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!!!

My habit is getting out of control. I have lost control of my ability to stop buying yarn. I browsed the Yarn 4 socks website and ended up buying stuff. 40% off of my favorite self striping lana grossa who could resist!? Certainly not me... and well, if you order $50 you get free shipping, so spend and save right!? I order a couple of other things, but sadly in my frenzy, I cannot remember exactly which things I ordered, duh!! Pathetic. I am like an addict and after I got my fix I blacked out...

So my mom and I tried to go to this place in Fremont that a gal my mom knows owns. It is a yarn store, sort of Stitch Paradise Studio. Read their website, maybe you can figure it out better than I. It is some concept place and the owner offered me a free kit of some sort if I came by (remember that old Camel commercial, "I'd walk a mile to smoke a camel" I'd walk a mile to get free yarn!) So we went by and no one was there, no signs or anything, it is the weirdest thing despite it being listed as their "Open Hours." It is bizzarre because it is totally a residence and has NO signage what so ever and we were knocking and calling one the phone and could hear it ringing inside and no one was there. If they want people to come, don't you think they should at least have a sign? Harumph.

So then we cruised over to the Yarn Place. Whoops big mistake, right!? I bought too much stuff I certainly didn't need. I picked up 7 skeins of the silky nylon yarn in red. So soft and wonderful. I also got 2 dark chocolate brown skeins of Gentle and a blue and purple graduated skein of Graceful. My mom also picked up a yummy deep red of Gentle that she wants me to knit into a shawl for her. Crazy. They have started carrying this really nice bamboo yarn that is SO soft and wonderful. I would like to pick some up next time I am there.

I Totally thought I posted this entry. But I guess not. Today, 12/30, we went to the house of Teenuh and swapped Christmas presents and had a generally nice time. The kids had a good time playing Guitar Hero 2. I got a wonderful dish cloth knitted by Teenuh which is a really pretty pattern and also a most yummy skein of Jitterbug sock yarn. Yaye, thanks Teenuh! I can't wait to knit with it!! Yeah!

Yippy Yay for Christmas. What took days to carefully wrap and place artfully under the tree was dismantled, tossed aside and laying in a heap in a matter of just minutes. Presents opened, children happy. It is all good, until that is, you have to open that evil store shelf packaging all toys come in. Insane numbers of nasty finger tearing twist ties and tape spackeled across surfaces and materials that should NEVER come in contact with tape. It is an evil plot to destroy the confidence and dexterity of parents the world over!! The packaging is ridiculous.

That said, since this blog is about knitting, I should comment on the wonderful Knitting based items I received as gifts. My mom and dad got me the most beautiful books Nickey Epstein's Knitted Flowers. I am in love with EVERYTHING in the book. I think every thing I make for a while will be adorned (or tortured) with flowers!! Yahoo! They also got me the gorgeous and lovely book Victorian Lace Today by Jane Sowerby. It is such a pictorially wonderful book that even if you didn't knit it would just be nice to look at. I can't wait to make everything in the book (though I know this will never happen based on the fact there is a HUGE circular cobeweb weight shawl that I will NEVER knit. Once bitten twice shy on giant circles. I don't know if I can afford another 5 months of my life!) So many things... so many!! My mom also got me a huge bunch of yarn she got on clearance at Walmart that will become various things, though I am not sure what. My sister's gift was a Yarn Meter. "It sure doesn't look like much." she says. "I think they forgot to put your present in the box," says DS. What, no! I am very happy this device is wonderful! Once I figure out how to use this right I will be able to divide a ball of yarn in half exactly so I can make my sock (or whatever) as long as I possibly can and know I will have exactly enough yarn left over for the other half. I will be able to gauge how much yarn I have spun as well so now I know exactly what I can do with it. This is a very useful tool I have been DYING to add to my repitoire! DH may find me sleeping with my new knitting friends tonight....

The lovely kid silk scarf is finished. I think that the people in the yarn store were wrong. Once blocked it was the same width as the one in the store, but upon using both rolls of Fiesta, the scarf was normal scarf length of 64" not the stubby 20 some odd inches they had in the store. Well it was a lucky surprise anyway. Longer is always better than shorter. The close-up pics came out too blurry to post though, so you'll have to settle for just one pic.

As promised here is the picture of the Shawl Kit I purchased at Knitting Arts for $35. It has the multicolor hand dyed mystery bobble wool, which was obscurely labeled "100% wool $36.00". The mystery multicolored shiny nylon or acrylic fancy. The purple is Rowan Kid Classic a lambswool/mohair/nylon blend and the green is Soft Kid a super kid mohair/ nylon blend/wool blend both are very nice and soft. I think I will likely make the seafoam shawl out of it, just because it all goes together so nicely and then I won't really have to think about what to do with it.


I tried my hand at Kool Aid dying on Thursday night. I used Orange, lemonade, and Strawberry. I have noticed that the lemonade tends to come out fairly pale so I added about 8 drops of yellow food coloring to the mix to make it more vibrant. This is a dk weight 100% Merino skein from knit picks. Not superwash though. The superwash was more expensive so I decided I would try first on the cheaper merino. I used 4 Kool aid packets, plastic wrap, a casserole dish and my microwave. I figured out though I have to watch the trasitional areas because I didn't cover them enough at the reds, I was afraid it would bleed a lot, but it didn't and I got areas that are very pale pink almost white. As I type I have another skein in the ol' wave heating, it is a superwash that is planned to be mittens to my demanding dd. I do appreciate that they like what I knit for them now, I can't imagine it will last too long. My only problem now is that I can't find a store that has blue or purple Kool aid in stock right now!! ARGH! Now I am just Dye-ing to knit something up!!

The Lana Grossa socks for DH were a hit, he liked them quite a lot. He eagerly jammed them on to his feet. I knit them entirely in front of him, but he had no idea they were for him, so he was totally surprised. I decided to rip out the entire top of the sock, from bound off ankle to below the heel. It looked quite a lot better after, much better than that GLARING tacked in stitch.

I have now started the Kidsilk Haze/Fiesta scarf, with a 36 st cast on in the feather and fan pattern. I think the one at Commuknitty must have been 54 sts because mine is coming out quite a lot thinner than theirs was. That is good because it will be longer theirs was freakishly short, though only intended to be a demo and not a wearable item, unless you have a pencil thin 13" neck or so. Which was totally working for them, since once I saw it I HAD to have the stuff to make it...

My family (UGH kids in a yarn store!!) and I swung through Knitting Art in Saratoga on Sunday and I picked up a "Shawl kit" with some beautiful yarn in it. I had to fend off some other woman who seem to have her eye on anything I picked up. I was somewhat disappointed when I realized that the instructions for the shawl (a Seafoam Pattern) they had hung up to demonstrate the yarn kits were NOT included in the bag, but instructions for a straight, knit top to bottom rectangular and triangular shawl were. Now if I didn't know that was the Seafoam pattern and I didn't already have a copy of it, I would be pretty darn P.O.'d. Harumph.

Found a new place to obtain yarn from. I'll have to check it out. News to follow.

Swallowtail shawl #2 is complete. With just a few dedicated knitting hours yesterday (okay, it was probably like 9 hours of knitting in one day) I finished weaving in the ends and blocked it, putting in the the last pin at about 12:15 am. It was dried and beautiful this morning and ready for the teacher's gift bag tomorrow morning! Yes! Now I only have to finish a scarf or two for the other teacher by tomorrow (not nearly as difficult!) But I guess I had better get to it now or I will be up late again!

Teenuh and I took a quick jaunt to Commuknity this afternoon after a day of hanging out and peddling CTMH scrapbooking and stamping supplies. It was a good thing that Commuknity was closing when we got there or I think I would have spent more money. Whoops!! Fifteen minutes in the store and I come out $65 poorer, and that was with 20 % off!! It is a nice store. It looks very nice and cozy. They have some couches that keep calling out to me to go and sit on them. But both times I have been there I didn't have any time to sit around and relax. Their sock yarn selection doesn't compare at all to Purlessence. But they have lots of nice stuff, lots of Rowan and Debbie Bliss, Noro and other nice stuff, as well as books lots of beautiful books.

I TOTALLY want to start a scarf I saw there, yummy fuzzzy scarf. Mmmm.... Rowan Kidsilk Haze (shade 606 a brilliant fuschia) knit together with Cascade Yarn Fiesta (color 9488 Purple and blue rattail type, appearing mostly purple in the picture) making it shiny and fuzzy at the same time! But I have other stuff to finish in time for Christmas and birthdays etc... So I need to keep on track. "Focus.... Focus..." I also found some yummy hand dyed Schaefer "Anne" sock yarn in muted blue, greens and yellow, with shocking brilliant orange, and another skein of Lana Grossa (color 5121) pink, white, purple and yellow striped. I picked up the Interweave Knits special Holiday Edition. The Interweave mag was interesting. It was shorter than a regular mag. I compared it to the last regular one. It wasn't because it had particularly less patterns. It had about 1/2 as many pages of ADVERTISING!! Cripes, once I was comparing I noticed how much friggin' advertising there was in the regular issue. Sheesh. I am TOTALLY going to knit the purse. It is from Knitting Beyond the Edge I think. I have some Patons Wool sitting around I bought to make a felted bag but never found a pattern i liked. Now I have one, when I bust out the yarn sometime this week, I bet the colors are all going to be so off that I am going to go out and buy some new yarn to make it!!!

I fnished most of the sewing yippie, ALL the blankets down (that would be 6!) and just some pajamas to go, though let me tell you, the procrastination bug is a bitin'!

Well, I finished 1 and 3/4 of the Lana Grossa socks. I was so happy with the way it turned out. Then... I put the sock on my foot for the second time and noticed a runway dropped stitch escaping from the side of my heel! ARGH!! I had to pick that stitch up, hook it back to the top. So now I am starig at it, should I sew it back in then every time I see it I will hate it, or should I frog the entire top of this finished sock and redo the whole darn thing. I will just get through the last quarter of the second sock then decide I suppose. Either way, I am quite annoyed.

I have also started another IK Swallow Tail Shawl out of a purple/maroon Alpaca Cloud, a colorway that apparently they don't make anymore. In this picture it looks totally brown but it is really more maroon. I'd better save the rest for something really special. Which is just what I need, another reason to keep something in my stash and not use it, right? I think I have 4 more skeins of it. It is very, very PRECIOUS. I should probably hide it somewhere special... Right next to that beautiful lavender kid mohair....

I forgot to mention I finally made it down to Commuknitty yesterday. It is such a nice store. Very spacious with lots of yarn (though not NEARLY enough sock yarn) and full of beautiful things. They were preparing for a signing that is occuring tonight by Mel Clark, Tracy Ullman's co-author of the book Knit 2 Together. Full of very cute things, I was tempted to head down there tonight. But alas, this book's patterns are all made for people of an extraordinarily small size! (Not hefty gals, such as myself). The largest sweater pattern in the book has perhaps a 40" or 42" bust. Which is really too bad, because the stuff is CUTE!! Plus they were having a 20% off all yarn sale to boot. I just bought 2 skeins of Lana Grosa self striping sock yarn (tans and browns and a denim blue mix, seen here already assaulted) yesterday and scurried away, bummed to know I couldn't attend today. Regardless it is a very nice store, I highly recommend it.

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone, this will be our first "Normal" weekend since Labor day when soccer season started. So it will be a relaxing weekend only consisting of a couple of birthday parties (yeah, so it's not so relaxing is it?) and a baby shower I think I am going to dodge out of. I have a cold and I don't want to make the expectant mother sick. This is a terrible phlegmy nasal cold which does not go away. I have been sick since last Saturday the majority of the time having no voice and honking like a goose. In spite of this Thanksgiving was excellent. I enjoyed spending time with my family again. Pictured here with 3 members missing who left quite early. Imagine all of these folks crammed into a 4 bedroom house, with a small kitchen, smallish living room and *gasp* only 1 (yes folks, that says 1) bathroom! Also note DD having a fit during the picture taking. Nice right?

On the up side. I have finished socks for DS photographed here on the leg of sleeping DD so as not to let the cat out of the bag on this birthday present for DS. This is Shoeller and Stahl yarn I don't know what color way. Great stuff to work with and the more you wash it the softer it gets, very nice.


Also finished is the Cashmere "Swallowtail Shawl" (Fall '06 Interweave Knits). I was blocking it and I didn't quite get it stretched as far as it was supposed to be. it is 22 inches tall by 43 inches wide. Intended to be a Christmas gift for my mother. She knows what a prize the yarn was so I am SURE she will appreciate it in spite of the smaller size. She will probably wear it all crumpled up around her neck, anyway It should be okay because my mom is just not that large a person. I hope that she will enjoy it. The variegated colors look like some wierd pixelation issue on the screen of my computer. Actually there are stripes of fuschia, purple and dusky gray all blending together. It looks quite nice, maybe you can tell better if you click on it and view the large picture. It is currently drying on my living room floor. My house is SO terribly cold it may take a week to dry. We FINALLY lit the furnace today, when I got up this morning the house was 49 *damn that's cold* degrees F. I could practically see my breath. It made it quite difficult to get out of bed and even worse to get out of the nice hot shower. But now folks (we had a little furnace filter changing fiasco going on for a bit) my house is a much more reasonable 68 degrees. Ahh... it is practially like summer in here.... practially.

Soccer is over, yeah!!! I finally will have time to knit. Soccer consumed about 6 hours of VITAL knitting time every week. Although I am deluding myself that I am just going to sit around and knit for all those hours now. I have many Christmas presents I need to get to work on right away. I am making my kids some Star Wars pjs, with some cute Star Wars flannel I found at Joanns. I also have a Yoda blanket in the queue with some comforter covers that have waited a LONG time. Then there are 2 more pairs of pjs as well as 2 blankets that need to be done by 12/9 for a charity project at the kids school. So yeah... sure I'm going to be knitting all the time now, right? Ha ha.

I will just keep telling myself that I will be knitting soon. I think I miss knitting so much my hands are going through the motions while I sleep....

Time has really gotten away from me. My DD had a birthday party last week that went very nicely. It was at a gymnastics place and I had on my spiffy handknit socks to wander around without shoes on. We had 15 wonderful children running around like lunatics for an hour and 45 minutes. Yaye fun! Between the schools book faire and soccer this week has flown by with me having all of 5 minutes at a time on my computer.

I have squeezed in some knitting on the swallowtail shawl, I have completed 3 out of 5 sections of the pattern. The Belissa cashmere is very nice and soft, but MAN does it REEK like a goat. While I am sitting in a room knitting, I could swear there was a goat sitting next to me breathing on me. I am wondering if that smell is going to go away when I wash it to block it. Other wise my mom's neck is going to be scented with Eau de Chevre that perhaps only mountain men or shepherds will find attractive. The colors are quite nice and the pattern looks great. I am thinking if I finish it in time I will make a few more for Christmas presents out of Alpaca or Merino. It goes along fairly quickly. With out all that soccer taking up my knitting time they should practically fly off the needles.

I have also started a sock for DS in a nifty self striping yellow, black, white and grey that is very soft. I find it humorous that I am making it from and extra skein and leftover I have from making the very first sock I ever made that I made for him. I hope there is enough yarn. I ought to find that sock and reuse the yarn, hmmm.

Hopefully next post will be full of pictures right?

Wow, I have had a SERIOUS lack of time lately and have gotten almost NO knitting done, I am shaking from the withdrawls. I had to finish a 4 page scrapbook layout for a workshop I am doing on Saturday night, and I procrastinated on sewing together DD's Halloween Costume so I was very busy finishing that. It took me 2 hours to sew hair extensions and felt and hairclips into some lovely cinnamon rolls easily applied to the sides of her head. DS went as Darth Vader. They can be seen here together. The Thing is a friend of ours. I have been trying to finish sewing some duvets together, the woman I am doing it for bought the wrong size cuts of material, making this a very interesting process to sew it together. I worked an extra 5 hours at the school this week as well for all the Halloween activities and Red Ribbon Week stuff, plus I had HUGE stack of correcting to do for the teacher in the evenings.

I was SO desperate for some knitting that I finally cast on yesterday in desperation. In my desperate stupor, I used the MOST precious skein in my stash. I started the "SwallowTail Shawl" pattern in Interweave Knits Fall Mag, using that amazing cashmere I won at Full Thread Ahead. It is coming out very pretty and very soft (all 25 rows I have made so far.) I can hardly wait to devote some real time to it and crank it out.

I was happy to recieve my Lacy Knitter's Guild Newsletter. It had a pattern in it I thought was very pretty and just lauds some kind of adaptation into something larger than a doily. Fun fun fun.