We were able to go to the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival a couple weeks ago, it was really nice to see all the wonderful hand spun wool, I did have to pull Llama away from the angora bunnies, he is pretty sure that they taste better than they they make yarn but thankfully I was able to keep him away. We also got to see the lambs from the UW farms that were only a day or two old. They are so cute and tiny.
I also joined the Madison Knitter's Guild this year, the first charity they are sponsoring this year is "Knittin' a Mitten for Midvale Elementary". The goal is to cover all the students with a pair of mittens. These are the two pairs I knit up before the first meeting. I have found that lately I have needed my knitting to be complicated/challenging or I am getting bored, so I added the stranded colour work for fun, I love watching the patterns emerge.
The MKG has a bunch of great speakers set up for this year including the Yarn Harlot at the Madison Knit Out in the spring as well as a library for checking out books, I borrowed Latvian Mittens which is very intesting, I had never had the chance to look through this in person before and it has been fun to read and learn about Latvian culture. My english teacher in high school was Latvian and would sometimes tell us about her family, wish I had knit back then, I could have asked her more about it.
Also, one of my co-workers is having a baby, so we had a shower for her on Friday, I made up some baby feet washcloths as well as a couple plain clothes in a variegated yarn for her. She thought they were wonderful, but she appreciates hand made items. Sorry the pictures are so yellowish, last minute pictures before I had to wrap them up.
I have also been puttering along with the shifting sands scarf, I have decided to also add a band of another pattern for a couple inches on each end of the scarf, balanced although, not necessarily symmetrical to break up the knitting a little bit. I am just not sure what to use yet. Here is an update picture, it is approximately 10 inches long, and I will probably do the band of the second pattern for about 2 inches, guess it depends on how it looks.
Well, that is all I have for updates at the moment, the last couple of weeks have been so busy, so it was good to relax and look at my knitting this weekend. I have been reading about all the gift/holiday knitting knitters are planning on Ravelry and Knitty and I have to say, that whether you celebrate the winter holidays or not, it is so important to not be too busy with making gifts that you miss out on the gift of time with your family and friends.
