OSU Block O - GO BUCKS!

Ben - DON'T LOOK!!!

My older nephew, Ben, asked me to knit him an Ohio State sweater for Christmas this year. He told me that he'd like a Block O to be on the front. BUT - I wasn't allowed to knit up a boring old letter O on the front. No. He wanted the official Block O with a leaf on it. (For the record, the leaf is SUPPOSED to be a Buckeye leaf.)

Well Ben - here you go! OK - don't look. 1 - it's not done yet and 2 - you're not supposed to see it until Christmas!

Since I've charted it all out, I went ahead and added it to my design page on ravelry. It's in there as OSU Block O Chart. Convenient, huh?!

Well - OSU just beat Michigan and IU just kicked off against Purdue. Now to work on my Block IU! GO HOOSIERS!

Holiday knitting

Holy cow! 9 more weeks until Christmas! I have a lot of knitting to do since I have plans to hand out some fun handknit items for Christmas gifts. I'm working on them and making progress, but can't yet post them here since my family has access to this blog. BUT - I'll be using some really great yarns. MaggiKnits, Mission Falls, Misti Alpaca, some beautiful tweed yarn whose brand name escapes me... and other fun yarns!

Oh! I'm excited! There are going to be some really beautiful and huggable presents under the tree this year!

Milk Silk - Lavender Hedgerow

This is the most awesome fiber!

I received a final reveal gift from my knitting friend / secret sister Lotusburger, a.k.a. Colleen in Utah. She sent me a homemade bag made of a mixture of knitting and sewing that is big enough, I think, to hold even all of my WIPs! HA! Also included was some locally-made chocolate (yum!) and a fun book called Anticraft: Knitting, Beading and Stitching for the Slightly Sinister. LOL - it's got a lot of funky, weird, cool goth and pirate-y patterns. I'm not a goth type, but these patterns are really quite clever and original - as well as hilarious! Just because they're so silly, I'll have to knit up one or two!

I'm especially excited about the fiber! It's called milk-silk which means it's a protein fiber - milk protein fiber. Greenwood Fiberworks handpaints the fiber in some of the most gorgeous colors you've ever seen. Mine is a special colorway called Lavender Hedgerow - special because it was handpainted by the talented folks at Greenwood out of my favorite colors in the whole wide world: blue, green, purple, grey - ocean colors. Or - colors in my front garden! I LOVE it and can't wait to spin it up.

Once I get it all spun up, I'll have to design a special lace scarf or the like just for this. It's a zillion times more gorgeous in real life, but these pictures will have to do the trick for now - until I can show you the yarn it becomes!

Well done, Greenwood Fibers and thanks very much to Lotusburger!!! :-)