Vee Challenge! She is Done!

I finished the 10 for 10 challenge for Warm Woolies! Actually I finished it last night. I dropped the box off today at the post office and it should arrive by the end of the week. Here's a recap of what went inside.

I had this little sweater vest languishing in the "almost finished" pile. All it lacked was some sewn in ends and buttons.
Even though it won't help fulfill the 10 for 10 challenge I threw it in the box.

The big green blog got finished. I think it turned out pretty nice.
This is a picture of everything I sent in: 3 child sweaters (age 10-12), 3 teen/adult sweaters (age 16+), the little vest, 2 children's hats, 4 pairs of adult socks.
The hats won't help meet the challenge either but they needed a home so I threw them in as well.
Now my knitting will focus on Christmas gifts. Harrison's sweater is almost to the bottom cuff, Brandi's mom's scarf is finished (except for weaving in the ends and blocking), and I started in on another gift tonight. Then it's just one more baby sweater and a secret(-ish) gift. Am I ambitious in thinking I can finish everything? Only time will tell.

Today's cat picture is of Penelope getting cozy. She really likes fluffy blankets so she has gradually claimed the Slanket I got for my birthday. At first she just sat on the hem. Tonight she seems to have taken it all for herself.
Hopefully she'll start sharing with me.

Now With Real Actual Knittng Content!

There are some things finished, and some things that are still languishing. But there is progress being made. I finished the sweater for my cousin Jake.
Now I just have to make one for his brother Harrison and then one for my other cousin Britt. Thankfully this is a really quick knit. The pattern is the Sailor's Rib Sweater from Interweave's Weekend Knits.

I'm still working on this sweater for Warm Woolies.
I think I'm going to rename this the Great Green Blob. The body is so bulky looking. And I misread the directions and ended the sleeves a little early. I should have reduced down to 32 stitches but I only reduced down to 35. Oh well. I have until the end of this month to finish this sweater. Then I'll be able to send in my 10 items for this years challenge (scroll to the bottom to see the 10 for 10 by 2010 project). I tried to go back and see if I could find when I started this but I can't even find a picture from when I cast on.

I've also started another Christmas present.
This is a scarf for my future SIL Brandi's mom. I'm glad scarves are quick projects. I've already gotten through 2 repeats and I just started this Saturday. Which, when I say it out loud, doesn't really sound like much. This seems to have edged out the Warm Woolies sweater as t.v. knitting though so there should be good progress made.

This week is going to be a bit hectic with half days of teaching on Wednesday and Thursday and conferences all week (including 3 early morning ones tomorrow) but I'm making time to go check out my friend Heidi's drum carder. We're going to try and salvage my first superwash dye job that fell apart because I soaked it too long.

Time

Time is a funny thing. Suddenly you find that one week has turned into two weeks and then it turns into three and before you know it a whole month is past. And then one day suddenly turns into two...and then three...And a whole day turns into just a few hours.

I wanted to break my blog silence exactly one month after I had last posted. I hadn't originally planned to be gone for so long but then, after thinking on it, it seemed like something I needed to do. So I took a month. And then I had planned to come back on Friday with a little catch up article of the (few) things I have been doing while I was away. I was out with a friend but managed to make it home with moments to spare to tell you I was making a comeback. The comeback has been slow in coming though. I've thought of great posts all weekend but the time to actually put them down has skillfully eluded me. No longer! Where to begin...

Socially:
I've been hanging out with my friends a lot this past month. One of my best friends, Brittany, got married a few weeks ago which was pretty awesome.
Hope for single girls everywhere.

There were a few movie nights and an '80's themed game night in there too. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of those things.

Knitting:
I finished the secret project I've been working on for awhile. All that needs to be done is to sew in the ends and give it a little washing but I still consider it "finished" for all intents and purposes.

I finally have gotten around to starting the arm on my final item for Warm Woolies.
Notice I have started but not gotten a lot done on it. I did a count of items and this is my 10th piece. I just have to finish it!

I started (and finished) a sock.
This is some of my own hand-dyed yarn! My first sock from my own hand-dyed. I loved working with this yarn. It's BFL and it is super soft and silky and has a great sheen to it. The colorway is Raspberry and it's available from my shop. The pattern is the Japanese Feather Socks (free Rav download). Knit on US size 2 DPNs.

Dyeing:
There's been a lot going on with my dyeing. I just finished skeining some yarn I dyed last month.
I dyed more this weekend (since I had Friday *and* Monday off from work). My friend Stephanie even came over to get a crash course in yarn dyeing.
From left to right: Hayride, Hawaiian Hibiscus, First Buds, Edelweiss, and Unmasked

More from this weekend: Day at the Beach and Buttercup

I still have more colors to skein. Of course I have to label and post all these in the shop. The Unmasked roving are 4 oz. portions of some samples I sent into the Phat Fiber box this month.
I'm excited to be a contributor for October!

So there has been quite a bit going on for the past month but I'm going to (try) and set aside time at least 2-3 times a week to post. If nothing else than to help me remember everything I've been up to.

Penelope helping Stephanie by keeping watch over her bag of yarn labels.

All's Quiet on the Western Front

I have finished the large green and multi socks.
I used Cascade 220 Heathers in a light green held double for the cuffs, heels, and toes. Then I held one strand of the Cascade with a strand of Di'Ve Butterfly in a green and orange colorway for the leg and foot if the sock. Knit on US size 8 DPNs. A very quick and satisfying knit (only 2-3 days of real knitting time) and I love the colors. I bought three balls of the Di'Ve and 2 skeins of the 220 so I should have enough for another pair. We shall see.

I have finished the collar on the Mystery Sweater #3 for Warm Woolies.
Not really a huge feat considering I only had about 10 more rows to do before I knitchenered the sides together. It's an interesting construction though where you knit up the side then around the back and graft to the other side. I couldn't work it out in my head but it came out just as it should have. I haven't picked up stitches for the arms yet because I'm not in the mood. My knitting mojo has taken a brief hiatus so I'm waiting for it to return.

With the knitting mojo out to lunch the Rivulets socks looks pretty much the same. I feel as though I've been knitting on them forever. Really any time I pick them up I may do a row or two and then have to put them down again. Not terribly exciting but I am ready for them to be done. Nevermind that after I finish the first sock I have to make a matching one.

So the knitting frontier is pretty quiet. Watch out for tumbleweeds.

I am dyeing though. In fact, I've been trying to get my store looking a little nicer and my products listed a little differently (tell me what you think, please :)).

Last night I needed to do some dyeing for a function at Rare Purls on Sunday. I had a volunteer appreciation dinner at my church to go to first but when I came home I jumped right in.
What's that I spy with my little eye? Could it be...?
It is! Black, superwash roving! For free! I've been wanting to try mixing in some long lengths of black with some punchy colors but I figured it would be awhile before I got around to it. Then my roving supplier sent 5 oz. of it to me for free. I've got two colors that I dyed last night that I'll be mixing it with.

It was a late night when I got started working
so I fortified myself with a tasty beverage
which kept me going all night and into the wee hours of the morning until I finally crashed at 2:30 (a.m.). It was worth it though.
(Sorry for the poor lighting. It is a bathroom after all.) This is my first time dyeing a large quantity of superwash roving and I know I still have a lot to learn: 1. Superwash falls apart if you soak it for too long. So I didn't soak it for more than 2 minutes before applying dye. But since I soak my pre-dyed fibers in vinegar I must remember to add adequate amounts of vinegar to the dye before I apply it or the color won't take (because a dunk in sythropol and vinegar isn't the same as a half hour bath in the stuff). 2. Brown is a very splitty color. I'm going to try and heat the dye before I apply it, especially if I hand paint (it doesn't split hardly at all if it's kettle/immersion dyed). Since my hot water comes out scalding from the tap (ask me how I know) I'm hoping that will be enough of a boost to get the colors to all take at the same rate (on a side note: Did you know in England that hot water out of the tap is supposed to be hot enough to steep a cup of tea? And the hot and cold water comes out of separate taps? So if you are in an English hotel, and you need to wash your hands, turning on the hot faucet full blast isn't a good idea. Ask me how I know.). 3. Superwash will take colors very vividly but in order to get full saturation from one side of the roving to the next I really have to turn and paint both sides. But not too much or the colors bleed together.

This is all experimental right now and I'm hoping that at least some of my stuff is ok. This is all a learning process so it will only get better (and hopefully easier) as time goes by.

The dyeing frontier is a flurry of activity and it would be great if I could keep it that way.

Other than no knitting and lots of dyeing today I took a little trip out to the local Barnes and Noble to see my friend Amy.
Amy is kind of a big deal because she wrote this book called As You Wish (P.S. Jackson Pearce is her pen name). Back when I taught drumline at the local high school (and I was still teaching middle school band), Amy worked with the color guard. In fact, she still does. But she also wrote a book.
Which is pretty awesome. And she signed one for me.
And I didn't even have to print my name on a little post-it because she knows my name (and even how to spell it, not that it's really hard. But you'd be surprised...). Because, dudes, we're that close.
And I feel pretty confident that when (not if, but when) this book sells a billion copies and becomes a movie and Amy becomes a big, big star, as big as J.K. Rowling or Stephanie Meyer or Michael Crichton (different genres, I know, so sue me), she will still grab a pint with me at the Loafing Leprechaun. Because she's pretty cool like that.

And now I have something on the reading frontier as well.

Not Peru

But still a pretty good post. I will get around to Peru but I just finished putting 125 pictures on Facebook so now I have to get motivated to pick out 10 or so to go here on the blog. Today I'm placating you with pictures of yarn and knitting.

Saturday I dyed almost 5 pounds of yarn. I just finished reskeining the 6 new colorways tonight.
I really like this color, Double Split.
When my yarn supplier gets bulky yarn back in stock I'm thinking I'll dye some bulky in this color and use it to make a sweater for Warm Woolies.

This is another color I really like, Building Blocks.
This is a repeat color and it seems to have come out pretty true to the first batch. I'll be selling these (plus about 6 other colorways) at the August Atlanta Knitting Guild meeting next week and also in my online store. Plus, a whole whack of yarn will be going to my LYS, Rare Purls!

I forgot to take a picture of the color I decided to keep for myself (though I almost stole 2 or 3 other skeins). I think I'll wait to show you until I've picked an appropriate pattern. Something sophisticated...

I started working on a Mystery Sweater (#3) for Warm Woolies. There was a knit along for this that took place earlier this month but I got a late start. The pattern is interesting but also simple enough that I've made a decent amount of progress in a little less than a week (I'm working on clue 3 of 5 at the moment).
Penelope came to "help" me take a picture.

Here she is "helping" me with the skeiner earlier this evening.

Hi My Name is Melissa

...and I have a half finished sock in my purse.

So, I'm back safe and sound from Peru! We had an amazing time and there were so many great moments. I took over 500 pictures. Once I have the chance to sort through all them I'll try and post a little recap here on my blog. I did come back with some goodies that I just had to share with you...

Baby alpaca yarn. 20 skeins. For $30. US dollars. Normal retail value here in the states: $7. A skein. Pretty much the best deal of my life. And it's all thanks to my friend J.M. who spotted the little yarn shop at the market. He's pretty much one of my favorite people now.

Now that I'm back I need to do a little inventory of the projects I have going on.

Finished:
The Oat Couture Prairie blanket for my (soon to arrive) cousin Britt. I finished this up early Sunday morning. I was feeling a little bad, like maybe because I hadn't finished the blanket Britt was just hanging out until I got done. Now that I'm done, it's on! I used 4 skeins plus a tiny little bit of a 5th skein of some acrylic yarn that was gifted to me. It's antique yarn (Caron Wintuk4) but it softened up nicely in the dryer. Plus it held up nicely in the washer.

Unfinished:
A rather large pair of socks. I started these some time ago for Warm Woolies. This is the infamous "stabbing sock." Before I can finish these I have to find the notepad that I was keeping track of the rows and measurements. I think it might be in my car. At least I'm hoping that's where it is.

Rivulets socks that have been on hold since I had to finish the test knit sweater and the aforementioned baby blanket. these see occasional action when I'm not working on other large projects.

Next up in the queue is to begin the third mystery sweater KAL for Warm Woolies. It's been going for about 3 or 4 months but I haven't so much as picked out yarn. That will be for tomorrow. Along with laundry.

New Orleans: Day 2

Buckle up, it's going to be a long, bumpy ride.

This is a typical shot of my family in action while in NOLA. 3 people with cameras all taking pictures of the same thing and my brother standing around.
Sunday was a visit to the zoo. The first thing we saw was an elephant exhibit. I was about 20 feet away from the paddock so I had a great view. They did demonstrations of how elephants are trained and used in India and other parts of Asia. And yes, that is a guy on the back of the elephant in the picture below.
The zookeeper doing the presentation at the elephant exhibit sounded and looked like a totally stereotypical California surfer and by the end of the talk had wandered off into talking about tortoises. Classic.

We saw some camels which my aunt and I decided were pretty much the perfect pet.
They can store 40 gallons of water in their body, go up to a week without having to drink again, withstand extreme and sudden changes in temperature, lose up to 25% of their body weight in sweat without dying, are excellent transportation devices, and, most importantly, you can spin their fur into yarn. I think I may get a couple.

My brother did his best impression of being a statuary.
Boy with Turtle next to Boy with Water Bottle.

Brandi climbed on stuff she wasn't supposed to...again.
I saw a bear swimming (and some dumb a$$ redneck try and spit on him. I would have loved to have seen the bear scale that wall and maul the guy to death...but I'm evil and vengeful like that.)
Got up close and personal with some baby crocs, and I don't mean the shoes.
This guy was just hanging out in the gift shop.

Saw a loose interpretation of the fabled "Swamp Monster."
He kind of looks like the Chupacabra (ugh, I hope I don't have nightmares from looking at those pictures...).

Got to see the famous white alligators.
These are not albino alligators. They are leucistic which means they lack the pigment in their skin that produces the traditional camouflage coloring. They don't have red eyes like albinos do but blue. There are only 2 examples of white alligators being found in the wild and they both occurred in Louisiana. The first time was in 1986 (or '87 depending on your source) and there were 18 hatchlings found in a nest with other, normal colored, alligators. Scientists speculate that the reason why they are so rare is that, because of their color, they are easy targets as infants to be eaten by prey.

Hmmm...this trip is turning very educational.

Brandi climbed on some more stuff...
We almost got sprayed by some bobcats (there is a reason those fences are 4 feet away from the cages).
My mom communicated with some gazelles (it's a loooooong story...).
Brandi and my brother climbed on things they weren't supposed to.
Brandi is definitely about to be eaten.

Saw some warthog love which was actually pretty cute. The male had wandered off from the female (a total of maybe 30 feet) and she came running over. They embraced in this kind of head butting/rubbing. They seemed totally elated to be reunited even though they'd been apart for less than a minute.
True examples of love can be found in the strangest of places.

Brandi laid on stuff she wasn't supposed to.
And then that night we rode the trolley to Canal Street and back just to say that we'd done it.
Thus ended my 1st trip of the summer to Louisiana. I'll be back there in a few weeks with Brandi again to visit my brother. Brother working in a different state=instant vacation destination.

Knitting wise I've been working on the following, some of which saw a little face time on the way to and from NOLA (I was too busy while I was there to do much knitting).

Test knit sweater
I've actually finished the 3 inches of garter edging and I'm about 1.5 inches into the body.

Britt's baby blanket
Half way through with this. Which is good because my aunt's already having contractions. He better stay in there until the 17th.

Pair of BIG socks for Warm Woolies
The pattern is the Perfect Fit Hiking Socks. I didn't do the stripes or the ribbing all the way up the leg (just at the top). Yarn was Cascade 220 tweed for the main color and Cascade 220 for the toes, heel flap, and ribbing at the top. My friend Carolyn graciously modeled one of the socks a few weeks ago at knit night.
Not for the normal sized foot.
But perfect for a 16 year old boy.

Big 10 socks which were a test knit for a friend on Ravelry.
These are the ones where I got to try out an afterthought heel. Turned out well. Blocking didn't totally fix the pointy toes but I think it did help. Both these pairs of socks are now dry and ready to send off.

In other knitting news I'm working on some job opportunities with my shop and getting ready to dye some more. I'll keep you posted on how all that is going :)