Knittin' and Lovin' It

It's All Moved!

In the last post I promised photos of my new stash set up.

It's now in my bedroom. We were going to try to put it in the walk-in closet at the top of the stairs but as we started moving things around we realized that when we put the drawers in the closet it would be very difficult to open the drawers. With some creative rearranging everything fit nicely in our room. It's not as if I need to hide the yarn from hubby. He really doesn't care that I have enough sock yarn to insulate a 3 room cabin. Besides if he ever gives me a hard time about it I can calmly point out that I didn't raise a fuss when he decided to get a motorcycle. ;~)  

I now have my sock yarn stash split up into groups...semi solid, variegated, self striping, and workhorse sock yarn, ie Opal, Regia, Patons, basically anything that doesn't have to be wound into a center pull ball. Lone hanks of sock yarn that were bought for the girls socks are in with the self striping I have a few single skeins of Lorna's Laces and Claudia Handpaint that isn't enough for adult socks. My roving has it's own drawer now too. I'm using the cedar chest to hold sweater quantities of yarn and all the plastic drawers that have wool now have some cedar balls that I bought from The Loopy Ewe a while back. I haven't seen them sold there in awhile now. I may have to hunt for more somewhere else.

Anyway, I've been knitting too.

Bree decided that she needed a bunny blanket, which has been named Bunny Boo. I used the Bunny Blanket Buddy pattern (ravelry)(non ravelry). The non ravelry link is to Lionbrands website and you have to log on to see the pattern. I didn't have any suitable yarn in my stash so we headed out to Michaels to browse through the yarns and pick out an appropriate color. I went with Lionbrands Baby's First yarn which is a super bulky acrylic/cotton blend which passed Bree's snuggle test. It took less then one skein and it's really soft and cuddly. It would definitely be great for a quick baby blanket.

My birthday gifty from Colleen.

Well actually she sent me a gift card to Amazon. I was originally going to buy a knitting book until I stumbled upon the fact that Adagio sells a few things through Amazon. So I picked up the ingenuiTEA. All I can say is AWESOME! I picked up a cheap electric kettle. I'll eventually upgrade to one with temperature control but for now this one does the job.

I've made more progress on Cassidy. I'm actually hoping to have it done by the end of the this weekend but that may be wishful thinking. I have about 4 inches left on the sleeves then I'll have to block it so I can seam it all together to knit the hood and button bands. I'm actually contemplating leaving the hood off. I don't really use the hood so not sure if it'll be a waste of time. I may go with a nice fold down collar.

Until next time....Happy Crafting.

Little Fishies & A Contest

Contest Has Ended! A winner will be selected in the next day or two.

We're celebrating being debt free and I want to pass on the celebration to all my blogland friends. We made our final payment earlier this month so we are now free of debt. Yippy!

I'll go ahead and get the contest details out of the way now before finishing the rest of the post. I'm going to make this simple: Post about your favorite summertime activity.

I'll keep this contest open through the 12th of Aug. I'll close comments down when I end the contest and the winner will be announced on the 13th in a blog post. I will also email the winner. To qualify for the contest you must post your comment in this post only. I'm not going to hunt willy-nilly through out the blog so if you want to enter post here. I'll use a random number generator to determine the winner.

FYI: If you don't want to enter the contest but want to post a comment just let me know in the comment and I won't put your name down.

So you all are wondering what you win! I'm making it easy this time. The winner gets to decide which online shop they'd like to get a gift certificate too, ie WEBS, Amazon, TLE, Woolgirl, Sonny & Shear, your favorite etsy shop.....I think you get the point. The catch is it has to be one that is easy for me to purchase, preferably one that I can purchase online and have it shipped/emailed to you. If you live in the UK I'm not going to call your favorite LYS to buy a certificate unless of course you want to send me a calling card to pay for the call. Lets keep it simple. I'm doing this because it leaves the contest open for anyone who isn't in the US too. The monetary value of the certificate hasn't fully been determined but I can say that it will be at least $25 USD.

Now on to the regularly scheduled blog post.

Shawn was sent down to F.E. Warren AFB in Wyoming for a few days so the girls and I have been hanging around the house. I think Zeus is missing Shawn the most. Poor dog keeps looking out the front window expecting Shawn to walk through the door at any minute.

Shawn's due to leave tomorrow morning so he should be back before the girls head to bed. He stated to me that picking Montana over Wyoming was a great choice. He said the housing there is horrible. Most of the housing here is new although some of the new housing is messed up because some moron decided to build them on swamp land. Hello idiots, draining the swap and filling it in with dirt is most likely going to backfire on you. When you build a house on land that was once swamp land chance are the land is going to sink and try to revert back to its swampiness and that's what's happening right now. My next door neighbor is one of the many people who are being moved out of houses that are sinking. Truth be told the only reason we picked Montana was because it kept use closer to the West coast where my family is without having to go broke living in California or dealing with all that Las Vegas, NV has to offer. Living in Las Vegas is enough to give me nightmares for a year. Going to Wyoming would have moved us even farther way so Montana won.

Now on to knitting and all that other good stuff you all came here for.

I'm totally addicted to knitting these little fishies (ravelry) (non ravelry).

I can't stop casting on even though I don't really have any real use for them. I've made three so far. They're to small for dishrags. Maybe I can use a little of that mesh stuff knit in with them to make scrubbies. Bree's been grabbing them from me as soon as I finish them so I have several little knitted fishies floating around the house. Well I guess since Bree likes them then they do have some value, plus they're cute.

I purchase these from Dawning Dreams Etsy shop.

A pretty jewel orifice hook for my spinning wheel and two cable needles. I absolute love the cable needles and contacted Dawn who was fabulous and made me a set of mini cable needles for knitting on smaller things like socks. Here's the mini needles.....aren't they cute!

I'm not big on cabling without a needle and truth be known I can knit cables twice as fast with a cable needle then without one. The orifice hook is a tad to thick for my wheel so it's become a pretty decoration in with my knitting tools and crochet hooks.

I also acquired some yummy Yarn Love fiber from Sonny & Shear. I don't know why I've never bought from them before but I was pleased....great selection and fast shipping. They've got a pretty nice selection of fibers from various dyers not to mention all the different sock yarns.

First up is Yarn Love Marianne.

The color is Cottage Garden and it's superwash merino.....mmmmmm, merino is so soft.

Then there's Yarn Love Scarlett O'Hara.

The color is Blackberry Jam and it's a superwash wool/bamboo/nylon blend.

I picked up the yarn to start a shawl for my mom.

It's Knit Picks Gloss Lace and the colorway is Port.

Then I started my moms shawl after I finished up a sample knit.

This is the beginning of the Whispering Pines Shawl (ravelry)(non ravelry) by Anne Hanson of Knitspot. I'd have to say that she has some of the most gorgeous lace patterns around. Not to mention well written.

I finished my moms Loopified socks.

It's the Halema uma u Socks (ravelry) that came in the 2008 TLE Anniversary kit. As far as I can tell this pattern hasn't been released for sale to the general public yet. The yarn used was also part of the kit and is Handmaiden Casbah, colorway Loopified. This yarn is yummy and I think after the weather cools down my mom is going to love them.

I also received some yummy BFL that I purchased from Perchance to Spin which is Perchance to Knits shop for all things spinning related.

It's 8 ounces of soft BFL in a pretty light green colorway called New Leaf Green. I really love spinning BFL.

I also bought some lovely orifice hooks for my wheel.

These work beautifully with my Ashford Traveller. Fiber Jewels was having a get two for the price of one deal that I couldn't pass up. I don't really have a need for two hooks since I only have one wheel but hey they were buy one get one free.

Project & notions bag made specially for me.

I swapped a skein of yarn for the project and notions bag. The project bag is the perfect size for socks and it has a cool little pocket on the inside of the bag.

I'll leave you with this shot.

My baby had her 3rd birthday on the 24th. I can't believe she's 3 already! Man does the time fly. I'm thinking about starting her in Preschool next year.....yikes, I'm gonna cry if I keep thinking about it.

Oh Look Tomatoes!

Happy crafting!

Happy Birthday Baby!

It's hard to believe that my baby turn 2 today!

At Birth:

Today:

Bree is modeling one of the dresses my mom made for her. We are going to celebrate her b-day on the 1st to give Kaity a chance to get something for Bree. It's important to Kaity that she select a present for her sis.

Here's a shot of all three dresses.

It was a toss up for Bree on which was her favorite, the Wall-E birthday card or the Tigger dress. She hasn't put the card down since we handed it to her but she wants to wear the dress. We've heard a combination of Wall-E and Tigger coming from Bree since we opened the box. Very cute and the bonus is they are tad big on Bree so she should be able to wear them next summer.

Happy Birthday Toot!

30's Not So Bad

Today is my 30th birthday and guess what, 30 feels the same as 29! Well at least it does for me. We aren't doing much of anything today. I have the house to myself right now since Bree is napping and Shawn took Kaity to a birthday party. Although Shawn should be back soon with my Carmel Frappuccino from Starbucks....yummmmmm! Yes it's fully loaded. I can't bring myself to try the skinny drinks. Since I only get Starbucks a few times a month it's not to horrible. I made the mistake of looking up the nutritional information one day....yikes!

Most of my knitting has been test/sample knits. But I did make a washcloth for Bree.

I want to make a stack of them for cleaning Bree up after she's done eating. Bree's feeding herself and she doesn't always hit the spoon on the mark the first time around. I'm using Cottontots since it's really soft and one of my favorite cottons to work with.

I did get some yummy stuff for my birthday. First up is some Plassard Dune yarn from my friend Colleen.

I haven't decided what to knit with it yet. I'm still on the hunt for the right pattern.

This came in the mail yesterday from my mom.

She's sneaky! She went on to Amazon and browsed through my wishlist and got me The Opinionated Knitter. I've been wanting this one for awhile.

My birthday gift to myself.

I placed a small order through Woolgirl for a few things that caught my eye. The yummy berry colored yarn is by J Irby Designs and I couldn't pass up the coffee cozy kit put together by The Unique Sheep. I love the colors. Jen included a cute little sheep notepad and sample of wool wash.

I was really touched when Shawn brought this home from Kaity's teacher.

She put these together for the parents who helped her out in the classroom throughout the year. I'm not sure if I want to hang these outside with the way the wind blows around here. I may transplant them to a bigger pot and place them on one of the porches. I wonder how well these would do here in the house? I'll figure something out.

Here in a few days I'll post about the skirt I'm making for Kaity. I started it last night so there isn't much to show yet. Plus I must spread out the blog fodder or I'm going to run out. Plus I have a baby blanket to knit so I'll be talking about the pattern and yarn possibilities.

Happy Crafting!

Cute Card & Such

I got this b-day card in the mail this morning from my mom.  I loved it and wanted to share it with all of you.  :~)



On the inside it says "...But apparently, they don't know how to knit. Warmest Wishes"

Warning: Major Rant Content containing absolutely no knitting.  Skip to the bottom to get back to knitting if you don't want to read my rantings!  You can skip it, I don't mind.  The rant is mostly for my benefit!   :~)

This card made me crack up and I sorely needed it after the news Shawn gave me.  He was told that he needed to make sure his personal bag was packed and ready for the upcoming exercise.  So we went out and purchased all of the stuff he needed.....all $45 worth of stuff.  I'm pissed about wasting the money but I'm more pissed because this isn't the first time the little ass has done something like that.  I can't even begin to comprehend what is going through his pea brain. 
Shawn found this morning that he didn't need his personal bag because he's not deploying because we are PCSing (moving) before the next deployment.  Only the people who are deploying in Sept need to have their personal bags put together for this exercise.  Shawn's stupid little pin headed (insert a whole lot of creative cussing) weasel of a Lt (more cussing here) tells him "Oh yeah, I knew you didn't need to but I wanted you guys to show flight initiative".  WTF, does that mean Flight Initiative.  Did the idiot think he was going to gain brownie points for omitting information which in my opinion is lying!  Let me tell you what, I was ready to go in there and show that little (insert a lot more cussing) stupid moron just what flight initiative is.  He's a worthless waste of space and is sucking up valuable air that is needed for more worthy individuals.  I told Shawn to make sure the little (insert a lot of creative unladylike name calling here) turd stays away from me when I'm up there for Shawn promotion ceremony because I will not hold back my opinions.  What I'm saying here in blogland is what I'd tell that little waste of space if I ever see him.  This isn't the first time he's done something like this.  I have absolutely no problem looking someone in the eye and saying "Go away, I can't stand you".  I'm not one for politely smiling and making small talk with some one I don't like.  Life's to short to waste it on things like that.

Anyways, back to knitting content.

I've changed my mind and am now planning on using this for my SOS socks instead:

It's Scarlet Fleece It Tubular x2 sock yarn in the color Irish Eyes.  Wonder if I'll change my mind again?  I'm still planning on sticking with Elenore, a pattern by Momma Monkey.

Sorry for the rant everyone.....I just needed to get that out of my system so I can get through the rest of the day.

Happy Knitting!

My B-Day Gift

Lookie what I got:



And when it opened it, this is what I saw:



A lovely set of lace blocking wires.  Now I need to start a new lace project so I can use.

Monkey's & B-Day Present

I got this in from Colleen this morning:



For my b-day she sent me all sorts of wonderful goodies to get me started on spinning.  I got all the stuff I need to make my own spindle, plus she also sent merino, alpaca, wool blends....all sorts of fibery goodness.  So you all can guess what I'll be doing after all has quieted down in the luvs2knit household.   :~)

I also have update pics of my moms socks.  I've got about 1.5" to go before starting the toe decreases.  My mom's foots a tad shorter then mine so it may fit on my sock blocker.  I'll probably finish up the second sock tonight or tomorrow night.



Well I'm outta here for now.  Hope you all are having a great weekend.  Happy knitting!