Knitting Book for Trade?

I picked up this knitting book recently, looked through it and then decided I wasn't really interested in making any of the items in the book, even though some of them were really cute! So I am offering it up here for trade, if anyone wants it. It's in brand new, excellent condition.

The book is titled "Knits Three Ways," the front cover also says "Mix and Match design elements to create a custom-made sweater." The back cover says, "Whether you're a novice or experienced knitter, this innovative guidebook offers a fresh new approach to sweater patterns, with variations on 12 different projects."

The book retails new for $32.50. I am willing to trade yarn, fiber, whatever for it. : ) I don't expect the retail, but maybe figure on a $20 trade and I'll pay to ship it to you? Anyone interested can leave me a comment but make sure to leave your e-mail address so I can get back to you!

Knitting, Spinning and a Mini Quilt

It has been a crazy knitty couple of months!

I wanted to make my Dad a pair of handknit socks for Christmas, but when I finished the first pair I liked them so much that I used the leftover yarn to make a 2nd pair. I actually have about 200 yards of the semi-solid brown yarn left! I stashed it for future toes and heels. : ) I named the first pair "Dad Doesn't Drink Tequilla!" because the orange yarn is Red Heart Sock yarn with Aloe in the Tequilla Sunrise colorway. The 2nd pair I named "70s Porn Star Mustache" because the orange/brown color combo reminded me so much of the 70s and until I was 11 my Dad had one of those HUGE thick BLACK porn star mustaches. Just a little twisted humor; he'll like it!

Then I finished the hat and scarf set I was making for my friend's mother. The scarf ended up being about 73" long and only 3" wide once the cable drew it in. Very nice tho! It's made from Lion Brand's wool ease which is supposed to have enough acrylic content to make it machine washable without felting. We hope!!

I spun a 3ply SUPER bulky weight yarn for my sister's shop (http://fluff4ewe.etsy.com/) the other day too. The white is corriedale wool from a local farm, the green is handdyed merino and the brown ply is natural "moorit" colored merino I got in trade for some walnut hulls. That merino is a JOY to spin! I still have a lot left; can't wait to come up with something to do with it!

I also spun myself 290 yards of what was dk weight yarn when it was on the spindle. When I soaked it to set the twist it bloomed to about worsted weight! Go figure! Anyways I still ended up with 290yards from a 4oz batt. This was that Grape Goddess batt Mom got me from Spincerely on etsy and is merino/tencel and L U S C I O U S! I think I'm going to knit myself a very wide scarf I can use as a hood/wrap and use the Elvish Leaves lace pattern everyone on Ravelry makes dishclothes out of. Unless I can do a lace pattern in a moebious, then I will do that. I'm not sure lave will work with the over/under way a moebious is knit in the round but can't find anyone who can tell me so I might just have to expirement.

I knit Hannah a pair of socks that were slightly too narrow, so when I tried them on her feet they drew up a little and got shorter. I figured I'd need to make them about 4-5 rows longer in the foot than I planned to allow for that, though on size 1 needles 4-5 rows isn't a huge increase! I tried them on her feet and was right; the sock was the exact length it needed to be when I started the heel. Finished the sock and tried it on her foot and darn if it's not 1/2" too long in the foot! She loves them though and wears them anyway! I will try again soon since I still have a LOT of this yarn left!

The N2Quilting list I'm on is going a Holiday Mini Quilt Swap. My quilt came out REALLY mini! I chose the traditional "Goose in the Pond" quilt block and used semi-solid, not quite traditional Christmas colors (the the back is a dark red Christmas print and the binding is a striped/gold metallic Christmas print). Using scant seam allowances I was able to get a 13" square quilt, LOL!! I love it though, I am thinking of making myself one.

I got this batt in the mail the other day, which I bought from ArtemisArtemis off etsy for the sole purpose of spinning these gorgeous peacock colored jump rings I bought from UnkamenSupplies into! I am thinking maybe of tearing off a handful of the batt, spinning it, then tearing off a handful of either the solid white or solid black merino I have and spinning it, and so forth just to make the yarn have more yardage. Haven't decided yet.

And last but certainly not least, there is a little girl in Diantha's modeling thing named Nia who so loved the fingerless mitts I made Diantha (orange) that her mother offered to buy them!! So as a favor to my Mom and hers a couple weekends ago I just about knocked myself out trying to knit her some little purple ones out of washing machine-friendly yarn (Diantha's are handspun). Nia is about Jeremiah's size so I was using his hands as a guide. The first mitt I knit, and finished, fit Hannah. Try again! The next one was the correct size and so I made it a mate. Hannah meanwhile feel in LOVE with the fluffy purple fancy mitt so today I have been working on knitting her a mate for it so she will have a pair. And wouldn't you know, Nia wasn't even THERE the next day at the modeling practice thing. I didn't have to stress over finishing it at all! ARgh! LOL!

And I finished Hannah's, but my brand new wonderful camera is aparently defective. Have to return it, darn it! It wouldn't even let me take pics of Hannah's but they look just like Nia's so you get the picture.

Mom's Piebald Socks

I was making myself a pair of striped-y socks. Expirementing with a very simple lace pattern across the top of the foot. For some reason the coloring in the yarn pooled a spot of pale/white right in the center of the top of the foot of the first sock! So, my socks were Piebald.

I got them done and put the socks on, wore them for 5 minutes and decided they were too itchy for my incredibly sensitive skin.

I gave them to my Mom, who wears the same size and was *just* lamenting not owning more than 1 pair of handknit socks. LOL!

Mom wore for a couple days and then decided the red/white/little bit of purple stripe pattern wasn't really her thing so she overdyed them with blue koolaid since her signature color is lots of purple. :-D

Hey there, it's been a while

Hello again! It's been a while since I blogged, again....

I blame my camera. Or rather, blame could maybe be placed on my precious little Hannah who attacked my camera while it was plugged into the computer and damaged the receptor for the USB cable inside the camera. Then it wouldn't connect to the computer and I had no way to put pictures in the computer. And who can blog without pictures? BoRiNg!

And then Betsy dropped my camera on the floor and busted the battery door, which in in all class I packing taped shut.

And then my wonderful mother bought me a new camera. A better camera. A RED camera.

So now I can share pictures.

We traditionally ignore the Black Friday shopping bananza, having all worked in retail and hating the general public we try not to add to the madness. However Mom and I do have one little tiny ritual of going to JoAnn's for fabric, etc, so we ventured out there this morning. I picked up some yarn for a project I have in mind (none to stash! Aren't you proud of me?), some batting and some fabrics for a wall quilt for my living room above my fireplace.

Came back and went to the local chinese buffet for lunch, then Tony, the kids and I decided to wander around Big Lots. They had little 4' colored trees on sale for $12. They had a purple one. Hannah's favorite colors is purple, and her big brother loves her so much. He talked us into buying one. Only they didn't have a purple one except for the display (which they wouldn't sell) so he settled on getting the pink one and helping Tony find purple and silver decorations for it. Isn't he a good big brother?! When we got home she fell asleep and he helped me set it up. He decorated it (except for the ribbon/garland which I did first) while I tied ribbons in the shatter-proof balls and handed them to him. When she woke up she smiled ear to ear and said "Berry preddy!!!" over and over.

I had been tinkering with knitting a pair of fingerless gloves out of some of the leftover yarn from my Piebald socks. Mom actually dyed those socks blue which made them incredible! I planned on over dying these fingerless gloves too when I finished them. I got the 2nd one done this evening, except for weaving in the tails which I will do when they've dried. I knit them size ladies small, with a ruffle around the cuff and a simple lace pattern just like the piebald socks. When they were done I over dyed them purple which made them Gorgeous! I named them "Tanya" after the Denali Vampire because I love Twilight. Go ahead and make fun. ;-p BTW they look a LOT better on Diantha's size small hands then they do on my size large or extra-large hands. Will have to take pics of them on smaller hands later.

Hopefully I can get back into the swing of blogging, I really missed sharing all my crafty pictures. In a couple days I'll have some fake "cake" pictures to share!

Little Ponderosa Zoo

I am actually 2 weeks behind in posting this, as we went to the zoo 2 weeks ago! It seems like everytime I sit down to try to blog lately something else comes up either on the computer or here at home and I don't get to.

There's a little zoo in Clinton TN where I live called "Little Ponderosa" and they advertize a petting zoo and admission for only $8. Not bad considering admission to the larger Knoxville zoo is upwards of $16 each. A friend of mine and I had been meaning to take our kids for a couple months to try it out, but scheduling issues had kept us from going. Finally, 2 weeks ago I called Mom and said why don't we take our kids and see what's up?

It is a cute little zoo! They had the petting zoo part, which appears to just be goats LoL!, closed for the day since by the time we got over there it was about an hour til they closed. They had lots of little goats though and the kids enjoyed looking at them. They had one that looked pregnant with twins! She was HUGE for no taller than she was!!

For a little zoo they had lots of different and exotic animals. They had huge hairy yaks, sheep, goats, a pony, porcupine, tigers, "zonkies" which apparently is a crossbreed between a zebra and a donky, regular zebras and donkies, llamas, alpacas, deer, some sort of antelope, emus, ostriches, camels and dromedaries, kangaroos, and this little fellow that Mom mistakenly called a "Chupacabra" which we all know is that alien thing plaguing South America. ;-)

They also had some cages of birds which includes white pigeons (doves?) and a couple different kinds of pheasants. The spinner in me thinks I should definitely re-create the colors of these gorgeous birds in fiber!

I got some cute pictures of the kids on a porch swing overlooking a small pond, Betsy talking to a duck, Hannah enjoying the deer, Jeremiah enjoying the penny-toss fountain, Artemas being a man who stares at goats (yes we DID go out in public with him dressed like that!!) and Josiah who was dressed to match the zonky!

Mom wandered around collecting small down feathers that had fallen on the walk path to wash and spin into an art yarn, LoL! While Dad randomly exposed the corn in their fall decorations for the local wild birds to eat. I'm sure they appreciated that.

This sheep got out and followed us around until Hannah chased it yelling "Kitty!!"

Don't Diantha and Hannah both look happy about it?

Bacon loving Pumpkins, Pirates and Princesses

Wednesday Veronica spent the night and we picked up some pumpkins to carve. I let the kids draw of them with a sharpie while Tony gutted them (he's a good pumpkin gutter). Jeremiah drew a cat and Veronica drew a smiley face holding a piece of bacon. I know. Weird, but super cute. I drew a simple smiley with heart-shaped eyes for Hannah's, she was asleep.

Our church did a Pirates and Princesses puppet show/drama/play for the 2 yr olds-6th grade kids and they said if possible, for all the kids to come dressed as either a pirate or a princess. Jeremiah has a "Jack Sparrow" costume that he wears regularly, so that was no problem and Hannah actually already had a shirt that made her look as if she were wearing a pirate costume. I asked her if she wanted to be a princess though and she said, "AAARRGGH!!" Alrighty, pirate it was. I picked up some material at JoAnn's and made her and me each a simply, flowy, ragged edge elastic waist skirt. I love mine and plan on wearing it for everyday where too, not just costume opportunities. Jeremiah asked to wear black eyeliner and eyeshadow like I usually do so that he could really look like Jack Sparrow.

Thursday I cast on and began to knit MYSELF a pair of socks from some sock yarn I had bought and dyed. Yesterday I finished the first sock (had to rip out the heel, add 4 more rows and re-do the heel, that was the hold up. Honest.) and tried it on. It itches me. Sigh! So I handed it to Mom and asked her if it itched her; it doesn't. I told her I guess I'd just give them to her then, since I'd hate for them to go to waste. She sat around for about 5 minutes wearing sock #1 and when her left, unsocked foot began to feel cooler than her right, socked foot she began to look for the 2nd sock. Then realized that it hasn't been knit yet and told me, "No pressure but my other foot is cold."

So last night I cast on the 2nd sock and I'm just about to turn the heel. The first sock ended up with this strange little spot of very light colored yarn right at the top of the foot. So I'm calling them Piebald. And when I'm done with this second on, Mom can have it. I'll just have to try again with some superwash merino instead of just superwash "wool."

One last pic; I made another pleated fabric purse for Lucia and somehow only managed to get one lousy pic of it before I mailed it.