New Shoes!

I snagged a great deal on some shoes the other day:

These are Re-Mixed shoes in the Deco style. Olive and Brown colors. It's a 1920's inspired vintage recreation. These are normally $200 and I got them for $65 at Amazon. Great deal, huh? I normally wouldn't spend even that much on shoes (I'm a bargain buyer), but I fell in love with these and had to have them, and the price break was too good to pass up! They are very comfortable, and the heels make a very satisfying click when I walk in them. :-)

With all the vintage style clothing in fashion this winter, I think they will fit in quite nicely. And I think vintage is really a timeless style, so I should get lots of wear out of them, at least that's my story!

I've found a couple other pairs of shoes that I'm dying to get, but they are all a little bit pricier, (and not on sale!) and I can't bring myself to buy them (yet!). I never really was a shoe hog, but I can totally see how people can become one!

On the spinning front, I finished a batch of laceweight the other day:

This is Gale's Art BFL Roving in the Stormy Sea colorway. I ended up with a little over 600 yards. I'm planning on using it to make a Swallowtail shawl.

As soon as I finish up some Christmas gifts, I'll cast on for it. I'm chomping at the bit to do a Swallowtail!

And, on the knitting front, I've gotten a bit done since last post:

Socks:


And some longies and a smoke ring/wimple:


The smoke ring was knit in some Blue Sky Alpaca Silk - and it only took a few days to knit - it was quite surprisingly a fast knit! I love wearing it instead of a scarf - it's very soft and warm, yet lightweight.

I'm in the middle of knitting more socks, and several Christmas gifts. If only I had more time!!!

Oh well, both boys are sick with colds, so I'd best go tend to them. :-)

Beautiful Smoky Mountains

We went camping in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park this last weekend. The trees were all starting to turn colors already - just beautiful! We had never stayed directly in the park before, so we were a little nervous about bears. All food had to be kept locked in the car. And, there are no hook-ups or showers available, so we had to make sure we had a fully charged battery (plus a back-up!) to run our water pump, furnace, and lights.


We ended up not seeing any bears (but when we checked in they said that one was spotted in the campground two days before!), or elk either. Bummer. I would have liked to have seen a bear (from a safe distance that is!!). We camped with some of DH's family. The boys liked spending time with their Aunt and Uncle and Grandma.


The boys did the Junior Ranger program and earned their badges while we were there - they thought that was really cool! We celebrated DS#1's 5th birthday too. I can't believe he's 5!!!! He's been asking for a Darth Vader cake for almost a year now! And he loved it :-).

I got some goodies while I was there! :-) I had to stop at the Smoky Mtn Spinnery, since she was who sold me my drop spindle last year, which introduced me to another fiber obsession- spinning! I picked up some soft merino roving and some Melody yarn (I've been coveting some of the pretty Melody yarn for a while now!) And I had to get some yummy Blackberry wine too. ;-)

On the knitting front, I have about 6 WIPs on the needles right now! I may have an anxiety attack with so many things going at once! Three pairs of socks that I want to get done by the end of October for the SKA Sockdown, and one more pair that needs to be done by the end of November. Plus a pair of longies for the shop that a customer wants, so those have to get done asap. Plus, the Purls knit-a-long Baby Surprise Sweater that I just started for DS#1. The photo shoot for the KAL will be mid-November, so it has to be done by then. :-O I almost don't know what to pick up and work on at any one time!! When these are all done, please - remind me not to start so many projects at once!!!!

That's it for now!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Tuesday was my birthday - I won't say how old I am - other than to say that I'm now one year closer to the big 4-0. :-( I certainly don't feel like I'm in my (late!) 30's! But, man, I'm really happy with my birthday present - finally a Democratic Nominee!!!!!! Yipee!!! I'm so fired up and ready to go, ya'll!

Hubby got me a lovely tea brewer and some loose leaf tea. I had never heard of Teavana - they originated in Atlanta, so you'd think I would have heard of them. The brewer is the coolest thing - you put your loose leaf tea in and pour you hot/boiling water in and let it steep. Then for the cool part - you place it on top of your mug, and the tea filters out down into your mug - hard to explain, but the coolest thing I've seen in a while. Did I mention that I think it's really cool? Here's a linky to the brewer so you can see for yourself. :-)

So, let's see, it's been I while since I blogged - I've started and finished a Hemlock Ring Blanket - here it is blocking:

I used Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in the Lake Ice Heather color. I ended up using 7 skeins plus a little bit from an 8th skein. The finishing row took about 4 hours to do - and I ended up with over 500 stitches on the needles! Once it was blocked it was about 48 inches wide.

I am ever amazed with lace blocking. You start with an ugly clump of knitted material that looks like this:

And then you end up with a beautiful lace blanket:

And I started a pair of Pirate Socks (pattern is Jack Sparrow's Favorite Socks):

I'm using Chameleon Colorworks Bambino in the Midnight colorway, and Knit Picks Gloss for the heels, toes and fair isle bit. I am loving the Bambino (wool/bamboo blend) - it has a lovely sheen to it and feels so silky - goes well with the gloss yarn, since that's a wool/silk blend.

And here's some spinning I've done - a fingering weight yarn with a long color change (I was actually going for laceweight to do a Swallowtail Shawl with it, but it ended up a little too thick, at 330 yards):

It's Gale's Art BBFL Roving in Ocean Blues colorway.

I'm in the process of spinning up another batch much more thinly - Gale's Art BBFL Roving in "Stormy Seas" colorway:

This batch is going well - I think it'll end up a nice lace weight once I ply it.

Well, I'll stop there for now! Ta-Ta!

(Edited to add: Update on my FIL - they've determined the stage of cancer - it's Stage 3a. He's starting Chemo within the week. His doctor is very optimistic, and says that it's curable. Please continue to keep him in you thoughts!)

Camping, Frog pond, and a Capelet

We took our new camper for a spin at Morrow Mountain this last weekend. Here it is:

It's so much more roomy inside than our other one. We love it!

(And we were so excited to find out that the park had added electric to some of their campsites, woo hoo! That means we can camp there over the summer and be able to run our air conditioner! Now if they would just take reservations it'd be our absolute favorite park!)

And immediately after getting it set up we were graced by some lovely deer walking right by us! (Then right before we left on Sunday a group of about 8 walked right by us again.)

Speaking of deer, DS was watching Bambi the other day, and was loving the bits with Thumper - I was able to catch a photo of a real smile (it's so hard to get either DS to give me a true smile in a photo!)

Over the weekend they were having a Revolutionary War camp at the park - we got to see a musket demonstration - it was really neat! I learned quite a few things - for instance, did you know that the civilian militia members wore their own clothes (no blue uniforms here! that's just a myth - most of them wore white - dyes were too expensive) and the riflemen brought their own guns as well. I did not know that the flints only lasted for about 15 shots before they had to be re-flocked, and then had to be replaced after a few times of re-flocking. I just figured the flints lasted forever. The riflemen had to make their own bullets, too, since the rifles were all custom sizes - so they were given hunks of lead to make their own bullets. Anyway, I found it very interesting. :-) I was able to snap a photo of them firing:

On the knitting front, I'm to the cuff on sock #2 of my Entrelac Socks. And I've frogged sock #1 down to the heel, so I can re-knit it to fit better. (Oh the agony of the frog pond! I started ripping it whilst at the Tuesday night Charlotte Purls gathering, and I could feel the ladies around me holding their breath! ;-) - but I think (hope!) it'll turn out OK - at least it should fit better - if I don't drop any stitches that is!)
Sock #1 wasn't going on over my heel, so I'm switching to 7 stitch blocks immediately after the heel to add some ease. Sock #2 is fitting much better as a consequence, so my OCD is making me redo sock#1 to fit as well. :-)

And I finished my Purls KAL Capelet a little while ago. Here's a photo Stacey snapped of me a couple Saturdays ago at Charlotte Purls: I've also spun up some squishy Merino/silk blend yarn to do Tudora with (I hope it's not too bulky to do this pattern!)

Well, that's it for now - sorry for the long post! :-)

Is there a weight on my chest?

So, we've been having trouble with Joseph staying in bed at night. He and William share a room - and since William needs access to the bathroom at night, we don't lock the door. He constantly gets out and wanders downstairs. We repremand him (aka spanking) and put him back in bed, lather rinse repeat, until he finally stays put and falls asleep. I'm sure it's a stage - he's enthralled with the fact that he can get out of his bed and his room at will. But it's very frustrating.

So anyways, last night we do the same routime as usual. During the whole Joseph issue, William is fast asleep. Then, when we go up to bed ourselves later we peek in on the boys to see how they are. And HERE is the picture we are presented with:



Both boys out like a light. I am so surprised that William didn't wake up and tell Joseph to get the heck off of him! We had quite a laugh.

On the knitting front, I finished sock #1 of my Entrelac Socks:
And I'm on sock #2 right now. It's slow going, since it's competing for my knitting time with a gazillion other projects! :-)

I'm about 10 minutes away from completing my Capelet - I'll have pics later once it's done.

And, I finished these two purses for the craft fair coming up:

They're just waiting on buttons. I lined both of them too.

And, here's some spinning I've gotten done:

This is a three ply Corridale/ Bamboo mix (two plies of purple wool, and one ply of grey bamboo). It worked out to a good fingering weight - I'm very happy with it.

And a very similar:

This is the same wool as the other yarn, just worked as a two ply without the bamboo ply. It worked out to a light fingering weight. I may try to sell this at the craft fair, we'll see how I feel.

We're picking up a new camper on Saturday - we're so excited! We've traded in our pop-up for a newer model. This one has a slide out dinette area, so we gain some floor space, and it has a sofa, so we gain some seating as well. Here's the model we're getting, isn't it pretty?!

That's it for now!
TTYL!

Here are my Maui Monkeys!

Just finished these yesterday!



These are Cookie A.'s Monkeys knitted with Maui Yarn's Bamboo/Merino blend in the color 'Tidal Pool'. They're so yummy! Soft on my feetsies. :-)


I finished a couple of my Master Knitter Swatches.
Here's Swatch #2:



And Swatch #4:




I have my Swatch #5 and 6 done as well, but no photos yet. I think 6 is OK, but the selvedge on 5 seems a little wonky, so I'm thinking I'll knit that one over again.


I just got some Alpaca roving at the Alpaca show over the weekend - a soft green/brown mix.

Isn't that pretty?



I just made these stitch markers too (to use with the Cat Bordhi book 'New Pathways for Sock Knitters'):





Anyway, that's it for now!

Heart Socks Done!

Here are my Ravelry: SKA Sockdown! January Mystery Socks. Designed by Sara Morris (aka fyberduck for you Ravelers).

Aren't those fab?

My Mom loves her Tunic, btw! I don't have a photo of her in it yet, but she says it fits - yipee!

I'm in the middle of spinning some yummy purple Corridale roving. I have some Dark Grey Black Diamond Bamboo roving that I'm going to spin and ply with it. I'm spinning the Corridale very thin so I can do a three ply with two plys of it and one ply of the bamboo - and hopefully still end up with a fingering weight yarn. I want to make socks from this stuff!!

I started a hat for DS#1 with my other handspun - I'll have pics later.

Still working on my Monkeys - now that I finished the Mystery Socks I can get busy on my Hawaiian Monkeys! (Hawaiian because the yarn came from MauiYarns in Hawaii!! :-)) Here's the progress on those so far (sorry the light is horrible!):

Anyway, that's it for now!

Computer Problems, Tunic Progress and Charlotte Purls

So this last week was a sucky computer week for DH (and me too, by extension!!) First our power supply on the web server went dead, so hubby had to order a new one - which meant that our website was down for a good week (which isn't really *that* bug of a deal, since nobody but us goes there anyway!!! LOL!) But, our mail is hosted on that server too, so hubby had to move the mail over temporarily to another computer while we were waiting, cause we can't go without our mail!!!!! Anyway, so the new power supply gets here and........ The hard drive crashes on that server. ALL of DH's webfiles are on there. Are there any back-ups? NO! Crazy DH had no back-ups!!! It all worked out in the end, though - the drive wasn't really dead, DH was able to recover it after some fiddling around.

Was that all? Of course not!! Then, a couple of nights ago our router goes ka-plooey! No network! No mail!! No internet!! Ahhh!! DH had to run out to Best Buy to buy a new router (it happened at 8pm, and Best Buy closed at 9pm, talk about under the wire!) So, keep your fingers crossed that that is the end of our computer woes. If anything else goes wrong I'm going to be convinced that the universe is against us this year! LOL!

Well, on the knitting front, I'm *almost* done with my mom's tunic. I'm making it for her 60th birthday coming up on Feb 6th. She has no idea that I'm making her something (although she may suspect, since I made my Dad his socks for his 60th a few months ago, so she may have an idea that I'd make something for her as well). I don't think she knows about this little blog, so I feel safe talking about it here. :-) I just need to block it and then knit the armhole edging and seam the sides. I'm really happy with how it's turning out. (I'll post a pic later).

The Mystery Socks from the Ravelry! Socknitters Anonymous Group that I'm doing are so cute!!! The heels each have an intarsia half-heart which makes a whole heart when the heels are side by-side. How cute is that?! And the lace on the instep forms hearts too. Too cute!! Here are a couple of pics:

Today I went to my first Charlotte Purls get-together. I really enjoyed it - they are all such nice ladies! I can't wait for the next one! It's nice having people to knit with :-). The Mommies group I'm in is kind of getting a little knitting circle started - I'm hosting our fourth get-together at my house this Tuesday night. I get to show off my spinning wheel :-).

Speaking of spinning, here's my first yarn spin on Brygitta:

I'm keeping a close eye on the South Carolina primaries tonight. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Obama!!! I'm "Fired Up!" and "Ready to Go!" and I hope SC is too!!!

We'll see.....

Here she is!

Her name is Brygitta. I think it's a very pretty Polish name. (I wouldn't tell her otherwise, because she seems a little testy right now ;-))


(Ignore the pile of laundry in the background! ::blush::)


It's taking me a little getting used to, but I think I'm learning quickly. Right now I have her set on scotch tension, because the double drive was pulling too much for me, and I couldn't figure out how to adjust it.


Here's a pic of the assembly:


The packaging is Polish newspaper/magazine pages! My DH loved it - he can practice his Polish!

And here's my first spinning on her:

It's some Agate Colonial roving that I got from the Smoky Mountain Spinnery.

I'm so happy I got Brygitta! She's a beautiful thing! Based on my 1+ hours of spinning on her, I definitely recommend a Kromski Mazurka wheel.

I'm off to spin some more!