Post 58

Spring has sprung officially and I made a beeline to Home Depot yesterday after work and bought my first batch of flowers. I am a geranium freak, they are the only flowers I can grow in the front of my house with it's peculiar lighting, and better yet, geraniums like me and I can keep them alive and growing well into autumn!



















This year I'm trying to go for a more european look and hung little clay pots along the fence by my gate entrance, I think it looks quiant and adds alot to the area since it's near my neighbors staircase and is blah.














Funny thing happened while at the Depot buying the plants, two groups of landscapers got into a fight for plants, yes, effing plants, we're not talking an argument, but fists, how stupid, there were enough to go around. So today was the Lorna's Laces tour for the members of the Windy City Knitting Guild. Don't laugh, but I got up early and was there by 8, it wasn't schudeled to start until 10, but I know they only allow 20 in at a time and if there is something in particular you're looking for you need to prepare, I wasn't the first person, I was number 10.

Boy did I score, I was looking for Lion and Lamb to make another Clapotis and picked up 5 skeins in a great teal colorway, and there wasn't that much there to begin with. If you were a sock knitter, this was your heaven, Beth had tons of sockyarn, heck you could have gotten enough of one colorway to make a sweater. This is what I got, the three bundles on the left are for Linda, the blue yarn and group to the right is mine, the Lion and Lamb is the stuff at the top. I love the new watercan from the Depot!














I curse the neighbor that gave the squirrels peanuts last year, they are digging up everything looking for them, and after I spent so much time last evening sweeping the sidewalk and making everything look pretty. I'm like a little ole italian lady sweaping her cracked grey sidewalk, my goal this year is to wear the outside broom to a nub.

Post 57

I did not mean to not blog, FIMS is MIA. Well actually, landlord was over last week, we had some issues with a finicky lock and needed to talk about the lack of proper lighting etc. and guess what I found out, landlord is FIMS! We talked about encrypting the signal and us having access, it's only fair since we do all the gardening. So I'm blogging at a friends house while babysitting. I have a new savings fund, the "I need a new iPod fund". I have decided that my old pod needs to be replaced due to damage, lack of storage and the fact I can't load any new music because when I go past song 2606 it freaks out. So I'm whoring myself (the knit kind of whoring, dirty filthy minds you have) and picked up a couple of finishing projects. I have learned I don't care for British patterns, both of which these were. The first was a fluffy white chenille baby pod looking thing, poorly designed but easy to seam since the fluffy yarn is forgiving, no need to go completely crazy and perfectionist, unlike project 2. This was one heavy sweater! 21 balls of mostly alpaca/silk weighs alot! The pattern was simple, with fairly straight lines and simple design, it's a Debbie Bliss, but the knitter knitted the neck band twice as long as needed, so out that came, and made the evil decision of picking black. I HATE BLACK ALPACA! It's beautiful but a royal pain in the ass to seam, you can's see shit, the light does something funky to the color and the fiber so this project took me longer, but I am very proud of my crochet join, it's clean and neat and I would consider myself an expert at this now.

Oh and by the way double crochet in english is not the same in american, FYI! The last touch for finishing required a double crochet around the edges, but in american it's really a single crochet and chain1, just in case you wanted to know. I picked up those two a couple of weeks ago but put off doing them until the last minute, because basically I forgot.

Last week we had a freak bit of snow.

The big tree around the corner from the house keeled over and died, taking part of a roof and a Benz with it. My neighbor John and I figured it was at least a hundred years old, now there's a big hole on the sky.

I think, I hope, I'm wishing Spring is almost around the corner? I had two major projects planned for the summer, and one is down, cleaning and organizing the space under the back staircase and storage shelves, oiy my back muscles hurt. Chicago has a unique house style, usually the 2-3 flats you see also have a backstair case. If you're lucky the backstaircase is in good shape, if your luckier it's enclosed, which mine is and has a nifty little storage space under the first landing. So summer isn't here, spring barely is and I already have one major pain in the ass projects over!

I returned some crappy yarn I purchased at Joann's, I had plans to make Dentist neighbor a baby blanket, but after 6 inches of 100% pure acrylic, I just couldn't do it, the yarn was so nasty, so hideous feeling, it was unnatural.(she got the green sweater) I returned the unused balls and bought some fleece to make a dog crate pillow, which Bella quicky claimed as her own, I swear she did this herself!

Finally down to real knitting. I only have three active projects and they are taking forever so no need to talk about them. This Saturday is the Lorna's Laces tour, so some of the ipod fund will go toward sock yarn, which I'm sure there will be, I love a good bargain and the chase to be in a room stuffed full of yarn,oooooooh!

Post 58

It's that time of the year. Yup, another one down. Anyhoo, yesterday was the book signing at Loopy Yarns in the south loop, it's up high on the list of favorite LYS's. Amy Singer was present to sign copies of her new book "No Sheep For You", but I picked up "Big Girl Knits" instead. All of my other friends have it, big girls and small girls alike, they pointed out that it has great info on choosing patterns to fit your body, so I finally got it, and yes there are several patterns I would make in there. So once again here's another picture of a yarn store with Linda in it, I prefer being behind the camera.

And a shot of the store for you none Chicagoans.

I picked up another skein of sock yarn, but I'm sticking to the idea that it has to be something new, that I don't already have. I am only allowing myself to buy yarn if I already have a project in mind, not just for the hell of it. My name is Yarn Snob, and I'm a sock yarn addict. True to my 4 project limit, I finally settled down on a sock pattern, Thelonius from my IM bud Cookie. I had a couple skeins of Regia Stretch in a light slightly varigated blue, and I'm loving it, perhaps I have found the perfect yarn that will stand up to the vertically challenged legs? (pun intended)What I really hate about knitting is the variety of yarn and projects. It's common for me to fall in love with a pattern, buy the yarn, get 50% of the way through and have the overwhelming desire to start a new one, I'm not lazy, there's just not enough time to get it all done. When I'm knitting I can't stop my mind from wandering to the next project possibilities, there's simply not enough time in the day. What would be a good thing to do is simply knit more, but not be a hermit about it. The females in my family are very strong, very creative and very stubborn, we have never had a problem staying home by ourselves and doing our own thing. Wouldn't it be great to find someone to pay me to stay home and knit? I had the resolve to get my bike in shape this summer and head out to the local coffee shops to just hang and knit, but the damn gentrification had come full circle to Wicker Park and they will be, by the end of the year, closing the local coffee cafe/hang out and be cool place, damn effing banks, do we really need one on every corner. What we need on every corner are yarn stores! There are lots of coffee shops here in the city, but not many have those comfy grunging couches that you can linger on for hours, all for the price of a cup of coffee. Well, I have big plans this summer for the garden in the back, with all my coffee equipment I could start my own knit/coffee joint!

Post 57

My neighbor next door is having a baby in two weeks, neighbor is a very good fancy dentist, neighbor gets handknitted baby wrap sweater, I get a discount on dental work? I hope so. This is only the second baby thing I've knitted, it's the EZ Baby Surplice Sweater from the new VK done in Sage Green Cotton Fleece. I love that yarn, it is so soft and easy to work with, and this is the first thing I've remembered to put my label in, yea! I actually got the sweater all wrapped up and then realized I for got to photograph it, so I had to unwrap and then rewrap again.

I finished this little scarf last night, I started it on the plane to NYC. We learned this Indian Cross techinique at the last Windy City Guild and I was dying to try it out, light weight yet warm, good for this time of year when Chicago can't decide which season it wants to be in.

The other project I started in NYC will be frogged, it was the right sock yarn for that pattern. I've decided I'm allowed to have four WIP's at one time, sweater, lace, sock and emergency knitted gift (which at anytime can be substituted with a fast project I can't wait to do) Right now I have the Fair Isle Cardigan, the Kool-ade dyed flame lace scarf, I need to pick out sock yarn and I have no emergency knitting. Not bad. I picked up a couple more repair projects, though they look to be just "I'm to lazy to finish, can you piece it together for me" items, easy peasy, I haven't looked at them yet, I hope I don't have to block. Well off to SNB I go, I don't think I'll stay too late, I'm battling a wicked head cold, I thought I won today(I took a sick day yesterday to be safe and try not to contaminate the office), but I'm afraid it might migrate to my voice/throat tonight.

Post 56

Ok, so lately I've realized again that there are people out there who read my blog, and that it's starting to look messy, so give some time to clean it up. On my list, updated those pesky project bars, because they are really old. Give me the weekend on do a little spring cleaning and then I'll tell you about some black cashmere I recently cam across, for free! Ah the suspense.

Post 55

The NYC/Manhattan Yarn Crawl

Annie and Co. is an embroidery shop, I forgot to take a picture of String, it wasn't worth it. This place is cool if you like the other needle arts, and Bette Midler is known to visit.


Knitty City, where I bought a skein of Fleece Artist sock yarn with seacell and a copy of Wild Fibers magazine.
Purl Soho, small but really packs it in. I need to get the name of this yarn that I feel in love with but didn't buy, did get two skeins of Koigu to make a scarf with.

The Point, I didn't get anything here but a Mocha and biscotti. We had a nice time resting our feet and listening the knitting group that filtered in later.

Knit NY (I think). I came away with a the locking green row counter and Habu paper purse kit. Had a cute coffee shop and chatted with a knitter making her first socks on size 13's, yea that no typo.










This is just the hallway at Seaport Yarns, there are many many rooms on both sides bursting with yarn. I finally found the new VK there and picked up a couple of Cherry Tree Hill skeins.















Schoolhouse Products a great first store to go to, if I didn't already have a cheap source for cashmere, I would get it here. Came away with a skein of hand-dyed cashmere boucle for a scarf.











Habu, very small, kind of cramped to move around in, I bought my Habu kit elsewhere, but just around the corner from SchoolHouse, so why not go?

Post 54

Ok, so about New York, what can I say? I LOVED IT. I think I'm loving it more and more everyday, and I'm no longer there. I visited NYC once when I was 14, of that visit I remember the Empire States Building, a horse carriage ride in Central Park, ice skating in Rockefeller Center and visiting my dads cousin at work, in one of the towers, but that was a kids memory of the city. Going back when your an adult, everything is different. I think my impressions of the city are different because I live in a large city myself, now, so the constant noise and traffic, is normal. There's a trade-off between Manhattan and Chicago, where Manhattan kicks our ass is in their mass transit system, but then we Chicagoans have no trouble walking the streets here because we don't have trash piling up all over the place, you win some, you loss some. Of the YarnHarlot lecture, well that was as expected, very funny, very big and a nice excuse to go on this trip. If you're a knitter I would recommend letting the yarnstores be the anchoring points for visiting the different neighborhoods. Linda and I went to 8 yarn stores over the weekend, yes, 8, and each in a different area. We went downtown, uptown, upper east, upperwest, soho, gramercy park, and the west village. If you want to read a more detailed version go to Linda's blog here:www.gardenpurls.blogspot.com, she wrote up a little something for our guild newsletter, and if you want to see pictures, check out flickr.com/photos/misslunablu. I'm still in the slow process of writing the details, there are alot of pictures of yarn stores, central park, the Dakota and food. (yea, I'm weird) Speaking of the Dakota and the city, now that I've been there and walked around it ALOT, I find myself watching TV shows, movies and reading books that take place in the city and trying to figure out where that is and if I went there. I'm really fascinated with the history, I even checked out where the Gangs of New York storyline took place, which was a couple of blocks east of Seaport Yarns. I usually keep a movie in my vhs player at night and fall asleep to a it, I think I'm going to have to dig up The Age of Innocence, it takes place there, albeit 1oo years ago. More perks of the trip beside some awesome sock yarn is that I met Guido from It's a Purl, Man, I had never listened to his podcast, so I'm starting from episode 1. On the otherhand, during our conversation I casually mentioned I had met Franklin of The Panopticon, so he was a little envious. As naive as this sounds, what the trip taught me, was not to be ashamed to be a knitter, to live and breathe it. We all need a hobbie to keep ourselves occupied and at least by making something there's a tangible record of your existence. I'm dork eh?

Post 53

I am back from a whirlwind long weekend in Manhattan and my feet are tired! Too much to talk about right now, but take alook at my flickr pictures and new video of a industrial knitting machine at youtube, search under yarnsnob.

Post 52

4 days and counting until I will be having the ultimate weekend, fun, fiber and friends in the big apple, yea! I've been practicing my latte art at work, it's taking me awhile to get the hang of it, I will in general make one attempt a day and then drink said beverage at my desk. For those of you who didn't know, I work for a coffee company, and while many of my co-workers will make several lattes until the art work is just right, I feel guilty about wasting the milk, heck I'm even practicing on tradition Italian lattes which are half the size of the standard American, just so I get two tries, but it sure is fun. Not bad for someone in the accounting department eh?

I have the nicest neighbor, Big John as I call him, just came back from a trip to New Mexico and brought me this:

Like I told him, I try to get things that are native to the area and you can't get anymore native than this. It is quite itchy so it won't be a hat or garment, it's destined to be one kick-ass Fair Isle/Bohus messed up pillow, I'm thinking the kind where you make an over sized square, draw the corners together and then just seam down the sides, no messing with lining etc. This yarn is hand spun from organic Churro yarn, oh and a churro looks like this:

The history of the animals in the southwest goes back the early Spaniards. I have six skeins in total, each with approximately 175 yards I think, two are natural, two are dyed with Osage orange/yellow, one with cochineal (poor little buggies) and the last two with Osage orange/yellow over bacterial indigo, oh and all the dyes are organic/natural. How nice was that of him? I thought that my camel yarn and Himalayan silk were in the running for most exotic, but this stuff beats them, well until I go to New York, who knows what pretties I will find there! Tomorrow I have a private lesson, back around x-mas this woman bought two hours of my time to teach her granddaughter the basics of mittens so we finally found the time. This lucky girl has a family friend with an alpaca farm in Wisconsin that is going to give her as much yarn as she wants to make mittens and stuff out of and then they will sell them for her, lucky little &^#@%! I recommended that the grandmother buy her the Handbook of Patterns book, AKA the green book because it has the best way to make multiple sizes with various stitches per inch, nothing else will cover the basics like that, and once you make your first one you can play with color, patterns and other stuff. I think afterwards I will head over to the movie theaters and catch a show, 300 or Premonition?

Post 52

I want my hour back! Damn you Bush, another reason to hate you, I wasn't ready yet, it happened to soon. Kind of odd for an oil guzzling president to sign an energy bill to push ahead daylight savings one month in order to save energy. Odd. Oh Yea FIMS is down so the blogging will be somewhat erratic.

Post 51

New York City, or BUST! Yup, I'm going to the big apple. I've always wanted to do a weekend in New York and the right occasion, the right amount and the right travel companion all seem to come together at the right time. So Linda and I are going to see the YarnHarlot at FIT on March 22nd, yea for us, we tried to get other people to go but I don't think anyone had faith in our ability to do it cheap. Linda got the discount for us on United using some coupon and we aren't even sitting in the crappy section, just the next to crappy section. I though the hostel thing wasn't going to work out, but you must have faith, I did, and I found us a bunkbed room in the Midtown/Gramercy Park area. For airfare and hostel the trip is only going to cost me less than $250, what the hell? you say. Yup, we got fucking lucky! I wish there were more SNB Chicago/Wickerpark people going but they'll just have to make do with pictures. We have no preconcieved plans made other than the YarnHarlot lecture, maybe MoMA, some yarns stores and maybe The Frick? museum, the city is open for us to explore. I'm using this experience for as a test for the planning of my trip to the UK in October. Right now my belief is to travel right before (i.e. my week in Montreal/Quebec) and right after the tourist season, prices are cheaper.

Post 50

This is the best winter yet! It snows alittle, it melts, it snows alittle again, it melts, and just when you think spring is around the corner, you find yourself in a life size snowglobe, so pretty, lately the snow has been big pretty chunky stuff and real snowflake snow, ahh. I've been a busy little bee, Anne and I finished up out class at Northwestern, it went very well and not one student was all thumbs, they grasped the knitting concept so well that I think they will actually keep it up. I also just did my second beginning knitting class for the City of Chicago's Winter Delight Stitching Salon, and while the class was full as of a couple of weeks ago, only 5 people remembered to come so it was even better than the first, much more intimate and hands on. So on the side I have done some repair work for a customer of a LYS, people please, when someone gifts you with a handknit shawl from New Zealand, so not let your friends dog eat a chunk out of it! BEFORE and AFTER, yea what a mess. I also started to make another pair of socks while waiting for my next project to come in the mail, this is the first sock, on and I broke down and bought sockblockers because it makes photographing so much easier. I finally got my Palette Cardigan kit from Knitpicks, and I'm missing two colors, arghhh. I won't even tell you what happened but it basically comes down to a poorly designed website, so in the end I'll be getting those two balls free of charge, eventually. I started the cardigan and have been happy with it so far, it helps that some time ago I came across a Norwegian fair isle tool that you keep on your index finger and it holds two colors of yarn, basically it's a metal coil. So instead of having to use both hands while knitting, I can just do it the continental way, yea! I'm also glad to find a Palette Cardigan KAL and since this is my first fair isle it will be very helpful. This is a poor quality video I sht of me unboxing the yarn, I just couldn't wait until the next morning when I would have more daylight bouncing off the pile of snow in front of my apartment and into the living room.http://youtube.com/watch?v=xw8Cf26EE_Q So that's it in a nutshell unit my FIMS is up again, I'm at Panera and the roommate is getting restless. Oh and here's a Pie in the box.

Post 49

Spring is in the air! We had a wonderful snow last tuesday, I remember it well because is was bad enough to skip SNB, but unfortunately/fortunately the temp. has gone up high enough to commence the great melt. So on the knitting front. Cookie has decided to name the sock I knit for her, Mona, in honor of my beloved little doggy. I guess it helped that she miss wrote the chart and the hourglass shape did not look at all like an hour glass. I'm so excited for her, I've seen a couple of the socks and they are awesome, she goes far beyond all the other designers when she writes her patterns, she puts in interesting details and multiple sizes. Knitting her sample sock has got me hooked on lace socks so I'm working on this from the Traveling Socks book by Nancy Bush, I don't have it in front of me so I'm not sure of the title but it's the white sock in it, albeit a little shorter. The yarn is the rubysapphire.com yarn that I got from secretpal, she was overly generous and sent me two skeins. I don't need two skeins of this stuff, at 500 yards each, that's alot of sock yarn, so I contacted the ladies in Florida who dye and sell it and they were kind enough to allow me to exchange one of the ones I got for another color, so tadaa....this is the yarn for my next sock project...it is so pretty and I'venever seen this kind of colorway done before in sock yarn. I do wish the yarn was superwash. I've been working on the blue yarn whle waiting for my package from Knitpicks that contain the Palette Fair Cardigan supplies, and and Cookie, I bought the needles to start the Sarcelle! So ha! Anyhoo, the new Intereweave is out and I'm not sure what I think about the format, I didn't really have a problem with it before, just the photo quality was not the best. I love looking for mistakes in photographed knitting, you know, twisted stitches and pattern mistakes, so how about this one, looks all innocent and all, but take alook at the toe, the whole is so big the big toe is bound to pop out eventually. So I hear that YarnHarlot is going to be in NYC at FIT at the end of March. I talked to my friend Linda and we're talking about representing Chicago, maybe, it really depends on her schedule, and why not, the airfare is so cheap. It would be fun.

Post 48

One should not be rushed to finish a pair of socks because the laundry hasn't been done. Then again, if I weren't busy knitting socks I would be doing the laundry...Well Cookie's Monkey socks feature in Knitty.com are done, and in the ugliest colorway ever, some yarn I won at the Dulaan knit-in. I find myself in a strange place, I have no projects to work on, thank goodness I'm knitting a sample sock for Cookie, she's got some great patterns coming out soon, so who knows maybe there's a Sock-O-Rama book....So my big decision is do I find a pattern to suit some yarn I already have, a beautiful burgundy colorway from a frogged sweater, I do I finally break down and buy the KnitPicks Palette Fair Isle Cardigan kit...am I ready for Fair Isle? Those Bohus sweaters I'm seeing floating around are looking really nice too.

Post 47

Hey, two days in a row, must be a waning moon out there! Actually I figured since I was online listing some more ebay yarn that I should post here too. Yesterday was a blast, no I didn't watch the game, ok well, maybe the halftime show, was I the only waiting for Prince to be electricuted with all that rain? Anyhoo, I went out, did not find the tea kettle of my dreams yet, but did pick up some lovely rosewood 4's, got home, popped in West Wing season 4 and was off knitting another Amelia Earhart hat in Manos. This is what it looks like with the matching scarf. I love this hat and on the size 4's it is perfect, it has a nice shape, fits great, just in time for the damn cold!

Post 46

It is friggin cold here in Chicago! I wouldn't mind it so much if it were snowing, then it would be worth it. On the other hand, the extreme coldness has taught my dog to go VERY fast, no sniffing around for a good spot, I am very pleased by this. Anyhoo, Secret Pal 9 is over and I got the loveliest gift my SP9, sock yarn and in the prettiest blue colorway hand-dyed in Orlando (um, they wear socks in Florida?), I like supporting the little ma and pa home based businesses, great shopping. The package also came with the cutest little key ring with a mini twist of yarn attached that I'm totally going to rip off and try to make some to sell at my LYS. This package was perfect timing as I had just gotten rid of some yarn on ebay, I decided to destash some stuff that I have and never will use. Some fool of a knitter paid be 24 bucks for a skein of Socks That Rock in Medium weight, when I got it for 21! Every since I bought the skein I regretted it, it was ugly and bright, not my colors at all, well happy knitting to you ebay purchaser, I made a 3 dollar profit! Also got rid of some Lorna's Laces bulky and worsted, one I won at the opening of a new LYS and the other at a mill end sale, I was going to make a dog sweater out of it until I realized that it was too sherberty-cute for me, which of course was its name, Sherbert, ugh, so I made a nice little profit and that batch too. I did something stupid a couple of weeks ago, one of my LYS was having a big 70% off sale and I actually found enough yarn, 17 balls of the same thing, which is amazing, usually these sales have only one or two balls of the same dye lot, so I bought it. It really was very pretty yarn, but when I knitted it up I realized that only a house wife in Dallas would wear this, it was not good, so I sold it too, came out even, and the lucky winner got yarn worth 175 bucks for only 55! I came away with more space in my yarn organizer and less guilt. Now about guilt, well two of my friends have knitted up the My So Called Scarf pattern, which I have long loved and never made, and do I really need another scarf, yes, it's cold here, so I went out and bought yarn for it. I would really have liked to find a color in Malabrigo to use (its made of merino wool and soooo soft it feels like cotton) but nothing matched my hot pink coat, so I settled for two skeins of Manos Del Uruguay, in a color way I love so much, it actually is the one used in the pattern. So I've knitted up the first skein, and the scarf is a decent size, I don't want it to be one of those super long scarfs, and though, 'MATCHING HAT!', well I've waited all weekend for the FIMS to be up so I can print the Amelia Earhart pattern. I must have thrown away the copy I used for the first hat I made from it, it's a great pattern. The first time I used one skein of Jo Sharp Silk Road Tweed on size 5's, which was perfect, but it has stretched a little, so I decided in the Manos to go down a needle size to a 4, I want it dense to keep the wind out. Wait, I don't have size 4 bamboos, is this possible, I have everything else in circs, DPNs, from metal, to plastic, to casein, to rosewood, but not in size 4, I guess I'm going to have to go the the yarn store today. The hat won't be the only thing I knit on while I'm forced to watching bits of the Super Bowl, GO BEARS! (obligatory team spirit), I finished the first in a pair of socks using Cookie's pattern from Knitty, Monkey, which was the only thing that made the obnoxiously green sock yarn look good. They fit, the pattern was way easy to memorize so it knitted up fast, I'm happy, though they are snug on me at the top because I have FLS, fat leg syndrome. I tested out my size 1.5mm dpn in rosewood for the first time and absolutely love them, if I didn't have bamboo I would choose the rosewood over regular wood, they seem to have a finish halfway between that of bamboo and brittany birch wood, very nice. So I used the 1.5mm's on the lace pattern and size 0 or 1's (the number has worn off and when they get this small does it really matter?) on the heel flap and sole, easy-peasy. So I'm off to do a couple of errands, I've decided I hate my water kettle and need a new one, so if the parking genie is with me maybe I'll find a spot on Wabash and can run into Macy's real quick (gotta use that employee discount they forgot they still give me), it's just north of the yarn store anyway.

Post 45

Have the Blog-uggs, absolutely no desire right now to blog, but I will try anyway. I've been a busy little bee and have put up four of what I hope will be many more lots of yarn on ebay, buyers remose has come at last. I'm amidst a knitters personally evolution, where basically you realize you know longer desire to have one ball of this or that, just because it was on sale, especially the crap. So on ebay went some STR (not crap, good yarn) the minute I bought it at Stitches I knew it was a mistake, it was too bright and cheerful for me. Also went a skein of Lorna's laces Shepherd Bulky and Worsted, plus a couple of weeks ago I was really stupid and bought 16 balls of some sparkly Trendsetter yarn that was on supersale and it is so not me, no matter how much I try. Except for sock yarn I have too many one-ball wonders and I never use it. I would rather sell alot of this excess and then put some good money down on quality quantity, that's my new motto, "Quality-Quantity". I've always wanted to do a cotton sweater out of that organic natural colored stuff but never wanted to spend the money, no more! On the actual knit side of life, I'm not going anywhere fast. The shawl was completed last week, my at work project is almost done, I have this super soft atrocious green sock yarn that I won at the Dulaan Knit-in that I can't seem to come up with a good pattern for, I'm over thinking it. It would be really nice to make so St Patty's socks, but I think a nice organic pattern will look better, maybe Cookie's Monkey. I'm almost ready to order the Fair Isle Cardigan pallete pattern from Knitpicks, some very late x-mas money made it into my pocket today, but I think it wise to practice a bit first before going full throttle Fair Isle style. I'm sure I can come up with an odd ball or two in my stash to mess around with.

Post 44

Little hint, if you find yourself without a spritzing water bottle when blocking your knitting that new mint scented Febreeze works in a pinch. The Ene's shawl is done.

Post 43

Was flipping through the channels tonight and found myself on Chicago's WTTW, channel 11 which is out public station here, and right in the nick of time. Just then a short movie was playing on their Image Union program and it was called "Knitting, A Love Song". It was this cute little short set in the UK about a teenage girl having a crush on a boy and deciding to knit him a scarf to win his love, well, apparently she forgot the first rule of knitting, and it did not work. I would love to figure out which yarn store they filmed at, they had a great color selection, and I was right in guessing the girl used Rowan for the scarf. Oh, and I just found out that the writer is currently working on a full length follow up to this short. Cool. Am I the only one who day dreams about being an extra in the new Julia Roberts film about the knitting store?

Post 43

Finally made it to the boyhood home of Bill Clinton. yesterday was the worst day of travel I have ever had. My flight was of course delayed a little becasue of Denver and the weather, but then I did something stupid at the moment, but good in the long run. The flight was overweight and they asked for volunteers, and well, I sold my soul for the rock bottom price of $250 in airline vouchers. For this I was given the joy of a hunger headache because I never knew when the next flight was going to take off and instead of getting into Little Rock at 12 noon (or really 2:30 as my original was supposed) I got in at 5:00. I ended up getting dinner at Arby's instead of the Clinton Library as planned, and I missed the yarn store too :(. oh well, I'm here, the weather is nice, everything smells so good, and if I can't sleep well, my aunt the nurse gives me little mystery pills that put me right out, yea! The only project I ended up brign was the triangular scarf, and let me tell you, casting on 375 stitches with a massive hunger headache doesn't work well, so now I have to pull it out and start over. I'm hoping to have some time tomorrow to get in a back massage, I took in the water once (Hot Springs is famous for that) but it totally creeped me out. I just opened my gifts, the highlights were a garlic roaster and gift certificate to Knitpicks!

Post 42

Um, Snickerdoodles....

Real quick today, got lots to do. Worked a little late at work to make up for the two missing hours wasted by going to Big Bowl for a holiday lunch with our CFO, very generous of him, but after the holidays would have been nice. Had just to get a mani and pedi (grandma's one of those southern ladies who likes everyone to look good, hair, make-up, nails), caught the last hour of Stitch N Bitch but didn't knit due to nails, ran to TJ Maxx (they have the best cheap silver) to get the aunt a gift after she told me of the CD's she just bought, one of which was supposed to be a gift, and then I baked snickerdoodles. Still no idea which sock pattern to use on the STR tencel blend yarn, I'll figure that one out tomorrow while I pack.

Post 41

Thank-you secret pal you saved my ass. X-mas aka Festivus for the rest of us is a week away and I've been a busy bee all of a sudden. I'm not busy knitting gifts for family, but paid commisions. Had this lady contact my Knit Pimp, aka Karen, who had a bag of Colinette Point 5 that her mother bought 20 years earlier in Wales. This stuff was pretty, for the 8 year old daughter she had, mostly white with bright splotches of color. Crazy Colinette lady as I call her first wanted a sweater for her daughter, but after a long discussion about knitting sweaters for people who don't wear sweaters we choose a hat scarf combo. I wish I had the time to take a picture, but I only had the time tonight to drop it off. I could have taken an awesome picture with the new digi camera that my roommate bought me, yea! No longer will I use a camera with a rubber band holding the battery door closed. So back to the secret pal gift. I was sent two skeins of natural Cascade 220 (because of my love of Kool Aid dye), some really very pretty evil eye stitch markers (to keep evil spirits of jealous knitters away) and some yummy dark chocolate. I love the way the really dark chocolate breaks with a crisp snap...Well, I'm co-teaching a dye-to knit class next January at Lill Studios and need to come up with some samples of yarn for the dye teacher. As much as I love Knitpicks (which is were we will be getting the yarn), I wasn't in the mood to shop right now for it and have to pay shipping (I'm hoping for a gift card to the website so I can finally buy the multi-colored fair isle sweater featured inside) so it was perfect timing that two natural colored skeins showed up literally on my doorstep! I finally got my act together and made cookies, two batches, chocolate and mint chip, ummm. I go to my grandmothers house in Arkansas for the holidays and we always have chocolate chip cookies to eat, this year I thought I would save her the trouble and make them for her, sure hope I can carry them aboard the plan. Let me say for the record, I love the cookie scooper, it makes perfect cookies with no mess, add that to my Kitcheaid mixer and I'm in bakers heaven. Now a response to an earlier comment, Le Crueset rocks! Yes it's an investment, but take a look at the pots you see on Martha, Julia Child and Charlie Trotter use, if it's bright enamel it's Le Crueset. I no longer use Teflon, scares the shit out of me, enameled pots are like a precurser to teflon, nothing sticks to it and it cleans off easily. Now that I'm making a list of things to pack I have to choose knitting projects. I'm definately bring the Nancy Bush shawl from Scarf Style, but I need socks and I think it's time to break out and ball up the skein of Socks that Rock with 50% tencel that I've been hording since Stitches, but what pattern to use? Oh that's Bella taking her picture with Santa for charity at Petsmart.

Chicago recieved it's snow on the first of the month and it has been taking it's time melting every since. Because I haven't been feeling myself I've been trying extra hard to get into the holiday spirit. This is the first year I did any type of external decoration on the house. In the past I've not done anything because I just rent, but I couldn't help myself, I love the look of real greenery hanging from a wrought iron fence, very Charles Dickens of my, it looks even pretty with the snow.(it has little white lights too!) I hit the jackpot tonight at TJ Max. I go there every once in awhile, generally I don't find anything in the clothes I like, but they have a great silver jewelry and housewares selection. I'm going to sound like a 14 year when I say that I've been saving my babysitting money, but I finally used it to buy a huge lime green Le Crueset enameled pot for more than half the retail price, now I can roast with out having to buy those disposable aluminum pans, yea me! I was saving a little money on the side just in case I couldn't fix my iPod, it was ailing something bad last week, but I got it figured out so it's all good right now. I love to cook and I think this weekend is cookie time. I picked up some awesome copper cookie cutters at Sur La Table with the desire to practice my cookie decoration skills, I'll keep you posted. Slowly getting back into the knitting zone, I really need to work on this commision stuff that I'm using vintage Colinette yarn for, it's not easy making mittens for a 7 year old with thick-to-thin yarn, I'm up for a challenge I think.

My Apologies

When I switched my blogs awhile ago I made it a point to try not to bitch and moan and all that crap and just knit, this has left me to blog less and less. Well, I've not been myself the last couple of months and just last week I had an epiphany, it's my meds. I'm experiencing some wicked side effects from a medication I started to take again, I was off during a brief period in the summer between jobs, and when I took it before I didn't experience anything out of the norm. So I will start up with a new prescription next week and hopefully everything will be back to normal. Oh and on the knitting front, not too much, doing some commision stuff, nothing fancing, gloves and scarfs. I've not been inspired lately, which I hope is also a side effect that will go away.