Summers Done!

Alright, so summers not technically over with yet but Kaity went back to school yesterday and thus restores the peacefulness of the house for most of the day. Thankfully next year Bree starts Kindergarten and I can promise you this, I will not be a sad crying mom when I throw her butt on the bus. I'll be doing a super happy dance. Kindergarten goes all day here so I'll have the house to myself....wooohooo! Just gotta make it through one more year.

Alright lets see, what the heck have I've I been up to since my last post which was over a month ago. A lot has happened since I last posted.

I got my new baby in and it was love at first sight. My Apple iPad.

I'm still using it like crazy. This thing is way better then my iPod Touch. Don't get me wrong the Touch is great but the screen is tiny and some things like surfing the net are a royal pain. Did I really need to buy the iPod? No I didn't but I did because I'm selfish and dang it I deserve some fun stuff too. I'll just fall back on the excuse of "but Shawn got a new motorcycle!" He's already traded in the Honda Rebel for a more powerful motorcycle with the understanding that this will be the last motorcycle he gets until it's paid off. When you compare his motorcycle to my iPad, well I think you get the point. :)

I finished my "on the go" sock and have started another pair.

These are toe up, two at a time with a short row heel and a picot cuff. The stripes don't match because it's insane to try to match up the stripes on Patons self striping sock yarn. The yarn is some Patons Kroy that I picked up from Michaels a while back. The new pair I started are made with Regia that I got from a dear friend when I first started knitting. The yarn has been marinating in my stash for over 3 years now.

A new pair of socks for Bree.

These were made with some leftover yarn from a pair of socks I knit for myself. She does love her handknit socks.

I picked up the anniversary kit from The Loopy Ewe.

The mug is now holding my crochet hooks and cable needles....I already have a favorite mug for my one for my tea. I finally broke down and bought one of those 16oz mugs from Montezuma Mudd and it's worth every penny I paid....love it!! I have all of the Loopy anniversary kits with the exception of the first year. If I remember correctly we were flat broke when the yarn went up for sale. I think the first year was just yarn and a pattern. The mugs didn't come into play until the second year. I've managed to snag a kit every year since then. It is after all around the same time as Shawn and my anniversary. We hit year 12 this year on the 7th of Aug. Hard to believe we've been married that long.

My latest shipment from the Lord of the Rings sock club came in. You can click here if you want to see it. This is the last set of shipments for this club. I think there are one or two more shipments left.

I finished my Diamonds and Cables Socks.

These are knit with String Theory Caper sock in the Isle colorway. The pattern is from Toe Up Socks for Every Body. I've been slowly working on knitting up all the patterns in the book.

I finished re-knitting the Butterfly Garden socks.

They were way to tight so I had to rip the leg and reknit them without the pattern on the back. I opted for seed stitch on the back of the leg which blends with the seed stitch in the pattern on the front of the sock. I'll definitely work these again with a slightly thicker yarn. I'm thinking DIC Smooshy would be perfect for the next pair.

I finished the bleedin, flippin, boring as all get out to knit, baby blanket.

I used Knit Picks Comfy worsted weight yarn. It's a really nice yarn to knit with. I'm contemplating using this to make the girls some cardigans for next winter. I'm not a baby blanket, afghan knitting person. I get bored with them and have to force myself to finish them. Little L was born awhile back so I obviously missed giving it to my Sister in Law before he was born of course it doesn't matter much since it's the middle of summer in So. Cal and it gets hotter then the hubs of hell in Bakersfield. I do not miss that heat. Hell come to think of it there isn't much I miss about home besides my parents, oh and going to the beach. Oh man how I miss going to the coast and walking the beach. Being in a landlocked state sucks at times. :)

All the rest of my finished knits are secret knits and I can't post about them for obvious reasons. I'm still working on my Sun Ray shawl and I've started a new pair of socks. I was going to knit the Norwegian Rose socks from Toe Up Socks for Every Body but my brain and hands can't take stranded socks so I'm going with simple stripes.

I'll leave you with this photo of Bree and her lambie Pillow Pet.

It was love at first sight. Her current pillow was thrown off the bed and she's slept on her pillow pet ever since she opened it up on her birthday.

Our Dam Visits

We went touring around some of the dams here in the local area last weekend. And of course this made Shawn and I remember the part in Vegas Vacations where the Griswalds go on a tour of Hoover Dam. Makes me laugh every time. Anyway, back to the post. I get sidetracked easily.

We went to Black Eagle Falls and it's dam above.

We drive by this one all the time. In the three years we've been here this is the most water I've seen flowing over the falls. It's a rather pretty sight. The top picture is shot from the island that you can go out on and the bottom picture is shot from above and is what we see when we drive by.

Our second stop was Rainbow Falls and it's dam.

We didn't get the best photo because the observation area is closed down right now do to unstable ground. From what I understand there was another set of falls back behind the damn but it was buried under water when they built Rainbow Dam. 

The last stop was Ryan Dam which is the location of The Great Falls of the Missouri.

The dam was built above The Great Falls. There's a nice picnic area at Ryan Dam and it's so much cooler once you cross the bridge. The mist from the falls keeps everything cooler. The bridge is a suspension bridge which means it bounces a little when we walk across it which unnerves Bree a little....if I'm being honest it unnerves me too. This website has some nice shots of the bridge. The water was roaring off the dam the day we went out. It has been an unusual wet year for us. We've gotten a lot of rain which has caused the Missouri river to rise up a lot higher then normal for this time of year.

All in all we had a great time. I'll be back in a few days with a knitting related post.

Hate Waiting

So anyways hubby and I were sitting at our computers a week or so ago and out of the blue he said, "go ahead and order yourself an iPad." Of course this shocked me a wee bit but I know he wanted to order one for my birthday but at the time we were planning a trip and didn't want to spend the extra money. The trip got cancelled due to the huge amount of money it was going to cost (way more then the iPad cost me), work issues for Shawn and not being able to find someone to watch the house (ie mow and water the lawns). The news of me buying an iPad will most likely piss off more then one family member reading this blog but I'm at the point where I just don't give a damn what other people (namely my family) think. Don't get me wrong, I love my family to pieces but they do tend to be a tad too nosey.

Anyways I'm sitting here waiting for my iPad to ship. It has a ship date of 30 June....oh the agony! I'm not what you would consider a super patient person. I picked the 32G Wi-Fi model. I didn't see the point in paying for the Wi-Fi + 3G model because I'll never pay for and use the 3G function. We do not have AT&T 3G in this area. What cracks me up is the lawsuit that AT&T brought against Verizon saying their commercials were misleading. I may be just an average everyday person but how can it be misleading for Verizon to show that they have a bigger 3G network then AT&T?...btw Verizons whole network is 3G. I mean they never stated that AT&T doesn't have service everywhere in the US. I can get AT&T service up here but they are using Verizon and Altell cell towers to provide that service. This is the main reason why we swapped to Verizon right before we moved to Montana. I didn't relish the idea that my calls would drop more frequently because I would be using a Verizon or Altell tower and their customers have priority over the other companies they have an agreement with for their tower usage. I guess my point is: what's the point in claiming you have the fastest 3G network when the majority of the people in the US can't use the 3G service. It's only great for those who live where it's available which I can assure you is no where in Montana.

So anyways, I've been doing a bit of knitting. Well mostly it's been work on my Cassidy cardi which is in the process of being seamed so I can finish the hood and button bands. I'll see if I can get the kiddo to help me take a few pictures once I have it seamed together. I have one week to get this finished to be able to enter it into The Loopy Ewe challenge.

I've also gotten a few knitterly goodies in the mail. 

First up is a skein of Dragonfly Fibers Djinni sock. 

I needed to pick up some wool wash and didn't want it to be lonely on the trip from MO to MT. It's a long two day trip courtesy of the USPS. Even longer when it's shipped right before a weekend. ;)

A yummy skein of Bugga!

Because I absolutely positively could not resist this skein. I adore the colorway and honestly if I would have had the money I would have picked up enough for a sweater.

A rainbow sock yarn kit.

I picked this up from Dyelectable Yarns etsy shop and it came with some lovely goodies including the sock blocker stitch marker holder and stitch markers. There's over 600 yards of yarn here so I'm thinking some stripey knee socks.

Knitterly Things Vesper sock yarn.

Because I have a weakness for self striping sock yarn. The colorway on the left is Love Stinks (Yeah Yeah)....and now I have that stupid Swiffer commercial stuck in my head. The colorway on the right is Neapolitan.

Bree needed a new bed. She only had about 2 inches left before her feet were touching the foot board of her toddler bed and lets face it crib mattresses are not very comfortable. So over the weekend we went out to the local furniture store to look for a new twin bed. As luck would have it we found a bunk bed that was perfect for her and was cheaper then all of the single beds so we picked it up and gave Kaity the bottom bunk. 

Bree's new bed:

She's on a Prince and the Frog kick right now. This won out over the Tinkerbell bed set which is rather surprising since Tink has been Bree's favorite from the get go.

Kaity's bed. 

Yes the walls are eye searingly bright but she loves it and yes she's a tad obsessed with the Jonas Brothers. I for one am not looking forward to repainting these walls before we move. The thing that really kills me is they will go through and paint all the walls when we move out.

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.

Yarn on the Move

A couple weeks ago I decided that my stash needed to move from its current location to a less stinky spot in the house. Our house is connected to our neighbors house and our neighbor stores their gasoline and lawn mower in their outside closet which unfortunately is next to my yarn closet and the stink is seeping into my yarn closet. So for two days I worked on moving everything around in our bedroom so I could move all of my yarn and fiber stash upstairs. I'm keeping my swift, ball winder, and knitting books downstairs but the yarn and fiber had to be moved before it started taking on the nasty smell of gasoline. I also bought some more plastic drawers for yarn storage. I lucked out and found a sale at ShopKo so they were buy one, get one free. I'll take some pictures for my next blog post. All my sock yarn is sorted out nicely but self striping, semi solid, variegated and mass produced balls of sock yarn like Opal, Regia, Patons, etc. My sweater yarn has a home in the cedar chest Shawn bought for me years ago.

Now if this was my house I would look into fixing the problem, unfortunately I live in military housing and anyone who has ever lived in military housing knows that it is like pulling hens teeth to get housing maintenance to fix something. They act like it's a crime to want to live in a house where stuff isn't broken. The less they fix the more money they save thus more money for the military to piss out the window on stupid stuff....course that is a whole new can of worms I'd much rather not ponder about. Thankfully we only have a little over two years and then I can buy my own home which after seeing the craptastic way most of the newer homes are being built I we will most likely look for a older home with a sound structure and a little fixing up needing to be done. I don't mind doing some of my own house renovations.

Now on to knitting which sadly there is some I can't show you.

Here's Cassidy (ravelry)(non ravelry) in all her not finished beauty.

I finished the other front panel so next up is the sleeves. I'll most likely knit both sleeves at the same time which may be a bit of insanity on my part since I'll have four balls of yarn going at the same time. I'm alternating rows to make everything blend better.

I frogged my Mara shawl and started a different shawl with the yarn. I was counting on getting most of the Mara shawl knit in the car when we were traveling from here to Oregon and back when we visited my Granny last October. Unfortunately I didn't get as much done as I had planned and while tons or garter stitch while traveling in the car is fine I haven't touched it since we got home so ribbit ribbit.

Here's the pattern I went with.

It's the Sun Ray Shawl (ravelry). It's not a complicated shawl but there is enough going on that I'm not completely bored out of my mind which unfortunately is why I wasn't working on Mara. It probably didn't help that I knit the sample for Madelinetosh so I'd already knit one. I rarely go back to knit a pattern again.

I also have a new "on the go" pair of socks on the needles.

This is just my standard toe up sock pattern with a short row heel. The yarn is Patons Kroy sock yarn that I picked up from Michaels. It feels a tad thicker then most sock yarns I use. To save my sanity I didn't bother trying to match up the stripes.

I finally decided to start working on a sock yarn blanket.

This is based off a pattern I used to knit a baby blanket for my sister-in-law. You knit a mitered square and then pick up stitches along one side, cast on the other half of the stitches and knit another mitered square. You just keep going until your row is long enough and then go back to the beginning and pick up more stitches and start a new row. No sewing up your little squares and all you have to do is weave in the ends. I'm working on this off and on. 

I picked up some yarn to make another shawl for my mom.

The yarn is Dream in Color Baby in the Blue Sage colorway that I picked up from The Loopy Ewe. I received the beads I ordered from Fire Mountain Gems and Beads but they are to small to work with DIC Baby which is a light fingering weight yarn. These beads would work perfectly with lace weight. Unfortunately Fire Mountain didn't really list what size these beads are so I was kind of flying blind. Oh well, I'll set them aside for another project. I have the right beads on order from Earthfaire which is where I should have went in the first place and since I was ordering the beads from them I picked up the pattern too. I've heard nothing but good things about Earthfaire. I'm going to knit the Rosalind Shawl (ravelry)(non ravelry) by Sivia Harding. It's a lovely combination of lace, cables and beads. I got hooked on her patterns after a test knit I did for Woolgirl. I love knitting lace shawls but don't really use them. The only ones that I really use are worsted weight shawls that I can snuggle under during those cold winter days.

Oh and I finally blocked my Rivolo (ravelry)(non ravelry).

I have no idea who will give this scarf a good home. I started out making socks with this yarn but the a portion of the skein didn't have the little bits of green color so one sock was coming out a dark purple/pink color and the other part was much lighter with the green and lighter coloring so I figured a scarf would work best. You can actually see some of the color difference when you look at the scarf. I'm not much of a scarf wearer but I really wanted to knit this pattern. I normally wear cowls because they are easier to put on and take off when you're out and about shopping. Plus the bonus is that you can pull them up to cover your mouth, nose and ears. When a biting wind is ripping through here in the middle of winter it feels rather nice to have as much of your face covered as possible. 

I have some fabric to make a doll blanket for Kaity which I really need to get started on next week. I'm thinking about going with a simple four patch quilt. I need to do some measuring but I think I'll go with 2 inch squares. Time to bust out the sewing machine. 

I think that sums up what I've been up to. Until next time!

Happy Crafting!

Plugging Right Along

I'm trying to get back into a regular blogging schedule. Yes, I know I know this isn't the first time I've said that. It's only been a week since my last blog post so that's progress. I've finished a few projects but two of them are secret projects so no showing until well after the packages are sent out.

I did finish my "on the go" lemon socks.

These are made out of Lionbrand Sock-Ease in the Lemon Drop colorway. The pattern is my standard toe up pattern with a short row heel. The yarn is like most typical wool/nylon workhorse sock yarns. I'd say it's about as thin as Trekking. I haven't found any locally but people on Ravelry are destashing it at a reasonable price.

I have gotten a few kits too. I just link them to my Flickr account so I don't end up spoiling it for anyone who hasn't gotten theirs. I've received the Yellow Brick Road Wizard of Oz sock club kit, my Tea Party kit, and the final shipment of the second installment of the Lord of the Rings sock club from The Unique Sheep. There is one set to sign up for but I haven't yet. I hope to sign up for it in the next payday or two.

My Cassidy (ravelry)(non ravelry) is moving along well and I'm about a quarter of the way through the other front piece. I would have been farther along but I messed up and had to frog 20 plus rows.

I also started another pair of "on the go" socks. I'm using some Patons Kroy sock that I picked up from Michaels a few weeks ago. They're toe up and will have a short row heel. They're going to be plain stockinette because it's easy and I can toss them down and not have to worry about losing my place.

Happy Crafting!

Bad Blogger, No Cookie

Wow, my last blog post was written at the end of March. This could be why I've had a serious drop in readers. Sorry for not posting, things have been busy. I'll try to post more often but I'd be crazy if I made promises. Now that Shawn has a motorcycle to get him back and forth to work I have the car with the exception of nasty weather days then he takes the car.

I've been pretty busy with knitting, between test knits and my own knitting I always have something on the needles. I've finished a few pairs of socks since I last posted.

First up is a pair of basic socks knit with self striping sock yarn.

The yarn is from Studio Avenue Six and the pattern is my basic toe up pattern with a short row heel. For a little excitement I worked a picot cuff.

Next up is a pair of socks from Wendy Johnsons new book Toe Up Socks for Everybody.

These are the Laurel (ravelry) sock pattern and the yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy in the Flamingo Pie colorway. Very comfy socks! My next pair are going to be the Diamonds and Cables socks (ravelry)using String Theory Caper sock.

I've also finished two pair of socks for Bree.

The top photo is Regia sock yarn and the bottom pair is made with Knit Picks Stroll sock yarn. She requested socks out of the blue one day so I cast on right away. I have some Patons stretch sock and Kroy sock in the stash that will soon become socks for her.

I started a baby blanket for my sister in law who is due in July.

The yarn is Knit Picks Comfy and the pattern is Pine Forest Baby Blanket. It's a freebie pattern available for download on Ravelry. It's an easy pattern without being completely boring. I've set the blanket aside to work on other things but will get it finished before the wee one is born.

I've also started my Cassidy (ravelry)(non ravelry) sweater for the Loopy Ewe quarterly challenge which is now due 1 July instead of the original date of 1 May. 

I'm using Dream in Color Classy in the Deep Sea Flower colorway. I'm alternating skeins every other row and it seems to be coming out nicely. I'm actually a lot farther along then this photo shows. I've finished the back piece and the left front piece. All I have left is the right front piece, 2 sleeves and a hood and the button bands and I'll be done. If I keep going the way I have I should be done with it in time.

I also have a new pair of "on the go" socks on the needles.

These are once again a basic toe up sock with a short row heel. The yarn is Lion Brand Sock-ease in the Lemon Drop colorway.

I got my May Loopy Ewe sock club package in.

I really like this one and it does scream summer. The yarn is Fleece Artist BFL sock and for the extra goodie we got a set of Oh Snap bags from Namaste. I've been wanting a set of these for quite some time now.

I've also acquired quite a bit of yarn since my last post but I think that could be a post all on it's own. If you're on Ravelry and are on my friends list then you've most likely seen all the yarn added. If you're not on my friends list and want to be, let me know and I can add you.

Happy Crafting!