Monday, May 26, 2008

Sock!

I wish I had more knitting to show you, but I have half a pair of socks!

I am getting an early start on the Summer of Socks 2008.

It's a Monkey in Daffodil Lorna's Laces .
I added two repeats on the leg to make it longer and I still had a fair amount of yarn left over.

Happy Knitting!

Oh, I also bought my wedding dress this weekend. I can't post pictures of that because M might read the blog and see it. I got it at a new store in Edgartown, MA on Martha's Vineyard and it was serendipity, pure and simple. We were walking around town and I spotted a wedding dress in a window of a store (I knew there was no wedding dress store there last summer!) and they were a wedding dress store. It's called Tulle and the owners are great, no pressure at all. I walked in and they were selling their samples and there were two I loved, both of which were in great shape, they only opened in January. They were both strapless, A-line with natural waists and both 50% off. I walked out with one of them!

I hope anyone else who is looking finds their dress soon and they love it as much as I love mine.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Purchases

I totally forgot to tell all of you about the purchases I made at New Hampshire's Sheep and Wool Festival.

I got some beautiful alpaca. Over 600 yards of sportweight in this tan color. It will become a fabulous wintery scarf and hat set for me at some point.
I also got this incredibly soft half LLama! half merino yarn to make someting for M. It is so soft and wonderful.
I also got some alpaca sock yarn for an incredibly decent price. It will be so warm. As you can see, I had to stick to the neutrals to get mostly environmentally friendly yarn. Its ok though, I love these colors.

Speaking of Socks, I have a head start on my Monkeys. I am through the number of repeats (6) the pattern calls for on the leg, but I like a longer leg than this on my socks and I think I have enough yarn, but I am just not sure of whether I will have enough yarn to do more repeats. What do you think?
A close up of the M's. If I made this in blue and white and red they could be Mario socks! Yay Nintendo. We've been playing MarioKart at least once a day on the Wii.
Does it loks like I have enough yarn to do more repeats on the leg?
This is what the kitty did all day.

We had the inspection on his (and ours) new home yesterday! Oh, yeah, we are also buying a townhouse!

Happy Knitting!

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Two FO's and some serious progress on the Chuppah!

I finished two projects, blocking and all!

I finished my first overall design: the Lace Slanting Scarf. I picked the stitch pattern, picked the yarn and the number of stitches and then the edging. I am very satisfied with the outcome. It has one error, but it shows it is homemade and I am ok with it.

I've never thought of myself as an artistic person, but I guess designing this shows I have some of my Mom and Brother's artistic talents even if I can't draw a lick.



I also finished the Take II of my brother's hat. It's the same pattern but without mistakes and hopefully won't come apart like the last one (because the skein had a knot tied in a break in the last one). This skein did not have a knot and so it should be ok, so I hope it doesn't come apart as the top.

The top star pattern is really pretty, but my brother likes it mostly because it is warm. I am just happy he likes it.

I am 1/3 way through on my Chuppah I think. I went from the cone on the left to the cone on the right. I used up an entire cone but am not halfway through the entire Chuppah, so I bought two more cones, I will need at least 3 for the body and if I do an edging, I will need 4.
It's too big to take pictures of anywhere but the floor, the bed, the couch or the ironing board.

I started a pair of Monkeys, but I only have an inch on them so far so no pictures.

I am getting a head start on participating in the Summer of Socks. I'll be participating to use some of my sock yarn stash. It's about 10 or so pairs of socks at least and I have only ever knit one pair. Here we go!



Happy Knitting and I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day.

New Hampshire Sheep and Wool

Yesterday, M and I went to the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival to do something fibery related (for me).

There was so much to see and some of buy! I stuck to my natural/environmentally friendly fiber choices even though there were some gorgeous yarns that could not come home with me as much as I wanted them to.


On the way up we saw this truck: those guys must have been having fun somewhere very muddy!
There were tons of animals everywhere . This guy was very friendly and very soft.
He also has a face like an Ewok. Now we know where George Lucas really got his inspiration.

There were some unusual fibers there as well, like this Paluca (which is very expensive btw).
This llama was not so interested in my attentions or making for a good photo op.
I'm not sure what this person is trying to say, because a vanity plate isn't randomly chosen. Self-indulgent, annoying attempt at irony maybe? They could just be having fun, but still, it's a little irksome for some reason.

There was yarn, including this stuff: talk about eye-catching. I have a fear of clowns so the bright colors wouldn't work for me, but I know there are plenty out there who will love this incredible variety of color.

There was Buffalo yarn again (also very expensive) and not as soft as I remembered.
There were so many more sheepskin rugs than I remembered from last year.

There was Llama yarn.
There were adorable kids stuffed toys everywhere!
There were so many sheep and surprisingly, I did not see one goat!

There were dogs, we watched the dogs for a good while. We both really want a dog.
The dogs were hearding sheep and these sheep were uncooperative.
We saw a lot of this because the sheep seemed to like the spot right in front of us! Not a bad deal!
There was beautiful yarn I wanted and couldn't have because of my eco-yarn buying pledge.

There were exhibits set up.

There was sheep shearing, this sheep is bahing as she gets sheared.

She's naked, somebody call the cops!
Ok, I lied, I did see one goat.
I saw really cute sheep.

I saw really cute bunnies for sale.
I saw more sheepskin rugs.
This is one box out of 100s, 1000s of fiber I saw for sale. If only I spun.

There were more exhibits.

I bought stuff too but that has to wait for the next post, pictures need to be taken, ok?

HAPPY KNITTING AND HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Sunday, May 4, 2008

I've been lazy and busy!

I went to three Red Sox games this week! Wednesday, Thursday, and today. Yesterday we went to a housewarming party and this past week I had two days of training. That was the busy.

The lazy? Not wanting to put in a lifeline on the chuppah so I didn't knit on it until today.
I am knitting on it now!


Now, I have finished the knitting on my scarf! It's off the needles! It needs to be blocked.
However, another person from my knitting class liked the combo of the stitch pattern I chose and the yarn, she is knitting one as well! I'm very flattered someone liked my own design choices so much!

I didn't have enough yarn to do fringe, so I did a picot edge which should really flesh out in blocking hopefully.
I'm thinking of writing the pattern up and putting it up on here or ravelry as a free pattern, what do you think? I would probably leave off the picot edging and leave the edging decision up to the knitter-fringe might make this really pop, and I didn't have enough yarn.
HAPPY KNITTING!