Month: June 2006

Once again my bandwidth is getting eaten up by the end of the month. I am not sure why the last 2 months I have had this problem & never before but that is why you can’t leave comments sometimes. At least that is what I am suspecting is the reason for you not being able to leave comments. I haven’t checked but it could be that there is work being done by my blog host also. Not sure which. But thank you for actually trying to leave me a comment!

SP strikes!!

My kids all had a heartattack because the mail lady actually got out of her vehicle & walked a package up to the house instead of just chucking it on the driveway like normal. Yippee for me!! Not so yippee for them. I just about got yelled at for buying more yarn but I convinced them that I didn’t do it!

So as I sit here eating my new cherry sour balls let me show you what I got!!!

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The Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in Chocolate is just RADICAL! So soft & lovely. What to make….it’s actually telling me it’s feeling the need to be lace.

The potpourri bowl will go on the coffee table next to the fish, the postcards will go with the rest of my stationary & maybe one will go to my sp, the notepad on the fridge of course, cherry sour balls will be gone by midnight~no worries there!

Thanks so much SP! I look forward to using it all!

I posted a new photo to apad2.

I did say I would do it more often as I like to play around with the style of things here at firebrunette.

 Pepper mintpatty from Hello Yarn Shop. I WANT!!! DaisyMay handspun.

Go see the Flickr set of the soon to be for sale items on Hello Yarn.

I really just want a spinning wheel so I can figure out how to make my own!  I do think with a bunch of roving I have I will attempt it on the drop spindle but I just am not good at getting a nice, consistent dk weight. I am used to drafting for thinner yarn so I will do some practice today. I spun up another 3 ounces of the sample yarns last night. I will post a picture after I set the skein. Actually I have to set both of the skeins that I have done. I may just wait to do it when all are finished. Haven’t decided & I am not too worried about it.

Once again Tracy and I spent a part of the day dyeing yarn for her. Using the usual suspects, knitpicks paint your own fingering weight yarn and Smart & Final food color dyes.

You can see the ball of yarn on the left that we are trying to mimic. We couldn’t get the colors (mostly the blue & greens) to come out the same but we tried.

Here it is all wrapped up ready to cook.

Here it is rinsing, we cooked it longer this time (10 minutes) and it rinsed a lot quicker.

And to see the finished ball knit up you will have to go visitTracy’s blog to see pics!

And I got my trekking xxl in the mail yesterday! Yay! I cast on for the jaywalker socks last night when I lost interest in the sock of the month socks. I just haven’t memorized the pattern yet so I have to stop after every other round & read it. I wanted something more quick (plus it’s using new pretty pink yarn!).

I love Trekking!!!

I did have contact from my sp today! In the turmoil there has been a misplaced amazon gift certificate that has now been replaced with an actual package! No, I don’t have it yet but I have been assured that it’s coming from afar! ooohh….intriguing!

I do think that the SP exchange is a great way for us knitters/crocheters to reach out to eachother in ways that we wouldn’t normally. It should be fun! It should be something that we enjoy doing for eachother, getting to know someone well enough to surprise them with lovely things they will cherish! I know that is what I love about it! I look forward to the next 2 months & what they will bring with my SP’s.

JS was hoppin’ with bday peoples last night~ Thuy, Sarah & the random old man that turns 88 today! Happy Birthday everyone, even those that couldn’t make it to knitting last night, Maura & Melissa.

You can see Thuy knittin’ away on her sock, the 87/88 year old man behind her to the left and  the bday cake in the foreground. Erin picked it up from Anna’s Bakery in the Camino Real Marketplace. So chocolatey & so fudgy. The raspberry filling was just the right tangy to go with the fudgy. I do not like chocolate cake but if I did that would be my new favorite.

It was a fun night, Melissa was there whom we have not seen for ages! So glad she could make it out finally! Rachel came & was working on another Jaywalker sock out of knitpicks yarn. I love it. She also asked us to make preemie hats for a friends 1lb 5 ounce baby. I crocheted the tiniest hat ever using some leftover koigu kpppm from Suzanne. I, of course, forgot to get a photo of it before handing it over to her. It took me about 2 hours of crocheting. Then again I ate cake & talked an awful lot so it could have gone faster.

Summers, why weren’t you there? I still have your super belated bday gift in my knitting bag, hoping to offload it soon!! Hellloooo?!? You missed cake!!

Tracy & I caught wind that the Tuesday night knit group from In Stitches is meeting at the public library downtown on Tuesday nights. We are thinking of crashing it next week if there are any other takers!

I received my first sock of the month club kit today from theknitter.com. It’s gorgeous Fortissima sock yarn in a denim blue colorway with a ‘cabled’ sock pattern.

I am, unfortunately, still waiting for my Trekking xxl yarns to get here. I guess they are a small store & have been super short handed so they are 2 weeks behind on processing orders. Not filling orders, actually processing them. So no charges were made when I ‘ordered’ the yarn 3 weeks ago. I gave them a piece of my mind & am not sure I will order any more yarn through them. I will continue the sock of the month club. It kind of gets me a jumpstart on Christmas gifts. And it’s like a fun surprise knitting package every month!

Sadly, I have not had anything other than one snailmail card & an ecard from my SP8. It’s far enough into it that I am now very disappointed. I haven’t had one of those super spectacular secret pals yet. I do have more fun planning & sending out packages for my secret pal though. Speaking of which, she is in Europe for another week & then I send out another package. I have her box all ready to go. The sunflower themed package is what I am sending this round. There is a sunflower dish scrubby that I crocheted. The pattern, scrubby & yarn for her to make one herself. A learn to crochet kit so that she can actually make one herself. The socks I just finished for her. And all sorts of sunflower stationary/cards/notepads/sticky notes for her.

I will have one more package to send to her after that and then the reveal package at the end of August. My plan is to send a Santa Barbara magazine, C magazine (california), Santa Barbara mug, Santa Barbara fridge magnet & yarn (of course). Considering my pal is literally 3000 miles away I think it will be a fun bit of CA for her.

On that note, I am going to go get my family fed before there is a serious revolt on my hands! Have a great weekend, it looks like it might even be sunny!

 

Power went out for 3.5 hours this morning, the kids were sure life was over. I had to assure them we weren’t going to starve to death by making pancakes on the stove, thank God we have natural gas appliances so we could cook & have hot water. They just remembered that there were plenty of things they could do without electricity. Puzzles, games, cars, trains (although there was a bit of panic because some run on batteries & I guess batteries=electricity to kids). And I seriously considered lighting the pilot light on the furnace it was so wet & chilly this morning. I really didn’t think that June gloom would be down right cold this year. I usually don’t mind the marine layer because it’s at least warm even if it is all overcast & foggy. But this is just ridiculous! I do get a few good days of sweater wearing though. Wool is nice.

I find myself in a bit of a knitting/crochet quandry. There is not a whole lot that is motivating me but I am still knitting away. I have the fan & feather shawl (up to 465 or so stitches, row 89 of 189) going and a pair of Pomatomus socks out of some red yarn I dyed a while back. 

 They are a really fun knit. But as far as any sweaters that I listed I just don’t wanna.