Is it really Friday again???

I can't believe this week has gone by already. I didn't get much blogging done this week because I haven't been feeling very well. I have been so tired all week, like I haven't slept much at all every night. I have slept well every single night, even going to sleep at an early 10 p.m. also! I usually go to bed around 10 but don't go to sleep until around 12ish. I knit or read or listen to my Ipod for a bit.

Well I finished one sock in the tofutsies yarn and am now 5 inches up the foot on the 2nd sock. I am going up the leg of my mom's first sock. I think I am using too small of needles for hers and they are really hurting my hands when I knit with them. Not sure if I should just reknit them or not. Maybe I should I don't know lol. I mean its not like I promised them to her or gave her a date of when they are going to be done. I think I will reknit them. That way I will keep my sanity and the socks wont feel so hard. I mean they felt OK at first but I keep looking at them and feeling them and thinking wow they resemble cardboard.... yet trudging along I go.

I also received my silk lace yarn in the mail and started the mystery stole. OK this is my first time knitting with lace weight yarn and I gotta tell ya its like knitting with spider silk! Except with out the stickiness and the creepy crawly bug of course. It is sooooooooooooooooooo thin and the word thin is an understatement hence the many, many o's on the so. I have knitted up to row 35 on the pattern. So far we have up to row 99. I looked at what I have and then guesstimated that by the time I am at the 99th row the shawl will be about 5 inches. LOL It looks like a mass of cobwebs. Then when I end the row I will stretch it out a little and the pattern magically appears. Oh this may take me months, even years but I am going to finish this stole. When it is done it will be my pride and joy. I may even want to knit with lace weight again but I am thinking next time I will use DK weight or fingering weight for my next lace adventure. Ok so those wont fit through a wedding ring but at least I will still be sane after I knit them.

Check out what I did....

My first attempt at dying. It turned into an accident color that is very pretty. I had the yarn all soaking while I went out to get the dyes. When I got back from the store, I realized I had forgotten to buy the sponge brushes. I tried out the dump it all in method. I think it turned out pretty nice. Ok so the color I was going for was burgundy and bronzey brown. Instead it turned into this sunset color. I think it is a nice "mistake". Tomorrow I will be painting the dye on to see how that goes.

My Crafty Sister

My sister sent me an email yesterday with 3 pictures of some beautiful headbands she made. My sister also likes doing things with her hands. She has always like ribbons, drawing and painting. She paints and draws really well but got out of it because she got pregnant with twins while still working. Needless to say all she wanted to do when she got home was collapse into bed and sleep. This was 4 years ago, my nieces are 3 1/2 now, and she still has her paints but has yet to pick them back up. (Oh no, she did pick them up once when they moved into their new house. She painted their mailbox with pretty wisteria. It looks like it is growing up the post and the mailbox itself.) Now she is into ribbon headbands. They are really cute and I told her she needs to try and sell some. Tree has always had a good eye for color. I have too actually. I remember once when I was looking at a dress pattern I wanted to make and it was in this awful colored fabric. My best friend, Stacy, was like ewwww that is ugly. I said yeah its the fabric. She was totally convinced that the whole dress was. I showed her the fabric I was going to make it in and she just couldn't "see" it. She even went as far to say if I wore that she would laugh her head off. I said ok, made the dress, wore it to school and wouldn't you know it she was the first one to say OOOHH Melinda where did you get that beautiful dress?? I smirked and said It's the ugly dress. For some people color comes natural and it always has for my sister and me. I always took it for granted that everyone could see the potentials of something in another color but a lot of people can't. I always see something in my mind before it is actually done. I see the way it will be, the colors that would go good, how to arrange it and what the finished product will look like. My husband is always baffled with my color choices and says oh that wont look good. Those outfits usually are the ones he gets the most comments about. Sooooo I say all of this because..... I wanted to show everyone my sisters pretty ribbon headbands.

Blogging the night away

I was checking out the many many blogs that I read and I found out one of my fav bloggers is having a contest. Check out her cute blog here.... Robyn's Words ..... I also got my dying yarn today! I am going out to get some things to start dying tomorrow. I am hoping to set up a shop on Etsy if all goes well. I am excited. I have love dying things since I was a teen. I used to dye clothes. Or whatever floated my boat. I wanted to get into silk painting but it was just too darn expensive to do. Now that I am into YARN my old love of dying is calling to me. I am going to do the painting on dyes on this batch. I love the effects. Dying yarn is so neat. You never really know what you are going to get. Even when you knit it up it looks totally different. I will be posting piccies of my new endeavor. Yall wish me luck!

Socks!

The completed infamous Monkey Socks....








New sock....After posting the picture on the blog
I noticed this weird swirling effect the yarn is doing
I have to say I really like it.









My last sock looks so much better then the first one I ever did. I am so glad they are shaping up and looking better each time. Practice makes perfect I guess. I was listening to a pod cast I like called Stash and Burn. They were talking about things that are intimidating to knit and how when they first knitted they thought, oh I will never knit a sock that's too hard. LOL It's funny, what some perceive as hard other's perceive as easy. A sock is what I graduated to after knitting scarves. I look at sweaters and say oh not sure if I can knit that it looks so hard. I have the book Knitting Without Tears now and I just need to take the leap. It really isn't that hard if you break it up in pieces. I saw this cute shrug being made on knitty gritty and I have the yarn for it. I think I will make it next. I am going to make it longer though probably to my waist but still just put one button on it. I liked the way it looked with one button. It is a navy blue chunky yarn and I was thinking of getting maybe a huge, pale, pink rose button. I like navy blue with pink. I think it would look classy and also use up this yarn. I bought it for a patten in a book I have but the pattern has a mistake in it. I don't want to knit it now because I am not experienced enough to see mistakes sooooo now I have this yarn sitting in my yarn box. I hate having yarn that has no purpose in my stash. It is nice yarn, thick and soft, that will be perfect for this sweater pattern. I will start it after I finish my sisters stole.

GONE GONE GONE

YES I finally finished the 2nd Monkey Sock!!!! It is drying right now on my drying rack and as soon as it is done, I will take a picture of the pair on my feet! Now I have started the sock from the sock a month club. I tried the lace pattern and couldn't figure it out soooo I am just doing a plain "vanilla" sock in the sock yarn I got. I like the way the sock is turning out with just the sock yarn. I really don't think it needs anything to dress it up. Check it out....

This and that

It has been a super busy week. I am about 1/4 of the way done with my sisters present and on the rib part of the cuff on that last monkey sock!!! Whooo HOOOO. I so want to get them done and on my feet. That work a lace pattern a day thing really worked. I still haven't gotten a new needle from Knit Picks so my mom's socks are still sitting there. Ok for new news! I bought this yarn in the camel color so I could do this mystery stole! There is still time to sign up if you want to join in on the fun. I wanted to do some lace knitting and I love mysteries. I used to do mystery quilts when I quilted. They are fun and never thought about a mystery knitting project. I took a look at the other 2 she did and they are beautiful so I am sure I will like it.

Knitting In Public Day

Well knitting in public day happened to be on my wedding anniversary soooo needless to say I didn't do much knitting this day. I in fact don't remember doing any at all. I did take my knitting with me so maybe that counts for something hehe. I did however buy this snazzy hot pink Ipod. I had some money saved up and they were selling them at Costco for way cheaper then I had seen anywhere else. It is a 4 gig one so plenty of room for all of my podcasts and books I listen to while I knit. I need to knit her a sock though so she doesn't get messy. But here is a picture of her in all her glory...


This morning I was getting a little knitting time in. I was knitting on my mom's sock using the magic loop method (which btw is the only way to go!! IMHO) on my size 0 (yes size 0, I knit very lose) knit picks circs, and when I went to pull the needle though the other side to start the next round the cord pulled out of the metal needle.
I think I stopped breathing... I was like oh nooooooo. Luckily I only dropped 3 stitches! They are saved on a DPN for now until Knit Picks send me the replacement.

I like Knit Picks needles and have been using them for 3 months now and this is the first time this has happened. I highly recommend them though because the joins on the cable is really nice. I ordered some of the bigger sized circs that have the detachable cords. They are such a great price. If you like metal circs then check them out.

Well since my needles broke I figured I would start on my sisters Christmas present. Can I tell you how uninspired I was about this? I looked through 3 stitch books and just didn't see anything that caught my eye so I decided to just do a garter stitch on size 13 needles. That way I can just block the shawl open and it will look lacy even though it isn't necessarily a lace stitch. Here is a picture of the beginning and the yarn here. I haven't used alpaca before but I do have an alpaca sweater and I have to say I love this yarn. Its like poodle fur it is so soft and supple.





Oh and the monkey sock well it's still coming. They sure are living up to there name and have become a literal monkey on my back. Ha! 5 more inches to go! I have made a deal with myself to start doing one lace pattern a day til they are finished. I want to get them off the needle. I really liked the first one AFTER it was bound off. But I really just hate this lace pattern hehe. Not sure why. I guess because it really doesn't make sense to me and doesn't have a rhyme or reason to it so therefore I can't memorize it. It is only 9 rows of lace but for some reason I just can't remember it. SIGH



On to something not knit related. Ok maybe somewhat knit related.... I found a blog about knitting from the Yarn Harlot I believe and the lady was talking about going no poo. I was like huh??? It is about not washing your hair anymore because shampoo has chemicals in it that do more harm to your hair then help. I read up on it and thought hmmm I wonder if it would work on my hair. I have really oily hair and it is very fine. I have a hard time with it being fluffy or anywhere near fluffy and have to be careful with the shampoos or poos that I use because they weigh it down. I tried it today and just rinsed my hair in water and a little baking soda. My scalp feels a little dirty but not like I thought it would feel and my hair feels nice and soft. No little frizzies at all. So far so good! That would be so nice not to have to shampoo everyday anymore I don't really like to wash my hair so much but I just thought that there was no other way. I found out info on just by Googling. You can Google anything now and find info on it hehe.

Something I read...

Wow I just read Knitman blog and his last post made me so sad. Why do people think that Christians hate everyone that isn't just like them? I know through the years a lot of things have been done in the name of God that aren't good and are just plain evil. The thing is if you live the way God wants us to and model ourselves after Jesus then we become love. God is love. Pure and simple. That is who he is. Human beings are the ones who do things that are evil. We fall short of the way we are suppose to be and some even go far beyond what God's plan is for them. Some kill, hurt, and destroy and say they are doing it because God told them to. Those are only a few though and they seem to be the only ones that get the attention. The good stuff never gets put out in front only the bad. The media doesn't tell the stories of good that Christians all over are doing. They only tell about how this person who claimed to be a Christian killed a black guy. They only show on TV shows the Christians who are crazies and weirdos. People I wouldn't even want to hang out with cause they are over the top and totally not what God is. It is very sad and I know it saddens God all the hurt that is in this world. That is why Jesus died for us so that we can have hope and peace and spread hope and peace and joy and love to others. This world is the pits and the things people do and say are the pits but there is Jesus and what he says is truth. If you read the Bible, I mean truly read it, you would see it.

How I learned to knit

When I was around 12 my mom taught me how to crochet. I had admired for years a wool afghan my great grandmother had made. I asked her how it was made and she told me it was crocheted. I wanted to learn how to crochet so she taught me. I made various little barbie sized things and a couple of pot holder type things, but it never went any further. I didn't really like the fabric crochet made. My mom also is a knitter and when I was 16 I asked her to teach me. I then proceeded to knit a scarf. I don't remember what stitch I used to make it, probably just a garter stitch, but it was totally unwearable. It turned out as wavy as the ocean and no matter what I did to it, it wouldn't lay flat. I didn't know how come my poor scarf turned out this way but I decided I just couldn't knit.

Move ahead 16 years to a time when I was sitting watching HGTV. There was a show on called Crafters across the US or something like that and there was a lady that was knitting up purses out of wool/acrylic blend and then felting them. They were really cute and I wanted to make one. I didn't know how to knit!!! I thought about that scarf I knitted and how wavy it was. I thought about how that lady on TV made it look so easy. I was determined I was going to learn to knit. I ran to JoAnne's picked up some yarn and knitting needles, went home, and proceeded to knit this purse. It turned out really cute! I fell in love with knitting right then and there. I also figured out what I did to that poor scarf when I was 16. I made a perfectly common n00b knitter mistake. I wasn't taking the stitches off correctly so therefore I was increasing and decreasing thus making waves.

The moral of the story? Well just run out, get some pointy sticks and some string, and start knitting.... If I can do it anyone can.

Knitting Speed

The topic of speed knitting came up on one of my email lists called Sockknitters. I thought this was an interesting topic so I will blog about it. Some of the knitters said that they don't want to speed up their knitting and can't understand why anyone would want to. Some said that they enjoy knitting for the pure enjoyment of knitting so that is why they could careless how fast they knit. Others commented that the world is a hurry up and get ur done world (southern phrase added in is mine ;)). Still others said they would love to beable to knit faster because then they could get onto the next skein of beautiful yarn.

My opinion on this is.... I would like to be able to knit faster. I don't want to be a speed demon knitter who knits more like a machine then a person, but it would be nicer to be able to knit a pair of socks in one week. The reason isn't because I want instant gratifacation. I already have that as soon as I pick up my needles and knit one stitch. It is because I have so many things moving around in my head of things that I want to knit for the people I love. I want to knit my mom a shawl that she fell in love with. I want to knit my sister a really cute summery sweater. I want to knit my nieces these super cute dolls with clothes I found a pattern for. I want to knit my hubby some socks. My youngest son wants a griphandor hat and scarf. I want to design my own sweaters. I have an idea in my head right now of the first one I will be making. This is why I want to knit faster because I want to shower my loved ones with gifts. I want to wrap them up in the love I knit into each stitch. I want to know that they are safe and warm, wraped in the things I have knit for them. It's alright though I will keep on knitting and the projects I have in my mind will wait and be checked off eventually, given away as they are finished. I will sit back and enjoy each project as they come and continue to dream about the future ones.

The Beach and Knitting

Well we finally made it to VA Beach. It was a great day to go too. The weather was absolutely perfect. The sun was high. The sky was blue. The ocean was well umm bluey, grey and COLD. The sand was sandy. Best of all I was hanging out with my guys. We had a great time with only one mishap. Liam decided to stand in the water for too long and the water washes the sand out from beneath your feet when you do that. It isn't so bad unless you are a balanced challenged person, such as he. He flipped backwards onto his back like he was walking on ice with a wave rolling in behind him.. I sort of freaked out because when he fell I had visions of him being swept out to sea on the next big wave. Liam got upset because I was upset. It took about 30 minutes for him to calm down. Every time I tried to say I was sorry for getting upset he would say I don't want to be around Mom. Poor thing I felt bad for making the situation worse.

We strolled along the boardwalk after that for a while taking pictures. When we came to a huge conch shell statue, his mood improved greatly. He loves conch shells probably due to Sponge Bob and his magic conch shell episode. After that, he was making his happy noises so everything was rosy.

Ok, so I did take pictures but I forgot my camera and had to use Dad's and well for some reason they didn't show up on his not so new computer. We will be going back next month so I will be taking more pictures with my own camera. I intend to take the same exact ones I took yesterday. That way I can show everyone the fun we had.

As for knitting.... I knitted in the car on the way up and back and some at my dad's while we sat and talked. I think my monkey sock is in that black hole of knitting as the Yarn Harlot mentions in her new book. I must have knitted one million stitches on that sock yesterday and it still isn't long enough to start the heal gusset! I kept trying it on and the last time I did and complained to my dearest, wise hubby. He says "Well just keep knitting and stop worrying about it" I was like HUH wow what a concept! Stop obsessing over the length of my sock. Hmmm was it possible? I put it into practice while I was knitting on the way back home. I still don't know if it's long enough BUT I did stop the obsession.