seal of approval--5 bananas!

I've been tackling large-scale cleaning.  Yesterday I worked on the basement of DOOM, and today I started on Jim's office.  I'm being careful to keep papers together.  I'd love to repaint, but that will have to wait for another time.

Last week I saw a post on Needled about Fat Rascals.  I'd seen them before and thought they were so funny.  I found a recipe online and made some with what I had on hand.  Craisins instead of currants, raw sugar instead of caster sugar, and larger almonds.  Oh my, they are so good!  This recipe is a keeper--Ben and Jim will like them, too.

New sweater

The sweater is finished. I think it turned out really nice. It blocked beautifully and Sock Monkey was such a good helper! He wanted to model it for me.
It started out sunny this morning, but now it looks a bit cloudy. The temperature is in the low 70s, which is fine with me! I helped Jim get some of the equipment ready for the Boy Scout training course, Grey Wolf. I changed the batteries in the GPS units and got the realistic first aid kits ready. I mix up nice blood...a few drops of red and one drop of green in some glycerin. Jim's going to take the stuff down to the camp for the first course tomorrow. I got my stuff done today, so I can go with some friends on a little road trip tomorrow!

Seeing red, but not that cardigan!

Well, I bit the bullet and frogged back the shoulders and collar of the red cardigan. I didn't think it was worth it. Now I'm back to searching through my books for a suitable substitute for the yarn. It's gorgeous Skye Tweed by Classic Elite, which I believe they don't make anymore...too bad, so sad.
Sock Monkey and I found a pattern that will do the yarn justice. It's the Clock Vest on pages 13-19 in Folk Vests, by Cheryl Oberle. I'm now to the first row of the chart on the center back. So far, so good. A friend knitted this and it is really pretty. This will satisfy my cable lust and still have some easy knitting between motifs.
It's snowing like mad outside. I had a spring dress on yesterday. I wore the Circles and Bobbles to work today. Wow, every time I look up, the snowfall is really getting heavy.