Snow? Or No?

Here's the funny thing about weather: you can predict and watch and say this or that but in the end it just goes and does what it wants to. The early predictions were saying that Atlanta and the metro areas might get as much as 2 inches of snowfall tonight. Now they are saying a light dusting. Which means I probably won't get my snow day tomorrow. :::frown::: Maybe there will be some ice... It was kind of cool to come home this afternoon and see the lake in front of my complex frozen over with the "light dusting" of snow on it.


Knitting guild was canceled for tonight which means I had time to update my stores. I added 2 new yarns that I'm in love with.
Cedar Key and
Blueberry Chill. And I think the story behind the names is kind of cool too, but you'll have to check out the websites for that :) Both are listed at Vivid Creation Fibers and on Etsy. I also changed my shipping prices on Etsy because I hadn't calculated them correctly.

I should spend some time tonight on packing up my Christmas decorations (don't judge, it's not yet 2 weeks), washing dishes, and doing laundry. Instead I'm thinking of knitting on some projects. The baby blanket and also a set of gloves for charity.
This will go with the hat and slippers I've already knit to H 2 H International. I took some time the other night to start a new group on Ravelry for charity knitting. Our focus will be on making items for distribution in Eastern European and Russian orphanages. I'm really excited that we already have 15 members and seem to be growing! Our first KAL is socks for Global Knit. Each month I'll pick a new charity for us to focus our efforts on.

I also took a few pics tonight of the yarn that I picked up at Knitch.
Some grey nylon and acrylic yarn that I'm planning on making some Bella's mitts from. Even though it's acrylic this some super soft yarn. I'm pretty impressed so we'll see how it knits up.
I also nabbed some Socks that Rock heavyweight sock yarn in the colorway Lucy. I like the earthy tones and this yarn will make some nice thick socks. I may need to knit them now since ice and snow may be on my horizon (:::crosses fingers:::).

Brrr!

Thanks for all the New Year's well wishes! I hope everyone enjoyed the rest of your weekend. I was trying to stay warm. Temps here in GA have barely reached above freezing for the last 3 days. Yesterday it reached a whooping 33°F (0°C) for a whole hour! The ice almost melted! Yes, there was ice. The lake in front of my apartment is now partially frozen. We're even expected to get some snow by the end of the this week. :::shiver::: I've got the snuggie out and made some hot chocolate to keep me from getting frosty.

On Saturday I braved the cold with my friend Stephanie to visit Knitch, a yarn shop in Atlanta. I'd been to Knitch before but not since they moved to their new location. Their old shop was literally in a back alley but it was 2 stories with floor to ceiling yarn. It had a great cozy feel and there was this cool little general store right around the corner with some of the best bagels I'd ever tasted. The new store is a little smaller but it's right on the main drag. Steph and I both made some stash enhancements but I have somehow managed to not photograph them yet. Until I get the pics posted have a look at Stephanie's projects on Ravelry. Is she not the best photographer! She also designed my buttons and banner for the Phat Fiber page. Talented, no?

Today was back to work for me :( I guess I really only worked for half a day because I spent the whole afternoon after lunch in a cluster-wide staff development meeting. I wish I'd had my knitting but I ended up sitting down the row from my assistant principals so I guess it was a good thing, I'm not sure they would understand the whole knitting-makes-me-not-want-to-kill-myself-and-others thing. When I got done with that I rushed home and grabbed the 2 hats I finished this weekend for Helen.
Yep, I was able to get 2 hats knitted, washed, and blocked this weekend. I'm quite proud. I had to express mail them to her to make sure she gets them by the 6th and I will be stressing about it until I know they are in her hands. I really hope she reaches her goal!

I also spent about an hour knitting on the baby blanket for my friends and now it actually looks like a blanket.
It's hard to believe their baby will be here in just 6 weeks!

This next project has actually been finished for awhile but I haven't blogged about it yet.
These are my Japanese Feather socks (with cat for scale). They are made from some of my own hand-dyed sock yarn, Raspberry! These have a great shine and softness to them because of the BFL. I realized (after binding off) that the toes of the socks, and therefore, the socks in general, are 2 different lengths. Not too drastic and nothing I can feel or notice when wearing but I guess that's what I get for letting months lapse in between the making of the second sock. That and not taking notes when I made the first one. Still really like them though. They have been worn and kept my feet toasty in the freezing cold.

I'm off to enjoy the last few hours of my evening. Tomorrow the kiddos come back so I'm sure I will be extra tired then!

Post Christmas Rehash

I hope everyone had a very lovely Christmas yesterday. I was hoping to post last night but I didn't get back home until 11:00 at night. Then I had to unload my car, feed the cat, and hook back up my computer. I figured it could wait until this morning.

Christmas Eve I went to stay with my parents.

The tree.
A small portion of my mom's nutcracker collection.
Nativity set.
My furry brother Luke. Even though my parents have had him for awhile I don't think I've ever gotten around to sharing pictures of Luke. He's still a baby (only 4or 5 months old) but look at how big he is! He's an English Springer Spaniel. My aunt and uncle bought a Springer Spaniel about 6 months ago not realizing she was pregnant. She had 8 puppies and Luke is one of them.
We had a big dinner with my extended family at my parents house that night. There was much gift giving and food eating. I can't even begin to describe the whirlwind that is my two little cousins (5 and 3) but I can show you a picture of their aftermath. This is my parents playroom and those little colored bits are Lego's.
My dad and my brother were on clean up duty for that room. It was a lot of fun and there was a lot of good food. That night I stayed at my parents with my brother and my Aunt Becky. It's a Christmas tradition for all of us to be at home on Christmas morning. That way we can open the presents Santa left! I realize that I'm 25 years old and, at this point, would normally have stopped receiving presents from Santa but I'm under the firm conviction that my belief in him keeps him coming back each year. That and I'm not married and don't have children and Christmas without Santa would be pretty sad.

I will spare you the "early" morning pictures of my family (and myself) looking half awake as we opened presents at the crack of 10 in the morning. Aunt Becky did receive her hand knit gift from me though, an Irish Hiking Scarf.
She loved it! I found this alpaca/wool blend yarn at Knitch months ago and knew it would be perfect shade of blue/grey for her. I think it turned out really well and was a breeze to make. All the details can be seen on my Ravelry page.

That morning we also taught Luke how to open presents. He was a very willing learner once he figured out that he could run off and shred the paper to bits.
Yesterday night me, my parents, my brother, and Brandi trekked over to my Aunt Janice's house on the other side of town for more food. There were also games! At her house we each bring a gift card and a small gift (a book, some sparklers, a cheap DVD, or, in my cousin's case, a Boston Creme pie...). Then we play a series of games and the person with the highest points at the end gets to choose their gift card first. I usually end up somewhere near the middle or end but I still got some hand soap and a Target gift card. The general uproar the games cause is where the real fun is at (I still maintain that a "dollar" is something that is cold...you know, "cold cash"? That's points for creativity right there!).

I came home last night and crashed, fully prepared to sleep until noon. My neighbor had different plans though, as I was awakened this morning at 10 to the gentle sounds of jackhammering (it was probably just drilling but it sounded worse from my side of the wall). I'm going to go sort through all my gifts to try and take the edge off.

Happy Holidays!

You Have 15 Minutes

I was trying to post this blog in 15 minutes before I had to go meet some friends for dinner. Unfortunately I was also trying to use iTunes for the first time on my new computer and knit on a sweater vest. Needless to say, I did not get this posted before I had to leave but I present it to you now for your reading pleasure.

This morning I took a little jaunt into Atlanta to the fabulous yarn store Knitch.

I bought lots of yarn (which I will show you in a minute). I also went to Belly which is a wonderful little general store/deli on the corner in front of Knitch. They were out of their delicious sesame seed bagels so I had to settle on a plain one which was almost as good. I forgot to take a picture of the outside but inside on the window sills they were growing potato plants which I found quite intriguing.
The yarn was wonderful, of course, and I think I spent almost 2 hours in there trying to decide what I should get. I finally decided on some Shepherd's Wool (8 skeins) for a sweater I'm looking to make.
I think this is the softest 100% wool I have ever felt in my whole life. Not scratchy at all.

Some organic cotton and some alpaca for a swap through Ravelry.
And when I got home some yarn I had dyed was dry.

These are little left over skeins of sock yarn. About 75 yards. I used them to check my dye to water ratios and try and figure out the perfect combination. I think I got it right this time because these came out quite lovely.

A skein with brown, black, teal, watermelon, and bright orange.
A rainbow skein with brilliant blue, grey, lilac, shamrock, bright red, and yellow.
On the way home I saw this sign in the back window of a car being driven by middle aged Asian man (click to make big).

It says "New Drever." And apparently "New Speller" as well. God bless him.

Where to Start?

What happens when you try and hand wind some Artyarns Ultramerino 4 into a ball. Well, it tends to make a huge mess if you decide that you can just lay the hank out and pull as you go.
This kind of mess is best punished by sticking it far down into a plastic bin and forgetting about it...until the second sock is ready to be knit.

What happens when you try and hand wind another hank of the same type of yarn but this time anchor it around your desk chair? Well, that works out pretty well.
Maybe not the nicest ball but certainly better than the first.

Way all this work?
Summer of Socks '08. Sock #1 (I'm a little slow on the start). Not coincidentally this is the special Summer of Socks pattern by Wendy Knits just for the SoS '08. On new US size 0 DPNs none the less. That means...

I finally made it out to Knitch. And there was a huge accident. I fell. I threw out my arm to stop the fall and I swiped some lovely yarn and needles into a bag. And my other hand was holding my debit card. Ooops. Oh look! Yarn!
This is from Lotus Yarns. It's some shiny, reddish/purple red sock yarn (I know you can't really see the sparkles but take my word for it). And the name...
Hairdresser on Fire. I love it.

Hmmm...these also ended up in my bag.
Another set of DPNs (US size 1s) and cashmere blend navy yarn. There is a lot of that in there. Along the lines of 11 balls. I'm using it for a pullover and being the smart one that I am I left all my information on the project in my car...down the street. Therefore, I had to guess. I don't want to run out and I can return what I don't use. Ha! Me? Return yarn?

Finally I leave you with a before...

and an after...
I love my cat but I busted out laughing when I saw the kerchief. It's adorable. And Penelope is wearing it like she is hot stuff.

I'm Back!

Wow. It's hard to believe I'm actually sitting at my house, on a computer (that I own), on the internet again (finally). Yes, I took the plunge and purged my savings account. The result of this unholy union is this beautiful baby:

I give you Mac-y. His name is a shout out to any Homestar Runner fans out there (remember Strong Bad's Lappy and Compy?). If you aren't familiar with Homestar, check it out. It will consume your life for about 3 weeks but then you will rejoin society and finally understand all those, "Seriously" and "Checka, checka, checka, checka, checkin' my eeeee-mail" quotes your friends have been making for years (or maybe that's only my friends).

Ok, enough about that. I must rave that my experience with the Apple folks was quite nice. They gave me honest, helpful answers and didn't try and sell me any unnecessary crap. And they didn't push me when I turned down stuff they threw out that I "might want." I did score a nice free printer.

It replaced the behemoth I used to have.

And they even helped me fill out the rebate before I left the store so I wouldn't forget to do it. How nice.

I picked up Mac-y on Tuesday but haven't gotten around to blogging yet. Wednesday through today I spent 9 hours in teacher training for my job. It was pretty interesting because we got to play around with a lot of the new materials we would have next year. Unfortunately, it lasted all day. And yesterday and today I had to teach a lesson when I got home. I was going to go out to see a friend of mine who was playing an at a local pub tonight but I'm just so tired that I couldn't get up the energy to go out. Plus, I'm a total homebody and since I have been lacking on that this week I just want to be here in my house with my high maintenance cat (who "helped" wake me up this morning by standing on my chest).

Sadly, the knitting hasn't been very productive or exciting. I finished the wee little baby sweater on vacation (all it needed was sleeves).

Pitiful for a whole week but I think it's very cute. I can't decide to do with the left over half skeins that I have though (this was made with 2 strands held together so that is why half skeins is plural). It's for Warm Woolies so I was thinking of making some socks as well. But then I wasn't sure there was enough and I don't have the right DPNS and I could use the circulars but the last socks I made that way came out 2 different sizes and... So, needless to say, nothing else has been cast on.

I've also been knitting on this though.
Look familiar? It should. This is the back to the Big Pink Sweater Thing. Or maybe it's the front. I can't remember. It makes for good mindless knitting though so I have just been picking it up every now and then to knit a couple of rows while I watch TV.

I live next Saturday for Moldova for 2 weeks. I have promised myself that I will take my sock yarn and knit some Jaywalkers (Ravelry link). I have to go my Knitch next week to pick up some DPNs in the right size. Maybe I will pick up some yarn to and get re-energized about knitting (Not that I'm not excited about knitting. I just don't have anything exciting I want to work on right now).

Ok, so I just spent like 10 minutes trying to upload a picture of my Not a Honeymoon Cami because I did finish that and I wanted to show you how it turned out. However, if you upload a pic after you have typed in stuff and put in other pictures Blogger does not like it. It is hard to move the picture. So, I went through all that trouble. Then I went to delete a sentence and accidentally deleted the picture it had taken me 10 minutes to insert and position correctly. Instead of losing my mind and trying to do that all again I am instead providing a link to my Ravelry projects and you can see it there. Sorry but I like my sanity.