FO to the MANX

Hello! How are you today?  I'm doing pretty good. Preparing for Shop Hop and the start of Nerd Wars, so My WIPs have been rather light this week. I did, however, finish some spinning!

This is 8oz of Manx Loaghtan from GnomeSpunYarn. I split it up and spun it on to three bobbins in order to do a traditonal 3-ply.   Result is a very springy smooshy worsted weight yarn (10 WPI). It's exactly what I wanted to spin so I'm pretty stoked. In retrospect, the plying twist does seem pretty loose. I like it (its fine, not falling apart or anything, plenty of store bought yarns are plied this loose ), but I wonder what effect it will have on the wearbility. I'm pretty sure more twist = more durability. 

I got a bit over 400 yards so I'm hoping to do a simple garter stitch hat + mittens with this ^^;; 

Despite careful planning, weighing, and use of math, I still ended up with a bit of extra on one bobbin. I'll chain ply it just for some back-up yardage. 

This yarn was my first entry in Malia's New to You SAL. I hope to do at least one more, it runs until the end of October. 

Check out Tami's for more FOs! 

Because Cat

Hey Blog,

Just stopped in to say hi, hope something wonderful happens today :)

Orange You Glad I Didn't Say....

Hello blog!  How are you?

Today I'm cooking a new recipe - or I should say, I'm editing one. I'm taking the Pot Roast recipe I made last week and doing the same thing except with chicken. Smells good!  Anyway, Today's post is almost completely about pumpkins!

I'm Crocheting/knitting pumpkins for Team Pumpkin Spice (Decoy Army! Unite! ) It's for a fun little game people over at Nerd Wars are playing until T9 starts :) 

Got sick of knitting with my scrap bulky/sport weight yarn, so I went out and got some pumpkin colored worsted weight today. Also, I *may* have recently been gifted a sewing machine for my birthday, (Thanks mom and dad! XOXOX ), so I got the first tiny bits of supplies to start learning how to spin sew!  I'm sure Amanda and I will be making a Jo-Ann Fabrics run for supplies in the near future and I'll be getting even more of a fabric stash :) 

As always, check out more creative WIPs at Tami's :)

FIBERFEST FUN!!!

Hey Everyone! How are you?  I'm good, still recovering from all the wool fumes from Sunday!

My newest Vlog Episode is live; In it I talk all about the festival and my plans for Nerd Wars in October. Check it out!
If you don't want to listen, no big, I'll hit the important highlights here:

Amanda and I went to the Georgia Alpaca FiberFest on Sunday. It was Awesome.

First there was the completely worth it 1 hour detour for Pumpkin Spice Lattes. 

Everyone at the festival was super friendly and eager to teach new skills. We got to try weaving for the first time. Can you say hooked? 

My humble little stash from the event. A few ounces of silk and alpaca. I CAN'T WAIT to start spinning it!!

FO Friday 13th

  

Hey guys, how are you? Hope you are enjoying this lovely Friday the 13 ^^;;

My FO for you is the Chelsea Market Hat 

Knit with size 6 and 9 US needles, using 1 skein of Vanna’s choice solid.

I think I’m going to be doing an acrylic yarn review post soonish. I’ve knit with this yarn in the past without any problem and thought it was decent, but this color/skein has a very visible fluff on it that makes me worry it will pill very quickly :/ Even worse it was knit for another person (They chose the yarn). I hope they aren’t disappointed with the quality.

The Hat Pattern, however, is lovely. I will most definitely be making this pattern again (with a nice wool next time. )

Cheers! Don’t forget to visit Tami’s for more FOs J  

WIP Madness

Hey guys, how are you?  

I’m GREAT.  Why? Because September is almost over >.< September has not been a good month for me so far, but there is a light at the end of the month! If you know anything about Nerd Wars  you might know that Tournament 9 starts October first, and I’m going to be playing!!! It’s my first time participating and I’m super excited ^_^ I will be joining my current favorite nerdery, Team Tardis!

September is the Month-off between the end of T8 and the beginning of T9  and there is a mini game – CUTE ARMY OF DEATH  (death part may have been added by me. ) Goal is to knit/crochet as many cute creatures as possible.  I’ve spearheaded Team Pumpkin Spice and am creating an Army of pumpkins! BWAHAHAHA!

 If interested please join me as one of my pumpkin crafting minions. To keep from boredom I’m using these four different patterns:

 Crochet Pumpkin 1

Crochet Pumpkin 2

Knit Pumpkin 1

Knit Pumpkin 2

Just a note, if you are following my other WIPS:

Demask : Zero progress

Renegade : I’ve started the moss stitch but it seems waay too lose. Must consult with designer, may frog back to the ribbing and add some decreases.

Dongo : Zero progress, the cool pattern I bought has a new crochet stitch in it that I’m struggling with

MKAL : As I write this, I still haven’t finished clue 2 even though the 3^rd clue comes out  TOMORROW.  It’s been a rough week. But I only have 14 rows to go and tomorrow is still a day off. I CAN DO THIS!

That’s all for today. Check back on Friday for my latest FO. Spoiler alert, it’s a hat ;)

Until then, check out Tami’s  for more WIPs!

Snails’ Pace

Hello blog, how are you?

I’m good. It’s still pretty warm outside, but the humidity is dropping fast. I’ve had to whip out my chap stick and nasal spray, and soon I can tell I’ll be doing my daily body lotion routine. I know, ridiculous, right? It’s not even really Autumn yet but I’m already starting to dry out.  My computer can feel it too, it was emitting an alarming burning smell this morning so I turned it off and left it for a few hours, now the smell is gone but everything is loading sooooo slowly, I know it’s my computer and not my internet connection. Grr! 

Anyway, kind of appropriate because today’s post is a crochet FO! 

Martin the Snail 

By FreshStitches,

Random sport/dk  acrylic  with a G hook.

I knit it for Stacy’s Tiny-a-long, which lasts until September 18^th. So if you are reading this now you can still make something to enter if you hurry! I’m still a  newbie crocheter and this project took me 4 days to do… But it’s not like I was working on it for long periods at a time, you know? I’m sure if you just sat down and did this you could pump it out in a day. Plus most people seem to be using sock yarn or even thread for theirs, so if you did that I’d bet it would go even faster!

I think it’s kinda cute, don’t you?

Crooked Cathedral

Hello Blog!

Today is about a very special project that I finished in July! It's the Crooked Cathedral Shawl  that I knit during my honeymoon.

The yarn is also special because it was a wedding present from Jeanne :)  Also, it perfectly matched the color of my wedding shoes, but I think that might have been a lucky coincidence ^^;;  Usually if I can't get photos of me wearing something I just post a picture of it, but I thought something this special should have at least simi-nice photos, so I waited until I could get my husband to take them :)

Started : June 24th

Finished : July 3rd

Yarn : Araucania Huasco

Needles : US2

Check out other FOs at Tami's!

Ready, set, KAL!

Hello Blog!  How are you?

September 1st marked the beginning of my Join-all-the-things month of craziness!
I'm participating in Fat Squirrel's SAL/KAL, Malia's Spin-along, AND I'm doing a Mystery Knit Along!  (honestly, thats not even the end of it, but you'll hear about the rest later... )

Spoiler photo at the end!

This is my first time doing a MKAL, and I'm enjoying it! It's a little scary for me because I tend to be a bit of a control freak, and I'm also used to just ignoring designers' instructions. For instance, normally, I would have ignored the cast-on instructions because I generally resist learning new cast-on methods; However since there was no way for me to look at the pattern and determine how important the cast-on method would be to the finished project, I had to do it just to be safe. I finished the 1st clue in one day (Seems like loads of people did! ). Clue 2 comes out on the 5th and I can't wait :)

As always, check out more WIPs at Tami's!

Death by Kool-Aid

Hello Blog!


Today is going to be pretty photo heavy, ok? ^_^

Took my hand-spun



And this set up  (these are just the swatches, I used glass mixing bowls to dye the actual yarn )



To end up with this!



It's my first pound of fiber spun on the wheel. I got several skeins in different weights. Three (the blues and greens ) are worsted/bulky, the other two (red/purple) are fingering-ish

My friend Amanda also came over and did hers. She used  This tutorial to do three long color stripes.



Pretty, right?




Some notes : I got two packets of each color, and it wasn't really enough. We used everything up and there were definitely some parts of the yarn that ended up lighter than the rest due to lack of dye. Everything was dyed with the Kool-Aid except the green color, which was Hawaiian punch, works the same way!
 Also, this stuff will seriously dye your hands :)