Continuing from Yesterday

Well, yesterday I got kind cut short because the kids came home from school and I realized that I needed to get ready for work. Anyway, I'm just about finished spinning the other 1/2 oz of the Fairy Nights so I hopefully will have it skeined and everything this weekend. I plan on using it for this. It's the Crystalline Shawl by Jade Sapphire. It kind of looks like butterfly wings. You can click on the pic to make it larger. It calls for 700 yds on the pattern although on the web page it says 800. Hopefully I will get a little more than 800 yds so I'll be safe.

I've tried to look through the pattern and it's all charted which is good but some of the written instruction that leads up to the charted parts is a little confusing. I may need some help with this one.

Any way I forgot to post the pics of the new sock yarn I bought last week.

It's Trekking!! I bought Dwayne some Trekking a few months ago in a grey and khaki colorway thinking I would make him some work socks. He didn't like the yarn and said that it was boring and how come he can't have nice colored socks like mine. So other than buy him bright fushia, I thought this might make him some nice "guy" socks and I won't go blind from the bland lack of color.

I also picked this up as well:

It's Jitterbug in Florentina (I think). I really love the Jitterbug sock yarn and have a pair in the Tuscana colorway which are not quite finished because i made them a bit too long and now I don't have enough to finish the second one.

The first one is really soft though and I know if I make another pair for this colorway, I have to make them a bit shorter. In the meantime, I have to wait out the LYS getting more in or trying to find someone who has a little left.

Oh well, you thing toeless socks for sandals will ever be a fashion statement?

New Yarn!!

As most of you may know, some months ago I bought a spinning wheel. I have been spinning a little here and there and have come out with some pretty great stuff.

This is that amethyst batting I spun up a while back. I was going to ply it, but if I do, I won't have enough to do anything with so I decided to use it single ply. This is about 1 oz and about 217 yds.

Bad picture. I know. Anyway, I think I had a better pic on another blog but there it is all skeined and ready to knit. I'm about halfway through the other ounce so I won't start until I have it all spun up but that's will have to wait for this:

This is a very yummy Mystery Batt called Fairy Nights. It's by Mountain Shadow Ranch and she has some very yummy batts in a bunch of gorgeous colorways. I bought another one called Mermaid Lagoon. It's all blues and greens.

Any way I just love this one and have already spun about 1 1/2 oz of it. I bought 4 oz of each colorway hoping that if I can get about 200 yds per oz, I would have enough for a decent shawl. Each batt is a little over an ounce (The pic is a whole batt and about the size of a TV tray table thing.) and she only charges about $5 for them.

This is what it looks like spun up so far:

Oh and the shiny parts are sparklies!!! Lots and lots of colored sparkle hairs running through them. I can't wait to see how this knits up. I will have to totally keep you posted.

The Yarn Harlot!

Tuesday, we went to see the Yarn Harlot, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Not wanting to go by myself, I brought along my friend Darlene (who is a non-knitter but loves the feel of yarn and all things knitterly. I am confident she will turn to the dark side soon.) who was enthusiastic and told everyone within earshot she was going to see the "Yarn Lady" but had no clue what it was all about.

We arrived at the school auditorium about 6:15 and there was already over 100 people there. So I introduced Dar to some of my knitting friends, took a seat, and started knitting on the Noro Cavendish blanket I'm currently working on in Silk Garden.

Lynn Anne from Twisted Yarns came out and gave away a whole slew of yarn stuff of which I won absolutely none and I had two chances (mine and Dar's since she doesn't knit yet). Anyway, then Steph comes out and talks and makes us all pretty much pee our pants for the next hour and a half. Then it's time to go to the book store for the signing portion of the evening. Twisted Yarns really handled this very well. They gave everyone tickets with time blocks to come and get there book signed. My time slot was 9:45-10:15 so Dar and I went to the Woodlands and ate at Cheesecake Factory. Yummy. Then we decided that Steph needed a piece of Snicker's Bar Cheesecake so we brought that with us back to get our books signed.

We only stood in line for about 10 minutes and then it was our turn. We offered the cheesecake and it was received pretty well. She said I seemed like a nice person. I think she may have been afraid I would take the cheesecake back. Then we got our books signed (I got Casts Off signed and Dar bought At Knits End) then we had our picture taken with the infamous green sock. We talked for a few minutes about New Orleans (I'm originally from there and she was there the day before) and she told Dar she wanted a pic emailed to her of Dar holding something she knitted since Dar promised she would start knitting and then we left.

All in all it was a great evening. We both had a good time and I now have a friend who can appreciate why I'm so crazy about this whole knitting thing.

And now for some pics:

The Yarn Harlot and me

The Yarn Harlot and Darlene

I did manage to get several pics from far away when she was speeking but none of them came out well enough to see very well.

She made Darlene hold the finished sock so she would catch some of the knitting mojo.

I'm glad we went and I have way too many projects to name and this blog is way too long today. More next time.

I'm a Blue Crayon!!!

I love these. I'm always amazed that they actually do sound like me. The only thing is I don't really like blue.

You Are a Blue Crayon

Your world is colored in calm, understated, deep colors. You are a loyal person, and the truest friend anyone could hope to find. On the inside, you tend to be emotional and even a bit moody. However, you know that people depend on you. So you put on a strong front. Your color wheel opposite is orange. Orange people may be opinionated, but you feel they lack the depth to truly understand what they're saying.

What Color Crayon Are You?

Any way, I 'm off to the yarn store today to return the blue wool I bought for Lili's new school sweater. I figured white was probably not the best color for something that would be dragged along the bus floor so I bought some pretty navy blue cascade 220. I know not the best choice but cheap enough so that if she does lose it, I'm not out $75 worth of yarn plus knitting time.

Well, not only did she not like the pattern I chose, but she didn't like the yarn either proclaiming it too itchy. She pulled out a ball of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride and said "this is what I want". Fair enough. Still cheep and easy to knit. Now if we could only agree on a sweater pattern.

A new cardigan for Lili

Back when I started knitting about 2 1/2 years ago, my best friend was pregnant. I got all excited about all the knitterly baby things I was going to make her and went out and bought a whole messload of super soft baby acrylic. In white.

Now I know what you're thinking. Yes, I have 2 kids and I know white is not the best color for a spitting up, messy, poop machine so I ended up buying baby blue (she was having a boy). Also in my defense, I had only been knitting for about 4 months and had no clue there were other places to get yarn besides Hobby Lobby, Wal-Mart or Michael's so I had no idea and I have never bought acrylic since.

Anyway, so I have this whole mess of snow white acrylic taking up valuble space in my stash that could be otherwise dedicated to wool I'm thinking I might have to aquire to knit up this cute little fair isle hoodie for this winter. I'm supervising Lili as she is rumaging through my stash looking for "something to knit" even though she has 3 other things on needles (How can that start so early?) when she spots all this white stuff and says, "you know mom, I could use a new sweater for school. My other one (store bought piece of c$#p) is falling apart." So bingo, new project which doesn't count because it's a necessity item and I don't have to buy anything but a pattern for it and maybe not even that b/c I could probably just wing a simple sweater.

Of course being my child, she doesn't want a normal straight stitch cardigan with a little ribbing trim. No, my child wants a freakin' mini Aran cardigan with 25 different cables and twists. I can't wing that. Anyway I found at Hobby Lobby (I bought no yarn, I was just checking to see if they had any needles or notions on sale. No such luck, I used to get dpn's for like $2 now they are almost $4!!) a really cute adult cardigan that is seed stitched with a simple cable on either side of the button bands and a Celtic braid next to that. Not to complex, just enough to keep it interesting.

Here is my delima: it is in a woman sz and the sz small is a 38 inch chest.
Here is my solution: I am a pretty tight knitter and usually have to go up a needle sz or two to get gauge. If I knitted it on the sz needles it calls for or even go down a sz, it should make it smaller, right? That is my theory and what I'm going with. I'm casting on for the back and knitting up a bit and see how it goes.

Keep you fingers crossed, please comment and I'll try to keep you posted if I haven't pulled my hair out by then.

Back to School and New Haircuts

I always dread the whole back to school thing for 2 reasons: I HATE waking up early, and I hate shopping with my children.

You see, if it coud be a simple get in, get what you need, get out, I would have no problem. And really, I ordinarily love to shop, after all, I am a woman, but shopping with my kids is something akin to what I think a root canal would be should I ever have to have one.

I'm not really sure if it's the indifference of my son in all decisions from what kind of back pack to what kind of shoes he wants or if it's the "needing to have the most expensive things out there because everything else is just crap" attitude of my daughter. Really, the difference between the two is like night and day.

Lili is 9 years old and going into 4th grade this year. Why a 9 year old child thinks she needs a $50 back pack and a $25 binder for school is totally beyond me. I just thank God everyday she has to wear uniforms for 2 more years. I'm dreading that battle. Apparently it's also not fair that her brother got brand new tennis shoes for school and she has to wear the Chuck Taylor's she got for her birthday a month and a half ago that she "just had to have" and now are apparently "too old" for school. Are you kidding me? I have shoes older than her that I still wear! Oh and let's not forget all the other "I want... I want... I want..." chants that go on throughout the rest of the day in between shopping for school necessaties. I must have a money tree somewhere in my back yard I'm not aware of.

On the total opposite end of the spectrum is Edward. He's 6 and starting 1st grade. After shopping with the tornado whirlwind that is my daughter, you would think he would be a breeze to shop with. Not so. He will pick one thing and then give no opinion for the rest of the day. Today, we picked out his back pack and after that he didn't care what we bought as long as we had the back pack. Seriously, the kid could be going to school in hot pink, glitter ballerina flats and would probably not care. In fact this brings me to the second part of this blog.

His hair. As part of his vast indifference to pretty much anything, he hasn't had a hair cut in about a year. I haven't really pushed for it too much because well, he looked really cute and I just hate running errands. (I can't wait until I can afford an assisstant one day.) So needless to say his hair was really long. I think I was harboring some secret wish that he would let me play with his hair and fix it like I can't do with Lili's. (She has unfortunately inherited her daddy's baby fine, thin hair where as Edward's is thick and full like mine.) No such luck and since he's been getting mistaken for a little girl a bit too much lately, we decided it needed to be cut. So here is the before:

















And here is the same kid an hour later and looking mighty handsome I must say and not at all like a girl:

So new back packs, new tennis shoes and new haircuts aside, although I'm ready for back to school, I'm not quite ready that it signals another year my babies are no longer my babies.

So much:

I have so much going on the last month, I have no idea where to begin. I helped Lili start a fashion blog and taking after her mother, she has only posted once.

I finished the pastel colored socks which I totally love and started on the Jitterbug socks. I finished one and am about half way on the other when I decided to weigh my yarns and realize I'm going to run way short on the second sock. I'll have to buy a new skein next week and maybe make one of the kids a pair with the left overs.

I finished a great lace sweater that I was working on and then ripped most of it out when it was just too big. (I really don't understand the reasoning behind knitting a swatch and getting gauge if later on it doesn't help and whatever I'm knitting is still the wrong size.) Anyway, it's lace rib on the bottom and stockinette from the boobage area up into a scoop neck tank. I frogged the boobage part and am knitting it back up on a sz smaller needle which should "take it in" just enough (1 1/2 stiches per 4 inches) to fit right when I'm done. We'll see.

I have one more repeat of my yellow shawl before I pick up the middle panel. I haven't done any work on my mom's Christmas shawl.

I did attend a wedding in Georgia last weekend for a really good friend and did almost no knitting for 5 days. I was suffering from withdrawls and barely knew what to do with myself. Ahh, it's good to be home. If only I can get the kids to stop fighting long enough to get something done.