New WIP

I've finished knitting all the pieces for the mohair cardigan. I just.need to sew it together and do the collar and button bands. No pic of it, yet.

Since I'm at the finishing point, it's time to cast on something new. I've decided a smaller project is in orderso I've cast on a new sweater for Zoey.

The rainbow yarn has a story of sorts.

 

 Recently I noticed that Temu, the discount online store, has yarn. Most of it is made in China.  I'm a curious person by nature, so I decided to order some of their 100% worsted weight Acrylic varigated yarn. It was very reasonably priced at the time. 

It's been a surprise! I love it. It's an amazingly good quality yarn. Well made, nice and soft to the touch, and a joy to work with. It comes in a lot of different color combinations, some exceptionally beautiful. Unfortunately, as I mentioned already, there's no label, and Temu doesn't provide the yardage in each skein. So I've taken an education guess. They're 100 gram skeins, which average about 200+/- yards for worsted weight yarn. 

I have noticed some of the other yarns have yardage in the descriptions. I have bought more of their yarn. They have variegated worsted weight wool too.

I'm planning to make another mohair cardigan, this one for me, in shades of purple. This will be one of the strands to go with the mohair. It comes with a label, but everything is written in Chinese. Rats.

Live long and prosper. \\//

WIP Wednesday February 7, 2024

 We've got furnace guys all over and under our house. They're installing the new furnace. I can see the old one lying in the front yard on it's side, looking old and worn out, waiting to be loaded in the truck. Poor thing. I hope it gets recycled.

I'm getting two new projects ready to start.

1- A new sweater for Zoey. It will feature stripes of ruffles. The ruffles are made with ribbon yarn. The actual required ribbon yarn is discontinued and hard to find so I'm substituting a Red Heart ribbon yarn that is very similar. I have half the yarn so far. 

I've ordered purple ribbon yarn from Etsy. It's supposed to arrive some time next week. I knit swatches too. Got gauge the first time. (Whew!) That saves me from having to rewrite the pattern for a different gauge. Getting very antsy to start it.

I found a pattern on the Lion Brand web site that is so cute. I'm not actually using the pattern. I'm going to apply the idea to my own pattern I've customized for Zoey.

2- This purple yarn is for me. Several years ago I knit a sweater named Andoa. It was the first sweater I made for my son-in-law-now-daughter-in-law. I love the pattern so much and I've wanted to make one for me. I'm going to use Lion Brand Heartland yarn. I used some of it two years ago to make a hat for KnitWits. I've been wanting to knit a sweater with that yarn ever since. Luckily, Joann's had it on sale last month for a very good price.

I'm planning to make it short sleeved so I'll actually wear it because I'm almost always too warm. I need to make some calculations first though because, as usual, the pattern does not go up to my size. I hate math. Ugh! 

I'm seriously thinking about starting a third project so I have 3 going on at the same time. I'm not working toward a deadline for these so it would be fun to have that many going at once. I've got yarn in the stash. I just need to decide on a pattern and which colors to use. Going to do some Estonian mittens.

That's what's happening for WIP Wednesday.

Live long and prosper. \\//

Yarn Stash Enhancement

Some yarn I ordered arrived Saturday. Can you guess the colorway name?

Here's a hint. In memory of Leonard Nimoy.

It's self striping sock yarn. She packaged it so you can knit matching socks.

I love the colors. I got it from Turtlepurl Yarns on Etsy. Don't diddle around if you want some. It's limited edition.

Live long and prosper. \\//

The Mojo Is Back!

Something I ordered awhile ago came in the mail. YAY!

I got these from the Etsy store Sheepy Fibers Etc.

The Black one is named Glow Worm Rainbow Stripe Sock and the Gray one is named Beyond the Clouds Rainbow Stripe Sock. It's a very nice yarn with a good hand, and so soft. I'm looking forward to working with it.

Between that and finishing the Pug my knitting mojo is back! I'm back to feeling enthusiastic and excited about it. So I've got some wips for today.

I made some progress on the first of the pair of mens mittens.

I cast on a new project for KIP knitting too.

It will be a hat. It starts with corrugated ribbing, which I usually do not like cuz I'm so bad at it, but this one is working out okay. It will be a hat with simple fairisle diamonds and some Latvian braid.

Over the weekend it rained and rained. We got well over 2 inches of it. On Saturday I talked Sweet Hubby into going to Costco and the grocery store with me. In exchange, I'd go with him to Home Depot. It took most of the day.

3 large stores all in one day turned out to be too much walking for me. I way overdid it. So on Sunday I didn't do a whole lot. I worked on this blog. In one of Blogger updates they broke a couple things. I've been working for several weeks trying to fix the problems but couldn't figure it out. Finally, in frustration I called my daughter Sarah. She kindly spent her afternoon with me via Google Video Chat and helped me fix the problems AND add a couple things to my comments section. Yay for awesome daughters! I learned quite a bit too.

Isn't life amazing now? My daughter lives all the way over in Rhode Island but we were able to work together on a problem via the internet. It was a cool experience.

Live long and prosper. \\//

WIP Wednesday 9/24/2014

Time for a WIP Wednesday post. My moose sweater is coming along nicely.

I'm loving it so much that I'm all excited to get it done now.

I got some new yarn! It's Madelinetosh Twist DK in Arctic blue. This pic does not do it justice.

It's such a rich saturated blue in real life. I fell in love instantly.

Spent some more time on the deck knitting. The weather has been so warm. It got up to 90 degrees this week! Anyway, I mentioned a weird Petunia in my last post that I hadn't been able to get a pic? Well, surprise! There was one open yesterday and I took a pic.

I also noticed another odd one. It's very pretty. The pointed petals are interesting.

Sweet Hubby has been on his ride for just over a week now. He's in Phoenix, AZ. He gets a rest day there, which he really needs. He is enjoying himself, though the ride is harder than he thought it would be. He's doing fine. I'm missing him. The house stays clean when he's not here.

If you're interested in participating in WIP Wednesday, please join us.

Live long and prosper. \\//

WIP Wednesday 1/29/2014

Wow! The first month of the year is almost over already. Where. Did. It. Go? You don't have to answer that.

So, this is the first WIP Wednesday post of the year. Woo hoo! I've been starting things. For several weeks the only project I had going was the Chocolate Cephalopod. Now I can have as many as I want going all at once. So this was the week of starting. In most recently started order:

Yesterday I cast on for a doll sweater. Pink is the order of the day. I've got a whole bunch of ideas for doll sweaters. Gotta get that web business off the ground this year.

I've also started what I call The Librarian Project.

I'm going to make a pair of fingerless mitts for all the librarians at the Rathdrum Library. They have put up with me and our little knitting group meeting there on every Tuesday for a few years now. They deserve a gift.

Since my last post, I've finished the knitting on the back of my Gansey, and I'm just 2 stitch patterns from finishing the front.

I'm really enjoying this project very much. Just as I get tired of a stitch pattern, it changes. Keeps me interested at all times. I've purchased yarn to make more Gansey sweaters. 2014 is the year of sweaters for me.

I haven't cast on yet, but I've got the yarn and pattern for a pair of mukluks I'm going to knit for my cousin Susie.

Six colors of worsted weight Berroco Vintage. Apparently, my grandmother used to knit a lot of mukluks for the family, including Susie. She is wishing for a pair. I shall oblige.

I have yarn on order for 2 more projects, which I'll talk about when the time comes.

So, about that dry January. Last night the snow returned. I woke up to 6 inches of the stuff.

We need a garage in the worst way.

It's still coming down and is expected to keep coming down for the next few days. In fact, we've got winter storm warnings for tonight. We're getting whomped by mother nature. 6-12 inches predicted for our area to fall between 9pm tonight and 4am tomorrow. As much as I dislike snow, I'm glad it's here. We really need it in the mountains. Guess I will dust off the snow shovel today.

If you're interested in participating in WIP Wednesday, please join us.


Live long and prosper. \\//

A Wonderful Weekend

It's been a wonderful weekend. The sun has been shining, the skies are blue, and it's been in the 70F's degrees, Pure heaven! I've puttered in the yard and spent time in the sun on my deck beading and knitting. I even got 3 loads of laundry done.

Here's one of the things I worked on.

It will be a pair of fingerless mitts when it's done. I got this yarn at BigLots! last Thursday. I popped in to see if there was anything Knitwits could use. They were having a sale! The $1 skeins were 80 cents each. I found the worsted weight novelty yarn above-which is a gold yellow with a boucle strand in shades of red, and a grey w/browns similar to the one above, and bought all I could find of both-which turned out to be 40 skeins. What a deal! Can't wait until next months meeting!

On Friday I got an email from Paradise Fibers. They were having their first ever tent sale. I had domestic plans for Friday (can you say laundry and house cleaning?) but I dropped them all, called my friend Sandy, and we went into Spokane for the sale. I found some things I couldn't live without. So did Sandy, and my daughter Ruth. Specifically, I found 3 gorgeous balls of pure Cashmere yarn (brown and black) for 40% off that I'm going to use to make myself a pair of fingerless mitts.

It is soooooo soft to the touch.

 I got 3 skeins of fancy sparkly novelty yarns called Ritratto for making doll clothes-not on sale.

 I glommed on to a skein of Madeline Tosh sock yarn in shades of browns, blues, and black that just screamed "Make me into a pair of socks for Frank!"

It wasn't on sale either.

After that we went to A Grand Yarn. I'd never been in it before. It opened when I was still running my shop and just never got over there. It's a very nice little shop. They had some clearance yarns that will be perfect for knitting doll clothes. It's called Sugar Rush and is made from sugar cane fiber. It's so soft and silky. Should make beautiful dresses and slacks.

What's more, I got it for $2 a skein (reg. $8). I picked up a few skeins of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Baby too that were on sale.

Yesterday we went and saw the new Ironman 3 movie-in good ol' fashioned 2-D. It was awesome! I go to movies to be entertained and this one is very entertaining. I love movies that just suck me in and I completely forget I'm in a movie theater. This one did that for me.

We went to Applebee's for dinner afterwards. I had their Sirloin steak. They have such good steak there. It came with garlic mashed potatoes (yum!) and broccoli. I had a Peach Sangria too that was so delicious! It was a very tasty meal.

This evening I found a dead gopher laying next to my car. One of the kittens has finally made his first kill. I suspect it was Merino because he hasn't come in all day. He's been stalking the weeds all around the garden. After that first rodent sacrifice to the knitting gods, they get addicted and have to do more! Should be some awesome knitting this week, thanks to him. Heh heh.

Live long and prosper. \\//

It's Green Now

Had a good weekend. On Saturday Ruth and I went into Spokane Valley and visited Hobby Lobby, Joann's Fabric and Craft, and Barnes and Noble. I was somewhat disappointed in Hobby Lobby. We went there in search of sport weight washable yarn in navy blue, or denim. I would have been happy with that. No such luck. They didn't have much of anything in sport weight, unless you want baby yarn, which I didn't. I did find and purchase some white, black, and brown sport weight acrylic which I intend to turn into Knit Wits projects.

I didn't find anything I wanted at Joann's. All they had was baby yarn in sport weight. All in all, a rather frustrating endeavor.

I did find something I wanted at Barnes and Noble though.

Showcase 500 Beaded Jewelry contains wonderful photos of 500 beaded jewelry projects made by beaders all over the world, some famous, some not. No patterns. Just pictures. Looking at them gets my creative juices flowing, though, and inspires me.

The Japanese Beadwork book has some very intriguing and beautiful projects in it that I hope to make some day. Sonoko Nozue uses lots of crystals in her work. Very sparkly. I like sparkly.

After returning home, we had a Star Trek TOS marathon the rest of the evening.

Our mailbox has been getting more and more beat up looking. Well, it has been hit by several cars over the years-before they took the curve out of the road in front of our house. And paint doesn't last forever. The black paint was peeling off in huge chunks, so I decided on Sunday I was gonna spruce it up. My plan was to try and bang some of the dents out, scrape the loose paint off with a wire brush and some sand paper, then spray paint it dark green and paint the address numbers on with lime green glitter paint. Sweet Hubby decided he was gonna help me. It was one of those situations where I appreciated that he wanted to help, but at the same time he was frustrating the heck out of me.  It didn't go at all the way I wanted. He made it so much more complicated, and, of course, had to use power tools. Urg.

Couldn't get the dent above the flag out.

The green glitter paint ended up on the pole instead of the mailbox. Don't ask. It'll just make me frustrated again. I drove into Coeur d'Alene to visit Home Depot to buy some reflective mailbox stickers for the numbers instead. It was just sooooo much less hassle. (Don't ask!) The important thing is by the end of the day the mailbox was spruced up all nice and green. It looks almost brand new!

After taking the pic of the mailbox above, Cable came over and asked me to take a picture of her too.

Isn't that a happy face? She has the most wonderful smiles. Have I mentioned she's herding the kittens? It's so funny. I've been leaving the back door open in the evenings to cool the house. Occasionally one, or both, of the kittens will go out the door and down the steps. She dashes out and herds them right back into the house. She's very gentle about it, bumping them with her nose to get them to go where she wants them to.

Last week I'd ordered some yarn from Knitivity. A couple of his Blog Reader Specials. It arrived on Saturday. I don't need them. Not even sure what I'm gonna make with them. I certainly didn't need anymore purple sock yarn, and yet....

I also got these matching skeins of Lace weight yarn. Mine!

That's my weekend, in a nutshell. Now for some kitten cuteness.

Merino hangin' on the back of the couch. They are growing so fast!

When we first brought them home I could hold both of them in one hand. Now it's one hand apiece, and they hang over from both ends. Cashmere was snoozing on top the cat tree.

He is quite the little jumper and climber. Quite a bit more advanced than Merino.

Merino decided to join Cashmere in the nap fest.

Squee overload! 

They are learning their names, and come when I call 'here kitty kitty'. They are also learning what 'NO' means, and they've been introduced to the squirt bottle which emits water only if they get up on the dining room table or kitchen counter. They are pretty smart little boys so they're learning the rules fairly quickly.

Live long and prosper. \\//

Weekend Yarn Acquisition

So, how was your weekend? Mine was good. On Saturday the local spinning group had their annual Spin-In, which my daughter and I dropped by for just a bit to peruse the market. I wasn't able to spend the whole day there like I usually do. I got to say hello to my friends and I found a booth of sock yarn that was hard on my bank account. I bought 4 skeins of it. All of it is from Raven Ridge Fiber Arts, hand painted, and feels and looks incredible.

This colorway is called Peacock and it's 438 yards of scrumptious Superwash Merino Wool/Silk blend. It has a wonderful sheen to it. Lots of blues, purples, and a dash of teal.

Peacock

This one is called Pine Bark. It is also 438 yds of Superwash Merino/Silk blend. I'd never seen this mix of colors in one skein before. A sort of dusty pink, light eggplant, moss green, browns, and a dash of grey.

Pine Bark

This one is also called Pine Bark. However, it is browner shades of the same colors as in the skein above. It's 365 yds of a Superwash Merino/Tencel blend. The Tencel really makes it shiny. The yarn above and this one show how different fibers take dyes differently.

Pine Bark

This one is another 438 skein of Superwash Merino/Silk blend. I was drawn to the silk blends like a moth to the flame. It's called Mountain Blue Bird and is different shades of blue from Indigo to Turquoise
.

Mountain Bluebird

I do not know what I'm going to make with these. For now I'm just petting them and extremely happy to have them in my stash.

Speaking of stash, there is another yarn acquisition I wanted to share with you. A couple weeks ago I bought another one of my friend Ray's Blog Reader Special sock yarns.

Blog Reader Special 2012-0066

I think it's a wonderful blend of greens, purples, and browns. It reminds me of artichoke hearts. I was happy to buy it off his hands.

On Sunday we had a beautiful day! Sunshine, blue sky, and it got up into the 50's. I had to sit out on the deck and knit. I worked on the February Lady Sweater. Here's where I'm at so far.

In the evening we went and saw the new movie John Carter. It was excellent! Unfortunately, because of the way Disney marketed this movie, it is a flop. Very few people have gone to see it. Originally it was going to be called John Carter of Mars but the marketing execs decided the title was too geeky and probably wouldn't appeal to non-geeky people. So they took the Mars part off, which is a real shame because I know that's why people aren't going to see it. If you think about it, the biggest hit movies are geeky. Star Wars, Transformers, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, etc. The Geeks rule the world right now. Apparently they forgot that.

The other reason I think it's a flop is because no one really knows what it's about. They don't know it's based on a classic Sci-Fi series written in the early 1900's by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

The movie is based on The Princess of Mars, the first of a series of novels about a civil war vet who accidentally gets transported to Mars, meets, and falls in love with a Princess, and saves the day. The special effects are awesome. The CGI was so good I couldn't tell where it ended and the real began. I loved the Martian aliens. It was fun to watch from start to finish. I wish it had been a hit. Then there could have been a sequel, or 2, or 5 because there's 5 books in the series. Last night I bought them for my Nook. I read the first one when I was in elementary school (I've always been a Sci-Fi geek) but I never read the rest. Time to get around to doing that.

While I was getting the John Carter of Mars series for my Nook I downloaded a collection of the Tarzan novels, also by Edgar Rice Burroughs. He wrote 25 books in that series. I got the whole collection for $3.99. What a deal! I looked on Amazon and they have the same collection for Kindle.

Before I read either of those, I need to read the books I bought before them. I ran across the sequels for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in paper back and bought them both. I've been reading Bone Walker and finally finished it yesterday morning, so I can start The Girl Who Played With Fire. Wow, I've got a lot of reading lined up.

Last, but not least, these are some flowers I bought for myself. I got them at Costco. They have brightened up the whole house. Especially today. It's been dark and snowing all day long.

Live long and prosper.\\//

Day One: A Tale of Two Yarns

Last year I participated in Knitting And Crochet Blog Week. I'm doing the same this year too. It starts today. The topic is:

A Tale of Two Yarns- Part of any fibre enthusiast’s hobby is an appreciation of yarn. Choose two yarns that you have either used, are in your stash or which you yearn after and capture what it is you love or loathe about them.

First of all, these are my opinions. I don't expect anyone else to feel the same as me.

I'm starting with the loathe. Cotton.

 I  can't stand knitting with cotton. I will knit with it if necessary, but I don't like it. There is no elasticity in cotton. No stretch and bounce. Worst of all, it hurts my hands because of that lack of give. I have to take frequent breaks when knitting with cotton to avoid damaging my hands. It's terrible at holding on to dye too. Who hasn't noticed if you wash your favorite cotton sweater it fades?

I've always felt this way about cotton yarn. Even when I was heavily into machine knitting. It was very difficult to get cotton yarn through the machine. If the tension dial wasn't set just right, and the stitch size too small I would bend or even break needles. If it was too loose, I was dropping stitches right and left.

I know it's nice and cool to wear in the summer, and earth friendly too. I don't care. I loathe knitting with it. For the most part, if I want a cotton sweater, I won't hesitate to go buy one ready made.


Now the love. Dinosaur Yarn.

Berroco Vintage

 Also known as Acrylic, say what you want to about it, I love it. I know, it's not natural or even earth friendly being that it's a form of plastic made from petroleum products (oil) that have to be processed quite a bit to be turned into yarn, but I love it.

Acrylics have been and continue to be improved. They are closer to the feel and quality of wool now than ever. Good quality acrylics are less expensive than natural fibers, soft, warm, stain proof, moth proof, shrink proof, machine wash and dryable, durable, colorfast, non-allergenic, don't pill much, easy to work with, come in all kinds of textures and weights from the finest of lace to the chunkiest of chunks. It comes in a host of vibrant colors, many not achievable in wool, and seem to last forever. It also has all the wonderful elasticity of wool.

I do agree that it won't keep you warm if it's wet like wool will but I rarely get wet when I'm wearing a sweater anyway. I'm not saying I don't like wool either. I love wool. Everyone sings the praises of wool though. Hardly anyone sings the praises of todays Dinosaur yarns. So many people remember the acrylics of the past that were scratchy, squeaky, and even somewhat stiff. They aren't like that any more. Some rival even the best cashmere in softness. It's time to dump that preconceived notion from our brains.


Live long and prosper. \\//