I've been busy the last couple of months ~ recuperating from the craziness of Fall Shows and then the Holidays hit. Now it's already the middle of January!

In addition to my 2011 Clubs opening and then closing, I've managed to get some knitting and spinnning in ...

I just finished spinning up some of the 100% Targhee Top I had processed and then dyed this past Autumn. It's lovely stuff ~ springy and a little spongey and pretty soft as well. I spun a bulky two-ply out of two colors ~ Connemara (blue/gray/tan) and Grizzly (brown/tan/hints of green). Spinning bulky was such a nice change ~ and so much quicker ~ from the other spinning I've done lately, which has been much finer.



This spinning was a test of sorts as well, to show how two complimentary colorways can work together in one yarn. I really like it, and am in the process of swatching. I spun this a bit thick and thin and am thinking another simple sweatershirt style top-down sweater will work best.

I also started another sweater, this time in a dk weight cashmere I dyed a while back in a muted brown/green with hints of olive and light blue. It's a tad washed out in the photos. This is another top down, sweatshirt style sweater, comfortable and easy to just throw on in the morning (I need a few more sweaters like this because I'm finding I wear the CVM/angora one constantly these days).



The shoulder increases are yarnovers, with 4 stitches in between. I also added a little detail down the sleeve which also features yarnovers:


When Clara chose Finn for the January fiber in the KBOW Woolalong over at Ravelry, and mentioned Riihivilla, I remembered the kit Shelia made me take home from the swap room at the Knitter's Review Retreat (she really twisted my arm). The one I snagged in the swap is the Red Tulip kit, which is very pretty but not completely my color. So, in perusing the Riihivilla shop, I saw the Autumn Fire Mitten Kit. Totally my colors. I ordered it in early January, and it arrived this past Friday. The colors are so beautiful, and the yarn so lovely, that I cast on right away ...

Mitten Front:


Mitten Back:


I started them on US Size 3 needles and then worked my way down to Size 1's. I wish I'd stuck to Size 2's, because the mitten is fairly snug. I'm thinking I'll be able to block it a tad wider and it will be fine.

This past weekend I went into Vienna, VA and took a mosaic workshop at Maverick Mosaics. I may have mentioned here before, but when we built our house 4 years ago, I decided to tile and mosaic the master bath shower myself. I decided to do this without ever having done any tile or mosaic work (which is a tad silly if you think about it, but really, it's the way I often start things). So, this project has been dragging along (no worries, we do have a shower downstairs :-D ). I think I've partially been dragging my feet because I've never done a mosaic and, even though I bought several books on the subject, and I'm confident in my abilities, doing a mosaic in a shower is not a place to make mistakes on subsurfaces and grout and technical things like that. Not really a place to "wing it." It needs to be waterproof, and it needs to stay where I put it (i.e., not decide to fall off the wall).

So, I thought a class would be a more practical place to start (I'm also signed up for a class in early March for the "home to-it-yourselfer" which goes into the more technical aspects of mosaic installation).

I was really pleased with the class. And also pleased to find that in some ways it's very similar to stained glass (some aspects are even easier and more forgiving than stained glass). In a timespan of 6 hours or so, I came home with this:



Fun! Easy! Yay! My shower won't be in straight lines like this mirror, which I did this way because it was faster and easier to cut the glass in straight pieces, but the general procedure is the same. So, I hope to finish the general tiling of the shower stall in the near-ish future, so I can start on the mosaic portion after I take this class in March. Maybe I'll even have a finished shower by the end of this year!

Ok. Back to work. Really, all I want to do it go sit and knit on my mitten some more. But 2011 Club Organizing beckons.