I'm crying..

Yes, I'm crying. (Well, by now I've stopped, but I cried all the way home from the post office). This story starts with a lazy post person who doesn't like to have to carry boxes if he/she doesn't know someone's home. So yesterday, I look in the mail box to find one of those damn "sorry we missed you" notes. I say damned because I was home all morning. I already got my two orders from knit picks, so unless I was sleep buying (I'd never rule it out) I wasn't expecting a package. Do you have any idea how much this mystery package monopolized my thoughts for the rest of the day (and night)? I was trying to figure out who could have sent it, and kept my brain so busy I couldn't fall asleep.

Fast forward to today, where after five hours of sleep, I get up, get dressed and head to the post office. The mail lady there brings out this nice sized box and I'm sitting there looking at the return addy while complaining to the manager about my post person. I know it's no one in the family, or in my yahoo email friend list because it was sent to the old address and had to be forwarded (thank you uncle sam for that one!). I hit the car and finally figure out who I think it's from. Now I can't wait to open it! Hence the crying all the way home from the post office. See, a few months ago, I sent some roving to a knitty friend. It wasn't great roving, but it did allow for more practice time on a new wheel. She very nicely spun it up and dyed it, then made a bag out of it. I've been looking at her bags on her blog and thinking to myself how wonderful they turned out and that I might actually be tempted to carry one of those. (for those who don't really know me, I own ONE purse and it's more like a knitting pouch with a long strap). Have you guessed what was in the box yet?
You got it! Poops sent me her first bag!!!!! I love it!!!! Now do you see why I was crying?
A few of the inside lining, complete with pocket. I love the fabric!
Mirror shot of me with the bag. I know we all hate mirror shots, but until I teach the cats to take a picture, well, it's the only way!
Card that came with it... I couldn't say it any better right now. Thank You Poops! This was a wonderful surprise!

Oh.. if you're looking for YPF.. it will have to be YPS this week.. nothing shall take away from the "Ruby Red". For those who might want their own original Poops creation, her blog is here.

WIP Wednesday

I recently placed my first order from Knit Picks about two weeks ago. Now, we all know that "free" shipping at a certain level will usually cause us to add stuff to our cart to get to that certain level. In my defense, I was running out of yarn to use on the fish blanket, so eventually I would have needed to either swap or buy some. When you figure out the cost of shipping today, it was actually cheaper for me to buy the yarn from Knit Picks and get my free shipping. So, I've gotten both my packages now (yeah... I'm an addict) and have been working on fish this week.
There are now 31 of them. The fish that should be in that upper hole is currently on the needles. I didn't manage to finish him before I went to sleep last night. I have enough yarn to make about twenty more. I can't believe I picked a project where I'm going to have to do this much sewing.. but I'm thinking of crocheting the rows together.
Seasa supervising the layout of the fish. She just couldn't figure out what I was doing.

My Monkey socks are past the heel and I'm currently on the gusset.. but no pic because I left them in the car.

Rogue is still where it was three weeks ago.. even with the air conditioning set at 78 degrees, it's too warm to have that much alpaca/wool on my lap.

Wow.. that's it? Only 3 WIP. In my defense, I have been spinning more, so it takes away from knitting time.

Saturday Part 2

Well, Amy said I could post them.. so here they are :)





Now.. there's one more missing from this set.. that frankly, even with Amy's permission I'm not comfortable posting... but if you are a knitty regular, you can probably guess the pose.

Knitty Philly Fest - Day 2

Today was the spinning side of the weekend. It seems like I had just gone to sleep, when my alarm went off. S and I left Philly at around 10am and headed out to New Hope. For those who don't know.. there's a little shop, actually pretty well hidden considering it's right on 202N, in New Hope that carries not only yarn (which is more than enough to get me out there) but also lots of yummy fibers and spinning wheels! Yes, I am talking about Twist! Debbie is the best ever!

Today we had a fiber tasting day. S, artsygal and I brought wheels. Those who didn't have their own, were allowed to borrow wheels from the shop, or just stuck to their spindles. We arrive, and there's a bag of goodies just waiting for us!
That's ten little bags of fibery goodness to play with. From top left: Silk Hankie (which I haven't gotten to yet), Angora (which I did horrible with), silk and cashmere (which I bought more of!), Black BFL (which I had enough to ply when I was done spinning), tussah silk (which I fell in love with and bought more of), multi-color combed merino top, hand dyed merino, qiviut fluff (the blank bag), hemp and white BFL.

Up till now, I've only spun sheepy, alpacas and a merino silk mix. I had never tried any of the plant fibers or pure silk. I probably wouldn't have tried these for quite a long time, as I saw them as more "advanced" fibers.


Here's my silk single. I loved spinning this up. So much so that I bought another 4ish oz of it to play with.


And my hemp single, spun dry instead of wet because I didn't want sticky fingers.. even spinning it dry, it ended up rather smooth. I wonder if it would have stuck together a bit and not drafted as nicely if I got it wet.



Spun thin and navajo plied. I love working with this stuff!!! I can't wait to get to Rhinebeck, BFL is the featured breed this year!

Now this I had a bit of trouble with, but still loved... I was having some drafting issues, and ended up with a soft spot that broke while I was winding it onto the knitty-noddy. However, I still bought more. I think I'll use it for YPF this week... so I won't show it now.

The group shot... as you can see, we were quite crowded in there. People had to stop their wheels if you wanted to walk around, but we loved every minute of it.

And one of J buying more BFL and Corriedale to feed her spindle with.

It was a WONDERFUL day! I can't even say how much I appreciate Debbie doing this for us. Well worth the hour long drive to get up there. Plus, I had S to keep me company in the car which is always a good thing. Don't listen to yahoo maps if you're going to New Hope via 95 from Philly. The directions were quite wrong, but I recognized the road I needed, so it all worked out well.

Knitty Philly Fest

Warning: Pic HEAVY post..

I joined the party Sat morning around 11am at Rosie's. You'll have to refer to artsygal's or trillian42's blogs for details on hotel activities..

We started at Rosie's, where they had OJ, donuts and fruit for us to munch on. Better yet.. Courtney had lovely bags with fun gifts in them too! (of course.. I forgot to take a pic of that..)


Everyone milling around, figuring out who is who and going for the OJ and donuts.
Courtney (with the darker hair).. one of our lovely hostesses for the morning!

The Monkey Bag group picture... though we did leave someone out.. and Trillian42 is only holding one of her FOUR bags!

Group shot... though again, not everyone.. it's hard to find a spot in Rosie's where sixteen people can stand together!

Trillian42 finishing Le Fug. Yes... it is quite an unusual knit..

Next, we headed south, and had lunch. I'm not quite sure what the people in this place thought when this huge crowd carrying lots and lots of yarn walked in, but they did hide us in a back room!
View one...
and view two.. note the knitting while we're waiting for food!

Finished lunch right around 3pm, and headed the two blocks to Loop for our afternoon knitting session.
My friend MBT and her daughter... Yes she's an author of a knitting book... but not who we really all came to visit with...

May I present:
Not Trillian's head.. that's Amy Knitty behind her! Now you ask.. why didn't a get a better pic? Well, I was sitting next to her for almost the whole time we were there and was very intently trying to finish the heel on my second monkey sock.. so I didn't actually pull out the camera. Plus, how rude is it to shove a camera in her face? There are some other pics of here that I'm not willing to post till someone else post their's or Amy Knitty gives me permission.

From here we invaded a tiny little restaurant to have cheese steaks for dinner, and then I headed for the bus stop and back home. I believe the rest of the crowd decided to go for water ice.

Till tomorrow.. and Twist!

YPF

We all know the power of the sale basket/table to make us buy stuff we have NO plan for. Even knowing of it's power over you doesn't save you from falling into it's grasp. Yes, I fell for that lovely little sign that said "SALE". This will teach me to go out of my way to stop at a yarn shop.




So.. what do I make with three skeins of Hempathy? I was originally considering a string bag, but this stuff is quite thin. Anyone out there ever made one out of this?

WIP Wednesday

Well, once again, no new pics of Rogue because I haven't touched it. I got a bit caught up in finishing a holiday gift this week, not to mention the BSJ since I finally got my KnitPicks order.

I'm still not sure I like the yarn, but I'm hoping it washes up nicely. Here is the start of my first BSJ. I just cast off the five stitches for the neck.
I'm using size 3 addis and for some reason still getting 4 1/2 stitches to the inch. This yarn was sold as "Not Just" sock yarn, but even with my love of thick socks, I don't think I'd use it as sock yarn.

No new pic of the fish this week, because well:
This is all I've done. However, my KnitPicks order included lots of yarn for fish, so unless I feel guilty and work on Rogue all week, I should have more fish by next week.

And finally,
my Monkey socks. One down, half done the cuff on the second. I so want to finish these, but I need to remember that I have a lot of traveling to do this week on the bus, so I should save them for that. I just placed an order for 2.75mm needles so I can redo mom's socks, but she's now decided that she wants monkeys instead of Jaywalkers.

Barnes and Noble Knitting section

Okay, it's a bit hard to see... but this is for you MaryBeth!

Yarn Pr0n Friday - STR

If you've been reading, you already know that my first attempt at making Jaywalkers turned out not quite as expected. Yes they fit me, but they were supposed to fit my mom! So instead of frogging them (because I liked the colour too), I kept them and decided to order more yarn to make mom her pair.

Now tell me... who can go to Blue Moon's web site and only order one skein?
Apparently, not me... cause this one jumped into my shopping cart. Meet Under Toe. No idea what it shall yet become, but I loved the name!
I also liked that it was only three main colours. I'm hoping there's less chance of pooling with fewer colours.

WIP Wednesday

Okay... I get the idea that WIP Wednesday is partially to keep yourself motivated, so you don't have to show pictures of a project that has been sitting idle for weeks or maybe months at a time but it doesn't seem to be working for me. Once again, there are no new pictures of Rogue because I haven't worked on it at all this past week.

I have been trying to work my way through my stash though... so I pulled out a skein of Brooks Farms Acero and started to make a pair of Monkey socks last thursday.
As you can see, I'm almost done with the first sock. I don't think I can fit in another repeat, so I may just start the toe area now. I love how this yarn is knitting up, but will admit that it's not a tightly plied yarn and is easy to split.
A few more fish have been finished. It's getting harder and harder to get a good picture of these guys. It doesn't help that I picked an apartment that doesn't get great sunlight. All my windows are either facing north or facing south and are partially shaded. To get the above picture I had to turn on the overhead light, the lights in the hall and entry and focus a lamp on the floor. At present, in the 4 by 6 configuration, the blanket is about 42 wide and 33 tall. I may not need as many fish as I thought.

I'm currently sitting at home wondering when the FedEx guy comes to visit... I ordered from KnitPicks last week, and to round out the order and get the free shipping I had to order some yarn. So I have a whole bunch of new yarn coming for the blanket, hopefully today!

My second pair of Jaywalkers will have to wait till either I finish the Monkey socks and empty off my 2.75mm double points or till I can get a set of 2.75mm circs from KnitPicks.

Nothing else started at the moment. I'm hoping to start a BSJ this week, but not if the pattern doesn't come soon.

Yarn Pr0n Friday - SCORE!

Yes, this was a yarn score. I recently moved to Philly and quickly discovered Rosie's Yarn Cellar. The first knit night I went to there, they had a basket of $5 angora and cashmere. The skeins in the basket were the display skeins and a bit beat up but otherwise fine. I bought two angora and two cashmere. Of course, there was only one of each colour (who needs to display two of the same colour?) The red angora has already been knit up, but may I present the white.




I have no idea what brand or any of that info, but I'm guessing this is all angora. The balls were tiny and it's VERY fuzzy. So much so that I had trouble taking pictures of the finished objects made of the red.



I thought I'd add this for a bit of history. I found the receipt in a bag of yarn that was gifted to me by a friend of my mom. Yes, it's from Gimbels, from 1980. I now have yarn in my stash that's almost as old as I am!

WIP (and Work Finished)

Yes, I'm going to start out WIP Wednesday with something I've finished. Why can't I wait till tomorrow... well, turtlegirl76 very kindly sent me the yarn to finish this, and then very patiently waited for me to get into air conditioning so I could finish it. So it just didn't seem fair to make her wait another day.

May I present:

I love how the cables just pop off the background.


Pattern: My own, with some help from one of the Vogue Knitting Stitch Libraries (no clue which one)
Yarn: Noro Big Kureyon Color #8 (should have been only two skeins)
Needles: 10 1/2 (and very chewed by a kitty)
Final measurements: 8 inches wide, by 62 inches long
This final picture is for Turtlegirl76. The left side was the beginning, the right side was from the new skein you sent me! Came out pretty good if you ask me!

Now.. WIP. Rogue hasn't been touched again this week. I will finish it by Rhinebeck though. A few more fish have been finished.
It's getting harder and harder to get a good picture of these... 24 total.. only 36 (ish) to go.

Not at home..

Not much to post, since I've been at a friend's house for the weekend. He's graciously letting me stay with him while I work my weekend shifts.

Must say, I'm surprised Trillian didn't guess the bus route... though since she hasn't posted in a few days, she may be busy.

Will catch up with WIP Wednesday.

YPF