6 Unimportant Things

I have been tagged by She for the 6 Unimportant Things meme, so since this blog has been all work and no play for too long I thought I would give this one a go!

Here are the six six non-important things/habits/quirks about myself

1.  I love driving!  Road trips are my favorite way to travel.

2. I can turn my right foot around backwards, but not my left

3. I have knit a cunning hat

4. I have a trophy for ball room dancing

5. The first movie I ever saw was Star Wars, the original theatrical release.

6. I eat candy bars a layer at a time.  First the chocolate off the outside, then each internal layer separately.  I have even been known to eat each peanut inside a Snicker’s bar individually.

And I will tag

Amy

Jacki

Stephanie

TheBon

 I have been knitting some too.  I took a big knitting break after the holiday rush, but I think I am getting back into it now.  I knit up some hats for Amy to take with her to SPA for the Ship’s Project

It was fun to make these because they were fast and it got me back into the groove of knitting.

Matt and the kids made a patio this weekend.  It has the Teeny Seal of Approval

And I have some news on the Galveston front.  Back in December after the vote I pulled the Galveston Shawl out and found I was very, very lost in the pattern.  I ended up frogging it back and starting over.  I am almost caught up to where I had been.  I will try to get a photo of it soon.

And I have been running a color experiment with my spinning.  I spun up 5+ oz of these two colors, Sable Grey and Purple, for a laceweight 2 ply.  They look very cool separately.

When I started to ply it wasn’t coming out like I had imagined it in my head.  The purple made the grey lighter and the grey made the purple greyer.  I thought about overdying it a rich purple color when I was done, until last night.  I was plying last night when I noticed that I couldn’t see the purple!  Under the indoor lighting, the whole bobbin looked Sable!  I liked that it changed colors, but I don’t know if I am completely sold on it yet.  I think I will hold judgement until I have at least one skein off the wheel.

 

How Time Flies

First things first!  I messed up the listing for the fiber club something fierce!  It wasn’t until Jo pointed out that there was no listing in the shop that I noticed that I had left it in edit mode for a couple weeks!  SO, I am leaving the fiber club open until Sunday, February 24th.  There are only a few spaces left and the shipments will be shipped out on the 25th, so run over and get your spot now!

CLUB SIGN UP HERE!

Now for something super exciting!  The monthly fiber peek!  I am desperately and deeply in love with this month’s colorway for many reasons.  Thanks to my Dad I have a deep and wonderful appreciation for Art History.  I took it as a minor in college and I love looking at the Great Masters for hours.  I have drawn from them in the past for designing some of my dolls, but I thought I would start using their inspiration to dye up some of the club fibers this year.

I started with this month.  My Dad is a part time Professor at a college in Holland and he tells me about getting to see the Dutch Master painters.  How he can sit there for hours looking at Art (with a capital A).  I decided to start there.  One of my most beloved Dutch Masters is Vermeer.  His paintings have a quiet sadness to them that draws me in and can hold me there for hours.  The one painting that I love the most is

Girl With a Pearl Earring

Using this painting as an inspiration, I went to my dye pots and after some argument with the dyes on who was in charge, I came up with THIS (linked for those who don’t want to ruin the surprise).  This is my absolute favorite colorway so far.

I had such a great time this month that I think I will continue in this mode for the club fibers.

 

Fiber Club Renewals

Hey guys! 

 I wanted to let you know that fiber club renewals are now open!  They will remain open for returning club members until next Friday, then the remaining spots will be opened for everybody else for a week.  I have had such a great time dying club fibers and I hope you guys have too!

I also have finished another 8 oz of lace weight yarn for another shawl.  This is Party Dress the December fiber from the Spunky Eclectic fiber club.

I split out each color and spun it separately.  I have been thinking of adding in some black for a contrast, but I haven’t decided on a pattern yet.

I had such a shock this week, I almost fell over dead!  My husband and I were looking through flickr pictures of Amigurumi last weekend, and he says “can you show me how to do that?”  O_O  I was completely speechless for a few minutes, and for those who know me in real life know that is something that rarely happens.  So this week I showed him how and he did a great job!  I will try to get a photo of him doing it next time.

Also, my son has shown an interest in spinning again.  You may remember that he gave it a go about a year ago, but hadn’t really been interested since.  Then he asks me this week if he can go with me to my spin-in on Saturday!  I told him he absolutely was more than welcome to come and I went and got him a drop spindle this morning.  I will try to get photos of that too!

 

What has me Distracted

This is what has kept me busy for so long

I have been working on some secret projects that got sent to the publisher this weekend!  YAY!!  I locked myself in my design studio (read bedroom) and pounded the keyboard and yarn for hours.  You can see my desk is all covered in swatches and half finished samples.  They aren’t due yet, but I want to get them done as soon as I can.  Some people who have been reading my blog for a while, might be able to figure out what those various pieces are.

 Also this weekend the January Fiber was sent out for the club people!  This month the fiber is BFL and the colorway is London Fog.  Link for those that want to peek.  There will be an announcement about new club openings in a few days, so keep watching this space!

When I haven’t been pulling my hair out over small pieces of yarn, I have been spinning even smaller pieces!  I have been working on spinning up my December fiber from the Spunky Eclectic fiber club and it is nice.  I am 2/3rds done with it and I hope to be able to finish this week.  I will get a picture as soon as it is done.  I also have a new shipment of yarn in, so there should be new yarn in the shop soon too!  It is amazing how many things just get put on hold when you have a looming deadline.

 

Running in 12 Different Directions

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!  My project deadline is in about a week, but I want to get it done by this weekend so I can get back to doing some fun projects.  I have been spinning in my free moments, like after I give the kids breakfast and before I have to send them off to school.  I usually get 10-15 minutes of spinning time then.  I have been doing great on my Finishalong/Knit Wars/NaSpiMoMo/2kLace projects.

In my little scraps of time I have been able to spin these yarns in the past couple weeks.

Sonoran Skies from Electric Sheep Fibers in Wool Blend sock weight

Pie for Everyone from Spunky Eclectic laceweight.  I think it is going to become a Pi shawl.

And two worsted weight skeins from some oops fiber that came out too black and white.  I over dyed them in the Anubis (front) and Poison (back) colorways

These skeins have been sitting around not telling me what they wanted to be.  I have them out where I can see them, but they have been stubbornly silent, until today when they jumped up and screamed!

I am going to be using these skeins for some great charity knitting!  Amy, over at Spunky Eclecticis having a great blog contest.  She is collecting hats for The Ship Project.  They will be sent to deployed sailors.   The details can be found here.  The hats have to reach Amy before February 22.  Join in the fun and keep some sailors warm, and win a prize too.

There was a shop update today!  Some of my favorites were

Aquarium Gravel in several different fibers

Fuchsia

and Midnight Run

 

Flood of Photos!

I sure hope that everybody had a great holiday season!!  I got my Christmas knitting done just in time!  I mean my sister called me to say she was on her way over RIGHT as I was getting ready to cast off her last sock.

The new year brings some excitement to the blog.  I was awarded two awards during the 4th Annual JenLa Knit Blog Awards!  Thanks ladies!!  I am just beyond amazed and so very thankful to be included in your list this year!  Also, my Magnetic Katamari pattern has been nominated for A Bobby Award for Best Free Pattern of 2007!  Thanks again!

I also joined Knit Wars and Finishalong 2008!  It is a great way to get motivated to finish those second socks for my Christmas knitting.  It’s going to be great!  You can finish old UFO’s, clean out that stash of yarn that has been hanging around too long, get some of those projects on your project queue done, and THEN get experience points for doing it!  There are going to be new things added to Knit Wars  in the next couple weeks and I can hardly wait!

 I spent the New Years celebration cutting out fabric for new craft cubes.  I am going to try to get them assembled and up in the shop in the next couple weeks.  The stumbling block is that the kids are home from school this week and my husband has gone back to work, so I am scrambling to find any crafting time this week.  I should be back to full production next week.

Now, for the photos!  I spent this Christmas knitting season knitting socks for my sister.  She loves little ankle socks, so I knit a whole bunch of them from some of those yarn cakes I showed you  a couple weeks ago.  Here is the result of my knitting frenzy

Wool socks

Rebecca Socks

Aquarium Gravel Socks

Around the World socks (more on these later)

Becca has become quite a knitter herself!  She spent New Years Eve with us and stayed to celebrate Indiana Jones Day (we have a silly tradition of watching all the Indiana Jones movies on New Years Day) and while she was here she started a new knitting project.

She is making a hat out of some Electric Sheep sock yarn in the Dove colorway.  She is doubling the yarn to make it big enough and she is picking up new techniques so fast!  I’m so proud!  While she was knitting, Teeny decided she wanted to knit too, so Becca showed her how to knit

 

Then she got her own needles to work with

She is not a fan of the Paparazzi

*sniffle*  Wait, I think there is something in my eye *sniffle*

I also got a chance to spin December’s Club fiber.  I spun it in a chunky yarn.  It is so squooshy and warm.  I think it might be a hat.

 

The Big Reveal

So, on Wednesday I shipped out the club fiber.  It should be reaching people soon, but for those of you who just can’t wait here is a photo!

 I have been knitting along on my Christmas knitting.  I can’t show you any of it today, but I will soon.  I am going to try to get some time in the next week or so to start making some craft cubes.  I have all the fabric picked out and waiting and I just need to scrape together enough time to sit down and assemble them.

There was some tragedy yesterday.  I pulled the Galveston shawl out to take a look at it, and I don’t remember where in the charts I was!  I will have to do lots of row counting and ripping to get to an identifiable place in the pattern.  groan.  If I wasn’t almost 3/4 of the way done already I would just rip it out and start over, but I think that might just break my spirit. 

I hope everybody has a fantastic holiday season!  Now that the gift knitting is almost done go knit something for yourself!!!

 

Spinning and such

 I finished spinning the October fiber from the Spunky Club.  It was Romney dyed in the Goblin Eyes colorway.  I started with the intention of spinning a worsted 2 ply, but it wanted to be a nice fat squooshy single.  So I then pulled out some other Romney fibers that had been sitting in my stash waiting to be called up.

 The other two are Blue Moon and Peacock and they are all slated to become a fulled rug for my front entrance.

Club fiber will be sent out tomorrow in hopes that they will arrive in time for Christmas.  This month’s fiber is Merino and the colorway is called Tainted Love.  I will have a photo in a couple days for all those people who just can’t wait

It looks like the Galveston Shawl is winning 6 to 3 right now.  I will leave this open for a few more days, but as soon as I am done with Christmas knitting I will be picking up which ever project is in the lead!

 

I Made you a Yarn Cake

But I knitted it!

So here I am at the beginning of my holiday knitting.  Don’t worry, I am not planning to make anything big or involved with these cakes.  Starting on the bottom left and going around the big cake there is Rebecca (Spunky Eclectic), Harvest Surprise (Electric Sheep), Super Nova (Electric Sheep), Brain Freeze (Spunky Eclectic), Aquarium Gravel (Electric Sheep), Around the World (Electric Sheep), and in the center is a two ply that is half Hosta and half Peony (Spunky Eclectic).

The Aquarium Gravel came out so great, I just wanted to share the close-up of it

It is just going to knit up so fun!

I also find myself with a dilemma that I need your help with.  I find that, once I am done with my Christmas knitting, I have a choice to make.  I have two lace shawls that have been half done for several months.  They are both about half way done and have about the exact same amount of work needed to get them done.  The two shawls are

The Galveston Shawl (this is a photo from when I finished the second chart.  It is much bigger now)

And the Bugs in Your Garden Shawl

Now here is where you come in.  I want you to vote on which one I should finish first!!  Post a comment here on the blog and when I am done with my Christmas knitting I will start on the shawl that has the most votes!  So get commenting

 

Shop update

Thank you all for the birthday wishes.  He had a great birthday

 As I mentioned before, I got a bunch of dying done this weekend.  I dyed most of this month’s club fiber (this month is called Tainted Love) and a bunch of sock yarn.  I spent the past couple weeks spinning some other fibers too.  Most of it is now up in my shop, and there will be more added in the next few days.  I hope to get some time soon to start making some craft cubes for my shop.  I have so many cool fabrics picked out!

 Here is some of what I dyed

Anubis

Sonoran Skies

Fire and Ice

And this one was fun!  I had some Technologic that turned out with very little purple and the green turned into a weird yellow color.  I didn’t know what to do with it.  This weekend I overdyed it with a beautiful saphire blue and it came out gorgeous!  I called it Around the World

I also spun up some Rebecca in superwash from Spunky Eclectic for my sister (her name is also Rebecca).  It came out looking very festive!

I can’t wait to knit with it.  I don’t think I will get a project done by Christmas, but maybe just a little bit afterwards.