This 'N That

On the knitting front:
The new felted bag pattern I am working on has been knit and felted, and has told me what revisions need to be made. Starting it over tomorrow when I get more yarn. It's pretty cute!

It is knit with the new Karaoke yarn from South West Trading Company. It's 50% wool and 50% soy silk. It's great to knit with, and felts up nicely. Gives off a fair amount of fuzz in the process, but produces a nice felted fabric. It's a bit on the soft side, like Noro Kureyon, so I wouldn't use it for something that is going to get a lot of wear and tear, but for a small bag I think it will work out just fine.

Of course the pattern can be knit with 100% wool also. I need to knit up a sample in wool so I can see what the difference in size/shape might be. Look for the pattern soon on my sidebar.


I thought my favorite yarn was Noro Blossom, but now I'm thinking alpaca is neck and neck with the Blossom....I knit with alpaca for the first time when I did a moebious scarf from Cat Bordhi's A Second Treasury of Magical Knitting. I picked up the book at Threadbear when I was there and finally decided it was time to do more than drool over the awesome projects in this book. I taught myself the moebious cast on (first time, thanks to great instructions and photos...thanks Cat!) and found that yes, it is truly magical. The first hour or so I just kept commenting to myself "This is SOOO cool!" If you haven't yet experienced the magical moebious knitting, you really should do so. It's mind bending!

Anyway, the alpaca moebious is lovely...needs blocking before a photo, and will be the store sample. I will be teaching the moebious cast on in a class in the fall.
I think Mike will be getting a lovely moebious scarf for ice fishing this winter. I love how it can cover your neck and head with no ends flapping around.



Nature News:
The fountain that Mike gave me for Mother's Day is now home to a bunch of tadpoles. I am surprised that a frog could get in my fountain to lay eggs, but I guess she did. I won't be turning it on any time soon....don't want to send the little swimmers for a ride through the pump!

My garden is going positively bonkers. The zucchini is growing on average of 6" overnight. We are on a twice-daily picking schedule so as to not grow any baseball bat (or bigger) zucchinis. I have been making pickles every single day. Between Sunday morning and Monday afternoon I made 12 qts. 38 pickles were picked in that time. Sunday we picked our first cucumber. Yesterday? 10 more. I am giving produce away by the bagful. I gave 2 bags to the lady who delivered my flowers yesterday, another bag to my SIL when she picked up her kids an hour later, and another bag to Jake's friend's mom this morning. It's craziness! From 4 plants each! Heaven help me when the hundreds of tomatoes that are weighing down the vines start ripening ALL AT ONCE! (I did overplant the tomatoes....but how can you turn down 30 heirloom tomato plants in lots of different varieties, for free? You can't. You put them in the ground and are happy for whatever delicious, delightful tasty treats are bestowed upon you.) The extra hot/humid weather this summer is really doing wonders for these plants, I tell you. The corn that is growing in the farmer's field behind our house is bigger than I've EVER seen it grow.

Off to watch Big Brother.....I really like Kaysar...can't wait to see how his nominations affect the house. And I really liked Eric, for the first show. After that, more and more I thought he was a jerk with WAY too much testosterone shooting through his veins. WHOA! Take it easy, guy!

TTFN!

Exciting news!

Tonight I got the email I've been hoping for....the pattern I submitted for Knitty's fall issue has been accepted! WOO HOO! I am having a hard time believing it....I didn't want to get my hopes up too high, but on the other hand I thought it had a good chance of at least catching Amy's eye, if nothing else. I suppose it's not written in stone yet, but the email said:
"You're in! Congratulations!" so I'm taking that as a YES!

I'm not giving away any details ahead of time, but look for "Bloom" in the next issue of Knitty. (OMG!)

UPDATE: My loving, thoughtful hubby had a beautiful bouquet of flowers sent to me today. When I told him the news last night, I didn't think he "got" how much this meant to me, but he must've been down-playing it so the flowers today would be more of a surprise. What a sweetie....

Pinky the Bear

On Tuesday I knit this bear from a Fiber Trends pattern. It was a pretty quick knit, and I was just crossing my fingers that it would felt nicely. I am planning on teaching this class for beginners, as a way for them to learn to read a pattern, learn 2 different ways of increasing and 2 different decreases. Also short row shaping with wrap & turn.

Felting is so amazing. This 'not so cute' garter stitch bear leaves a little to be desired, huh? But look how cute Pinky Bear is now!
I did needle-felting to put her face on tonight at the BeeGees meeting.

The color in the "before" photo is more accurate. I just took the "after" photo tonight in low light. I used Plymouth Galway and it took just about 1 skein. I had a very tiny little ball left after sewing up the seams.

I'm playing around with the new feature on Blogger that lets you add photos and trying to get the hang of it. I am going to love this feature....going through Hello was always somewhat of a pain. I'm glad to be able to just insert the pix right into the blogger post, and have a choice of size and position. Yeah!

Knitting Matters

My friend Kim has recently created a new website that is dedicated to providing knitters with lots of information in one place. She is continually working on this new site and I thought you might like to check it out. Let her know how she's doing! Here's the link: Knitting Matters.

Kim also has recently self-published a couple of really cute knitting patterns. Check them out while you're there!

Something Blue

I wish I had a closeup shot of the lace garter I knit for Kim for the wedding. However, I finished it only the day before and gave it to her in a rush. I can still get a picture at some point (they didn't do the garter toss, so this can become an heirloom, and I'm hoping at some point a grandchild of mine will wear it too) I knit it using this pattern .

However, I ended up using a size 1 needle because it took me about 20 minutes to do 2 rows using the 000 needles that I had, and I knew I could never get it done in time that way! I couldn't get the darned needles through those tiny little stitches! And knitting with cotton thread was not my favorite thing in the world, let me tell you. I did my best not to curse, and tried to remember to knit each stitch with love love love.

I ended up not doing the seam binding casing on the back....I just doubled some elastic thread and wove it through the middle and adjusted it to the tightness she wanted, then wove the blue ribbons through the eyelets and tied a bow.

She still needed "something old" so into the bow I tied a gold charm of mine that I've had since high school that says "Live, Love, Laugh".

p.s. that's my niece Melissa, and my mom, checking it out

Karaoke

Ooooh La La! Today while I was working, the man in brown brought a box from South West Trading Company bearing their new yarn, Karaoke. We got 5 colors of this wonderful, self-striping, soy silk/wool blend. I can't wait to do something with it! It's loverly. You can see some write-ups and samples of it knit up here (Black Dog) and here (My Threaded Bliss). It's so soft....

yummmmmmmy...............

Pink Shrug

Today's FO is this pink shrug that I started a few weeks ago. It's a pattern I found online that I tweaked a bit (don't I always?) It was supposed to be knit cuff to cuff (but that would make the cuffs different...it's feather and fan pattern and one cuff would be backwards) It was also supposed to be knit flat and then seamed up from the wrists. I don't THINK so....in the round, if you please! (but flat in the middle, of course)

Anyway, here it is, being modeled by the lovely Kaitlyn (middle child) after being grafted together up the middle. I don't know if I am going to give it to Kim as planned, or keep it for myself. I think it may be a bit big for her (but just right for me ...tee hee...)

UPDATE: I have finally found the link for this pattern again. You can get it (and 2 other vintage Mary Maxim Patterns) here. This shrug is Style B.

My changes:
Knit cuff and sleeve in the round for a total of about 12 or 13" then knit flat until piece is 24". Repeat for other side, and use Kitchener stitch to graft together in the middle. This makes a 3/4 length sleeve....just knit each piece longer if you want longer sleeves.

Married!

Yup, my little girl got married. She sure did.

What a beautiful day it was....everything went smoothly. She was gorgeous. Breathtakingly beautiful. The ceremony and surroundings were lovely. I think if it hadn't been close to 100 degrees I could say it was positively perfect!

I'm an emotional wreck. It went by WAY too fast and I am so sad that it's over. I can't stop crying. Mostly it comes from reminiscing about her childhood and little things that come to mind just set me off.

It's not like she hasn't been gone from the house for almost 4 years already....but this is reality now....she's not just my girl anymore, she's Drew's wife. Sniff.

I'm going to be gathering pictures from everyone's digital cameras and will load them all onto a photo website one day soon so if you want to see more you can click the link. I could put about a million of them right here, but some of you might not want to see.

Diane was sitting behind Mike and I and took this picture. The shoulders you see in the photo are ours. I thought it was a cool shot.

What the heck?

Ok, where did the last 9 months go? I swear it was just a few days ago when my little Kimmie got engaged! How can it be less than TEN DAYS until the wedding? Oh my, I am frazzled. And still somewhat in denial, I think. It all seems so surreal. Unreal. Really.

Yes, next Friday my firstborn becomes a wife, and I become a mother-in-law. Huh? I'm sorry but I'm just not feeling it! I don't want to be old enough to be a mother-in-law. What's next, GRANDMA???? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Say it isn't soooooooooooooo!!!!!

For goodness sake, I have a child who just finished 2nd grade.

I am so ready for this wedding to be here so I can stop fretting, worrying, thinking about it so much and just enjoy the day. Of course then there will be the big let down when it's over, I'm sure. But won't it be nice to breathe a sigh of relief, put my feet up, grab my knitting and not have to think "shouldn't I be doing _________ for the wedding?"

New Panes Bag

I knit most of this bag on the way to and from our camping trip on Memorial Day weekend.I used the heathery Cascade colors that I got at Threadbear a couple weeks ago. I LOVE how it turned out! I may use this for my pattern photo now. I guess I should go add it to the gallery too.

Another VBB

Here's my second Vintage Bubble Bag. I loved the ruffle on the first one so I couldn't leave it off this one. Unfortunately I didn't have the pattern with me when I started knitting it and was going by memory (or lack of!) and forgot to use a smaller size needle for the top band. So...it's not quite the right shape, but if I hadn't told you, would you have noticed? I didn't think so :-)
I made this bag using Silk Garden and Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool. You like?

Shots from the garden