Jake's Crazy Caterpillar

Knitterpillar

Jake's class is studying the development of caterpillars into butterflies in school. They have lots of them in several stages of development and have really gotten into this hands-on experience. He came home a couple weeks ago with an assignment to make a "Crazy Caterpillar" with the help of his family.

I recently got a Barbie Knit Hits knitting machine on ebay, with the hopes of using it to knit purse handles for the felted purses and tote bags I am making. But Jake and I came up with the idea of using it to knit his crazy caterpillar. He loved cranking it out. He picked out the colors, and did all the "knitting". It was a hit with his classmates (many of whom used egg cartons since it was one of the suggested ideas) No one else had a knitted one!

My new favorite blog

Wanna laugh?

Check out this blog:
Stitchy McYarnpants

I can't wait for more posts....Stitchy leaves me in stitches

:-)

Happenings

Let's see, where to begin.....

The weekend before last was the Fall Sheep and Wool Fest at Mt. Bruce Station near my home. I was helping Vicky out with her booth, and in return, she let me bring some of my "wares" to sell. I sold some felted purses, some beaded stitch markers, beaded earrings and bookmarks. The weather was great, I met a lot of 'fiber people'. There were lots of spinners, rug hookers, and people who raise sheep, llamas and alpacas. In fact we had a visit to our booth Sunday morning by the most beautiful chocolate brown alpaca. I immediately fell in love with his adorable face and oh-so-soft coat. I want one! Here he is....

My new friend

The farm was decorated for fall with pumpkins and sunflowers everywhere. Our booth was right behind the folk singer so we had wonderful entertainment all weekend. The grill was upwind and so the lamb kabobs, lamb sausage, grilled veggies, etc. had us drooling constantly. Yummy!

When I left the Sheep Fest on Sunday afternoon, I met up with Kim and we went shopping for a wedding dress for her. It was the first time we had done this, and the very first dress she tried on is still my favorite. She was so beautiful in it, and I'm hoping it's the one she decides to get. She is still looking, just in case she finds one she likes better, but I'm not sure it's possible!

Speaking of weddings, Kelly and Brian's wedding was Friday night. It was a lot of fun, and Kelly was stunningly beautiful. We had a great time at the reception. I had whipped together a shawl Wednesday night to go over my black dress and it was quite a hit. I used 3 balls of Adriafil Stars in black, with one ball of gold Plymouth Glitterlash knit along with it. I used my honkin' size 35 needles and in a mere 3 or 4 hours I had an 80" long wrap (with fringe) that looks like a million bucks. It is 28 stitches wide, in case you need to know. When hanging in its normal state it's about 24" wide, but because it's so loosely knit, it can actually stretch to over 3 feet wide. Soooo soft and cuddly!

Glitter Wrap for wedding

We had a hard time recovering from the wedding Friday night. Saturday Mike and I ended up sleeping until after 11 am (ahhhh....heavenly) before we dragged our hungover selves out of bed and had to go pick up the kids as well as Kim's Jeep which was left at the bride's house.

Sunday we had a Cub Scout outing to go to with Jake. Here's my little scout.

Scout

Isn't he handsome in his uniform? We had a beautiful day for a hike in the woods, cider and donuts afterwards.

Last night was my 3rd knitting class that I taught and all is going well. I am really enjoying my new role, and am happy to report that I will be doing more classes this month, as well as a class for the felted clogs starting in November. I meant to take my camera with me last night to get some pix of my students knitting away, but I forgot. Maybe next week.....

That was fun!

All my worrying was for nothing. The class went fine. The ladies were all very nice. There were a few frustrating moments but for the most part everything was good and we had fun. I was way over-prepared, but better that than under-prepared! I'm looking forward to next week. Meanwhile I need to knit 70 rows on my Adult Surprise Jacket as my own "homework" so we can start the increases next week. I knit for about 7 hours yesterday and only got 30 rows done. They are some LONG rows, and I'm putting in lots of stripes, so it's pretty time-consuming. Looking good though.

Yikes!

Tomorrow I teach my first 2 classes at the yarn store. I'm hoping that I'm prepared and that my students are easy going enough to "go with the flow" as I gain my first experiences as a teacher. I spent a good amount of time yesterday printing out some handouts and I hope that all goes well. I'm feeling thankful that my classes (as of Friday) both had only 3 students so I can kind of ease into this without too much stress. The classes are from 11-1 and 6-8 tomorrow. I'll let you all know how it goes!

Kool Aid Klogs

Here is a pair of Fiber Trends Felted Clogs that my sister, Diane, knit for my niece. She used more of the Kool- Aid-dyed yarn that I sent her.

I love the Fun Fur cuff! I had sent her a pair of these clogs a while back (in a more tame camel/grey combo) and she decided to knit a couple pairs for her kids. She did a big pair for Jared, and this her the second pair, for Melissa. I think she did a great job. I love this pattern....I must, since I've knit 15 clogs already! (one is at the yarn store as a sample, in case you're wondering who it is that has 3 feet)

Funky!

This morning's creation

Pretty?

Ok, yes, I'm supposed to be working on the veil. But I sat down at my beading table and the strand of teal/pink assorted beads I bought a couple of weeks ago was screaming at me to make a bracelet. I just love how it turned out. I added the vintage pink beads from my stash, and all the other glass beads are different from each other. You like?

Here Comes The Bride

Wow, I've got weddings on my mind. First of all, my daughter's boyfriend proposed to her during their trip to Cancun about 10 days ago. I knew this was coming, but now reality has hit and I'm going to be "Mother of the Bride" !! It's going to be a crazy, whirlwind year...but it's going to be fun!

Also, this week my project is going to be making a bridal veil for my niece, Kelly. Her wedding to Brian is Oct. 1. I met with her last night and together we picked out what I need to create for her, what I'm hoping will be exactly what she had in mind , and that she'll know how much love I'm putting into it. I think it's going to be lovely. Let's see how long it takes me to put all those crystal rhinestones in place! LOL Of course after it's done I'll be posting a picture or two.

Over already?

Wow, this holiday weekend went by WAY too fast. I had plans to get SO much done while my hubby was camping with the kids. Well, I did get a fair bit done, but my ideas and reality didn't quite mesh.

I spent Saturday evening knitting a hat to match the Baby Surprise. I did get some beading orders finished up so I can get paid for those, made some more beaded stitch markers ....and last night when my eyes couldn't take any more beading, I played around with combining some Kool Aid colors to get something a little less NEON BRIGHT and more fall colors. I had some success and ended up with a burnt orange, and 2 shades of brown which I really like.

The baby shower was nice yesterday. The Baby Surprise Jacket and matching hat got rave reviews. Everyone loved the colors. Lots of OOooooohs and AAaaaahhhhs.

It's been really hot this weekend, and I attribute that to the fact that hubby closed the pool for the season on Friday. Happens every time. We had such a lousy summer, swim-wise. I think I got in the pool 3 times the whole year. In fact, I commented the other day that I swam more in 6 days in Alaska than I did all summer here. Go figger. Speaking of Alaska....I wanna go back! Wahhhhh!

Feeling Lucky!

Yesterday was my lucky day! First of all, I decided to hit some thrift stores when I was making a run to JoAnn's for some buttons. My theory is "you just never know what you might find!" What I found was a bag full of 100% wool tapestry yarn, natural color, in 3/4 oz. skeins. There were 13 of them in this bag. What else was in the bag was the original receipt for this yarn, which was 14 skeins at $2.10 each. So about $30.00 worth. Ok, one skein was missing from that original purchase, but how much did I pay for this bag of yarn? A whopping $1.99. It's not a huge amount of yarn, just over 9 oz. but the fact that they are already in small skeins will let me dye them without having to unwind, weigh, etc. I see a dyeing/felting project in my future!

Reason #2 yesterday was my lucky day....I had gone to Susan's blog because I love to read knitting blogs, and she was having a contest to celebrate the re-write of her Picasso Sock Pattern. She was asking people to post, in her comments section, their favorite knitting tips. First prize was a copy of her pattern and the yarn to knit them. While I didn't win first place, she decided to offer 2 more people a copy of her pattern and I was one of them! WOO HOO! Thanks Susan, you made my day! My tip was to use the Russian Join to join a new piece of yarn when you run out, are changing colors, etc.

more of nature's beauty

Don't you just love it when Mother Nature sends you a little surprise like this? This sunflower just popped up in my perennial garden next to the side porch.

Baby Surprise for Class

Store Sample

I knit this Baby Surprise in 2 days! It was some intensive knitting ...thank goodness the kids had gone back to school and I could just sit and knit. And because this is the store sample to advertise the class I am teaching, I could tell hubby "I'm working" and he couldn't complain about the dust bunnies or the frozen pizza we had for dinner.

I am leaving the seams open when I deliver it to the store this morning. That way customers can play with it and see if they can get it to fold into a sweater. I also didn't do anything with the neckline, because I will use it to show some options during the class. Either a simple crochet edge, a knit-on collar or hood, etc.

Oh, and speaking of classes, I am now going to be teaching a class for the felted clogs too, starting in November. Since I've knit 13 of them already, I think I will feel very comfortable doing that class. Plus I'll have already taught the Baby Surprise classes by that point and will have that experience under my belt. I'm still kind of nervous, but SO excited to have this opportunity!

By the way, this one was knit with Shepherd Colour 4 Me 8 ply washable wool. I used 4 skeins total...each one was 90m/50gr. Size 6 needles. The sweater is approximately 19" around the body when overlapped to button, or if it is going to be butted together, it would be about 20-1/2" around.