Walking in the Land of the Upgraded!

Ok, so I am upgraded. We now have one Windows XP up and totally running. Actually it was running by last night, but, you know, you have to give it 24 hours to really set. I also have new office set up and new wordperfect. I am a happy girl.

Also, what makes me a happy girl is this. Herzeleid picked my yarn again for a treasury spot. I feel so honored. Also, she now has a very beautiful knitworthy blog to go visit, which is here.

With that I think I am going to call it a night. I am dyeing new and fabulous things on Wednesday, including Superwash/Tencel yarn, 2 new natural silk yarn, and a new alpaca lace yarn. We will see how things turn out!

Socks & Babies!

I have been a busy girl and I am feeling so very accomplished. Here goes:


Here are the long awaited baby booties. Aren't they adorable? I just love the little silk ribbon that I found to accent the little brown babies. This bitty booties are going to a co-worker of my husband's. I hope that him and his girlfriend enjoy them.


Here they are flat. They even count as Sock A Month 3 socks because they have heel and toe construction. Now on to the next pair!

Though speaking of baby things, I am throwing a baby shower for Sarah at Knot Another Hat April 29th. Anyone who is in the area is more than welcome to attend. Me and my partner in crime have a lot of good things planned, so it should be a blast. If you can't attend, but would like to send something for the baby shower, just let me know, my email is in the sidebar. I know how much I like to knit bitty baby things and this time it is with a purpose.


One more thing for socks is I finished one sock in Mine Don't Touch! I love these socks, they are so very soft. They are knit toe-up from Wendy Knits pattern. Though I finished the top off by doing a single crochet around the top. It is so cool. I can't wait to start the next one and finish off the pair.

I am only posting this right now because I may be unavailable temporarily. I am upgrading to Windows XP. Yes, XP, not Vista. Vista kinda scares me at the moment. So, Peninah should be happy that I will no longer be using Windows 98, even if it is second edition =P

Ribbon is up!!!

I am so excited! All of the ribbon yarn is up in my etsy shop. The only bad news (at least for you guys) is that my mom came by and bought up 8 of the skeins. She showed an interest in knitting, what's a girl to do? Although I am pretty sure that she will just hang them up on the wall...but one can always wish, right?


I finished the headband out of the ribbon yarn. I have decided that I am going to sell 2 oz skeins & 1 oz skeins. A 1 oz skein will make a headband and the pattern is free with the purchase of a skein. A 2 oz will make either a scarf (which is a free pattern with the yarn), 3 headbands or one of these lovely Ribbon Swimsuit Bags:


I am also very proud to present my Ribbon Swimsuit bag. I am so happy with how it turned out. It fits my swimsuit perfectly and has plenty of room for my bottle of sunscreen. This is the perfect accessory for summer fun. It took only a few hours to complete and I can't wait to try it out this summer when the sun comes out. The pattern is available in .pdf & in paper.

Oh, yeah, one last thing, I finally got the Entrelac scarf/shawl pattern up. I actually have 2 patterns. One for the shawl, which is exactly like the one I made, 12" x 90". Just in case you want to make one too. The second is actual scarf size, which is 6" x 60". Good luck to you all and happy knitting.

A Finished Object or Two

I have been working on so many things lately!


Here is finished object #1. I actually got it done last week, but apparently I am not very good at taking pictures of myself. So, I finally got my husband to take pictures of me this weekend. This is actually an early morning photo shoot. This morning, to be absolutely correct. I don't think I was totally awake yet either. Anyway, specs for this baby are as such. I managed to make this entire hat out of 2 oz of my Lavendersheep Twist yarn. That's right, 1/2 a ball. There couldn't be a better value than that! It could also be made out of any other worsted weight yarn. I designed the pattern because Knot Another Hat really needed an earflap hat pattern. It is for sale in my Etsy shop in paper or in .pdf download. It is knit top down on size #8US needles. It was a lot of fun. So much fun that I had to force myself to put it down and get some other work done. This hat is perfect for getting a head start on next year's Christmas gifts.

Here's finished object #2 I have been working on. It's a pretty summer scarf. It is very lightweight and makes the perfect accent to any summer outfit. Perfect for friends and family that love scarves. I knit this out of 2 oz of my nylon ribbon yarn. I just have 2 more patterns to work up for this ribbon and then I should be able to put it all up in my shop. I just need to figure out how big the skeins need to be before I sell them.

I also have baby booties to show, but I need to put the ribbon through them and then they will be ready. So, soon they will be posted.

Interesting Website: Bring Amy Singer to Portland! This is a really cool site where people can actually request performers and such to come to their area. Amy Singer looks like the only knitter on there so far, but I'm sure that if the word gets out that more would join in. Not to mention that it would be really awesome if Amy Singer did come to Portland, so follow the link and request that she comes to visit us here!

Finally I will leave you with this awesome picture of the Gorge with fog. The white layer is the fog on top of the water that looked really eerie and cool when we went to Loops n' Hoops weekend before last.

Shop Update

Everything has been posted to my shop!

I have posted up my tencel/merino sock yarn and the long awaited Knee-High Sock yarn. Everything is priced by weight. I am very excited about the knee high sock yarn because of its versatility. It would rock as a pair of plain knee highs or as a pair of those awesome Eunny Jang entrelac knee-highs. It would also work for a pair of socks for the man in your life with extra large feet. My brother has wears size 13s and it is quite an undertaking to make him a pair of socks or find yarn for him. Then there is also the option of two pairs of medium size socks. The possibilities are endless. So, go and check it out. Hopefully I will get my patterns done soon and have even more yarn to post up.

ETA: My skein of Day at the Fair in Tencel/merino was added to an Etsy Treasury in homage to Lime n Violet by herzeleidknits! How cool is that?

Sneak Preview

I was hoping that on Friday I would have posted up all the lovely stuff that I had dyed, but it isn't quite dry yet, so I will have to post it on Monday. I can't do it tonight, because my husband and I are going off to a Blazer's game for Loops n Hoops. Yay!!!

So, instead I am going to give you a sneak preview of some of the stuff I am hoping to do for the shop in the near future:


My first plan is to release this lovely twist yarn. It just takes the dye so beautifully, I love it. The only thing holding me back from putting it in my shop is I am designing a little pattern for it.


Here is the very beginning of the pattern. I am just so excited with how it is knitting up and how very soft it is. I think I might actually have to keep this one for me.


Next up I am going to design a lightweight scarf pattern for summer. Something a little exciting that is light enough to wear on those warm summer nights.


Out of the same ribbon I want to design super fast and easy headbands for summer wear. I have a really awesome idea for a headband that would look really cute and be a lot of fun to make. I have also thought about making bathing suit bag out of this yarn, what with it being 100% supersoft nylon. What do you guys think?

I still have some other yarns that I will be experimenting with as soon as I get my order. Still no word on my sock yarn, but the sock yarn I do have will definitely go up on Monday.

As an added bonus I will give you this: If you are a huge Shaun the sheep fan, like I am, you have to check out New Shaun the Sheep TV Show. Thanks to Krafty1 for the awesome link!!!

Etsy

It is so really really cool. Etsy now has a widget for the sidebar. Now there will be a sample of the items that I have for sale in my etsy shop now on my blog. Widgets are awesome!!!

I Dye Yarn by the Mountains

I just discovered the blog She Knits by the Seashore, because she has left a couple of comments on my blog. What is really cool about her blog is that her husband has Crohn's Disease like I do. What is even more cool is that her husband is participating in a bicycle race called Get Your Guts in Gear that helps raise money for Crohn's research. Also, their cat, Charlie, has Crohn's Disease and has volunteered to be a spokescat for their drive to raise money, he can explain it much better than I can, so here is where you can find more about it. I think it is really awesome and I am hoping that I can save a bit of money so that I can put it towards their cause.


Then to show that I actually do dye yarn by the mountains, this is the lot that went down to Knot Another Hat yesterday. It is all hanging very prettily at the shop, which makes me very happy. I do have a bit of yarn for my Etsy shop, but I am going to hold off for a couple of days before posting it. I have a couple of ideas for patterns for my yarn that I want to write up and post when I post the yarn. Also, I am going to do a bit of sock yarn dyeing for the shop as well. I don't have regular skeins, but think knee high sock yarn instead.

I do have a bit of other shop news as well. I have made the decision that because I am now selling my yarn through 3 different venues and the added cost because of the wool shortage I am raising my 100 gram sock yarn up to $18 a skein. All of my other prices will remain the same.

Finally, I do have some very good news. The Entrelac Scarf is done completely. I last left off when I blocked it. Well, after I blocked it I gave it a single crochet border. This took up quite a bit of the scarf and it did pull in a little by the time I was done. So, I blocked it again. I just love it when things are nice and neat and all blocked. This picture is to give you an idea of just how long it is against me and my 5'5" glory.

This is how she is likely to wear it. Other than I think this was wrapped loosely around 3 times and she plans on wrapping it only twice. I do think that it will be very nice and warm. I like it enough that I am going to finish off the pattern for this in the sidebar so that those of you that want an entrelac scarf/shawl of your own can have one. I think I am also going to post a pattern of a smaller scarf that is 6" x 60" for those of you that would like a regular sized scarf. I think that is all the news I have to report today. I hope everyone out there is staying warm and dry and getting lots of knitting done.

Living in a Snow Globe

Yesterday we had the strangest weather. One moment it would be snowing the next it would be sunshine. It was just like the world was being shook like a great big snow globe. I, of course, took photos to document.


Here it is when it is snowing. Those great big flakes starting falling down and soon the ground was covered in snow. I even called up my husband to make sure that he would drive safely on his way home, but then it looked like this 15 minutes later:



So then I had to call him back and tell him not to worry. The only trouble is that it did this all day. Snow, Sun, and then rain. It finally settled into snow when my husband came home, but it was a wet snow. (Don't you just love pictures of the neighbor's house, I know I do!)


The one awesome thing, though, was that it left the hillside across the river looking like this. It did really make my day seeing such a cool thing.


To cheer myself up from all of this weird weather I spent the day skeining yarn and dyeing. Here are the fruits of my labor. Three rows of yarn. Most of it is going to Knot Another Hat. Which brings me to a little sad news. Apparently I will be out of my 100% superwash sock yarn until the middle of March. The supplier I go through gets their yarn from Australia, which is having a huge drought right now. That drought means that the little sheep are dying from heat exhaustion or not producing as much wool. Sheep don't produce as much when they are under stress. I am hoping that summer will soon be over there and the sheep will get their much needed water. I will keep you guys posted on what I hear and when the yarn will be in again.

Coming Soon: New Yarn for the shop and a tutorial on How to Paint a Mountain Sunset.