Break time!

Oops. Forgot to charge the camera batteries last night, so still no photo or listing for the necklace I made for Week One of SpoC 2007. Oh, well. I did at least attempt to take a picture before the camera batteries died again. ;)

I also finally chose a wristwarmer pattern for my delayed trade with someone on Swap-bot: the Cider Moon "April May" lace wristwarmers. I have no clue whether I have the correct size needles to get that gauge, but I'll deal with that later today, or maybe over the weekend. Here's hoping I get them knit faster than I get the pattern chosen. ;)

And I started on plying a yarn for the also-delayed Orphan Handspun Swap (I suck! I suck! But I'm so going to send the package, so I'm not re-orphaning my partner -- just slacking, is all ;)). It's a fairly fine yarn (maybe sport weight?) and I'm using one ply of Columbia and one of Jacob, and the Columbia's been sitting for a little, while I just dyed the Jacob an interesting purple last night. As my brain seems to be on standby today, I'm not processing what that means for the active vs. passive statuses of the twist in each ply, but anyway, plying is, er, interesting. At least the yarn isn't misbehaving before I get it plied this time, as singles on the way to the two-ply, like Anne's yarn, but I'm a little paranoid about how much twist I'm putting in to keep the plies together at all, and how kinked up the resulting yarn is. The kinks aren't very determined, though, so I figure I'll ply it and wash it and see how it turns out, and I can always go back and add more twist or take twist out, or something, if I decide to. Or I can go, "Well, it's a crazyfunky yarn and you can do something with it that will look interesting with an inherent bias." After all, there is stuff out there that looks cool with a slanty fabric. ;)

After this week, I'm pretty burnt out on doing things for other people. Maybe it doesn't seem like I did that much (or does it? Like I said, my brain is on standby), but it feels like I've thought about other people and their projects a lot this week. It's time for me to put some energy into doing something for myself. I may attempt to re-swatch for Sahara, or to weave the side squares for that tote for me. Ponder.

Quicksilvery

I started another hairpin lace scarf yesterday in Blue Heather Wool-Ease, and finished it today. Woohoo! It came out pretty much the way I wanted it to, too. And I plied, skeined, and washed 30 yards of brown alpaca yesterday for knitting into a necklace I-cord today. I even worked a few inches of my second Mystery Skein Swap item, and plan on doing some more tonight.

So I also just gave in and bought Stitch Diva's Lotus Smock Dress and Camisole hairpin lace pattern (perversely neglecting the skirt pattern I've been ogling for months because it looks easier to figure out on my own -- and this is maybe a hint of the Can't Do Anything Easy rule kicking in again). I may have to go and buy some yarn for this one with my nonexistent money, since it requires double-knit weight yarn, of which I do have five skeins or so ... in different fibers and completely unmatching colors. ;) But I want to learn some more advanced hairpin lace techniques, and the patterns available on the Internet are pretty slim pickings.

Anyway, more spastic crafting today seems likely. I have a few swaps that are slightly overdue thanks to the energy sink that is FLaRF, with its Three-Day Weekends of Doom, and I Will Catch Up, thanks to my darling hairpin lace loom and a fit of general mild quicksilveriness.