Category: Blog

 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.

I don’t usually make fun of others knitting. It’s a kharma thing. I know I can come up with some funk sometimes so I keep my mouth shut about others’ funk. But this time it’s not only the knitting but the model. Please, please, go HERE…..and have a good chuckle at the makeup, hair (wigs) and lack of overall common sense when it comes to clothes, accessories, etc. Oh & the knitting is a good laugh too!

The weekend was really great! Father’s Day was nice, all the kids had gifts they made for George and I bought him some new oil painting books. The weather could have been better, it was actually misty & wet when we left for church.

Saturday we spent in the backyard working. We had to cut down some massive Bird of Paradise trees so that socaledison can get to their pole & do an inspection. There is one tree that is butt up against the pole we cannot cut it down.

I do love these plants/trees. They have the largest birds of paradise flowers. They measure 14″-18″!

On the knitting front I worked on the fan & feather shawl, it is up to 405 stitches. I am on row 81 of 189. It’s slowed down quite a bit already, I wonder how long those last 20 rows will take?? Hours per row I am sure!

Today is the official first day of summer break at our house. We started our day with cleaning & chores then Tyler decided he would make lunch for everyone!

He made sandwiches also but by the time I got there to take the picture they gobbled them all I up. Carrots, hot dogs, graham cracker cookies, rainbow goldfish & pretzels.

Isn’t that so sweet? AND they didn’t even fight me on the cleanup & chores this morning! WHERE DID MY CHILDREN GO?? Who are these kids?? I love it! There is a possibility of keeping my sanity this summer after all!

 

I thought I would explain why my tulip sock looks SO different than the original knitpicks sock pattern.

Side by side you can see that mine is nowhere close in color scheme. I used what palette yarns I had on hand. By the time I got to the foot of the sock I figured out that although I like how the fair isle tulips look it was unrealistic to think that in santa barbara I would ever be cold enough to wear them on a regular basis. And I have cold feet a lot! I have been known to wear socks in the summer here. I chalk it up to having bad circulation.  I thought to go along with the theme that 4 row stripes would work nicely for the foot. I do love how they turned out. I did a little dot row on the toe so it looks a bit like a seam & it ties in the stripes on the foot to the fair isle on the leg. I also don’t like the toe they used so I used my normal decrease & grafting toe.

I have decided that I will make the second sock but then no more socks with this fair isle chart. It’s too bulky for me. But I do believe that it would make the cutest mittens ever! So that may be christmas for some family members that live where it’s cold enough to actually wear mittens!

I started the lace fan & feather shawl from Meg Swanson’s A Gathering of Lace.

It’s circular, started from the center out. Laceweight merino wool pot surprise yarn from www.handpaintedyarn.com, 2200 yards. I actually won it from their ebay store about 2 years ago & have tried a number of projects with it. None have been the right project for this yarn. This project is!!

I am using size 5 needles, as suggested in the pattern. Bryspun dpn’s for now, then I will move up to a circular 20″ boye needle probably. Depends on what I have free. The denise needles may be a bit more easily handled with the wool. Boye tend to get so slick with thin wool yarns. The last thing I want is to have stitches come flying off one needle end! Especially once they are packed on there tightly!

This is defenitely not a travel project. This baby is getting it’s own home right next to my chair.

Here are a few short row heels that I like. I prefer a wrapped method but this is a great all around sock pattern. Techguy Socks

This is my favorite short row heel pattern, Pom Squad, & cute, fast socks.

Magknits seems to have some of the better short row heel patterns. Have fun! I am going to cast on for a lace shawl I decided. We’ll see just how far I get on the thing before getting too bored with it ;o)