A yarn buying blog.

That is what this has turned into. It looks like I am just a yarn collector and not a knitter. Well, just to disprove that, here is my Falling Leaves Shawl (Lavish Lace, Carol Rasmussen Noble) All pinned and blocked and good to go. I wore it to Stitches on Sunday. It is my first beaded work. It has a good weight to it. Because of the pattern it comes out longer on the front than the sides/back, so if you are wider than you are tall this is probably an excellent choice in design styles. I just worked until I ran out of beads then finished off. You can really make it as long or as short as you want, it has no specific size, you are only limited by your yarn supply (and your desire to have a 11 foot wide shawl). Most of the time it drapes on looking quite a lot more like a shrug than a shawl. The beads add a nice sparkle. I think I am addicted now to putting beads on knitting. So you will probably see a whole lot more of that on here.

My current project is the Ostrich Plume Shawl using the Cherrytree Hill Silk I got at FTA. It looks very, very (annoyingly) similar in color to the Schaeffer I just finished with. It has less yellow and orange, red where the last had none and quite a lot more green. However it is still similar. Several muggles have asked me if it is still the same project and where the beads went. This pattern goes really fast. It has only 1 truly patterned row per 4 rows of knitting with the WS rows are all purl and 1 row, with only yo's at the center stitch and edges. Very simple. Unless something derails me, this should be done within a week or so.

Sunday at Stitches.

Well I am a psycho sometimes. Late Saturday night I finished the Falling Leaves Shawl while enjoying the festivities for my sister's birthday. We didn't get home until about 2 am. So like the fool I am I must/need/HAVE to block it. So I wet it and spin cycle it briefly and then pin the darn thing down, and now I realize I haven't even taken pictures of it yet, so that will be the next post. I finally rolled into bed at 3:30. Only to get up at 7:45 to be on time to pick up Teenuh for the last day of Stitches. We arrived right on time and wandered around. We realized we had missed a whole row of booths on the far left side on Friday, whoops! We picked up some of the things we had ogled on Friday as well. Then hit the Jane Sowerby talk on Victorian Lace Today, it was nice to see the shawls from the book, live and in person and to touch them and feel them, she is kind of humorous, with odd little quips here and there. We watched some lucky people win some money (why not me!!?) then hooked up with Tina's friend Amy and her friend Julia. We did some group wandering and then we went home at about 3:45. I was dead on my feet. A good time was had by all. So here are my Sunday purchases. Some rayon microfiber ribbon yarn in the Florida Keys colorway, from Tess's Yarns, if I had a choice (and the funds) I would buy enough of this to fill a bathtub and roll around in it naked for hours. These two silvery blobs of roving in Merino/ Tencel are from some store in SF that I can't remember the name of (maybe Carolina Homespun?), wow that leaves you feeling excited doesn't it!? Also added to my stash was this lot of odd balls. The sparkly purple is the super soft, not itchy Trendsetter Aura (which will become one of those generic potato chip scarves with some super kid or kidsilk haze), two yummy little tiny balls of angora in grey and two 50/50 wool silk balls of Horstia all picked at the Knitters Studio sale, buy 2 bags and get 1 free. This amazingly bright superwash merino/tencel fingering yarn is from Ellen's Half Pint Farm. The brightness in the picture looks almost computer generated or as if something weird has gone on with the pic, but it is really that bright, the shiny tencel helps. Funny thing about this one, I saw it at 10 am and didn't buy it, we came back by at about 3 pm and there it was, I knew it was meant to be, it will become something for DD not sure yet though she wants a shawl. She is the world's biggest fan of pink and purple and anything dramatic and girly. I also picked up some stubby Addi's in size 2 for glove fingers and some 0000 steel Addi's for beading. Finally, I have these precious little silk hankies ( 3 stacks) and some Firestar to blend in with them (as if silk weren't shiny enough, but my inner crow couldn't pass it by) all in the Pt. Reyes Reflections color way, from The Royal Hare in Santa Rosa. This place had lots of stuff I wanted to buy, including some sock roving in the same colorway among others.

All told, I spent a fortune (good thing I spent 4 months saving up for it.) If DH knew how much he would probably pop a circuit and have a stroke on the spot. Good for him he doesn't know. My stash has been enhanced enough to last until next years Stitches, don't you think? So if I buy more yarn this year, I probably need to be set straight or have my head examined.

I'm in stitches!

Yipee. Stitches was loads of fun. With the exception of my aching shoulder, I had a great time at Stitches West with Teenuh. I carried my Victorian Lace Today book, because Jane Sowerby was on hand to sign her book, all you had to do was catch her at any of half a dozen booths she was signing at. I did get mine signed, she seemed like a very nice lady. However I did have to carry my book the rest of the day and like a FOOl I bought another book right away in the morning. Added to my book collection, this lovely German book, primarily designed for knitting German socks, but full of nifty patterns not typically seen in the states.The show was huge. It took up pretty much the entire Santa Clara Convention Center Hall. The majority of vendors were yarn or knitting products, with some spinning stuff. There were also a few odd ball sellers, we really wondered what the seasoned olive oil guy was doing there.


We hit Cookie and Kristie's booth the Bay Area Knitting Co-Op. Where I picked up the Ostrich Plume Shawl Pattern and the Madeira Lace Stole Kit with black alpaca yarn (mmm alpaca, however black alpaca doesn't seem to photograph well) both designed by Lynn Curry. I also got 3 skeins of purple lace weight merino from Terrylynn Needlearts at the B.A.K.C.O.


Also added to my stash was 3 skeins of brown dk alapaca (that look pretty unappealing in this blurry picture) from the Yarn Barn that I am hoping will become one of the sweaters from Big Girl Knits, as well as 2 skeins of hand dyed sock yarn from Lisa Souza, the pink blend is the Sky Drama colorway and the Green is South Pacific, all of her colors were SO fantastic, I could hardly choose. I am SO in love with the South Pacific, I really have a thing for peacock colors of late. The skeins are a generous 400+ yards. For lace knitting I picked up a giant cone of red silk (1.10 lbs!) from Village Spinning and Weaving, that will probably end up as something from Victorian Lace Today or A gathering of lace, no specific plans yet. I also got a giant cone of rayon thread(about 1 lbs also), that I will use for some beaded knitting. That should be lots of fun. I also got this lace weight Harmony, color gradient yarn from Jojoland as well as some Melody superwash sock yarn, nice and soft. It is similar to the Yarn Place's type of yarn graduated yarn imported from China.



I also got 2 skeins of this Angora Cottage, merino/ silk blend roving that is so soft and lovely, I had 2 of these at home already, I am just padding my stash with this. Actually I have been torturing myself with spinning on the hokey cd drop spindle I got from the Serendipity Spinner's Guild, which is lighter than the wood spindle I have already. Maybe not so hokey, it sure doesn't look very cool though (because I am totally the image of cool, ha ha). Maybe I should stick some stickers on it?

So here it is, the Super New and Improved Beading Wire Device!!!! *bounce bounce bounce*


I purchased some memory wire and spent quite a bit of time tormenting and torturing this wire into the correct spiral shape I desired. It was MUCH harder to bend into a hook on the working end and a loop on the terminus. It took 2 pairs of pliers and much force to make this wire comply. It works much better though, it doesn't bend out of shape and hold the beads quite nicely. You can see the spiral is much tighter. I have made the wire quite a bit longer since the memory wire holds its nice spiral shape and it doesn't ever flop around. I should have put a ruler in the picture for scale. It is about 2 inches across (with a radius of 1"). I am much more pleased with the results. I will probably make some more. I gave Teenuh some wire to make herself one too since she bought beads on Saturday too. Although, when it comes down to it, she'll probably bring the wire over and I will twist it into shape anyway. I don't know if she has pliers. Overall though it took me about 45 minutes to force the wire into submission whereas the first soft floral wire took me all of like 3 minutes to make. In the long run though, the stronger wire will pay off with lasting effectiveness.

Yipee skipee just about 58 hours until Stitches. Buying yarn may be my favorite part of knitting. I LOVE the hunt.

Hooray for a day spent shopping with a friend.

The sun was shining, the weather was a beautiful 80 deg. F. and not a cloud in the sky and we spent the whole day shopping to boot! Went to the 20% off everything sale at the Yarn Place. Hit, Micheal's, Joann's, 3 Beads and a Button and Starbuck's as well. What fun. Got some cute measuring tapes at Joann's. Hot fix crystals at Michael's. Memory wire to improve my beading device and lots of goodies at Yarn Place. More lace weight yarn: Also some really super yummy, yummy soy silk roving to spin. Now if could just get durn good at spinning and make it worth my while. This is a HUGE bag, it weighs 2 lbs. Yay for 20% off sales!
I can't wait to grope this and play in it and hopefully spin it into something usable.

I distinctly heard HOOPLAH!

Valentines hooplah. What is all the fuss about? I totally didn't buy any cards or even MAKE any cards this year. WTG. Called Grandma and Grandpa wished them a happy 58th anniversary. Gave DH Snakes on a Plane and a giant box of his fave Rocher. Gave the kiddies gifts. Gave mom roses. Gave Sister some roses. Though she's probably the one who needed something the most because when it rains it pours. Her house was burglarized Sunday night (the day she found out her best friend died). Her stupid separated husband is having health problems of some mysterious sort. Though I am routing for the side of mystery. Tough times.

I have been knitting deprived. DD has been sick for 5 days now and worsen in the last 3 days to a point that I am getting NO sleep and I had no time to knit today. Though I did have to go and buy 2 more tubes of the beads for the Falling Leaves shawl. I believe it will use all both of those tubes and probably want for more, but I bought the last 2 the store had in stock. Once again I told myself I was stupid stupid stupid for picking beads that were $6.95 a tube instead of the rest that were $2.95 or $3.30 AND came with more beads in each tube (simply because they are not as fat, yet the bore is the same size). These were NICE though. Look at them, they glisten like golden drops of sunlit dew sparkling on a leaf. They are fat and round and lusciously golden. I just know I made the right choice, even if my wallet is starting to hurt....

Reinventing the Wheel.

Sometimes things seem like they should be simpler. For example, putting a bead onto your knitting. What I started out doing, was what everyone said to do. Work until you reach the stitch you want the bead on. 1. Put down one needle. 2. Pick up the crochet hook. 3. Stab the bead onto said hook (max # of beads that will fit on the hook at once - 2) . 4. Use hook to lift desired stitch to be beaded and slide the bead on. 5. Drop crochet hook. Repeat as needed per each beaded stitch. Was it me or was that WAAAAAy too many steps and way too inefficient?

I sat and thinked for a minute (ala' Pooh bear... Think think think..) The light above my head went on and I grabbed a piece of floral wire, put a curly loop onto the end so the bead wouldn't fall off, then carefully bent the other end of the wire into a tiny hook (this was the hardest part getting it small enough to fit through the bead and not to snag onto the yarn and never let go). Strung the wire full of beads, then realized a giant 14" long piece of wire loaded with beads is a bit unwieldy.I curled the wire into a spiral so the beads would still slide nicely and instantly eliminated step 3, the slowest and most tedious step, completely from the procedure. It is now twice as fast to slip those beads on. I can even have my eager small helpers put the beads on for me. Instead of picking up a new bead every stitch, I now have 100 beads ready to load. In the right pic you can see the next bead on the wire, right at the top. Sometimes the answer to something can be SO simple if you just think about it. Now I just need to dangle it off of a necklace so I don't have to keep grabbing it off my knee. Tidy it up, make it look professional, with a dangley clip on it and market the darn thing to all the knitters of the world still wrestling with one bead at a time...

Today was a sad day.

My sister's best friend Melody died today. She had epilepsy and had lately been having fairly frequent seizures. She died alone in her apartment some time between 1:30 am and 1 pm when the police found her body. It was tragic and it was terrible. She was only 32. She was a nice girl, who loved to have fun, was always a good friend and loved all animals dearly. She will be missed. Keep dancing in the great Goth Club in the sky, Melody.

One perfect morning I was all alone
Listening to the blaze of summer
Drifting
I was falling
I was floating in a golden haze
Breathing in the sky-blue sun
Of memories of other days

And in my dreams I was a child
Flowers in my mouth and in my eyes
And I was floating through the colours of the sky
Up to the stars and angels

Up to heaven
Up forever
Up to heaven
Up forever

Turning in my climb
I looked down on a lake
Traced upon the water
There I saw your face
Sending recollection of the times we shared
Pushed on ever up into the sky

And in my dreams I was a child
Flowers in my mouth and in my eyes
And I was floating through the colours of the sky
Up to the stars and angels

Up to heaven
Up forever
Up to heaven
Up forever

To the Sky. The Cure

Falling Leaves I.P.

Here are some quickie pix of my Falling Leaves in progress, modeled by my DD. I have decided to put the beads only in the center of the leaves. The pattern is not terribly clear because of course this lace has not been blocked, but you get an idea sort of. You can also see the bottom edge is actually V-shaped and not a blunt line. Here is a blurry close up of the bead work. Sorry, the camera did not want to cooperate and we had like 2 minutes of sun before the clouds blew back in. I had threaded all the beads on (PSYCHO!) then realized this was a bad idea and I ended up pulling them all off anyway and now am using the crochet hook method to place each bead (sllllllow) on the WS and RS rows. If I have enough yarn left I am going to knit on an edge with beads on it too, though I think I will probably have to go buy more beads, I bought 70 g of size 6/0 and I think it will be enough to just do the body of the shawl and not the edge. And of COURSE I picked the beads that were $6.50 per tube instead of $3.50 like all the rest.... gold and sparkley mmmmm.

Now in progress...
A falling leaves triangular shawl made from my Shaeffer Anne in the autumn leaves colors. I swatched it on a size 5 needle, too tight, not airy enough, switched to an 8 and was satisfied with its holey-ness. I am using the pattern from Carol Rasmussen Noble's Lavish Lace book, but I didn't like the beginning she used so I have changed it some to make it taper up more. As attentive as she is to details she makes a crappy beginning on this project. I have also noticed her lace charts are lazy, she adds on a garter edge but doesn't include it in the chart pattern. So back to the beginning part, she has you cast on 6 sts, then begin working the pattern right away off the cast on. ALL the rest of the edges ALL the way around have a garter stitch edging that is 3 sts deep on the sides and 5 rows tall on the last rows before cast off. So why didn't she put that on the beginning on the bottom? If you look at the picture in the book, you can see how weird and blunt her beginning edge is. So instead of c.o. 6. I did a c.o. of 2 sts, worked the first one in knit, knit the second row with 2 twisted lift increases, then knit the third row, knit the 4th row with 2 increases (now I'm up to 6 sts), knit the 5th row, so now it matches the top cast on and begins with a gently tapering point and on the 6th row, began working the charted pattern. So I am about 4 repeats into the pattern (about 40 rows?) and I realize that this thing will be so light it will always want to curl up, so now I want to add some beads to it, maybe just on the edges? I am going to a bead store tomorrow to shop around a bit and then I'll decide. I am debating putting it on every other row in the garter border, or using it around the edge of each leaf, or in the center of each leaf, or just knitting the whole thing up then knitting on a separate border onto the edge with beads on that. Too indecisive. What do you think?

As I was looking at this book I realized something kind of funny. I bought this book about 3 years ago (or whenever it was that it came out). All of the projects in this book use Cherry Tree Hill Yarn's, pretty much something is knit from every one of their lines. When I got this book I looked at that and said, "Ha, who's ever heard of this kind of yarn" the one yarn store near me didn't carry it and I pretty much put it off as something I would never get my hands on (at the time it was even hard to find affordable lace weight or fingering even!) Then I am sitting here in my living room with the Cherry Tree Hill Silk Cascade Fingering in my hand and I think, hmm, maybe something from that Lavish Lace book, and Lo' there are 2 projects in there made from that very yarn, bizarre. Things can sure change in a couple of years. Now there are 1/2 a dozen yarn stores to shop, with large selections and real yarn brands, plus of the course, the glorious world of internet out there waiting for us to search for that special something we saw somewhere and now need to have.

A Post! Finally!

Well, Full Thread Ahead had a totally fun 1/2 time superball sale this Sunday which Teenuh and I went to. It was all you could carry for a whopping 45% discount. It was pretty funny watching people carry around arm loads of yarn and dropping them as they went along (Teenuh's Love yarn was particularly good at escaping). This was my haul.
2 skeins of Plymouth Fiesta (sea green and aqua colors) destined to be another fuzzy scarf, 1 skein of Cherry Tree Hill Cascade Silk Fingering in the Monet colorway, 2 skeins of Tofutsies (Yaye for soysilk and Chitin!?) in Put Your Foot Down 723 on the left and Tender Foot 727 (Thanks Tina!). 8 Skeins of Misty Alpaca dk in brown and 8 in cream.


Here finally are pictures of my convertible mittens in the Broad Street Mittens Pattern. They are made from Colinette Jitterbug. They are very nice and soft and warm.Here they are flipped up. They were supposed to have this dorky little loop at the end of the mitten that you could button up when you flipped them. I couldn't stand the loop so I just closed it up on the end no loop. The flaps stay up pretty well by themselves. The other minor change I made, I added a mini cable in the k2, p2 rib, so that I had a k2, p2, mc, p2 rib instead. I think it makes it 2% fancier! I like that. The cable is also on the rib on the flipped part, but It is on the other side, so when the mitt is closed you can see it, but when it is open you can't, I realized WAY too late I should have put it upside down. They haven't been washed yet, before I took the pics, but they will be soon since they absolutely REEK of vinegar. The Jitterbug looks great but the smell is very vinegar heavy. I have not decided on a new traveling project yet. Although I will have to come up with one soon, we are supposed to go to my BIL's house this weekend and I am thinking. Bore fest, watching DH and BIL play video games for a couple of hours *yawn*. Well, happy Friday people.

Vickie Howell, how knifty!

Last night Teenuh and I went over to Full Thread Ahead for a Vickie Howell book signing, yarn promo and her DIY Super bowl Knit In promo. She talked a little and answered questions. What a nice friendly lady she is (and every bit as cute as she looks on tv, boy she is tiny see the pic of her and me below, her wearing like 4" Steve Madden Heels and me like 5'11" in my Bass slip ons.) I am sure it improves her male viewership. This is her modeling her new original pattern for a crochet and knitted shrug made out her new super yummy soft soy/silk yarn Love. It is so very nice and soft and drapey. It is fairly pricey but a few skeins for something nice, worth it. She is smirking because she didn't want to model it because her outfit did not match with the shrug. I love the names of all her yarn colors they are hillarious and/or cutely named. Last but not least here is tiny Vickie standing next to GIANT me. She is so friendly she will just chit chat away with you while she signs your book and even after she is done. She doesn't make you feel hurried or like you are bothering her a bit. You couldn't imagine a more pleasant experience. Don't miss the FTA super bowl sale.

Knitwise, today I fnished one of the Broadstreet mittens without the flap. I made the fingers on it and decided in fear of running out of yarn that I would make both glove parts of the mitten first and then divide the yarn in half and make the flap portion. I am evening thinking maybe I should make the flap part from the point up and work backward and then I'll know exactly how far I can get with it.... but then it would be hard to join. Hmmm, decisions decisions.

Wow was that slow!?


Last night, the last stitch was cast off and the last tail woven in on my Austermann Step socks. They came out quite nicely. Except for some weird looking pictures of my feet. I don't know why but I struggle with photographing socks and my feet. One would think it was easy, simply look down and *snap* right? NOoooo just weird freaky looking shots that make it appear I actually have no ankle. Fortunately for you I have filled in the color on my leg so you don't have to see the pasty color with all the unsavory unshavenness going on...

What else is on the needles now aside from that crazy shirt I am working on? A shawl from the Viictorian Lace Today for my mom, she picked the what was probably the hardest project, knit on both sides, the k2tog go right on top of the previous rows yo. It is crazy when you make a mistake and have to pick back. Then in my usual form I pulled one needle out like a spaz and dropped 1/2 of the work (this was about 30 rows in) and had to pull back almost to the cast on.

Also my traveling project cast on is a knitted flip top glove Broad Street Mitten on the Knitty website I began yesterday after I finished the sock. I am using the Colinette Jitterbug that Teenuh gave me for Christmas. I am thinking though about not making fingers and instead making it into a fingerless mitt kind of thing with a flip top over it. Especially since the pattern calls for about 30 more yards then what I have. I know that eliminating the finger portion will greatly reduce the amount of yarn I need. Plus think of all those woven in ends.... I have also debated making one finger (maybe the index finger) and the rest in one opening so that the mitt part will stay down when flipping back the flip top. Duh! I just realized I should have run the yarn through my meter to cut it in half then I would know exactly how much each one took. I may just run the yarn through from the ball and cut where it should be half....

Here it is Sunday already.
I spent HOURS (and I mean hours) picking apart a partially knitted tank top that for some insane reason I have agreed to finish for someone else. I sat, graph paper in hand carefully noting each stitch as I picked it apart so that I could duplicate it quadrupilly on each of the four straps of said tank top. Why did I volunteer to do this? I don't know, it makes me want to tear out my hair.

Knitting a sock.
I am still working on my mini cable chevron Austermann Step sock. Not making much progress as I haven't had much time to knit. I just realized I didn't take any pictures yet. That's okay though i am terrible at taking pictures of my own feet. I will have to buy a foot or hire a foot model to have better pictures of my socks. Never thought I'd type or say that...

Dying Yarn (Picture Heavy Post)

On Saturday Teenuh came over and we had a brilliant time dying yarn with Kool Aid. Teenuh dyed 2 skeins of Knitpicks Bare Superwash Fingering. I dyed 2 skeins of the same and 1 skein of Yarn Place Angel lace weight superwash. I documented our fun.

Here is Tina prepping her yarn.

We mixed up 1/2 cup of water per packet of Kool Aid as a standard.

Now the debate, to dump the die on or to hand paint the yarn we can't decide so we both do one of each....Tina is dump dying here. Using a spoon and a cup of Kool Aid mix. Looks like yellow.

Here are all of our skeins (post spin cycle) hanging out in the shower to dry. Tina's are the two on the right (obviously making mine the three on the left.)
Tina is showing off her still damp yarn before going home. Hours of work for 2 skeins of yarn. I jokingly noted at some point we were producing about one skein per hour (boy weren't we SUPER efficient!?). The rainbow colored skein was died by dumping the color in sections and the firey red, orange and yellow was hand painted. My skein in the same color way was also a hand paint.
After Tina left (late at night) I overdyed the blue/green/blue-green. I mixed up the Kool Aid in the same concentration, then added 10 drops of food coloring per packet of Kool Aid for a more intense color. Here is the end result of all three together. For comparision, the overdyed skein is on the right and was the same green and blue as the skein on the left was before overdying. Also you can see it in the shower third from the left. I was really pleased with the darker colors. I am thinking about dying a couple of lace weight skeins in this same colorway, it would look really cool (or should I say Kool) knit into the Fiddlesticks Peacock Feathers Shawl. Just writing about this makes me itch to dye that lace weight!

I had been doing so well with posting on a regular basis, but I don't seem to have a minute of free time lately. DS is trying out for the fighting team for Tae Kwon Do and has to be there M and W at 6:15 - 7:15. On Sat 10:45 - 12:45. This is in addition to the regular classes 3 days a week for an hour. Then after this, we must also eat dinner and do homework. Fun fun fun.

I had a groovy time doing some Kool Aid ( Ohhhh Yeah! Some how in my mind that didn't sound so much like Kool aid man anymore as it did sound like Macho Man Randy Savage.... hmm) dyeing at my house with Teenuh on Sat. evening. We got some nice looking colors, it was pretty easy and came out quite nice. The knitpicks Superwash Fingering is SO awesomely soft, it feel wonderful. I can hardly wait to start knitting with it. I think Teenuh's rainbow skein was probably my favorite. I have some pics to go with this, but I am on the laptop so I will have to do a knock down drag out post on this later.

Today, I occupied myself with knitting a little project to send out to someone else. It went very quickly, begun early in the afternoon and finished off watching the bad auditions for American Idol. Pics to follow later.

My Austerman sock continues to make progress, sock 1 is a full fledged sock now, I am racing toward the finish line at the top of the ankle (toe - up obviously). It is quite nice, I love knitting with the yarn. I am sure all that aloe etc will feel quite nice on the feet.

Alas I am about to run out of gas here. I have been having insomnia so i have double dosed myself tonight with 2 bags of strongly steeped sleepy time tea to ensure at least some sleep tonight. My eyelids are getting heavy and my brain is running slow. I promise pictures in the next post.... When I can edit photos on my Giant new to me 19" monitor (yeah, I was trapped in 1982 with my 14" monitor that was actually SCREAMING constantly, ever heard a monitor scream? It is like nails on chalkboard man... It was horrible. I don't know what was wrong with it.) Regardless the new monitor seems huge and totally in my face. It's funny though I don't have to squint anymore and my laptop had a bigger monitor than my desktop did... hmm.

Mercifully... on the scarf from hell stage 3 : Running out of yarn - also known as being done, has been reached !! I made it, with both eyes intact. What a relief. Now I am swatching for a pair of socks out of the Austermann Step. I am working out a chevron with a mini cable in between. I started off with just a chevron then wanted to add something a little more interesting into the v. I am NOT making the same mistake I did with the scarf. Once I see if the swatch looks good I'll get started. I have already knit and unknit 3 different swatches of this same thing. I am tired from a long week. My eldest child, my dog Sam, is having health problems and DD is having Night Nasties (not Night Terrors, she isn't afraid, she is just yelling and hopping mad in her sleep) I'm headed for bed.

Ha ha ha!! I finally know what I ordered from Yarn4socks.com. Why? Because it finally came. Lame!! Okay. What I did get was: lovely Lorna's Laces Shepherd sockin the Childsplay colorway. Rainbowrific!
Here, left to right, Schaefer Yarn Anne Handdyed in violet, blue and olive green tones. Then J. Knits Superwash Me - Sock in the Columbus colorway, sea blues mixied with jewel greens. Quite nice. Both feel absolutely WONDERFUL. Very nice and soft. Better than imagined. Mmmmmm. Both for size 1 needles.
Last but not least, three chubby german rolls. Left to right again. Austermann Step in nice Autumnal hues of blue, rusty red and tan. This has Aloe vera and Jojoba for softer feet (goodness knows I NEED that) which is supposed to stay in the yarn even after repeated washings. It feels nice now, it will probably feel great when knitting as well.
Next is Lana Grossa Cotton Fantasy (they can't all be winter socks.) It is a 45/42/13 cotton/wool/polyamide blend. Also nice and soft. I LOVE self striping yarn. Finally Lanna Grossa Magico superwash in denim tones color 2528, which now that I have it in my hands, looks suspiciously like a previous purchase of LG Colortweed 1006. Guess I really kind of dig those colors? Looking the yarns overall, apparently I was in some kind of blue/green mood when I ordered them all. Next time, I'll have to really stay focused and not lose my head. I am also thinking, next time I will not photograph things on my couch the olive green, not conducive to bright and colorful looking pictures is it? Then when I tried to recolor it another color in Photoshop it colored in parts of the yarn (particularly in the second picture.) So next time, it may be back to tissue paper, too bad I don't have anymore of the bright yellow that comes in the Commuknitty bag...

Tragic knitting day. Today I have knit nothing. Nothing I say, yes you gasp. Today my tendonitis and carpal tunnel were terrible from an afternoon of yardwork yesterday. Those of you who know my DH know he does nothing. So I do ALL the yardwork. I had 2 fruitless mulberry trees worth of leaves to clean out of the backyard. My arms are aching. Also I spent much time today prepping the box tops for education for the children's school I am the Box Top Mailer mom for the school So I have spent plenty of time cutting the boxtops right at that little pink dotted line edge. Then I have to peel the cardboard backing so there is as little cardboard as possible stuck to the printed from. Then I have to put them in bundles of 50. So, $125 worth later (also interpreted as 1,250 box tops, plus the 27 left overs that will wait for the next batch of mailing), my thumb is barking where I was continuously stabbed by cardboard peeling it apartmy tondonitis is a little more aggravated andthe school people are just a little happier. Tomorrow, I will knit, even if it kills me. Right after I run the copy room for the whole school...

Stage 2:
View the limited progress. I can now count the number of rows and calculate my progress. 21 repeats of said pattern. 252 rows. 14 Inches long. 7560 sts. Just about 2/3 of the way there. Current goal: Knit the dreaded scarf long enough to wrap around your neck and hang yourself.

What a sucker.
I had a whole bunch of the striped yarn left over that I dyed and I thought to myself, "Well, the mittens and the hat are cute, I should make a matching scarf. " Then, I stupidly say to DD "Look I have enough to make you a scarf, do you want a matching scarf." To which she would obviously reply yes. There is a reason why people do not knit scarves out of fingering weight yarn, because it is slow and it is tedious and it is stupid. And like a fool, did I decide on an interesting pattern? No, I did not. 9 rows knit rs, purl ws then row 10 -1 2 k both sides. This is over 30 sts, meant to be about 4 inches wide. It is now about 6 inches long and I am ready to stab out with eyes with the stupid moronic size 2 needles I am knitting it on. Why do I do things like this without thinking about it first!? Even child sized as it will be, the scarf will need to be at least 36" long, meaning that I am right now at Stage 1: desire to stab out eyes, only 1/6 of the way done with this. Ugh. Really, you think some people would think first. Now even though I want to quit, I can't, because DD is expecting this now. She peers over to see how much work I have done and makes comments like "I can't wait until you are done Mommy!" and "I wish I was a talented person like you Mommy so I could make this nice stuff for everyone." (Yeah seriously she says that, worded just like that, she is SUCH an articulate, 6 year old, brown noser.) Who doesn't want to knit for that!? Now I am committed and may soon find myself "Committed" in the other sense of the word to The Sanitarium for Insane and Foolish Knitters.

It's HEEEEEEEEEEEERE!!!
Yep, can you see it. I had to order it from Amazon.com It was THAT hard to find blue and green Kool Aid. Now I have SO much. 72 packets of each color as a matter of fact. The good news about Kool Aid though is if you get tired of dying with it you can drink it. Tastes great with Splenda. Even DS can drink blue and green colors. I can hardly wait to dye with it. In my head I have imagined rainbows of colors flowing from purple to green to blue. Doesn't it sound beautiful. Mmm, I can almost smell those delicious colors.

Now, on about my Kool aid dyed self-striping yarn that I made for DD. I used Knitpicks, superwash fingering. It was quite a lot of work. I started by winding small sections on my Niddy noddy (10 winds around) then tying tiny strings onto those sections (sorry for the painfully blurry pic!)

Next I separated them into 3 separate sections going in a left to right then right to left placing one section in each pile (yeah the strings on the bottom became tangled, don't ask what I was thinking). Then I started by gathering up each section and tying it together, I then made a bed of plastic wrap for it in my casserole dish and began pouring on one color. I carefully bound up that section and slid it to the side of the dish then made another plastic wrap bed and placed in the next section and dyed it. For the red and white section I poured on stripes using a 1 tsp medicine dropper. After all 3 sections were bound up I poured some extra water over the bags and stuck it in the microwave. I nuked it initially for 3 minutes to get it good and hot, then I did a 2 minute nuke, 10 minute cooling repeating cycle until the water was clear. I rinsed it out. Then spend a frustrating 3 hours untangling it (whoops, what was I thinking!?) Apparently I didn't take any pics of that part (must be my shame) nor did I take a pic of the finished skein. But here is the project I made with it. That hat is knitted out plain so you can see the color transitions coming out the way I dyed them. The mittens are knitted from finger ends to wrist cuff and the thumb was added last.
I learned 5 things doing this. 1. This is not a good way to divide the yarn because it gets all tangled up (I am thinking of a solution for this I'll keep you posted). 2. Purple requires several packets of Kool aid or you get a lot of variegation in between blue and purple (which comes out nice, but if you wanted an absolute solid you need to make sure you saturate it with color). I used 2 packets of grape and still got that much variegation 3. Wrapping tightly in separate sections of color works really good to prevent bleeding. 4. When making stripes, on a section to try and make that nifty fair isle look make sure you don't over saturate the section or it bleeds a lot on the bottom unbeknownst to you and ruins the stripe effect because the yarn on the bottom comes out mostly the color and a lot less stripey. 5. I can hardly wait to do this again!!!