Sick Day Stitching

I've been battling a cold for a few days and finally caved today and stayed home on the couch.  Which meant plenty of time for stitching!  I've also done a bit of shopping over the past few weeks and have some stash enhancement to share.  

First up, my Trillian is coming along.  I only have a few more rows to go until it is off the needles.  

I'm pretty happy with how this is coming together.  I think my second skein has a few more dark spots, but not to a significant level.  The first photo is truer to the color of the work, but the picture below shows the details better. 

Read on for stash enhancement!

Declaring Goals...and Horcruxes!

Oh goodness has it been a while!

I know I've been neglecting this and need to be more on top of things.  I've decided for 2015 my goals are going to be 3 blog posts a month and 3 Instagram (@runawaystitches) posts a week.  January will be a bit of an exception because I was traveling for about the first half of the month, so I'm targeting 2 posts this month.  I tend to be a numbers based person and I feel that having quantifiable goals will help keep me on track.  

I have plenty of work on hooks and needles to share.  As part of my participation in the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup (HPKCHC) on Ravelry, I'm doing an Advanced Studies challenge called an OWL, or Ordinary Wizard Level.  This is a 3 month challenge based on a prompt from a Hogwarts class.  This term, January through March, I'm doing an OWL in Defense Against the Dark Arts.  For this OWL I had to declare my horcruxes, 5 items that make me invincible.  Here they are...

Photography Fail

I took so many photos for this post, even with my good camera, and a total of 3 of them came out in focus.  I ask for forgiveness on that.  I have never studied photography and am trying varying a number of variables, but I'm pretty sure I need to obtain or rig a more standard background and lighting arrangement.  I have some ideas to play around with, I just need to set aside some time to do it.  

On to the knitting! And my first adventure in spinning!

My mom really liked the start of my Traveling Companion (details to come later), so when she came to visit, we took a trip to my LYS.  She was struggling to find colors she'd like to blend.  We took some time to cruise through some shop samples and she found the Hitchhiker.  She really loved it and at my LYS, it is knitted up in Freia.  The shop had some in stock and Mom really liked the teal.  We discussed the options for alternating balls to preserve the gradient, or working one skein after another.  She opted to preserve the gradient and here's the beginning of her shawl.

Socks for my husband are finished!

Things have certainly been busy around here!  I got home from a business trip 2 weeks ago and leave for another one this week.  Last one of the year, thankfully.  Between trips, trying to get things done around the house, and some semblance of a social life, I didn't get much time to edit the photos for this post.  A few are from my good camera, others are from my smartphone (though still not bad). 

Just One More....

Sorry it's been a bit longer than I had hoped since I posted.  I've had some travel for work that took more energy than I thought it would.  I'll post a picture at the bottom!

Just when I finally thought I was finished with washcloths, a reason popped up to make just one more.  I've started playing along with the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup on Ravelry and the prompts for one of the July classes was a challenge to go back to our knitting roots.  My grandmother taught me how to knit when I was around 7 or 8 years old.  She taught me how to make a very basic washcloth.  Later in life, a gift she gave to all of her grandchildren was a cookbook with her favorite family recipes in it, and mine also contained a pattern for the washcloth. It was meant to be and I knitted on up.