I still do crafts, by the way

My last several posts have been non-craft related so I guess I need to change that. I'm certainly not knitting at the pace I was last year (or the year before, or the year before that), don't seem to be motivated or have my heart in it, but I am knitting some things and spinning some others.

Bob's nephew and niece had twin boys back at the end of August. (Yes, that makes me a great-aunt. Yikes. ) They were tiny little things and stayed in the hospital a while, but they're home now and doing wonderfully. So I sent them a pair of sweaters made from handspun.



The pattern is Baby Sophisticate from Ravelry. The yarn is handspun worsted weight two ply from Enchanted Knoll superwash lambswool roving. I love the nice bright blue/green for the wee redheaded babies and can't wait to see photos of them wearing the sweaters at some point, if they fit. I hope they fit.



My current spinning project is a fiber I got at Rhinebeck, from Briar Rose fibers, a gorgeous BFL that I am actually almost finished spinning on my Dyakcraft Fibership, so the next photos you see of this will hopefully be a completed skein.



I also did some spinning on the spindle I got at Rhinebeck, it is a lovely little tool and I'm sure I'll get tons of use out of it. It spins a nice fine single with little difficulty.



I'm working on the usual holiday socks, at least. My relatives may get store-bought gifts or photographs this year, and hopefully that will be fine. If not, nothing I can do about it.

I have a cautionary tale too. Remember my Fruit Slice shawl? The one made from handspun BFL/Silk that I loved so much and wore constantly, whenever possible, the one piece of visible hand knitting I chose to take to Rhinebeck to represent me, my very favorite neck thing even more than my giant orange lace shawl, even more than my gradient yellow to purple batwing thing, even more than my Gaga Hair thing? Remember that?



Yeah, the one with the ruffle.

It went through the laundry. I totally missed that it was mixed in with some sweaters I threw downstairs. It is a felted, tiny, mess. I am distraught.



The only thing to do is start a replacement. So I've done so and hopefully will have pictures soon. But the moral of the story is CHECK YOUR LAUNDRY FOR HANDKNITS. Always.

Things are pretty ok otherwise. I'm fighting back the vertigo and working like a machine due to our ridiculous workload, but at least it makes the days go. The darkness is getting me down as usual but only a month until the light starts to come back, so there's that. I continue to get to know the macbook and my biggest frustration is that I can't get to my pictures, which are on the other computer, and I haven't had a chance to take them to the apple store for the big transfer. I tried to get my files transferred from my backup program but I can't seem to make it work. No doubt something I'm doing wrong here. It makes me nervous to think those thousands of photos are all hanging there, where I can't get them. My life in pictures. My photos might not be valuable to anyone else but to me they are my purest artistic expression and mean more to me than any amount of knitting ever will. So while they're not with me, I am ill at ease.

Bob and Anna are both working at the same store tonight at their inventory jobs, I am alone with my thoughts and the macbook and my knitting and the cats and dogs and a bunch of lovely stuffed acorn squash that just came out of the oven, so I'm going to go get dinner. Recipe later if it's good.