Happy Anniversary!

Today is my 5th wedding anniversary, so in honor of it I thought I would put up this meme.

I was tagged by Froggin' Knitter back in May for this meme:

2 things you compliment your husband on while in his presence:

1. His beautiful curly hair/ how cute he is.
2. The way that he helps around the house.

2 compliments you give about your husband to others:

1. He does dishes. This apparently rates very highly among people that I have told.
2. He looks out for me.

2 Traits you married him for:

1. His hair.
2. We are both very goal oriented and have similar ideas about what we want to accomplish in our lives.

2 days you cherished most being together with your husband:

1.Our wedding day. 3 days before I had my first surgery and had no idea that I had Crohn's, not to mention I only weighed 105 and my size 8 wedding dress (more like a 4 or 6) hung off of me. He married me and took excellent care of me during that 1st year. More than I could have ever imagined.

2. Every day! He is a great man and I love him so much. I cherish every day that I have with him.

2 Material things you would give your husband if you inherited a fortune:

1. A house where he could have an office with subflooring, where he could have all the tech gadgets and such that he could ever wish for.
2. A trip, just the two of us, to Europe.

2 things you would miss most if he left for 2 weeks (strangely, this one could happen, since Google loves to ship their guys all over the place to visit other locations):

1. Him sleeping next to me at night. I found this out when I was traveling and we were apart before. I am slightly afraid of the dark, but when he is there I'm not.
2. Having him to talk to and give me a hug when I need one.

2 things that crossed your mind the first time you met your future husband:

1. I wondered if I had hurt his feelings. The first time I really noticed him was when these 2 girls tried to tell me that he wanted to know if I would go to Home Coming with him (we met in high school and I had just moved back to Hood River at the time). I said no, but that was because I had a firm belief that if a guy was too chicken to ask me out himself then he wasn't worth going out with. I felt really bad afterwards, but was a complete intravert at the time. Come to find out the girls were just being mean and he had no idea it was going on at the time.

2. I later actually met my husband to be when I took a computer programming class. I thought he had really cute curly hair and wanted to run my fingers through it, but never actually dared to do it until we were engaged.

2 favorite dates:

1. Going out for Halibut Fish & Chips in college and then going for long drives to get out of "the city."
2. Going to see Love Actually in theaters for the first time.

2 funny, odd things you love about your husband:

1. Hobbit feet. He has red hairy feet that reminds me of a Hobbit, but not as bad as the movie ones.
2. He is totally amused by completely ridiculous things on the internet, such as the badger song, Magical Trevor or the llama song.

2 places you have lived with your husband:

1. Eugene, OR.
2. Hood River, OR.

2 favorite vacations:

1. Day trips to Newport, OR
2. Camping last summer.

2 people to tag:

I'll leave it open to whoever wants to do it, just let me know if you decide to in the comments.

Black Sheep

Black Sheep Gathering was awesome! The only trouble is I was about an hour from home when I realized that I had left my camera at home. We were just too far to go back and still be able to keep our schedule, so I took pictures when I got home. I didn't end up getting as much as last year because I have a ton of stuff to spin up.




Well, I did have to get this little bit. It was dyed by one of the Twisted Sisters, Sandy Sitzman of Woolgatherings to be exact. I love her stuff. Traditionally I would get some of her stuff every year and spin and knit my mother a pair of socks. I'm not sure if it will happen with this though. Just look how pretty it is! I might just have to keep it for myself, we shall see. I also managed to see a copy of their new copy of The Twisted Sisters Knit Sweaters. It is so gorgeous, I had to sign up for my own copy signed by all 10 of the Twisted Sisters and Lynn Vogel herself. I'm not sure how to get on this list unless you see them in person. I do know that they will be at Oregon Flock and Fiber in September.



The Blue Moon booth did me in! I just love their new Silkie yarn. It is so pretty! The ball at the bottom is my first ball of Tofutsies, which Woodland Woolworks was having a sale on for $13.50 a ball. I just had to have it and try it out. As an excuse that Blue Moon skein on the far right was a mistake skein and was on sale for $12.50, so I couldn't leave it there all alone. Also, some people that have summer birthdays may see a bit of this yarn....but that is all I'm saying for now.


Blue Moon also really made me laugh with their bags this year. I thought this was hilarious, which goes to prove how easily entertained I am.

Here is some other yarn to drool over. When I got home this lovely yarn was waiting for me. It is the same yarn that the Yarn Harlot was knitting her colorwork cardigan. I even went through an entire German site to order this yarn, with the help of Google Translator. I must say that the process was pretty smooth and my yarn arrived quickly and safely. It just seems a little awe inspiring to me that these two skeins will make an entire cardigan that will fit me, at least hopefully.

I haven't been able to spin that much lately, but I was able to get this done. It is black wool with a multi-color sparkle mixed it. It is absolutely gorgeous. I named it Aurora Borealis. It is 4 oz 133 yards and is for sale at Knot Another Hat.


Finally, I have a finished object to share with you. This is the bonnet to the Perlemor pattern from Dale of Norway. I knit this with Dale of Norway Stork on 0s and 2s. It was incredible to knit, as all of their patterns are. Have I mentioned I'm a collector now? I actually have had this hat done for about a month, but I was waiting until I saw Sarah's little one before showing it off here. I ended up meeting up with her and Destiny's boys at a local park where the hat was perfect for keeping her head protected from sun and wind.

New Things!

Lots of things have been going on lately. First off two new sites that you must check out:


The first is Knitting Daily. I love this site so far. They have a ton of free patterns to sort through and fascinating stories about knitting. I think this is a great knitting community resource. The very best part is that it is free! So, if you haven't signed up already you should go and do it!

The second is Ravelry. I got my invite last week and it is incredible. They are adding people all the time so if you haven't signed up for the waiting list you should go do that too. I have been spending lots of time uploading all of the information for each one of my yarns, then uploading pictures to flickr, then to Ravelry. It is a lot of work, but it will be so awesome once it is all up. If you are already on Ravelry make sure to list me as a friend and check out what I have put up so far. I also have a design page, so I will try and get my designs up there soon too.

So, onto some new shop things for me. Introducing 2 new yarns.


I have now added a superwash sport yarn to my shop. Woolgirl got first dibs and is carrying it here. I love it so much. It is a very round yarn and is super fluffy like my other superwash sock yarn. It is perfect for those socks you want to whip out on 3s in no time at all.


The other yarn that I am introducing is Peru. It is 50% Alpaca/30% Merino Wool/20% silk. It is a very nice luxury yarn. Very soft and perfect for getting that head start on fall and winter knitting. I think they would make really nice mittens, hats or cozy scarf.

I also have 2 new colorways for sale right now, Monet in lace & fingering sock and Raspberry Espresso in Tencel blend Sock yarn.

I am currently working on getting a custom order form ready on my website (check out the new design). It will make it so much easier for people to pick their yarn and then pick their color so I can custom dye it. I have so many colors and so many different yarns now it is hard to put up a skein of everything. I will let you guys know when it is up and running.

Progress!

For all of the time I have been working in the yarn shop these last 2 weeks, I really haven't gotten that much knitting done. I will show you the progress I have made:

One Forest Canopy Shawl all done and blocking:


This is a close-up of the edge: Sorry about the photos, the light is terrible today. It is much much prettier in real life.

It is a really awesome pattern and I am now totally in love with lace. This is made out of Mountain Colors Weavers Wool Quarters Color Huckleberry.



I also made some progress on my Sockaplooza 4 socks. Look a little over 1 repeat! There will be 3 repeats in the cuff and then I am debating a little about what I want to do for the foot itself. How did I manage this much knitting? Not during working hours, that's for sure. The shop has been busy with online orders, lots of customers, and boxes of yarn and patterns. I must say I love my job very very much, even with the lack of knitting time! I actually got time to knit by being a spectator at my husband's D&D game he is now attending. It is a bunch of guys from his work that get together. It is actually a lot of fun to listen to and really awesome for getting some knitting done. Even if the guys did think that my mosaic chart was an interesting map to a dungeon I was working on. hehe

Speaking of my husband, we have some good news:


He has actually been hired! Well, true start date is in early July. I just love the hat. In case you are wondering it is New + Googler = Noogler.

Coming Soon: New Yarn & New Colors!

Yarn Harlot!

I will try to keep this all in order. I tried to take a few pictures to chronicle my evening, so let's go:


This is my haul! I went to Lint & to Knit Purl. Lint, because my friend Julia hadn't ever been there and she was headed in that direction. I love Lint, because it reminds me a lot of Knot Another Hat. It is very cozy, with comfy couches and a pleasant atmosphere. If I lived in Portland it would be my LYS. At Lint I got the skein of Helen's Lace and the two skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock. I'm not sure when I will get to them, but I love them. Besides, I couldn't pass up the Helen's Lace, it was only $44 there, where as everywhere else it is $50+. I'm not sure if they were getting rid of the last that they had or what, because there were only 4-5 skeins to choose from. Either way, I lucked out and snatched it up.

I love Knit Purl too, but for different reasons. I love them because they carry a lot of exclusive yarns that my LYS doesn't carry. They have Habu, Handmaiden, Shibui, etc... These aren't yarns that I am going to purchase every day, but for those special occasions, such as my birthday, it is totally worth it. From there I got two skeins of Koigu (in the middle) and that lovely periwinkle skein on the end is Sea silk. I just love to pet my seasilk. I now need to pick a pattern for it. *happy sigh* I also got the Dale of Norway book from them. I have decided to become a collector of Dale of Norway, because they keep discontinuing their books. I figure if I someday want to knit their adorable patterns that I will need to collect them now before they are all gone.

Anyway, back to the Yarn Harlot:


This was the room at 6:30pm, the Yarn Harlot was supposed to talk at 7:30pm. Thankfully we managed a chair or two in the back and had our knitting to tide us over. Apparently, some people had been there as early as 4pm to get seats. I just don't think I could have done it, especially since it would have cut out all of my yarn shopping.


Stephanie's lecture was, as always, wonderful. It was hilarious, but yet made me think. I think that is why we all love her so much. After her speech, we were all supposed to line up to get our books signed, but a few of us milled around and chatted first. This is a candid shop of the Tigard Knitting Guild group. I'm not sure of everyone in the picture, so if I miss you please shout out in the comments. I know there is Chrissy in the foreground (green top) and Katrina in the background (blue top). Also, Amanda is back behind Chrissy with her beautiful new baby boy. He was incredibly quiet throughout the whole proceeding.

I also saw a couple of other people from my college days there, which was quite surprising.


Julia and I decided that since we were the very last people in line that we weren't going to stand through the whole thing. Mainly it was Julia, who was brilliant enough to notice that they had replaced all of the chairs with a couple of wooden benches. So, we knit and waited and finally we got to talk to the Yarn Harlot ourselves. I got to hold the sock and Stephanie is holding my Sockaplooza 4 sock in progress. Stephanie is amazing and actually remembered who I was from her last visit and who Sarah was. Sarah couldn't make it, for obvious reasons, but I did get a book signed for her anyway.

Here is a close-up of the sock in progress. It is knit with Meilenweit solid color Navy and my own LavenderSheep Mountain Sunset. The pattern is Maze from the mosaic section of Sensational Knitted Socks.


Lastly, I gave a skein of my LavenderSheep Chocolate Raspberry Tencel Sock yarn to Stephanie. I hope that she will really like it. I didn't make it onto the blog this time, but that is very alright. Stephanie linked to Knot Another Hat in this post as a link for the Knitting Pure & Simple Neckdown Wrap Cardigan, which is the cardigan she just finished. I have been busy this week filling orders and keeping up with it all. It has been incredible. Both tiring, but yet exhilarating because so many people from all over the place were visiting us and buying patterns. If you are looking for the pattern, it will be in stock this next week. You can also order now and we will ship it out to you just as soon as it comes in.

Happy Birthday!

A big Happy Birthday out there to all the June Babies! That even includes me! Today is my 24th Birthday!

My husband got me a much wanted copy of Victorian Lace today. Now I can start that summer of lace I was hoping for. My mother got me the cute sheep figurines that both have knitted garments.

Then my parents worked with Blair to get me this awesome ironing board. I have practically drooled over it every time we have gone into Costco. What is really awesome about this ironing board is that you can practically shake it and it will not move. I have this fear of my iron falling over or falling on the floor, which is completely founded with my old ironing board.

Wait! There is more. On Friday I get to go see the Yarn Harlot! So I am going to make a day out of it. I am closing KAH early and heading out of town. Itinerary is as follows for anyone who wants to join me:

• 2 pm: close KAH
• 2-2:30 pm: Leave Hood River
• 3-3:30 pm: Reach Portland
• Eat a late lunch at McMenamins in NW Portland
• Visit the Button Emporium
• Visit Knit Purl
• Visit Lint (if there is time)
• See the Yarn Harlot

Sounds like a perfect Birthday outing to me!

Though I am not the only birthday girl around. I knit this for Sarah's daughter CK, who just had her birthday. All of it is my original design. I have had this idea for a long time of creating a doll of some sort, then designing outfits and such for it. The outfit is also my original design. Some day I will have my own children and not be able to dye during pregnancy and nursing. So these are back up projects that will someday keep me busy. I am just puttering for now. So, I do plan on publishing this pattern and I have a few more ideas up my sleeve too. Though, it may be a couple of years before I ever get to them.

Here is a close up of the ballerina slippers. The rabbit is knit out of Eco Wool Color #9012 Chocolate/Taupe and the outfit is knit from Bamboozle Color #205 Crystal Pink.

One last thing I want to address is the anonymous comment that was left on my last post. Actually, I don't understand it. Basically the person was asking about masculine sock yarn. I have several options already available in my yarn gallery that I can easily dye up. Also, I am perfectly willing to dye a custom skein in any color or set of colors that anyone may choose. That should more than take care of any man sock yarn.