Another April FO

I finally finished another something - a pair of socks that I've worked on for about a month and a half.



They are done using the Nasturtium pattern from Kristen at Through The Loops. (Happy Blogiversary, Kristen!) I used one of the skeins of yarn that I dyed in my dyeing class at Simpatico back in February. It had shorter yardage - 280 yds - so I wanted to do a shorter pair of socks and these fit the bill! Great pattern - a good kind of easy for a beginning sock knitter. (And, thankfully, done on 2 circs so I didn't have to do math.)

I do love the sock knitting, though - just bought More Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlotte Schurch and am waiting on the delivery of Favorite Socks by Ann Budd and Anne Merrow. And I got the Yarn Harlot's books - The Yarn Harlot and Casts Off. Hopefully her stories will inspire more sock knitting.

Also had a dyeing day on Saturday. This time we used the acid dyes and I can definitely tell that I will love Love LOVE the results with using them with the superwash. The colors are so incredible!!



The favorites that I did were these two:


(which my friends call Safari - and my hubby calls Army Brat)

And this one:



For which I have no name - but I'm sure Dawn or Lise or Someone will come up with one for me! ;)

I've ordered a ball winder and a swift - so hopefully I can get these in this week and then next weekend play with reskeining them to see what they "really" look like!

Now...to take off these socks. It's Texas and April, by gum - which means wool socks are HOT. UGH!

But they sure are pretty!!

100 Books

Look at the list of (100) books below.
Bold the ones you’ve read.
Italicize the ones you own.

Movies don’t count.

Ok...I've read 42 of them (if I can also add correctly) - and the sad thing is that with the exception of the Bible and the Harry Potter Books - all have been read PKL - Pre-knitting life. Now if I "read" a book, it's with my ears and iPod. :)

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) (I actually own a first edition - not first printing, though)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible (Only parts)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

What happens when your Yarn Conscience Takes a Week Off to See Mickey

So, my buddy and yarn conscience, Tasha, took off on Monday to see a certain Mouse - so my willpower was weakened...but I was going to be good - I really was.

But then my other buddy, Manda, had some car problems that HAD to be fixed - so she lovingly destashed some of her lovely yarns. Now Manda, the girl has the good stuff!! And she had Schaefer Anne - in Purples - that she managed to take just the worst picture of so no one could see it's true loveliness...and no one bought it - and no one bought it - and no one bought it...so, without my yarn conscience to guide me, I did.

See what you non-buyers missed out on??



This may go to my secret pal - if I can pry it out of my stash in June for the big reveal gift - so then it wouldn't count for buying yarn. (There must be SOME of the yarn conscience that was left behind...)

And then - well, the yarn conscience can't bust me for this one.

After a particularly weird week I've had, yet another buddy, Becky, appointed herself my NSSP - Not So Secret Pal - and brought me these wonderful things!



Yep! It's VESPER!!! In the Love Stinks (Yeah! Yeah!) colorway! Squee!!!!

But best of all - these!!!!!


They are the most adorable stitch markers - instructions for the Kitchener Stitch. I've seen them at the Girl on the Rocks Etsy shop forever and have wanted them - and now they are mine - alllllll mine! They are the cutest little shrinky-dink type thing I've ever seen...Double Squeee!

So - all in all, one part my fault, one part helping out a friend and two parts gifty equal some yummy yarny goodness for a pretty good week!

And this weekend is the DFW Fiber Fest and I am going to go to the Vendor Area and Show on Friday evening and hope to take some classes if they are available when I walk up...and well, did you see that word "vendor area."

Yep...I'm just going to take down the "X number of days, hours, minutes, seconds since I bought yarn" clock 'til after this weekend...'cause, well, 'cause I don't even want to pretend!!!

Adventures in Felting

So far in my knitting career (career, 'cause I've brought in so much money with it so far), I've avoided the whole felting craze...

I mean, why knit knit knit knit knit knit knit (and no purls, mind you) on something for days to make this humongo something - just to stick it in the washer and have it shrink into some piece of fabric like you'd use in Sunday School with paper cutouts of Disciples stuck to it.

(Not that the Disciples aren't worth my work, mind you...)

But - when the knitting horde was traipsing around East Texas while on our retreat, I succumbed to the "OH MY GOODNESS - NORO! On SALE!! 30% OFF!!!! MUST BUY!!!" mania that hit the group. (We even called Manda to make sure we had enough skeins...to make the ever popular - if not so "last year" - Booga Bag.)

Did I think I'd actually knit this thing??

No....because A. See above.

And B. I have never ever knit in the round. (I don't count socks because those are done on 2 needles.) I've avoided joining things and "picking up stitches" like - well, like felting.

Until last week - I was stuck out with no socks to knit on, no nekkid yarn to dye (ok, so I was sitting at Starbucks and truth be told, there was probably nekkid yarn, colors AND vinegar in my car - but didn't figure Starbucks would appreciate me using their bathroom and espresso steamers for this purpose) and one of those Noro balls, a size 10.5 circ that I had bought with the express purpose of furthering my supplies to NOT knit this bag...and I actually had the pattern with me.

SO - I began to knit knit knit knit knit knit - and did not purl.

Then I picked up stitches (I guess confidence has been gained in this from my learning to do socks and having to pick up around the gusset) and I knit knit knit knit knit knit knit knit knit some more - alas, still no purling.

We won't even talk about the 500 miles of i-cord for the handle....just 'cause I actually enjoy i-cord. (Should I admit that - considering what the "i" stands for??)

Anyway...I ended up with this:



So - off we go to the washer. Now, the only "zippered" pillowcase I have is one from a throw pillow from the couch. Those pillow cases needed a good washing - so I thought, No problem! I'll use those.

And someone told me that when I felted them that I needed to put a pair of jeans in the wash with the pillowcase...so I grabbed one of the hubby's pair that needed a washing and walked away.

The thing about the pillow cases from the couch - pillow cases that my Armenian Mother-in-law gave us - pillowcases of questionable origin (not that they are stolen - just don't know what country they came from) - pillowcases for which the dye used in the fabric has not necessarily been "set."

The thing about those pillow cases - is that they bleed...And the orange and burgundy pillowcases - they seem to bleed...pink.

So, seriously now...How long do you think I can keep these newly pinkish/lavender jeans from hubby??



Better yet, what kind of things can I accuse him of doing in the jeans to make them that way???

(I figure I can keep this a secret just about as long as I was able to try to deny the fact that my leaving the lights on in the car while I napped this morning was the reason the car wouldn't start when I needed to drive on to work.)

The good news in all of this is - the pillowcases - they bled on the outside - all over his pants.

But my Booga Bag?

The one on the inside of the pillow case?

The one I knit knit knit knit knit knit knit knit knit and did not purl on?

It's so cute!! (And not pinkish a bit - except where it was intended to be!!)



I may felt again...but think I'll buy a white zippered pillow case for future felting adventures...

Maybe I can pick it up when I go shopping for blue jeans....

SP10 - First Package Arrived

I got my first package for SP10 today.




I got a "Cool Scarf Kit" from Bernat with Boa and Boucle yarns, some floating candles shaped like dragonflies, a piece of dark mint chocolate (sorry - it got eaten before I found the camera), a handknit beanie, some shower cleaner coupons and some really cute pewter demi-vases.

Thanks Secret Pal.