It has been a while, hasn't it?  I have been using my spare time to organize, upload and print pictures from our last two family vacations.  It took quite a while but now we have nice hard cover books to remember our vacations to San Francisco (2009) and Colonial Williamsburg (2010).
 
So what kind of knitting has been going on in the interim?  Lots and lots.....

Peep socks

One of my most favorite sock patterns for my DDS.  I wanted to match the actual colors of peeps which are a nearly fluorescent yellow and bright pink/salmon color.  Needless to say I couldn't find commercial yarn that quite met my requirements so I dyed some myself.  The yellow is a very saturated concentration of Jaquard yellow.  The pink/salmon was harder to come by -- it is also a saturated combination of Wilton Cakes rose, Kool-aid pink lemonade and Kool-aid strawberry. 



How cute are those? 

Pattern: Marshmallow Bunnies by Debra Baker (a Knit Picks Pattern)
Yarn:  Knit Picks Bare with lots of dye
Mods: I changed to US 1 - 1.25mm needles for the picot top. The top is still a little bit large around but the sock is short enough that it doesn’t fall down. I also knit the pattern with 1.25mm which fits fine but I wouldn’t want it to be any tighter.  After the decreases to 64 stitches, I switched to 1.5mm needles which is my usual needle to get the proper gauge for the narrow adult female feet in my family.

Shalom Cardigan

This pattern has been knit by literally thousands of people, 4,400 on Ravelry at last look, so I knew it had to be a great pattern that was easily altered.  Here's mine:



Pattern: Shalom Cardigan by Meghan McFarlane
Yarn:  Noro and my own handspun
Mods:  Lots of modifications although not because there was anything wrong with the original.  I just wanted a sweater for keeping warm so I added  long sleeves, buttons all the way down the front and length so that it  hangs to my hips rather than my waist. 

It may seem like the Noro is the star of the show but really it’s the cushy dark coffee brown in my own handspun from black coffee fiber from Robin Nistock. (Nistock Farms fiber)  It was a joy to spin. 

Show-off Ruffle Skirt



Pattern: Show-Off Ruffle Skirt by Kat Coyle
Yarn: Knit Picks Cotlin in Blackberry (6 skeins)
Mods:  Following in the foot steps of other knitters, I lined up the bobbles and reduced the number of bobble rows.  I didn't really mind knitting the bobbles but at 25 stitches each, they were taking some serious time.  (And, yes, I counted.) I also left the slit as a design element.  I added a simple slip underneath the top part of the skirt for, well, obvious reasons.

On the spinning front

I demonstrated spinning with DD#2 at Lollypop Farm days and as part of the deal, they were extremely gracious to allow us to have pick of the fleeces shorn that day.  So I came home with two -- a white merino cross (probably??) and a grey romney cross (maybe??).  The white one was really dirty but since it was free, I just tossed the really nasty bits.  Here it is splayed out in my back yard -- it came from an impressive sized sheep!



Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the grey fleece.  But I washed up and spun some samples from each and they came out quite nice.  I like the bounciness of the white fleece and the color of the grey.



It has been good practice for washing and processing a fleece.  I definitely have a better idea of what to look if I decide to purchase a fleece.