When you sit back & let the colorway do all your "dirty work"

Without further ado, my Etsy shop is finally running!! I'm selling my "All Twisted Up" designer bag pattern now.It's in a Word format document, with written out instructions for the cable pattern, and is sent via email upon payment (to save on shipping costs and time).


On Saturday, my friend Liz visited me in Illinois, and we drove together to a knitting shop that I just found out about is only 20 minutes away. The "Keweenaw Shepherd" is a very small, but a cute shop. It is loaded with wonderful hanks of wool, alpaca, and such. Plus, the owner graciously let us stay a little over closing, since I was a goofball and thought that it closed at 5pm, not 2pm. I got some goodies:

2 skeins of Lana Grossa's Meilenweit Inca & Magico (100g each). They are beautiful skeins, with really nice colorways. I've already started a pair of socks. They are made with 80% virgin wool and 20% polyamide.

This scrumptious foresty goodness is hand painted Schaefer Yarn in "Anne." This will be used for a leaf shawl I plan to make in the near future. It's really hard to notice in the picture, but there are different shades of green mixed in with an olive-y brown and almost teal looking green.

Although I'd hate to show off the side with the line running through the work from the dpns, it was the best side to show off the perfect stripes. Isn't she purdy? No muss or fuss... just one strand (and a magnifying glass to see the stitches while knitting).

Yarn: Lana Gross in Inca; 100g

Needles: Size ONE

Stitches: 64 (although it does fit my feet, I would like to cast on about 70-74 on 1's next time)

I casted on yesterday evening, and have been knitting on and off, inbetween performance acts from my mom's charity show, car rides, watching a Smallville Episode, and such. It's getting there. My sock preference is anklets, so this one already feels like knee-highs to me, but you've gotta let those colors shine... go for the extra legnth. (shhh... i'm only doing another inch or so, before I work the heel.)

(*breathe*) Lastly, Joe and I went to Borders today (to "window shop") and I couldn't help but splurgin on Maggie Stefton's 4th book in the Knitting Mystery series--"A Killer Stitch." If you haven't read these books, you should check it out in your library/buy the books cheap on Amazon.com, because they are really great reads (and fast!). You really can "cozy up" to these books! They really make me want to move to Colorado, and sip coffee everyday at the knitting shop and knit at a large table with friends. Unfortunately, after 3 books, the author decided to turn to hardcover... I'll let you finish my thoughts about that. Poor bookshelve and its inconsistancies....

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I'M SUCH A SLOW-POKE! I'VE BEEN TAGGED AGAIN!

(this time from Silver Ilix )

Rules: if you've been tagged, you have to write 7 random facts about yourself (usually fun and interesting ones) on your blog, tag 7 others and write to the original tagger to read your posted facts on your blog.

p.s-- you need to post these rules on your blog as well, to let others know how to play the game.

1. I hoard too many books... probably because I buy too many of them

2. I'm a neat freak. Sometimes I get really OCD about cleaning my room and organizing my schoolwork... even late at night (if i'm on a lot of caffeine).

3. I was raised Catholic, but since college, I have been finding out what being "Christian" trully means to me.

4. I take a lot of progress pics of my knitting, and most of the pictures I take are in fact of knitting, not people. (don't laugh, it's sad...)

5. When I was young, I would blare my music really loudly in my room so no one would hear me sing, and I would dress up and pretend I was singing on stage.

6. I cannot stand pretezls with flavors. Once I ate some mustard pretzles at a bowling alley, and regretted that later.... let's just say my senses can't stand the smell or taste of them again. Any other flavors is just border-line sickening to me, because of the bad memories.

7. When I go to restaurants, I usually don't order any drinks, besides water, because i'm a cheapo. $1.30 is just to expensive for me, for a can of pop.

I'm tagging:

-Silver Ilix-- ha ha, tag-backs!

-Knitting Hawkeye (Liz)

-Laural

-Knitlit (Kate)

-Knit Creations of a Curious Mind (Olga)

-Dawn

-and how about Faith.

Playing with fire

...When you know you are on the threshold of insanity, or entering the "darkside."
It all started with a lovely walk down Walmart lanes. I had the whole idea of learning how to do granny squares and knitting a really cool looking afghan. This isn't your orange-white-red combo, mind you; something simple, pleasant, and appealling to the common eyes.

So ok. Maybe this first go wasn't so sucessful. I wasn't even sure I was double crocheting correctly.
The second go was a lot more sucessful. If it weren't for the wonky black and light blue center, this square would look actually quite nicely.
The third go was even more sucessful, but yet the second tier is again a little loose. I decided to do only 3 tiers, since the object started to get more and more circular as you go. Instead of the black double crochet stitch like the second go, this one has single crochet for the border. it looks a lot better. I was thinking that the other color for the borders would alternate with teal and seagreen, in the afghan. Nice idea, yeah?
The fourth, fifth, sixth (didn't even really get past this point)... the guage is considerably tighter! I hesitated to go looser, because I didn't want the wonky-tonky business going on. Mistake? Yup.
Result??? Let's knit the damn afghan, shall we? I'm going to alternate with the foggotting stitch blocks, picking stitches up along the sides and top and such. I almost considered the trinity stitch for it, instead.

When I was at Micheals, I picked up some awesome ribbon, that I plan to use as my wedding theme. I will put it on the invitations and such, since i'm doing it all by myself. You'll see later on... it will look good once it's all put together. On the right side picture, we are looking at 5 skiens of Sugar & Cream cotton, for washcloths. Colorful and happy-looking... I think so!


Oh my! A book that i'm reading that isn't required for school? You can see that I only got 11 pages through, but i'll pick it up again tomorrow. Bruce Feiler is such an exellent writer/storyteller! I recomment his books to anyone that happens to be Jewish or Christian (or Muslim-- for the book "Abraham")

DID I FORGET TO MENTION THAT SCHOOL'S DONE?!?! I had a great semester, and i'm sure all of my grades will show for it. :)

My FH and I went to Caribou Coffee yesturday, after a couple of months of Starbucks and such, I read some of my book and sipped on their mocha coffee. Now that's mocha!!

Update on Victoria: doesn't look like much, but let's just say that the cabled border took a little while! Then, I had to sew it all around the border-- eeek!! I'm now entering the trinity stitch zone, and am playing with the stitch variation numbers in my head right now. I'll have to figure out how many knit stitches should be in between, or yo's and such.

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--->I've been tagged!
(by She'sa crafty one)

Rules: if you've been tagged, you have to write 7 random facts about yourself (usually fun and interesting ones) on your blog, tag 7 others and write to the original tagger to read your facts, so they know you've done your part.

1. )I hate beer. I'll go straight for the hard mixed stuff.

2.) I don't watch sports, nor do I know any trivia about them, or care much about it

3.) As a child, I took eleven(ish) years of piano, played flute (without instruction, but still very sucessfully) for six years--before I decided not to play in band anymore, and I sing a lot!

4.) I hate all forms of seafood! And I don't care for steak (bloody and red... yuck)-- I'm a cheap dinner date, aren't I?

5.) I live in the Chicagoland, but I rarely visit the city

6.) Rap, alternative and techno music doesn't do it for me-- I listen to classical, contemporary Christitan/gospel, broadway musicals, baroque, some new age and pop music

7.) I really enjoy cooking. I watch a lot of foodnetwork. However, whenever my FH is supposed to help me cook, I usually hog the cooking!

8.) I'm one of the lightest sleepers in the world, and it's almost always a struggle to fall asleep. My creativity kicks in-as well as songs in my head-around the time when I should be sleeping!

9.) I love to read! I mostly read fantasy novels, some Christianity books, Knitting stuff, Harry Potter... etc. You can look up my list on "library thing" under my profile.

10.) I'm engaged to the most loving, caring and wonderful man in the world. We will tie the knot September 19, 2009 (a million years away still).

...11.) I only have one more year left of college... whoohoo!