Hippy Crunchy...one sock down!

Here's the first sock of my July STR sock club yarn and pattern. The pattern was called Hippy Crunchy and the yarn was Peaseblossum. It's an interesting, fairly quick pattern. Rather than using different stitch counts for different sizes, you're supposed to just change needle size to either make the small/medium (2.0 mm) or medium/large (2.5 mm). I didn't have either one of those sizes. All of my size ones are 2.25 mm which turns out to be the perfect size for my foot.

Any one doing this pattern, I highly highly recommend getting yourself some super sharp dpns. I thought about using my bamboo dpns, but then I saw there were a whole bunch of k3tog's and sssk's in the mesh lace pattern.

But one is done and I'm going to cast on the second one before I go to bed this morning. After these are done, I need to get going on my Christmas knitting.

On the garage cleaning front, I emptied out about 4 rubbermaid totes and 6 paper boxes. I've still got 3 totes left with stuff I'm going to keep, but it's just been too darn hot to spend much time out there sorting through stuff and I don't want to bring the boxes inside, just in case any little creepy crawlies decided to make themselves at home in with all my stuff. But there is a significant improvement.

How very sad am I

I just reorganized my yarn stash....again. I actually went to Target and bought a bunch of rubbermaid type clear shallow bins. While I was reorganizing and emptying out SoP bags (I've got 15 of them....anybody want any for project bags?), I found 2 more balls of sock yarn. Does it never end!?! I believe the count now stands at 36. That's not counting the STR socks that I'm working on now in the Peaseblossum colorway.



And here's the new, semi-organized closet stash. On the top shelf are my 6 cones of dishcloth cotton, and two cones of Zepher laceweight (mushroom and bottle green). At the top of the stack are my bags of roving (the romeldale, llama, shetland). Then in the bins are (top to bottom): handspun and roving, UFOs, sock yarn, sweater yarn, shawl/scarf/laceweight yarn, and bulky/feltable stuff. Keep in mind that I've still got a ton of stuff in the dresser, but now at least I've got the closet stash somewhat organized.

What else did I accomplish tonight? I did dishes, cleaned the kitchen, finished watching two movies (10 Things I Hate About You and Wimbledon), reorganized my ipod, and threw out a lot of garbage I had lying around the house.

Tomorrow/today (i.e. Saturday), I'm planning on tackling the garage and hauling a bunch of stuff down to the basement so I'm not quite so embarassed to open my garage door. And then I can finally have my housewarming party!!! (Yes, Minnie, you can fall over in shock now. I will have everyone over in August.)

They're done!

The Lite Brite socks are done! With about 15 yards of yarn leftover. Note to self....when using STR lightweight, do toe-up socks and divide the skein into two balls before you start so you don't have a heart attack while you worry that you won't have enough to finish the toe.

The updated sock yarn stash

As of yesterday afternoon, this is my sock yarn stash minus two hanks. I had already wound up the STR Peaseblossum and put it in my knitting bag and then I found another ball of Sockotta in my closet stash that my last SP had sent me. I hadn't bothered to check the closet stash because I thought all my sock yarn was either in the dresser stash or the rubbermaid tote stash. Clearly I need more organization in my stash.


Counting the two missing ones, there's enough sock yarn there for 35 pairs of socks. Not as bad as I thought it would be, but still....yikes.

Sock yarn package pictures and a SQUEE!!!

First off, the sock yarn packages that came today. Here they are. It took all my self-control not to rip them open at the mailbox and shower myself in the yarny goodness. But then the neighbors would really think I'm weird.

Here are the box and envelope that were waiting for me in the special "packages" slot of our block's mailbox.


I opened the STR club package first since I had no clue what was coming for that one.

There's the newsletter, a new keychain of emergency sock yarn, a Rockin' Sock Club tattoo, the yarn in Peaseblossum, and the pattern of Hippy Crunchy socks. Interesting...kind of a lace pattern with a short row heel and you can size it up or down by changing needle size instead of the number of stitches.

Here's the yarn up close....it's the lightweight this time and as I sit here in my medium weight Rock and Weave socks, I'm a little disappointed. I enjoyed using a slightly heavier sock yarn, but that's ok. I can handle it.
Gorgeous color as always. And I probably would have picked this one out on my own because really.....who can resist pink, mauve-y purple, soft green and teal with a little white thrown in.


Now for all the Lisa Souza goodies. Left to right is Blue Face Leicester fiber in Emerald City, Superwash Merino in Elektra, then her Sock! yarn in Wild Things, Little Devil, Pacific, Sky Drama, South Pacific, Joseph's Coat and Shade Garden.


Here's a close-up of the Emerald City fiber. I just want to cuddle this...not even spin it...just cuddle it.


And now for my SQUEE!!! news. The lady that I bought the huge bag of CVM Romeldale roving from (and who gave me the shetland and llama roving that I showed the ladies at SoP last night) is going to open a yarn/fiber shop in my hometown!!!! And she asked my mom to help her run it and teach classes!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
There are no words!!!!! Can I use anymore exclamation points!!!!!!???!!!! They won't be opening up for at least 3 months and no, the shop doesn't have a name yet, but I'm so excited. (As if that wasn't evident.)

Hooray!!!

Not one, but two sock packages came for me in the mail today. All of my Lisa Souza yarn and fiber came, AND my STR box came too! Yay for sock goodies for me!!

I'll post pictures of everything once my camera is charges up and happy again.

Ahem...

I despise the USPS's lack of updating their package tracking website. I WANT MY LISA SOUZA YARN AND I WANT IT NOW!!!!!!

That is all.

Another photo post...this time with more vacation!

Here I am in Algona...attempting to do a blog entry while corraling the two littlest dogs (my Phoebe and my mom's Toffee). It's pretty easy...or was until my dog just decided to relieve herself on the carpet. Just so you can all see how cute she used to be...here she is the day that I brought her home and gave her her first bath.


So before my vacation started, I had written how my destructo-dog had chewed up a dpn from my sock. This next pic shows how a recovered...listening to Lime & Violet while frogging, then repairing the damage. What you can't see is my new set-up for yarn winding. To the left is my ballwinder and to the right is my swift. Works pretty well.


Next up is Mary at SoP a couple of weeks ago. She's modeling her latest bag that's waiting to be felted. Someone made the comment when she held it up that the bag looked like a pair of liederhosen, so she had to model it for us bloggers to get a picture and embarrass her.


And the moon...shining over Gull Lake. Took this from my uncle's dock before it got too dark.


It was so peaceful and relaxing there. Sitting out in front of the bunkhouse, drinking coffee and watching a family of mallards swim by every morning, or having a baby bunny or chipmunk hop up for a visit. The whole thing was like out of a Disney movie. Then brunch...then, maybe, get dressed by 10:30. I took the time to teach my aunt to knit. And danged if that woman didn't pick it up right away. She was well into her second dishcloth by the time I left.


We went out for "Breakfast on the Barge" (AKA the pontoon) our next to last morning there. Drove (boated?) by Kristi Yamaguchi's tiny lake house....

....yeah. It's on the market by the way. Anyone interested in pitching in? I think if we all pooled our money, we might be able to make the $7.9 million price that they're asking. (end sarcasm)

Thanks to my aunt's sleuthing (and this was before she was a knitter), we got to visit two yarn shops that were pretty close by. The first is actually a quilt shop that I can't remember the name of, but they have got one heck of a selection. First, I found the Mountain Colors sock yarn(and came away with some other hanks, but they're presents, so no lookie!)...

...and came away with Red Tail Hawk, Northern Lights, and Wild Raspberry.

Further digging in the sock yarn bins revealed Trekking XXL in 66 and 76.


And then at the back of the store, the heavens opened, golden rays of sunshine poured forth and celestial choirs sang a perfect chord. I had found it.....

...the Misty Alpaca in a color so perfect I thought I would drown in it. I bought all ten skeins. This is gonna be a Blackberry cardigan from the fall Knitty. All of the Rowan tweed that I had kind of settled on in December (when there wasn't enough of the color I really wanted) will be returned to SoP. That's how I'm justifying that purchase. Yeppers. *enthusiastic head nods*

The next store was set back in a little strip mall by Famous Dave's and it was called Among the Pines. Store owner was very nice and was very enthusiastic about SoP when I mentioned that I was from Omaha. She was looking into expanding some of her yarn lines (specifically sock yarn) and asked me and my mom for some brands during their sit and knit. I told her everything. Set her onto Blue Moon Fiber Arts STR, Lisa Souza, Opal, Mountain Colors (she had other weights, but not the sock yarn), and a variety of others. I guess I got a little enthusiastic and she told me that I missed my calling in life as a yarn rep. Of course we went there two days. Here's the haul.

That's A Treasury of Magical Knitting, a hand-carved shawl pin (that's great for putting up hair too), CTH supersock in Life's a Beach and Spanish Moss, and a sushi wallet kit. Everything but the wallet kit was bought on the first trip. On the second trip in for knit night, I mentioned Lime and Violet to the shop owned, and while she's not a listener (yet!), I told her about the sushi wallet kits and how Violet had raved about them. No sooner has the words "sushi wallet" passed my lips, than she said "We have those!" How I missed them on the first go around the shop I do not know. So I had to get one.

Got a bunch of other non-knitting stuff too, along with some birthday and Christmas presents. All-in-all I spent way too much money, but I figure that I'm just pre-planning should the world's sheep and alpaca ever stop producing wool.

And remind me to tell you ladies on Thursday about Dog Smog.

the long awaited photo post!

Here it is! Is it a bad thing that I didn't even remember that some of these pictures were on my camera?

First off is the cake that I won in the pie auction at my church. The one right after it is the decoration the lady put on top of it. This was 4 layers of fudgy chocolately goodness. And I ate the whole thing myself (minus two pieces).




Next up are my modified Conwy socks from Knitting on the Road. They were done out of Lorna's Laces shepherd sock in Black Purl. I'm calling them my pirate socks and I'll be wearing them Friday night to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie.


Next we'll break up the knitting with the newest addition to the sit and knit at SoP. May I introduce Oliver, Sarah's new baby. Strangely, I was the only one there that wanted to hold him. We have got the strangest group of women....every time I'm in a social setting with a ton of women and a baby, we're fighting over who gets to hold the little one. Strange.


More pirate-y goodness. These are presents for my friend Sarah so she can celebrate PotC2 opening as well. I got the pirate bag pattern from www.helloyarn.com. Made it out of Cascade 220 and it felted beautifully. I was so anxious to finish it, that I used the washer at work which is front loading. That was an hour of anxiety on my part. I hated not being able to check on it until the cycle was done. It felted up a bit smaller than I'd like, but I couldn't really control that since the washer door locks during the cycle. And inside the bag is The Princess Bride: Dread Pirate Roberts edition. After I bought that, I had the sinking feeling that I had already given her a Princess Bride dvd, but you can never have too many! I also went out and bought her a bag of M&Ms, the white chocolate Pirate Pearls. That should be enough stuff.


Finally, I finished my Rock and Weave socks that came in from the STR Rockin' Sock Club. Found the buttons at Hancock Fabrics on Monday. The actual knitting was finished on last Thursday and I didn't start another sock until this Tuesday. Five days without a sock on the needles!!!!! I nearly went into shock from the sock withdrawl.

I've since started a pair of Dublin Bay socks using STR lightweight in Fire on the Mountain. The colors are so vivid that I'm going to call them my Lite Brite socks.

And just so no one worries, I'm going to be on vacation in northern Minnesota and then northern Iowa for the next two weeks. I'll be at SoP today and then take off for home in the morning. I'll be without internet access for at least the first week of that. Vacation knitting will include: the Lite Brite socks, my Leaf Lace shawl, and some dishcloths (for when it's too hot for either the wool or alpaca).

ETA: Apparently, Phoebe (the destructo-dog) doesn't appreciate me blogging and hence not paying attention to her. I went downstairs to find her sitting in my big chair in the living room and destroying one of my bamboo dpns. One of the dpns that was in my Lite Brite sock...one that was actually holding stitches...and she had completely pulled it out of the stitches. So pretty much everything I had knit on it tonight has now been frogged. GAH!!!!

Princess Bride quiz results

Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

I guess this means I need to start memorizing his speech he given to Humperdink.