Neglect...

Well, where does the time go? It's September 13th, a Friday at that! Almost half way through the month and....I have Christmas knitting on the brain.- don't hate me, learn from the experience here.

However, put all the knitting on hold because guess what I've been doing??

I've been skirting and washing fleece; so much of it I smell like sheep. I can assure you that each and every one has their own distinct"aroma". So, I can truly believe that is how they identify one another. A friend dropped her 3 fleeces off here sot hat I can send them with mine to be commercially turned into hanks and roving. I have polled some spinning friends and they prefer roving as, let's face it, with roving, the work has been done. I can assure you that skirting is very labor intensive. The lesson here is don't wait so long to do them all. But, in my defense, I had some done and then it was too hot to even consider touching so much wool!

I'm looking forward to trying some of my own wool to knit something... Recently, before the skirting and washing fleeces took hold of my life, I have discovered some really interesting and lovely shawl patterns designed by Judy Marples. I found her patterns on Ravelry and you can also find them  at www.purlbump.wordpress.com They are simple to follow and very stylish. I've certaily put a dent in my fingering weight stash to knit up a few. Yes, they are that straightforward and I am happy with my results. i started with Amberwell and I had to read the book by D. E. Stevenson after that; what a prolific author!

I apologize for the font changes..it would seem that the blog pages don't see eye to eye with my computer...

So, a couple of fleeces to go and I'm no longer neglecting the "Christmas" list of knits. Happy knitting!