Holidazed Indeed!

I finished these a few days ago, but with the stormy weather we've been having I didn't have enough sun light to take a decent picture. However this morning there was some sun so I took a picture of my new socks Holidazed by Anne Hanson. It was the last installment of the 2008 Rockin' Sock Club (and the first on the club I have knit) the colorway is called Muddy Autumn Rainbow (I love it!).



And I also signed up for the 2009 club, the designers for next year's club sealed the deal for me.

Christmas Come Early

While my friend JD was here on a visit we went up to Cedros Avenue Design District in The City of Solana Beach. It was a great time, there was all the shopping, all the galleries and there was even a farmer's market. We got some really fresh fruit and a great loaf of bread, roasted garlic and goat cheese, from Bread and Cie. Of course we had to shop at Leaping Lotus and I found these, Janice was nice enough to get them for me as part of my Christmas present. Needless to say there is no finer pair of slippers for a knitter that loves wool. Thanks JD you rock!

I Won the (Wollmeise) Lottery!!!

If I don't write about this now I may never get to it and since it's half way over I thought I better get to it. I'm a very proud member of the very first Wollmeise sock club. There was a lottery and I signed up thinking that I wouldn't get in (don't do very well with lottery style things) but I was very excited to receive my invoice for the sock club. The details are these, there are four shipments each with it's own theme, in each shipment there are two different skeins of yarn, one pattern, and a few goodies. The yarn and the pattern will be available to the general public in a year (just like STR).

The first shipment came in September the theme was home land (Bavaria for Wollmeise) the colors and pattern was perfect for me. There is something about purple and green that I love more than words can express. The first skein of yarn is called Hollerstaud'n, which is elderberry bush.



The second skein of yarn is called Buxkranzl (box wreath), very green with it slight hint of brown. I think that I might have to make a forest canopy shawl with this yarn. It reminds me of the forests of New England.



The pattern that came with the yarn is called I Mog Di it was created by the wonderful Bockstark Knits (if you don't read her blog you should). I love the pattern and love the colorway too. I can't wait to cast on.

The "little extra in our first shipment was not little at all, it was a pair of sock needles from Holz & Stein. Words cannot begin to describe how lovely these needles are. They are made from wood that is used to make cellos I think the ones that I got were made of kingwood. An amazing present for sure. There was also a piece of candy marzipan coated in dark chocolate, not surprising there is no picture of it.



The second shipment just hit my door about 3 hours ago. This shipment's theme is childhood's dreams. The first skein is called Jultomte which I think might be Swedish version of Santa Claus.



The second skein is called Saami, it is called this because of the Sámi people (formerly known as the Lapps) are the indigenous people of northern Europe.
If I'm not mistaken the colors of the skein are a reflection of the colors and hues of the clothing of the Sámi people.



The pattern for this shipment is wonderful, it is called lille bror (little brother) and was created by Yarnissima (I love her patterns and kits). It's great and and I can't wait to make the Saami in this pattern.

In this shipment the little surprise was a small ball of worsted weight yarn with a tiny glass stitch marker I think that it's a pine tree with a red star. There was also I tiny metal cookie cutter (mine was a Christmas tree). It was great to unwind and find something lovely and now a have a little bit of worsted weight to make mini-mittens for my Christmas Tree. There was also a tiny package of Haribo gummie Christmas packages very cute indeed.

So I think that is it, we are half way through the club year and I wish it could go on forever! Thank you Wollmeise I love each and every package, skein, surprise and colorway.

With a Little Help From My Friend

There has been a whole lot of crafting going on in the last few weeks. First of all I finished my Hemlock Ring Blanket (made famous by Brooklyn Tweed). This pattern was originally a pattern for a doily but made on 10 1/2 needles and with Cascade Ecological Wool (which I HIGHLY recommend, 478 yards for 15 bucks, in many lovely natural shades of wool). I choose the colorway Latte (used 2.5 skeins), and I love the way it turned out. Here is a picture of the blanket on a queen size air bed.

And here is a close up of the center and one of the feather and fan sections.
A big thank you to ItShe for letting me block this at her house on the extra bed (we don't have the room to block it at my house and we don't have an extra bed either). The wonderful things that knitting friends will do for you. She even set of multiple fans in the room to help circulate the air. Thanks ItShe you rock!

Then three friends decided to have babies in the last 3 months (must have been a cold winter in Boston last year). So in order to celebrate their arrivals I made initial painted fabric silhouettes and ones-ies. The instructions for the silhouettes are here, from Martha Stewart of course. I have made over a dozen of these and have loved them all. Here are the basic steps, you get a canvas, get fabric staple to frame, paint it with decoupage glue, then let dry and then paint on it. Here is an example of one I made last week:

Another Martha Stewart craft that I made was the appliqued onesies found here these are also really cute. here is a picture of one of the 8 I made:

My good friend JD who I met in college came to town to soak up some sunshine and take a break from law school. Not only did she learn how to knit, but was so good at knitting she started (and half way finished) a wonderful scarf made out of Rio de la Plata in a nice celery green kettle dyed (half off might I add). She took to it immediately, a natural knitter I tell ya. She was also looking for a really nice winter hat while she was here (in San Diego) needless to say she couldn't find one so I made her one, here is a picture of the hat
I have one last thing, I actually cast-on my first pair of socks from the Socks that Rock sock club fro the year. Very exciting, love the color and the pattern. Pictures later.

Wollmeise is in das haus!

Now that ItShe and Grape (finally) have their birthday presents, it's time to unleash the parade of Wollmesie that has made it's way all the way from Germany to my house. There is nothing more I say about the Wollmeise that hasn't already been said, the colors are amazing, the intensity, the saturation, and the combination of colors are beautiful.

Let me say that I stalked and stalked and stalked and was finally rewarded. I don't want to tell you how may hours and how many times I tried, but let's say it was totally worth it, partly due to the fact that I could gift some to ItShe and Grape. I have had the extreme good luck of snagging some Wollmeise twice from The Wollmeise herself.

The first shipment was August 8, 2008. I had done my "homework" and found out that in order to get the most out of the higher shipping cost from Germany (which is exactly what Germany charges the Wollmeise) you should either order 2 skeins (for the small envelope) or 5 skeins (for the larger envelope). The thing about the updates are if you don't figure out what you want quickly you yarn can be bought out from under you by another fan of Wollmeise. I wanted to get 5 skeins so I spent some time on the website and found the colors I wanted for Grape, ItShe and myself and stalked. I got the skein I wanted for each of them.

Grape got Poison No. 5 (dark intensity) here is a picture of it:

ItShe got Rhabarber (light intensity):

I got Am kalten Polar (medium), Lowenzahn (dark), Miss May(medium):






The next time I caught the update on August 22 by pure luck I wanted more than a few skeins of Versuchskaninchen 1 (medium), and I happen to stubble across some 5 skeins of it. Here is a picture:

There is one more thing, I signed up for the lottery for the privilege of getting to be part of the first Wollmeise sock club, and the lottery gods were smiling on me, I got in, I'll show you later.

When Last We Left This Blog

I had just came back from a Mediterranean cruise, it was wonderful and it seems like lifetimes ago, seriously. It was a fabulous time there is no way to sum it up, but I look over 1700 pictures if that gives you a clue.

So much has happened this summer but let's get to the knitting. First the FO's. The last thing on this blog was the Rivendell Socks from The Eclectic Sole (great book). It was a great pattern and the little rings were something I had never done before. They have been done for a while, here is a picture:

The next FO is my Italian Jaywalkers, I started these on the cruise ship and finished them on the ship. They are great an always remind me of darting in and out of traffic in Rome (which was crazy). Andiamo!

The next FO is my pair of Lite Brite Crusoe socks. Normally I knit a pattern the way that it is written but this time I change the top (I like ribbing on the top of my sock) and thankfully I looked up the pattern on Ravelry and saw that people were having sizing issues so I increased it to 60 stitches (the pattern calls for 48 stitches for the larger size). I really love the yarn, it's by Perchance to Knit in colorway Vintage and I (heart) it big time, I love the bold and different shades of familiar colors. Here it is:

That picture is really dark here is a better picture of the yarn: That's a much better picture.

I loved the pattern so much because it's great to break up pooling in hand dyed yarn, I decided to make my best friend Lindsay a pair for her birthday and to celebrate her running the Chicago Marathon. She is awesome, she finished in 4 hours and 38 mins, this is truly a feat I cannot even imagine. That same night she got engaged, very exciting. So I found the perfect yarn for her, it's called Lower Wacker Drive by Yarnzombie Gaslight Dyeworks. Lower Wacker Drive is a famous street in Chicago and it's a very important part of the movie Blues Brothers (which has a special place in Lindsay's heart) so it was perfect for her. Here are the socks:

The last FO is the Katarina Sweater from cocoknits, it was a great knit, fast, wonderful and lovely, the problem is I don't have a half decent photo of it. I have to get someone to take a photo of me wearing it so you can see it better, and it's black so the hope of me taking a good picture without me wearing it is hopeless. But here is the least crappy of them all:

O.K. so that I think that's it for FO, I have two projects on the needles right now, but I will save that for another day.

When This is Your View from Your Cabin Why Come Home?

Seriously, why would you come home? Well there are a few reasons; one I ran out of Euros (damn that conversion rate), two I missed my husband, and three . . . well there isn't a three. Did you look at the picture?

Well there was a good bit of shopping, but I don't want to post pictures before the people I shopped for get their goodies. But there was yarn, food, and lots of postcards. My favorite place was Venice (pictured above), and the food remarkable, the house wine even better, and having gelato once if not twice a day is the way to go, trust me.

I finished my Jaywalker pair of Italian flag colored socks, and started the France/Croatia socks, so at least I got some knitting in there. Pictures to follow.