Happy Mother's Day

To all of my moms.  I love you all. 

To Elisa:
You get a combined mother's day/birthday present this year.  you know why.

Guild Retreat

Guild retreat was the last weekend in March.  It was so much fun.  As it normally is.  So many shiny new things.  I totally forgot to take a big group picture of everything I came home with.  So you get some highlights. 

 First off were my nails for the weekend.  They were a huge hit.  Sheep!  Many of the ladies were disappointed I didn't bring the stuff to do everyone's nails.  But I was worried the fumes would affect the people who usually attend that have lung problems.  Even in a different room.  If everyone has freshly painted nails, that smell tends to get overwhelming. 

Some lovely yarn from Bloomin' Acre Farms.  I beleive it is an icelandic/mohair mix.  I didn't get skeins with tags.  This is getitng dyed and turned into a color affection shawl. 

A beautiful skein of Sundara Yarn. 

A felted picture by our guild's very own Ann Grimes.  This is already hanging in my craft room.

I got this amazing Namaste bag in their peacock color.  It is now my purse. The best part, the lining has hedgehogs on it ::dies:: I love this thing so much. 

Llama yarn from Annie.  It is a total of 8 oz of fiber and each ball is about 1 oz.  As you can see from the picture, it forms a bit of a gradient.  Jess (who is my creative director now) suggested spinning it all up in order and then plying it with a solid/kettle dyed bright color.  OMG! right!

And I actually got some things finished a guild.  I finished spinning up some fiber I had gotten last year.  But it went to live with Cathy in exchange for that awesome bag up there.  The best part, it is going to be part of a latch hook? project she is working on.  It is nice to know my yarn will live on in something so beautiful.  And I finished the shawl.  I made it with some Noro Taiyo Sock and I used the Plumeria Frill pattern.  I had enough yarn to do (maybe 2) extra rows at the end. 

I also got several other things, but not much in the way of pictures.
Seam Clips from Susan's Spinning Bunny
Soak Heel Cream from Kanawha City Yarn Company (love this stuff)
A nice natural brown blend of wool from Marie Safreed of Log House Llamas
Persia Color Yarn from Skacel
A set of Greener Shades Dyes from Still River Mill

April Stitch Along

So I'm starting this post in a fairly timely manner.  I did the Feeling Stitchy April Stitch-A-Long and actually got it finished.  In April! 

I think my favorite parts of this project.  My awesome satin stitched slobber.  The sprinkles, which are my first attempts at a bullion stitch.  And that smirk on the mad scientist cherry, who is obviously running the whole operation. 

Other projects.

Multiples Swap

Honestly, I think the multiples swap I do on Ravelry is one of my favorites, ever. The idea is that everyone makes X-1 number of items, where X is the number of participants. You send them all to the coordinator. Then she repackages them so each person gets a box full of different things, one from each person in the swap. I ended up with so many amazing things!

First, we will start with what I sent.  I made glass nail polish pendants.  I painted the back of glass beads with nail polish and then wrapped them with jewelry wire to make them into pendants.  I do hope everyone liked them. 

My favorite part is that I always forget to take group shots before everything has run off to new homes.  I had to go dig the project bags out of my knitting bag to include them in the picture.

I swear whenever we do this swap it is like they fill it with all the things I love.  So much awesome.  Lots of project bags.  Which is great because no matter how many I have, I always need more.  Another pillowcase from Marie.  I have three now.  One more and I will have an excellent set for the spare bedroom.  :)  Notecards, bookmarks, stamps.  A beautiful shawl pin from Anna.  I love her stitch markers.  Delicious noms.  A hotpad that is already in rotation in our kitchen.  And the perfect little notion-y things that all knitters need. 

Thank you everyone again.  I have to say it was an amazingly successful swap.  I can't wait to do it again. 

Easter Weekend

I've started like 5 posts since the last one and I am going to make myself finish these so there is actually some new content on this blog this month. 

So Easter weekend, we did a lot of cooking and baking and new recipes, yay! So mostly you get shiny pictures and links to things.  

 Homemade whole wheat bagels.  This were amazing.  I think I am going to try this weekend and make some with cranberries.  I got the recipe from A Wooden Nest.  Seriously I just want to spend my life making all of her recipes.  The cool thing is she got featured on Craft for making some of my scrubbies.  Full circle.  I made this whole wheat by switching out a half of the regular flour for whole wheat.  Much more than that and I think they would be super dense. 

Of course we made the obligatory deviled eggs.  Actually I ended up buying another dozen eggs to make Avocado egg salad the following weekend.  That was so good.  **puts eggs and avocados on list of things to buy this weekend**

Zach made Challah.  Dear God I love that man's bread.

Oh and whole wheat, cranberry hot cross buns.  Seriously, I joke that I married him for his bread recipe.  Sometimes, I don't know if I'm kidding anymore. 

We made Shrubs!  The drinking kind.  I had no idea there was a thing such as a drinking vinegar.  I was quite dubious in fact.  But Zach likes vinegar and I had watermelon that needed to be used.  So I made watermelon and strawberry.  Was it good?  Well, let's just say that we have another batch of watermelon and a batch of pineapple going.  I am going to get more berries this weekend.  And I don't like vinegar.  Loved this stuff!

Other things I love, my new nail polish!  This shade is Orange You Unique by Nail Venturous Nail Lacquers.  I saw this color on her blog when her store was just a twinkle in her eye.  I knew I had to have it.  It has been a while since I've done the crazy, refresh every 5 seconds, frantic buying on Etsy.  It was so worth it.  I am aiming to get floam next time.

Guild Contest

We had another guild contest recently. It involved all of the items we made from the September meeting to February's meeting. Surprisingly, that was a lot of stuff.  And this doesn't include stuff that was given away for Christmas. 

 I've actually made a lot of cool things.  I keep thinking I know what my favorite is, then I change my mind.  Right now I am loving my new octopus sweater.  I only knit the octopus.  The sweater came from Goodwill.  But it looks cool, no?

I am also super proud of this hat.  I've never done Brioche knitting.  So I jumped in the deep end and decided to do two-color brioche with cables for my first attempt.  I should have done a gauge swatch, but it fits Haley perfectly.  A thank you nod to Tiffany for her modeling job below.  It is the Crossing Over pattern from Vogue Knitting Fall 2011

 And another modeling nod to our next model, who spent a week scaring the crap out of everyone at the office.  But that scarf does look fetching on him.  It is Ruffled Options Scarf.  I have been toying with getting this yarn for a while.  It was just a bit pricey for something I wasn't sure I would like.  I finally saw a similar scarf in person and really liked it.  I hated working with this yarn.  Just fiddley and dumb.  So I gave it to Tiffany.  But I also bought more of the yarn because I think it will make a great hip scarf. 

 This shawl is Dianth by Susanna IC.  I love her patterns.  This is my third shawl by her.  This was a mystery Knit-A-Long.  Which I normally don't do because I can't keep up and I don't like to not know what I'm making.  But I really loved this. 

 I also really like this one.  The pattern is the Insanity Shawl.  But the coolest part is the yarn.  I dyed it using this technique.  I am now hooked.  I've done another skein of yarn that was a light brown with some purple dye.  Love it!  I think next on my list is doing a ball of yarn one color in one direction, then wrapping it back in a ball the other way and dyeing it a different color.  Oh the possibilities.   

Whoops

Hey so it looks like I haven't posted since last year.  Note to self- finish one of the several drafts posts you have going.  Maybe even that one about New Year's Resolutions where you talk about posting more.  I blame Facebook and nail polish.  It is hard to type with wet nails...

Don't judge me, Itchy.  We won't discuss when this picture was taken because it also took me forever to take the Christmas tree down.  In the spirit of that, how about a Christmas post.  I don't feel like I crafted nearly as many items this year.  I blame the vertigo in October, which caused some scrambling for alternate presents... Also, it appears I hid a bunch of pictures of things I did make.  That should round out this post better.  And actually, there are still presents that need given (totally not my fault.  Becca and I like to give our presents to each other in person.  Plus I am now holding her present hostage for British candy)

By far the cutest thing I made.  Giant Tulle Tutu for Julia.  Tutorial here.  It was very easy to make and fairly cheap too. So much fun to watch her wear it. 

 Nine to Five socks for my mom.  She had better take good care of these.

A cross stitch for Brian.  The pattern can be found here.  I even made the light and windows with glow in the dark thread.  Looks super cool.

I made a catnip stick for Tesla.  I have never laughed so hard for a weekend.  To say he liked it would be a grave understatement.  He nearly destroyed a few presents trying to get to it.  And then he played with it or held it or just slobbered on it for the entire weekend.  Seriously.  It was a rectangle stuffed with polyfill, a few pieces of plastic bags for crinkle noises and some catnip.  We nicknamed it the Precious.

 My brother asked me for a bacon and eggs scarf.  I do love how strange he can be sometimes.  And who am I to refuse a request like that.