Sick days are for blogging

And sick days are for catching up with blogs too. My Bloglines feeds have been emptied out for the first time in months. Sorry that I haven't been liberal with comments but I'm barely coherent enough to post on my own blog. I've caught some sort of flu crud from Thing 1 and 2. They've had it since the weekend. I got bitch slapped with it yesterday. High fever and coughing and I sound like Lauren Baucall. Or Kathleen Turner. Or a person who's been chain smoking for 30 years. Sexy, huh?

So I thought that I'd catch up on your blogs and found that several of you are sick too. I guess misery loves company. Knitted socks abound in bloglandia. I need more Koigu before I knit anymore sockies. I've been sorely disappointed with other yarns and commit to only knitting socks with Koigu from now on. Thus the reason that some Lorna's Laces Shepard sock yarn went from being socks to these loverlies (hope you don't mind but some of the pictures were taken whilst I'm in bed today):

Mrs. Beeton's Wristwarmers





Perfect for using up bits of luxury yarns and adding beautiful beaded enhancements. The blue pair uses a beautiful variagated laceweight mohair/silk (whose ball band is long gone but I remember it being Italian), LL sock yarn and some laceweight cashmere reclaimed from a thrift store sweater last fall. The second pair are made with some of my handspun silk and mohair and the same cashmere. So soft, so decadent. I.Love.These.

I'm knitting like crazy through my stash so that I have some goodies to take to Spring Bada Bing. My plan is to bring felted tote bags, monkeys, some spring ponchos, felted flowers and some felting kits. I was crankin' stuff out like crazy until I got sick. Bummer. Here are a couple of ponchitos as I'm calling them. They're not big ol ponchos and are just enough to cover your shoulders during cool Spring and Summer nights.





The brown one is Patons Divine, Bernat Boucle and an angora silk blend reclaimed from a sweater this fall. The pink and green one uses the Knit Happens colorway of LL Shepard sock yarn and pink Manos. When I'm feeling better, I'll try to get an action shot that will do them better justice.

And here are a few forgotten FOs:

Felted Guinea Pig bed (the piggies fought over who would get to sleep in this all Winter)



I used Galway and Lion Brand Fun fur and modified a felted kitty bed pattern.

Buttonhole Bag with flower for my CA now NC best bud



I modified the pattern by simply knitting a narrow rectangle for the base and picked up the stitches to knit in the round. I also knit a few extra rows at the top for a sturdier handle (my friend wanted a bag that looked like the one on the cover of the Fall 05 Spin Off). I think I used two or three skeins of Knit Picks WOTA.

Black Fifi Bag which was an auction donation for Fat Tuesday



This Fifi (my original pattern) was my first felting project with Patons Classic Merino and I love felting with it. I used black for the body and grey for the base and bottom stranded with Lion Brand Fun Fur.

Blue Sky Sportweight Baby Alpaca scarf in eggplant and fuschia - YUM!



I bought this yarn on my first trip to the Yarn Lounge in Carytown/Richmond VA in January. I bought it just in time to be snowed in all weekend with nothing to do but knit. The pattern is Blue Sky Alpaca's easy knit scarf. I ended up knitting it on size 4s which took forever but I like the resulting shadow knit style. And even better, its MINE all MINE!

Recycled Felted Fair Isle bag



This tote was constructed from a beautiful but worn out Lands End vest. I felt like I was cheating when I made it because I didn't knit it - oh the horror!. But I love how it turned out. I even have some panels left to make a couple of little totes.

There are also some prototypes fresh off the needles that I'll show when they're in a more presentable form. Someone send me a few shots of bourbon or tequila to put me out of my misery. Blech...

Balancing Act

My mantra for 2006 - and quite possibly for the rest of my life now - is balance. If there's one thing I've learned in my 36 years on earth is that everything hinges on this one delicate aspect. Have I acheived it since the beginning of the year? Sure I have. I find balance where my breathing is quiet and centered, my body is relaxed and I am one with myself and the world. And in the next instance, the kids are pouncing on me with requests and expectations and the scales tip out of sync again. Balance is a moment by moment chore and in all honesty, its hard work. But what I've realized as of late is that I can either throw a fit about trying to keep the scales even or I can allow the universe and Creator to tip them in one direction or the other from time to time and go with the flow. Trust me, going with the flow is MUCH easier.

I say all of this because in my quest for balance, it appears that I'm out of sync with some aspects of my life when in fact I'm going with the flow. I haven't been blogging in some time because I've been wonderfully busy with other aspects of my life. I did want to give you a quick update and hopefully some fibery good pictures (coming soon) so you can be assured that all is well. I miss bloglandia more than you know and cherish the quick snippets of time I get to visit your blogs even though I don't always get a chance to comment. So many of you are like my extended family and I miss catching up with you.

First of all, many thanks for your comments, compliments and emails about the fortune cookies. They have truly been fun to make and I'm glad that others have enjoyed them too. I've been busy knitting though up until recently, I was working on commissioned tote bags and not a lot of "me" knitting. I was recently accepted into the Richmond Craft Mafia's Spring Bada Bing craft show so I'm knitting through my stash for that right now. If you're in the area on April 22nd, stop by and say "HI!" I've spun just a little bit and hope that will change too in the coming weeks. I've been getting my house in order in anticipation of spring - lots of cleaning and dusting. I am so glad that I made it through the Winter with very minor SAD issues - yippie! I used a full spectrum light periodically thanks to your many suggestions and I really believe that it helped me through some of the rough spots. The Things are doing well and are growing like crazy. King Thing has been exceptionally attentive in recent weeks. We've been blessed with an abundance of friends and love. My plants including my orchids are all blooming. Life.Is.Good!

I hope that life is just as good for all of you too. I keep you in my thoughts and prayers especially those of you dealing with the curves that life throws at us. My heart aches for our world as so many horrible things keep happening. But I also find beauty and love and peace in each moment - a chirp of a bird, the wind whistling through my hair, the sun on my cheek. Enjoy each moment and in it you too will find balance.

Felted Fortune Cookies

In honor of the Chinese New Year which was celebrated on January 29th, I whipped up some fortune cookies. No not the edible kind, the knitted kind.



* More pictures below...

I can't begin to tell you how fun these were to make. My gift to you is the "recipe" that you'll find below. Whip up a few and throw them in a chinese food box (you can find them at most craft stores). You can use them as party favors for weddings and baby showers. Write up some naughty fortunes and give them to your significant other for Valentines Day. Keep some on hand to give as gifts. Its a fun way to not only practice short rows but to use up your wool scraps (as you can see, several of my "cookies" are unusually colored). Please, send me pictures of your fortune cookies so I can see how yours turn out.

Keep your eyes open for Felted Fortune Cookie Kits in my Etsy shop in the coming week!


IndigoMuse's Felted Fortune Cookies



Yarn: Cascade 220 (color #8010 is off white) or other 100% wool yarn
Supplies:
Size 10.5 knitting needles ( I used Clover Bamboos)
Darning needle
Sewing needle and monofilament (clear) thread
1/2 inch wide or wide (I used 7/8") Satin ribbon

Gauge: not necessary

Stitches:
Tip - I slip the first stitch of each outside edge row for a neater circle.
K = Knit
Sl = Slip stitch without knitting
W&T = Wrap and turn; knit to the point where the pattern says to turn. Bring your yarn to the front of the work, slip the next stitch from the left hand needle, take your yarn to the back of the work, Slip the stitch back to the left hand needle. Turn your work and place the yarn at the back of your work before knitting to the beginning of the row.

Large Cookie:
Pre-Felted diameter - 8"
Post – Felted diameter - 6"

CO 15 stitches (leave a 12 - 15" long tail that will be used to stitch up the center when finished knitting the unfelted cookie)

1. K3, w&t, k3
2. K6, w&t, k6
3. K9, w&t, k9
4. K12, w&t, k12
5. K15, turn, sl1, k14

Repeat steps 1 - 5 until you have enough wedges to make a complete circle (approximately 14 - 15 wedges). You are not binding off the stitches at the end of each wedge but are knitting wedges together to form a circle.

Stitch the two sides of the circle together with the tail and your darning needle. Stitch center circle closed and weave in ends.

Small Cookie:
Pre-Felted diameter - 6"
Post- Felted diameter - 4.25"

CO 10 stitches (leave a 12 - 15" long tail that will be used to stitch up the center when finished knitting the unfelted cookie)

1. K2, w&t, k2
2. K4, w&t, k4
3. K6, w&t, k6
4. K8, w&t, k8
5. K10, turn, sl1, k9

Repeat steps 1 - 5 until you have enough wedges to make a complete circle (approximately 11 - 12 wedges). You are not binding off the stitches at the end of each wedge but are knitting wedges together to form a circle.

Stitch the two sides of the circle together with the tail and your darning needle. Stitch center circle closed and weave in ends.

Felting:
Put fortune cookies in a zippered pillowcase. Prepare washer by setting it to the lowest water setting, the hot/cold wash cycle and the heavy duty wash setting, if you have one. Add your detergent of choice and some towels or jeans so that the cookies get plenty of friction while washing. Check progress after each wash cycle (you may need to put them through more than one cycle to get them to felt with little or no stitch definition). Block felted cookies until dry.

Finishing:
Using satin ribbon, fabric or paper, write some witty fortunes for your cookies. If you need help, there are some websites below. Insert the fortune in the middle of the cookie. Fold cookie in half. With sewing needle, lightly tack the middle of the cookie closed. There's no need to stitch the entire edge closed unless you want to. Fold in half again, fortune cookie style and tack the inside where the two pieces meet. Voila! Your fortune cookie is finished! Enjoy!

Fortune websites:
http://www.weirdfortunecookies.com/
http://fortunecookie.rleeden.no-ip.com/
http://www.backgroundsarchive.com/fortune.php
http://www.chinaunique.com/cookie/fortune.htm

Tickled Pink

Travel back with me for a minute. Back to October which now seems like a lifetime ago. I bought a small selection of ProChem acid dyes with the intention of dyeing yarn for holiday projects. And then I did something mind numbingly stoopid and accepted a commission for a fuggly holiday stocking and all those delusions of grandeur came to a skreeching halt. Damn. Double damn.

Fast forward to the first week of January and the first time that I wasn't stressed about knitting projects and classes and life in general. The dyes beckoned me from their hiding place in my stash. In I dove and immediately learned that "real" dyes vs. Kool-Aid produce really dark yarn. I present to you exhibits A and B...



Garish hand dyed yarn



Mini unfelted Buttonhole Bag knit with garish hand dyed yarn

Holy Moly Donut Shop those are some dark colors. Armed with my newfound knowledge, I eased up on the concentration of color and end up with better results but still the colors were crazy-go-nuts D.A.R.K.



Not a bad problem to have but a problem when you're shooting for lighter shades of color. This batch is being knit into wrist warmers for my hair dresser.

A bit discouraged, I went back to the drawing board, this time to try to replicate the color pink from one of my felted bags. Call me stupid but I was willing to at least give it a try. I bought a huge pot, toyed with diluting a small batch of my red stock solution (which is suspiciously fushia in my opinion) and voila! Kettle dyed pink yarn.



I can't begin to tell you how happy I am with the results. It matches perfectly. It's variegated. I'm now hooked on kettle dyeing and plan to do much, much more as soon as King Thing goes out of town again. All those dyes in our pristine white kitchen make him want to faint. Some things are best not seen, non?

Yes siree, I've been as busy as a one legged man in an ass kicking contest (For those of you who don't know, that's a Southernism. I'd love to hear your favorite if you have one). Anyhoo, between teaching knitting classes, private lessons and serious amounts of commissioned knitting and my regular job and oh yeah, being a domestic slave err... mother and wife, the Muse has had very little time to blog or read blogs. I've managed a bit of drive-by blog reading this week with a quick comment here and there. I hate not to comment like I used to but right now, time really is money. My mantra for 2006 is balance and I'm working hard to maintain it. I've been fairly successful and hope to keep my noggin above water this year.

So what's on my needles right now? A simple mindless felted tote bag - one of many - that's destined to be a birthday gift for my former California now North Carolina best friend. I'm lusting after a new knitting challenge but I'm not sure what that is just yet. And considering how little time I have for pleasure knitting right now, I might just need to stick to small projects or I'll be knitting the larger ones forever. I have WAY too many WIP but none of them are calling me from the stash. And spinning sadly has been practically non-existent. I think I might need to try to focus this year on either spinning, knitting or dyeing but I'm not convinced that I'm ready to commit to just one yet. Am I fickle or what?

What I CAN say that I've learned about myself over the past year is that I'm not nuts about sweaters. I know its blasphemy to say it out loud and I might lose my license to knit in saying so. Don't get me wrong, I love Rogue and some of the others that I've made in the past but for the most part, I really enjoy knitted accessories. I think people tend to gravitate to the knit bloggers who tackle sweaters and frankly I admire them too. But I think I've found my niche and plan to delve into deeply this year. Hope I don't bore you in the process.

Well back to work and life. I'll try to stop in more frequently but no promises. Many thanks for the kind words of encouragement. You're all too kind and I've missed you more than you'll ever know.

The Road to Hell...

Are you familiar with the phrase "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions?" It's always in my head. Especially when I intend to do things and then can never seem to get around to them. Such have been the last few weeks. I've intended to do a LOT of things and actually got around to doing some of them but many more remain in a state of limbo. My knitting room is still a wreck, I'm way behind on paperwork, and the I intended to bake lots of my famous holiday goodies and give them as gifts. And yet for the second year in a row, it didn't happen. I intended to knit ALL of my holiday gifts. I'm happy to say that 90% of my gifts were knit but that 10% is eating away at me. December was a blur of teaching knitting classes, working on commissioned knitting projects, working full time once again in my "real" job and lots of entertaining. And while I'm a bit exhausted now, this holiday season was truly everything that I'd wished it to be. I got everything I wanted and SO much more. I spent several special evenings with various groups of friends including my newfound knitting buddies from the past year. Nothing is more fun than food, fun and fellowship in my book. My parents, brother and nephew spent Christmas at La Casita de Muse this year. We haven't spent Christmas all in one house in years and it was just as magical as I dreamed that it would be. But the best gift of all came from our California friends - who are now back on the East Coast in North Carolina and only three hours away - who drove all the way across the US just in time to spend New Year Eve with us for the first time in 13 years. I'm still pinching myself that they're here and you'll be hard pressed to rip the permagrin off my face. You see, for me, the holidays aren't about whats under the tree but the joy in my heart. I'll long forget what was given to me this year but I will never forget the conversations and laughter that was shared round the kitchen island, the roaring fire and by the Christmas tree.

My resolution for 2006 is to work harder year round to maintain the spirit that Christmas instills in me. And to enjoy the gifts of love, laughter and friendship that have so generously been bestowed upon me. I look forward to sharing more yarn related adventures with all of my cyberfiber friends this year. I have truly missed everyone over the last few months. I'm very slowly catching up on emails and blog reads so please be patient with me. This little Phoenix is just starting to rise from the ashes :)

Binging and Purging

If any of you have Scorpios in your lives, you know how hard they can crash and burn from time to time before they rise to renewed glory out of the ashes. I'm learning as I grow older to recognized these crash and burn scenarios and try to head them off at the pass before they blind side me. Such have been the last four weeks. I had so much coming at me that I had to purge some parts of my life that I didn't really want to but had to in order to maintain my sanity. I took sabbatical from most everything except work, the Things and knitting. The rest of it - including email, blogging and blog reading - was placed carefully aside to wait until I got past that "oh shit I'm drowning, somebody save me" period that I was having. And while I've missed keeping up with your fiberadventures and showing you all of the gifts that have been flying off my needles, I was glad to have the break. I didn't spiral into depression. I didn't keep myself up at night with anxiety attacks. And most of all, I was readily to the important people in my life. So many wondrous things have happened over the last few weeks. My organization received grant funding so I'll get to start back into my job full time very soon. My knitting classes have gone nuts lately and I have students coming out of my ears. I'm getting orders for hand knit items for the holidays. And I've spent loads of quality time with familiy and friends. I'm learning to say no and not "manage" (tee hee - Heaz) every aspect of my life. And also learning that sometimes letting go is really a good thing.

I'm sorry that I missed my own deadline for the Fall Foto contest. I promise to catch up on entries and wrap it up in the coming weeks. I also apologize for not responding to comments or emails. I hope to get some knitting photos up soon and resume some components of "regular" life in the coming weeks.(((((Big Hugs))))))))

A tale of two socks and Fantastic Foto Friday - Part One

(***Edited to add: What is up with Bloglines? It seems like everyone is just now able to see my Rogue post from last Friday!!! This sock post went up Oct. 28th. When did it appear in Bloglines for you? How annoying!)

Howdy! I hate that I haven't been able to post more than once a week as of late but man have I been busy. While there's still no word on my job, I've at least been able to rack up some extra hours. It has taken some of the edge off.

And Monday marks a milestone for me. I will no longer be a part of the 22-35 demographic bracket. Yes folks, I'll turn 36 this Halloween (Any other Halloweenies out there?). But you know, I'm not bitter and I'm not sad about getting older. So I have a few more pounds and wrinkles than I want but I also have gained great knowledge over the last three decades. As people have asked me what I want for my birthday, I've been given the opportunity to ponder my wants. And in the process I realize, I really don't have any "wants." I have everything that I want: great, loving friends; both of my parents and my brother; an incredible roof over my head; a loving husband and children; my health; a job; creative skills; I live in freedom - what more should I want? I personally know people who have tremendous health needs, who have recently lost loved ones, who long for love, who have lost their jobs. No, I have no wants. I'm just happy to have so much to be thankful for :)

Okay, on to what you really came here for, A Tale of Two Socks - the desert sock and the metropolitan sock. I joined Lolly's Socktoberfest (holy cow I just substituted a C for the S when typing. What on earth was I thinking?) in hopes that it would prompt me to finish a pair of socks that I started this summer. Well, that plan didn't work because I was distracted by a skein of Koigu that Heaz gave me that has been calling to me for several weeks. Tuesday night, I decided that I would use it to teach myself a new skill and discover the world of toe up socks (vs cuff down socks). Using Wendy's Knitty tutorial on the figure 8 cast on and with many false starts, I was finally able to get it started. I took the sock with me to a meeting in Richmond on Wed. and knocked out several inches over the course of two hours. Isn't it funny how people are so amazed by anything knit on double points, even knitters!



Me likie! Me likie a lot. And so does Thing 1 who shamelessly asked me if he could have them when they're finished since they look like Desert Storm camo. Considering that this is the first thing that he's asked me to knit him besides a thong (YIKES!), I will happily oblige him.

The sock bug has bitten me in a hard way. Whilst searching for more patterns online, I came across a footie pattern using cashmere. Now who just frogged an extra large men's cashmere sweater and has tons of this stuff sitting around? ME!!!! So I cast on for a pair of cashmere socks too after knitting a test swatch/bookmark to get a gauge sample. Mmmmm, cashmere socks.



Both of the Things commented on how uber soft this yarn is and I have to agree. Cashmere is some serious fiber crack. And it only cost me three bucks! Score. To add icing to the cake (have I mentioned that I'm jonesin' for some buttercream icing?), a friend of mine just gifted me with some old sweaters, three of which are cashmere. I only had the heart to frog one of them (that's the seafoam colored yarn that you see in the picture)though. Let's just say that I won't be frogging any machine stitched sweaters in the future - unless they're cashmere. What a pain in the arse! There were many, many, many, many tiny stitches to rip before you could even frog the yarn. But I'm here to prove to you that it can be done with minimal breaks in the yarn too. How dare anyone tell me that I can't do something?

And in line with the whole sock thing and to get a jump start on holiday knitting, I joined the Fuzzy Feet along that Crazy Aunt Purl dared us all to be a part of. I'm going to love knitting these and all of my family and friends will have happy warm feet for Christmas.

I also finished my first test knit - a Boy Toy dog toy for Annie's new book. It's not a good picture. As usual for Annie, the pattern was well written and fun to knit. Princess Mavis was not impressed but I would think that most normal dogs would have had a ball tossing him around.



She says that more toys are headed my way. I can't wait!

Zira's landed back in the states and has been out partying her monkey butt off (the little lush that she is).






She's hanging in Arizona where the temperature are twice those in SW Virginia - brrr! Check out Zira's blog for more on her adventures.

In an effort not to completely overwhelm you with too many photos, I'm going to post some of the fall pictures that you've sent me over the weekend. In the meantime, check out this sunrise I caught early last week.



We may not have beautiful fall foliage but day-um we can still rock the fall colors in other ways. I'm going to attempt to capture these colors in some hand dyed yarn over the weekend. Catch ya later.

***BTW, thanks for all of the compliments on Rogue. Can you feel me blushing? I *HEART* her so much!

Fantastic Foto Friday

Oy vey, what has happened to October? It seemed like just yesterday it began and now its almost over. I guess the good news is that we're that much closer to spring. The last week was such a blur for me. I trying to be proactive with the whole SAD thing that I'm almost 99% sure that I suffer from. I don't want to end up in the pit of despair that fell into last Winter. I've started a daily diary for the next month so that I can hopefully pinpoint the trouble spots before I go to my doctor for a professional diagnosis. I'm tracking my eating, exercise, the weather and stressors. I also bought a full spectrum (OTT) light that I plan to use when there's no sun (like today). I REALLY don't want to feel like I did last Winter ever again if I can help it.

Okay, so I owe y'all a ton of updates.

First up, the Fall Foliage update. I'm really hoping that people are busy taking pictures which is why they're slow coming in. Please oh please tell me that some of you have beautiful fall foliage in your part of the world.

Julie obviously loves fall as much as I do. She sent an entire portfolio leave picures. Check them out here. My favorite is this one.

Busyhands' tree in the front yard is quite the show off. Check this out this beauty.

Jane emailed this loverly photo to me.



Doesn't she have some incredibly vibrant color in Nova Scotia. What a gorgeous yard! BTW, she has a free range scarf design contest up on her blog. Check it out!

Finally, here's a shot of the foliage in my backyard.



Not much to get crazy over is it? :( That's why I need your pictures. Go ahead. Flash me. I dare ya!

Now, even though I had a rough time last week, I was able to movivate myself to finish a sorely neglected UFO. I FINALLY present to you, exhibit A. Dear sweet Rogue.



"Finally, she finished me! Woot Woot!"

Specs:
Pattern - Jenna's incredibly well written Rogue pattern
Yarn - Cascade 220 Tweed (the color is a brownish green sorry but I've lost the ball bands)
Needles - Size 6 and 7 Denises
Project timeline - Sept. 2004 - October 2005 (Day-um!)
What I learned and what I'd do differently - I learned a helluva lot about knitting the "right" way; that cables rule and are less intimidating than I originally thought; that it would have been easier to knit this in one block of time rather than over the course of a year plus; that a well written and sized pattern does wonders for your body image; that taking the time to finish a sweater properly pays off in the end.

It took some soul searching to figure out why it took me so long to finish her and came up with several reasons.

1.) I'm not happy with my body shape and wasn't thrilled with having to knit one of the larger sizes.

2.) I hate knitting seemingly endless rows of stockinette and after the wrist cables, the sleeves were just that.

3.) I didn't have the proper motivation to finish. However, I promised myself that I couldn't even open the box on my new cellphone until every last stitch was done, the ends were woven in and she was seamed and blocked. Needless to say, I was done in two days. BTW, all of the pictures in this post were taken with my new cellphone. While they're not fabulous, I think they're pretty damn good.

4.) I have major completion issues because I dread the thought of saying "goodbye" to anything (human or inanimate).

5.) Having not knit set in sleeves before, I was a nervous wreck about doing them correctly. Plus, my gauge in the round and on straights is different and even after many calculations, I wasn't positive that it would work out in the end.

Wouldn't you agree that I worried about absolutely nothing?

"Oh Happy Day!"

Check out those hoodie cables!

I finished it on Wednesday, which ended up being one of the hottest days we've had in years in October - near 80 degrees! However, today its in the low 60's and Rogue is oh, so warm and snuggly!

Now King Thing is bugging me to finish his handspun cabled vest. There are no sleeves so this baby should fly off the needles.

On the fiber front, there was no spinning this week. However, I finally found a cashmere sweater at the thrift store (I've been searching for a couple of weeks) and have been happily reclaiming its yarn. Its a beautiful deep red and will yield close to 2500 yards of laceweight yarn. Enough for many beautiful lace shawls and scarves. I think I'm going to have to share some of this with some of my knit buds because its so loverly :)

Oh and I almost forgot that I made a quick visit to the new location of Knitting Sisters while in Williamsburg to speak at the Virginia Library Association state conference. They have the most incredible selection of yarns - Rowan, Colinette, Noro, Lorna's Laces - just to name a few. And a mega ton of pattern books, including the new Noro Revisited by Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton. While I am no fan of Noro yarns, I love some of the patterns in this book. The pictures aren't up at the Knitting Garden yet but I do encourage you to check out this new book. It's worth it! As hard as I tried, I did not find that I needed anything but a skein of Lambs Pride for a test project, some Kookabura wool wash and a 40" Denise cord. Exciting huh? But at least I got to soak up some good fiber rays with other knitters. Happy knitting and spinning this weekend!

Second place is GREAT and Fall Foliage Foto Contest

How on earth can one person be so excited about second place? Most overacheivers, like myself, would be crushed to get second place because there was always the illusive first place. However, second place was the best thing to happen to me yesterday in a LONG time.

I had to pick up an insured package from USPS so I decided to do it after I'd dropped the boys off at school. I was excited because I thought that it was my new (and FREE) cellphone and being the gadget Ho that I am, I was dying to play with all of the cool features. When the attendant returned with this huge fluffy envelope, I was perplexed. After opening it, I found my entries from the Fall Fiber Festival. Now you may recall that I didn't get to go but that decision was made after I'd already sent my entries in. I'd honestly given up on seeing them again since I never heard that they'd received them. Well to my surprise, not only did I get them back but I also won ribbons for all three entries!

Do you remember these?



Okay, maybe you don't. The knitting Cheeky Monkey finger puppet(who actually needs to get his arse in the mail to Jen) and the skein of Finnsheep (that I spun this summer) both won second place ribbons!!! I also submitted a handspun Corgigora flower made from Princess Mavi's fur that won a third place ribbon!!! But what just made me goofy giddy was what SECOND place winners receive. Not just a ribbon but yarn. Handspun.Alpaca.YARN! Never before has second place felt SO DAMN GOOD! I may just permanently pin my ribbons on my chest since I've never won one before in my entire life. Between this wonderful package and fixing the garbage disposal (and saving $100 in the process), yesterday was a pretty damn good day. Of course, none of the Things could appreciate my excitement. Actually, no one besides my mom could relate which makes me all the more grateful that she's still here to celebrate with me (she's a 17 year cancer survivor). Thanks for being my biggest cheerleader, Mom!

A couple of quick personal notes.

1.) One herding dog + one hardwood kitchen floor = two sore wrists. Damn Corgi made me do a Michael Jackson spin in the kitchen that almost had me hit my head on the kitchen island as part of the process. It was so pathetic that that boys didn't even laugh. Needless to say, my wrists are quite sore today. All because she thought I wasn't taking her outside to pee fast enough. Damngoneit!

2.) I'm not sure how to respond to the comments about my brother. I'm flattered and yet embarrassed. Um, thanks, I think. If you're nice to me, maybe I'll post more pictures of his hotness in the future :)

Okay enough about me, me, me and lets talk about you, you, YOU!

Its time for the Second Annual Fall Foliage Foto contest. Here are the rules:

* I want you to flash me with your Fall Foliage. It inspires me, excites me and dog gone it, it makes me happy! Send in your close ups, your funky fun, artsy fartsy, goofy and glam pictures. Feel free to include family and friends, kids, pets, landmarks - whatever floats your boat. You may enter as many times as you like. I just want to see how fall looks in your part of the world. All I ask is that you use one of your original photos and that it was taken this year. Bad karma will knock on the doors of those who try to pass off photos that they didn't take. And none of us need that.

* The contest will remain open until November 14th because as you know fall comes to us at different times. I'll select my favorite photo and will also award a people's choice award that you'll get to vote on (more on that later).

* To enter, submit the link to your blog entry and/or photo by posting a comment in this blog entry. (Please include your email address and your name so that I have a way to contact you if you've won.)

* Winners will receive some of my handspun yarn and other fibery goodness that has yet to be decided.

I'll post regular updates of your photos over the next four weeks so keep checking back.

If you're interested, here are last year's entries. I expect to see ten times as many photos this year so start snapping those pictures!

Fantastic Foto Friday

Hello folks and welcome to another edition of Foto Friday. First, I'm going to flashback to late August when the warm winds were running through my hair, the sun was beating down on my head and I was lazily lounging on the beach with this view...



I can't believe that summer is gone already. ONLY seven months until its back again. If only I could find that Sugar Daddy who would wisk me away to St. Johns every Winter.

Anywho, next up is a flash forward to my backyard foliage as its starting to show its true colors.



I know that the colors in the photo aren't so vibrant but what you can't see is the pouring rain that we still have and me huddled under the deck umbrella to take the picture. BTW, as I was taking Thing 1 and 2 to school this morning, the song "It's Raining Men" came on the radio and I can't get it outta my head. Ponder with me for a moment what it would be like if it really did rain men. (((((hmmmmm))))

Okay, sorry to keep wandering off. My bro still hasn't coughed up the action shots that Thing 1 took during the graduation and pinning ceremony. Mine need to be lightened up and his are much better. In the meantime, here are some fam and museum pictures. Mom and Dad with the grandkids (As usual, Thing 1 thinks its cool NOT to smile in pictures).



Here's my brother and nephew with the Muse family (without King Thing, he was out of town).




I wish you could read his firefighter t-shirt that I gave him. It has 10 things that sound dirty when you're firefighter. Pretty damn funny stuff. And thanks for the comment about his cuteness, Lolly. He's actually a male model and photographer in his spare time. Here's one of his self portraits and modeling shots.



We think he's a cutie too but we try not to tell him he's good looking to his face because we don't want to inflate his ego - LOL!

At the museum last week, I even found a ball of yarn!



Its called something like a memory ball (shame I can't recall what its proper name). Native americans would tie beads onto their handspun yarn to mark significant events in their lives like rites of passage, marriage, death of family members, weddings, etc. I thought it was a neat concept. I may even make my own memory ball.

****Zira update**** The Monkey diva departed Singapore (after a long weekend in Bangkok) and her visit with Emy. Emy knows how to show a monkey a good time. Singapore is quite beautiful. Thanks again for being such a wonderful host! Zira's now winging her way to Tempe, Arizona where she'll spend some time where its nice and warm with Illanna. Illanna said "its cooling off below 100 degrees." Wow! Our temps have been nearly half that over the last few days. I'm so jealous.

I was so busy last week that I forgot to mention that I had a spinning session with Carrie. She had a beautiful Ashford Wheel and (gasp) a Celtic Knot Golding spindle. We played for nearly two hours and I forgot to take pictures. I hope that she'll plan to join our spinning group in the future.

Speaking of spinning, our little knitting and spinning group met last night and had a good ole time gabbing and playing with fiber (yup, forgot to take pictures). Everyone was flashing their loot from the Fiber Festival. So much beautiful fiber crack. I'm so glad that I didn't go. I'd be dead broke if I had.

And some knitting shots. This is a photo of the sample tote that I'm making to put up in Michaels (its blocking on a Nestle Cocoa box).



Its the Booga Bag in miniature form made with some salmon colored Cascade 220 (can you say stash bustin'?) and Moda Dea Cache.

Finally, what I've been working on. A Knitted Babe doll!!!



Her name is Finola because I made her out of my handspun Finnsheep singles - nyuck, nyuck, nyuck. Her specs:

* Pattern: "Knitted Babes" using handspun Finnsheep singles (thus the reason why it biased slightly after knitting)
* The Finn was tea stained after I knit her to give her more of a flesh tone.
* Hair is Manos
* Eyes and mouth are needle felted (eyelashes are bits of eyelash yarn stitched on)
* The sweater is a modification of the "Bubbles Cardigan" pattern in the book. I made it into a bolero and added ruffled sleeves. The yarn is some leftover Koigu and Lorna's Laces. The pin was made from a blown glass bead and a toothpick
* The tiny tote bag was a swatch sample that I'd felted for a friend and it just so happened to work for her.

She still needs some pants and I'm going to glam her with some accesories over the weekend. If I'm lucky, I'll have some students on Sunday to take the Knitted Babes workshop. Keep your fingers crossed.

I also scored a beautiful blue tweed sweater that I'm reaping for some serious yardage of yarn. But I'll save that and more for next week. Have a great weekend!

Caught in the Undertow

Boy did I get sucked right under last week. Sorry I went AWOL. Tons of things converged at the same time. I had so little time that I had to wake up early (like before 6 am - yuck) several times to cram everything into one day. Today is the first time I've had time to breathe in over a week. I'm not sure if I should enjoy it or just collapse into a heap. My body is telling to simply collapse.

So now I have some serious catching up to do. Lots of knitting has been going on but nothing with regard to my current projects Rogue and Kiri.

First off, I had to bust hump to get ready for my October workshops. I had less than a week to develop a class schedule, a syllabus for each class, in-store samples for each project, develop supply lists and order supplies for the workshops. I did it but I'm so worn out. I'm hopeful that if nothing else, I'll get some exposure and hopefully build a student base in the coming months. Now my time and energy turns to developing the workshops for November which are due on Monday. The good news is that I don't have to have the store samples ready for another couple of weeks so I can parse my time out accordingly.

With the expenses of supplies and promotions for my workshops, I had to make the heartbreaking decision not to go to the Fall Fiber Festival. We're tightening our belts in anticipation of the impending increases in energy prices this winter and after looking at a room full of fiber, I realized that I don't NEED any more (doesn't mean that I don't still WANT it though). I hated to miss getting to meet so many of you there :( There's always next year.

Me and Thing 1 and 2 spent a couple of days in DC and Maryland last week. My little brother still hasn't been called to active duty and made it to his firefighter graduation - YIPPIE! It was quite an impressive ceremony complete with bagpipes and drums. McGuyver Mom and Ebayman Dad made the trip up too. It has been since early summer that all of us were together so it was really nice to visit even if it was sort of harried.

This is a shot of my bro putting on his IAFF sticker (he was initiated on Thursday). Can you tell how happy he is?



I'll upload pictures of the ceremony, et all another time. It just requires so much energy and patience with Blogger and I don't have it this second.

On Saturday me and Thing 1 and 2 visited the National Museum of the American Indian before we headed home. Its one of the few museums in DC that we hadn't visited and I was anxious to see what it was like. We were most impressed. They did a beautiful job of catching the spirit of Native Americans and other Indians from around the world. If you're in the area, I'd highly recommend this museum as a must see.

So I left y'all hanging last week with a shot of purple and pink. A couple of guesses were close but no one hit the nail on the head. Here's another sneek peek of what I was working on.



Any other guesses?

So what samples have I been knitting for my classes? A short row scarf, a spiral scarf, the secret project, a felted tote bag, felted flowers, Harry Potter book scarves, mobius samples - oh yeah, I've been busy. It has been great fun working on all of these instant gratification projects. I'll have enough samples to give as gifts so that in and of itself is an added bonus.

And thanks to your feedback and the fact that I need some cheering up, I'm going to open up the 2nd Annual Fall Foliage contest next week. I'm dying to see what yours might look like since ours is slowly creeping along. I'd given up on any sort of foliage show until it began to rain yesterday. There's hope that it might be pretty after all. I need to get cracking on my weekly tree shot from behind my house. I'm waiting for the rain to stop though I'd be perfectly content if it didn't for quite a while. Man were we dry! There's some actual color starting to creep in. It does my heart good.

Start scoping out those shots and I'll post the rules early next week. As far as prizes, I'm pretty sure that I have some fall colored roving that I can spin up. Either way, I'll offer up some handspun yarn but I need to ponder what other goodies to throw in. Catch ya tomorrow!

What did the five fingers say to the face?

SLAP!!! (heh heh heh - a Dave Chappelle funny). Yes, I've been bitch slapped by life again and haven't had a spare moment to blog or knit much. I'll fill you in on Monday and hopefully things will calm down between now and then. The bummer is that I probably won't be able to make it to The Fall Fiber Festival now :( So if any of you go, please look for my entries in the fiber arts competition. One of the cheekies should be there. Have some fibery good fun for me and have a good weekend.

Football, Fall and Fiber

I had a little of all of my favorite "F"'s this weekend. The Hokie game against Georgia Tech was an absolute blast and a serious blow out - 51 to 7! It was orange effect weekend so the place was ablaze in one of my favorite fall colors.



In case you're wondering, yes I did take some knitting with me. The elderly guy checking bags at the entrance even commented "You gonna do some yarnin' during the game?" Yes, I naively replied or so I thought. When we got to our seats and realized that we had less than 12 square inches of space a piece, then I changed my tune. What was comical was that everytime the crowd stood up, we had to stand up or not only did you end up with a face full of ass but you couldn't move.

The trip out to Blackburg albeit overcast showed visible signs of fall foliage. Over the next few weeks, the foliage should be breathtaking. I would have loved to have taken pictures but King Thing decided to take me through Ellett Valley which I affectionately call twist, turn and hurl. I've gotten past most of my motion sickness over the years but this road does me in every time. This might give you an idea of just how bad the road is.

He somehow convinced me that it would be faster than taking the interstate and that he wouldn't go too fast. Yeah, right. By the time we pulled into the parking lot, I was a lovely shade of green. I never got sick but its the closest I've come in years.

In keeping with the tradition that I started last year, I started taking fall foliage progress pictures of the many trees that I get to watch from my backyard.



As you can see, they really haven't gotten very pretty yet. My hope is that we'll get some pretty colors in another week or so though it has been so dry that the leaves may just turn brown and drop off :( Should I do the fall foliage foto contest again this year? I really enjoyed all of your pictures from last year. Let me know if you'd be interested in sending them my way again.

In knitting and spinning news, I got very seriously distracted with another new project this weekend. I honestly think I need help. I can't stay focused to save my life. Here's a hint of what I worked on:



Any guesses on what it might be? Stay tuned. I hope to show you more tomorrow.

In other fibery good news, I have the new Spin Off though I've barely cracked the cover. I sent in some of my handspun Corgi yarn that will appear in the next issue. I also put some of my handspun Finn sheep to use as part of my sneaky project. I really like how it turned out.

The bleeding corset came out of hiding. Using these cool button pins, I temporarily put the buttons on her to see if I like them before committing to them 100%.



(pay no attention to the very bad hair day I'm having or the deer in the headlights when is the timer going to go off look)

What do you think? I'd love to find some different buttons but the colors have been difficult to match up which is why I went neutral. Overall, I'm pleased with the fit even if I do get sad everytime I look at the faded colors. I've lost about 7 pounds from the time that I first started the top and I can definitely tell. My hope is to wear this to the Fiber Fest but that will depend on the weather. I do have my Kyoto sweater as a back up.

I'm off for some post Pilates coffee. We just got digital cable and now have FitTV and DIY! Woo Hoo! Have a great week everyone!

First of Fall Fantastic Foto Friday

How's that for alliteration? To celebrate the first official day of Autumn and my favorite season of the year (couldn't guess that from my blog skin could ya?), I took a picture of the sun rising over the mountains behind my house this morning.







I'm also submitting these to Sandy's sky photo contest. You can win some great swag. Hurry though, the contest ends today at 5 pm EST.

Alrighty then, back to all of those photos, etc. I promised ya on Hump Day. First up, NOSO Knit. I had the absolute best time. I'd originally planned to stop in for a few hours because I didn't know that many people. But how can you be in a room with over 100 knitters and not make new friends. I'd only had a quick chance to meet Emmy over at Knitter's Review and by visiting her blog. She quickly found me in the sea of fiber addicts and is one of the sweetest people I've had the pleasure to meet in ages. I really do hope that I can catch up with her again in the future. Maybe at the Fall Fiber Festival.

I only snapped a couple of pictures because I was too busy talking. Anybody who knows me wouldn't be surprised :)



This one is of the woman from Scarves of Hope telling us about how the knitted scarves that were donated are given to women who are diagnosed with breast cancer. Her story was quite compelling.





And here are a couple of shots of just how many people were crammed into one room. There were two other vendors there besides the Fuchia Fleece: Yarn Theory from Bedford and Orchardside Yarn Shop from Raphine. Wonderful yarns and wonderful people = TONS of fun!!!

Next up is my reclaimed fiber adventure. This is not for the faint of heart. Ripping any knitted project is such a disturbing process it can bring you to your knees. I did find it interesting to analyze how machine knits are constructed as I was taking them apart. Here are some before and after shots:





Overall, this knit cooperated very nicely as I took it apart. It yielded about 850 yards of great quality yarn. The great thing about reclaiming yarn from a knitted project is that you can see how it will look when completed, you have a swatch for gauge and some idea of how it will wear. Even though this yarn looks stripey, its beautiful when knit. I can't wait to find a project for it.

The second sweater that I started ripping, did not go so well (its the light brown yarn in the above photo). It has angora mixed in it. I test ripped one sleeve and the family room looked like I had blown a dandelion in the air. It got up my nose, in my eyes, in my lungs - what a nightmare! I finally got smart and sat in front of the air conditioner return which so happens to be at waist level. It sucked every last bit of fluff up before it could escape into the air. HOWEVER, words escape me to describe this yarn. It as soft as a whisper and is dying to be knit into an openwork sweater. I will plod ahead and hope to avoid coughing up a hairball in the process.

I'm truly in alpaca heaven. This stuff is what dreams are made of. It's worth repeating, Kiri is a wonderful pattern. Its really hard to capture the color of the yarn in the skein as you can see below.



You can kinda see the color when its knit up. Here's a shot of the shawl so far.



I'm up to the fifth pattern repeat. I honestly prefer projects that shrink, not grow but I love this so much that I don't mind.

I had a panic attack as I was about to block Kiri so that I could take the picture. I went to grab a couple of extra Denise cords and they were nowhere to be found. After 30 minutes of frantic thrashing, they were found in a couple of long forgotten projects. Phew! I hate when that happens.

I'm off to see some Hokie football up close and personal tomorrow as the 'Burg hosts Georgia Tech and ESPN Gameday. Will I bring my knitting? I have yet to decide. I'll let you know on Monday.

* Edited to add: Little Miss Zira arrived on Emy's Singapore doorstep earlier this week and I've been negligent in posting about her arrival. Check out Zira's blog or show Emy some blog love and see what she's been up to. I would love to have gone with her since it seems like Emy likes food as much as I do :) Thanks for being such a wonderful host!

Have a great weekend! For those of you in the Gulf, you're a constant in my thoughts and prayers.