The only time Sally holds still long enough for me to take her picture any more is when she’s asleep. And, yes, she has her own pillow in my bed.
Time to rest
February 5, 2010 · 2 Comments
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Tagged: Friday Sally, Photography, Sally
One Down
February 4, 2010 · Leave a Comment
It’s been a long time since posted any spinning, of course I haven’t been doing any spinning to post about either. I’ve been trying to spend at least 30 minutes a day at the wheel spinning my Merino/silk batt from Corgi Hill Farm and I finished the first today, I have two that are a little over two ounces each. These batts are so nice, the fiber is very soft and drafts so smooth and easily. The silk has a beautiful sheen, I wish it showed up better in the picture. I guess I’ll start spinning the next batt tomorrow but for now I’m going back to knitting my shawl.
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Tagged: Spinning
Starting Again
February 2, 2010 · 2 Comments
Yes, instead of sewing up my Alpaka Tunic or knitting on Rosemarkie I’ve started yet another shawl. This will be my third of the year, believe it or not. I’m making Miralda’s Triangular Shawl from Knitted Lace of Estonia in Valley Yarns Franklin on size 5US/ 3.75mm needles. The shawl is started at the lower edge, casting on 300 and some stitches, then decreased to the center top. I’m about half way through the second border now and it is pretty slow going. There is just a lot going on here, nupps, directional decreases, yarn overs and shaping and borders and long pattern repeats. It’s not the best computer knitting since there isn’t really any straight stockinette, except on the wrong side rows which are mostly purled, but it’s not too bad to knit on in front of the TV. I have to say that this is right up my alley, it is a beautiful pattern that is fun to knit.
Everything else has pretty much stalled. I noticed a big, giant mistake in Rosemarkie that totally threw it off, I don’t know what happened, I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention to my chart and shifted the pattern over by about ten stitches, so I had to rip back about five or six rows and re-knit that part. It wasn’t a big deal to do but it was annoying. I’ve only been knitting a few rows on it here and there but I’ve knit two full pattern repeats so far, I think I’ll get a movie this weekend and knit on it some.
The Alpaka Tunic is all ready to be seamed, it only took a couple days to re-knit the yoke but I keep putting the seaming off, I’m just not in the mood to mess with it.
My next project is going to be a cardigan for my mom, I’ll talk more about it when I get the yarn and I want a nice, light, Spring cardigan for me but I think I’ll wait until the Spring IK comes out to decide what to make.
Now, I have a tax question. Please, someone have an answer for me. All my income last year was from being self-employed and I got a 1099-MISC, no W-2’s. So, what forms do I need to fill out? Is it the 1040-C and 1040-SE and the regular 1040? Do I need to fill out a 1040 at all if I didn’t get a W-2? I have done my own taxes every year that I’ve had to file since I was 16 and this is the first year I’ve ever been confused about it. Ok, I just did some googling and I think I get it. I read this and the comments on it and it looks like I have to use form 1040-C or C-EZ to figure my net profit and if that is over $400 (which it is) I have to use form 1040-SE to calculate my Medicare and S.S. taxes and then I attach those forms to a 1040 and send off my tax payment. Anyone know if this is right? Because it looks that way to me. Maybe I’ll just try TurboTax.
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Tagged: 10Shawls2010, Alpaca Tunic, Knitting, Miralda's Shawl, Rosmarkie Waistcoat, taxes
Let’s Play
January 29, 2010 · Leave a Comment
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A Handspun Shawl
January 26, 2010 · 1 Comment
I finished my little handspun shawl over the weekend and blocked it yesterday. This was an extremely fast knit and I really, really like the way it turned out. I’m actually pretty excited about it since this is the first shawl I’ve knit without a pattern and my first time making up a lace chart and figuring repeats and all that. I have to admit that I was worried that something, anything, would go wrong. I was fairly convinced that my math was off, that I’d run out of yarn, that the lace would look like crap with with the stripey yarn. Thanks to many hours in front of the computer fiddling with charts it all worked out. I did have to cut a few rows out of the lace since my yarn was running short but I ended up with enough in the end to do an extra row on the very last of the edging, so it all worked out in the end.
I know the lace would look much better in a solid color but I do like it with the stripes. I’m tempted to knit this again with a solid yarn and do the smaller chevrons from the top part of the lace all over the body.
And here it is all unpinned. The shawl is fairly small, about 45” across the top and 23” from the center of the back to the bottom point, it’s a good scarf shape. The yarn is the very first lace weight yarn that I spun and it’s pretty rough. It has a lot of slubs and thick spots, spots that are very thin and extremely over-twisted, it was rough to knit with. The yarn felt kind of scratchy and harsh while I was knitting but after I washed and blocked the shawl it’s very soft and has a nice drape to it and it has that crisp look that lace gets. Blocking changes everything. And if I had been planning this out from the beginning instead of kind of winging it, I would have made a nice big swatch first, but I didn’t.
Today I decided to finally finish my Alpaka Tunic so I got it out and pinned it together and tried it on and it is way too long. So I’ve unpicked the seaming I already did and frogged the yoke and next I’ll rip back a couple inches and reknit the yoke to make it a little shorter. Going through all this sucks but it’s going to be worth it in the end since it will fit better and be a decent length.
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Tagged: 10Shawls2010, Knitting
