Oh yeah, BEARS!

At a family dinner last night, I was reminded that I never updated about my Bundle-Up Bear Brigade post Christmas!  Shocking!

By the time I finally put away my bear bag (yes, I had a bag I carried around all month containing every relevant scrap I could collect as well as the pertinent needles & notions), I had knit 8 bears.  Sadly, since 6 of them went to other homes over the festive season, I don’t have a photo of them all together, but I think I’ve got pictures of all but the very last one (who I just discovered at the bottom of a project bag, finished except for her blank little face).  First up, here’s a picture comparing the regular and mini sizes (regular size bear went home with a friend’s toddler because babies deserve bears; yellow Noro suit belongs to the unfinished last bear).  I might be biased, but I rather prefer the teeny ones!

Now I want you to notice in the following pictures the amazing crispness, clarity, and colour.  One of the awesome things about giving away the bears to various family members was that my mother-in-law was usually around, with her DSLR camera, and she was kind enough to let me use it.  I have hemmed and hawed for a long time about getting a DSLR – I know that part of the appeal is that I imagine I can make up for my artistic shortcomings with a fancier machine, and as such I’ve pushed myself to be content with my point-and-shoot and improve my skills instead.  But the pictures are just so much better.  So after I purchase the sweater quantity of Everything Old yarn I’m currently saving for, I’ll be starting a new camera fund, because – look!

*Wistful sigh* …and now back to your regularly scheduled point-and-shoot update, under the jump.

I’ve been busy lately!  The down side is, I kind of ignored this month’s brown-bagging WIP – it was the dreaded mending, so I got one thing 80% finished, called that good enough, and then went back to all the fun stuff.  Yup.  Better luck next month?

I finished my Spectra actually almost two weeks ago, quite shortly after I last blogged about it, but I only just got the camera out yesterday.  I had to get right outside, too, as it seems spring is allllllmost here and the sun was impossible to say no to (although it was so windy I still froze my butt off standing around for half an hour trying to get the grass to lie flat).

I love it!  It’s not even blocked yet and I adore it and have been wearing it any time it even remotely makes sense.

I decided to do it up wrap style, pinned with a sparkly butterfly hair clip.  I suppose I could wear it like a scarf, but I like it better this way.  It’s fun to adjust the drape to try and make sure all the colours are visible.

I also have another handspun shawl on the needles: Martina Behm’s Hitchhiker in “My Preciousss,” the Corgi Hill Farms humbug BFL/silk gradient that I thread-plied with gold weaving thread and then cabled.  Not only do I think this is a cool pattern for any gradient yarn, it happens to work quite well with the fact that I did a piss-poor job of divvying up my fibre into four even strips, and I ended up with one skein that’s only 175 yards, and another that’s almost 400 in the same colour progression.  Whoops!  But I’m knitting from green to blue with the small skein on the small side (just getting to the dark blue now), and will knit the second skein from blue to green.  I think it will make for a super cool effect, and it already looks mighty fancy!

I mentioned that spring is fast approaching, and as the crocuses and snowdrops lift their little heads I am thinking already of the Hanami blossom-viewing party I’ll throw when the cherry blossoms are out next month.  It’s my ambition to have an awesome Mori-girl outfit ready by then, featuring the cutest legwarmers/boot toppers, based on these wristwarmers by Adrian Bizilia.

Because I don’t have much of this yarn, I’m not sure they will make it to full legwarmers as I’d originally hoped.  I have actually finished the colourwork on #1, cut yarn and put the stitches on a holder so I can knit this far on #2.  Then I’ll just knit the leg portion as long as it goes and see what I end up with.  However they end up, they’ll be super for layering over slouchy socks and tights!  Plus, if last year was the year of the sweater, this year will be the year of colourwork!  These are already miles better than my first attempt at stranded knitting, and getting better with every row!

I also have some thematic spinning on the go.  Here I present my first ever corespun yarn, representing approximately half of my Sakura batt from Unwind Yarn Company.

It’s so squishy and soft and pretty and awesome!  Even though I realised when I ran out of core (and space on the bobbin at the same time) and started untwisting more for the next chunk that I had in fact been spinning it backwards to what I’d planned when I prepped the core.  Well, it will require a light fulling to be de-energized enough to knit with, but that just contributes to the handspun feel, eh?  I plan to pair it with the green-purple batt I picked up at Knit City from Caliope’s Fibres in some sort of awesome colourwork cowl or wrap!  It will be epic!  And maybe a bit too bright for a proper Mori girl, but what the heck, spring will have sprung, and I’ll fit right in with Mother Nature’s own riotous vernal colours!