Spinning and Winding things

Although Friday may not have been the best birthday ever, Saturday was definitely the best day after birthday ever. First, I had time in the morning to seam together the pieces of Elspeth and to try her on. She fits! But more on that later. Then, Peter came home from Dallas. He gave me a card that contained 2 IOUs--one for a "spin-y knitty thingie" and one for a "wind-y knitty thingie." Apparently, he was planning to buy me a swift and a winder on his way home from the airport, but wasn't able to. Sooooo, on the way to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Houston, we stopped at my favorite yarn store in Houston, and purchased these goodies:



A swift, a winder, and yarn to wind. That yarn is enough Euroflax linen to make a tank top. Happy happy happy!

Damn the torpedoes crochet hooks!
Back to Elspeth. I finished knitting, blocking, and seaming the pieces together. Then, I danced around in joy upon discovering that she fits. Here I am wearing it with a stitch marker holding it closed. (Note that I don't have to stand with my arms akimbo.)



But soon, the joy of the fitting bolero started to fade. It was time to crochet. With the handy diagrams in Vogue Knitting, I figured out how to do the crochet borders around the sleeves and allllll the way around the sweater. The sleeve-borders went well. The very very long border around the sweater ... um ... not so good. After spending hours crocheting that border, I held up my work and saw that the border flared outward badly. UGH. Riiiippp.... Good thing that I have a new wool winder. I'm starting over. Needless to say, the progress on my other sweater (Moni) has been nonexistent.