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Sunny Days

Posted on May 17, 2012 in Blog

We’ve had a string of gorgeous warm days in the Puget Sound area for the past week or so. You know the kind… sparkling blue skies, a gentle breeze, and the temperature hovering in the mid 70s. It’s the kind of weather that makes me want to spend all day playing outside. And you know what? I have been. It’s awesome.

When the sun first started peeking out last week and it warmed up I decided it was time to dig out the hammock. Have you ever tried knitting on a hammock? It certainly takes some getting used to, but it was worth it. The hour or so I spent in it (until the breeze picked up and it got too cold) was one of the most relaxing moments of my life. There’s nothing like a sunny day, yarn, and music. I was completely at peace.

Mother’s Day brought more beautiful weather and a drive  with my parents. When we left the house I had the idea of doing work in the car, but I quickly through that idea out the window and spent the entire day knitting and enjoying the scenery. By time we got out to Rockport and stopped for a while by the Skagit River I was knitting the heel flap of my Effervescent Schmutzy Socks.

I had finished the heel turn by time we stopped at Cascadian Farms for ice cream after dinner on the way home.

I was on to the gusset by time we got home. I spent the evening watching Doctor Who with Betsy. I think I’ve created a new Who fan. This makes me happy. As does this sock.

After spending all of Monday cooped up working on my website for the release of my new Heroes & Villains Club for the next day, and after the Tuesday morning update I was ready to go play in the sun again. When Betsy suggested flying kites after she got off work I jumped at the opportunity. I picked up a couple of super cheap kites (Winnie the Pooh for her, Bumblebee from Transformers for me), packed up a sandwich for a picnic dinner, picked up David so he could join us, and we flew kites. It took a while to get the hang of it (I think I was like 8 years old the last time I had a kite adventure), but soon enough they were up in the air and we had a great time. Lots of giggling was involved. I felt like a kid again. It was the perfect way to spend the evening. One of those days when I just couldn’t stop smiling

Good Food And Good Company Makes Everything Better… Even Tinking!

Posted on May 9, 2012 in Blog

Yesterday was a great day. I woke up in a pretty fantastic mood, got some work done, then went on an adventure. I love adventures. Especially adventures when I get to knit. Even better when pie is involved. I love pie.

I spent Sunday knitting right along on my sock making excellent progress until I discovered that I really screwed up one of my cables 10 rows back and all that knitting needed to be tinked. I hate tinking, so I put the sock in time out. It made me cranky every time I looked at it, but since I knew pie was in my near future I figured the sock could come along for the ride. Betsy drove, I started tinking. (For those not in the know, tink means to knit backwords… unknitting your project one stitch at a time)

Soon enough we made our way down to Shari’s in Mill Creek. They have an excellent selection of pie and we’re slowly working our way through their pie menu. We order something different every time and have yet to be disappointed. They’re all so delicious! I’ve been super curious about their sour cream lemon, but previously hadn’t had the guts to order it. Since yesterday was a day of adventures and tinking, I decided the timing was right! Betsy went with apple a la mode. Yum!

The bite I had of Betsy’s was delicious, but my lemon was everything I’d hoped it would be. I tinked while we waited to order. I tinked while we waited for the pie. I tinked between bites. I didn’t mind tinking one bit. I think it was the company. Tinking is much more enjoyable while chatting with a friend. Or maybe the pie had super powers. Probably both.

I tinked while we waited for the bill. I tinked while we continued to chat. Soon enough all 640 stitches were tinked and I was ready to get back to knitting. GO ME!

As we left Shari’s it occurred to Betsy that we were in Mill Creek which means we were super close to Central Market which means we should get the things and stuff needed to make fajitas for dinner. Well, she decided she should make fajitas for dinner and I decided that I should invite myself over for dinner. Thankfully she didn’t argue with my decision Those of you who know me know that I don’t cook, but I don’t mind helping where I can. Betsy taught me how to cut up peppers. I was very proud of my peppers. I even made them dance.

She taught me a nifty trick to cook the peppers under the broiler. They came out PERFECTLY.

She also taught me how to slow cook the onions so they’re all tender and yummy.

I honestly didn’t think the food of the day could possibly get better than that sour cream lemon pie, but I was wrong. The fajitas rocked my socks off. So so so yummy. We enjoyed the fajitas then I got to knit while we watched NCIS. Now I desperately need to catch up on the last season or two of the show and I can’t wait for next week’s episode. Grr unto the cliffhanger they left us, but at least I got past the point of my screwed up knitting and was making new progress on the sock.

After NCIS it was time for me to go home. Know what I did when I got home? You’re right. I knit. Soon enough I had the first repeat of the chart finished.

I love this yarn base. I love this colorway. I love this pattern. It’s everything I want a sock to be.

I love knitting socks. When did that happen?

It Is Unavoidable. It Is Your Destiny.

Posted on May 5, 2012 in Blog

While I was working on dyeing up the last of the skeins for my next Big Damn Sock Club shipment yesterday, I kept getting caught up in the excitement of Star Wars Day. My skein of In Time You Will Call Me Master kept sitting here staring at me screaming “KNIT ME!” Here I had this perfectly good skein from Galaxy Far Far Away and I so rarely knit with my own yarn… but I needed to finish dyeing.

In Time You Will Call Me Master on Sweet

In between rounds of switching out cooking skeins I started looking at patterns. At first I was just looking for something quick and simple (goodness knows I already have a million projects on the needles), but soon enough all the patterns I had open were socks. I’ve always wanted to be a sock knitter, but I still haven’t managed to finish a pair in sock weight. Heck, I haven’t even finished a worsted pair. One of these days I’ll get to that, but in the meantime I have new knitting needles that are just itching for socks. The dark side was calling me and it was time to give in.

Since the colorway was inspired by the epic battle between the Emperor and Luke in Return of the Jedi, I decided that I really wanted a pattern to capture the electricity the Emperor uses. I finally settled on Unraveling Rib Socks and cast on, just in time to finish up dyeing and head to a friend’s house for movies and knitting time. The movie was fun and the cinnamon roll was delicious, but we decided that it was Friday night and time to play. Since it was Star Wars Day, the AFK Tavern (our favorite restaurant/bar and a place for geeks and gamers like us) was having a May the Fourth Be With You theme night. Know what this means? Star Wars drinks! And, of course, the yarn came with…

Sock in progress at the AFK with Let the Wookie Win! and deep fried green beans. Yum!

Highlight of the night? The dancing. Yes, we danced a bit and that was really fun, but the true entertainment came from watching those around us. There was a guy in a Star Trek shirt having the time of his life on the dance floor as well as a guy in a kilt with a Darth Vader mask rocking out to “The Bad Touch.” It was beyond awesome.

After a fantastic night of movies, knitting, and dancing, it was time to go home. What an amazingly productive day. 16 skeins of yarn dyed, oodles reskeined, relaxing time, and 16 rows into my brand new sock. Can you believe it? I’m finally going to have hand knit socks out of my own yarn! I really need more days like that

New Projects!

Posted on Sep 7, 2011 in Blog

All day today I’ve been telling myself that I need to do a blog post. It’s been a week and things have happened that I want to share. I even took the time this morning to gather up project bags and go take new pictures of all my current projects. The problem is that my brain isn’t currently in a place where I feel like being all creative and witty so I don’t really have anything fantastic to say. So here’s the deal: I’m just going to show you the pretty pictures. Sound good? Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow and write something worth reading. Maybe not. Until then… PROJECTS!

Ribbons of Epic Win

Posted on Aug 31, 2011 in Blog

Have you ever had one of those days when you get up in the morning and know that there’s one thing that you HAVE to do today but then you completely forget about it until bed time then you have to stay up way later than originally planned because you still HAVE to do that one thing? Yeah. Today is that kind of day for me. I’m blogging while I wait for the last 4 skeins in the crock pot to finish cooking. I should have had them done hours ago… but my new cross stitch project kind of took over my day… *headdesk*Maybe I should go back a few days to explain the new obsession. Just know that I’m at the end of my day and I’m tired so I might not make much sense. At least that’s not too different than I usually am, right? Anyway…

It’s that time of year. Fair season. Woo hoo! For the first time in several years, I actually got my act together and entered a bunch of projects in the Evergreen State Fair. This was my first time ever entering any yarn related items, and I was able to get 10 things done in time to enter. Are you ready for the list of awesome entries? Here goes: Slytherin chainmaille bracelet, Death Eater handspun yarn, Wibbly Wobbly blue beaded bag, purple alpaca hat, Weeping Angel mittens, Purple Thang pretty thing cowl, Priori Incantatem shawl, Rupert the tiny green dragon, Mad Hatter doll, and a Santa Penguin amigurumi. When I entered everything I was hoping for mostly first place blue ribbons, but since I hadn’t entered any yarn related items before I wasn’t sure where I would stand. I was completely blown away when my BFF texted me from the fair (she was there a few days before I could go) and said not only had I won blue ribbons on ALL THE THINGS, but I also won some rosettes! I totally couldn’t believe it. She even sent me pictures, but with the way the showcases were arranged I couldn’t tell if the ribbons belonged to me or if they were on the items next to mine. I decided this meant that I had to find a way to go to the fair.

Every year BFF and I go to the fair together. This year she only had a day or two available with her work schedule and the timing didn’t line up for me because I needed to be home with my mom after her surgery (she’s totally recovering and all is well!). Since I had to go out mid August to turn in my entries and I’ll have to drive out again next week to pic up the entries, I figured I could live without actually going to the fair while it was running. It actually worked out that I was able to go this past weekend for just a couple hours with another friend. She was excited to have some time away from her kids for a couple hours and I was excited to get out of the house for a little while. We ate oodles of fair food, visited with the BFF while she was working, checked out my entries and rosettes (squeep!), and drooled over all the other amazing crafty items. We had a blast.

The biggest problem with going to the fair is that I see all of these other crafty things that I love to do (but never do since I’m beyond obsessed with yarn) and I decide I want to enter in those categories next year which means I must start a million things RIGHT NOW. This year I tried to reign in my startitis just a bit and I’m holding off on my crocheted doily until the next term of the House Cup on ravelry starts on Thursday, but I couldn’t resist starting in on a new cross stitch project! I had all my projects done for this month of Nerd Wars on ravelry and I’m so close to the end of the month that I didn’t want to start anything new that was yarny so it’s a good time to start cross stitching again, right? Right. Maybe. Ish. It’s sort of taking over my life. Cross stitch was the very first needle arts type thing that I ever learned and I’ve loved it ever since my first stitch. But I usually loose interest quickly which is why I have very few completed projects and have never even come close to anything that would be acceptable to enter in the fair. This year I’m changing that. I decided on a smallish project with lots of impact and I’m excited. I’m going with the theory that I’ll be done by next summer. Let’s see if I can really stay on track and keep working on it after I start on new knitting and crocheting projects. Maybe we should take bets… hehe. I don’t really want to spoil the “surprise” of what I’m stitching, but I’ll post pictures as the project progresses. Maybe someone will figure it out? I’ll give you a hint… it’s not an umbrella

New cross stitch project! Yay!

Eep! My dye timer just went off. Time to go rinse yarn, pop some more in, and get some more stitches in before bed!

Lazy Day of Knitting

Posted on Aug 7, 2011 in Blog

After getting the last shipment of round 2 of BDSC out the door yesterday, I told myself that I was going to take the rest of the afternoon off and just knit. Hah. Wishful thinking. Instead of relaxing I ended up going on a major Costco run then spent the evening prepping oodles of new bare yarn and printing/organizing orders for the dye queue. Then there was the hour spent detangling a skein of Epic I did eventually get a couple hours of knitting time in on my Priori Incantatem shawl, but by the end of the day I was ready to stab garter stitch in the eye, so I don’t think I’d really call it relaxing.

That was yesterday though, and today is a whole new day. Know what that means? KNITTING!!! I have decided that today is a KNITTING day. No work! It’s now on the internet so it must be true, right? No, I’m not counting this blog post as work, and I’m also not counting all the emails I sent out this morning. From here on out today is about knitting!!!

All of my entries for the Evergreen State Fair are due to be submitted on Thursday and Friday. Eep! That deadline is coming up fast! Right now, as I type, my my Uber Weeping Angel Mittens are blocking. They’re comfy and evil and warm and I love them.  These mittens are my first completed project with Uber! It was lovely to knit with and I can’t wait to see how they turn out when they’re totally dry.

Soaking the Mittens

Drying Outside on a Rare Sunny Day

Along with the mittens I’m planning to enter my Purple Thang cowl that I hope to block tomorrow, my crocheted Mad Hatter doll, and my Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Bag. Also, if I stick with my knit-all-day plan, I’m really really hoping I’ll finish my Priori Incantatem shawl. This is the second Multnomah pattern I’ve ever knit which is funny because the first one was finished just over a year ago for a swap partner. Now it’s just a rush to the finish line to get it done in time for the fair. The row I’m on is 209 stitches wide. I have to get up to 227 in order to start the lacy border. I’m so so so close to being done with the boring garter stitch! Maybe if I knit like a mad woman I’ll be able to finish the garter portion before lunch. Maybe if I stopped typing on my blog I could actually get some knitting done

Priori Incantatem as modeled by a not-too-happy Bella

Coming Soon!

Posted on Jun 14, 2011 in Blog

Schmutzerella will be moving into her new shop soon. In the mean time, check out her Etsy space!