Home Alone

I'm sitting at home alone watching the Grammy's now that the Celtic Women special is over. I have progressed from arguing with the dog about me changing the channel to the Celtic Women special. But really Beyonce should not channel Alanis. No matter what Heidi thinks. Just a moment ago I was yelling at the kitchen because Norah Jones didn't get nominated for any Grammy's. Facebook is offering a moderate amount of human contact. And then I remembered that "Hey, I have a blog. It is set up just for me to ramble nonsensically to no one in particular."

So I got some of that new sweetener, Truvia. With the current congestion going on, I have been sucking down tea like there is no tomorrow. Well I have to have my regular tea with milk and sugar and I sweeten my peppermint tea too. I need an option besides sugar. But I really hate sweeteners. It is the same reason I can't drink diet sodas. That fake sweet taste is just awful. And I had a coupon. And I really like it. It sweetens well, but doesn't have an aftertaste. It is kind of pricy, but if I use it just for tea I think it will last and be quite worth the cost. Yay!

I made a pair of socks. They are my first toe up socks and I love them. I used WendyKnits Toe-Up Socks with a Difference. I love them. They are toe up so I can use up all of my yarn, but it has a heel flap and not a short row heel. They are super warm and comfy.

This is just to make Becca jealous. I made Chicken Halushki (is that the right name, I googled it and a bunch of cabbage dishes came up). It was so good. I even made the homemade noodles you scrape off of the bottom of a pan. It was even fairly easy. I'm thinking I need to make this more often. And I'm trying to figure out if I can turn it into a crock pot meal.Oh and I went to Borders today. I needed to go to the mall to get my ring inspected and since I still have a Borders gift card to spend I spent some time looking around. I finally found the Interweave Crochet magazine (really I just need to subscribe to it and Interweave Knits and Spin Off. I would probably save money). They also had a bunch of office supplies and stuff on sale 75% off. I found this adorable lunch box with a matching thermos. I got both for 5 dollars. Wooo! I don't normally make a lunch to take to work. I tend to forget to make it or forget to take it even if I prepare it the night before. I stick with frozen meals that I take to work in a bunch. But I might use it to carry around knitting. Of course. Pretty much every bag I own is designated to hold knitting. Except for my purse. And sometimes it even holds knitting.
BTW, one should not google new food products you've just tried. I do not like when side effects are one of the first listings.

And hey, writing this apparently made Zach come home. So thanks for listening. And also kudos to Zach and the Coraline DVD. The Coraline DVD for having 3-D glasses and Zach for remembering this so that we could watch the Michael Jackson 3-D tribute thingy. Not that it was that thrilling. :)

Look what I did!

I has a craft room. Thank you to my mom for the Christmas present of a new desk and for Jenn to sell it to me. I can now have my sewing machine, needle felter and drum carder out and set up, ready to use, but not cluttering up the dining room table. Yay!

I just have a few projects to complete. I need a cover for my sewing machine and a pin cushion. I'm working on some stuff to put on the walls. And AC Moore is being very obliging this week by putting their shoebox sized plastic containers on sale for $1. I already have a bunch and just need a few more to finish sorting things out. Then I can bust out my label maker to get everything labeled. mmmm...nerdy.

Here we have all my knitting looms hung up. My sewing machine and needle felter are set up. The desk has a self on the back of this part and is perfect for those shoebox containers. And they are holding my sewing stuff, wool washing stuff and needle felting tools. All my sewing things are sorted out so I can find stuff instead of digging through a big basket. I still need to get my fabric stash and patterns up from the basement. But those are the last of it.
On the smaller part of the table is my drum carder and scale. This part of the desk has a pull out for a keyboard. It will make a nice work surface. I even have a nice view out onto our back yard and the woods behind our house. Oh and there is lots of room underneath the desk for storage. Especially that little corner section between the two desks.
And here is all the rest of it. The blue plastic drawers have most of my yarn in it with some fleeces and my dyeing supplies on top. The drawers next to it have all my spinning fiber and some yarn. Next to that are my painting supplies, jewelry making supplies, cardmaking supplies and then scrapbooking things like pens and punches and stuff. The bookshelf has all my my patterns in binders on the bottom. Crafting books, then scrapbooking supplies then magazines on top. OMG! I know where everything is and I can get to it easily. I win.
And I'm super close to having a pair of socks finished and I've started working on mittens to match my fair isle hat. I feel fairly accomplished.

Fears

So it took a stranger on Ravelry trading me some yarn to get me over one of my biggest knitting fears. I've always been a might terrified of colorwork. Except duplicate stitch. I can do that. But real, honest to goodness colorwork was scary. Notice I say "was".

I received some Brown Sheep Handpainted originals yarn in stormy skies. It is a beautiful yarn. Aran weight with a nice halo to it thanks to the mohair. I knew pretty much right away that it would have to be a hat because of how PSA I am about stuff that can be irritating to my skin. But I didn't know what sort of hat would be worthy of such a yarn. I was worried that the 160-ish yards I had wouldn't be enough for a whole hat and that the dark and varigated color would overwhelm any pattern I tried. And then on Ravelry I was stalking some of my friends' projects and favorites and saw a faux fair isle hat. It used a solid yarn for the main color and a bright varigated yarn for the contrast color. You get all the colors of a very complicated fair isle pattern with much less work. Then AC Moore had some cream Soy Wool Solids on sale. It is the same weight and has a similar halo

So I was inspired. I found the pattern for Three Tams. I decided that Tam C was what I wanted. So...I cast on. After a little help on how to easily do corrugated ribbing from Wendy Knits, I found myself chugging along on this beautiful pattern. I cast on Thursday and I finished it tonight. It was slow going at the beginning, but I was getting so confident with it, I started using both hands. That really sped the process up. (there is even video of me using both hands) I'm so proud of myself I could explode. So without further ado...my pride and joy...

My new hat

Haiti

If you are like me, you might be wondering what you can do for the people in Haiti. I have a suggestion, go shopping! I know of several fiber people who are donating their profits from sales in their etsy or artfire stores to relief efforts. You could then R.A.K. (Random Act of Kindness) it on to someone and I'm pretty sure you would have so much good karma you could take out a room full of younglings and not turn to the dark side. :)

Jodi is donating all profits from her store on artfire, Cablefreak Yarns. Her yarn is beautiful and a great base yarn.

Elizabeth is selling stitch markers and fiber accessories in her Etsy store, Ugly Stepsister designs. She is donating her profits from January to relief efforts.

Stitch Sisterz is in! January profits = donation to Haiti relief. A Ravelry friend is working with the Red Cross in Puerto Rico to raise money for Haiti, so that’s where Stitch Sisterz’ profits will go. Come and get your crack cashmere.

Jesh has a blog post here about what she is donating. She has an Etsy store where she sells spindles and fiber and she has patterns for sale.

Caty is donating 50% of her profits from sales of her lovely spindles to relief efforts at her Etsy store Sticks and Strings.

Vicki Howell is in on the love too. She is donating pattern proceeds from her website here.

And even more found thanks to the LSG group on Ravelry! A lot of them are links to patterns that can be purchased on Ravelry.

-AbbiePrime started the ball rolling by pledging 50% of sales of her October Leaves Fingerless Mitts
-LadyBright joined in to contribute 15% of the sales from her etsy store, Delshire Woods.
-LanieRedis contributing 50% of the Paradoxicality profits for the rest of the month.
-DurableDora is donating profits from her Zazzle store, and is wanting to hear back that it’s okay with everyone to donate the profits from the NSFW Calendar.
-Retroknit is pledging 50% of all the sales from Harlow and Bob the Dog for the rest of the month
-eudy is donating half the pattern sales from the calm waters cowl for january
-Yarnpants is donating 50% of January sales from her etsy shop
-ButterflyKyss is donating $2 for every sale of pinwheel ruffle hat in January
starting tomorrow, playatlife will be donating 50% of her weekend proceeds from play at life fiber arts.
-twistedredhead is offering 25% of proceeds at Works of Artemis to the Red Cross or MSF
minou is donating $5 per item sold from her shop Ambrosia and Bliss until the end of January.
-Overbrewed is donating 50% of sales of her designs Melusine and Lucy in the Sky until the end of the month
-Antimony is donating all proceeds from the sale of her design Water Rescue Socks for the rest of the month to Doctors without Borders
-Lotus Yarns is donating 25% of all orders for the rest of January to Doctors without Borders


If you don't want to do some shopping and just want to donate: Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, and Mercy Corps are on the ground and running.

How were your holidays?

Mine were good. Got to spend time with awesome people, got lots of awesome things, and hopefully gave awesome things to other people. That will be a later post because some of those things haven't been received yet. I'm slowly getting back to knitting for me. And I've decided that I have to get down to the single digits of Works In Progress before I'm allowed to cast on any new projects. Now, this does not include things that can be finished in the span of an evening, such as snowmen or a calorimetry. It means things that will make it it into Ravelry as a WIP not a FO.

Zach got me a set of Knitpicks Options DPN needles. And Acid Dyes which will go very nicely with the alpaca fiber Bill and Lauren got me. And I got a scale for measuring yarn and fiber and things. And my In-laws got me some amazing knitting books. And that is just the crafty stuff. Flannel Sheets, a back massager, enough farming video games to make about 3 years of my life dissapear. And my Mom and Brian are coming this weekend for Christmas and my SnB group's Christmas party is this weekend. I am very much looking forward to giving my secret santa their present. I've been ready to do so for months now.

And the whole while I have new toys and things to play with, people are coming up with some new techniques to try. I think I've talked on here about the Amazing Needle. Essentially where you knit with a crochet hook. Well, the same person I was talking to about it back then has set up a blog with instructions and techniques. And some crochet people on Ravelry have even come up with a hilarious name for it "knooking", knitting with a hook. The blog is here, by the same name. I think I am going to run to AC Moore and get a Locker Hook to try it out. I am facinated.

Cheating

I've been cheating on my Christmas knitting. And I don't fell bad about it at all. I probably should. But I have run out of yarn for one thing (I plan on getting that skein of yarn this evening). And I have until New Year's to finish the other thing. And starting next week, I am on vacation so I'll have plenty of time to sit and knit. And there isn't even much left of it, just 5 more repeats then a toe.

But really if you had a pattern for this snowman, wouldn't you want to make an entire army of them. It is less than 2 inches tall. And it takes me a total of about 2 hours to make one. One hour for the body. Half an hour for the scarf and then maybe another half an hour for all the finishing. So worth it. I put a little loop on the top of its head so it would make an awesome ornament.

And apparently we are preparing to get a large snowstorm coming through here. It is probably a good idea I started these. And yes, I know what they were inspired by. And I don't care, they are cute. I decided it was silly that as a knitter I had a pair of fingerless gloves, but nothing that covered all of my hand. My fingertips have been getting very cold in the morning. As I am not yet brave enough to make these, I went for mittens in a chunky yarn. I have the first one done and plan to have the second done before I have to venture out into the snow tomorrow.

And because you can never have too much adorable dog. Here is mine at her most pathetic. Falling asleep in Zach's arms. Awwww... melty puppy.

Christmas time

Every time I go to make this post, I finish something and decide I need to take a picture of it or I just get distracted. And now that I feel I've caught up on pictures I realize I probably can't post them since most of them are Christmas presents.

And speaking of Christmas presents, from the list on my last post, I only have items 1, 2 and 5 left. Well, I've had to scrap one of the pairs of slippers and will be making armwarmers instead. So only 4 things left to make and just a handful of things left to buy. Yay! And I've been so confident in my crafting abilities that I've even added some things to my list. I didn't mention them above because they are already done. I made a hat and a wookie. I'm so ready for Christmas I've actually got the tree up and have presents wrapped. I think the snow we had over the weekend really helped me get in the mood. And the fact that I've found the Christmas Music radio station.

I was actually very productive this weekend. In addition to going to the Lion's Club Arts and Craft fair (which was fun, but much smaller than last year) I finally put all of my craft stuff in the spare bedroom that is currently being used as my closet. It was inspired by the fact that the corner of the living room where all my yarn resided is pretty much the only good place to put the tree. So all of that went upstairs. And I figured I might as well go through the stuff in the basement and take that upstairs as well. Now it is all in one place. I was able to clear out some of the big drawers that were down in the basement to spread out my yarn a bit. And I was even able to put all of my fiber in the drawers too. Well, most of it. The prepared stuff. Anything destined for the carder is still in a tote, but it is a small tote. I just need to get a table and a chair so I can actually work up there.