Category: Blog

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.

 

 

Finally the sun is out here!! I am going to go spin in the sunshine & absorb all the wonderful light while I can! If only it were warm enough for a skirt, ah well! My day has brightened!

I am considering selling all, I do mean all, my scrapbooking supplies. I have a lot of papers, patterned in fun colors for kids scrapbook pages. Ebay is where I would sell them unless I can find someone that wants to buy them here in town. I don’t have a lot of fun tools & gadgets but I do have paper coming out my ears! Some 8.5″x11″ but mostly 12″x12″ packs. All Close to my Heart. If you, or anyone you know, might be interested email me chauntel@verizon.net and I will get pics or descriptions sent out to you.

I sold a few stamps on ebay not too long ago, that is how I was able to get the roving that I am chomping at the bit waiting to arrive in the mail.  Being broke is no fun!

This weather is something else that is no fun. The lack of sunshine is having a serious effect on my brain, Vitamin D defficiency is not a good thing. We haven’t seen sunshine out here for almost 2 weeks. It did peek out two Sundays ago for a few hours & there was one clear night last week but that doesn’t count at all! At least those of you in Santa Barbara are getting little peeks at the sunshine, it’s not clearing out here on the little peninsula of Winchester Canyon in Goleta at all! What a downer.

I spent yesterday cleaning up, moving things around to not feel so cluttered in the living room so I didn’t get any knitting or spinning done at all. I thought a trip to Ross with Tracy would boost my spirits but we couldn’t even joke about the ridiculous shoes & items we normally laugh & scoff at. sigh. That is just sad that Ross didn’t even lift the spirits. So today I am going to try to think positive, not focus on cancer, mania or any of the other crap & just live in the moment. A moment of sunshine would be nice but I won’t let the clouds get me down any further, damnit!

I don’t normally post when I feel this way but I am feeling the need to spread the misery I guess, sorry ’bout that! If you see the sunshine today, think of me please!

 

Friday & Saturday I spun my little fingers off. I almost finished the first roving dyebatch, Tracy was too impatient to see it balled up so I have just a tad bit of roving left to spin. I decided not to ply it once I pulled the ball out Sunday morning. It had relaxed the perfect amount for sock yarn.  

 320+ yards sockweight singlespun

 I decided to cast on first thing Sunday. I really, really thought I could stretch the yarn far enough for a pair of ankle socks. Here is the socktop.  I used a pattern out of Stitchionary for the eyelet ribbing. I love it! Unfortunately 6 hours later I realized that I didn’t have enough yarn for even ankle socks. With a foot of 5.5 inches knit I ripped it all out. That is okay, it was a nice knit & the yarn makes me happy so I will either ply it with another lightweight yarn & use it for something else or I will just dye myself some more roving (as soon as I get some natural roving) and just make myself some full socks.

Happy late Mother’s Day to all you moms out there! Here is what I was gifted, but will not receive for another week or so, for Mother’s Day!

 I can’t wait to have it!!! My huge, purple chair and a half has given me back trouble for the last few months & I am just tired of the behemoth thing!

I also got lots of amazing handmade gifties from my chillins. Stationary, crocheted jewelry (out of lion brand woolease thicknquick, not the daintiest of yarns) and other sundries. Overall it was a great Mother’s Day!

Here is the second dye batch of roving from Friday.

I started spinning it Saturday night & then a little bit after ripping out my sock last night. It’s a really fun yarn! I think it’s going to be plied with some fantastic lettuce green merino

 

 

roving I have to make a worsted weight yarn. I also got a really fun sampler of new for spring Ashland Bay rovings off Ebay.

 Gorgeous yeah???

I also got just an ounce of this Hollyberry roving.

 I only got one ounce because I am afraid it’s going to get muddy when spun up thinly. I will play with it & then decide if it’s worth buying more. Samples are fun!

If you have never seen, felt or used the handpaintedyarn.com merino roving you should check it out. It’s a fantastic roving for the price! Gorgeous colors & SO SOFT!

Shout out to Erin & Thuy for reminding me how fun spinning can be! Thursday night will be rather fun I think!! I am hoping my new rovings will be here by then so I can mess with them.