So I made a real list for my gifts. An official one. Unfortunately it made me realize that I don’t have very many gifts done. I had three done but my dad needed another hat and I decided to not make him wait two months for it. Now I have two gifts done out of 12 and luckily 4 gifts are for kids. I’m really trying to focus on gift knitting so I put my socks on hold and I finished a shawl I was working on for me. This is the Lonely Tree Shawl made out of reclaimed yarn.

I used my hand spun alpaca to start this lined beanie. The brown gradient is the hand spun and the blue is reclaimed alpaca yarn. I’m a little more than half way done and I think I’ll be able to finish it this week. 

I felted these slippers and they ended up a little furry. They are a little too fuzzy right now and one of them felted more than the other but it was good practice for the ones I’m making as gifts. 

I started these new slippers last night and I might be able to finish the knitting today. I’m making these women’s size medium

My plan for this week is to finish the felted slippers and the alpaca hat. I also want to make one of the kid’s gifts but I keep changing my mind on what to make them.

In other news, my pattern is almost done being tested and I took some new pictures of my completed shawlettes. Thursday I’ll be starting the raffle for this blue shawlette. 

This week I finished knitting two gifts! Two whole ones! I took pictures yesterday morning and last night I finished these socks for my boyfriend (I only had 5 rows left for the cuffs). I’ll get some finished pictures after I wash them and weave in the ends. He loves wearing wool socks but during the summer he likes to wear short socks. It’s hard to find short wool socks in stores so I knit him these ones. If he likes them then maybe I’ll knit some more.

I also finished this hat that I made out of some locally raised alpaca fiber. The farm isn’t far from here and they get there fiber milled in Oregon as well so I was able to enter this item in Amy Beth’s local fiber KAL (the LoKAL). This was awesome yarn to work with and I love the rustic texture. Not rustic in a bad way but it just feels like petting an alpaca and it looks like almost like hand spun (from a super awesome and consistent spinner). This will be a gift for my brother or my dad. 

On top of finishing some knitting I finished some spinning as well. The cowl that I made with hand spun alpaca used a little over half of that fiber. I spun the rest of the fiber a lot thinner and was able to get about 130 yards of sport to worsted weight yarn. I’m planning on making another alpaca hat and I think I’ll let my dad choose which one he likes and then my brother can have the other one. That’s my plan today but who knows, I might end up with another cowl lol. 

I worked on spinning some fiber on my drop spindle as well and it’s just a slow process. I’m about 2/3rds done with the first half and I’ve been working on it for a while. It’s some kind of superwash wool blended with bamboo from shooting yarns in the berry patch colorway. The tag is somewhere so by the time I finish it I’ll have all of the info. I was planning on spinning this yarn for socks but it depends on how it turns out. 

This is turning out to be a lot more than I thought because I also started a new project. I joined a KAL for the Lonely Tree Shawl in the Beginning Lace Knitters group in ravelry. I am using reclaimed worsted weight yarn that is a wool silk blend. I have more of this yarn in my shop and I was planning on listing this mega skein but it just needed to be this shawl instead. I have no idea about the yardage because I didn’t measure it but I would estimate it to be about 500 yards and the shawl calls for 330 yards so I’ll have plenty and I could possibly make it bigger. It’s a free pattern and I’m about half way done with chart B. 

For the rest of my Christmas knitting I am planning on making slippers. I have some of that orange wool dying in the crock pot right now and it looks like it will be a really deep red color. I’m using that and some other wool for felted slippers. I’m also still trying to get motivated to work on those slipper socks. I just haven’t been in the mood for them but they are a quick enough knit that I can procrastinate just a little longer. Next week I should have an update that includes felted slippers and the results of my dying today.


In the next couple of days look for the information I'm going to be posting on how the enter the raffle for a shawlette knit from the pattern I'm getting tested right now. If you are interesting in testing the pattern I still need a couple of people to test in fingering weight yarn. You can join this group and look for the Lil' Bit Shawlette thread or feel free to PM me on ravelry or in my etsy shop or email me or comment to this post if you have questions. 

I have officially begun testing my shawl pattern! I posted it in the free pattern testers group in ravelry so if you would like to join the test just hop on over to the group (link to get there). The deadline for testing is November 15th. I’m going to be starting a raffle for the finished shawlette on November 1st and picking a winner on November 30th! I’m deciding a method for conducting my raffle but it will most likely be done here on my blog. I will announce to rules for the raffle by October 20th. Depending on how many entries there are I will also be giving away free copies of the pattern.