Announcements

Hey guys. I know it's been a long while.
I do have two exciting **knitting** announcements for you guys.

1. $5 in Paris has been generously translated in FRENCH by Milla Ray, who is part of  ”Traductions de Ravelry”, a French-English bilingual group that translates patterns, articles and other pieces of the site. 
I only have a pdf version so far of the translation, but if you are interested (or know someone who is in need of a French translation) feel free to email me.

$5 in Paris is also translated into Spanish!


2. FIVE free KUAS patterns will be featured on Knitting Superstar: Cut Out + Keep in the near future. They've been emailing me for weeks now requesting some of my patterns, and with all of the renovations and piano accompaniment I've been doing all May, I JUST got around to emailing them today with it. If you are unfamiliar with that site, they feature one knitter a week, and every day of the week has a new free pattern from that designer. It's a cool site, you should check it out. 

By the way... does anyone watch the show Fringe? I have something funny to share. This freaked the crud out of me and my husband while watching the 4th season. The boy on the left was a guest on the show, and the boy on the right is one of my toddler twins 6 months ago:

Creepy, or is it creepy?!?! In daylight, his eyes look exactly the same, they have the same face shape, same hair, same eyebrow shape, same lips and chin...

AMM Sheet Music

Hey All,
I'm very excited and happy to announce that my sheet music made it "live" on Sheetmusicplus.com and is available for the whole world to see/play! They can be instantly downloaded and printed out on your computer.

If you have kids that play piano, or know of someone that plays, you would be doing me a huge favor sending them to my My Music Publishing Website to test out the audio clips of all of the pieces that are available. Although all of them are my "babies" and I love each of them, my favorite in the Adult section is "Spirit" (second to it is "Guitar Dance") and the simple children's piece "Gypsy Fair" (which by the way was hard to top for a while in my husband's opinion!!) . "Pirate's Shanty" has lyrics that the audio clip doesn't show, but you can preview some of the lyrics on the actual sample page. I'll post the funny/cheesy lyrics that the pirates sing sometime.

You can find me in the "Publisher" finder (although I don't know why I'm not also in the Composer section as well):

 They have like 500 "Spirit" songs, so unless you are clicking on it from my website, you might want to look me up on Sheetmusicplus.com that way.

Here's a couple of cutsie ads:

Thanks so much! It's going to be a long road going self-published...doing all the advertising myself, but I hope that pianists will find these pieces to be fulfilling and educational (especially under my "children's section.")

P.s- We are re-paining our house (no more green next to red or green next to purple-grey...and no more green running all up our staircase and ceiling). You'll all gasp at me mentioning "knitting" lately...cause who'd think I'd mention THAT on my knitting blog, but I have a children's rug project that is waiting for me to begin. It's fabric strips that I need to sew together first before I knit it. Hopefully soon I can actually begin this project!

Processing

This is exciting! All ten that I have uploaded to www.sheetmusicplus.com has been reviewed, accepted and undergoing processing for being live in under a week! (Audio music sampling of these pieces.)

A.M.M Publications

Remember me telling you guys that I was dabbling into composing piano pieces (mostly for my piano students, and maybe formulate a children's book some day)? Well, since December, I've composed nearly 17 piano pieces. I'm just as shocked. I guess you never know what you are capable of, until you try! It was a lot of work-work-work every second of my children's nap/bedtime. Let's just say I "stayed up so late and woke soo early I almost crossed myself in the hallway" many nights.

Head over to my site: www.annamaliszewski.webs.com to check out the audio samples of some of my compositions almost ready for the public. I've submitted 4 pieces already to www.sheetmusicplus.com. Cross your fingers! This is really exciting! It can take up to 10 days to know whether they will release it on their site. Let me know what you think of them.

Song Writing

I was inspired yesterday to compose "Gypsy Fair" for the Early Elementary Level pianist. It's in C minor. (I love minors, weird me.) Today, while the boys were napping and it was snowing-storming like no one's business, I also composed "Hop Frog Pond!" (for the Intermediate Level pianist). Everyone at the house really loved the first one, so I imagine "Hop Frog Pond" will be hard to compete for affection, but I think it's an official start to writing my own Children's Piano Literature Book for beginners. Or, at least I have two cute ones. Let me know what you think. Oh, and if you are wondering why I am being more random than usual on my knitting blog with this video...I'm a mother by day and piano teacher by evening. This could be a start of something big (or at least something cool) if I keep at it. :)

P.S- it's all computerized instrumental voicing. Nothing live, or fancy...I literally just finished writing it! Double :)

Become a Character!

"Become A Character In Better Off Dead!

Become a Character in H.P Mallory's Better Off Dead, the first book in the Lily Harper Series!

Here are the contest parameters:

Enter to be written as a character in my book, Better Off Dead. I'll create your character using your name, description and personality (I'll send over a questionnaire, etc. to find out all about you!)

The winner will get:

* A written part in Better Off Dead
* The ability to read Better Off Dead before it's released to the public
* Added to the Acknowledgments page

 To enter, you can simply comment on this blog post. To get more entries, you can do the following:

* Leave a comment on this blog post (+ 1 point)
* Follow my blog (+ 1 point)
* Follow me on Twitter (+ 1 point) (Link: https://twitter.com/HPMallory)
* Tweet about the contest (+ 1 point)
* Friend me on Facebook (+ 1 point) (Link: www.facebook.com/hpmalloryauthor)
* Like me on Facebook (+ 1 point) (Link: https://www.facebook.com/hpmallory?ref=hl)
* Mention the contest on Facebook (+ 1 point)
* Mention the contest on your blog (+ 1 point)
* Add Better Off Dead to your list of Goodreads books (+1 point) (Link: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15962381-better-off-dead)

 Do all of the above and you'll get even more chances to win with a total of 9 possible points. Just mention in your blog comment how many points you earned (and how you earned those points). And please also remember to include your full name so I'm able to reach you if you are the winner! A sample comment could look like this:

Hey, HP, enter me (Jane Doe) in your ninth awesomest contest ever! I have a total of 3 points for commenting on your blog, friending you on facebook, and tweeting about your contest!

This contest is open until February 28th with the winner announced on March 1st!

Contest Rules:

* Total your points in the comments field of this blog and tell me how you earned your points.
* The winner will be drawn at random (the more points you have, the more entries you'll get)

Good luck!!!!

HP"

New Routine

Hey All,
I'm just checking in to show you a few things that are going on at the moment: fitness/wellness and reading. Oh yeah, we just "derailed" one side of the boys' cribs and are transitioning to their "Big Boy Beds." It's a pretty tough transition, not to mention throwing "twins" into the equation. The nighttime has been pretty successful (there was playing around for a long while, of course) but the daytime nap is the tricky one. Just to show you how crazy courageous I am, I did this with my husband out of town for the week!  *sigh* I know, nothing knitty to show you (the real reason why you came). Any spare bit of time I have had has been so focused on preparing lighter meals (and documenting recipes to share with you all), excercising despite my physical or mental fatigue, and reading a really good series called "Dulcie O'Neil" by H.P Mallory (the Jolie Wilkins series was amazing as well) on my Kindle while exercising or in a vegetative state on the couch. And now that we are in the transitioning phase with the boys, my spare time amounts to maybe an hour a night. And that's with me going to bed very late! I can't knit during the day because the boys see fit to attack me and/or pull on the yarn or run away with the skein, etc.

Jolie Wilkins Series

If you haven't discovered these really inexpensive yet amazing paranormal romances, look them up! The first ones in the series are FREE and will hook you. The rest of the books are only $3.99 and are just as great! This author was self-published and used online services like Kindle to jump-start her career...and was so darn successful right off the bat that now they publish and sell her books in stores. I think her books are close to numero-uno on most bought kindle books. She's quite an inspiration to us amateurs that would love to write mysteries or romances, or...erm...knitting books and get "found." It's also cool to see other online places that give you the option to "self-publish" your book in hardcover for next to nothing (maybe four bucks), if you simply don't want to wait forever for the "big guy" to accept you. I wish I could remember the name of that site!

Here's some lighter meals that your family will love (from yours truly) with veggies, veggies and more veggies!:

Gourmet-looking Cucumber Snack Poppers

Three Little Bears Finger Sandwiches

Eat Your Veggies Omlette

Dinosour Finger Sandwiches

Beef Stew

Southwestern Breakfast Burrito

You can get all of those recipes at: The Adventures of Raising Twins (blog)!

My scale is out of batteries, and I've been too lazy to get a screwdriver and check what it needs to change it out, but I should be at around 6-7 pounds down since Dec. 28th! Just a zillion left to go. Just kidding. It feels that way though.

Taylor Swift & Knitting Wallpaper

I know I've already posted today, and I'm not a Taylor Swift fan, but I was forced to see a preview of one of her videos while watching On Demand. I couldn't believe my eyes! Knit cables wallpaper! Neat! I might be last to know about this, as I don't watch any music videos anymore. My TV mostly plays children's shows. ;) Where can I find me some of that action for my spare room? Heck, maybe for the front room too!

Taylor Swift Wanted 'Never Ever' Video 'To Look As Quirky As The Song Sounds'

 

Resolutions

I know I've been awful lately at posting about knitting things. That's because I haven't been knitting at all for a month or so. Besides last week's drama of being filled with our family getting sick one-by-one, I've been focused on getting more fit and making healthy foods for my family with more fruits and veggies. It's something I've wanted to do for a while, and started on a while back, but didn't follow through as much as I hoped.

This is what I started, to document our crazy lives with multiple toddlers. I know, it's another blog. It's mostly my healthy recipes right now, but if this blog is a snooze-fest at the moment, go take a peek and tell me what you think!

www.theadventuresofraisingtwins.blogspot.com

However, I should finish up the two 80% and 95% done sweaters for the boys before they render themselves useless...and I am planning on knitting them buttoned-up cowl scarves for this winter!

Happy New Year!

If I don't make back here in time for the 'ol switcheroo...Have a HAPPY NEW YEAR! Many blessings, adventures and great joy to you and your family.

  

 

Here's a parade of the "BEST of 2012" craftiness from this blog:

(in no particular order) 

I won an award!

I was just notified through www.allfreeknitting.com that I am one of their top 100 free patterns that they offer! That just made my day! The most popular patterns that I've given them are: "$5 in Paris," (the top-down raglan) the  "Dummy Clap Shawl," "Lightning-Fast Slippers" and the "Double Looped Scarf."

I spotted the "Dummy Clap" there while going through the top patterns list!

I'm very honored to receive this award and to display it proudly on my blog! All of this has made me curious to see the statistics of who's coming into my blog from THAT specific website since blogger started offering this ability to track audiences (I'm not sure if this is since 2011(?), or if it really is since 2008):

 It's a little creepy in a way to see what devices are being used, but it's fascinating nonetheless...

Merry Christmas, 2012!

I know, I know, I know,... I haven't posted a darn thing since Cyber Monday...and I can only say that we were busy making Merry (or preparing to Make Merry) this month for Christmas, and any extra time I've had I spent playing piano, studying a Music Composition Book and even composing original piano pieces. Don't get too exited...one's half done and the other that is pretty much done still needs to be tweaked. I also plan on working with my husband who (occasionally) plays guitar, so that we can record a guitar (him) and piano/vocal (me) recording of a few songs like "Thousand Years," "Cold" and "Fields of Gold." It will be fun. It's something that I've always wanted to try. Who better to do it with, than my own husband?

But, in hopes that you forgive me, here's some rather cute photos of my boys helping me cut out sugar cookies, and some scrumptious pictures of my homemade kalachkie cookies.

Jake rolling out....flour.

Sam touching the rolling pin, but who is just actively eating the flour. Guilty as charged, dude.

Oh the mess! Flour, flour everywhere!

Oh mon dear!

Delish.

One lucky family. Kalchkies (strawberry, apricot and even almond) dusted with a snow of powdered sugar.

 Do you remember these little guys? That was only two years ago!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas filled with joy, laughter and love. I will see you after the New Years.  The world didn't end, so now you can feel okay about picking up those needles and finishing those WIPS for your gift recipients.! ;)

Happy Cyber Monday!

The KUAS shop is back, after a long hiatus!
To kick off cyber Monday, I am running a 15% off sale on ALL merchandise! That's huge!!!! That includes hand-knits too! Just use the coupon code "KUASWINTER" at the checkout. This sale will run until Sunday.

Check out the shop to see hand-knits from this blog, KUAS yarn, stitch-markers, and more! I think you'll find that most of the yarn and hand-knits are affordable, for being handmade. Do you have any knitter friends or family? Maybe some of these would make great gifts!

Twilight Themed Yarns (what are left after the Craft Show):
-Twilight (lace, fingering, worsted, bulky)
-Bella ( alpaca fingering)
-Alice Cullen (worsted)
-Renesmee Cullen (lace, worsted)
-In the Meadow (alpaca fingering)
-On the beach with Jacob (bulky)

P.s, I'm "Knittyknitter" at www.knittyknitter.etsy.com.

Thanksgiving

Our family is grateful for many things: a supportive and helpful family that lives very close, that helps play or watch the boys while I teach, a home with heat (our furnace broke a couple of weeks ago! Right when it started getting cold) and a father (mine) that knows how to save us hundreds by installing the part himself, healthy boys, daily comforts and love...

I am also thankful for YOU, dear readers. I enjoy hearing how your projects turned out, or if you enjoyed a post or photo. It always makes me smile. I am very grateful for all of your support and interest in my work and blogging. I may not be the best at keeping up with blogging nowadays, and so I am happy to know that people return to visit when a post eventually makes it way into cyberville.

We enjoyed our Thanksgiving at both of our parents houses. I didn't think to capture any photos, but here is what I did with the boys (well, mostly me just tracing their hands and doing everything else myself because I personally am not ready to clean up a bottle of sprinkles all over the floor!): HAND TURKEY COOKIES! Yumm!

MATERIALS: sugar cookie dough or mix, sugar sprinkles, sugar dots, pen & cardstock paper.

Trace hand. One of my toddlers is a lefty, so I drew each hand in their writing preference. I know, I know, I had to straighten mine out as I cut!

After the dough is rolled out, cut out the template with a sharp knife.

Sprinkle each feather with a new color. Add eye dots. Sprinkle body with black or brown.

The Craft Show went fine. Ok, it was slow. VERY, painfully slow! I only had 1 customer (a lot of lurkers though!) at the beginning, and I am very grateful that she bought several skeins from me. Thank you, thank you!! It at least payed for the booth cost and some of the 5 hours of my Saturday staring at the other booths around me getting decent sale action. Most of my conversation consisted of  "Oh, that actually belongs to my neighbor, and it's $5..." when they inquired about the half crocheted towels that sat next to my merchandise (despite the fact that we had different table cloths, our tables were pushed next to eachother by the craft show committee and it was confusing to some). Those towels sold like hotcakes.
         It really was hard to see people around me with constant sales while I stood there doing my best to smile while people glanced at the table and walked right on. I did prepare myself for not having a lot of action, but really, I thought there would be at least a few costumers. I really low-balled the prices, but I had to face the fact that this isn't the place were it is appreciated. One lady actually told me that her granddaughter knit socks and she couldn't see why anyone would take the time to do that when they could but it. Walk on, lady.
         Yours truly needs to buy silk scarves to dye...obviously that's what the people want, and it doesn't take hours of hand-knitting. I've already found an online venue to purchase the blank scarves. It seems like a lot of fun!

Oh, and I'm planning on resurrecting the 'ol "KUAS Shop" on Etsy to sell what was at craft show. FYI, there will be Twilight themed yarns and also the hand knits as well. All yarns come with a free stitch-marker.

 Something just got off the press. Care to venture a guess? It's fairly obvious, I guess.

Craft Show Saturday!

After hours and hours and hours and hours...and more hours of prepping for this, the Craft Show has finally arrived! If you live in the Chicagoland area, please head on over and visit me at my KUAS booth sometime between 9am-2pm. 

WHAT'S BEING SOLD:
-Dozens of Hand-knits that you've seen from this blog (the previous post "Sashay Shawl" will be among them)
-LOTS and lots of yarn! Almost half is TWILIGHT THEMED, and I gotta say, I'm in love with the Bella alpaca blends that I have. If those don't sell, I might just save them for myself...
-Patterns
-Stitch Markers
-Owl Jewelry
-A few mini-cards

I would take a picture of the lot, but some of it is separated, and between working every second of today, and teaching and the extra stress of managing the boys all week with my husband out of the country...my stomach is in knots and I'll just have to take the photo tomorrow at the booth. I don't even think I'll eat dinner. Maybe just tea. I just have some more stitch markers to make. Maybe.

Spiral Sashay Shawlette

 

The Spiral Sashay Shawlette is complete! It came out beautifully and I plan on selling this as one of the showstoppers at my KUAS knitting booth Nov. 17 at the Craft Show. This pattern was inspired by Karinknits' Kelp Forest Shawlette, that really is nothing more than knitting with the Sashay Yarn in a circle (or spiral). I took some liberties of changing how to start the beginning of the spiral because my yarn brand was different and it formed more of a "basketball hoop" than a shawl when following her instructions to a "T." I spaced out which holes to knit in and which yarn loops to use as the spiral grew. 

Pattern: Modified Forest Kelp Shawlette.

Needles: US 11's (but the size is not crucial to the shawl, so much as to which loops you use from the yarn).

Yarn: 2 skeins of Red Heart's Sashay Yarn.

 

If you really like this yarn, and plan to use the Sashay Yarn rather than the "Katia Triana," here's what I jotted down on my Ravelry page:

"Using Sashay instead of the designer’s yarn throws the pattern off a bit, and can land you with a narrow tube for the beginning, even following the pattern/video tutorial to a “T.” Here’s my hints, after dozens of failed “tube” attempts:

At the beginning, spread open the lacey yarn and fold the beginning of the yarn in half lengthwise (hotdog style) so that the “wide band” edge is to the left. Only cast on 3 sts along the frayed edge of the eyelet fold to reduce bulk. Make sure you don’t cast on right at the frayed edge, but along the row under it…you don’t want to have those stitches ripped out by over-fraying. Then do your bind-offs to reduce it to one stitch, like the pattern asks you to.

IMPORTANT: For Sashay yarn, don’t use the very next “thin lacey loop” as working yarn. Use the second loop and later the third loop once your diameter is larger (about the 3rd bind off ring) This helps reduce rufflage. At least for my shawl. Also, bind off very loosely.

To start, I completed 13 sts worth of skipping every other “wide band” hole (if you have no clue what I'm talking about, one side is "lacey," the other side is a thicker "wide band")  instead of doing that for 10sts of every other hole.

Then I worked in the 3rd “wide band” hole for 26 sts.

Then I worked in the 4th “wide band” hole for 52 sts.

Then I worked in the 4th-5th “wide band” hole and started using the 3rd “thin lacey” loop (working yarn). Continue working the 5th "wide band" hole and 3rd "lacey loop" until you run out of yarn. "

The effect is beautiful. It's a bit of an "acquired taste," what with all of the ruffles...but even if you don't wear it, it looks beautiful drapped over something in your room (or craft room, if you're that lucky)!

BSJ 4: Halloween

Good news: the BSJ 4 is finally finished!
Bad news: Halloween is over, I only have one of these, and it fits perfectly this year!

So, it looks like I might throw this in with the other Craft Show goodies that I plan on selling. That makes around 12 hand knit items that I plan on selling!

It's a little bittersweet because I've been saving this colorway for a while and I couldn't seem to find any more of it when I went to the store a couple of years later. It really does look striking on a toddler.

Pattern: EZ's Baby Surprise Jacket (slightly tweaked)

Needles: US5 circular needles

Yarn: almost 2 skeins of Hobby Lobby's "I Love This Yarn: Ombres" in the "Halloween" colorway. 

Mod's:  sleeve extension. 20 rows of 36 (next time: 38) stitches.

I also did some rows of solid black, but they were useless in the end. To sew the sleeves and shoulder together, I crocheted along the top (which I usually do to finish my BSJ's). It gave it this sharp black edge that's a little different than just sewing it invisibly.
Call me weird, but I think it looks kind of cool on a baby or kid.

Front View

Back View

Extended Sleeve View

My camera is much too slow, and my kids much to resistant to take a nice photo shot of mommy's hard work. Figures. Sam's pose below is actually him throwing himself on the floor in protest, in a toddler tantrum fashion. Hey, it you're down and still, mommy is going to take a shot with or without a smile!

Model: Sam

Hmm, mommy sneaks around to take a shot of Mr. Sammie playing nicely or sitting still on the couch. Quick, take a shot!

Mr. Jacob No Pants wants to get into view.

Where is Jacob in all of this? Well, Mr. No Pants would have non of this sweater-photo shoot action.  If he's not going to wear any bottoms, he's not going to put an extra layer on top.  I'm just lucky he isn't trying to remove the onesie at the moment...We've been having a lot of "accidents" lately.

Jake: Mmm...good enough to eat!

Maybe I should just use a pumpkin head as my model next time. Mr. Pumpkin doesn't move, doesn't whine and makes for a nice shot! :)