Here we go again!

This is my second attempt at posting this. My computer froze the first time. And since it's currently all of 2 degrees F out there, I'll cut it some slack. Heck, we're all freezing today.

So here's another ball of hanspun, my best yet! It is an unknown fiber (well, it's wool) and kind of scratchy. Think "lopi". But I love the maroon colorway--it varies from a dark dusty pink to an almost black blood-red. Very pretty all spun up. My issues with evenness are working themselves out gradually.

I have also realized that I would probably be really good at spinning on a wheel. And I know of a couple of yarn shops offering classes in the near future. I can afford the classes, but alas, I cannot afford a wheel at this time.
So, I spindle.

My plan for the new year was to do what a lot of knitbloggers did at the end of the old year and that was to post a gallery of their FO's of the last year. I was dreadfully behind on my posting and didn't jump on the bandwagon at the time. And now that I'd like to do it, I find out that Photobucket doesn't do galleries like Flickr. Rats. With Blogger, uploading the pics manually will be a hassle. So I don't know what I'm going to do just yet.

For now, please check out Miss Bug's winter hat. It is cabled all over, as are the mittens. After I took the pic, I realized that the hat was a bit short for her enormous noggin, so I picked up stitches around the brim and added a four inch ribbed brim to it that folds up or down as need be. I made it from Knitpicks WOTA in a purple whose name escapes me at the moment, and I can't seem to lay my hands on my swatch card either.

Of course as soon as I made her a purple hat with many, many cables, my sister gets her a pink coat and boots for Christmas. What color does Bobo get? Yep. PURPLE. Now, while I'm not above dressing a kid up in hats and mittens that don't match, it would be nice if they had a set that did.

So, I just ordered yarn from handpaintedyarn.com in a lovely colorway featuring pink and purple, and I'm a-goin' to make them the same so it doesn't matter whose hat is whose. How's that for thinking ahead?

In other news, we managed to escape the worst of that big ice storm that kicked everyone else's ass. Heck, on Tuesday we were one of the very few school districts not on a two-hour delay! I will say we have some good road crews in my town. Two thumbs up!

I have also started taking piano lessons. My choir director gave me one of her portable keyboards to practice on, and she's teaching me to play accompaniments using the chord method. It's kind of slow going, but fun. I'm working my way through the John Denver Songbook at the moment. (Mock me all you like, I like John Denver!) What's fun to do is to play a song through my (uber-awesome Bose) computer speakers from my iTunes files and play along with it on the piano. It's hard though. The computer doesn't stop when I mess up.

Between learning the piano and learning to spin I'll be lucky if my head doesn't explode.

Cantoring is going well. Since I live literally around the corner from the church I've become the go-to person to fill in on short notice. Which works out well since I don't have a chance to get nervous. Not that I get that nervous much anymore.

So today, since I am out of roving and will be unable to spin, I'm going to finish a pair of mittens I started two days ago and keep setting aside to play with my spindle.

Time to focus!