Author: Chauntel Ensey

My sp sent me the cutest card! I love knit cards, especially when they say that there will be a package of goodies in the future!

On the other side of sp8 I have a package all ready to send, I just have to get my sorry ass to the post office to send it! That is one of my major faults, not sending things in a timely manner. If it needs a stamp, I got you covered! But don’t ask me to go out of the house to mail something. I hate it. But I will happily do it for my secret pal!!!

It will be called the sunflower package. She loves sunflowers! I made her a really fun kitchen scrubby & am sending the pattern with the yarns & an extra scrubby for her to make one on her own if she wishes. Plus a ton of fun sunflower stationary accoutrements, so cute!

It’s the last Thursday of the month & that means I don’t get to go to knitting this week. sigh. How depressing! But I am glad that George & his guys get together for their thing so I really won’t complain!

I started a sock out of the pink/orange/rust/wannabe-brown yarn last night. I think it needs a name. Let’s call it salmon copper or some such name. How about you leave a comment with a name suggestion if you think of one! It’ll be fun, come on!

Starting toe up I will consider using a fun stitch pattern on this sock. I am thinking of maybe a palm leaf pattern out of the Stitchionary1 book. But until I get the foot increases done I won’t start it anyways.

I keep looking at the Patagonia cotton I bought & want so badly to make something using it but I can’t seem to make my mind up. I am thinking a fitted kimono type sweater. 3/4 sleeves & crossover front. We’ll see. I have no desire to make a sweater right now anyway so that is just fine if I take my time.

I am so happy we get to see the sun! It makes for gorgeous May days!

 

The actual colors of this one are portrayed in the lower right section of the ball. It’s the only picture that I could get without the red flaring out the photo. Balled up I have decided I do like this yarn!

I found myself with 2 hanks of Knitpicks Color your own sock yarn & it was burning a hole in the basket waiting to be dyed. This morning, first thing after dropping the kids off at school, I dove right into that lovely colored water!

First hank I did yellow & green, with some blue but the yellow took over the blue so now it’s all yellow & green. Not nearly as exciting as I would like but it’s alright. Also it seems that no matter how much you water down these food dyes they still stay super vibrant! I would have liked to go for a more buttery yellow, not so shockingly bright. This is one hank that I am hoping will fade after knitting & washing.

The second hank was my failed attempt at a brown & light red/pink. The brown mix I got in the bowl was great! Then I steamed it & rinsed it. Yeah, all the brown left & now I have a not so lovely dark orange. I think it will grow on me but until then I just look at it with much disappointment.

I loved all the swirly & splattered colors so now you must enjoy them as well!

Here are the hanks drying out in the indirect, windy sunlight

That red isn’t really that color. Its’ more of a faded red, not so vibrant as in the picture. It’s alright I suppose. I will do pics of them in balls & knit swatches once they are dry tonight.

 

Here is the first 140 yard, worsted weight hank of yarn using 2 ounces of the new Ashland Bay roving.

Both sides. I used one ounce of the hollyberry then went straight into the ounce of cassis. So my plan is to do the rest of the roving in the same way so I get stripes/sections of each color when I knit it up into a sweater. It will be random & oh so fun!

I have been flitting from project to project since I finished the shortnsweet on Saturday. While watching the season finale of 24 (the Chinese?? On a ship to bangkok?? oooooh, I am so excited….) I got quite a bit of a sock done in stockinette. I was knitting so fast! Had the needles been wood & not bryspun I very easily could have started a fire with my cotton sock yarn!  Melissa, when it happens I will videotape it for you, okay??  If Survivorman can do it, well hell, so can knitters!

It came in the mail today, tonight will be an evening of spinning! Yippee!!!

Those are 1 ounce bumps. Cute little guys aren’t they?

I do believe I am going to try to spin up a sport or fingering weight yarn out of these. I tend to spin sockweight but I do think I will try for a little thicker yarn.

I have no clue what I will knit with the yarn but It’s going together in stripes so we’ll just see how it turns out!

 

Not only is it sunny but I have a finished object too! I am loving how fast the projects from the Happy Hooker are! So nicely written. Here is the finished short cardigan, Short ‘n’ Sweet in coffee bean brown Elann Sonata cotton.

I will do a picture of it at the wedding with my dress but for now that is what you get to see! I do like it, the pattern was easy to follow & the yarn, I love this yarn! It’s the same brand that I used for my Kyoto sweater. It does pill a little but with the lace pattern I won’t have much of that happening! I did leave off the sleeves. I think the cap sleeve effect without the full short sleeves is more of what I am going for.

Total cost for the sweater was $8.91, using 4.5 balls of yarn. I love it! I wanted it to go longer but it didn’t fit well with my dress line longer than it is. So I may just make myself another using the same brand of yarn & make it nice & long to wear with jeans, skirts, etc.

I was so happy to see the sun come out last night before setting that I took some photos to share with all!

And some happy sun on the purple flowering hedge

And just because, a sunny weed

Rain, gloom, cold, paradise. I am not one that complains about housing prices in our lovely paradise. But today amidst rain & gloom I am complainin’ damnit! Come on! I suppose I shouldn’t complain, it gets me more time to wear hand made lovelies but at this point I am thinking I need to start knitting fun, cotton, lacey items just in hopes that it will bring on the sun!

I have a wedding coming up in a couple of weeks & I have the perfect dress that shows off the not so perfect complexion of acne on my back. So I am crocheting a short sleeved lace cotton coverup to go over. I will have it done tonight & then post pics of me wearing it with the lovely dress! So happy to have a 2 day project that is not a sock!

 

Okay, I admit it, there hasn’t been much knitting happening here at the andreasen household. I spent yesterday building a new cage for Fuzzy to go in the boys room. With Rose living outside Fuzzy has been pretty lonely so being with the boys will get him more playing time.

This morning Tracy dropped by on her way on her way out of town. She is spending a long weekend at her parents house & Christy’s wedding in Tahoe. I think that will be a lot of fun for her! She left me with all the ingredients to make another batch of lotion bars. This time I am using a massage bar mold and a truffle candy mold for the perfect shaped bars.  You can see the bars on the right have grated orange peel in the bottom of the mold. I think the texture will be nice & add just a soft scent of orange.

Of course those two molds didn’t hold all of the liquid so I did some more bullets & used an ice cube tray for the rest. Then I busily scraped all molds & the pan & the measuring cup I used for dispensing for every last little bit of this magical lotion! Into my little tin it went! Okay, the tin isn’t so little, it’s 2″ across & an inch deep.

I also am working on other items, some are gifts so they cannot be put on film or talked about just yet! Graduation gifts are a difficult thing to come up with. And just to remind everyone, please do a circular gauge swatch in pattern when you are coming up with your own sock pattern! I had to rip another sock completely out last night because the eyelet rib pattern I did it in stretched out almost an additional 3 inches!! Only 44 sts and it would have fit an 11inch calf!! No thanks! By the way, the recipient of said socks has an 8inch calf, not happenin’! So thank goodness the sock was only 2 hours worth of work before ripping. sigh. I guess I am going to have to start over & I am considering using a different yarn & pattern completely to better match the recipient anyways. It’s all good, it works out well in the end!

Tonight is knitting & man do I have alot of stuff to bring, Thuy!! I will bring both yoke sweaters, my spinning & I don’t think I will bring any other knitting. I have books to return to Mary too & I don’t want to forget those! I will hopefully be there around 6:30, maybe even earlier if George is home sooner than that!

Thuy is defenitely right about the crappy weather being the reason for a lack of APAD’s lately. I can’t get inspired to do any photography! I don’t have anything new or spectacular blooming around here so I can’t do an nature pics. I am in no mood to do any self portraits & the kids are just about as grumpy due to the gloom! Alas, no apad’s. I may just have to bring my camera tonight to knitting to get some fun group pics to post on the sbknitters site. We’ll just see about that! I always forget to pull out the camera & take some shots.