Stage fright and wingspans

I have been working on a video for The Fiber Seed.  I'll tell you why later.  All I know is that it is very difficult for me to talk on camera and get the words I want to say out of my mouth.  If I'm trying to be goofy I have no problem in front of the camera, but if I'm trying to be serious it is a completely different story.  I stumble over my words and sometimes I get on a role and then the word I want to use decides to up and leave my vocabulary vault. But with the magic of iMovie, you can make it look like I have no problem at all! I love it!  But on to the projects...

I finished the front of my mitered square cardigan. I will post a picture next week when I have all the ends woven in, it looks like a horrible mess right now.

I have a surprise project that I finished, someone else started it, but I finished it.  It's a wingspan out of Noro Taiyo sock and man it is amazing! There are even beads in it!

BTW keep on the look out for new colors in the next few weeks!

Scorched popcorn and finished projects

Let me tell you a short story.  It involves my sister, my microwave and a bag of popcorn.  I had just gotten back from my trip and my sister and I were going to watch a movie.  She went to put the popcorn into the microwave and I went into the bedroom to change out of my pajamas and into my lounging clothes...day pajamas.  In the mean time my sister has punched the pretimed popcorn button and walked away from the microwave to help my husband load pictures onto facebook in another room.  ::she isn't watching or listening to the popcorn::  The next thing I hear is her yelling "Lindsay, help, quick!!" Jordan and I race to her and find the whole front of our house filled with so much white smoke you would have thought the conclave had convened in my home and decided on the new pope and forgot that I didn't have a chimney. In a split second my husband opens the microwave grabs the heavily smoking bag of popcorn and throws it out the back door.  All the while I'm running around opening windows, doors, and grabbing a box fan trying to get the smoke out and away from the smoke alarm...which didn't go off because someone took out the battery...

After about a half hour of the entire house being opened up and all the fans going (mind you its not warm outside at all) the smoke was gone.  After about 3 hours the kitchen smelled like toasted marshmallows instead of scorched popcorn.  I went outside a little later and walked past the bag of popcorn and for a second thought "why is there a bag of popcorn in my yard...oh yea".   I was curious and opened it up to see how badly the popcorn had burned...it was a solid black block of scorched kernels.  Needless to say I threw it away, not even the squirrels wanted it.


On the project front- I finished 2 projects this week, while still in Ohio.
A crocheted baby blanket.

The multidirectional scarf made from Hydra.

Both of which stayed in Ohio.

I got to start a special new project....a shawl made out of Sprout! Now I can't show you the progress because, well, I'm designing it to be a pattern for all you beautiful people out there with a skein of Sprout and no shawl pattern.  I can say that the construction is not your traditional way of making a shawl and that I'm making it out of Ochre and toying with adding Midsummer Night to it. Hmmm, decisions.  

I think I'll add making a collection of patterns to my resolutions list....because I'm close to crossing off make 20 new colorways this year!! Only one to go before I hit 20 new ones...I think I'll go to 27 and stop for the year.  I haven't produced my new yarn line yet but I have picked out the content and color palette for it! You may hear whispers in the near future!

Snow day!

Well surprisingly I slept more on the road trip than I knit.  I brought a crocheted baby blanket that I'm almost done with.  I also started working on a shawl pattern for all you out there with Sprout yarn just waiting for the perfect project!  In other news I am going cross eyed looking at houses up here.  I wish the perfect one would just jump out and slap me and say "hey, stop looking, here I am."  But then I wouldn't trust my home after it had done that. Good thing houses don't talk or slap.  

 So that new colorway picture, is at home where I am not... so you'll have to wait, sorry!  Tyler unfortunately didn't make it.  So here's a picture to see who a great new colorway is named after.

On to happier things, I had my first snow day!! 

 Jordan and I got up early and layered up, seeing as we had no snow gear.  Yoga pants are surprisingly just as warm as long johns and a little more stylish too.  We were outside for about an hour and half, doing all your snow day activities...

.....shoveling the driveway

 .....scooping the 4 inches of snow off your car

 ....snowball fights, snow angels, and running around in the snow playing with the dogs.

So as crazy as this trip has been, it has been a blast.  Only a few more days before it's back to the warm sunshine.  

New colorway and a finished project

I need to start writing stuff down during the week so I can remember what happened that was quirky.  I  don't recall any zany stories because I am exhausted and the big part of the week hasn't even started...the 15 hr drive to Ohio.  I like it I take some motion sickness medicine and then I'm off to uninterrupted knitting (unless it's a nap). In preparation I got 40 skeins dyed this week, I could have done more if I had another drying rack....I guess that will be part of the set up when we move North.

I also made a new colorway in honor of my sick dog Ty.  He has a kidney that is 3 times what it should be and it isn't looking to good.  He was my first pet, if you don't count the lizards that I hatched that got loose in my room.  I was there when he was born, he was too fat and I had to pull the little booger out of the birth canal.  He is very dear to me and I hope he pulls through.  He has always had a blue collar of one shade or the other so I think I might call the colorway Ripe Tyde.  I'll post a picture next week, its still drying.

I started making my color rings for yarn shops to see, in person, what Sprout looks like. Here's my progress.

Onto projects, I didn't get any farther on that shawlette, I will have to take that with me on my road trip.
As for the little pocket book, I haven't felted it because I'm still puzzling out the pattern.  I did some amazing mind bending techniques but I have to figure out how to write it down so that it's showing people exactly how to do it in words.  I'm still working on my multi directional scarf, that is coming with me as well, its purse knitting for the time being.  I started my tank out of Belisia, there isn't enough progress yet for a picture.

And here is the accomplishment for the week:

I finished Jordan's Henley, or as it's been lovingly referred to as The Henley from Hell.  I started it two years ago, thinking I would have it done for Christmas.  It was a top down, raglan sleeve  and one of my first in-the-round projects, except the first portion was flat knitting.  Either way the pattern I was using, if not read carefully and having prior experience with garments, led me down the path of putting increases where they shouldn't go, resulting in a section that looked like I had made if for a woman not a man.  I didn't catch this until I was halfway done.  So what did I do?  I watched it unravel back into balls and laughed at myself the whole time.  So the project got put away to work on others because I clearly wasn't going to finish this before Christmas.  I pulled it out a few months later and start working on it.  I soon realize that choosing a sport weight yarn was the dumbest thing I could have possibly chosen because it was taking forever!  I should have done it out of worsted and just let him sweat to death.  Either way, I almost had it done for christmas this year, but I didn't.   I did however wrap up what I had done and the yarn that I had left and gave it to Jordan for Christmas.  I finished the actual knitting a few weeks after Christmas, picked out the buttons, and then it just sat.  It sat for a whole month until, staring at me from the coffee table saying, "please, please put my buttons on".  So I did and Jordan better wear that henley while we are in Ohio, where it's snowing, and he better not say "oh you know you should have knit this out of a thicker yarn".  You know I think that counts as two projects....I think I'll start a new one.  I mean I have a road trip coming up right?

Sheep, Semi Circles and Shawls, Oh My!

So this week was crazy, I didn't even know what day it was half the time this week.  I thought somehow that the end of this week was the end of next week...yea it didn't make sense to me either.  Something was off in my head because I also went to bed at 10pm and I had forced myself to stay up til then, I wanted to fall asleep at 8. That never happens, I'm normally up into the wee hours of the morning knitting, working on patterns, or doing something else that can't wait until the next day.  But if I finish things I get to start things!! So I made up a freebee pattern, I have to felt it but it is a companion change purse to the pinwheel bag.  It has an interesting construction that I think will be a fun challenge for an adventurous knitter.  So I have to write up the pattern and felt it but here is a sneak peak of the overall shape.

Trust me when it's done, and you see how it was made you will go, 'whaa..that's awesome!' (Well, maybe you will be mildly amused which is just as good.)  I'll be sure to make an explanative post just for the change purse to supplement the free Ravelry download.

On another note a friend of mine asked me to make a sheep book cover, so I did.

I'm impressed that I came up with the pattern on the fly, it could be better but I'm happy with it.

I used Woolie Bullie from Hikoo for the fluff and Cascade 220 for the rest.

Here is my progress on the Vintage Colors Shawlette.

I'm hoping to be farther along on that next week, but alot will be going on next week.  I have to work  a new order of yarn to dye and I'll be leaving for a visit to Ohio to iron out all the details for our (my hubster and I) move in the near future.

So that was two finished projects so I get to start a new one. Hmm.. I want to start my cotton tank out of Belisia, maybe that will be a driving project.  Tune in next week to see what crazy antics I may have gotten myself into.

I Milked a Cow at the Fair

I wish my sister had gotten a picture of it.  I was holding my quart of sweet tea in one hand (my clean hand) and trying to milk a cow with the other, while standing up.  Needless to say the 26 years building up to this moment made the actual attempt at milking look pretty pathetic in comparison.  I didn't want to yank the cow's udders, I mean who would like that?  So I ended up squirting her own legs and then I finally got the aim down to in the bucket.  But I didn't have as much gusto as the lady that was milking the cow and slapping stickers on the poor city slickers attempting to milk the cow.

If you haven't guessed it yet I went to the fair this week among other things.  The past couple years I have come to absolutely love the livestock portion of the fair and the petting zoo.  You couldn't smack the smile off my face as I petted the angora goats (mohair), angora rabbits (angora), alpaca, sheep, yak, and Scottish highlanders.  All the while I'm dreaming of my farm with all these animals on it that I use their fiber for my many lines of yarn...

As for yarn and projects, I finished my Simple Yet Effective Shawl, that I made into a scarf, out of Sprout in the Embers color way.

I also finished my Twizzle scarf on the loom. I'm going to twist the fringe on it, I think it just makes it look finished.

So since I finished 2 projects I got to start one, Vintage Colors Shawlette, using a ball of Skinny Stripes from my stash along with one ball of Cozette. I'll post a picture of that next week when I have a little more done.

Last Saturday was great, the new yarn jumped off the shelves, thank you everyone!

Here's some solids and some multis that you may have not seen.

From Left to Right:  Electric Slide, Hollyhock,          Midsummer Night and Caramel

Monty Python in my Sleep

So I've been dyeing my little fingers off this week, but when it comes to sleep this week has been an epic fail.  I get woken up by the slightest thing and then I can't get back to my deep sleep.  It's been going on the past couple of days, all identifiable things waking me up, but this morning I swear to you I  was woken up by music from Monty Python.  It was the trumpeting segue that moves you from scene to scene.  I don't know where it came from.  But I digress.

I'm sitting here thinking, what projects did I finish this week?  Nothing, that's right, nothing.  I didn't work on my mitered cardi at all.  I piddled around with the multi directional scarf.  I am working on my twizzle scarf on my loom.

I took pictures of my new colorways, some aren't done drying so those didn't make it but here are 2 new colors out of the 16.  If you want to buy them they will be available at the Knit 'n Knibble on SATURDAY FEBRUARY 9TH.  That's this Saturday.

Dusty Jade

 Spanish Moss