Sucker Punched

My friend Jonathan made the speculation today that "It seems like winter was just hiding until it could jump out and sucker punch us in February." True, true. I don't think I turned on the heat at all during January and I know for sure I wore short sleeves at least once last month. But now it's game over. The temperatures have been hovering around freezing and the wind has been gusting at 35 miles per hour all weekend. I came home on Saturday night from a baby-sitting job/visit with friends and immediately went to turn on the heat. The heater ran for 2 hours with no change in temperature. I called maintenance and I'm running on "emergency heat" (yes, that's an actually setting on my thermostat) until they can come look at it tomorrow. At least I have this magical "emergency heat" or this would have been a very unpleasant weekend.

I've really been loving the Year of Knit Alongs that I'm hosting on the Eastern European and Russian Orphanages Project's Ravelry page. Every month I've managed to pick some designs that people are actually pumped to do. Of course I like them, I picked them! I finished the Mossy Ridge Socks (sadly no picture). And started a Citron Shawl. As per my last post I decided to make this using worsted weight wool because the thought of actual lace kind of gives me hives. So I picked out a light purple yarn and some size 6 needles and started plugging away.

I knit the whole first section and started the second. But something was bothering me. The yarn is acrylic (don't shoot me, I have a lot that needs to be used up and I'm broke). The needles are kind of small for any worsted weight. The combination of the small-ish needles and the unforgiving acrylic was too much. My hands were killing me. So, I did the only sensible thing to do and ripped the whole thing out. I didn't want to do it but I knew I would have been miserable if I didn't. There was a whole episode with the ball winder and the skein tangling and me cursing and then cutting up bits of acrylic yarn and threatening to burn it and then I was done and I had this:

3 decent sized balls and a tangled mess which I promptly threw in the trash. One thing I will not do is cry over tangled acrylic. Then I grabbed up a pair of size 10.5 needles and started once again. Much better. In 13 days I now have this to show for it:

I nearly completed shawl. I'm on the edging right now as we speak. Just 5 more rows to go and this bad boy will be finished. I'd love to do some more charity knitting but I think that the rest of this month will be devoted to projects for other people. I've set a goal to finish my sister in law's socks this month.

Which means I better get going. And I also want to finish at least a square and half of the wedding blanket.

Which might actually be do-able since I'm already almost half way through the next block (the black one on the right in the picture above). The blanket will be easy because it's mindless and I can work on it while I read articles for school online. The socks are another thing. I kind of have to pay a little more attention to them. Either way just these two projects are coming with me when I go on a little road trip for school next week. Stay tuned to see if I can meet my goals!

Project count up:
Charity: 3 completed, 1 on the needles
Self: 0
Family and friends: 2 on the needles

Big News

I have so much to tell everyone! So much in fact that I'm going to do it in small doses. Which means you'll have to come back later to find out what the bigger and biggest news is :)

The big news is that the Month of Love ends tonight! If you haven't posted to the EEROP Ravelry forum about your love themed knitting then do so today so that you can be entered into the drawing for a little post-Valentine's day surprise.

Part of the big news is also that my first festival of 2011 is coming up March 17-19. It's the Smoky Mountain Fiber Festival in Townsend, TN which is located relatively close to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. If you will be attending please stop by and say hello (and let me have a bathroom break as I will probably be working this festival alone and would appreciate the opportunity)!

Sadly I don't have any really big knitting news. I made a swatch of some sock yarn. Trick or Treat colorway as a matter of fact. But I haven't washed and blocked it so it just looks like a little rolled piece of knitting. I have almost finished R. J.'s blanket though!

I'm pretty impressed with how quickly this has gone. A little over a week's work and I'm almost done. It is a small blanket (only about 26" by 26") but I think that's helped keep it from getting too boring. Adding in the color block in the middle also helped keep it interesting. For some reason I'm under the delusion that I could never knit a full sized blanket. But I've already made 2 baby blankets and I didn't get bored or overwhelmed with either of those. Maybe some day I will have the gumption to tackle a bigger one.

Stitches South

Did you think you were in the wrong place for a minute? :) Some of the changes that are/were being made to the blog actually got made a little ahead of schedule. My tech guy was free last night and he had the new logo all ready to go so we went ahead and changed the layout. My goal is to have everything fully updated by this weekend. By Saturday you should be able to link to this page through the Vivid Creation Fibers website and I should have a new updater thingy (that is the technical term for it I think) that will make posting to Twitter easier for me. The shop also got a new layout and the updated logo. More changes will be made by Saturday over there as well. And on Saturday I plan to launch my new names! I decided that I did want to change my Twitter and Ravelry names. As Kay pointed out in the comments, the Knifty Knitter is actually a loom knitting device (something I've never actually used in fact) and, while the name is catchy, it isn't unique. I'll be changing both user names to VCFibers. I think it's short, it's easy to share with people, it's easy to remember, and it connects me to my shop/company. Remember that on Saturday I will also be opening the Blog Relaunch Contest. You'll have to check back then to get the details of how to participate. Alright, on to Stitches South!

Day 1:
I took the day off work on Friday to go to Stitches South. I didn't take any classes this year (because up until a month ago I was planning on being a vendor, that, obviously, fell through) so I just went to explore the market. I'm one of those people who has to see everything there is before I can start to make decisions about what I really want. One thing I had to have was a picture of me with the entire Ravelry crew.

They were having a meet up in the concession area and I was waiting for a friend to come look over some samples for a custom order. It was like meeting celebrities. In the sense that it made me hot and sweaty to be near them and I was suddenly struck speechless. Which was pretty much how I felt when a few minutes later I went to meet Rachael (a.k.a. Yarn-a-go-go) and get her to sign a copy of her book, How to Knit a Love Song.

Thankfully Rachael is very nice and seems unfazed by the nervous, sweaty fan girl types. Plus she actually flagged someone down to take this illegal picture of us. And she took my business card. Which is nice because I'm practically a no body and she still seemed genuinely interested in meeting me. I went home and read the first 5 chapters of her book that very same night.

There was only one yarn purchase made on Friday.

A skein of Little Traveller in Springwater Isle from the Sanguine Gryphon. I love these colors and she always has such nice yarn. Plus I knew that it might be snatched up by Saturday.

Day 2:
When I came back to the market on Saturday I had calculated just what I needed to get and where I needed to get it from. I'd gone home and thought about what I wanted to purchase and had restocked the cash supply. The main thing I wanted was some Valley Yarns Amhurst in shades of green from WEBS.

I think I spent 45 minutes at the WEBS booth trying to calculate how much yarn I was buying, how much it would cost, and how much more I would need to buy to get the 20% discount. Turns out, not much more.

4 skeins of Northhampton

A skein of Colrain (50% wool, 50% tencel)

And a bottle of lavender Eucalan. The green yarns will become some sort of color work boys sweater. I think the Northhampton will become a hat or 2 and the Colrain I'm going to try and dye to see how the tencel takes color. The Eucalan I got because I'm forever in need of a no rinse soaking soap.

However, one of the coolest things I got on Saturday was something I paid exactly zero dollars for.

I was wandering the market killing time before I had to meet up with some Rare Purls friends for lunch and my friend Albert forwarded me a message from Kimberly, one of the Stitches South coordinators and someone I follow on Twitter. She was having a giveaway. All I had to do was find her and answer a simple question. Funny thing was, I had passed her twice in the last 15 minutes so I knew exactly what she was wearing. I had to hunt for about 10 minutes but I finally ran into her. Turns out she had taken a picture of a booth and I had to tell her which booth it was. I pulled up the picture on my phone and immediately recognized it as the Socks That Rock! sign from the WEBS booth. My prize?

This gorgeous yarn bowl from the Knit Witch. Very cool.

The rest of Saturday was spent meeting up with friends and looking at yarns. It was a rainy and yucky day but it ended up being a great one. I can't wait until 2011 when I can do it all again!

I Feel a Change in the Wind

Tonight a great meeting of the minds happened at the Mellow Mushroom just down the street. Me and my friend and tech guru Albert got together to discuss some changes that are in the works. I mentioned briefly at the end of Tuesday's post that there are going to be some changes to the blog soon. Albert has been hard at work designing a new logo for Vivid Creation Fibers and also working to mesh the blog and the store. Next Saturday we'll be moving everything to the www.vividcreationfibers.com site. What does this mean for you, the reader? Well, thankfully it seems that none of my old blog posts will go away. And I should be able to update from Blogger and export to the new website. The layout will be a little bit different but no drastic changes. The biggest thing is going to be making sure that the whole process goes smoothly and making sure that, if need be, we put up redirection links. Now it will be easier for people to get from the shop to the blog or vice versa. There will also be a link to my charity group on Ravlery. The hope is that everything will be more streamlined and cohesive.

To show my thanks for bearing with me through this whole process I'm going to offer a little giveaway. There will be 5 prizes up for grabs:

(from L-R): 1 skein of Captain Planet BFL sock yarn, 1 skein of Trick or Treat BFL sock yarn, a copy of Fabulous Felted Hand Knits, a copy of dominKNITrix, and a copy of the Big Book of Knitting

Contest rules will be explained on the day of the new blog/shop launch which is set to be May 1st. Until then keep checking back for updates!

Another thing we had contemplated with the change of the blog and the shop is that I might change my Twitter and Ravelry name. I thought it might be helpful to sort of tie everything together. What are your thoughts on this? Should I stay thekniftyknitter or should I change to reflect my upcoming re-branding?

Party in the U.S.A.

Tonight many a fun happenings were going on. First, my friend Jonathan (of the alpaca scarf fame) was out and about town pushing his first book.

My mom and I meet up at the Border's near her house and listened to Jonathan give a short talk/reading and then got some books signed. If you are an environmentalist you should check it out. And if you are a Christian you should definitely get this book, regardless of your stance on the environment.

Love the little note he wrote me inside.

If I write a pattern book he is so getting a copy.

After the book signing I hightailed it over to the Cobb Galleria to the Ravelry party at Stitches South. This was the only good picture I got of Mary Heather, Casey, and Jess.

I plan on stalking finding them tomorrow in the market.

The party was great fun. I ran into some friends. Had a drink. There were gift bags and a giveaway. And a chocolate fountain (that I successfully managed to stay away from thankyouverymuch).

I'm not taking classes this year so I'm going just to hang out in the market, knit, and enjoy myself. Which means I should probably get a project together for working on. Details, details. Now please excuse me while I go pass out from exhaustion.

Unproductively Productive

I'm feeling as though I have accomplished nothing today despite the fact that I have actually done a lot.

I started today by skeining 2 pounds of sock yarn for dyeing (I did 1 pound last night).

 Still life with left over sock yarn bits, scale, empty cone and partial swift.

My arms were absolutely killing me from having to push the skeiner and the swift by hand. At least I'll have killer upper arm muscles. The only thing I'm asking for for my birthday this year is an electric skeiner. So everybody just pitch in and get me the best one you can afford (preferably the 2 yard, motorized one with the electronic counter...).

After skeining I took a small break to finish up the little girl's vest I have been working on.

It's a (very) slightly modified Keep Me Warm vest and will go to the Adoption Center of Washington.

The vest turned out super cute but I almost passed out when I realized how many ends I had to weave in. I think there were 19,765. Yep, pretty sure that's how many there were. Just check out the underarm of one of the sleeves.

And, if you don't believe me, here's the underarm of the other sleeve.

And that's just for the front side!

When I'd finished up the vest I ran some errands for supplies. Some for a secret project.

And some office supplies for mailing off my taxes. Then it was off to the post office to mail said tax information. Ran into some friends while there and chatted for a bit. Back to the apartment. Dye 3 pounds of yarn. Begin work on secret project. Change clothes and get ready for dinner with a friend.

So, today was actually productive. My mind is just trying to be tricksy since I'm on Spring Break and not working the usual 9-5 (or 8-4 as the case may be).

A side note: If you are looking for a quick and easy charity project take a look at the April/May KAL on the Eastern European and Russian Orphanages Project group on Ravelry. The scarf pattern I picked is easy but not boring and the owner of my LYS has offered to donate yarn if anyone needs some! Plus there are pictures of cute kids and beautiful countrysides so you should stop by and take a look anyways :)

Happy Good Friday everyone! And happy Spring Break to all the GA teachers and students :) Today is my 1st full day off of Spring Break 2010 and I couldn't be happier. I'm trying to get some cleaning and laundry done so that I don't have to worry about it for the next week. I've got a lot of stuff to catch up on but I already feel productive this morning. I've finished getting everything together for my taxes, paid lots of bills, done 2 loads of laundry, and updated a few things on the EEROP forum on Ravelry. Speaking of...I've added a little EEROP button to my blog. If you are a member of the Eastern European and Russian Orphanages Project group on Ravelry please feel free to use this button on your blog as well (just right click on the image and save it to your computer). If you aren't a member of the group but want to support charity knitting for orphans click on the button and join our group on Ravelry. And speaking of charity knitting...I finished up some big mittens for H to H International.
These go with a matching hat and slippers and make up the second set of charity items for H 2 H that I've made this year.
The goal was one set a month. This was supposed to be February's set but, obviously, I'm a little behind. I expect I can catch up during the summer months. I'm still trying to contribute 1-2 items a month to other charity organizations as well. Like this sunny little vest.
This is a vest that will go to the Adoption Center of Washington. Again, a little late on this vest as the ACW was the chosen organization to knit for during Feb. and March. I currently have a lot of ideas and thoughts concerning charity knitting floating around in my head but I'll save that for another post after I can organize my thoughts.

Ok, so now something totally different.

I finished a really good book the other night and I thought that I would share it. When I was a kid my passion was reading and I still love to do it though I find I have less time and there are less books out there that I want to read. When I was growing up I loved collections like the Baby-Sitters Club because there was always a new book coming out, and yet, many of them could stand alone (meaning you didn't *have* to read the book before it to understand what was going on). There aren't really any book series out there like that for adults. Which is a shame. Anyways, I often find myself picking up young adult lit because it's an easy read but, if you find the right book, well written. The book I finished was an example of such.
Princess Academy by Shannon Hale was delightful. It had the strong female lead, a touch of young, innocent romance, trials to overcome, and a few plot twists at just the right time. By chapter 18 I ended up staying up late at night reading the last 8 chapters to see how it would end. Highly recommend.

Off to finish laundry!

Spring is Springing

It seems like just yesterday everyone was bracing for Snowpocalypse 2010. The start of this week saw temps up in the 60's. Today it started raining and it doesn't look like it's going to stop until this weekend. It's nice to think that things might start warming up though. Fall and winter seemed to last forever. Not that I'm complaining too much. There is all that knitwear to make and don. Speaking of...

A few weeks ago I wrapped up a top down sock class that I was teaching at my LYS, Rare Purls. I'm very hands on and like to knit an example along with the students so they can see exactly what I'm talking about, especially with socks. I made this pair out of worsted weight so that I could demonstrate the basic construction.
They fit me but I'm not sure that I need worsted weight 100% wool socks. Might be a little too warm for here in Georgia. I mean, it only snowed twice here this year. Instead I'm going to send these in to a charity where they will get much more use. They are nice and soft though.

In January my goal was to have 3 projects on the needles at all times: 1 for charity, 1 for self, and 1 for friends/family. With the wool socks done I needed another charity knit so I cast on for a little vest.
This is a variation on the Keep Me Warm Vest designed for the Wool-Aid group on Ravelry. I'm making it for my group on Ravelry: The Eastern European and Russian Orphanages Project. This month's charity is the Adoption Center of Washington. They help organize adoptions from Russia and the Ukraine (as well as China and Vietnam). When I emailed said they actually have a lot of hats and scarves to send but the could use a few more sweaters, mittens, socks, and vests. If you'd like to donate stop on by our little group and see how to send in your items.

Ok, so the vest is one thing on the needles, the trick or treat socks for myself are the second things (P.S. Those socks are going to take forever to finish. Progress is uber slow, but steady.). And the third thing on the needles...well, there isn't anything. Yet. I'm going to go through the store stash and pull out some multi-colored bulky yarn to make my future SIL an unoriginal hat (because we did determine that she wanted something other than black). Pulling from the store will be ok since I'm going to be adding some new products soon (more aran). Here's a sneak peek of a new color called Cindy Lou Who:
I think I might have to add another "on the needles" category though. I'm thinking I need to include shop samples since I've started making some of those as well. The first thing I made was a cabled cowl from Freedom Wool.
I'm teaching a class on this at my LYS. This cowl took all of about an hour to make. I still have this great teal colored mohair blend.
It will be transformed into this. Well, the ascot at least. I'm probably not going to make the beret. So, yeah, that needs to go on the needles soon.

While all this knitting is going on (along with the usual trying to keep the apartment clean and dealing with another illness) I've allowed myself to get a little distracted by a couple of good reads.
Oh yeah, I had to get the latest issue of Rolling Stone. :::drool::: Who doesn't love Shaun White? And then I turned to the inside and found this:
Billy Corgan, my fav rocker of all time. Also droolworthy in my book. Ok, focus, have socks and a vest to finish...

Ravelympics Recap

Get it? "Recap"...because I made a bunch of caps for the Ravelympics...

Ok, now that you've split your sides with laughter, let's take a look back on the last 17 days. I'm really sad that the games are over. I've always fancied myself more of a summer games girl but after immersing myself in just about every obscure winter sport there is, I think it's safe to say that I'm an Olympics Fanatic. Summer or winter. I seriously saw things I didn't even know you could compete in. And I was fascinated. My favorite event was the men's snowboard half-pipe (kind of ironic I competed in the Hat Half-Pipe for the Ravelympics). The US guys are totally talented and beyond hott (yes, with 2 t's).

Eh hm, anyways...

The wrap up.

Hat #1 was an Unoriginal Hat for my mom:
Hat #2 was a "test knit" of a generic hat pattern that I wrote. The hat will go to charity:
Hat #3 was an Unoriginal Hat for my future SIL Brandi (or me if she doesn't want it):
Hat #4 was another "test knit" of my generic ribbed brim hat pattern. This was in an infant size. Again, this one's for charity:
Hat #5, the final hat, was Jared Flood's (a.k.a. Brooklyn Tweed's) Turn a Square Hat. Made for a friend on Twitter:
Lurve it. Might have to make one for myself. Additional details about all the hats can be found on my Ravelry page. So, now you can tell all your friends that you know a 5 time Ravelympics gold medalist. I know you're impressed.


While I have loved the Ravelympics, and wished they occurred every month so I'd have an excuse to drop everything and knit, I now find myself rather behind. The laundry is about to grow legs and run off with the dishes. Not to mention that my charity group on Ravelry has gone sadly un-updated. And let's not even get started on the dyeing...oi...I'm forming a plan of action though. Slowly, but surely. Maybe a few set backs tonight though as I picked up the clapotis again and really, really, really wanted it finished. So I did.

Pretty much the nicest thing I've ever made for myself. I think I'll call it the $250 Wrap. Many thanks to Warm Woolies for the awesome yarn!

When I was picking up yarn for the Turn a Square hat I also picked up some metal DPNs. Then I was able to salvage the socks that were hanging on the broken needles. Been knitting a few rows here and there and slowly the socks are growing.
Ok, now that the blog is caught up I better go tackle some laundry.

:::Blinking Eyes:::

The Knifty Knitter emerges from her cave of an apartment blinking and rubbing her eyes.

Oi, it's been awhile.

One of the bloggers that I enjoy reading is Lisa Grossman, a.k.a The Tsock Tsarina. Sometimes The Tsarina will be absent from her blog for a rather lengthy period of time. She calls this time "Pattern Purdah," the time of limbo between when her most recent (and always amazing) sock pattern has been written and when it is released to the public. Lisa takes some self imposed time away form her blog to finish the last minute crunch of double checking the design with the test knitters, printing and packaging the pattern, and conferring with her (very talented) dye artist.

I've been in something of a "Pattern Purdah" myself.

Except that it didn't involve a pattern at all.

It involved 60 pages of handouts.

Yep, 60.

There were lots of pictures, but still...

I was writing 60 pages of handouts for a workshop I taught on Saturday called "Ravelry Rules". It was an introductory+ class on how to use Ravelry. I say introductory+ because I covered a bit more than just the basics.

There were about 15 people who took the class and, overall, it seemed to be a success.
This was my first workshop and, while I'm no master, it went easier than I expected. I had a great audience so that helped a lot I think. Now the biggest problem has been how to access the worksheets via the internets. The file is so big I can't send it via email to anyone unless I break it into parts (which I could but I'd rather not). Currently a solution involving posting it somewhere on my website is in the works.

Anyways, all that planning and writing and driving to pick up a projector took up the majority of my week last week. Throw in the fact that the Ravelympics had started and that pretty much left me with no time for anything except knitting and writing and taking screen shots from Ravelry and knitting and writing. Oh, and running around on Saturday morning reformatting the entire packet so that I could print copies for less than $100. But I digress...

So, the knitting. I haz it. In fact I haz a lot of it. I just have to post to the appropriate Ravelympics pages and I'm good to go.

1st Hat of the Ravelympics 2010
Cast on during opening ceremonies and finished on Sunday (I think). This is a generic ribbed hat pattern that I wrote to use in classes and I needed to "test knit" some different sizes. This is a large adult size.

2nd Ravelympics 2010 Hat
Unoriginal Hat for my mom. Made from the same Cascade Eco + as her Irish Hiking scarf that she got for Christmas.

3rd Ravelympics 2010 Hat
A black Unoriginal Hat. I started making this for my future SIL, Brandi, and had almost gotten through the final repeat of the pattern when I realized that she and I had discussed the possibility of doing her hat in a different color other than black (because she already has several black hats). So, I'll make another in the same color as my aunt's Unoriginal Hat and if Brandi wants them both she can have them and if she wants one or the other she can have that too. If she does end up taking the black on I think I'm going to make one for myself. This is a totally classic hat. And, apparently, they are just like potato chips, you can't have/make just one, seeing as how I just finished my 3rd and I'm thinking about making another one.

Tonight on the needles is another "test knit" of my generic ribbed hat pattern in an infant size. The goal for the Ravelympics was to make 5 hats which I think I can reach but originally I had planned to knit a Turn a Square hat. We'll see if that happens. The TaS may be replaced by another "test knit" since they seem to go pretty quick. Or another Unoriginal Hat.

Stalled

The breaking of the sock DPN seems to have broken my knitting streak as well. Obviously that project is now on hold until I can find some more needles (or another project).

I started a pair of socks for Global Knit but have lost some interest in these as well.
Just past the heel turn of the first sock. These only have 20-30 rows until they're done but I'm not in love with this yarn: it's single ply (therefore very splity), and in some drab colors (not helped by the fact that it has been cold and rainy here for 2 days).

I started and finished another quick charity knit (this one for H 2 H International) this weekend.
The next step is to start a hat to go with them. But that would require me finding my 16" cable and balling some more yarn.

The baby blanket pretty much looks like the same except with 6-10 more repeats. I'm ready for that to be finished with.

I have a whole queue on Ravlery of projects for myself but that would require balling yarn, finding needles and swatching.

I also have a whole list of knits for other people that need to be done but, again, these require balling yarn, finding needles, and swatching.

Plus, I need to update my inventory in my stores since I'm sending a new LYS some of my yarn and Rare Purls needed more stuff.

Oh, and I need to update Ravlery with all the projects from Christmas (and maybe a little before then too) and don't get me started on the housework...

Unmotivated is what I am.

Saturday I was sidelined with a 24 hour stomach virus which certainly didn't help things. Thankfully I have tomorrow off so maybe after a few days of recuperation I will feel up for something productive.