Stash enhancement, sewing and some knitting content....

Seems like I disappeared from the face of the blogging world. I was quite busy working on this:

Yes, I totally made her wear her knee pads, I tried to figure out how to put her helmet on with her hat as well. DD, picked this out for herself from the sewing pattern books about 3 months ago, the stuff they have in the stores is never anything that she wants to be. I had a very difficult time finding the black and white check. All the fabrics were purchased and cut out about 3 weeks ago. So what do I do? I procrastinate until the day before it needs to be done and stay up all night to finish it. It had lots of pieces and took longer to assemble than I thought it was going to. Whoops. Here she is with Ninja DS, he likes store bought costumes, luckily. They are on their way to a Halloween party. She is taller than he is with her skates on.

So I couldn't resist and I ordered from the Loopy Ewe. What I was really after was the Pretty as a Peacock Shawl by Jae Koscierzynski, I have been stalking this pattern on Ravelry since the first time I saw it. The gal finally made a pattern and is selling it. Quite nice. The Loopy Ewe was one of a few places selling it online and well, since I already had $10 worth in the cart, I needed to get just $65 more and I'd be in the free shipping... spend and save, right!? So just a few dollars later and this is what I had....

Resembling Koigu, quite a bit is Shibui Knits Sock. It is 100% Superwash Merino. Soft and springy!Seaoast Handpainted Yarn in Jewels. This yarn is a super soft 60% Merino wool, 30% bamboo and 10% Nylon. Soft.
The most expensive of my spend and save plan was this Schaefer Heather. The colorway is called Storm at Sea. It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Mmmmm. It is wonderfully soft 55% Merino 30% silk and 15% Nylon. It has a nice sheen to it. It is safe to say this is ANOTHER ball of Schaefer Sock yarn that will NEVER become a pair of socks. This color is almost exactly the same as this... and this ... the only difference is there is less gray. I guess I must like that color scheme...

I dorked out and in ALL my picture taking I forgot to photograph my Embossed Leaves Maizy socks. Sock #1 has already turned the heel and is working up the ankle, slowly. I've got a lot of other time consuming stuff going on that keeps me from having a lot of time to knit, unfortunately. I think the book fair can plan itself, right!? Knitting, is WAY more important.

Busy, busy, busy!!!!

Yikes, I have been a busy bee. Little time for knitting, I am experiencing some knitting DT's. But all the sewing I have been doing is kind of making up for it. Alas, Halloween draws nearer and as it does I become an insane, costume-sewing machine. Somehow I got into this thing of sewing my DD's costume every year. Each year she picks some bizarre costume and I am forced to make it. It started when she was almost 2, DS went as Mike Wazowski (Monster's Inc) so she went as Boo, that costume wasn't too bad, a big fleece shirt and some fleece leggings (to be warm of course) 2 pony tails and it was good to go. The next year, was Snow white (not too hard, just kind of a lot of pieces), followed by the Little Mermaid (got some awesome scaly looking, shiny, green material for the tail) then last year's Princess Leia (with hand sewn fake buns). This year? A roller skating 50's style car hop, of course! It only has about a thousand pieces to sew together, yet manages to be a fairly skimpy (not inappropriate age wise, but rather, weather wise) outfit. Short sleeves, short skirt... Well, she'll have hat on, so at least her head will be warm! Then of course, I am making my Halloween costume, which needs to be completed by Wednesday night, for our Halloween Costume Bunco. No stress, no stress.

Well, in the midst of all this sewing goodness, we had a little soccer tournament in which my team ROCKED!!! Yes they did! Won 2 games (1-0, 2-0), tied 1 (1-1)and went into the championship game against a team that spanked us last time we played them (like 4 to 0, ouch!). We unfortunately lost, but the girls played so well, the other team only scored 1 point and it was a total fluke point, because the girl kicked it out of my goalie's hands (boo, bad call on the ref's part). Which put us in second place for the final standings!! It was excellent, but tiring. Not that I had to play any of the 4 games, but I pace up and down the side lines and yell at the top of my lungs. I pretty much felt like I lived at those soccer fields this weekend. I am lucky to have such a great team of girls!

Bag of lies is finished!

It is beautiful, but sadly, it is RIDICULOUSLY short. I have tried contacting Deanna, of Deanna's vintage styles. But she doesn't respond. So if you happen to come across an attractive package of beaded scarves at a knit show and think you'd like to have it, and the package says "Deanna's Vintage styels, email VintageStyles@AOL.com fax 1.313.640.8683" on the label. Turn away! Don't buy it! It will be ridiculously short with significantly less yardage than the package says and you will never get a response from the seller when you contact her! Turn away, RUN away, and make sure you take your friend, entranced as she is with the beads, along with you and tell everyone you know! Heck you can even start now! She is an older woman, short and heavy set, blondish brown hair and glasses. She has a rough voice. Now you will know her when you see her!

Here it is, in all its tiny, finished glory: I have included the girls in the lower photo so you can see just how short this is! It barely goes past the boobs!

I totally forgot to post some things! I got my swap stitch markers in the mail on Thursday! They are SO cute! I love the giant eyelashes on the star. I did not mean to ignore my fantastic partner, Brenda Flowers. Thank you Brenda!

Also in the mail, I got my latest installment of the the Shawl club kits. This is the Diamonds and Flowers Shawl, by Earth Heart Designs. The yarn is Heather wool, columbine blue, which is quite purpley I never listed my 2 prior kids in the stash on Ravelry, because I was not sure what brand the yarn is. I have asked and it is Jagger Spun, Heather.

Also I FINALLY got the new correct, Sock Pixie yarn. Here is it on the left next to its ugly stepsister Badlydyedlot on the right. The color is Poppy. The new skein is super gorgeous and it feels fantastic, I am looking forward to knitting with it. Thank you Sock Pixie!

Kaffe Fasset Chevron socks are finished. I finished them up last night after I got home at 10:30pm. I was a little wired up from drinking a caffeinated Diet Coke (and my husband was snoring like a 3 foot chain saw) so I watched a couple of my recorded CSI (and CSI NY) episodes and finished the sock up. They are a perfect match and I am as pleased as punch about that.

The "bag of lies" scarf as I have referred to it, is now 1/2 way finished, I reached the half way point on Wednesday night. Sorry no pics, it didn't occur to me for some reason to take a picture of it as I was working on it. It is quite short and (blogless) Melissa has suggest it become an ascot *smirk*! Teenuh finally received the new sock Pixie yarn and she took pictures of it! It looks SO yummy great! I can hardly wait to get my paws on it!!! Forget this weekend Tennuh, I'm coming over now!

A Bag of LIES!

I have been sold a bag of lies. I have never met something so "easy" that was so damn hard to do! Working on the beaded scarf kit, I decide to use my yardage meter to neatly divide the skein of ribbon yarn in two. First I wound the entire skein onto a bobbin while measuring it. What the hell!? The card says 200 yds. My meter says more like 145 yds!? I'm thinking, the meter must be goofy, so I carefully measure out about 20 yds with a tape and then run it through, and surprise, surprise the meter is working properly. So I wind the yarn back across onto a second cardboard bobbin I cut out. OMG! The fucking skein is still 55 yds short of what the label says!?? How can that be?? What a rip off!! It is a good thing I am not making something big that I bought skeins based on the amount of yardage I need. Jesus. I am still pissed though.

Now that I am all mad about that. I go on to "easily stringing the pre-strung beads onto the yarn." Ugh!!! It was a fucking nightmare. Just to do 1/2 of the skein of yarn with the 6 strands of beads, I swear that the frigging string untied no less than 12 times and broke no less than 20 times!!! It was a nightmare. The string (or even the yarn!) would break and beads would to FLYING off of the string and onto the couch, the floor, the secret place where all lost things go.... Btw, if you have to remove every bead that won't slide easily over the bump, I think you would not have any beads left. But the really bad ones could not easily be removed by "untying and removing the bad bad." No, no, no, no, no! You have to nearly dump the entire lot of beads on the ground, so instead I got out my pliers and began CRUSHING the beads off the string. Crunch, pop! *bead shrapnel flew through the air....* Then I got up, picked up all the loose beads and corraled them inside of a plastic box. . So I have all the beads in the box and DUH! I tip the friggin' thing over and spend the next 35 minutes or so picking up the beads!! This project has been SO frustrating. And I am realizing that I get to do that ALL over again when I made the other half!!!

Here is my progress at present. Sliding the beads along the length of the skein is a pretty big pain in the butt. I think it might be a better plan to slide 2 strings of beads onto the terminal end of the yarn so that you didn't have to slide all the ends beads along 70 yds of yarn. At least it looks good, right?