Ok, silly me!

Ok, so I am confused! I somehow lost a week! I thought it was the 1st today instead of the 25th. My husband just informed me! Still, the sale stands through the month of August. I think I am going to go take a nap before I lose/gain any more time!

Sale!

It is the beginning of a new month, so that means a new yarn of the month is on sale in my shop!


I decided to go with the Silky Worsted yarn! It is the same yarn that I am using for my entrelac scarf. I am nearly done with the pattern and then it will be available for free with a purchase of 2 skeins of the Silky Worsted Yarn. In fact I am just waiting on finishing the scarf so that I can take photos for the pattern. Though if you want to buy your yarn now, before it is all gone, I will send you the pattern as soon as it is ready!


Another big sale thing is I have been adding new items at ridiculously low prices to the Sale! page of the website. I am adding new items there all the time, so make sure you take the time to visit it! You never know what you might find there!

Lastly there is one other special on the site that I have yet to advertise and it has to do with shipping:

• If you are in the US or Canada then there is free shipping when you purchase 4 or more items!
• If you are anywhere else in the world then there is free shipping when you purchase 6 or more items!
• If you are local then local pickup is always free on any number of items.
  
• Patterns always have free shipping anywhere in the world!

I hope that everybody has a great weekend and that you will all enjoy these sales and specials!

Urban Camping

So, we didn't quite make it camping this weekend. We were both tired and it was like 1pm and we still weren't packed up. So I called my mom instead and we took our supplies over to my parents and had a bbq instead. I even took pictures, but for some reason the camera has decided to hide from us. We know it is somewhere between my parents house and ours, so I know we will find it eventually. The big thing that made it urban camping is that we experimented with roasting marshmallows over the bbq. With all of the fires happening around here there is a fire ban, so we don't think that we could even have had a campfire. Which isn't that the whole point of going camping? Anyway, the bbq worked pretty well to roast marshmallows. A few of them even instantaneously ignited without ever touching the flame. Luckily those are my favorite kind!

Since I can't share with you our outdoor adventure photos, I'll share a couple of projects that I just finished up!

First up is another baby sock for my OFFF booth! This one is out of my Tencel yarn. I just have a silky sock left to knit and then I will have a full set of all of my sock yarns knit up! I really love how the Tencel knits up. It is a little shiny and very soft. I know that any baby foot would love to have a pair of these socks, not to mention those of the adult variety.


My other project I finished up is this pair of girl mitts! I just love them! I have been procrastinating on finishing them. For the last 2 months the only thing they needed was the fingers. I finished them in about an hour. Which is definitely a tsk tsk to me! The pattern is my Girl Mitts pattern and the yarn is my Superwash Sock yarn in Color Provence. I can definitely see myself wearing them this fall. One of these lucky mitts will also be on display at my OFFF booth.

Website news: I have added a couple of new things to the site. I have changed the yarn page so that yarns that are available have a color picture and ones that are sold have an undyed picture. So fitting I think! I have also added a couple of items to the sale page. I should be adding stuff everyday, so keep a look out for new things!

Christmas in July!

Two new patterns from Gardiner Yarn Works are now available in the shop:


Two brand new Stocking Patterns! I think they are a great way to get a head start on all of that Christmas knitting. Not to mention, you only have to knit one, so no second sock syndrome! The top one is the Telemark Stocking and the bottom one is the Glendalough Stocking!

Anyway, I am off in the woods this weekend with my sweetheart to do a bit of camping! Knitting around the campfire sounds like a perfect summer time hobby to me!

Fire on the Mountain!

It seems to be that time of year again when all the fires seem to break out. This year, though the fire is towards Mt Adams. A good thing for us because we have not only have plenty of miles of land between us, but we also have the Columbia River between here and there. Though that probably isn't such a good thing for my friends that live on that side of the river.


I first noticed the smoke cloud when I was down knitting at Knot Another Hat. That place is a hub of information! At first our group thought it was simply a thundercloud coming over the hill. However, with different customers coming in we soon learned that it was a smoke cloud. From the direction I worried that it was actually Mt Adams blowing ash out, but a couple of phone calls from me to my hubby and from friends to the shop we soon learned that it was a forest fire in front of Mt Adams. More customers came through from Portland saying that they could really see it when they drove in. For more info I found this handy dandy video off of The Oregonian's website.

Since all the air has been filled with smoke the past couple of days from the fire I have been doing more indoor things, like knitting and spinning. I have been working away on this lovely entrelac scarf. It is knit out of my Silky Worsted yarn in color California Poppy. I am about 50% done with it at the moment. I adapted my entrelac scarf pattern for worsted weight, so it will work with this scarf. My plan is to offer the pattern free with a purchase of 2 skeins of the yarn. I have a lot of this yarn dyed up, so it should be available in the shop soon. I am nearly through the first ball of the yarn, so I know it will definitely take 2. I think the finished measurements will be 6" x 72", so plenty of scarf to wrap around once or twice. I like this yarn a lot. It is a little nubbly from the tussah silk. It just has this soft cottony feel to it that I know will be nice and warm come this fall and winter.

Flickr Meme

I have seen this Meme around on a bunch of different blogs and I thought that I would join in. Things have been busy here in the Fiber Garden, but very good. I am getting caught up on a bunch of things, which makes me very happy!


a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name? (Yvonne)
2. What is your favorite food? (Fish & Chips)
3. What high school did you go to? (Hood River Valley High)
4. What is your favorite color? (Purple)
5. Who is your celebrity crush? (Colin Firth)
6. Favorite drink? (Sprite)
7. Dream vacation? (Provence)
8. Favorite dessert? (Gelato)
9. What you want to be when you grow up? (Mother)
10. What do you love most in life? (Blair)
11. One word to describe you. (Colorful)
12. Your flickr name. (LavenderSheep)

1. Yvonne De Carlo, 2. ecola fish & chips, 3. Mt Hood over Valley, 4. The Glowing Barn, 5. colin firth_pride&prejudice, 6. Rinfrescante....Refreshing...Refrescante, 7. Old Town Menton, French Riviera, 8. Afternoon tea @ St. Mark's Square, Venice, 9. Portrait of love, 10. John Blair Bridge (circa 1880), 11. Aurorus Reflectus Colosseo, 12. Dazzling Sunset Tencel

Let me know if you decide to play along. I think it is a lot of fun!

Technical Difficulties

It seems that my shop is down for right now. I have contacted my "tech support", so hopefully it will be up and running again soon. I'll keep you guys updated on anything I hear!

Update: It appears that everything is up and running now. I'm still not sure what happened, but at least it is working!

LavenderLamb Sock Kits!

Finally, photos, materials and everything all came together so that I could assemble the really cool LavenderLamb Sock Kits! I have knit a ton of these bitty socks! I warn you they are highly addictive and a whole lot of fun!

This is the Panda Silk that we saw earlier. Unfortunately I haven't made any kits with fancy yarn yet. All of the kits are made from extra yarn I had accumulated from my original Superwash Sock Yarn! The stuff is really soft and I think perfect for little baby toes.

These are made from Panda Sock! Some of the colorways I have available in the kits have only ever been used in custom orders or from me playing around with different color combinations!

This sock is made from my new Superwash Sock Yarn! All of the blockers are made by me out of double thick craft foam! Some of them are all one color and some are one color on one side and a different color on the other! Make sure to check them all out!

I think this might be my last new product update for awhile. I still have plenty of yarn to put up in the shop. You know, gaps to fill in and such. I am working on a special Entrelac scarf pattern specifically for one of my yarns, but that is all I will say for now. You can take a peek at my ravelry projects to check it out! I should have a post about it later and maybe some more works in progress.

Test, test...a couple of yarn tests...

Yay! Now that I have had access to my computer I could do some pretty photo editing! I did some testing with some of my new yarns. For my tests I ran all of the samples through the washer and dryer with a load of jeans and towels. Believe me if it doesn't felt through that it won't felt through anything! First up: Superwash Sock yarn!


Ok, so I remembered to take photos after I got the samples wet, so that is why the first one was a little stretched. Still I think it works for our purposes. I measured each sample before I washed them and after. The superwash sock yarn is 100% superwash merino wool. The superwash did bloom a little, but not a significant amount. It neither felted nor grew in size. The yarn became a bit softer and squishier. Next up: Panda Silk Sock Yarn:


Panda Silk is 52% Bamboo / 43% Superwash Merino Wool / 5% Combed Silk. It bloomed a little and filled in, but not significantly. It remained the same size and retained the same characteristics of the yarn before it was washed. It really is a pretty yarn that should hold up to a lot of wear! Last of all: Panda Wool Sock:



Panda Sock is 46% Bamboo / 43% Wool / 5% Nylon. It definitely had a bit of felting. However I don't think that this yarn will felt down significantly smaller than the original size. I am sure that adding a couple of sts to your sock would more than make up for it. The finished sample is really soft and fluffy. The stitches are still visible and easily pulled apart by stretching the swatch with my fingers, as in the swatch still has plenty of give and flexibility. The bamboo and nylon part of the yarn doesn't felt at all. I feel the same way about it that I do about the Silky Sock. The yarn becomes much softer after being washed and would be nice and warm to wear. I also think that it would wear well over time and make for a very sturdy sock.

Overall I am very happy with the three new yarns that I chose! I think they will make somebody's feet very happy, too!

Gardiner Yarn Works!

I thought about all sorts of sappy titles to this post, but in the end I thought I would spare you all from my bad jokes and go with something simple! Plainly put, Gardiner Yarn Works patterns are now available in the LavenderSheep Shop!!!!




I am just so excited to be able to carry them! Chrissy Gardiner, the owner and primary designer, has had her sock patterns in the last two years worth of Interweave Knits! Both Chrissy and Donna, the lovely ladies behind Gardiner Yarn Works, are amazing people that I am so glad that I have had the opportunity to get to know. Along with the Gardiner Yarn Works pattern line I also received Caffaknitted patterns. So go and check them all out. I have paired them up with my yarns for your enjoyment!

Happy 4th of July!

Wow! It has been a pretty busy week! I had all sorts of posts planned for you guys, but unfortunately fate was against me. What happened is I uploaded a bunch of photos of things that are going to go up in the shop and here on the blog. Then I cleared off the photos on my camera, like I normally do. Then my computer stopped working and smoke started coming out of it! It was scary business. Thankfully I have my new laptop, thanks to my hubby, so computer-wise I wasn't stranded. The trouble was that I hadn't had time to transfer the photos between the two computers. So for the last week or so I have been without those photos. Thankfully my wonderful techie husband figured out that it was the power supply that had burned out and it hadn't effected my hard drives. So he got me a new power supply and my computer is good to go.


I thought I would try and get caught up on some of the projects I have finished up lately. To start with I finally finished up my husband's skull socks! I had so much difficulty with too small and then too big with this pattern that I finally gave up and turned the leg into a baby hat! My husband's legs are 11.5" around and this managed to be too big at 12" around. I figure it will fit a small newborn or a preemie. The pattern was adapted from Hello Yarn's We Call Them Pirates Hat Pattern. The yarn is Lana Grossa Cool Wool 2000 in Black and Cream. I have promised that I will make the We Call Them Pirates Hat for him instead, which I think is much more doable.

Next up is another pair of LavenderLamb Socks. The photos of all of the kits I am going to put up were one of the things that were stuck on my hard drive, so they will hopefully be up in the next week or two. I have another project I am working on for the shop that should be up before that, so stay tuned for updates. These were made from some leftover yarn for one of the ladies in my social circle that was expecting a girl. She had the little one this week, so I was so happy that I got them to her in time! She just loved them. This photo was taken by my wonderful friend Amy, who is now moving up to Seattle. I am really going to miss her! However, if you are in the Seattle area and need a really awesome photographer make sure to check her out!


Last project on my list, which was a very quick knit, is this little monster I knit up for a friend's son. He was just turned 3, so I thought it would be perfect. The pattern is Middle-Sized Monster from Mombot Companion. I knit it out of some leftover Nashua Superwash yarn that I had in the stash. The only thing I did differently was I knit the eye instead of using pre-made felt. Let me know if you would like the pattern for it!

Ok, I think that is everything for now. I hope everybody has a wonderful 4th of July and a great weekend too!