Finally getting time to do more of what I love...

Don't get me wrong, I love school. I love what it will do for me once I graduate, but I'm ready for it to be over. No hope of that any time soon thought since I have one more year for my BFA and then another 2 years for my Masters. I just started looking at all the options for a Masters in Fiber Arts and my pickings are pretty slim. 6 schools so far and one is already pretty much out of the running since it has bombarded me with 5 emails in less than a day. Requesting information and having your email account assault are two entirely different things.

But now on to more fun topics. I have a couple FOs to share.

First up is Dan's Christmas sweater, Durrow.

The yarn is my hand-spun, the roving was from The Painted Tiger, very nice lady and she makes some fabulous colors! This sweater practically gave me fits because I had to re-knit the yoke 4 times to get it right. First the saddle style yoke wasn't working for me so I ripped it and went raglan, then the neck was too wide, then it wasn't high enough, finally I got it as close as it was gonna get to right because I ran down to the last 2 yards of yarn. Still the sweater works and Dan loves the color.

Next up is a baby sweater that my Mom asked me to make for a friend of hers. The pattern is Tadpole and is very cute. On the same day my mom asked me to make it Barb handed me a bag of sock yarn in the perfect colors. I took it to Austria with me and finished the sweater on the drive between Vienna and Salzburg. I whipped up a little matching hat, which will hopefully be big enough, in the same stitch pattern. I hope the recipient gets lots of use out of it. A picture with the hat can be seen on my Ravelry notebook

Then there is a lovely pair of socks, these were going to be for Dan, but he decided they were too colorful for him. I spun the yarn out of 4oz of merino from Dancing Leaf Farm. The Colorway is carnival and it was my first attempt to get a self stripping yarn. I divided the roving in half length wise and got a pretty great result.

My 1st cousin once removed is currently pregnant and at that particular age (early 20's) where that glaringly neon pink is very popular. I found a cone of fingering weight yarn in Barb's stash and quickly churned out this pattern. The color is not accurate, but you get the idea. It's a really cute pattern, but I do advise casting off a couple stitches under the arm when joining the sleeves. I made a matching set of booties to complete the set. The baby shower is next month so all I need to do is wash them and box them up and they'll be ready to go. My Mom and I are going together and I have a feeling she'll ask me to make a sweater for her to give too.

So with this slue of baby sweaters you think I wouldn't want to see another one, but no, there are 2 more babies coming into the family in August. Dan's cousin's fiance is pregnant with twins and since we don't know the sex of the wee one's yet I picked up some gender neutral colors and am going to be designing a pair of sweaters for them. I have some great plans and hopefully I'll submit this pattern for publication so I'll have to keep the rest under wraps for now.