Flowers and Yarn

Since spring didn't seem to be coming anytime soon, and everything around here is a variation of brown or grey, I decided to make my own flowers:

(back left shoulder)

(left side hem)

Full sweater shot (there are a couple of flowers at the right hem also) (yes, that is the chaos that is my room)

I got this beautiful J. Crew cashmere sweater at the Salvation Army a year or so ago, and I didn't realize that it had moth holes in it until I got home. That probably wouldn't have stopped me from buying it, since it is cashmere and it was three dollars, and I figured I could fix it somehow. It sat in the mending pile for a long time, while I bought several packages of beads and designs floated around my head. Then I found a great pattern in the book Craftivity (which I highly recommend--please consider buying it from your local independent bookstore) for embellishing moth-holed sweaters by doing a button hole stitch around them. This is brilliant because it looks cool and prevents the hole from getting any bigger. Since I couldn't seem to understand the stitch the way it was explained in Craftivity I turned to my mom's copy of The Encyclopedia of Stitchery. After I did the button hole stitches, I just freehand stitched the beads on to look like flowers and stems. I just made it up as I went along, but I'm really happy with how it came out.

And this is some yarn that I made. Just like the Harlot, (Susan and I are going to see her at Webs on April 28th! Yay!) this Tuesday was for spinning. It was very random; I got annoyed at this ball of roving that kept rolling out of the bag onto the floor so I spun it up. There is about 60 yards, I have no idea what weight (probably heavy worsted), and I spun it on my drop spindle. I was frustrated when I started because I got out my spinning books and tried to do what they said and my yarn didn't look like theirs. So I just did it my own weird way, wet-blocked it on the niddy noddy, and it came out pretty good. I'm realizing I should just accept that this is the way that I spin and that's okay. However, I do think I'm going to buy Start Spinning sometime in the near future, since I've heard very good things about it.

Knitting? Oh, there has been knitting. There are projects that are very nearly done (a beret in Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca and Silk, the Strawberry Clutch from the Spring 2007 Knitscene), there was a big frog session (a Jaywalker sock that was complete--and I couldn't pull it over my ankle), and there is a toddler sweater in the works. Although it is getting to be that point in the semester when there is a lot of work I should have started earlier (but I am very close to finishing my career in academia, so why change now? And really, it wouldn't change much.) and I just have to knit to keep my head. So either there will be lots of finished things or not many at all. As usual.