YPF-I wish I was....

Beached, well you know at the beach, relaxing and listening to the waves....hubby hates the beach and so does my skin, thus we don't get to go too often. One day, I'd love to live by/on the beach, I just love listening to the ocean.

Just look at this interesting twisty yarn....

Twisted is a 3-ply worsted weight yarn, 2 plies are wool and 1 ply is superwash wool.


What you are seeing on each section of color is just how that superwash ply takes the dye.


I don't know the inspiration of this particular colorway, I can figure out the blue for the ocean, tan for the sand, but as for the burgundy color...not sure.

Twisted by Blue Moon Fiber Arts in Beached Colorway
560 yds of worsted weight

I'm planning on knitting a Shawl that Jazz with mine. Endless garter....ahh....I think it will make a great vacation knit! 4 weeks till vacation!!! I think I'll take this, the Lady E and maybe a sock or two...or my Lizard ridge, or.....funny that we plan our knitting before the rest of the stuff you need....

The hard to capture colorway that has....

become my Cotty Socks ! I'm still shooting with 2 camera's. I need to get used to the wee one!

courtesy of my semi-unwilling-model daughter!


Heel pic! I like the patterning down the side. While knitting the heel flap I found out why I've been having troubles when I knit the 2nd stitch on the purl row. (you know the first one is slipped) it's all in where you have your working yarn, in the front or back.

Sock 1 went quite fast....Sock 2, made me say a few bad words!!! The pattern repeat was super easy for me to memorize, (I'm so bad at this...need my cheat sheets a lot) so by Sock 2, one would think it would go fast...um...not... darned YO's! Heh, and I think I want to knit more lacey things!

Rear view--I just love how a few different stitches, arranged in a certain order, make this patterning. I just want to say "how do they do that". I could so never be a pattern writer...no patience whatsoever!

Cotty Socks in Nancy Jean Colorway (ok, do you call this magenta, purple, or what??)
The Plucky Knitter MCN Sport
US 3 circular, Magic looped
Started May 3, 2009
Finished May 26, 2009

Hawt dog! The fastest I've ever knit a pair...err...I think...(yes I know it's sportweight!) and I've even been knitting on my February Lady and Tomatillo as well.

Thank you Carrie for an easy to knit pattern, just what I needed! :)

YPF-New color edition

I have to admit, I'm lacking on the orange in my yarny palette.


So what's a girl to do when someone wants to swap some yarn with you?


You try to get a color/yarn combo you don't normally go for.


You end up quite surprised to see it IRL, and love it!


See, I can haz orange in my yarnz too!

Lone Star by Alchemy Yarns
3 skeins of Air & Fire
45% merino wool, 55% mohair
140 yds worsted weight

4 words never sounded so good!

No Signs of Cancer!!!

Sniff and See

or scratch and sniff! Remember those books or am I really aging myself!

New dishsoap, Oh..wow! Such a nice clean, fresh scent! Not perfumey that would send me into an attack.


(side rant, I work in a hospital and employees that drown um..put a little too much on (perfume/aftershave), remember you work in a hospital, people are sick and don't want to smell you especially after you've left the room, walked down the hall etc. Oh yeah, and maybe some of your coworkers might want to breathe too! ok end rant! ;)

Now See!!

I usually don't post 1 sock too often but I love this patterning and well, the yarn of course! I can't describe what I think the side patterning looks like to me, it's neat and I like it.
Cotty Sock by Irishgirlieknits :) as you can see, a tiny bit leftover from the split skein! Sock 2 has the picot edge done, onward to the cuff.

Hey, does anyone have any easy, and well, you know good tasting low carb recipes? I need to cut even more down per Dr. and have been experimenting. Hubby's not too happy, but hey, he can deal. He's just jealous that my cholesterol is 10 times lower than his! LOL..well not really 10 times ;) Either that or sharing the swimming lane with me is getting to him....at least I'm recovered from the 5 flightofstairs debacle...going to try yoga tomorrow nite too! Yeah, the yearly test results mean I gotta get this body in gear and lose some of the midsection. Fun..huh..not!

YPF- Intertwined.....

The title may make you wonder where I'm going with this....read on!

Just a short year ago, this very busy indie dyer sold lots of variegated yarns. Now she's more into semi-solids (which I love even more!)

According to the listing it's Kettle Dyed - crimson, splashes of ebony, cream and peridot.
Peridot is my daughters birthstone, a ruby is mine (no surprise I love red then is there!)


It's soft, and squooshy, and I kinda like that it has both our birthstones in it, in addition to the black and gray. Daughter loves black and gray, and I don't mind them either.

Kinda neat something of the two of us in this skein...who knew. I was lucky and scored it from a destash a while ago. It wasn't until this post I realized how this resembles us in a few ways.

The Plucky Knitter
Sportweight Merino, Cashmere, Nylon (just love that MCN base!)
Kremlin Colorway
250 yds

Four F's.....

Hehe..no, not grades! Hubby got his usual A and College guy, mostly A's (darned physics!!)


My first....

Amy Butler Fabric (seen lower, cut up with pattern) and most favorite in the Ginger Bliss Collection. The tote in the back I recently acquired via a Ravelry destash! Woot!



You may have seen these projects, gosh almost 3 yrs ago this week! No, they are not mine but were a custom order for a friend. I sent her the leftovers and I keep seeing them pop up in a lot of her sewing too! Darn it! I wish they would reprint some of the older collections.

I still collect her fabrics and my recent scrub caps are from two of her other collections. Why do I fall in love with fabrics that are often discontinued as soon as they are printed?

Fun Fabrics! Ok, that's 2 F's but humor me!

Orla Kiely...yeah, another discontined fabric! I scored this tablecloth which will become new needlecases and maybe a box bag for me, and the rest for the shop. So if you are loving this fabric like I do...place your order. I have 6 weeks until vacation!!! Well, I should say 5 weeks that I could sew, you know I'll need that last one to get ready...oh sorry, back on topic!
More fun from Ikea. Purchased on my trip in March and destined to be curtains for my craft room!

Finally!!

A smaller camera for me! I love it, so small and compact and plummy! I had A's old one, but the son needed it for college. In fact, the first picture in this post is from this. I have a bit of a learning curve though.

Final F.... This is now......

This! A freeing frog I must say. For so many reasons...

I started this in July of 2007 and was put away for fall knitting. (you guys know I'm not the fastest knitter now! ;) Attempted to try to finish in Spring of 08, but had to hibernate it while I waited to find out what breast cancer surgery I was going to have. (which took us into September) Fast forward to this spring and I picked it up and thought, geesh, in 2 yrs I haven't gotten any farther...it's not meant to be this project. The yarn is fabulous (Dale Svale) and not cheap, so I have decided it will become Hey Teach one day in the future! Now to figure out which swatch is what size...eek!

Well that's it for now! Send me some good vibes about 3pm Tuesday the 12th! It's been quite the year and I'm a bit nervous!

WIP it Thursday...

Due to rainy, cloudy days (which yay as far as I'm concerned as it helps with the breathing factor) I present disclose some of my current WIP's.

Tomatillo

Lime Green Cotton Fleece, 1/2 done before joining in the round. Would like to finish by 25 June :)

Cotty Socks

In Plucky Knitter MCN sport in Nancy Jean. I'm so loving this yarn...gosh it's amazingly soft. Sadly it's not getting much action due to the last project in this post :(


My first lapghan

Yeppers, crochet action ;) Our knitting guild and another group is trying to knit 100 of these for our local VA Hospital and Nursing home. This yarn is awesome for an acrylic though. It's I Love this Yarn from Hobby Lobby. I bought skeins to donate for someone to make some and figured I'd at least try 2. Good thing I have a long time until they are due I'm way slow :)

And the project taking most of the knitting time lately....

What you see here is now about to be minus 3 rows...waaaaa must tink as I didn't use a life line (yes I will be adding one now, thought I could be a rebel and not...) trust me it's way noticeable and I don't mind really..I would just love to finish this in the next week. I have found another error, but it would require major tinking and when you see it, it's so hard to see as somehow it didn't interuppt the pattern. So it stays just like it is.

I'm pretty happy yarn wise, so far only on the 2nd skein (STR heavyweight in Grawk) and it should be plenty to finish. Then 1 skein for the sleeves, which I think I'll divide in case I get a wild hair to knit longer sleeves...hmmm doubt it, but hey, I can if I want!!

Which folks, to me is why I love knitting over sewing. So much more customizable, recyclable, and start from scratchagainable ;)

A weekend of growth and accomplishments

May I present the rose bush that'll never die!!

Please ignore my unweededness, but until the pollenation of every freaking thing around this area is gone, I can't go out for long periods of time, lest I start wheezing away. Allergy stuff doesn't help, this is the breathing kind. (well, my inhaler helps :) So the weeds, they stay until late May or early June.


It's pretty huh....and it won't ever die...I've dug this bush up a few times and give the plant to the neighbors, but it kept coming back.

Now I give in, trim it every year, and let it go. Interesting, it did start out as a yellow rose, not sure how the red got there...yes, no yellow jokes either!
ETA: Well that explains it! No graft to make them yellow anymore. Thanks for the info everyone!


The Rhododendron I thought was dead. It got a bit frostbit, then came the yearly trimming by the yard person, and then hubby...

back to life....


As for me, looking forward to the weather haze to be gone so I can breathe better outside again. I've been knitting a lot and have progress, but no FO's for a week or more. I'll be a bit stressed as my son leaves port on Wednesday for his 2 month sea cruise. (heh, not a party cruise either) He's pretty excited and glad his first year of college is done! He did pretty well too. We look forward to seeing him on the 3oth of June and I can't wait to celebrate my birthday in my home state!

As for hubby! The arrival of May 4, 2009 couldn't have happened soon enough. My darling hubby has finished his long road of furthering his education and getting us outta here! He'll be getting his Master's Degree in Healthcare Administration and actively looking for a job. Send your job vibes our way, he so needs this boost and to know all his hard work wasn't in vain. In times like these, it could happen sooner or later, who knows. Until then, I'll be here knitting and hanging out :)

YPF-The Grimm Pastel Version

I've been looking over some photos and I don't really think I have all that much pastels, except in baby yarns.

I seem to like more jewel, brighter, stronger colors as you've all seen here before.

But after seeing a pair of socks knit in this yarn, I came to appreciate it even more

I honestly can't tell you why either....

Could it be the pink or yellow?


Or hint of teal and brown....

blue or purple....

I give up and have absolutely no earthly idea, but I like it a lot! Not sure if it'll become socks or what.....
BMFA Mediumweight STR in Grimm's Willow Wren