Hi! Remember me?

So, back in April when I moved the videocast over to it's own blog, I fully intended to leave this one up and to continue to blog here about my own personal knitting and fiber and life stuff. Heh. That worked well, eh?

Sorry.

Really didn't mean to leave you hanging like that.

If anyone is still checking in here after four months of radio silence, I'm happy to tell you that I am going to begin blogging here again, f'realz. Not sure if it is the impending change of seasons or what, but I'm feeling that old familiar feeling of wanting to blog again, to get back into a routine (in general, really, not just in the blogosphere). Not sure how often I'll be able to post, but I'll try to make it regular.

A few things that have been going on in my life since you heard from me last...

 I went to Spring Fling in April, where I got to hang out with Steve from Dramatic Knits...

 ...and with Stacy from Tempted Yarns.

 In June, the kids and I spent a week in Florida visiting my mom and stepdad...

 ...and spent lots of time on the beach and in the sun.

 ...and I endured the after effects of a really ill-fated decision to try platinum highlights (this was after they were "fixed" but still...ugh...)

 It got hot and we all had to find ways to stay cool. Muffin's favorite way has been to sprawl on the wood floors like this.

In July, I got a new tattoo!

 And at the beginning of August, we went to NC to welcome our oldest home from his seven months in Afghanistan!

Then I got to spend the next weekend back in NC, taking my grandson to visit with his dad for a few days. First time they saw each other since January. What a happy day!

And of course, there has been a lot of dyeing for the shop, and a LOT of knitting!

Bakersfield

 Plain ribbed socks out of some of my hand-dyed yarn...

 Springtime Bandit out of some of my handspun...

 Flutter-by Socks out of a colorway called Tiny Umbrellas!

 The Arcadian Shawl, which was my first Camp Loopy project. I finished my second project, too, but the third has done me in. I'm a Camp Loopy drop out!

And I've done a bit of designing, too!

The Twistygoo hat...a free pattern downloadable on Ravelry. :)

I'll stop there. I've got more to share, but it can wait! I will say I have a couple more patterns in the works...a sock pattern that is out to test knitters right now, a shawl pattern I need to edit and get out to testers, and another sock pattern that I'm still knitting and writing up. So, yeay!

And we started our 12th homeschooling year on Monday, definitely a harbinger of fall!

Spring is offically here...

First wash of the season out on the clothesline today! Can't wait to hang the sheets out later this week. :)

Cubbies make all the difference!

Not baby bears. Not a baseball team from Chicago. These...

I've been in my new office/yarn room for a couple of months now, but I still didn't have it completely organized to my liking. Also, I hadn't yet decided if I wanted to try and put a bed in here, or a futon, or nothing, so that wall where the cubbies are remained empty and the room looked pretty funny.

Over the weeks, though, I've decided that I really liked having the open floor space. I could set up my ironing board in here, out of the way, or I could put mats down and block things in here. It was nice to not be squished because, frankly, we live in a small house, and we pretty much live in every square foot of it! To have some extra space and open floor, well...it felt like a luxury. So I decided to skip the bed and instead put in cubbies for more storage. That was what I really needed anyway.

So, now that the room is offiically DONE, let me give you the official TOUR! =)

(By the way, the rest of these room photos are linked through Flickr, so if you click on them, you'll go to the Flickr images where you can see the notes I've imbedded in the photos. The trade off is I can't get Blogger and Flickr to play nice, thus the photos will not center. Ok, now they're centering, but I've got line spacing issues. Sigh.)

Here we are, entering the room...

...and the if you look to the left, you'll see the cubbies as they are in the picture above. Want a closer look at the cubbies? Sure you do! Remember, click through the Flickr images because I've got notes galore on what you're seeing. (I enjoy learning the details of people's living spaces...maybe it satisfies some deep, voyeuristic tendencies I have?)

I love having all of this color and texture right out in the open! Today, after I finished arranging it all, I just sat on the floor, entranced. Chris walked in and asked, "Um, having fun staring at your yarn?" Why yes, I really was!

My Loopy collection. :)

Turning again to the left, we come to the original book cases that were in the room...

I originally thought I would have plenty of space for yarn in just those top three shelves in the left case. Ha! Didn't hold nearly as much as I needed them to. Now with the cubbies, I've opened up nearly an entire shelf (which I'm sure will be filled with something soon) and now I also have room to put my scrapbooking papers out where I can actually get to them and possibly even use them again (novel idea...I really would like to scrap occasionally again...it's been so long!). (BTW, tons of notes on the Flickr picture of this one! LOL)

As you turn to the left again, you will pass the room's door, which, when open, hides the closet. I didn't take a picture of that because, frankly, it's still kind of a disaster in there, but not quite as much as it was. Right now, it houses all of my batts and bumps of spinning fiber (the braids are all out in the cubbies! Yeay!), as well as fiber to be dyed and also all of the yarn I have up on my sell/trade page on Rav, or plan to put there soon. It also has my shipping supplies, boxes of pictures, a huge box of old journals, kali sticks, machetes and some sewing supplies. Yeah, quite a motley assortment of goods.

So! Turn to the left again, and we come to the dresser...

Only the top drawer has any yarn in it now, though the top two used to have sock yarn in it. More than anything, I just love this piece of furniture. It was from Kevin's grandma's house and it is old and just has such charm and character!

I love buttons!

If you turn to the left again, you've done a complete circle around the room, returning to my desk.

And then if you look down, you will likely find this at your feet...

She really is not happy about this. She is probably plotting where
she will do something nasty that I will then need to clean up.

September is off to a good start...

 ...mostly. I'm not counting the cold I've had this week that has been kicking my arse. Moving on...

I finished my Nantucket Red on Tuesday, which is not red but a pretty golden color...

Nantucket Red by Thea Colman done in Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool.

It was a pretty quick project. I finished it in less than a month, and that was in the midst of the house stuff and some other knitting. There are more pictures of it on my Rav project page, along with my project notes. I'm 98.9% happy with it. I am having issues with the sleeve caps laying right...I think I could have made them about two rows shorter and they'd have been perfect, but clearly, that isn't a big deal. The fit in the left bust area is a little snug (yes, just the left...I'm slightly lopsided, LOL) but there really wouldn't have been much I could have done to make it bigger on just that one side without it looking odd. I'm confident that with wear, the Silky Wool will open up and it'll be fine. The only other issue is fixable...I may need to move my hooks/eyes closer to the edges. You can't tell as much in this picture because of the way I'm standing, but they aren't as gappy as they are supposed to be. We'll see how I feel about it after I wear it a few times. Again, though, overall...very happy with it, it was a terrific pattern, and I'm glad to have another Silky Wool cardi to take the place of my February Lady Sweater that is now way too huge on me.

I also finished my first Norwegian Rose sock this week...

I started this sock back in May, after Spring Fling, as part of a KnitGirllls KAL. I started off strong, finishing the foot part in no time, but when I got to the heel, I flagged. It's that whole toe-up heel thing. This pattern called for a short-row heel, of which I am not a fan, so I kept debating about doing a different heel and essentially paralyzed myself with options, so I just pushed the project aside. I finally pulled it out again a couple of weeks ago, deciding to just do the heel as written and see how it went.

Now that it's done, I have mixed feelings about it. The sock is definitely pretty, my stranded colorwork has enough give that the sock fits snugly but comfortably (and I can get it on, which is always a crap shoot with colorwork socks), and the short-row heel is ok, but the pattern called for a "mini-flap" above the short-row heel, which essentially made the heel too high for me and kind of boinks out unless I really pull the sock up, and it will never stay that way. I could omit it on the second one, I suppose, but then the socks won't match, and that will bug me. I could rip out the first one, get rid of the mini-flap and re-knit it, but....hahahahaha! I am not ripping out 6 inches of colorwork. Sorry. Not happening. I'll live with the boink.

As for other projects, I am working on another pair of socks (Norwegian Rose #2 is going to wait a while, I think), which will be a Christmas gift for a friend. First sock is done, second about 1/3 of the way. No pictures yet, though. I am planning to start a Haruni shawl for another gift (I am so on the ball with gift knitting this year...it's amazing!) -- the yarn is wound and the pattern printed out -- and I'm going to start another Traveling Woman soon, I think, for yet another gift, but I haven't decided on yarn yet. In the mean time, I've started a random cardigan with some Lorna's Laces Swirl DK I've had laying around forever.

And I do mean it is random because I have no pattern. This is some of the first yarn I ever bought when I first started knitting a few years ago, but I had no idea what I'd made with it. I finally decided to swatch to see what the colors would do, if they'd pool unpleasantly or what, but the only way to do that for a garment is to make a really big swatch. So I cast on enough stitches to accommodate the back of a cardigan for myself. I've got about 15" now, almost far enough to bind off for armholes. So...yeah...that's what I'll do. And then I'll try to mimic the same design in the front, I suppose. (Really, it's that random.) The sleeves may be a bit of an issue, as I have never tried to fake an entire sweater pattern before, but I know how to measure and divide and count, and I'm hoping that will yield functional and pleasing results. LOL It's actually kind of fun to be knitting something in this way. And I have to say, I LOVE how the yarn is working out. I love how it looks, and I love how it feels. The colors are awesome and not pooling unpleasantly.  So...I'll see what I end up with. Stay tuned!

On the fiber front, I had the day to myself on Tuesday, and though it was one of the days I was feeling kind of punk, I thought, Hey! What better to do today than make a giant mess in my kitchen! So that's what I did. I broke out the fiber and the dyes. By the end of the day, this is what I had...

I've been wanting to learn how to dye roving for some time now...it was on my "to do" list for the last two summers, actually. I've been gathering materials and equipment. I've been reading, reading, reading about the process. I finally decided that the only way I was really going to learn anything was to just give it a go. I chose some Southdown/Shetland cross fiber that, frankly, I don't think is of great quality. It's rough and very neppy and I'm not sure why I thought it was a good idea to buy a pound of it, but I did, so I used some of it as my guinea pig fiber. It dyed beautifully, but it's still a rough, neppy mess that is not the least bit fun to spin.

On the plus side, though, I managed to dye it without felting it, nor burning it. I did, however, use WAY too much dye, thus it took two more batches of fiber afterward to exhaust the dye baths. I also succeeded in dyeing my hands purple during one of the rinses because I forgot to put my gloves on. Live and learn. I feel cautiously optimistic about what I did, though. Next time I think I'll try it on some better fiber. Life is too short to mess with unpleasant fiber, period.

Oh, the reason I had the day to myself on Tuesday is because Kevin took an extra day's vacation for the long weekend. His big project for the four days was digging up his parents' yard in order to install a new water line. We were all over there on Sunday for dinner, and afterward I grabbed my camera and said to the kids, "Hey! Let's go have fun with the ditch!" This sentence would probably seem strange in most contexts, right? It says something about our family that the kids just shrugged and said, "OK!" So...here you have it...fun with a ditch...

Because I can...

I'm happy to report that my desktop is not only set back up in its new home, but it is now reconnected to the interwebz, so not only can I edit photos on it, I can upload them without having to play musical files with the flash drive that I can never seem to find when I need it! See!

Yes, I know! You couldn't have lived another day without seeing a picture of the peach I ate for a snack today. But really? It was a good peach! Very juicy!

All right, then...how about this?

This is my faaaavorite corner of my new office/yarn room. Two book cases, largely dedicated to yarn and knitting and spinning related things. The top shelf of the shorter book case holds all of my loose patterns, as well as knitting magazines and pattern booklets. The next two shelves are both full of knitting books. The shelf below them is half full of spinning and dyeing books, and the other half is random papercrafting books. The bottom shelf is all nature, gardening and travel books.

Now the taller book case...ahhh! Here is where I'm FINALLY able to house some yarn out in plain view! I cannot tell you how much I love this! When I was downstairs, I kept all of my yarn housed in plastic bins because it gets pretty dusty down there, especially in the winter when we're burning the wood stove, and I didn't want to risk the yarn getting dirty. But up here, I can put it out without much fear of that. And it is so nice to be able to see it and just wander over and fondle it any time I please. ;) The top shelf is all of my handspun. The next shelf down is all of my Three Irish Girls yarn -- one of my favorite yarns ever.

The next shelf -- the one with the two bins -- is what I'm calling my "inspiration" shelf. If you're a knitter with a stash (who's ever heard of a knitter without a stash, right? Well, they do exist. ;)), you can likely relate to this. Over the years, I've collected a lot of pretty, pretty yarn. Key word there is collected. I will buy one or two or a few balls of a yarn simply because it is beautiful and lovely without having any real purpose in mind for it. I figure some day, the right project will come along for it, but the risk there is that in the interim, the pretty, pretty yarn gets hidden away in the depths of the stash until I forget I have it. And when I periodically stash dive and run across it, it's a pleasant surprise, and again I think, "I'll use this some day."

Well, I decided to go through my stash and pull out my most favorite of all the pretty, pretty yarns I have collected, and I've placed them in plain view where I can see them and pet them and -- hopefully -- be more likely to actually use them. The basket on the left contains balls, the one on the right contains hanks. That one also has a LOT of Malabrigo. Mmmm...Malabrigo. Yum! Somewhat related to the inspiration shelf is the inspiration basket sitting there on the floor. I pulled out one ball from each of a dozen bags of my favorites of large lots of yarn I have, hoping to become inspired to do some big projects.

Ok, moving on...the next shelf is office supplies. The bottom shelf is all of my completed scrapbooks, baby books and other such albums. (Incomplete scrapbooks are on top of the book case. Scrapping is a hobby I used to be so into, but I haven't done it at all in close to four years. I'm determined to get back to it. Some time.)

There's more yarn stashed in the room, but this photo doesn't show it. I'd love to add more photos for you, but in the midst of editing tonight, my computer popped up one of those messages that said something like, "Your hard drive is going to explode soon because you've filled it with too many files." Indeed, my hard drive was nearly maxed out! So, I'm in the long process of transferring a ton of files to the external hard drive. I'm determined to make this computer stay alive as long as possible. A new one isn't in the budget just now!

For now, I'll leave you with this last picture. Any guesses on what the bags are for?

Now for the real pictures...

Since no one was else was home at picture time, model-less pictures of my Berry Berry Citron will have to suffice for now! ;)

Citron, knit with 654 yards of 3-ply fingering weight handspun created from 4 oz. of Tempted merino/silk, "Positivity" colorway. I Navajo-plied it to maintain the nice, long color changes.

This is so soft and light and yet cosy and warm! I may have been a little overzealous in my blocking, as the ruched areas aren't quite as dense as I've seen them in other versions of this shawl, or it could be that my gauge was just looser. No matter, I do love how it turned out.

I often wonder what my neighbors think when they see me outside taking photos of my knits. Especially when I'm outside on a Sunday morning, still in my PJ's, zombie socks and gardening shoes...

Oh, and wild hair and no make up! Yep! That's got to be an attractive thing to watch. Or at least mildly amusing. I suppose I could have really put on a show and set up the tripod to take pictures of myself modeling Citron...

Um...yeah. Maybe not. ;)

Instead, my pretty Morning Glory vine was more than happy to play model!

Speaking of pretty plants, I think this Coleus is one of the prettiest things growing in my flower beds this year! I've always loved flowery flowers and never used to be a big fan of variegated greenery, but it's really growing on me lately (no pun intended!).

And I've noticed something else this year. The Butterfly Flowers I planted? They have been attracting more bees than butterflies. And some big bees at that! Look at this dude!

Lastly, let me just say that I am loving - LOVING - that it is starting to feel fallish. Being able to open the windows at night and have the air conditioning off...wonderful! And having the need to put on some hand knit socks and wrap myself in a shawl or afghan early in the morning? Fantastic! Our new school year is going to start two weeks from today, and I'm by no means trying to rush these last two weeks of summer, but weather-wise, give me fall and I'm a happy, happy girl! :)

Traveling Woman...with Beads

It's not very often that I knit a pattern more than once unless I'm doing something en masse to give as gifts. I've never re-knit a sweater or shawl pattern, until now. I knit another Traveling Woman shawl. Why? Because I love the pattern, because I had someone in mind who I thought would look lovely in a purple shawl, and because this pattern is both beautiful and easily worked.

The funny thing is...I don't even know this person very well. But I knit without hesitation because the pattern and the yarn just seemed so perfect a match for her. She is beautiful and exotic and is, herself, a traveling woman, having been to many places around the world. And she looks exquisite in purple. Really. Hopefully I can get a picture of her with the shawl at some point after I give it to her.

Since it was a second go-around with this pattern, I felt the need to do something a little different besides making it slightly larger than the first. (I did four repeats of Chart A on this one instead of the three I did on the green one. I had more yarn to work with this time, so it made sense.) I decided this would look even prettier if I accented the edging with beads. Just four beads on each point...made for an elegant touch.

It's so soft and drapey and feels so good around my shoulders, I can't tell you how much I'd like to keep it for myself! But each stitch was knit with its intended recipient in mind, so to her it will go.

Traveling Woman, pattern by Liz Abinate; yarn: Malagrigo Sock, Abril colorway.

That doesn't mean I can't make a third one...for myself...with beads. Possibly in purple. ;)