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I love the internet

I held my mail on the USPS site 2 days before leaving.
You used to have to walk in and fill out a form.

I am having Salvation Army come & pick up the 6 bags of donations that have been in my car for weeks.
I have been meaning to drop them off, really I have.

I found out the weather  & road conditions for our whole drive there and back.
Not just the weather forecast for our destination.

It’s miraculous, this internet!
it’s also a time-suck

 

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Gettin' ready to go!

The bags are about 50% packed. I have a canvas cube stacked full of things by the front door that go in the car. I have laundry piled up on my bed to be sorted for packing/staying.

Today is cleanout the fridge, all trashcans, change sheets day. Tomorrow the cartop carrier goes on and all bags put in Thursday afternoon. We leave Friday morning at 4am, drive straight through with minor stops for gas, breakfast, gas, lunch, gas, dinner, gas. Lots of gas. That part I am not looking forward to. I hate getting gas, I hate paying for gas. Blech.

Notice I haven’t mentioned knitting. I don’t know what to take! I have so many options now all of a sudden! I am on the schedule at Knit & Pearl to teach some spring classes so I have fun little things to make for the shop.  A BSJ using Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Worsted in Edgewater, a Mobius Cowl using Louisa Harding Cinnabar yarn in a turquoise/gold/tan colorway and a toe up magic loop sock using Alpaca sox (I haven’t started &I don’t have the yarn in front of me, brand & name are slipping my mind. OH, that’s what my stash in ravelry is for!! Hold please….) Classic Elite Alpaca Sox in Garden. Aha! I love ravelry.

Surprise, surprise!! Who just knocked on my door?? The FedEx man!! I love him too! Here’s what he brought me today.

Naughty Monkey open line green

naughty monkey open line green side

Naughty Monkey Open Line sandals in Green, obviously!

Naughty Monkey THe bomb pump 2

Naughty Monkey The Bomb Pump. I like to think of them as my biker-babe heels. I love them too! Can you tell I am bingeing on shoes a little bit? Well Ross last night didn’t help.

Dollhouse silver gray

Yummmmmmmmm…..Dollhouse

These 2 brands are the perfect fit for my feet. High arches, lots of cushion, narrow toe box. It’s all good. Too bad our trip is to freezing ice & snow country so I can’t wear any of them. Oh, did I say I couldn’t? Well, I am taking one pair for Easter service. I don’t care if I have to get rid of necessities to make them fit!

Okay, back to knitting.

I love the Laminaria shawl, here are the details on ravelry. I had a good amount of it done when I realized that I just didn’t like the way the star chart wasn’t symmetrical. So, I ripped it all out and started over making the right hand side using the k3tog 3-into-3 and the left hand side using a sssk 3-into-3. Granted , if you haven’t looked at the charts or read the pattern or are not making it you will have no idea of what I am speaking.  I decided at that same time to move up a needle size from 6’s to 7’s so that I would get a more open lacework.  It’s gorgeous! The minimaiden Handmaiden yarn is absolutely scrumptious and just glides off the needles.

Laminaria 3/18

Laminaria 3/18 closeup

I really should have taken a picture of the difference before I ripped it out and started using the sssk 3-into-3. Well just imagine that those horizontal lines of dec on the left side going straight up and down and the right side still being horizontal.  Not the most pleasing to the eye. Now, if I were using a true laceweight yarn and larger needles it wouldn’t be noticable once blocked out. Since I am using a slightly thicker yarn it’s a more dense fabric and won’t block out as much.

Oh & a Special Thanks to Tracy who forgot her knitting bag last night and worked on my shawl for me! ;o) She is also doing the Laminaria out of the same yarn just using the Smoke colourway.
It’s beautiful in that color!

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And now for the yarn

We (Tracy, Suzanne, Liz and I) had a little field trip today over to Loop & Leaf in downtown SB. I hadn’t been in the store in a couple of months (and they have only been open for over 4 months) so I thought it would be fun to take my friend Liz down there. She’s a relatively new knitter and really finding it enjoyable. We are just immersing her in the knit culture right now & she’s loving it!

For the Laminaria shawl in the Spring Knitty I bought 2 hanks of Fleece Artist Mini Maiden in Cedar.

Mini Maiden Cedar
The pattern calls for Fleece Artist Suri Blue but she didn’t have any so this is a great substitute! My plan is to get this started, get comfortable with the pattern over the next week and take it on our drive to Idaho. We’ll be there for a week, then the drive home. I figure I can get at least 12 hours of good knitting time in on the drive to & from. There are 3 drivers, George, Tracy and I, so it will be a good, even amount of drive time between us.

I also decided it was time to try the Jamieson’s DK so I bought 2 balls; 1 Leprechaun (so appropo for the season) and 1 Rye. I plan on making a 2 colored hat of some sort. I will have to check my ravelry faves to see what’s in there.

jamieson leprechaunjamieson rye

She also had Frog Tree yarns and the sport weight pima cotton is so soft and yummy I had to get a ball for my nephew that’s on the way. A cute zeebee is in order with this yarn.

Frog tree cotton
It’s a great boy color and with him being a spring baby the cotton will be good for him through the chilly but not too cold evenings up in NorCal.

As soon as Julie at Knit & Pearl gets the red Silky Wool in that I am dying to have, I will have enough new yarn to keep me busy for a few years.

😉

 

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Ah, for the love of shoes

I am lucky enough to have a husband that supports my ‘habits’; yarn and shoes. Amazon had some Naughty Monkey and Sugar shoes on clearance, rock bottom prices that I just couldn’t pass up.
Black Naughty MonkeySugar ShoesSugar shoes back
These green and persimmon ones are by Sugar and oh how I love the detailing on them. I had to put inserts in because they were just a tad too deep for my narrow feet.
The top black pony hair retro heels are Naughty Monkey shoes……aaaaaaahhhhhhhh…..I love…..
The details on them are what sold me on both pairs & boy do I love overnight shipping for prime members on Amazon!
Next post, yarn pictures!!!

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Alright, so here I am!

Okay, all of my archives are moved over & I think I am ready to tackle a post.

The new Knitty is out today. Very lovely items but none as fantastic as the Laminaria shawl. Oh how it speaks to me! The green Estonian lace in a winged shape. Ah, how it makes me sigh. I guess I am feeling the need to move on to lighter knits now that we are in the full swing of spring here in SB.

I haven’t worked on much of anything in the past week. On Saturday I decided that it was time to pull out the Picnic Blanket & get it moving along again.

 

I have one more round of squares to crochet, that’s 34 squares more to make. I can do about 14 in a long day. Probably 6 in a regular evening. If I really push myself I could have it done to go on our picnic on Sunday. Of course, it needs a bag to be carried in so I will have to sew one up real quick like.

The single crocheting of all the squares together is another matter altogether. Yesterday all I was able to do is get two rows sewn vertically together. Today, one so far. The second isn’t far from being done and then I can move on to the horizontal seaming. See all those ends? For the most part they are all crocheted into the actual squares so I just need to go through and cut them all off. It would look much neater, don’t you think?

I ripped out the Transition Gloves as well as a pair of socks that just weren’t to my liking. I did a few rounds on the Venezia a few days ago. I am hoping that the Picnic Blanket will be my shining beauty to show I actually have done something useful!

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Hello world!

I have switched blog hosts and am awaiting the transfer of all my articles from Blogharbor over here to WordPress/Pressharbor.
When the opportunity arose to try out WordPress while still keeping a tether to my previous host Blogharbor I thought I would give it a try. Thus, the use of Pressharbor.
I am feeling a bit melancholy about the move, I have been on Blogharbor since I first started to blog over 4 years ago. But, the change may be a good thing. I am sure if I beg I can always move back over to Blogharbor.
It will take a bit of getting used to, the changes in posting, the changes in editing, the changes in categorizing my articles and pictures. I may find that I can’t do as much in depth, behind scenes things as I could do with Blogharbor. I may be okay with that or I may not. I will just have to try it out and see.
I am very happy to have my own domain name, www.firebrunetteknitting.com. That’s freakin’ cool!
While I wait for the transfer of all my articles and such, I will probably not be posting again. I am sure it will go smoothly and quickly.

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Sadie's Lunch Sack


Awww, isn’t it so fun?

This one has a square bottom so her sandwich container can rest on the bottom and have the other things on top.

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I used a green corduroy to line it, green is her favorite color. I was shocked she chose the pink peacock print for the outside. It’s never been her color of choice.

I added a button to close it. I need to add a name tag on there. Not that there will be another like it but Sadie is a drop & run kid. I rounded up 3 sweaters & sweatshirts on the ground and in the bushes outside her class yesterday afternoon. Nice.

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Mock Grocery Bag

We found this tutorial on making your own lunch sack based on a plastic grocery bag. Using some fabric on hand, Tracy made one last night & it was so quick I wanted to make one today! So, I went to Craft Essentials and bought clearance fabric in a bunch of prints to make a few.

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I chose 2 coordinating fabrics & started. An hour later I had this!

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Isn’t it so cute?? I will be making a bunch more, some larger than this to be true grocery bag size and others just lunch sack size like this one.

You all should rush out & make one! Seriously!

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Random finished item

I decided I wanted to try something different. So, I found the glove pattern I have wanted to make using the Sheep Shop, Sheep Number 3, yarn I got at Loop & Leaf.

Here they are!

Picot Edged Cashmere Gloves, is the name of the pattern by Insaknitty.

These were fast! Each glove done in a day. 5 hours a piece. Not too shabby. I love the yarn, its’ a wool/silk blend and it’s scrumptuous!

I cast on a pair for Tracy and am almost finished with the first glove. Just the pinky left to go. They will be perfect for Idaho in the frozen spring! I am using Claudia Hand Painted fingering yarn in Eat Your Veggies on size 3 needles for her pair. Here’s the yarn, I will post a pic of the finished glove later.