Autumn Colours

I made this

Out of this

It's a very pretty, soft and autumn coloured... I'll have to find some inspiration from back home to bring it to life. :DI haven't checked the wraps per inch, but it seems to be about fingering weight maybe a light dk. I think it will make a nice scarf.

Some finished objects

I have a lot of finished knitted items to share. First and foremost is my favorite little elephant.
This guy is Elijah and he is fated for my boss' newborn boy - Owen James Eric.

This little hat goes with too. Hopefully it fits little Owen, cuz it's too big for elijah.
This wee crayfish is the one aforementioned. He was knit in 11 pieces, sewn together and hand felted. It was my first time for hand felting too. Usually I just chuck in the washer and check on it every so often. The hand felting actually pretty easy and I think I will use that method in the future for smallish items. He (or she...)is in Louisville now, enjoying the end of summer.

Another present that I made way back in June for my mom's birthday in July was the Clementine Shawlette. It was my first shawl, with a pretty simple lace pattern. The only tricky bit was the seam in the middle. I did my best with the kitchener stitch and blocking, but it was still evident. :/

And last night I finished these snicket socks. I made quite a few (probably unnecessary) changes to the original pattern. I used the heel flap heel instead of the short-row heel, I made the bottom of the foot in reverse stockinette instead of regular stockinette. And I changed the toe a bit to be a less pointy and more round.
Now I'll probably try to finish up some other items I have going (4 things that I can think of right now) continue with my spinning and maybe (just maybe) start knitting something with something I've spun. But that sounds a bit silly to me!

Swap package for me!

A few months ago Maepress and I decided we would put swap packages together for each other. So I knitted and felted a little loony lobster for her and skatergirl and sent some funky kiwiana stuff that I hunted out a various gift shops. Today I received mine in the mail! I got oodles and oodles of kool-aid (for dying fiber and yarn) and kitchen cotton, that I requested (neither are available here). Some books! (which are quite "dear" here), some great stickers - including that fantastic one of Barack, a deery-lou lougage tag, AND a much needed and appreciated handmade tote in my favorite shade of poop brown!Skatergirl (she is 5) had a few questions about New Zealand 1) are there cats in New Zealand 2) do people have pets in New Zealand?
I would like to answer both of those questions with a photo of our neighbour's cat that I took this morning (she of course refused to look at the camera or was moving every time I took a picture). Also, that is a frozen dish of water (or simply a dish of ice) that she was licking at.

As any good sconnie girl would...

I much prefer winter snow to winter rain so this weekend was a wonderful break from the rain! We headed up to Hanmer Springs and played in the snow above Jack's Pass. The original plan had been to head all the way to the summit of Mt. Isobel, but the weather didn't look like it would hold too long and we ended up just scooting up a few snow covered hills. Snowshoes and gaters would have been helpful. We ended up getting a bit wet. The snow, especially in the lower elevations, was really wet and we kept falling through the snow, sometimes past our knees! It was fun and basically just some big kids playing in the snow!
Funnily enough Blue and I realized that the last time we were in Hanmer was almost exactly a year ago. There was considerably less snow and the weather was warm and spring like then.
I didn't build this little guy, I just added a little snow hat.

1 plus 1 is 2

I've been knitting a little lately, but mostly it has been spinning and acquiring spinning wheels. One of the women I spin with offered me one of her wheels at a very reasonable price (the little peggy in the foregroud) and later that same evening I won an auction on trade-me for another (similar, but different ;) wheel for very cheap as well. Had either one of them been much more expensive I would have had to choose, but now I get to learn on 2 different wheels. And although they look very similar one is a double drive and the other is a single drive (meaning that they have different personalities). I obviously need to master both! Plus now when people come to visit me from the states they can learn how to spin (without hoggin' my wheel), yeah I'm practical like that. So come on over statesiders, we'll spin together!

I also finished spinning and plying some wool I was working on the last time I posted. The colors still aren't "me" but I think the yarn turned out pretty well nonetheless.

Since I spun the orange second, and my spinning is obviously still being refined, it turned out a lot thinner than the multi fiber. The varying thicknesses show up in the skeins too which I thought was pretty interesting, but not that surprising. Anywho, so I had quite a bit of orange left over after the plying so I decided to use the remainder to learn how to navajo ply. It was very awkward at first, but I got the hang of it. Now I just have to work on my technique.

I now have about 7 pretty good sized hanks of my own handspun yarn... maybe I should think about knitting them sometime soon... I still haven't knit anything that I have spun which I find pretty amusing.

In nonfiber news (there is such a thing?) it is still rainy and cold here in New Zealand. A few days of intermittent sunshine snuck in last week, but nothing substantial enough to satiate those of us longing for some warm weather. It snowed last night with some sleet and rain mixed in. The hills above us look beautiful with their dusting. I love when it snows here because it never last longer than a day and is usually followed by sunshine. Maybe tomorrow we'll get a warm sunny day?...