Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Hello and Welcome Everyone,
this past week I just had my usual work week, with my usual Knit Night on Thursday at the LYS (local yarn store). Saturday I hung out with my friend Lesley at the LYS again and once again we had a blast. We both brought our spinning wheels for Spin in Public Day, those wheels sure are conversation starters. Last week, I forgot to mention two things in my blog. First thing, me and my fiance went for the first time to Longhorn Steak House and the food was great. It's a little on the pricey side, but for the amount of food you get it actually is reasonable. The second thing, I have no idea how that slipped my mind. I won a skein of yarn from the Dramatic Knits podcast, thank you Steve and Callie. I will show the yarn in the enabling section. A little while ago a fellow knitter and triathlete, Lynn Zimm, was holding a fundraiser for the Make a Wish foundation. I donated to receive the My Hope shawl pattern by Laura Linneman, also know as Lala from the Knit Girllls and because I believe the Make a Wish is a very important organization. Lynn raised $16k, which is a total of 4 wishes, that's amazing. Yesterday, she released the list of winners for extra prices. I couldn't believe my eyes, I won a pair of my choice signature needles. Yes, signature needles and they are my 1st pair. I was lucky enough to try them out at the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival, so I know what length needle tip I want (yes you get to pick the lenght of the needle tips and the cable, crazy) now I just need to decide which size needles to pick out.

Works in Progress - WIP's
I won't have any pictures to show this week.
I made a deal with myself to knit at least 2 rows on my Evenstar and with my math it should be done in a little over 4 months, I have 9 months to finish it. The reason there won't be a picture is there is such minimal difference it really doesn't look much different from last time I showed it.
The next 2 projects I worked on are secret holiday knitting. This is my first Christmas as a full blown knitter and I love gifting knitting, so I can guarantee that there will be a lot of secret knitting coming up. I am sorry, but to my surprise my family does read the blog.

FO's
None :(

Spinning
I did get some spinning done. I finished the first half of my ...into the whirled August club fiber. Big thanks to Leslie, since she told me how to spin Polwarth it's been a dream to spin and so far it's my favorite fiber. I am spinning both halves from separate ends to get the most barber pooling I can get. It looks pretty consistent to me, with a couple thick spots. I am about halfway done with the 2nd half. The first picture is the finished 1st half and the second is the 2nd half that I am still working on.

Enabling
As mentioned at the beginning I won yarn a little bit over a week ago and it arrived last week. I won Dancing Dog Dyeworks Jive sock base in the Blue Planet Colorway. It's so soft and squishy and I absolutely love it.

I have a question to all you knitters out there. What do you knit with single skeins like this one when you don't want to knit socks with it? I tend to knit shawls or cowls with it, but am curious of what other people do.

Charity
This week I want to talk about charity. My local spinning guild is having their second annual Let's Stitch event. They team up with the From the Heart organization and there are a couple different ways you can help (the link will have all the information). One way is to donate yarn, so I went through my stash and I am donating almost 30 balls of yarn, around 20 of them are brand new. I think of myself as a more advanced knitter and thanks to watching podcasts and doing most of my yarn shopping online and at local yarn stores, I kind of became a yarn snob. Here is a picture of my mountain of yarn that will be donated to a home where it will be used.

Next week will just be same old, working and more working. I hope you all have a great week.
Happy Knitting,
Courtney