Indulgence.

The holidays is a time for indulgence, don't you think? After what seem like months of working on my research project, and studying for another Botany exam, and working diligently on my holidays knits, it is time for a little "R & R" and succulent dyed fibers.

I dub the left one "Safari," and the right one "Gypsy." I experimented with water-painting, starting with a base color and adding new ones to the pot, and voila! Something exciting and filled with an abundance of colors within colors. If you were to hold these skeins in person, you would see many different colors of green, violet, blue,...you get the picture. I can't wait to knit these skeins up!

What else have I been up to?
Well, I finished reading The Rescue, by Nicolas Sparks. It was a great read-definitely a "chick choice." The plot was a little predictable, but it lived up to the page-turner type. I recommend this to anyone who likes romance, chick-flick movies, heart-string pullers, and just plain 'ol good writing. I also just finished another book today while sipping coffee at Caribou Coffee (read out-of-order in my series like the other two books): Death on Beacon Hill, by P.B Ryan. It's a really good series, if you are interested in 19th century Boston storylines that has a slowly flourishing romance between two of the main characters. Uh! I know "Will" is just a character, but man is he hot! (and rich! But that shouldn't matter.)

I started knitting the pattern I just designed for the "Winter" installment of our sockclub. It's interesting, fun to knit up, and simple on the noggin'. You can't get better than that. Plus, I think that the pattern really compliments the colorway Liz dyed up. I'm about 3 inches through the leg.

This year, I have devised a system for maximum good-eats:
1. If you've been standing by the snack-food for over 15 minutes, you are already in trouble. If you ate a whole plate's worth of snack-food...you better save yourself some effort and loosen your belt right now.
2. First scour out the important "must have" food items that you couldn't live without. Put a nice portion of each item on your plate. BUT WAIT! Don't put too much. If your plate is completely full at this time...you were a little zealous in your "hot-item" endeavours.
3. Take less mashed potatoes. They fill you up way too much. Place a small heap on your plate and move on! If you still want more, eat the leftovers.
4. Corn... Corn??? In my house, it's cooked so long that there aren't even nutrients left in the darn golden things. Take a very small serving. And not too many greenbeens either. (Same problem.)
5. ONE roll. I repeat... ONE ROLL. Two will do you in. Rookie mistake.
6. Eat slower. Do some quality talking with your family and let your stomach tell you when it's full. That way, you can still eat dessert before midnight.
7. If you are drinking milk with dinner, you better loose the mashies.
8. If you need two regular plates for dinner, you know you aren't going to have room for dessert.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!
I'm in charge of cranberries (simmered in Red wine & sugar) and my "mini pumpkin cakes" for dessert.

The Calm Before the Storm (a.k.a "filler")

Knitters beware! Knitting related info on the bottom of post...lol.

Hey everyone! As you can see from the change in scenery, i've already moved back to Iowa to finish up my last year at school! Of course, my room was organized and put completely together upon the day of arrival! Not to gross anyone out, but I think I sweated buckets of water! It's just soo darn hot here!
Anyways, I had the freetime to do a few things for myself. I read "Without Sin" within 2 days! It was such a good page-turner! I'm noticing a change in my reading...i've been clinging to mystery/fiction/thriller lately! Yikes! I usually read a mixture of fantasy/fiction and religions genres...
Because i've been soo into books lately (so much that I visited the thrift store again and got a whole bag of books for the price of one retail price!!!), I decided to officially make a "bookworm club" blog, so I can have an outlet to discuss good-reads, instead of boring you all on a knitting blog! HA HA--suckers!! Did you really believe I would stop giving you all non-knitting junk?? lol. In reality...less non-knitting junk will be on the blog then! Hee hee. Are you a bookworm?

Take a look-see. If you wanna join, you know what to do! :)

I'm hoping it will be a great place to discuss books and recommendations!

I finally cracked open into the Kinder Surprise eggs that Joe gave to me, from Paris! The thin layers were quite a "surprise" in itself.

Before I left, my mom went to our "World Market" store by our house and found this wonderful bottle of wine! Isn't it just too pretty to crack open? I even have a plastic cup with a picture of a sheep on it!

---"Baa," it says! However, in english, he's really saying "fill me, damn it!"

This bottle is a reminder that I still need to read the book "Dyed in the wool," that our library ordered for me! (yippie!)

--Ok, onto the good stuff!--

Can anyone take a gander at what this is?

If you look closely, you'll notice that i'm not bonkers, and that this really isn't lace-work, or knitting at all!

My thought, "holy flying monkeys"....

I've been taking a peak at my Botany book before class starts on this Monday, and was amazed to find a thin section of Magnolia wood looking like a piece of lace work.

Ok, well I was designing all day long...but you've gotta give me credit...were you surprised that this photo was in fact, wood?

The whole plant aspect of biology really intrigues me...which is probably a "duh" factor that I changed the look of my blog into something naturey. Plant life is soo interesting.

Anyways, I've been designing these past couple of days (...when not reading. I'm such a geek.)

Today, I spent the majority of the day starting & finishing from scratch my sock design for the premier (or so to say) of the sock club that I mentioned in the last post. It's called "Dobby Socks!"...or something to that effect. It has mucha mucha ribbing, eyelets, bobbles and cables! I'm just waiting for the sock yarn that i'm supposed to knit it with! I'm so proud of myself!

Yesterday, I designed "The Cabin Shawl," using my "September" colorway that I dyed up this summer. I'll take an action snap of later on. It's much to early to take one now. Let me get some more inches done first.

It's truly an amazing colorway...and goes great with the Fir Cone pattern going on in the shawl. The leaves really remind me of fall. (*sigh...ahh...*)

I've gotta get some major work on it soon, so it can coincide with the "September" and "Cabin" and "Fall" categories.

What Did I Do All WEEK?!?

Hey Everyone! I'm back from an entire week of my fioncée's family reunion....that's right....from Saturday to Saturday of, ummmm: fun, silly & confinement with Maliszewski "strangers." lol. I actually was proud of myself...I had everyone's (roughly 28 new peeps) name down by the first day. I actually had a lot of fun. We were up in MadisonGreenbay (oops!), Wisconsin, bunking in two large cabins. We basically didn't have an organized agenda, which allowed me to get a lot of knitting & reading done, as well as swimming, rowing, and corn hole/bags playing. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that the Mal's are crazy for games? We played a card game called "99" almost every night. If you think you've had crazy card nights with your pals....think again! Take almost 30 players-most being of drinking age or a lot OLDER-plus the rowdiness of normal people times a gazillion! You could almost pee your pants during those games, dying of laughter! The only things we didn't do were hike & tubing.

PAST WEEK:

...and yes fellas, that Aqua Float does actually flip over! "I told you so."

...A common Mal' salutation. No questions, please.

Paddle-boating along an inlet. (Ok, paddling AND reading AND knitting.)

...Proof of "knitting in nature." Ahhhh.

...Proof of reading H.P 7, AND knitting.

OH.... I have a "nighty night" story to tell you all later....plus a video to go along with it....DON'T let me forget to post it later on this week. Just remind me if I forget. ;)

Finished Reading during my vacation:

Harry Potter 6 &7, plus C'est La Vie (a very interesting book about a woman starting life over in Paris, after her husband dies. I recommend it to anyone interested in abroad.)

FO:

"Simply Ginny."

WIP:

The first sock in the pair, from my colorway: The Secret Waterfall.

NEW STUFF:

Dyeing! This completes my "summer dyes 2007." These were the last 3 skeins of my bulk. I can anticipate me being too busy to do more dyeing on my last week of summer vacation, before I leave to start my Senior year... whoot whoot!
Top: "Rain Forest"
Middle: Rockin' (my own take of a skein already created. I just loved the colors. However, the grey is lighter than the original.)
Bottom: "Starry Night"

FYI: My blog should be fully updated after this post. I'm taking down the poll, adding skeins to my sidebar and updating my completed reading list. Thanks for your patience. ;)

Debear62, I'll mail your skein out to you sometime this week, now that I'm back. :)

Work tomorrow, plus Cubs game! It's my first baseball outing...ever! (Can you tell i'm not into sports, lol.)

Pure & Evil?

STILL WANNA PARTICIPATE IN THE "NAME THAT YARN" CONTEST?
Read the post below. You've got until Sunday at midnight, before I choose 3 of the best colorway names and make a poll for ya'll to vote. Use the last post's comment page for participating. Merci. Oh, did I forget to mention that the winner gets that contest yarn? Everyone loves a good freebie, right? lol.

--Now, onto some new stuff--
I decided that after a cancellation in my schedule, I had some time on my hands to do a couple more dyes. And that's just what I did! However, boy was it hot in my house today! I was literally sweating over a hot stove for a couple of hours before drinking coffee at caribou with someone that I knew from H.S, and sweating some more when I got back into my 100 degree house. Just put all of that together, they do equal dehydration...big time!
Je presente, avec plus effort et l'amour, "Double Potions with Snape." (Ok, hopefully you Frenchies can read that. I swear, my French is draining out of my noggin' like water. Sorry no accents for my laptop... there's no side numbers to do the commands. lol.)
...another view.
I swear, that's not pink...it's silver! there's dark green, light green, black, purple & silver.
Ici, tu vu, "The Secret Waterfall."
Silver, sky blue & teal. Too bad squinting won't even help you see that, though.

The Sock & Name that Colorway CONTEST!

First, let's get to the "real stuff" before the CONTEST!
My finished "Candied Love" sock.
Go ahead, click on it... you can actually see the hearts this time.


Candied love: A flirtatious type of love that springs forth at the beginning of relationships. Although that love may be real, it hasn’t evolved yet into that pure & unconditional love one sees later on, one that needs no attention for his retention. So for now, here's frills & spice for show, to make sure his eyes are on you. Just you.

LoL... don't take my description too seriously. It's just supposed to be a fun & flirty pair of lace heart socks.
Pretty Saucy, huh? It almost kind of looks cooler without the other one, in the picture.
Just off the press, and in timely manner, since my hands were starting to really stick to the metal needles. I completely hate that feeling. I've got a deadline of one week to finish up the other sock, and Joe's UFO. Then I can take a cooler picture with him in it. The sock needs a guy in it... what do you think?

Now onto the Contest!
I just dyed another skein, because....well, just because I'm crazy enough to do another one soo soon.
However, I was having the hardest time trying to come up with a name for this one.
Then it hit me.

I thought that it would be fun to have a colorway naming contest, since the colors are pretty funky together.
It's up to you, oh faithful commenter-friends & lurkers, to come up with the perfect (and jazzy) name for this one.
It's a hard one... what goes with lilac, sky blue, periwinkle, silver, salmon, pink & white?
The winner gets fame & glory on the winner's post....and this skein! Freebies are always good, right? Yeah, I should probably get some crackers to go with all this cheesyness.

"NAME THAT COLORWAY" RULES:
1. First, come up with the perfect colorway name. Jokesters might gain extra merit, as long as it's to good humor. Post on THIS post's comment page ONLY!! Thanks. :)
2. Post these rules on your blog & your colorway idea. That way, no one will use something like it, by mere freak accident. Who ever finds out about this contest on your blog must refer you on this comment page below, before participating in the contest. (This is kind of like Lotus' Knits contest idea. But we will use a poll too...)
-->If you see your name (or blog address) on my comment page below, you can add another colorway name idea! The more referals for you, the better! Good luck to you all!
3. The top 3 best names will be put on a poll, so you all can vote!
4. Contest ends: Sunday, July 29th @ midnight!

So, the sooner you comment, the better chance you have of getting another go. lol.
Feel free to copy & paste the rules. No use in typing it all over again.

*************************************************************
So far, we have:
-Koi Pond (Diana)
-Sunset Lake (Michelle)
-Sugar Rush (Jill)
-Everlasting Gobstopper (Liz)
-Cotton Candy (Trek & Laural)--not in to win contest
-Kindergarden Daze (Stephieface)
-Jawbreaker (Sarah)
-Sherbert Delight (Alison)
-The Evening Storm (Kate)
-Aurora Borealis (Laurie)
-Bertie Botts (Jennie A.)
-Freesia Fields (Alana)
-Punky Brewster (Megan)
-Quinceañera (Diana)--[referred]
-Carnival (She'saCrafty One)
-Candy Cotton at the Country Fair (Alaina)
-Sugar Pixies (Jen. C)
-Tutti-Frutti (Debbear 62)
-Birthday Cake (Megan)-[referred]
-My Imaginary Friend (5elementknitr)

----CONTEST CLOSED! (as of midnight)-------

Fiber Fair & Dyes

I had an amazing (& Spoiling) weekend already. On Friday, I went to the Midwest Fiber & Folk Art Fair and came back with quite a few items! I had to leave once my bank account was pretty drained... but, I got some wool on clearance, several roving balls, lots of jacquard dyes, Brittany needles (in the short sock sizes), a tee-shirt, an alpaca plush (I love him!! eh, man did I buckle.), and a cute sheep tape-measurer that i've been wanting for ages. I just got my ball winder that came in the mail the other day, and have been winding up everything into pretty balls with wonderful center pulls! I got the 7th Harry Potter book, and more yarn came in the mail today! Yowzers!

Of course, I had to plunge into dyeing with the new dyes:

I call this one "Fairy Cove." I absolutely love it... and have plans for it already. There is periwinkle, lilac, the brownish-olive & silver. I also plan on making a similar one, but with green instead of the brownish-olive tone, and calling it "Fairy Garden." I should start a fairy collection!

This is my interpretation on "Ginny Weasley." It looks so pretty! I'm going to have a HP night sometime when I get back to Iowa and knit up my Gryffindor & Ginny Weasley socks. The skein contains: salmon, silver, fusia, lighter fusia & once again that olive-brown.

This one was pretty cool too. I named it "Midnight Sanctuary." There's black, sky blue, mixed greens to try to make seagreen & teal. (Man do I love teal.)

KNITTING UPDATE: Now that I got a little out of my system, I can focus more on my candied love socks again. I'm working on the gusset at the moment.

"Candied Love" Progress & Birch

The air's on, so needles out!

I casted on my "Candied Love" pattern and got 2 repeats done. It's only around 4 inches of heart repeats, so i'll do another repetition before the heel. Although you all might complain that you can't see the lacey hearts in the picture, it's not entirely due to my crummy camera's focus incapability this time. I planned on the purple-red-white variegation mixed in with an overloaded dose of lace within the heart. That was intentional. (Hence, "candied," just like the flirty and non-purity of love at the beginning of relationships...when it's all for show.) If you still don't understand what the heck I'm talking about, just think of the beginning of relationships & that boyfriend/girlfriend who always wrote "I love you" with all the little frilly hearts around it, after a only a few days of dating.
Close up:

And yes, this pattern would be wonderful in a nice pure red skein, but then it's not "candied." It's just "hearted."

Of course, this blog wouldn't be complete without another dyed skein...
Some double trouble action of my "Candied Love" yarn. Pretty close in colorway, huh?



Here's "Birch." It looks as though it will be a wonderful skein for nature socks. Maybe I need to go camping sometime, to have an excuse to knit these up sooner.


Ok, so remember how I moaned about this skein earlier? Well, it turns out that rewinding works wonders!
"Celebration" has a whole new zing to it!

Relaxation for the Mind, Body & Soul

My newest addition: "Irish Spring."

Deep Refreshing & Relaxing Instructions (after a long day at work):
1. Steam up the bathroom with hot shower water for several minutes. Make sure it's really steamy, so you'll enjoy step #3 a lot more.

2.Close the drain-plug (in the showers that are shower-baths).

3. After the room is quite steamy, change the temp to luke-warm, or cooler... and light some candles, turn off the bathroom light.

4. Use "Irish Spring" liberally to wash up, and/or create bubbles (with the gel).

5. Lie down in the tub while letting the shower hit you. The tub will fill up slowely. Lift your feet in the air and let the water massage your feet.

6. Enahle deeply.

7. Repeat 1-6 as needed.

Works everytime.
Ahhh...

Look at yesterday's post for more "meat."

Saturday, Part 1: Dyeing

So, for Part 1 of my Saturday, we have the dyes!:
This is called "Candied Hearts," to go with my newly deisigned sock pattern with that name. I love those colors mixed together with the white. It is a lovely blend, and shall go great with my lacey heart pattern.


This is "Hawkeye," of course...my school colors.
It has a nice long equal stripe pattern to it... which will be easy on my part!


This yarn reminds me of party balloons. Therefore, I present, "Celebration."

Upcoming: Part 2, the knits.

One Big Happy Fiber Family!

DO YOU DYE YARN/ROVINGS??? I just made a "Dye Your Fiber" along!
Joining: email me at angelgirl_22@msn.com (with your subject as "dye along")
Please spread the word! When we get a sufficient enough crew, we can then try out yarn swaps & fun contests in the future! I'm really hoping it will be a learning community too.

This summer is really for dying.
It's already hot, the sun dries the wool super fast, and you've got nothing better to do on the weekends when the house isn't air-conditioned. I only knit when my room is a comfortable-or preferablly freezing-temperature for smooth knit-tage. I just ordered 7 more skeins of fingering weight yarn from Knitpicks because it's so affordable for me, and I want to get the bulk of this year's dying done before I head back for school. Believe me, the yarn swift & Kool-aid will come to Iowa with me in August, but i'll probably not dye that much. Maybe only a few times. Well, who knows. I'm getting soo addicted to dying. I might just come back from a Friday night at the bars with Joe & his friends and see how well I could dye at his apartment, drunk. NO, I am SOO kidding. :) Actually, that would be interesting.... I could call the skein "drunkeness." lol. I hope ya'll have a good sense of humor...you'll get this kind of crap-humor all the time (if you haven't noticed already).

So I officially forgot I took this picture on the 4th of July because I dyed ONE...more...skien. LOL.
Here's "Sweet Hearts." There's Red, Pink & pale pink. Since it's a lace-weight yarn, I'll probably use this for a flowery shawl for either Christmas (since it almost was called "Peppermint") or for Valentine's day. Eh, that's far away...
Once again, my cruddy camera couldn't capture the color dynamics going on. (*squinting eyes*...where is that medium pink? I only see two colors in the picture)

"September" is definately my favorite of this dying week. I love my gryffindor colors, but the glowiness of the minty-seagreen color mixed in with the gold & forest green just attracts my eyes like a fly to a zapper. Ahhhhhh..... It will definately make a wonderful shawl too.

WHAT'S KNITTING UP RIGHT NOW? My "Gryffinor Rox" tanktop that i'm designing just in time for the movie & book. Then i'll finish up my "Sweet as Candy" cardi for my friend... and then i'll finish up Joe's suprise knit that you all have seen already.

Wooly Dyes this Weekend

Needless to say, I just used up my 4 skeins of fingering yarn that I got Friday! However, I'm soo excited to show you guys the finished products of my sock yarn from this weekend!!! I even made labels for them, with the yarn information in the inside of the tag. I made heart labels now. I didn't like the tag sticking out.

Go go "Gryffindor!"
Yeah, below is another skein that looks similar to this, but it's different. The little pink streaks here and there is from it not properly soaking up the color. Oh well,... it doesn't really phase me. After I knit up the socks, I can hand paint it redder in those patches.
I can't wait to knit these babies up while watching the movies. *sigh* I still have to do the tanktop too, amid all the other knits going on!


The label suggests otherwise, but it should be named "Earthen."


On the top is my "Lagoon" yarn. Let's see... there is green, a more paleish green, neon yellow-green and a pretty blue! On the bottom is my "Flamin' Hot!" yarn! Now you can see the difference between the pink & orange-red. There's also yellow in it.

I just made a sock-along.... since most of those are closed!
It's called "Sockatility"... you know, versatility of socks!Just like the HP KAL, email me if you wanna join! Go check it out. :)

Sneak Peak at Some "Dryin' Dyin'"

I was really intrigued by the magnificence of yesterday's sunset. Although my sucky digital camera (cheap then, & out of date now...) could never capture the true beauty and colorway of the sky, I'm hoping you can just get a tiny glimpse of the beauty our earth holds when you stop for a few minutes to enjoy the setting of the sun. (OK, well I'm a night owl, so this has to count for my "sunrise" experience too... lol.)
Just looking at my blinds, you can see the pink
shinning through. It's all about the little things in life, isn't it... that makes everything feeling alright at the end of the day? I was so bummed that my camera couldn't catch all of the other colors in the sky, and the rich deep hue that it would have been in the picture. *sigh,* oh well.





It's always exciting to get your yarn in the mail!
4 delicious skeins of 100% merino in fingering weight (ah, yes...self, that would be the correct button to push online, wouldn't it?!)
Um, well, two skeins are still white! ha ha.


You're looking at from left to right, "Lagoon" and "Flamin' Hot."
There really are 3 different colors on each, but it's really hard to see that in the picture.
They are just chilling in the bathroom, taking their sweet time drying. I can't wait to finally try twisting them into a real skein. ha ha. It's about darn time!

A Quick Stroll Down Memory Lane

My friend Liz mentioned about Lotus Knits' "first finished knitted project competition." Naturally, the prize is yarn! Hand-dyed, to make things even sweeter! I was baffled when I looked through my knitting projects archives on my computer, and there were no pictures on my first knitting projects! So, I had to scavenge around the house looking for my first finished FO, a scarf, that I selflessly gave away to my mother, like a good little teenager. lol. Please refer me as your informant to the contest if you enter! Thanks! :) So here she be! Drum roll please!! ....

About 3 1/2 years ago, I used about 2 skeins of homespun on size 9 needles to make this scarf. The cast on was somewhere around 40 stitches, so this scarf took me a good month or so. However, the results were satisfying. I would even wear it now... the colors look so pretty and vibrant in person.

For the rules, I quote Lotus Knits:
"All you have to do to enter the contest is:1.) post a picture on your blog of your first finished knitted item OR what's next in your queue that you *haven't* cast on for yet and 2.) make sure to mention this contest! Scarf, dishcloth, sweater, whatever! I wanna see! Then, 3.) email me at lotusknits@gmail.com (or leave a comment) to let me know you've posted so I can come check out your blog! Let me know what blog you saw the contest on, because for every person that mentions your blog as a referral, you get another entry into the contest."

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NOT FOR JOE'S EYES!!!! YOUR GIFT PACKAGE IS IN THIS POST! DON'T LOOK.

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So, what have I been up to lately? Well, for one thing: work. I have two jobs going on right now. However, I started my pregnant friend's baby cardigan. I've got the pattern written up on the computer already. I just have to finish it. It needs a few more increases, straight knitting, sleeves then voila... "Sweet As Candy" cardigan in a flash!

Also, I've been working on Joe's care package, since he's at Iowa right now taking summer classes. He's getting these incredibly awesome "office socks" that I designed just for him. It's doubled up lace weight on size two needles. I swear Joe, if your still reading this... I'm keeping the socks. He promised to not look at this post because I really wanted to show you all.

I'm using the "Moss" yarn that I specifically dyed with him in mind, since he absolutely loves green. I think you can see the different specks of green if you click on the picture. edit: if you squint. The picture link won't blow up for some reason.

It's frickin' 100 degrees in my house again, so I obviously can't continue knitting both projects. Oh well, I still need to keep reading Harry Potter 5 & 6.

I also started my "knitting mystery" book last night! Exciting! I love it already! Hopefully it will be good enough one day to consider publishing! Whoo hoo!