Lessons learned

I have learned a some lessons over the years, and even a few this week. Good lessons, bad lessons, funny lessons, duh-I-am-an-idiot lessons....they all have their value.

One silly lesson I learned lately is that if you like to knit with fuzzy yarn, as in a laceweight mohair blend, DO NOT buy a red couch. The project might be beautiful, lacey, yummy....

You might be in love with it. But then, you look where you were sitting, your inner clean self gasps in horror, you question your ability to stay sane when you are only 1/3 of the way through this project, because you see....

THIS! All over the couch. I see many hours of lint brushing in my future. I will press on, I will finish the shawl, I will get over the fact that my couch is going to look like do-do in the process. Ah well, that is a small enough price to pay for a beautiful knitted object, no?

Another lesson, gauge. You know where this is going don't you? This is my I-am-an-idiot lesson. I started a cardi for my daughter. It was looking so cute. It was looking small. It was a raglan. I could just keep increasing right? Um, no.

My daughter does not have a neck the size of a doll!!! Rip! Stupid, stupid, stupid. Soooo, now I have started over with my yarn doubled and it is looking much much better. Yay!

I should have this done sometime today, so she can wear it to school. My girls are obsessed with tank tops. They have MANY cute tank tops. They attend a school with a dress code that forbids anything sleeveless. We figured she could put this little cardi over them and stretch her wardrobe well into fall, saving me mucho bucks. Woo hoo!

A lesson on time management. Well frankly, lately I suck at it. This week has been the back to school transition week. This kids have a short week due to the holiday on Monday. It is good to have them back in school, but my busyness has not really improved much so far. Don't you think that there are just so many wonderful things to use our time on? Knitting, spinning, blogging, ravelry......I think I need about 2 more hours in my day. Speaking of ravelry, at first I thought I would never use it, now it usually wins out over blogging time. How do you all decide what to give your time to?

I may have learned a hard friendship lesson this week too. It is very disheartening to find that people you thought cared about you really might not. I'm sitting back and waiting to see what happens with this situation. Sad, just sad. I either need a hug or a fiber fix.

Next week

I am SOOOO looking forward to next week. I have been home from camping since Sat and life has been pure chaos since then. The kids go back to school on Tuesday (can you say ahhhh?), so we have been buying a few last minute school supplies, getting organized and trying to enjoy these last few days of our summer.


On Sunday the hubby and I snuck out for a couple of hours to the Michigan Fiber Festival. I really didn't think I would get there this year, because technically (hehe) I didn't NEED anything. I do like to go and look around and I am very glad I did! I got to meet an internet friend! Maple and I have been commenting on each other's blogs for a while now, and I finally got to meet her in person. I also bought this from her:


I got 8 oz of this delicious alpaca. It's such a beautiful color. I just love all the natural colors! Aren't her labels cute? They have the picture and name of the actual animal that the fiber comes from. I think that is so great! I am anxious for school to start so I can get back to my spinning.

In other stash enhancement news, I recently entered a contest on the Loopy Ewe's blog. I happened to be chosen as one of the winners! YAY! This is what Sheri sent:

3 skeins of sock yarn! I have never tried any of these before either, so I was really excited to open this package. I will have lots of socks to knit this winter. Or maybe I will branch out and make one of those beautiful scarves out of two colors of sock yarn. Oh the possibilities!

Hopefully life will be back to a good schedule soon, and the blogging won't suffer quite so much. Thanks to all who stuck with me despite my lack of good content this summer.

Holy flower batman!

Check this out! My niece gave me this giant flower. It is the craziest thing ever.

It's a giant cockscomb. That is ONE flower. ONE! Look at that stem! It is bigger than my hand. The top is fuzzy and slightly "brainish" looking. Pretty cool huh?

In the not-so-cool category, I finished my stole, but I think I will have to knit the entire thing again. I think I chose the wrong yarn for it. I blocked it out and it is gorgeous, but it doesn't retain it's shape. There is some elastic in it, which would be wonderful for other projects, but not for this one. I will probably do it again in a wool yarn.

I really love the looks of it, so I will definitely redo it if I can't use this one.

Well, we are off today for another week of camping at the beach. Last vacation of the summer....ahhhhh.

Mist scarf

Lace anyone? Free pattern? It seems all over blogland, people have been bitten by the lace bug. I know I have. In case you have not been bitten yet, could I tempt you with a little project? I designed a lace scarf for Crystal Palace and the pattern is up! Yay!

The free pattern is available here. It's an easy repeat that would be great for beginning lace knitters. It's also a great take along project and stash buster, using only one ball (240 yds) of their Kid Merino.

Mine will be a Christmas gift for.....well I don't think I will tell, in case she stumbles on the blog. You could whip this up in no time for a gift for any occasion.

Enjoy!

Happy feet

If you were hoping for penguins, sorry. Only happily-clad-by-handknits feet here. Yay! I felted the slippers from Knit 2 Together. They turned out really cute.

This pattern is so fast. Literally you can knit a pair in a couple of hours. The embellishing is another story. I am not kidding, it took me longer to put those silly lines on than it did to knit the slippers. I kept pulling it out because they were not straight enough, or not spaced properly, etc. If you are a perfectionist, for the sake of your sanity, pick a different embellishment! I definitely have plans for more of these. If you haven't already, buy the book! It's well worth the money, I mean, can you believe that price? Too cute to pass up!

I also finished a footie. Off the foot, these look freakishly long, but they do fit my daughter's size 8 1/2 foot quite well.

She doesn't have elf feet, really! They remind me of jelly beans. Fun colors, woot!

In other news, I have been sucked in to the giant hole of time spent, otherwise known as Ravelry. You can get lost in there for days! DAYS! I have finally managed to get a few of my projects listed (few, few). If I had always been a regular Flickr user it might not be taking me this long, but I have to upload everything there first. I am not fast at this. Not fast at all. Then all the labeling, getting distracted by other projects, looking for forgotten info about said projects, getting distracted by yarn, waiting for the bookshelf to load, finding friends. EEEEK! Time suck I tell ya, GIANT TIME SUCK! (I'm under "yenforyarn", look me up!)