Lisa Kay Knits... and Quilts!

The Easter Bunny left "Skylander Giants" and a yard full of eggs for Mitchell, this morning. I thought the "Easter Bunny" had compromised the whole operation when Mitchell found the candy stash in my wool closet, just last night. It's been there a couple of weeks, and with less than 12 hours to go, he found the pile of stuff. In the end, I just separated out some of the candy and said it was from me (in a basket inside, this morning), and then put the other stuff outside. He either didn't figure it out, or he is happily willing to suspend his disbelief. For such a smart kid, he seems awfully unobservant about some things... Happy Easter, Lisa Kay

One last quick spin for the end of March, Southern Cross Fibre's "Fraser Island" batts, about four ounces, from the batt club back in April 2012. I spun up a heavy fingering weight 2-ply. I started woolen with fauxlags, of course... 220 yards Happy Knitting, Lisa Kay

Spunky Eclectic 's forum group is doing a combo spin-along . (In spinning, a "combo" refers to plying together different colorways of fiber.) In the spin-along, at least one of the plies has to be either Spunky Eclectic, Southern Cross Fibre, or Hello Yarn... extra points for using all three. I have selected six braids, to make two 3-ply combo spins. Top: SE "Burning Bush" on South African Fine Lower left: SCF “Dark Wings” on Polwarth Lower right HY “Burrows” on Rambouillet Top: SE “Fjord” on Portuguese Merino Lower left: SCF “Terrestrial” on Bond Lower right HY “Silt” on Portuguese Merino Happy Knitting, Lisa Kay PS: Some favorited combos: here , here , and here

I spun one braid of Superwash Merino, Nest Fiber Studio 's "Pink Tangerine." I purchased the braid as part of a spin along... The colors were "Pink Tangerine" and "Kismet." I still have my four braids of "Kismet" on Mixed BFL, waiting to be spun. 293 yards Happy Knitting, Lisa Kay P.S. If you go to the Nest Fiber Studio link, there won't be anything there. To get Nest braids, you need to be online at the time of an update. To find out update times, watch the Ravelry forum updates here .

I spun a quick four-ounce dose of Pigeonroof Studios , "Incidental Orchid" on Merino. The Pigeonroof Studios Ravelry group is doing a spin-along of this colorway. I prepped fauxlags, to start, and then made a simple 2-ply. It is a bit uneven... my next spin is another Merino, and I'm going to make it a thinner yarn. It is 232 yards. Happy Knitting, Lisa Kay

I've spun up a sweater batch of Hello Yarn's club colorway, "Troll" on Polwarth. I had six bumps, or 24 ounces. I started with a "fauxlag" prep and spun a simple two-ply. It is just about 1500 yards. I'm not sure yet exactly what this will be. It is enough for a sweater, obviously, but I haven't chosen the pattern. I'm thinking of alternating skeins. The color runs are pretty long, so I can probably get it to stripe. Happy Knitting, Lisa Kay

I finished up my Less is More sweater. I used all of five skeins of Falkland, plus a few scraps of a couple other yarns to fill in some shortages. My sweaters have been very fitted, lately, and I consciously went for something a bit looser, this time. Ravelry Project Page Previous blog posts: Yarn and Yoke , Sleeve Happy Knitting, Lisa Kay

Mitchell's grandpa bought some spring ducks and chicks. After a week or so, they'll go to the farm. In the mean time, Mitchell is enjoying them. I held one, and it nuzzled into a warm spot by my neck. I suppose it is the next best thing to under a mother's wing. Happy Knitting, Lisa Kay

I started with the sleeves, thinking I would make them long and then just "use up" the rest of the yarn in the body. So I used my gauge to figure out the number of rows in the sleeve (nineteen inches from the armhole), included 20 stitches for each color change (1B, 4A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 2A, 4B, 1A), and then divided the remaining stitchss evenly to each yarn. Well, I just finished the first sleeve, and I was so tickled with how it turned out that I wanted to share a picture. The other sleeve and the body will not look quite the same. The blue section, especially, will be unique because that is the bluest part of that yarn. Most of the rest of the yarn skein has the blue in only one ply at a time... the unique beauty of handspun! I'm enjoying just watching how it turns out as I go. Every section will be different... Happy Knitting, Lisa Kay