Yarn – Ms Lindz – My little corner of the internet

Housewarming, Starlight, and New Yarn

Posted on October 7, 2009 by mslindz

Friday, we made the final big grocery store run before the housewarming party Saturday.

Fridge Stuffed Full

Saturday morning, I had to do the final run to the grocery store for ice and when I returned, the first guests had arrived. It wasn’t long before we had a house full of people, though! In the end, we had a lot of food, a lot of company, and a good time. I think Rock Band was being played most of the party!

Rock Band: Matt and Jerry on vocals, Caitlin on bass, Andrew on Guitar, and Billy on drums

I haven’t had much interesting knitting going on. I’m still working on Starlight and have pretty much put everything else aside to work on it. I’ll be leaving for Rhinebeck in a week (wow, time flies!), so this takes priority over all other projects at the moment! I’m working on the second sleeve and I’m about 2/3 of the way through it. This weekend I’ll be sewing it up and blocking it. That reminds me… I still need buttons!

Starlight Sleeves

Since I don’t have that much knitting to show, how about I show you some lovely yarn that arrived recently? Laura gave me a Loopy Ewe gift certificate for my birthday (it was last Friday) and I purchased a skein of Sea Silk (150 g) in Sangria.

Hand Madien Sea Silk (150 g) in Sangria

I’ve already decided what I want to do with it, too. I’m going to make the Waves of Grain scarf. I still need to pick out beads for it, but I’m considering not doing beads at all or maybe contrasting beads instead of matching ones (maybe teal?).

First weekend in who knows how long that we have no plans! And it’s a three day weekend! Hoping to get some sewing done and finish the sweater up this weekend. Next week is a 2 day work week for me… then RHINEBECK!! 🙂

Current Projects

Another Decimal Setback, Knit Picks City Tweed & DPNs

Posted on May 21, 2009 by mslindz

Are you tired of hearing about Decimal yet? I am. I’m tired of looking at it too, but I want this sweater, so I keep knitting and frogging and knitting it again.

This morning I realized I’d screwed up the sleeve. I was working along with about 10 rows before joining it to the body when I realized the ribbing looked weird to me. It looked too short somehow. I pulled out the body and compared it side by side and I realized immediately what was wrong.

Do you see what’s wrong with this picture? The body is on the left, sleeve on the right.

If you can’t tell, it’s the ribbing. It’s supposed to be k1, p1 ribbing, but I did k2, p2 ribbing. Why? Who knows. Apparently I’m not so good at reading directions with this pattern and just do it without paying enough attention. I’ll be ripping sleeve attempt #3 out today. Maybe the 4th time is a charm? I feel rather dumb for making this mistake in the first place. I think I was just too tired or upset when I ripped it out last time and when I restarted it, I didn’t bother to look at the directions other then to see how many I needed to cast on. Oh well. I’m going to get this sweater done and it will be FANTASTIC.

Here’s what it looks like before I ripped it out. I definitely like the way it looks and fits, just need to fix that ribbing!

Recently, one of the lovely ladies in my knitting group placed a Knit Picks order and asked if I wanted/needed anything. I’d been putting off buying DPNs because I didn’t want to pay shipping for them and there wasn’t much else I was really interested in getting (not enough to get free shipping anyhow). I had been wanting to try out the new City Tweed, but only wanted a skein or two to try, so I decided to get two skeins of City Tweed DK in Morning Glory and 4 sets of DPNs (1, 1.5, 2, 2.5).

The City Tweed is pretty soft and the color is what I expected it to be from the photos on the website. I don’t know about you, but with Knit Picks, I’ve sometimes purchased colors that look QUITE different from the website, so I’m always pleased when it looks very similar to what I saw online. After knitting a number of pairs of socks with my US 1 nickel plated Knit Picks DPNs, I decided I really love them the best for socks, so now I have them in all the sizes I’d need (and two in 1’s because that’s the size I use most).

I don’t have progress on anything else to show today since I’ve only been working on Decimal. Hopefully the next time I talk about Decimal it will be to show the sleeves attached to the body!

Current Projects

$)&@^ Decimal, Mini Mochi Socks, KP Sock Club, and Needle Gauge

Posted on May 20, 2009 by mslindz

Do you recall what the Decimal sleeve looked like yesterday? No? Check it out here. I was all excited because I was nearly done with the decreases and almost finished with it. When I got home yesterday, I realized that the thing is simply too big. WAY too big. Big enough to fit around my body (almost) big. Seriously – it was HUGE. I decided I didn’t like it. In fact, I hated it and knew that I wouldn’t ever wear it with such gigantic sleeves. I took a deep breath and knew what I had to do. I took out my ball winder and frogged. Those keeping count will know that this is the second time I’ve frogged this sleeve. Ah well, I’d rather knit something that I’ll actually wear!

My first thought after frogging was that I’d just cast on a smaller number of stitches, but still make the sleeves 3/4 length. Then I thought more about it and decided that short sleeves might suit this very well, especially for wearing in the summer. So, that’s what I’m doing. I cast on the number of stitches I should have after the decreases and I’ll work the ribbing, 3 repeats of the bottom lace pattern, a few rows of the eyelet lace and then join it to the body. In my mind, I like how this looks, but we’ll see how I feel about it after I’ve knit it!

Here’s what the NEW Decimal sleeve looks like:

On the plus side, this shouldn’t take me very long to knit compared to the previous sleeve.

Today, as promised, I have a picture of my Mini Mochi socks!

If you look closely, you can see the green waste yarn where the heel will be. I’m guessing I could probably get a pair of socks out of one skein if I did the ribbing now, but since I have two, I’ll make the leg a bit longer first. I love working with this yarn and really like how it’s turning out. I’m thinking of doing a pair of striped socks with this yarn similar to the ones I’ve seen people do with Noro sock yarn. I think that would look nice. What do you think? Should I give it a go?

I do believe I’ve mentioned it here before, but in case I haven’t, I’m in a few sock clubs this year. Recently I received two packages from the Knitting Purls Indie Dyer Sock Club. One was the March shipment (it was late due to an error from the dyer and I offered to wait to receive my skein) and the other was from this month’s shipment. I’ve never knit with yarn from either of these dyers, so it should be interesting to see what I think. I’m always looking for new folks to purchase from and I especially love supporting independent dyers, so I knew this club would be perfect for me.

The March shipment was from Indie Dyer. The yarn is the Sock-it-to-Me base and the colorway is Flowers and Showers.

I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. Seems soft and I like the colors well enough, but we’ll see what I think once I’m working with it.

The May shipment was from Tempted Yarns. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Stacy’s yarns, so I was excited when this showed up in my mailbox! It’s the Good Grrl base and the colorway is First Spring Iris.

I love purple (one of my favorite colors), so it’s no surprise that I really like the color of the yarn. It’s quite soft and springy. I think it will knit up nicely. I haven’t decided on a pattern yet, but I’m looking forward to knitting this up!

One last thing to show you before I go is this fantastic needle gauge I got from KaratStix. It’s handmade from bamboo and absolutely beautiful. I love how it has the 1/2 sizes for smaller needles and goes from US sizes 0000 to 15 (also has mm sizes on it). Totally worth getting if you ask me. I’m always afraid I’m going to break my metal or plastic needle gauge and this is about 1/4″ thick, so no worries there.

Front

Back

It would make a lovely gift for a knitter, too! There’s other products they offer and they’ll even do custom orders (right now it’s a bit of a long wait, but TOTALLY worth it, IMO). The shipping was really fast, too!

That’s all I have for today. In the next few days I’ll be migrating my blog over to my own domain, so keep your eye out for a post about that in the near future (this is assuming things work the way I want them to, of course, but it’s coming SOON!). Happy crafting!

Completed Projects, Current Projects

Leyburn FO, Loot from MDS&W, Swedish Fish and Kai-Mei

Posted on May 7, 2009 by mslindz

First I’ll show you Leyburn, my recent finished project!

Pattern: Leyburn (My Ravelry project page.)
Started: April 24, 2009
Completed: May 6, 2009
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Mediumweight in the “Dixie Girl” colorway
Needles: US 2 Brittany birch DPN’s
Notes: I changed where the increases for the leg were because I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t realize I was supposed to increase the top of the foot before I turned the heel, so I did all the leg increases after the heel. By the time I got to the second sock, I admit I was tired of the pattern. I like how they look, but the leg is a bit on the big side and a little loose.

Now for what you’re really here for (you can’t fool me! haha) – what I brought home with me from MDS&W!

Starting on the top row, left to right: 1. Socks That Rock Heavyweight in Fire on the Mountain, 2. STR Silky mill end, 3. STR mill end (reddish orange), 4. STR mill end (light blue), 5. STR mill end (shades of yellow), 6. Zauberball, 7 & 8. Creatively Dyed merino/seacell fiber (two pictures), 9. Gnomegarden Fiber merino/bfl/angelina, 10. Gale’s Art in Crayon Box merino, 11. Bonkers in Deep Sea superwash merino, 12. Cherry Tree Hill mill end, 13. Cherry Tree Hill Lime, 14. Tilli Tomas Plie in Midnight Borealis, 15. Brooks Farms Mas Acero

Mostly sock yarn! I wasn’t really looking for anything specific for yarn. I did want to get enough yarn to make a sweater and I think that the Brooks Farms yarn will end up being the February Lady Sweater. I knit a lot of socks, so sock yarn makes sense to buy, especially with the two sock KAL’s I’m in on Ravelry AND the Summer of Socks coming up! As for the fiber I bought, I just tried to get some things I haven’t used yet. I think I managed to do that. Merino/seacell, merino/bfl/angelina batt (first batt!), superwash merino and merino (I’ve used merino before, but those colors!! I had to have it).

I did end up changing the color of the fish on the Swedish Fish Socks I was working on. I went with the Fuchsia and I really like how it looks now!

“O hai, we are pretty Fuchsia colored fish!”

I also started the Kai-Mei socks for the Cookie A. KAL on Ravelry. It’s a little further along then this photo shows, but it’s k3, p3 ribbing for the first 5 inches, so just imagine it a little taller.

K3, P3, repeat FOREVER! hehehe

Since I knit a lot of socks, you won’t be too surprised that I cast on another pair, but I won’t be showing a photo of them until they’re gifted (sorry!). If you’re on Ravelry, though, you can see them on my project page.

Going back to work next week, so I’m sure my knitting time will go down a bit, but it will be nice to get back to work after being out for so long. Should be interesting, to say the least!

Next time I’ll show you some recent mail I received :o)

Completed Projects, Current Projects

FO’s: Toe-Up Socks & Rainy Day Fingerless Gloves (plus other stuff)

Posted on April 28, 2009 by mslindz

First up I have two FO’s to show you!

Pattern: Generic toe-up pattern, 64 stitches around (My Ravelry project page.)
Started: April 11, 2009
Completed: April 21, 2009
Yarn: Knitterly Things Vesper Sock Yarn in the “Sweet Water” colorway
Needles: US 1 Knit Picks metal DPN’s
Notes: None

Mmm… stripey goodness

Pattern: (Not-so) Rainy Day Fingerless Gloves (My Ravelry project page.)
Started: March 10, 2009
Completed: April 23, 2009
Yarn: Knit Picks Palette in various colors
Needles: US 4 Addi DPN’s
Notes: The only change I made to these was to not do the rain. Turns out that I didn’t get a color that was dark enough to be rain. When I started to do the rain, you couldn’t really tell the difference between the sky and the rain, so I decided to just not do it at all.

No hiding anything here! Check out the inside. I’m happy with my floats 🙂

This past Saturday I went to the Upper Vally Fiber Festival in Troy, OH with two friends from my knitting group. It wasn’t very big, but I managed to find a few things that I decide I couldn’t live without!

The fiber is BFL from Twisted Stitches (I think – the card they put in the bag had 2 shops on it) and the two skeins of sock yarn are from Earthly Hues and are dyed using all natural dyes. The purple is 70% merino/20% bamboo/10%nylon sock yarn in “Gutsy” and the yellow/pink is 70% merino/30% seacell sock yarn in “Sunrise.” Haven’t decided on patterns for either yet, but they’re really pretty and soft!

While we were there we saw these adorable baby goats. They were all tuckered out (probably from the heat, it was about 90 degrees F!) on our way out and I took this shot of all of them napping in the shade.

Last week, I got this fantastic package from Laura containing two skeins of Socks That Rock, a skein of Lime & Violet Mermaid Sock, an awesome Cookie A sock pattern and a cute card.

Prezzies in the mail!!

Thank you Laura!!! 😀
As for projects I’m currently working on… I’m making quite a bit of progress. I’ve been doing a lot of knitting on Decimal and have started the first sleeve after finishing the body.

This was taken a few rows short of being done with the body.

First sleeve.

Since I finished the stripey socks, I cast on another pair using one of the skeins of Socks That Rock Laura sent. The pattern is Leyburn and it’s working up pretty quickly.

I’m working on a garter stitch scarf and Juno Regina, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of progress to show since I’ve been doing a lot more work on Decimal and socks then either of those. I also cast on for the Swedish Fish Socks, but I only have the sock cuff so far, so no interesting photo to share yet.

Alright, back to knitting with me!

Current Projects

Doing Better Each Day

Posted on April 10, 2009 by mslindz

About this time last week, I was on my way home from the hospital after surgery. The surgery itself went great (took about 2 hours total), but the first few days home were difficult. It was hard for me to move or do much on my own and I think the anesthesia didn’t agree well with me (whenever I slept, I’d wake up feeling nauseous), but I was walking pretty good and even went outside to walk on Saturday and Sunday. Matt went back to work on Monday and by then I was mostly able to do things on my own. He’s been home each day for lunch, which has been nice since I’ve been getting bored at home.

Tuesday my mom and sister came by and kept me company all afternoon. Wednesday some of my knitterly friends came by – Karen, Lani, Alita and Lisa. Lani was kind enough to bring some frozen meals for Matt and I, which was very much appreciated since I can’t do much housework or cooking still. Plus, the time with friends was great since I didn’t get to go to knitting group this week. My friend, Grace, stopped by Wednesday as well. She brought us dinner before she went to a yoga class. It was nice to have her come over and visit. Tomorrow Jessy is stopping by and I think my mom and sisters will be by this weekend, too.

Took a few days before I knit much after getting back home because I wasn’t feeling much like sitting up at first (mostly laid down and napped). Now, though, I’m back to knitting and I’ve been doing a lot of it! I’ll get to that part, but first I’ll show you what arrived in the mail just before I had surgery last week and since I’ve been home.

Last Wednesday, my Chevron Love Mitten Kit came in the mail from Knitterly Things. I can’t wait to knit these up! Should be a lot of fun even though I won’t be wearing them again until next winter. I got the “Tiny Dancer” kit. Irresistible combination of colors I had to have!

I ordered a pattern from The Loopy Ewe that was waiting for me in the mailbox when we got home last Friday. The pattern is Swedish Fish Socks. I already have some stash yarn in mind for it.

On Monday, I received yarn from The Yarn Bearer from the “Nightmares” sock club. This month’s theme is “Falling.”

I’ve really enjoyed being part of The Yarn Bearer’s club. The yarn’s I have received are beautiful! So glad I decided to join :o)

As for what I’ve been knitting… I’m still working on Decimal and it’s coming right along. I’m at the waist shaping portion. Seems like the more I knit, the less spittly this yarn is (though it’s still a bit splitty). I’m loving the resulting knit fabric, regardless of the splittiness of the yarn, though. The color, too!

I was working on the Baudelaire socks, but decided to rip them out. I had turned the heel when I decided I just didn’t love them. It was a combination of the yarn being a bit fuzzy/splitty and just not really loving the pattern. Wednesday I ripped them out and it felt liberating! Since I no longer had a pair of socks on the needles after ripping the Baudelaire socks out, I cast-on for another pair with the yarn I got Monday (above). I decided on the Marlene pattern by Cookie A. in the Fall/Winter 2008 issue of knit.1. I wasn’t sure how the yarn and pattern would go together, but I was pleasantly surprised with the lovely result.

Initially I cast-on using US 1’s, but I couldn’t get the sock over my heel after two chart repeats, so I had to rip it out. Went up to US 2’s and it seems perfect now. The pattern has been an easy and fun knit so far. I think I have 2 more chart repeats before the heel, so it’s even further along then the picture above shows.

Haven’t been working on much else. I’ve been spending a lot of time watching TV, online, and knitting. Of course I’ve been doing a fair amount of walking, too, since that’s a big part of my recovery. I have a while before I go back to work and recovering is my main focus. Each day I’m walking and doing a little more!

Completed Projects

Spring Forward

Posted on January 11, 2009 by mslindz

Oh how I wish it were Spring already! Seems this winter has lasted too long and I can’t seem to get complete warm at all. It hasn’t even really snowed and stuck around much yet and I’m already longing for spring! *sigh*

I did finish some Spring socks though! Okay, just the Spring Forward socks from Knitty, Summer 2008. These were a pretty fast knit when I actually worked on them, but they kept getting put aside for other projects. They are done now, though! I really love these socks. The fit and colors are great! I think this is the first time that I’ve really not worried about how the colors are pooling and striping and just loving them as they are. I love knitting socks!

Pattern: Spring Forward socks from Knitty, Summer 2008
Started: November 7, 2008
Completed: January 11, 2009
Yarn: Colinette Jitterbug, color 35 (Raspberry)
Needles: US 1 birch DPN’s
Notes: Didn’t make any adjustments to this pattern at all. Not even the toe! (It was already written as I would have done it!)

I am sad to report, though, that last night as I finished up knitting until I had to kitchner the toe, I broke one of the needles. This is the second pair of wooden needles I have broken in the last few months. I suppose I just need to switch to metal needles, but I really love knitting with wooden needles. The first set was Clover Bamboo and this one is Brittany Birch. Thankfully you get 5 needles in each set, so I was able to finish knitting each sock without much issue, but it just makes me sad. On the up side, I did get a pair of US 1 needles from Knit Picks in the order that arrived on Friday! I had lost the set I had and after looking all over for them, decided they weren’t going to be found. When I needed that extra few bucks to get free shipping, I figured I’d replace them. Guess I got them just in time!

Speaking of my Knit Picks order… here’s what I got:

These are the colors I will be using for the Little Bird cardigan (still waiting on the needles to arrive):

These are the colors I will be using for the Rainy Day fingerless gloves:

I also got size 1 DPN’s (as I mentioned above) and a chart keeper:

Here’s how you hold it open:

And here it is propped up ready to hold your place:

I think that’s all I have for today, but in my next time I will show you some more pretty yarn and the current state of the Hogwarts Scarf.

Current Projects

Dish Rag Tag, DVRs, the Outdoorsl, Yarn and a Sweater

Posted on October 14, 2008 by mslindz

First things first. I inteded to post this about the Dish Rag Tag last week, but forgot. So here’s the update about that first:

Last Monday (10/6) I received the Dish Rag Tag box. In the morning I checked the Delivery Confirmation Number on the USPS website to see where the box might be. The status was “Delivered at 3:45 am.” It was 9 am when I checked the USPS website, so I went and looked outside the door. No package. I figured that it was out for delivery rather than delivered anyhow, but no harm in checking! I knew it was going to show up sometime, so I didn’t worry too much about it. I went and had lunch with Matt and when I came home I found it sitting right outside the door waiting for me. I was excited to get it open and start the dish rag, but I was able to snap a quick shot with my cell phone before tearing into it:

Here’s what I received in the box:

Here’s the box all ready for a trip to the Post Office:

I didn’t get any sort of decent photo of what I sent. I only had two photos on my camera phone that I took and they both were very blurry! The box is now on it’s way to Emily and I’ve been checking her blog regularly to see if it’s arrived yet.

~~~~~

When I met Matt, he already had a DVR that he’d built himself. I never realized how convienent a DVR could be, since I never had any interaction with one before we met, but I totally love having one. We don’t watch TV regularly and prefer to watch it when it’s convenient for us, so having a DVR is absolutely fantastic. We also don’t have cable, but do have an antenna that gets more than enough stations with things we like to watch. The plus of having a DVR is not being tied to the TV schedule so that you don’t miss your favorite shows or get behind on them. Lately, though we were getting some really crap recordings of some of the shows we watch most often. Something needed to be done since not all the shows we watch are available to watch online. We finally narrowed down the problem to one TV tuner card that kept having shows with anomalies in them (weren’t even watchable).

We discussed the possibility of totally replacing everything in the DVR, but the cost was more than we are willing to spend right now, especially with vacation coming up the first week of November. Instead we agreed to some minor upgrades that are more reasonable right now: a new hard drive and new TV tuner cards. So, this past weekend Matt and I did some upgrading of the DVR. We went to Micro Center and purchased a Western Digital Green 1 TB hard drive and an HD HomeRun TV tuner. I think both of those things are really cool. The hard drive because it saves power and is more efficient and the HD HomeRun gives you a lot of options for how you have your DVR set up (great for future use when we can do the rest of the upgrades we’d like to do). Here’s a review that gives a little more detail on how it works (and here’s their website). SO.COOL.

Anyhow, the DVR already had three hard drive and three TV tuners in it. Hard drives: 500 GB, 350 GB, and 200 GB. Two of the TV tuners are Hauppauge and the other is KWorld. The first thing we did was move the shows on the 500 GB hard drive to one of the smaller ones. This was done because one of the smaller hard drives had the operating system on it and we planned on keeping the 500 GB hard drive in the DVR along with the new 1 TB hard drive we purchased, but the shows needed to be moved off of it so we could put Windows XP on it (two hard drives with no OS is not going to work!). After that was done, the DVR was taken apart, one of the TV tuners moved (the KWorld one), dust was cleaned out, the two smaller hard drives removed and the new hard drive put in. The HD HomeRun was easy to install and since it is a separate box, it’s hooked up externally (nothing needed to be done to the inside). Next came the hard part: getting it back up and running again! We ran into some issues, most of which seem to be video card related, but it took a lot of testing and tweaking to narrow it down to that. We haven’t figured out a solution for that just yet (other than buying a new one). The issue only seems to pop up when we try to “ask” too much of the computer or if it has to be restarted. The hardware part was easy, but the troubleshooting part was frustrating!
Everything seems to be working smoothly so far, but we’ll see how it goes in the coming weeks. I didn’t actually DO a lot in terms of putting it together or anything, I did LEARN a lot. DVRs are, in my opinion, quite easy to build and really handy to have!

On Monday we went to Sharon Woods just to get outside the house since we spent most of the weekend inside. I didn’t have my camera with me, but I did take some pictures with my camera phone that came out pretty decent.

When we came back home after the outing to the park, there were two packages waiting. One for me and one for us. The first thing that was opened was the package delivered by DHL addressed to me. To explain, Antonio from Malabrigo Ravel-messaged me asking for my address because he wanted to send me Malabrigo lace yarn in natural for free. I could only guess this was because I’d posted on Ravelry in the Small Bob group (cute little crocheted Bob dog) about not being able to find it and having to order from two online shops. At first I was a little wary to be giving my address to someone I didn’t know, but after looking at his profile and seeing him quite a bit on the Malabrigo website, I decided to give him my address. After a few days I forgot about it, but about a week later a package arrives address to me sent from Uruguay – from Antonio!! I was so happy to see the package and when I opened it I found 5 skeins of Malabrigo Lace yarn in Natural AND a skein of their new superwash sock yarn!! WOW!! I immediately sent Antonio a thank you note on Ravelry and just feel like I can’t say thank you enough. It totally made my day.

The other thing that came in the mail for both of us was the Radio Bookmarks from NPR. Matt had surprised me by doing a donation to NPR in an amount enough to get two Radio Bookmarks – one for each of us. The funny part was that I was thinking about doing the SAME THING the exact SAME DAY! What I didn’t know was that he got mine with PINK buttons!! Love ❤

Over the weekend while Matt was troubleshooting the DVR issues, I knit. I started a sweater and have made a fair amount of progress. I decided to do the Green Gable sweater from the Fall 2008 issue of Vogue Knitting with Caron Simply Soft. The yarn called for in the pattern is Wool Ease Thick & Quick, which is 80% acrylic, so I figured what difference with 20% wool make anyhow? Plus, I had three skeins of Caron Simply Soft in my stash that had no purpose and had the needles called for. It was a match all the way! I am really loving the pattern and how it’s coming out so far. Here’s the picture I took last night of my progress which has about a third of the body knit:

After knit night tonight, I have about half of a chart repeat to go to be done with the body. I’m making it a little longer than called for because I was a bit over a half of an inch off which I think would have made it too short in length. I think I’d much prefer a sweater that’s a little too long than one that’s too short! I haven’t been knitting or crocheting anything else besides that since I started it Saturday. Hopefully I’ll be done before knit night next week!

Completed Projects, Current Projects

On Birthdays and Yarn Things

Posted on October 3, 2008 by mslindz

Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to meeeeeeee
Happy birthday to me

Yesterday was my birthday! I’m now 27 years old, but in most ways I don’t feel like it. I got lots of birthday wishes yesterday from friends and even people I didn’t know! I had to work yesterday, but Matt came and took me to lunch. We went to the new Chipotle across the street from where I work which is actually opening today, but they had a free food day yesterday in preparation for their grand opening today. They passed out flyers to get in and I didn’t get one. We went over anyway and Matt had brought a crown and a sash that said “Birthday Girl” for me to wear. The lady that was collecting the flyers said she couldn’t turn me away on my birthday and let us in even though we didn’t have a flyer. As I went through the line, all the workers were saying “Happy Birthday!” to me as were a bunch of customers that were there! It was pretty awesome even though I was a little shy about it.

When I got home, we watched some TV, then we made dinner – baked potatoes with chili, cheese and sour cream and veggies. It was delicious! After that we watched the VP debate, which was quite interesting. Matt definitely made my birthday feel extra special and the celebrating isn’t over yet! This Saturday we’re having lunch with some people from the knitting group and in the evening we’re planning on going to Dave & Buster’s to play some arcade games. Then on Sunday we’re going out to dinner with my family. Not sure where yet, but I’ll pick something good. I’ll be sure to be wearing my crown and sash for all the festivities!

As for knitting, I recently finished the Pomatomus socks I was knitting, so here’s the run down:

Pattern: Pomatomus by Cookie A.
Started: August 27, 2008
Completed: September 28, 2008
Yarn: Cascade Heritage Paints
Needles: US 1 bamboo DPNs (4 instead of 5 because I broke one while knitting the first sock!)
Notes: I would have had these done faster, but when it came time to knit the second sock, it became my “TV project” (the thing I knit while in front of the TV only) so it took a little bit longer than usual. Great pattern and I’m sure I’ll knit it again!

In other knitting… I started a cowl and ripped it out before I even got a picture of it. I was using Cascade Heritage red sock yarn I have, but the fabric it was making was just a bit too loose for me, so I ripped it out. Now I’m going to make socks with the yarn instead. After seeing the Twisted Flower Socks by Cookie A. on Ravelry in red, I just had to make them, so I’ll be starting those soon! Here’s the yarn I’m using:

I’m still knitting away on Juno Regina. I’m at the part where it’s just knitting the columns of the middle portion for a long stretch, so I doubt that will be very interesting to blog about anytime soon. I do love knitting with the Malabrigo lace, though. It’s so very soft and buttery. Speaking of Malabrigo lace, I ordered the yarn to make the crocheted Small Bob (if you’re on Ravelry, you may have see this). Since it doesn’t take up a lot of yarn and I’ll have a lot left over, I decided to make up Small Bob crochet kits. The last of the yarn I was waiting on arrived today. Here’s all of it:

Since I needed to meet an order limit for the natural colored Malabrigo lace yarn, I indulged and bought a skein of Silky Malabrigo for me for a cowl. I love it!

I’m still working up these little cute crocheted things. Here’s the latest one – Grim Reaper:

He still needs eyes, mouth and a scythe. (I’ll get to it this weekend!) The next one I will be making is the Spartan from the same book as the Grim Reaper (Creepy Cute Crochet).

Recently, I saw the cutest Hello Kitty crochet book. I almost didn’t try to acquire it because it’s in Japanese, but it does have charts and I think I’m finally figuring out the crochet chart thing, so I went for it. I mean COME ON, it’s a Hello Kitty book! How could I not have it? So, I messaged this Etsy seller to see if she could obtain a copy of the book for me. She lives in Japan and agreed to get me a copy. I’ve been impatiently waiting for it to arrive in the mail and when I got home yesterday, there it was waiting for me!

I can’t wait to make something out of it!

Completed Projects, Current Projects

Plants, A Wool Gathering, and Projects

Posted on September 23, 2008 by mslindz

Last week I wasn't in my office at all. We had a storm come through (remnants of Ike) on Sunday and somewhere in the ballpark of 600,000 people were without power. We lost power at the apartment around 2 pm on Sunday and didn't get it back until Tuesday around 7 pm. There are still about 8,000 people without power in the area, so I'm thankful that we at least have power back, but we don't yet have our own internet back. We lost a whole fridge worth of food because the power was out for so long, but on the upside of that we cleaned the whole thing out and only have food we will actually eat in there now! See? Not all bad ;o)

Anyhow, I wasn't in my actual office for a week because there was no power until late Wednesday, so we were working from the main building downtown on Tuesday and Wednesday since I'm fortunate enough to work for a department that can't be down for long. I was out on Thursday and Friday because I had to have a little procedure done on Thursday (I'm fine – it wasn't that bad and everything went well). I was worried about Toby, Angela and Dwight (my plants) and when I came in yesterday Toby and Dwight looked okay, but Angela was a bit droopy. She's apparently pretty high maintenance! Didn't take long for her to perk back up, though. A lady I work with was kind enough to water my plants when I was out. She found Angela very droopy and was worried she might die, so she watered her for me and she kept checking on her to make sure she was coming back to life. I'm grateful she was kind enough to take care of them while I was out! I think I do need to repot all of them, though. They're growing rather quickly!

Not that long ago I posted about a raffle Robin was having for supporting her friend who's doing the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. Well… I won a skein of Wollmiese from her! I had actually forgotten about the contest and was just happy I was able to support a great cause. Then Robin contacted me and let me know I won! She even delivered it in person at knit night! It was, of course, passed around so everyone could see, but I made sure to keep my eyes on some of the folks that admitted they wanted to steal it ;o)

There was some talk on Plurk and Ravelry recently about Sundara's yarn clubs. I have been wanting to get a hold of some Sundara yarn for a long time, but kept missing out on shop updates and folks on Ravelry who had skeins of Sundara sock yarn listed as for sale or trade only wanted to trade for another colorway. I was seriously considering joining one of the sock yarn clubs, but wanted to be able to see the yarn in person before committing to it. About two weeks ago now, I posted in the Sundara Yarn Love group on Ravelry and someone was willing to sell me a skein (actually, I sold a skein of yarn in my stash and used that money to get this, so it was more like a trade). I was open to any colors at all figuring I could trade/sell the skein if I didn't like the colors in person. On September 10th a skein of Sundara sock yarn in Pine Over Gold arrived in my mailbox:

The colors really are that vibrant in person. It's shiny and beautiful, but the twist and thickness of the yarn reminded me a lot of Louet Gems except more shiny. I'm always undecided about green for me. It's really pretty yarn, but just wasn't for me, so I sold it on Ravelry and then used that money to buy a skein of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Lightweight in Farmhouse (another "trade"!), which arrived this past Saturday:

I have never been disappointed with STR and I love these colors. I've wanted a skein of Farmhouse for a while now, but I never want to spend the money to order from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. Ravelry gave me the opportunity to get a yarn I want yet again! I really do love Ravelry – can you tell?

Last Thursday, after my doctor's appointment, we stopped by Joseph-Beth Booksellers because I wanted to see if they had any new knitting magazines. They did have some new ones and had the one I was looking for:

The new Debby Bliss magazine! I like a lot of the patterns in it and can't decide what I want to make first. It's definitely worth checking out this magazine – it's packed with great patterns and interesting articles.

Saturday Matt and I went to A Wool Gathering in Yellow Springs, OH. We got there a little late in the day because we took our time getting ready and getting there. It was nice to be rushing around to get ready and get there since we weren't on any real schedule. I think we got there around 1 pm. First we went through the tents to get an overview of what was there. There were two booths that had angora bunnies for sale and I kept asking if I could take one home with me. While I really want one, I know that it'd be best to wait until we're living in a house to have one (or more). They were so adorable and soft! There was even a little baby that was so tiny and about 6 months old.

I was quite restrained with my purchases. Honestly, I didn't feel much like buying yarn. Creatively Dyed Yarns had some absolutely beautiful yarns and rovings. I had a hard time picking one out to take home with me! Matt helped me pick one and I brought this home:

One thing that I really wanted to get while I there was a shawl pin. Knitting Notions was there again this year and I bought this beautiful bloodwood shawl pin:

I love it! It goes great with my Clapotis, as you can see, and I think it will be great with Juno Regina, too.

There was TONS of fiber. I was really tempted to buy some, but I refrained since I only have a drop spindle right now that's really hard for me to use (hurts on my shoulders a bit). I spent a lot of time talking about spinning wheels with Matt (there were a lot there) and he kept telling me that we could totally build one for much cheaper than what they're sold for. At first I was pretty skeptical, but the more we looked at them, the more I was convinced we could make one and I started getting excited about the idea of finally having a wheel! When we got home, we looked up some information on building a wheel and I think I have some good thoughts, ideas, and references to go off of. I'm waiting on a book from the library before moving forward with it. I'm really excited about it, though, and plan on documenting it here, hopefully helping others to build a wheel themselves! Stay tuned!

I've been moving right along with my Pomatomus sock and have been working on it while watching tv. I've turned the heel and I'm now working on the gusset. Here's my progress so far:

Juno Regina is coming right along, too. I've had some issues with the pattern, but it ended up being my own fault for having an extra stitch or not really getting what the pattern wants me to do. That happens to me sometimes, nothing to do with the actual pattern – it's pretty clear, but my mind is not sometimes! I think I capture the colors pretty good here:

I have found that amigurumi is a LOT of fun to make! I'm working on the Grim Reaper from the book Creepy Cute Crochet:

The picture shows the start of the body, but I've actually completed the little guy! Well, I completed the crochet part and sewing him all together, but he still needs eyes, a mouth and a scythe. Today Matt called me to tell me an idea he had about a little girl design he thought I should create. I have some ideas about how to make it, but I'll have to think on it a bit more. I thought it was so fantastic that he called me with an idea like that! It made me smile :o)

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