Almost August and a July FO

My how July has flown by! I can’t believe it’s been nearly a month since I last blogged. I had the best of intentions (as always), but I’ve been a bit lazy about photographing my WIPs and FOs and without pictures, I end up not blogging. The heat we’ve been having hasn’t helped much, either. The last thing I want to do when I get home is put on a handspun wool cowl and take pictures in the house on the 2nd floor which is all too often about the same temperature as outside. Heck, that makes me not want to even TAKE pictures most of the time. Sadly, that 2nd floor room with lots of light and white space is the best room to take photographs of yarn, WIPs and FOs. The 1st floor, with it’s lack of ceiling and natural lighting, makes good pictures difficult, so I end up not doing it. Definitely doesn’t help that Matt has been working a different schedule then usual (four 10 hour days vs five 8 hour days). Since he’s been working later, 2-3 times a week I’m going directly to the gym after work and getting home around the same time as he does. Time just seems scarce lately!

Anyhow… I have still been knitting, crocheting, and a little bit of spinning despite my lack of blogging about it.

Let’s see. Tour de Fleece is over and I ended up barely participating. I did get some spinning done in the early days of the tour, but I haven’t photographed what I’ve been spinning to share that with you (totally forgot to!). A few days in, the fiber prep and spinning started bothering my wrists and shoulders, so I set it aside and sadly didn’t really get back to it before I realized the tour was over! To be honest, I was having a hard time getting into it this year for some reason. Probably because of other things I’ve been working on that have been holding my interest more. Ah well. There’s always next year! 😉

Since I last updated, I finished my Granny Square cowl. I did end up getting 24 squares from the yarn and ran out of yarn while crocheting the squares together. Thankfully I had some other handspun in a similar color to use to finish crocheting everything together. I like how it turned out! It’s going to be squishy and warm to wear this winter.

Granny Square Cowl

Pattern: Granny Square Cowl (My Ravelry project page.)
Started: June 27, 2011
Completed: July 9, 2011
Yarn: Handspun, Zarzuela’s Fibers Hand Dyed Corriedale in the “Tour de Fleece” colorway
Hook: H/5.0 mm
Notes: This was inspired by Mary-Heather’s Granny Square Cowl. No real pattern other then granny squares. I crocheted 24 squares total, then randomly placed them together. Pretty easy to do and man are those squares addictive!

Granny Square Cowl (Worn)

Lots of other WIPs on the needles, though I think that will be a whole post or two for another day. I think I’ll be able to make one of those WIPs into an FO before July is out. Here’s hoping!

For those of you that are Westknits fans, you probably already know about the Mystery Shawl KAL he’s doing starting August 1st (Ravelry link), right? I heard about it right after the pattern went up on Ravelry and knew right away that, despite all the other things I’m working on including the one that is more or less deadline knitting, I wanted to join. I had a tough time picking out three colors for the shawl, but I knew I wanted it to be something I had in stash that I could use up. After a lot of pondering, I decided on using this color combo for it.

Westknits Mystery KAL Yarn

This is Yarntini Merino/Nylon Sock in Concord (top), Capirinha (bottom left), and Summer Sunset (bottom right). Not sure what color will be A, B, or C in the pattern yet. I’ll probably decided this weekend when I wind up my yarn or you can suggest which one should be my “main” color (C) in the comments! 🙂 If you’re doing this Mystery KAL, what colors and yarn are you using? Decided on which will be A, B, and C?

All of you suffering through this heatwave, stay cool and drink lots of water! All those that aren’t and are in cooler climates, man am I jealous – can I come stay with you until winter? 😀