New Spindles

 

I splurged this Christmas and gotten myself to beautiful spindles.from Tina's Angoras.  They are orange and green dragons vein tops and beautiful spindle stems.  Yes I know that I am probably not explaining them the wrong way.   (excuse the trash cans in the background-totally was oblivious that they were in the shot when I took it with my phone!)  She has several different tops, also Russian Support Spindles, plus some fiber.  I was surprised when I opened up the box (very quick, ordered it on Thursday night, got it today, Monday), there was a sandwich bag stuffed full with fiber, funky and fun fiber.  I am so excited. 

Had to start over on my brother’s hat but haven’t finished it, I found it very hard to knit much on 1 (2.50 mm) doublepoints.  Is it just me or do other peoples hands start hurting?

Did finish the wingspan scrap project and will promise to post a picture.  (yes I was feeling like a lazy sod lately). 

Well more later, maybe be quicker with posts.

hiya

Not much to post, blog, or talk about.  Just a few stiches on the 22.5* shawl, a couple of lines on the hitchhiker, two washcloths, and I started making a hat for my brother but it seem like it might be a little small but I am going to see what a couple of more rows might do to the size of the hat.  Maybe I need to get in touch with the pattern maker.  Wish I could tell you what the name of the hat is but not sure where I put the pattern.  Just a basic knit purl hat. 
But I did get a fun and surpise birthday present.  What the slip says that its a yarn bell/bowl with base.  It's neat.  Here's the link:  yarn-bell-or-bowl-with-base .  Its so pretty that I am kind of afraid of using it just for the fact that I might break it.
Well I hope your November is going great.

Progress!!!

I have actually made 5 teeth on the hitchhiker, yay....I actually did some more practice drop spindling.  I am actually getting the hang of dividing up the fiber and getting it, what I call, stretched out some so its not so lumpy.  Is that drafting?  Really need to get some books and more dvd's to actually get the lingo down.  Hopefully will get that straightened out soon.

One note, as most of you guys know, a lot of video podcasters have been dropped from iTunes because of blip.  I had posted several weeks ago about the Hippie Penguin mentioning this and it seems like its taking a bit of time to get it launched. If the website gets its target, there will be a place where the dropped video podcasters to go and upload their videos, so we can all still enjoy their podcasts.  And I checked the website tonight and they need about $7000 more in 9 days.  I know that's a lot and there are a lot of us who don't have the change to donate a chunk of change.  I have heard that 444 is a lucky number, if you can afford $4.44, do you think a bunch of us can help get this get off the ground?  I just tried the donation and they only do whole dollars not any cents.  But they do take only a dollar, do take credit cards or go through paypal. 

PodFiber-WatchFiber

Will get off the box now....Have a good night. 

Lack of Motivation

Yet again I am in a bit of a rut.  I am slowly working through the hitchhiker (which I really need to finish for a friends birthday in a little over a month), a little bit on the 22.5* shawl (which is going slowly because I am using some of my mothers readers to work on it and I am still on a really dark yarn).  I practiced on my spindle a bit tonight but I am going through a squirrel moment(s) with farmville 2 on facebook.

Once I get a steady paycheck, I am probably go to a 2 hour spindle tutorial downtown and see if I can be a little bit more consistent with a spindle.  I really want to get better on one.

Other than that, looking for a job in office work or  as an administrative assistant somewhere sucks unless I want to commute 6 hours a day.  Whoot whoot.

Sorry to be a wet blanket this week!

Holy Screwups Batman!

Seamless Salomas Slippers.....Holy snot!  The first one I did, yeah....I started knitting the thing inside out, yeah a little dyslexic .  Then I didn't pay attention to the first decrease row.  Then didn't knit every wrong side....Tried again, had to rip back twice because I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing....Well, after two days of on and off knitting on it, I actually did it.  But I might have to go from the medium to the large size, and I did it on size 8's instead of 6's.

Think it's time to put down knitting and try to teach myself how to spindle.  Have an Interweave video on a thumbdrive and see if I can do this....First I am going to use the fiber that I had gotten when I got the heavy spindle, then go to the stuff I got on my trip.  We will see.

Update, I have spun some.... its not the greatest but its spun!  Yay!

One thing I forgot to mention about my vacation was that, when I was near the Crater Lake Lodge, there was a girl sitting on the wall facing Crater Lake and knitting.  I commented to my mom that would be a great view to actually knit.  Kewl beanz.......

Oh Whatever.....

I just can't stop!!!!  I have the 22.5*, the wingspan, a dishcloth, a Hitchhiker, need to start a hat for my brother (not to self camo yarn), the fiber to learn spinning.  And guess what I want to do?  I want to start the Seamless Salomas Slippers, that's if I can figure out Judy's magic cast on before throwing thing whole kit out the window.  What have I gotten myself into?  Guess I think I can multitask while looking for a job! 

Wish me luck on the cast on.....I know the rainy season is coming even though its going to be 95 tomorrow.

I just watched a little bit of Miami Monkey, is Big Ang a plastic surgeons wet dream or is she a he?

Oh tonight I saw the last Hippie Penguin podcast, her husband is trying to do this podcast fiber thing... Just starting out.  If interest is peaked, go to facebook and type in podfiber...If you don't donate, just click like....  See where it goes.

Just a Short One-Kollage

I just got in my Kollage square circular knitting needles and switched the 22.5* over to them...  OMG...  I am finding my hands hurting less and less issues with the join.  I only did about 6 rows but they are very nice.... when I find some more money I might get a couple of more sizes other than the size 2's I had gotten. 

Back to knitting!

PS One More Thing

If you are in the Portland, OR you probably heard of the bicyclist that was hit and left for dead in SW Portland.  Well one of the local yarn shops in NE, The Naked Sheep, has found out that he knits, so they are making a collection of yarns for him, Cascade Yarns and Lantern Moon have made donations.  Here is the blog post from the Naked Sheep.
Yarn for Henry Schmidt

Hello!

After a little bit of inactivity, with probably not a lot of people waiting with baited breath for my next post. Spent 10 days camping and a little knitting, I am knitting the 22.5 * with Einband Icelandic wool.  The yarn is very nice to knit with but my problem is with my circulars, the join on them are a pain in the butt to make sure that the stitches move over them.  But I was in this yarn shop in Eureka, CA and was asking the shop owner about the square knitting needles she said that they are great to work with, not a problem with the join, and helps with carpal tunnel.  Well guess what I did when I got home yesterday?  I went online and bought some Kolage square needle circulars online at a place that a group on Ravelry said to go to and got some for $14.95.  I can't find the link but just do a search in the forums and you should find the link.  I know I am a bad, bad blogger!  But the shop in Eureka and the shop owner is great, if you are ever in that town, the website is Yarn (yes that is the name!) .

When I was camping near Bandon, OR, my mother and I were going south to look at some lighthouses near Cape Blanco and we saw this shop near Bandon, which we were going to, but coming back from Cape Blanco we saw this different wool place, said what the heck and pulled in.  OMG!!!  I am glad we pulled in.  Wild Rivers Wool  The lady was fantastic.  There were yarn, there were...yes me speak good English honest!  There was a nice mixture of knitted products, yarns-some handspun, there was even Pendleton remnants that you could work with, felting products, but what got me was this bookshelf that was about 6 feet long and about that tall full of fiber.  Since I have been wanting to spin for a while, bought a spindle from Highland Handmades, guess what I did?  I asked as a spinner wanna be, what I could use to start spinning.  She was very helpful.  I found some very beautiful stuff.  Neat thing is that the fiber is wrapped in newpaper, so the ends are sticking out.
The first is the stuff that called my name first. Its Romney wool with 10% suri silk, called blood orange.

My lighting was off so it looks a little bit more rust than blood orange, but its really nice color.

The next one is Wensleydale, it red white and blue called Patriot, which was an after thought but its Wensleydale!  What the heck.

Now I don't know if $6 is too much for approximately 2 oz but what do I know and sorry that the tags are crinkly because they have been in my backpack for almost a week.  (sorry for the thumb in the pic! Just saw that!)

Well, I am going to sign off for now, this is been a long one.  Now I just have to find the beginning spindle videos I have on a thumb drive and pull out the spindle, and try try try for spinning.

When Motivation Lacks

The project(s) I want to take camping are einband yarn for the 22.5* (yes real wool yarn, shocker right?).  I also got some d-stash from someone and it is luscious blues, greens, and some orange, 100% merino from Ellen's 1/2 Pint Farm.  That stuff will be going for a good Wingspan. Only problem is I am feeling really lazy and I don't want to wind the yarn up in to cakes!

I found a nice art portfolio with the clear plastic sleeves inside, about 20 of those sleeves, and I actually slid all the patterns that I want to knit again and the ones I do want to knit into it, recycled the other ones (because if I am not going to knit it, then why have a printed copy since they are in my Ravelry page.  And I bought some ten cent presentation sleeves to stick the projects I am taking with me in a small binder. 

Well, gotta figure out someway to not tangle up the merino when winding.

Very Sleepy

I am plugging through my internship and it is very slow today.  So what I am doing is working on my Hitchhiker, I am almost done with my 17 tooth.  Haven't done much on my wingspan but I am almost halfway through the 5th wing.  I sort  of want the scrap version to be done because I have some nice yarn to work on the wingspan and see how pretty it can be with something other than acrylic!  I have also been tooling through Ravelry and found this sweater calld the Waterford Cardigan put out by Lion Brand.  Looks really nice with a 4 button off center button band that might be easy for a first sweater, but I might get something else for the Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick and Quick.  I have no problem with Lion Brand but looking into other yarn gives me options.  I also looked at the Ship Wreck Shawl by Knitting Harpy.  Yeah, I think I will try that some other time becasue lace knitting sort of scares me for some reason.  Well gotta go.

I cheated somewhat....

I was surfing through etsy for drooling over time and wishing for my internship to be over so I could actually buy yarn other than at Michaels. But I was looking at stitch markers:

These are knit me happy meow stitch markers from Cattailknits...  Heres the link: small-knit-me-happy-meow-stitch-markersThey are wonderfully simple but being a poor student worker right now, the $11 (with shipping) was something I couldn't fork over.  So I rooted through my beading stuff from Michaels and with the $2.50  for a 50 pack of rings and had similar beads that were pretty much just as cheap, made my own similar to these.  They don't look like the picture but some time in the future I will be buying these lovely things right and left!


Other than that, I am up to 15 teeth on  the hitchhiker and am making progress on the wingspan. Maybe a 22.5 degrees out of Lopi Einband while I am on camping trip next month.  Knitting something with good yarn always makes me a little nervous!

Not Much Here

I am blogging from my internship right now, nothing much to do.  I am sneaking in some time on my hitchhiker because it is taking my mind off of my losing one of my cats yesterday.  Yes she was 16 and lymphoma, but still one of my babies.  So I will probably obsessively on and off knitting when I have the free time.  So I am keeping my fingers crossed that I can finish this Christmas gift early. Also in the pile of stuff I have printed off of Ravelry, I decided to knit the leafy washcloths by Megan Goodacre to see how they knit up before knitting some more of the grandmothers favorite dishcloth.  Will give a review sometime soon, hopefully.

Just a Bit of Randomness

I had gotten a lot of beads from a friend from school.  I realized that I have a bit of OCD when it comes to beads.  It took me a large amount of time to sort through size and shape between school and work.  OMG, small seed beads are a witch to get into a snack size ziplock bag.  Whenever I vacuum, the bottom has at least 10 or more beads in the bottom.  How do you use those tiny little beads in knitting????  I know that the Evenstar wouldn't get these tiny tiny little beads but I would be cursing the knitting until it was freaking fraking done.   Don't think I have the patience for it.

For knitting, I have done about 13 teeth on the hitchhiker.  I am on the 4th wing of the wingspan.   I am staring at about ten things of sugar and cream for a couple of soap socks and dishcloths.  I keep picking up  more skeins of the stuff. 

Trying to keep busy with something!  Hope that if your in the states, your 4th of July weekend has been a great weekend.  Ah the joys of illegal fireworks in my neighborhood are going to be going off for the next couple of weeks.  Have a scaredie cat that has been hiding under beds, his picture should be next to the definition.

Strange Days In Knitting

I am actually on my 4th wing of the wingspan and wish I was knitting with good yarn instead of acrylic.  So I am on my first day of my internship for my degree, was wishing I had knitting with me because there is nothing to do, and am looking at the destash pages of Ravelry  to see if there is anything interesting or catches my eye that could do the wingspan.  Dont' know why but I want to put a d on the end of wingspan. 
Other than that, I have made a couple of more teeth on the hitchhiker and hopefully I will get that done sometime before November.  I just don't feel like knitting all that much lately.  Back to looking at destash, wish me luck.

As Promised...

Here are the pictures for the 22.5*.  It's done in acrylic scraps because I tend to test drive before I tend to buy the good stuff to knit it.  I will knit this again.  See how differently it will knit up.

 

 

I am now to go watch the 3rd season of Downton Abby and work the 3rd feather of the wingspan.

Eh? Am very confused and excited.

Why I am confused is that the last time I checked there will be no more sock summits and I get this email stating:

We've Been Hacked!

Hi There,

Unfortunately, we were just informed our Sock Summit site has been hacked, so you may have received a spam email disguised as "Sock Summit" or "PayPal" saying we needed help resolving an issue with your account.

The title of this email is "Your account has been limited until we hear from you" and the from name is Paypal with info@socksummit.com as the email.

DO NOT take any action with this email or request. It is a spam attempt at gaining information and stealing from you.

Sorry for the inconvenience, we're working to get this issue resolved right away!

TIna

eh?

 Secondly I have finished the 22.5* shawl and am really excited.  I haven't taken a picture of it yet, just washed it and will get the pic up as soon as possible.  Definitely doesn't look like the picture in the pattern and my scallops are my own, but I did it!

And I am excited to report that I am on the second feather of the wingspan, definitely doesn't look like the picture but if I had the right yarn I would hope that it would.

Picture to come, now onto the slog of starting work.  Whoot whoot!

Phoey!

I thought that I would be posting a finished picture today but as you can tell no pic.  I got the last row and a half done.  Thinking oh the scallops are no problem!  Ah yeah, was I ever wrong.  I got a good third of the scallops done, if I can call them that.  I took me a good bit of swearing to get the third of a row of scallops done, so I know they won't look like the picture.  Plus I had to stop because clutching the needle, my right hand is a little stiff.  I know hat if I did this in something else than acrylic yarn , it would have been a lot easier to do scallops.

Maybe by the end of the weekend guys.

Wahoooo!!!!!!!!

Eight more rows until I can finish the 22.5* shawlett and start doing the frilly things at the bottom.  Definitely have to do the youtube on how to do that.  I am definitely not a frilly scallop type of girl.  Have done a couple more teeth on the hitchhiker but think I have to do a bit more than what the pattern calls for because its not 4 ply fingering.  Figures, I didn't either verbally say 4ply or didn't grab the right stuff.  I am learning though!  One day!

Have a great rest of the weekend.  Hopefully I will have a pic up sometime of a finished product.

I Have To Do This...

I was at the St. John's Festival this afternoon in Portland, Or.  It's the usual type of fair I've gone to in Portland.  But I came acorssed a booth that had a maybe 20 to 30 skeins of yarn in it.  Wonderful greens, pinks, blacks, blues, and either in solids or multicolored.  The dyer is Sarah Kurth, an independent dyer and designer.  The yarns were so wonderful that 8 year old boys were getting a skein for finger knitting.  If you are looking for places on etsy, look up Bumblebirch.  As I said the dyer is Sarah Kurth.  Her blog is bunblebirch.blogspot.com.  The shop is bumblebirch.etsy.com.  You can probably get her email either BlogSpot or etsy.  I am not sure if I should give much more than that.  She says that she is a small dyer but if you are in Portland, OR, she might be inclined to dye something up for you if you ask.  Didn't have enough cash on me but her yarns are wonderful and she is extremely friendly.

Other than that, I haven't been knitting at all.  I wish I was but it's been warm and  I have been extremely tired from work.  Have a good week if you don't hear from me again.

Warm Spring Night

Boy its warm in my room tonight.  Gotta love the east sun exposure.  Finally bagged most of my yarn so that bugs can't get to the good stuff.  Especially stink bugs or moths.  My mom says that the wool might not be right if its totally sealed but I really don't want to ruin the yarn.  I am not sure who's right but still worried about the wasted money on good yarn.

I haven't worked on the shawl I have been working on, I have done a couple rows on the hitchhiker for my friend, and found a mainly done grandma's washcloth done in chenille.  Worked on that for a bit. 

Haven't been doing much knitting because I am not feeling up to doing much of anything.   Got some seed beads but don't think I am going to keep much of it.  Most of the beads don't appeal to me colorwise.  I think I will be keeping blues, greens, some oranges, but will probably send most of it to my friend in Utah.

Found an old movie called the Raven, has Boris Karloff and Bella Lugosi in it.  That's a double bonus for me because I love the old horror flicks with them in it. 

Have a great weekend, or what is left of it.

Sock Summit

Well, crap!  I am catching up on knitting podcast videos, am watching knitabulls and Diane said that there was no more sock summit.  I am going, no!  I still wanna go, just never had the cash to go, it's not going to shut down.  As I said, well h e double toothpicks!  Found the Oregonian article that said they weren't going to do it again.   Goodbye Sock Summit. 

Really???? 

Well, I have done a couple more rows done on the 22.5 * shawl.  Really want it done.  Have done a couple of teeth on the hitchhicker shawl with the yarn I am fondly calling cat yak yarn. 

Sigh...  I am glad they found one of the suspects alive.  Maybe now the people of Boston and the families of the wounded and the dead can have some closure. 

Peace to anyone who reads this, maybe we should teach the world to knit.  Then the next time something like this happens, maybe the person would knit a couple of rows before wreaking havoc.

Goodnight.

Holy Strawberry's Batman, We're In A Jam

Well not really, just wanted to say that.  Plus its the only phrase they didn't film in the original Batman, by the way.  Good bar trivia. 

I have 98 more stitches to add onto the 22.5* , so that is a good thing!  I am actually glad that I am sticking to this.  Plus its eating up my acrylic yarn, if I am lucky I will be on a third color before I am done. 

(boy I had to restart my computer because my router decided not to connect me to the internet and now BlogSpot is stating that they had difficulties in saving or publishing my post and I haven't...geese louise!)


I am also determined to try again with the Wingspan.  With some very kind hearted patient people on Ravelry and Wendy from Knit1HeartToo, it clicked with me.  I actually was doing it right the first time before I totally frogged the project the first time.  Plus Cheri from the Naked Sheep yarn shop on Killingsworth, in Portland, is willing to help me with my difficulties.   

With that that offerings of help, I think I am going to be buying some yarn sometime this week!  Adios for now!

Ick, Cat Yak

Bought some Cascade yarns Heritage hand painted sock yarn to do a hitchhiker in for a friend.  Little did I know that when I went to wind it on the ball winder, it turned into one big tangled mess, took me at least 5 or 6 hours of untangling it by hand.  Thankfully I saved 99% of it and lost about a foot at most.  Need to find a cheap yarn swift somewhere the next time I want to do this so I don't waste time untangling spaghetti again!

I only have about 42 more stitches left on the 22.5 * .  I am on a third color of scrap acrylic.  I bet this is a lot softer with wool or something else, even cotton.  But I have no complaints with the pattern. 

I even bought a couple of skeins to try the wingspan again.  I don't know why but I am determined to figure that blessed pattern out.  Am I the only one that goes huh over patterns but still doesn't want to give up?

Lo siento mucho

Another semester where I felt like the, well you know.  Just tired and a new manager, who seems to be the HDIC.  All management, has some good ideas, but seems not to have a clue at times.  When you see me just sanding at the register, it means that if I walk away from the register some one always comes up and I tend to be the only one working the registers and everyone else seems to be allergic to helping me out.  What he really needs to do is work a register while its busy or be the only one on and see how he can walk away.  Plus trying to pass a Spanish class, and I am a person who only passed a year of Latin in high school.  So not much in the way of knitting.

I am about 116 stitches away from finishing the 225* shawl.  Of course it is going to be smaller than the picture because I am not using the right yarn.  But happy with it so far. 

If you are in  Portland Oregon and looking for seed beads, go to Scrap on MLK and Staunton.  The don't have much but they have a good amount of royal blue, red, and a purple.  all about a pound and under $5 but it looked there was a ton of beads in the packages.

Adios, mis amigos.

A Little Dull

Stll working on the 22.5* shawl.  Just spent the last half and hour trying to figure out if both sides balanced in stitch count (don't recommend watching knit1heart2 when trying to count).  Thankfully I am 213 stitches in of the 389 stitches.  

I hope everyone who celebrated Valentines day had a good one.  I worked, came home, watched project runway and the original my bloody valentine and went to bed.  I guess I am an anti valentine type of girl. 

I also tried doing a russian join but I think I need to see a tutorial or two a couple of more times because I just couldn't figure out how to get the needle off the first part of the join!  Oh well, I am hopelessly behind the times with joins and thankfully I am not using great yarn for this shawl.

Adios amigos.

Booyah!

With a happy heart I am glad that the Ravens finally won a Super Bowl after 12 years.  Yup am a strange chick in a weird town rooting for a east coast team.

Homework is done, my classmate has the flu so I don't have to go into school to practice a conversation for Wednesday.  On the 22.5 degrees shawl, I am almost half way through it, sort of.  I have 179 out of 389 stitches done.  So I think I can do a couple of more rows in, especially during Downton Abbey and screaming at Mary for being a wedgeass.  Sorry if you are a fan of her but this season, it seems like after she got the guy, she got snootier. 

Vermicious Knids

Yes you heard right... The vermicious knids had invaded my head around New Years, huge head cold that seemed to start disappearing the beginning of last week but decided to have some more fun. 

Since I haven't been feeling up to anything but getting a little bit of sleep here and there because the cold I have sort of wanted to wake me up every hour to hour and a half.  Don't you hate that????

But I have done some on the 22.5* shawl, not much but I am definitely not screwing up the count.  I think I am about two inches in and I don't want to tear back and restart yet again. 

I am also trying out the Grandma's Favorite Dishcloth in chenille.  I still have too much of it and its just taking a bit of time for the chunkiness of it to sink in with me. 

I really want to try something new and different because neither the shawl or the dishcloths are calling to me right now but I am not really in the mood to search Ravelry at all.  I have all this nice wool my mom brought back from Iceland and I want to try something with it.  But not sure if I want to dive in with a lace project right off the bat and make all the nice wool look ugly!  Will try to practice on some leftover yarn first since I am not a real experienced knitter. 

Well, gotta go back to a chenille dishcloth and blowing my nose!

Happy New Year

Well, I finished my last grandmas favorite dishcloth yesterday.  So I have about 10 total to send to my step mom.  Yay!  Had to strip down the 22.5* shawl because I found that I screwed it up somewhere, where I was having even counts instead of uneven stitch counts. So I am trying it for the second time.  Lets see if I can do something other than the hitchhiker shawl this year.  Wahoo!