Gifts Received

As promised, I am finally posting about the wonderful gifts my family gave me for Christmas. DH gave me the circular needle holder bag and the needle gauge pendant. My sis gave the book Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush. One of my future goals is to be able to knit a lace shawl. I don't know if I would wear it very much, but they are so beautiful and elegant.

When my in-laws asked my husband what I would like for Christmas, he told them wool or llama/alpaca. I must interject here that my father-in-law's father was a wool buyer, back in the day, and also had some sheep of his own. My FIL is tickled to death that I am so interested in spinning and wooly things, and had fun finding a fleece for me.

This is aprox. 10 lbs. of mystery wool stuffed into a little cardboard box. It really isn't that yellow, but is rather dirty on the tips. My FIL thinks it is probably Rambouillet.

It has about a 3" staple length and a very fine crimp (you might be able to tell in the left hand corner of the above picture). There is allot of Lanolin/grease and it is very soft. Needless to say I was/am tickled to death with the generosity and thoughtfulness of this gift, and can't wait to wash and spin it. I'm hoping I can spin enough for the Tangled Yoke Cardigan by Eunny Jang.

Once I get that fleece washed, I have a brand new drum carder to use for getting it ready to spin!

This is the Strauch Finest 405 hand crank carder. It is quite a step up from my last drum carder that I purchased used.

When I am done spinning wool, I have this sheep rug kit to play with.

On to knitting progress. I finally did the finishing touches on these mittens. All they were waiting for was for me to finish embroidering the flowers. And, they were waiting a long time!! I started these probably 2 years ago.

The pattern is Olivia's Mittens by Kristin Nicholas. For details on the project, go here.

I also started and finished the Freyja Hat by Courtney Kelley. Instead of using the recommended yarn, I used Classic Elite Yarns - Miracle which is Alpaca and tencel.

I also started the Swirl Shawl, then had to re-start it because I didn't like the way the blocks were turning out. The second time around, they look much better.

Well, busy hands are happy hands :)