My pretties...

Friday, April 25, 2008

I got some things in the mail yesterday. I have been anxiously awaiting them and they finally arrived! Of course it's roving from my favorite dyer, Funky Carolina. If you like what you see, go check her shop, she's having a Mega Sale and I'm having a seriously hard time resisting. Quick, go buy it all so I won't!

There was a little baggie of Scrappies. These were apology scrappies for a delay in shipping. They are cute! Not sure what I'll do with them yet, but I like them.My March Club fiber, 4 ounces of Rambouillet in Hyacinth,
4 ounces of merino in Crazy Light, I love this one,
and 4 ounces of superwash merino tencel in Hydrangea.
Other than that nothing exciting at all is going on. I've been slacking a bit, I feel badly about it. Monday I have to ship out a few things that are a bit late in being sent. I'm using the weekend to pack them up.

I stayed home sick from work today. I have had the worst stomach pains since yesterday. I think the chicken I ate may have been bad or something. It's horrible. Unless I'm laying down it hurts. So I haven't done much. Except take care of the kids. Speaking of which, Nick managed to cut his ear open pretty bad today. He was trying to sit inside one of those big plastic storage tubs, and tipped it sideways. He landed with his ear hitting right on the edge of a big wooden trunk. It didn't bleed immediately, he was laying on me for a minute crying and I lifted his head up to look at it and it was dripping. So that was an adventure. Poor thing. Took him about a half an hour to calm down, and grandma brought him over some juice with tylenol in it to help him, and he saw the juice and goes "Mama I happy!" lol.

So it's been a long day and now I'm going to go sit and watch tv for a bit, and spin. Haven't been knitting much, just haven't felt like it. So spinning it is.

Road Trip!

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

So yesterday was my big road trip to Seattle to see the Yarn Harlot. I had arranged to have a friend ride with me who I found on Ravelry, because I knew that I did not want to drive to or brave Seattle alone. So Allison met me at 11am to begin our journey.

About 4 hours later we were in Seattle and our first stop was Weaving Works. Allison had heard good things, so it was natural we wanted to check it out. It's a pretty decent sized store. It was easy to get through the aisles and see everything. There were tags on the shelves near the yarns with prices. I gravitated mostly to the sock yarns obviously. They had Koigu, but what caught my eye were two little skeins above that on a shelf full of Claudia Hand Painted.Strawberry Latte. I had wanted this color when The Loopy Ewe had it, but restrained myself because I would have bought more than that and didn't want to spend a bunch. I immediately grabbed them. Then I wandered around a bit and found Allison. She was very excited about the store but wasn't sure what to get.

So with some advice from the ladies working there (who were the friendliest and nicest I'm pleased to report) we went a block over to a little restaurant called Costa's. Greek I imagine. It was amazing food. I had a fettuccine alfredo with chicken and it was the best I have EVER had. Literally. Allison said the same of her lunch as well.

We made a plan so she would know what to look at and we walked back over to Weaving Works. She got some Cascade for a bag, and some in superwash for mitts. We wound up all her yarn and we were done.

A good haul! We were both pretty happy with the purchases we had made. Myself especially in scoring a color I loved and in my restraint at only buying that. (Of course, I did look but there was nothing else that called to me lol.)

Off to Third Place Books (which by the way is huge and a really cool bookstore!) we went. We were a little over an hour early for it. I went and bought my book to have it for the signing, and we found seats. Both of us settled in for the wait, knitting and chatting. Finally it was time!

She talked for about an hour, and had a question and answer part at the end. I was laughing for 90% of the time that she talked. So much so that I was close to tears! She's a great speaker, the facial expressions, impressions, and everything add so much to what she says.
After that it was book signing time, and I got Allison to take a picture for me. I held the sock! (I also look ridiculous in this picture lol, but the other one she took my eyes were half closed!)
Here is a picture of my Swirls sock, I did about half of that before and during the presentation. I love it so far. It's a great pattern and I will for sure be making it again.
Then we braved the ridiculously long drive home. It took around 4 hours to get to Spokane, and after I dropped off Allison it was about 45 minutes to get home. The suicidal deer were out in full force or I'd have been home earlier. I fell into bed and was out pretty much immediately. I slept until 1pm today. So now that the kids are napping, I'm off to knit on the couch and catch up on the DVR.

Oh happy day!

Friday, April 18, 2008

Today I finally FINALLY don't have any secret knitting to do. Oh man oh man it feels good. I loved knitting it, but the pressure was a bit more than I could take lol.

So that's done, and now I really don't feel like knitting the slightest bit. AT ALL. I will probably work on my Serendipity sock (though not today cuz god my fingers hurt) since I left off on the heel and it's been sitting here on my desk staring at me. And maybe start a new pair to take with me on Monday. What's Monday you ask?

YARN HARLOT IN SEATTLE!!!

Yes, I get to go. My manager changed up the whole schedule for me so that I could go. So Monday morning I will be driving on over with a ravelry buddy. Should be fun! We are stopping at a yarn store before hand and then heading over to the bookstore. I reserved a copy of the book so I can get it signed.

Yes. So I'm super excited. Hopefully I remember my camera. And my ipod, and knitting...

So now I'm gonna go relax. Maybe spin. I have no pictures sorry, but next time I post I will.

"Here's the mail it never fails..."

Friday, April 11, 2008

I've been watching too much Blue's Clues...

(those of you who don't will have no idea but there's this little song that goes:

Here's the mail it never fails,
It makes me want to wag my tail
And when it comes I want to wail....
Mail!!!! (complete with happy hands and facial jestures)

Something like that...)

So I have a few goodies to share. Ok more than a few. You know me...

Two batts from Enchanted Knoll. They are black superwash merino with sari silk and glitz in them and OMG gorgeous drool beyond amazing stuff. This first one is Phoenix, which has red and gold silk and glitz.And this one is Araucuna, which is green.
They are a LOT more subtle in person, the flash really doesn't help that. They look more black with a slight sparkle, and I like that. I also thought that it might be rough, or scratchy with the stuff in it but it's SO NOT. I adore it. I think I may ask for a custom order of black with red and pink or something...

I also got a custom order from Pigeonroof. Sort of... She keeps a list of stuff people want, and when she can she dyes it. Well last week she listed three superwash bfl rovings in colors I had asked for. I love them!

This one is Black Magic,
Vintage,
and Calla.
I know the bottom two look similar and they are. The calla has more orange and purple in it. Vintage is more pink and green. It will be very interesting to see them skeined...

Lastly I got my April sock club from Keegan Lane! The pattern is super cute, I love the yarn, and she sent some cute things in the package, including a needle case that she sewed up herself. It's got a little dragonfly! I love dragonflies. (And hummingbirds...)
She also included a set of Pattern Tamers that she had a spare set of for me. They are basically ribbons with magnets inside, and you use them to keep your place on charts and stuff. The two magnets stick together and stay in place which helps you keep your eye on the right line of your chart, etc. Very cool! I think I may need to go buy another set...
Lastly, today I ran up to Michaels after work. I had a 40% off coupon and had been wanting to get some watercolor paper to try some Gouache I found in my art box. Little did I know the brand I usually buy for sketch books was already on sale. I also needed brushes (since all mine have been used for acrylic, and Chad ruined some...) and the Loew Cornell (single brushes) were on sale as well, but I got a little pack instead. I haven't painted in a while (4 years?) and wasn't sure which ones I would want to use. Lastly I looked around and found a pack of 18 gouache colors. They are a different brand than the few I have, and probably cheap, but I think they will be good practice to see if I like it. If I do, then I'll get the better stuff.
With the coupon it was about 26 bucks which isn't too bad. I think I got decent stuff for a good price. I'm excited to try it out though it will have to wait until my test knit is done. I feel guilty even blogging when I could be knitting. I'm only halfway and have obviously determined I won't make the deadline of the 14th, but am hoping that I won't run over that much.

Not much else is happening. I'm trying to go see the Yarn Harlot in Seattle. It would be a five hour drive there, and then 5 back at night...but I missed her last time and I'd really like to go. Chad, knowing how badly I want to go, has offered to take that day off to watch the kids. It means missing two days I normally work, so I won't know until I talk to my boss on Sunday...

Mostly it's because I work Mondays and it's on a Monday. So if I had to get up at my normal 4:30 am to work on Monday, I'd never make it all day to Seattle and home (which I wouldn't get home till 2 or 3 am most likely). Then I normally work on Tues morning, which also means getting up at 4:30. See how much that would suck?

So we'll see what she says. I am basically the only morning person, so I may not be able to...

Ok, off to knit and warm up on the couch. It's warm outside, but man is it freezing in here for some reason!

I'm a bad blogger...

Saturday, April 05, 2008

This is gonna be a quick one. Not much time for anything lately. Just my super secret knit that I'm working on. I did get my Sonne Wollmeise since the last post. It's soooo pretty and I think I might knit the Digitessa (Ravelry link) socks with it.I also got a bunch of TY beanie babies off ebay. 15 of them for just over 15 bucks including shipping. I mostly got them because they had the lamb, the one in this first picture. Alexis has had this one for a long time, and the one she's got is nasty from sucking on it when she was littler, and chewing on the butt tag...

I also got Magic the Dragon there, on the left, which is one I've wanted since I was a kid and it got too popular and I never got it. It's super cute. There are two cats, the one on the right is one I had when I was a kid, I think my mom has it with all my stuffed animals I saved from back in the day. The far right is a Clydesdale horse I believe, it's pretty cute. Besides Magic which is MINE allmine, and the lamb, I'm saving these as gifts for the kids for random times.There are two puppies, a floppy frog, and a bunny, oh and a chameleon hiding on the left there.
A tiger, lobster, sloth?, and a cardinal.
And this cute squirrel who came in a box...
So other than that, I'm just waiting on things to get here. Some club fiber, a sock club kit, and two orders of fiber, one of which is waiting for me at the post office right now...

Now off to feed the kiddies dinner and knit my little fingers off!