Birthday, FOs, and TNNA. Oh, my!

My work is nice because it gives you your birthday off. So Wednesday I basically did nothing except knit and spin. I'm not big on birthday celebrations but I think Mom felt guilty because she didn't have anything planned. So she threw together a small thing after riding last night.

We had been having heavy, heavy rain all morning but, miraculously, it cleared up in the afternoon and I was able to go riding. The horse was so thrilled about that :) Because the arena didn't have much time to drain, there were huge puddles that I made him go through. It was a little too hot for the full Grand Prix-style trot (knees up to his chin and very collected) but Java did a huge extended canter through the puddles. I love making him work through puddles even though he really hates it. But he loves going through the "pond" (oversized puddle) in the back and loves going through creeks. Go figure.

I finished spinning up a tencel blend that I got at Maryland Sheep and Wool and started up on some llama a friend gave me. It is really interesting to spin llama. I think I might make a hat from it.

I was also knitting up some more baby bibs. My reserves of baby gifts were getting a little low and I wanted to get rid of some more yarn from the stash.
I've now finished up 2 bibs and am on the strap section of another one right now. I still have enough yarn to make up another bib so I might do that in the next couple of days. They only take about 2 hours (at most) to make so it is a really simple and fast knit.

In other FO news, I made some more cat toys but these ones weren't knit. Instead they were needle felted balls with blended roving. The right one I blended some darker wool with lighter to get nice dark brown streaks. The left one I blended some dyed roving with the light colored wool. These are going to be gifts along with 5 catnip mousies in exchange for a couple of raw Jacob sheep fleeces (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).

Did you see the Little Acorn Project Bag pattern? It is a crochet pattern. I saw it the other day and pulled some yarn out of my stash to get a start on it. This acorn bottom doesn't look like much until it is paired with the top and then it looks much more like an acorn. I need to tweak the top because my crocheting abilities kind of make it look rippled and I want to make it look more acorn-y.

Today (Thursday), I was able to go to a sock class taught by Cat Bordhi (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) at TNNA. Kim wasn't able to use her ticket so she generously gave it to me. The class was soooo interesting. You can definitely tell that Cat is thinking all of the time and her brain is definitely working differently than everyone else's. It was fascinating to hear her explaining how to design your own socks. She was really funny, very helpful and a really good teacher.
Here are the baby socks that I made yesterday during class. They are made from a Panda Silk something or other, doubled because even though it says it is DK weight, it is really fingering. The class was 6 hours long but it felt like it just flew right by. Such a fun late birthday gift!