Since I finished some stuff...

I figured I would start something new. Something for me. Haley has been going through her stash and brought some of it to SnB. I helped out by taking some of it off of her hands. It did then prompt me to go through my yarn. Got rid of two Wal-mart bags of acrylic. I think I will be giving them to my cousin Rachel when I go visit to teach them how to knit. I have to say, I am becoming a bit of a yarn snob. There are certain acrylics I still love, but a lovely Merino can now catch my eye and turn me from my old loves.

Anyway, she had some JoAnn's Sensations yarn Dolchetto in peach. A lovely, squishy wool/cotton bled. I have decided I want to make a shrug with it. I found a pattern, Unshaped shrug, but I needed to make some changes. So I casted on 62 stitches to eliminate the ribbon on the top and bottom edge that you're supposed to do when you are done knitting the main rectangle. I am through the first ball and I have 13 inches. I want it a minimum of 30 inches if not longer. I should be ok. If not, I've found several people on Ravelry who have this yarn to destash. And I bought some yarn at the Yarn and More to use as the ribbing around the body opening. It is not quite as soft and yummy, but it goes very well with the color and is the same style yarn (a thick, smooshy single ply). I'm hoping a wash with some conditioner will soften it up. If not, Christmas gift done!

Some Finished Objects

Holy Crap, did I actually finish some knitting projects. You bet your sweet patootie. 3-ish projects in fact (well two are knit, one is spun).

I finally finished Anouk for the baby present. I decided against the shrug to go with it since the baby has already been born and I wanted to get the gift to the parents. I made it without pockets and I duplicate stitched a flower on the front. It actually got done because the Yarn and More had the perfect buttons for it when I went to the Fiber Guild meeting.





And speaking of spinning, I spun up a single of some cormo locks I got from the Yarn and More. I didn't dye them myself. As you saw in a previous post, I did run these locks through the drum carder, but the wool still turned out a very shlubby and artsy (spinners code for uneven) yarn. I saw a post on Ravelry about plying a single with thread and stringing beads or flowers onto the thread. So I tried beads. I love how the yarn turned out, but it is going to be a long time before I think about trying this again. Probably when I get a wheel (which will be a long time). I used my cardboard lazy kate to ply and it might have been easier if I had moved it up onto the couch next to me so I didn't have to keep bending down to reach for beads.


And for my third object, I finally finished my Broadripple socks done in Bernat Satin Sport. Lovely color meadow, but will be more of a slipper sock. I'm not sure how sturdy the yarn is. It made a good pair of second socks. My third pair (technically fourth but I'm not sure I'll ever finish the Viking socks) I am working on a ribbed sock, magic loop with Cestari Cotton sock yarn. To be honest, I don't know if I like Magic Loop as much as DPNs. It seems more fiddly with stuff sticking out. But I don't have to worry about 5 needles. Just two that are joined together. And I splurged on nice ones to get a very flexible cable, Addi Turbos from Yarn and More.

Artist's Corner

I was apparently going through my creepy naked fairy stage. (I'm sure that phrase will get me some fun Google hits)

Ah the rose garden in Nice where I wanted to get married. Painted from a picture, sans the Dr. Beeby in the center doing some sort of Broadway-esque step kick. Stupid French law about living in France for 40 days before you can get married there.





My most recent attempt. Followed along with an artist you may have heard of, Bob Ross. Those ARE happy little trees. And I would like to mention that acrylics behave nothing like oil paints. And the man is a speed demon. I barely had the clouds done while he was finishing up with the mountains. I have to say, I'm pretty proud of this one. From far away, it actually looks like what it is supposed to. Craziness.

A cat, a bag and some fingerless mitts are walking down the road

They don't make a good joke, but they led up to a fun weekend.
The cat. Well the cat is freakin' hilarious when she sleeps like this. I really don't know why I find it quite so funny. But I do. And I finally got a picture of her.





The bag. SnB on Thursday was a bit lonely. As Haley sat and commiserated on the fact that her piercer did not have the hoop she wanted, she thought about going to the mall. Being the only other person there, I got an invite to tag along. We went into Hot Topic thinking they might have the correct hoop. Instead I found this awesome bag. Oh yes, that is Bloo, Cheese and best of all Eduardo.










Fingerless mitts for my cousin Ashley's graduation gift. They went over great. If I ever get off my butt, I'll type up the pattern. Everyone was teasing me when I tried them on. I guess I'm not the type to walk around wearing fingerless mitts with skulls on them.

Although at the party, I found out that Rachel (Ashley's sister) had been trying to teach herself how to knit. What is a knitter to do but come to the rescue. Oh yeah, I had her knitting on her own by the time I left. And they all want me to come back to teach everyone else how too. The plans for the world domination of knitters is well in hand. Mwah ha ha ha **cough, cough** I mean...how wonderful it will be to spend quality time with my family. Teaching them a wonderful past time with strong historical ties. Mwah ha ha...I mean...tee hee...

Happy Birthday Mom!

You don't get a picture cause I don't have any of you looking fabulous on here. Instead, I'll put a link to a picture of your birthday present. Which you will probably look at before it actually gets to you thereby completely ruining the surprise. So enjoy your birthday. I hope your next 29 years are as much fun as your first. **giggle**

Happy Father's Day!!!

Be sure to hug a dad today!

The stupid jerk was the only one who made me cry at my wedding. I chose the least sentimental song that could still be considered a father/daughter dance song to keep me from crying. And then what does he do. He leans in and whispers "I'm so proud of you, honey." Seriously, it is making me cry even now.

Knitty!!!

The summer Knitty is live. Woot! And not even 15 minutes later I have found several things I love and one thing that I absolutely must make. In honor of my own Gigi, a Gigi to knit. I believe I need one of these in every color. I might start with black so I can wear it to work.

Can I also mention how much I love that most Knitty sweater patterns go up to like 3X. This big girl is feeling the knitting love.

Mmmm Science

Science/Math and yarn makes me all Warm and Nerdy inside.

I got an award

Thank you Crystal!

Here are the "rules" of passing it along: "SHARE THE LOVE!!! Share this award with all those blogs out there that you love. All the people who make you smile. All those that make you laugh. All those that make your day. All those that leave uplifting comments on your blog. **All I ask, is that you include a link to this post with the award and ask your recipient to do the same**"

So here are the blogs that keep me comin' back for more! No obligation to post it on your blog at all, just an acknowledgement!

Backyard Academy
Gnat on a Windshield
Bittersweet
Goodness Gracious
I'm a Craft Artist
Purling Sprite
Random Meanderings
Roman Sock
Storm Moon Knits
Tree and Leaf

Yard Sales are awesome

Because you find awesome things for really really cheap. I decided to get up early this Saturday as I saw some really good signs driving home from work on Friday. Well I didn't get up early. But I did go. Of course it was nearly unbearably hot. It was worth it to buy something just so I could go stand in the shade in their garages where they had fans. But I did find one yard sale. They had a square/rectangle lap loom weaving snap together set. They also had a wooden hexagonal loom. Neither had a price. So I asked and the lady said I could have them both for 50 cents. Woot. Of course I have no idea how to use them. I am also having some difficulty finding stuff online. So we shall see what I do with them.

I have friends

This post was going to be all about the wonderful people I have met through knitting groups. And how I have gone out of my comfort zone by seeking out friends outside of work. I was seeking out people where I didn't have the common thread of working in the same place.

As I was typing, I realized that all of my friends outside of work are fiber people. I then realized I was comparing Apples to Apples. Yeah, there are some new places I have to go to. But seeing someone there knitting is an instant ice breaker. I can pull out my knitting and start comparing projects. In fact, pretty much any time I pull out my knitting in public I get some comments or people talk to me about it. My favorites are when people look a little nostalgic and talk about their grandma/aunt/treasured person who used to knit/crochet/cross stitch. It also appears that most any handcraft evokes memories of all the others.

So this post will instead say thank you to all those of the fibery persuasion out there who have helped me grow, learn, teach and enjoy what I do.










From my Fiber Guild









To new friends from Ravelry


Some Stitchin' and Bitchin'

Library Knit Night and the occasional Knitten' Kitten meeting.

I'm Dyeing to Show You

My new goodies. Wow...that was bad...I apologize I will...well, actually I don't make any promises about not using bad puns that I can't keep. Moving on to better things.

New yarn at Linda's. She has them set out for customers to give them a try. I hesitantly tried the Cestari cotton sock yarn. Hoping not to resurrect memories of that first sock that shall not be talked about. But I am becoming quite enamored with it. I am thinking a simple pair of ribbed socks. Nothing too complicated since it still is part cotton (75% cotton, 25% wool).






Now for the reason for the dyeing joke. Aimee kindly invited me over for a dye party since she has invested in several types of lovely dyes. I had a blast and came home with several lovely things to spin and knit.
Remember the pink and grey roving. I don't remember if I actually posted it or not. I wasn't thrilled. I had tried out some fabric dyes on some roving. The pink and grey you see is corridale roving (again from Linda's). I meant it to be those colors. Well I hoped the grey would be more black. Well, I tried to do a dark purple black mix on some Alpaca. It picked up absolutely none of the blue in the purple and turned out the exact same color. Bleh. I wanted purple and black.

So I brought it along to see what could be done. We overdyed it with a purple. I am thrilled with how it turned out. I ranges from almost a magenta color to a dark-bluish purple. I have decided to call it Reserected Alpaca.






This lovely bump of turquoise and brown is amazing. It is Corridale (I love Linda's shop, but I think I need to explore online to get some more variety) But I don't have a name for it. But I love it and will make something fabulous of the yarn that I someday spin from it.



I also love this. More Corridale. Have you ever heard of Lime & Violet? They are quite hilarious bloggers and podcasters in the knitting/fiber world. Of course, their name has inspired many colorways of yarn and fiber. It doesn't help that these colors look fabulous together. I have decided to try and be a bit witty and have named this roving "A Green Citrus Fruit and Miss Beauregarde". **giggle** Miss Beauregarde is from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. She likes to chew gum.

Finally, the yarn. I bought this...well, I'll let you guess. I had to return a magazine. Get off my back!!! I swear I can stop going anytime...well...unless we have our guild meeting there. And I do have to go purchase my wheel eventually...Anyway. At least it was on the clearance rack. $1.75 for 200 yds of bare wool sport weight 2 ply. Rockin'! I have named this colorway "Tequila Sunrise" The red turned out more pink than was the original plan. But I am very excited to see how this knits up. I'm thinking socks or a lightweight shawl. Any ideas. I have three skeins dyed up in the same colorway.