ArtFire fires away!

Hi friends, long time no post! I got on a photography tear today - probably inspired by watching my friend's son so she could do some photography work - and re-photographed and listed a bunch of items on my ArtFire site. Check it out here... linky-link-link!

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure...









I am blazing away on my Jaywalkers. I'm about 30 rows into the second one, but I have to keep moving quickly since these are technically my May socks - so I have 2.5 socks to go before the end of June!

I bought some beautiful Malabrigo yarn this weekend: Ravelry Red in their wonderful sock yarn. I can't decide what to do - socks, or shawl? shawl, or socks?? Hmmm!

2011 and still no flying cars.

What is UP with that?? I am very disappointed in science.

What have I been doing lately? LIVING. Not blogging about it, but LIVING.

Bradley and I in October...



Captain Jack & I at the same shoot...



Now, for knitting...

I FINALLY finished Branching Out for my mother. FINALLY. Blocked it using my wire set, and love the wire set.

I finished those red Austrian Socks, which felted in our new washer & dryer to the point that I can't wear them. Thankfully, my friend Jen has smaller feet than I, and she knits, so she is among The Knitworthy and will be receiving them as soon as I get them blocked [soon, Jen, I PROMISE!!].

Here they are, pre-felting:



For Christmas this year, we visited B's aunts & uncle who live in the Midwest. They live in a very small, quiet town, and I was able to knit to my heart's content! I finished the Waving Lace socks in KnitPicks Turtle Multi, and cast on the Padded Footlets for my brother.



I have a couple of other socks ready to go, but they are gifties, so I will post pictures after they are all blocked and in the mail to the recipients. No worries on the surprise factor; they know what they are getting, but I want to post nice pictures!

march madness

...but not the basketball kind. I survived the 3/15 deadline in style! Now it's the time for the 1040 clients. A coworker's wife is nearly due with their first child, and I knit a cute pair of booties and a matching headband with interchangeable crocheted flowers. Thankfully, I'm almost done with J's pillow cover - I picked up the invisible zipper and some perfect wooden buttons to finish it up.

The yarn for my brother's socks has arrived, so it's sitting on the kitchen counter being an inspiration every morning and evening. I'm tempted to knit up a pair of socks for myself between J's pillow cover and my brother's socks, but... yeah. He's been waiting a few months for these, so I will start on his as soon as I get J's cover finished.

I've learned I am definitely not a dog person. Captain Jack is a cute bundle of energy, but I just don't have the patience for this stage. I really miss being able to sit quietly with the cats, petting them in between rounds on a project... the constant watching and frequent calls to the dog are wearing on me. I am so comfortable with our decision not to have children - if I'm having this hard of a time with a dog that I can crate when he's out of control, I can't imagine how difficult of a time I would have with a kid!!! [since you can't crate them and leave without getting Child Services called on you (with good reason, of course)] Especially a kid that could TALK. UGH. Definitely not my cup of tea.

With the dog now crated for the evening (he was in that frenzy that children get into - too tired and strung out so completely hyper and out of his head), I can finally sit and enjoy a glass of wine and some knitting. Maybe even some cuddle time with Skye without a ball of fur coming and jumping on top of her... poor kitties.

BRAAAAAIIIINNNNNNNNSSSSSSSSSS

.... I do not has them. A puppy has eaten them!!!



He's gone from a tiny little lapful to a total lapful. His name is Captain Jack and he is a total boob pirate.


Oh wait, did I say that out loud??


Definitely not a dog person. Definitely not a kid person. My temper is too hot, and it's just ... I'm not ready for the 24/7/365 commitment.

And I hate the time suck away from my knitting!

I knit three washcloths for my mother for Christmas and packaged them up with some wonderful Burt's Bees soaps and hand salve. I made a neato flowered shirt for my oldest niece, based on a Martha Stewart wedding pattern...
She's a minor, so I've hidden her pretty young face from all the internet creeps! I made hair ties for the two younger nieces in pretty purples ----

WHOA something else I'm not used to is the MALODOROUS STENCH that emits from this dog's rump!!! I think I am going to VOMIT. ARGH!!!! He's worse than Bradley!

Anyways. So, all the knitting for Christmas gifts is done; now I can get back to knitting on my daddio's socks. I've finished the second sock's star chart, so now I get to zip through the rest of the sock. YAY!

Pattern Problems

So, I have to confess to spewing a lot of bad words over the weekend while working on the Eesti Hiking socks for my dad. The pattern isn't right in the book, so I found the corrections on Interweave's errata pages -- but THOSE were wrong, too!!! I was quite unhappy that I had to keep searching online and on Ravelry for what other people did to correct the problems.

Turns out, what you have to do is increase and decrease 10, not 8, stitches on rows 4 and 19. THEN you repeat the entire star pattern, just like it is marked in my version of the book - but NOT like it's indicated on the "corrected" chart on the website, which has you repeating only 2/3 of the pattern, not the full star band.

Once I figured out the problems, I was able to sail right along. My knitting style is Continental, and I grew up knitting English, so I was able to do the colorwork relatively easily. Slowly - but easily. I tried to use Continental for both colors, but I couldn't get it to work very well. I need to do some more reading/you-tubing to find out what I was doing incorrectly. I finished the colorwork last night, so now it's onward with the rest of the sock.

I'm still in love with the yarn, thankfully, even though the chart has a lot of loathing now. At least I have it figured out now, so the next sock and the other 2 pairs I'll be doing of this pattern will be MUCH easier.

Busy season

Busy season this year has been rough. Bradley and I bought a house and moved in mid-February - right when work began to be busy. One project had to be done immediately: the carpet in the living room and office area *had* to be ripped up and replaced (we put down slate tile). The carpet was old, stained, and disgusting, and once it was out, the air in the house cleared. I found it really interesting how much of a difference taking it out made - I left for work on Friday morning, annoyed at the old stale smell, and when I came home that night, it smelled like a different house.

As far as knitting goes, I have been working on a few different projects, even though I've been a total slacker about updating here. I knit up 3 pairs of baby booties on a commission from a coworker. The same coworker commissioned a baby blanket, which is a little more than 1/3 done. My carry-along WIP is a pair of socks for my niece. I also finally remembered to throw the swatch for my Sonnet sweater into the laundry last night; I have to measure it soon to see how my gauge turned out. Honestly, I probably won't pick that one up until well after 4/15.

My CPA license was approved recently, and as a reward to myself, I bought a Namaste bag. I am not one to spend a lot of money on purses since I abuse them, and this was a big purse purchase for me. Not more than $100, but still - a lot more than my usual $15 Target purse! I love it because it has enough room to carry a sock project, my coupon book, and my book club book.

OK - gotta get back to work - just a few more days of the insanity left!

little lilac top prep work

Since I finished the ribbed scarf #1, I decided the next thing I'd work on would be the Little Black Top from Stitch 'n Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook. If you go here and go forward through the pages, it's close to the end, opposite a cowgirl in a red bikini. Since this is an article of clothing, I'm being more careful about picking out the appropriate yarn and needles and such. I found this gorgeous MicroSpun from Lion Brand but it's not exactly the right gauge. It's also acrylic, and the pattern calls for Classic Elite Provence. So I guess I have to figure out how to adjust the pattern (and so I pull out Stitch 'N Bitch Nation). Knit Wits is this weekend, so I think I'm going to swatch it out on size 4s, 5s, and 6s, and see what the real pros at the group think.

I was nervous when I was starting the swatch with the size 4 needles - they are tiny and I'm afraid I will just snap them right into pieces.

No sales on Etsy in a while :( I put up an announcement about a sale ($10 off); my prices seem to be right in the middle of the range, so I'm not sure if I just need to promote more or what. My husband was pretty discouraging - I was looking at the free business cards over at Vistaprint, and when I asked him what he thought of a design I'd picked out, he suggested that I wait until I sell more before I do anything like that. Well, Etsy isn't that huge yet - so yeah, I might need to advertise some on my own. Most of the people I know that aren't crafty (ie, most of the people I know IRL) have never heard of it. Granted, we live in Florida, but still! People have friends and relatives that live in other (colder) states! Man. I was a little peeved over that, but whatever. I know he was just trying to be helpful.