I joined a shawl Knit-A-Long online this week...this yarn is what I am using. It's Knit Picks Merino laceweight...880 yards. I purchased it undyed. My plan was to dye it with vibrant colors, but alas, because of the commotion going on around me that day, I forgot to add the vinegar to the dyes. Oh well...I'm growing rather fond of this colorway and I think it will work up beautifully!

You can see that I've started the shawl...I've completed a whole 6 rows with no mishaps. Tonight I hope to knit at least another 5 rows...not much, I know, but I'm tired and I want to get SOMETHING done on it before bed. The pattern is "Elegantly Simple Triangular Shawl" by Jackie E-S. Very pretty feather and fan type pattern.

This is the yarn before I balled it up. What do you think?

Today was a very productive day outside. Yesterday I purchased all of these flowers at Walmart and then planted them today. This planter is sitting on our back porch...I would love to buy two more of these to match and fill them with more flowers. They would make a pretty makeshift railing!

This is a gorgeous pink-kissed Ranunculus.

And a closeup of the orange one that was tagging along.
I also purchased black mulch for the first time...what a difference from the red and brown mulches....my flowers stand out so much better!

These batts are my latest creation. I call them:

"Lilac Dewdrops"
7.5 ounces
(8 batts)

They consist of:
-Romney yearling dyed plum and redgrape
-white Corriedale X
-white firestar(nylon)

Very little to no VM! The photo is showing the batts slightly darker than actual.

$22.50

Please e-mail me if interested in these batts.

Here's my oldest, Cara...those blue eyes just sparkled in yesterday's sun! She looks so much like me. All three of my children, even Caitlin, plus our neighbor's daughter, picked about half my daffodils...sigh...but they are beautiful and are brightening my kitchen!

Here's Brendan posing in front of my lilac bush and daffodils. He has the cutest and sillest grin!
I had trimmed the lilac bush and I sure am glad I did...every stem has at least one or two buds. I will get photos when it blooms...my house will smell like lilacs for a month straight!

I just received this gorgeous skein of Opal sock yarn. Same as the purple skein I'm using for the lacey scarf...this one is most likely destined for another scarf, but different pattern.

Here's my progress on the scarf...this is one of my favorite yarns EVER!! I am so looking forward to seeing this blocked. I'm really trying to accomplish at least one pattern repeat every night. I almost have the pattern memorized too!

A Lace Adventure....



I had purchased a skein of Opal Sock yarn in the Magic colorway, intending to make myself a pair of socks with it....but I've discovered I really don't enjoy knitting socks right now. So I browsed patterns for lacey scarves online and found this one. It's called "Fishtail Lace Scarf". And I just realized my printed page does not have a link on it...must have been a PDF file! But if you look up the name of the scarf, I'm sure it will come up.






The pattern calls for Blue Sky Alpaca Sport yarn(3 balls at 120 yards each) and size 4 needles. I'm using the same size needles and it's working out fine with this yarn. I've completed 6 or 7 pattern repeats...I'm finally getting the hang of it...much faster knitting now!







This yarn is my oldest daughter's first real attempt at spinning(I plied it). My friend, Kim and I, were spinning together on Saturday afternoon and Cara was suddenly very interested in spinning something herself! So after Kim went home, I dug out a small ball of easy-to-draft roving and gave her a lesson. She picked it up quickly. I let her pick out some one ounce lots of roving from Leighton Farms that evening.







This yarn is Blue-Faced Leicester spun very thick and plied with red tatting thread. It's not a huge skein, but would make awesome edging to mittens and a hat!! 56 yards and 2.5 ounces $9.00












This yarn is a super chunky blend of brown Romney, white Alpaca and lots of Firestar. Very shiny in the sun! Not terribly soft, but it would make a very nice hat on big needles! It's 90 yards and 5.3 ounces. $15.00

And it's done....I have finally completed a project!

This is the scarf I was working on for Cara, my oldest. made with Jiffy's Thick n Quick. She loves it!

And here is the completed skein of Blue-faced Leicester that is on the bobbin in the photo below. I think it will work up in blocks or stripes of color.

Caitlin's new spring/summer clothes....

Great Grandma from PA sent a beautiful Easter/Spring card the other day and included a gift for the kiddos. This is what I picked out for Caitlin with her gift...she's going into 18M size now...oh, how adorable everything was!! So hard to choose. I also picked out a pair of sandals and a pair of pink and white canvas sneakers. I'll eventually get some photos with Caitlin wearing these.

My latest yarns....

I just love spinning boucle yarn! This skein and the skein below are both from the same Merino roving. For the first skein, I spun a fairly thick single, not even...then plied with a spool of pink and white tatting thread. This skein is 108 yards and 2.8 ounces. $14.00

This skein is small, but the yarn is very chunky! I used the remaining single I spun for the boucle yarn and just plied it. This would make an awesome brim on a child's hat! 36 yards and 1.8 ounces. WPI is 6-7. $7.20

I just love the feel of this blend...Merino and Viscose. I believe the percentage is 70/30. Viscose looks a lot like silk. 190 yards and 2.1 ounces $19.00

E-mail me at amanda@whirlwindhandspuns.com if interested in these yarns or you need more information on any of them.

And finally, this is Romney yearling wool dyed a pretty orange and plum. I just love how the plum dyed....there are 3 shades on each lock! This wool will be picked and carded...and eventually blended to create some new, fun batts.

I so enjoyed creating these batts...perfect colors for spring! There's a total of 16.5 ounces of these batts...made for my friend Kim on request. I hope you like these, Kim!! :) They consist of about half Romney/Shetland/Dorset from "Susan"at Ewe & I Farm in New Hampshire and half Romney yearling purchased from Ebay.

This is dyed Blue-Faced Leicester from Winderwood Farm on the bobbin...my latest spinning project. I usually tear the roving into very thin strips, but decided to do something a bit different this time. I'm splitting it into strips that are at least an inch wide and then drafting them...it's giving me nice blocks of color. I look forward to seeing how this looks plied.







And here's the roving before being spun. BFL is a wonderful wool for beginners! It's one of my favorites.

I bought this yarn on clearance at A.C. Moore's about a month ago. It's Jiffy's Thick N Quick. My oldest, Cara has been asking for a new scarf for next winter...this yarn is very soft and works up quickly in garter stitch. I'm using a 16" bamboo circular in size 10.5. Can you see the plaid pattern it's working into??

Here's little Miss Caitlin...throwing a fit over something! She lets me know when she's not happy!! She was munching on some popcorn too...in case you're wondering what that is.














And here she is again...stuffing her face with ravioli and french fries! This kid loves to eat..gets that from her daddy I think. I snapped this because she was sitting on the chair just like everyone else...acting all grown up...it was so cute.