Inspired and Disgusted
I have been inspired by Amy and all the folks at Knitty to make a calendar involving knits. So here is my first offering, sorry no pattern until the calendar comes out next year. It is called Fibronocci Fun Stocking Hat. I knit this hat in 1 week, so I could go to the spot where I wanted to photograph before they close for the winter, whew. I got some great shots though. Haven't picked up the ole needles for a couple of days though. I have done some spinning, more on that next time.

Onto the disgusted bit...
Ok, so we bought pumpkins but didn't have time to carve them into jack-o-lanterns, so the squirels decided to do it for us argh! The knitted pumpkins are looking better and better.

Holly

Knitting at work.
Should you or shouldn't you. I've recently started working from home in the evenings grading the writing portion of a standardized test. (Good..get to work in my pajamas. Bad...trying to read really badly scanned, badly written handwriting while 6 year old daughter is running around giggling and screaming wildly.) So it takes about 20 seconds to load each writing sample, after about an hour of waiting, I thought "gee, I could knit a few stitches in that 20 seconds" so I picked up the pink sock and knitted 3, 4, 5 stitches for each sample (actually more because I don't actually have to see what I am knitting so I get in a couple more stitches while I am reading). Now I am feeling slightly guilty if quite productive for knitting on "company time". I am saved by the fact that I know other people knit in meetings or on breaks and if I can't actually do anything for that time that could be considered a mini-break right???
Here's the picture of my almost finished sock.
Now I am off on the class trip to the orchard to freeze off important parts of my anatomy.
Holly

If only they'd call...
One of the joys of being a substitute teacher. Will they call, won't they call. So I'm sitting here, in my nice work clothes waiting for the phone to ring. Hey, great time to do some knitting. I have just started on another pair of the International socks of doom. I really, really love this pattern. Now, when looking at the picture your first reaction is ugh pink. That was my reaction too, but these aren't for me. They are vaguely charitable socks. Let me explain. The small Christian school that my daughter attends has an annual fundraiser called promise tree. People donate goods and services. They write these down on dye-cut leaves with the amount that the donater thinks they are worth. Then people go through and pick out the leaves that they want and pay for them and all the money goes to the school. It's a lot of fun, we get great stuff (this year we got a night of caroling, a lot of venison, and a ticket to a proper English tea party), and the school gets a lot of money. My leaf this year was a pair of socks by Christmas. So here they are. The recipient chooses the color, hence the pink. The woman who I am making these for actually got a pair of mittens from my sister-in-law last year and wanted socks to match. The yarn is handspun and navajo plied, that way they are the proper dk weight and 3 plies always gives a nice round yarn. I wanted to do the socks of doom pattern because I didn't get to finish my first pair before I "died".

Speaking of handspinning...I had an epiphany last night. I have been designing patterns for the knitting classes that I do through our local community education and lately I've been getting a lot of "that's a really cool sweater, poncho, hat, whatever, you should sell the pattern". I've always had trouble designing because I didn't want to spend the money to buy new yarn when I have baskets and baskets of yarn, mostly handspun, already. So after some research, I have decided to start selling my designs for knitting patterns for handspun yarn (you can of course, also use commercial yarns). Hopefully the patterns will start appearing on sheeptosweater.com soon.

Speaking of Sheep to Sweater... we are going through some changes. One big change is the website, which looks fantastic, has been revamped by a professional and is still somewhat under construction. We are also looking at some other changes so keep your eyes open.
From nippy, most definitely in the midst of autumn Michigan,
Holly

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