Happy Spring - Sneak peak at a new pattern

Happy Spring everyone! I finally was able to log into Blogger this morning after many tries yesterday and write this post. Anyone else have trouble with Flickr and Blogger yesterday? Anyhoo, I've been stashing this pattern since August. Now that spring has finally arrived, I can give you a preview of my little flower friends.

Introducing the first of Las Florecitas - Rosa



Florecitas are palm sized flower dolls. Their arms are willowy leaves and their faces are modelled on real flowers. They are designed to sit firmly on surfaces. Suggested yarns include Manos, Malabrigo, Rio de la Plata and other kettle dyed, chunky weight yarns. Rosa is shown with Baby Sweet Pea who will be included as part of an accessories pattern.

(Scroll down for additional photos)

I plan to release several more of the Florecitas throughout the Spring. The pattern will be available through Ravelry but I'm still on the waiting list to add a storefront so it will be a bit longer before you can purchase it. I'd rather give Ravelry the percentage of sales than Lulu or Payloadz so I appreciate your patience. From what I understand, you will not have to be a member of Ravelry to purchase a pattern through them.

I have so many wonderful test knitters to thank for fine tuning this pattern. I'll send them mad props when I post about the pattern going live. In the meantime, enjoy the warmer weather, the longer days and the beauty of the emerging world this wondrous Spring. And Happy Easter, too!

40 Days - Past the halfway point

I'm on Day 26 of Louhi. She had to go into time out the better part of last week because of a challenge I had with one of the charts. Found out that it wasn't me but the chart and after a bit of surgery, I was able to pick it back up and work on it over the weekend. There are a bagillion stitches in each row so progress is slow but steady. I'm not giving up hope but I'll be hard pressed to finish this in 40 days. Here's a quick shot of her Week 3:



Last week was a busy week. It started with a pleasant bang, with a request for me to meet with the Governor as part of a small group of early childhood educators and supporters. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Needless to say, I was in a tizzy all week. And for nothing. Gov. Kaine is the most down-to-earth, laid back public figure I've ever had the pleasure to meet. Here's a shot from the blurb that made it on the news. I'm the one in the shockingly bright green top...



We "chatted" with the Gov. for over 30 minutes. No one ever gets that kind of time with him. What an honor to have been a part of that opportunity. I even got to talk with him afterwards. I'm still shocked that I was asked to join the group.

The day before meeting the Gov., I hosted a Filipino cooking party. Some friends of a friend came over and taught me how to make lumpia and pancit - two of my childhood favorites! Yummmmmmmmmm.





And while Louhi was in timeout, I cast on for a Hokie bird version of Anna's latest creation, "Which Came First?"



and a Baby Kimono using Bernat Cashmere



Yes, indeedy. It was a VERY good week :)

Heartfelt Dolls

(Cue the french music)

Introducing a couple of little additions that were late arriving for Valentines Day.

Pierre



and Jean Claude



Specs:

Pattern: Berroco Heartfelt

Yarn: Araucania Nature Wool Chunky

Mods: Added needle felted eyes, moustache and hair using roving and i-cord arms

These little cuties are so quick to knit up and would have made great Valentines if I'd found out about the pattern sooner. I don't think it was included in the Berrocco Knitbits newsletter and I only found it through Ravelry's new newsletter.

40 days

For Lent this year, I decided to make a commitment - a challenge of sorts - instead of giving up something for 40 days and 40 nights. My challenge (albeit a shorter version): The Louhi Coat by Finnish designer, Tuulia Samela.



If you're on Ravelry, you can access her profile and designs HERE. Click HERE for her blog and the Louhi pattern.

I had forgotten how much I love cables until I started swatching for this project. The twists. The turns. I am so enamored with how each one develops. I'm 15 days into the project and I have a sleeve and am 70% finished with the hem strip.





All out knitting of the body will hopefully commence by this weekend. This thing is going to be blanket sized before its all said and done. This is the only instance where I'm glad that its still cold and will use it to keep me warm in the evenings. I'm sure that I'm overly ambitious in thinking I can finish this behemoth in 40 days but damned if I'm not going to try. By the way, the yarn is Patons Classic Wool in Denim Marl.

Ya'll, I miss my little puppy more than I can put into words. I came home after dropping Thing 2 off at school, opened the door and forgot that her little nose wasn't going to push it the rest of the way open in a possible effort to run away. I swear I think I saw her. I burst into tears, the kind that stain your face for hours and make your chest ache.



These sweeties have helped ease the pain. I can't help but smile when I see them guarding my knitting.





Just look at the detailed paws. Too cute for words. Order your favorite pet or animal from Wee Ones, if you must have some. Thanks CM. I. LOVE. Them!

Superbowl Shaun

I had the most fun watching this year's Superbowl than I have in ages. What a great game and what fun ads. For those who don't know, I'm a HUGE fan of commercials. I might have been the only person in the US who was using the DVR to rewind the commercials instead of the game. My favorite - the Bridgestone "Screaming Squirrel". La casita de Muse loves rodents so we're a bit biased. I had to give the Tide "My Talking Stain" a strong second place. It reminded me of the Steve Correll mumblese from Bruce Almighty.

Oh yeah, knitting. There was quite a bit of that during the Superbowl. I cast on and finished 80% of Shaun the Sheep from the original Patons pattern I was able to find thanks to the kind peeps on Ravelry.



I still have to finish his legs and I'm not sure I will make the sweater or not. And there was no way that I was going to knit and seam a bazillion little pieces so I knit everything in the round. I used Berroco Plush for the body and its not a bad substitute for sheepy looking wool. I used the same ball of yarn for my Snome and had just a titch left over. I love the softness but its hard to keep up with the stitches and its pretty dammed expensive for novelty yarn.

Last week I was in sunny, warm Coconut Grove in Miami Florida. This is the view that I woke up to each morning...



Alas, my trip was for work so there was very little fun except for a wonderful poolside Mojito at our hotel, the Sonesta Bay (their's was hands down the best of all I tasted while we were there) and dinner at an incredible Cuban restaurant. The locals were "freezing" and it was 75 - 80 while we were there. If that's freezing, count me in!

Whilst in the meetings that started at 7:30 and ran until 7 pm each day, I worked on the Wollmeise wrap that I'd cast on the week before.



Thanks to Ravelry, I now have a crazy insane love affair with German and Scandinavian patterns. I decided not to make it a mobius as written because I get claustrophobic. I cast off on Saturday only to find that I'd like it to be a bit longer (its currently 60"). I want something that reminds me of the mountains and bodies of water from the region and love how the main part turned out. I'm going to add on to at least one of the ends, maybe both, and use a drop stitch pattern that will look like rain to add to the motif. I found all but two skeins of yarn in my stash and about 1/3 of it is handspun (Yippie! I'm finally starting to do something with it). I'll do a photoshoot once I can really wrap it around me. This is a very fun and funky pattern!

In non-knitting news, I bought one of those nano ionic hair styler thingies. Doesn't sound exciting but then again, my current blow dryer is 24 years old and refuses to die. Yes, you heard me right, I've had it since I was 14 and its still going strong. Anyhoo, this thing works so well I could just cry. It used to take me 30 - 40 minutes to dry my hair and now I'm done in like 15. For fun we straightened Thing 2's naturally curly hair and POOF, Leif Garrett appeared in our living room. Scary, huh?

Snow Day!!!!

After many weeks of hearing from Thing 1 and 2 "when is it going to snow?" We finally got a decent snow and thus school was closed today.


View from the front door


View from the deck

I love a good snow day as long as we don't get too many of them. Some of the magic of a snow day has disappeared since I've been telecommuting for the last four years and am home most of the time anyway. But it is nice to watch big fluffy flakes of snow fall quietly outside of my office/knitting room window. Even the piggie got to play in the snow though I can tell you that she doesn't like it nearly as much as she does the beach.

Piggie in the snow



Brrr. Let me in guys...

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been a spinning fool since the holidays. For some reason, I hit my spinning stride every January and don't slow down until late Spring. Robin told me about NaSpiMoMo - National Spin More Month that was started by Margene. Its cool to see what people are spinning up daily around the globe. And I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who tends to spin and pet the resulting skeins of yarn. I hope that this is the year that I actually figure out what to do with some of the yarn.

One of my spinning goals for 2008 is to spin finer weight yarn. After lots of practice and disappointing results, I've finally been able to harness the power of sweet Arwen, my wheel and spin fingering weight plied yarn. These two practice skeins came off the wheel within the last week. Both are 28 WPI (plied) with approximately 110 yards per ounce.

Woodbridge "Raja" gifted to me by Robin




"Creatively Dyed Corriedale"



I'm thrilled that I can spin this fine though its not something I want to do all the time. I feel like a spider spinning threadlike singles except not as fast. I have two ounces left of the Raja and about 6 ounces left of the Creatively Dyed fiber to spin this fine and then I think I'm going to take a break from fingering weight fibers. The fun part about spinning the Creatively Dyed roving is experimenting with how I split the roving. The first ounce was split in half and then torn into 8 inch sections in an effort to produce long lengths of color. The second ounce that I'm working on now was also split in half but then I split each length into 6 sections. I can't wait to see how different each ounce spins up.

Not much happening on the Jeanie front. I've knit almost an inch over the last day or so its almost mini skirt length.



Since Jeanie will take many a fortnight to finish. I plan to periodically distract you with other FOs. Like these convertible mittens that were finished and gifted to a friend's daughter after the first of the year.



I'm about to cast on a couple of Shaun the Sheep projects to help break up my current knitting boredom. Anyone have some ideas on what I should cast on next?

First post of 2008

Sorry I've been mia from bloglandia even though there has been much knitting and craftiness since I posted last. If you're looking for knitting and pictures, skip to the bottom of this post.

As you know, 2007 ended on a sad note and it was very hard to get out from under it. There were and still are many tears. We ended the year with three fewer family pets than what we started with and I think it was too much for all of us. The ban on new pets didn't even last a month. I caved and let the boys buy two fire bellied frogs at PetSmart yesterday. They're beyond happy and that's all that matters. We're NOT getting any more dogs, guinea pigs or cute fuzzy critters. Those are the ones that end up breaking your heart in the long run even though we love them dearly.

Many thanks for everyone's love, empathy, tears and support through our pet crisies this year. We are so grateful to have so many friends both far and near. Your friendship is a blessing to our family.

And my promise not to knit anyone Christmas prezzies was not held this year either. However, I did not engage in any stressed out deadline knitting for the first time in many years. My motto for the holidays was: "it is what it is and nothing more". I think because of that attitude, I finished every gift that I decided at the last minute to knit.

A comfort lamb (knit before, during and after the loss of Mavis) for me



A Tam for Mom



Handspun Socks for Hubby





Baby gifts for both of Thing 2's teachers who are expecting





Now on the sewing front, I didn't do so hot and several things were finished after the holidays. I was lucky that I didn't see some of the people they were intended for until then. In addition to making and gifting well over a dozen wrist therapy wraps, my favorite sewing project for Holiday 2007 was The P3 - Pyramid Project Pouch.



These and the wrist therapy wraps will be available soon in my Etsy shop. The P3 is perfect for a sock or lace project or to tuck just a couple of things into and zip to the store. There's a detachable wrist strap toggle that can easily clip to a belt or to a larger knitting bag. I've got some yummy Anna Maria Horner fabric that I'll be making some out of before the end of the month. I hope that the recipients enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed making them.

After the holidays, I got in some much needed leisure knitting and spinning. I cast on for Jeanie using Prism Lace Wool in the Copper Penny colorway.



The yarn is as soft as most cashmere but the laceweight is quite wispy and this is not a speedy knit. I did some math (in and of itself a major feat) and found that at the rate I'm knitting (8 rows = 1 inch/per two hours), I'll finish the entire project in 140 hours. I'm 6", 1 1/2 repeats and 12 hours in. I'm shooting for the end of March unless the magic fairies come and help me. (((Sigh))) If I finish Jeanie, it will be the first major project in laceweight I've ever completed. Stay tuned.

I now have a whole shelf full of handspun yarn that I can't figure out what to knit with. I love the process so very much that I can't stop but I know that I should commit these babies to projects. I added two more to the pile since Christmas.

Creatively Dyed Yarn/Roving



My original hand-dyed yarn named "Mermaid"



If you're looking for details on any of these projects, click on the photos or check out Ravelry (Indigomuse).

I only posted 36 times last year. I hope to do a better job this year. Thanks for continuing to read about my fiber adventures.

Mavis and the Rainbow Connection

The Rainbow Connection that Kermit sang in The Muppet Movie is still one of my all time favorite songs. Even when I was a kid, the song would make me cry when I heard it because rainbows and all the hopes and dreams that they symbolize, hold a special, unexplained place in my heart.

On Saturday, I found myself singing this song to sweet Mavis, the wonder Corgi as I helped her over the rainbow bridge.







Mavis
Dec. 22, 1992 - Dec. 8, 2007

We took her into the vet with the intention of scheduling surgery for a blown disc in her back and found by accident that she had huge cancerous tumors on her liver and lungs. Saying goodbye and having to make the decision to let her go is the hardest thing we've ever had to do. We spent a third of our lives with her. She was like the middle child. She vacationed with us, shared our food (even though we know she wasn't supposed to) and endured the brattiness of two kids. She loved the beach and the snow (and got to play in the first snowfall we had on Wed.), hated cameras and lightning and refused to fetch anything. She escaped from the yard anytime she was given a chance, chewed the buttons off of my handknit Annie Modesitt corset (yup, she ruined it), jumped on the furniture when she thought we wouldn't notice and rolled in yucky stuff everytime we gave her a bath. The daughter of champion AKC registered Corgis, she'd agressively herd you in the direction she wanted you to go in at a moments notice. She shed non-stop (I'll be vacuuming up her fur for many, many months), gave us big kisses with her Gene Simmons-like Corgi tongue and was the most fiercely loyal friend you could ever ask for.

Mavis wasn't with us nearly long enough but the time she shared with us will last a lifetime. We were so blessed to be owned by such a loving animal. Thank you for choosing us, sweet Mavi.

Wrist Therapy Wraps

Thanks for your sweet comments on the Knitjas. I'm still tweaking the pattern and hope to have it up soon. As with Chichi and hopefully all future patterns, I'm going to give a portion of the proceeds to charity. Its not much but I certainly want to use my powers to do some good in the world if possible. I'm thinking that the Knitjas will help out Heifer's Kids 2 Kids program or perhaps investing through Kiva. Any other suggestions? I'm all ears.

I've made the Handmade Holiday pledge this year even though I haven't gotten around to putting the badge on my blog. However, after nearly killing myself the past few Christmases with pain inducing, frantic, last minute knitting, I'm going to use my crafting skills to primarily sew my gifts this year. So I've arranged my assembly schedule over the next couple of weeks and hope to give you some ideas for fun last minute handmade gifts.

First up, thanks to the crafty divas at SewMamaSew, wrist therapy wraps.

I used their idea for Rice therapy bags and tweaked the pattern so that I could make them into wrist wraps. I admit that I had a selfish motivation to make these because my wrists have been bothering me as of late from some very tedious knitting and its hard to keep something flat like the traditional cold packs wrapped around your wrist.

They have velcro to help them stay put and a homemade hot/cold herbal insert that was a blast to make. I'll update this post with a tutorial and more details when I have more time. I know some knitter friends of mine who will be getting these for holiday gifts (sorry to spoil the surprise). Perfect for crafters, seniors or anyone who has aching body parts.

Happy holiday crafting everyone!