Happy May Day!

 In my usual scan of various news sites and blogs this morning,  I've already come across that May is the National Burger Month, National Mental Health Awareness Month and National Masturbation Month. Sooo..........yeah. Busy month, it seems! (One of those came from Bobby Flay's twitter feed............I'll leave it to you to guess which one it was. lol)

Things have been busy busy the last week! Not much time for projects and that sort of thing I'm afraid. I did manage to grab The Most Awesomest Sneakers in the world though. I'll show them to you but, first, put on a pair of sunglasses.............ready?..................

Oh yeah, baby! 

The color isn't *quite* right there though...........

Yep. That's more like it. 

If you think I don't plan on wearing these with my equally-eye-searing neon orange capri jogging pants..........YOU WOULD BE WRONG. (That's me - standing up for the unloved colors with PRIDE.) They are light as a feather - literally. Just 7.6 ounces! I've already put about 12-15 miles on them and it's two thumbs up all the way. Sorry to be so EXCITED but I literally can't remember the last time I had a pair of 'regular' sneakers. Ages and ages and AGES. I usually go more for the hiking/trail type shoe or sandal. Plan on wearing them out with the walking. Zoom, zoom, zoom!

Got those when I was SUPPOSED to be shopping for wedding clothes. My bad. Easily distracted shopper here. *waves arms* Did manage to get an outfit though and be properly dressed in the end. 

The wedding was in Boston, which was a treat as I haven't been to that city in yearsssssssss. Easily over a decade! The ceremony was at the Public Gardens by the Swan Boats which was pretty but, New England being New England, the weather wasn't ENTIRELY cooperative. (It was about 50 degrees and SUPER windy. Brrrr!) Strangely enough, I have *ANOTHER* thing to go to this week in Boston as well. Funny how that works! Haven't been there in ages and now I'm going twice in one week! 

 I managed to score three tickets for a Red Sox game this week so we have that on Friday. FUN! I've been to a ton of 'farm team' games (grew up within a stone's throw of McCoy stadium) but I've never been to FENWAY. I don't actually watch baseball or, uhhhhh, know any players names or anything but I always LOVE going to see something live regardless. I'm weird like that. There's something about the 'realness' of it that I find  immensely entertaining, while on tv it just bores me to death. lol 

HUGE THANKS to Carol and Lori for the gifties that I received from them in the last week!!!!

 I won this adorable little bunny chart from Carol..........

And the yarn was a wonderful surprise from Lori. (Which I immediately caked up and started working on, as you can see.)

THANK YOU BOTH and *MWAH*

Fini.

Finished both my 'vacation' projects this weekend! :)

 Queen Bee by LHN

 No mods..........that I remember. The linen is called Straw but I have to admit I'm not sure what company it's from. (WDW? Maybe?) I get linen in, throw it in the pile and then never really know what it is or where it's from. /shrug 

I really liked the frame that was pictured with the pattern for this but the square shape is just begging for a cube finish instead, right?

 Vesper striping yarn

And more stripey socks (that I never ever get tired of making............or wearing!) This color was hard to photo.........when the sun hits this yarn, I swear it GLOWS. Soooooooooooo bright! LOVE IT!

So that's cool, not letting them drag out for months or whatever. Now I can rip into something NEW and SHINY. lol

Here's a cool link I came across this morning on Pinterest:

Oh, to have the time to get to all the projects in the world!!!

 I really like the patchwork pincushion that links to here. Super cute! Bookmarking that one for sure.

Will it be lion or lamb? Hmm..................

 This was the view on my road on March 1st so I'm thinking....................lion, right? Could go either way but I'm definitely leaning towards 'in like a lion'. If only the universe had made it a little easier to choose!  ;^)

(Here's to a lamb-like end-of-March!)

So definitely no walking outside for a bit until the snow melts (which it is doing today, matter of fact) but I had plenty of mail goodies to keep me company inside.

Lovely dishclothy and stitch marker gift goodness from Dee. LOVE IT! And the colors are perfect for me - purple AND lime. THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :)

I really do love a good cotton cloth to use around the house* but hate knitting with cotton (it makes my elbows weep in anger) so I never knit them very often and this makes me sad.

*the more you use them, the better they get until that day when, oops, they completely unravel from the middle or something because you've used it so much. lol

And then there was this.

ARGH! I got sucked into joining QPB.... again! 

We've doing this dance for yearsssssssss. Literally. Over a decade now! (For real.) They go 'Psst. I'll let you have all these books for $1 each  if you just promise to love me enough to buy one more over the next year' and I get ALL TWITCHY AND DO IT. And I buy the one extra book, immediately cancel the membership, they woo me for a couple more years and keep adding stuff to the deals to catch my attention (this also came with a Star Trek-y book light and an overnight bag) until, one day, OMG I'M DOING IT AGAIN. Repeat until one of is dead. Honestly, I don't know why they keep wooing me because I'm not good for any other purchases - surely this is not a good business model? It is what it is at this point, I guess. Plus, as much as I love my Kindle(s), I do still love an 'old fashioned' paper book. Books in general make me happy. 

I was particularly pleased to get the Grimm's one. I had one of those when I was kid and it was quite fascinating and...........odd. Almost creepy and very un-Disney-like. I watch that show Once Upon a Time and it renewed my interest in them, to the point where I just wish listed one on Amazon recently. I'm not sure it's good 'reading' material to just sit and read all in a go but I know I'll enjoy going through it here and there. I don't remember them verbatim from childhood but I remember snippets, like, someone stomping their foot through a floor and that being his downfall? (Rumpelstiltskin?) I should probably finish one (or all) of the 4-5 books I've already started though first, eh? lol

Well here's something that hasn't happened to me in a while! Mr. Man and his 'make the leg longer, longerrrrrrrrrrrrrr, longerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr' made me run out of yarn on these when doing the toe*. BAH! (I swear he'd be happy if I made a pair of socks long enough to pull right up to his flipping EARS! lol)

Oh well. A quick dive into my leftover bits came up with this heathered gray that blends in so well you probably wouldn't have noticed I had run out of yarn if I hadn't said anything!

*The yarn was generous enough for a normal sized pair of socks so the fault is all mine - on that count. I have to say though, this Paton's Kroy line is a total bust and I won't be using it again. It knits up nice and thick, cushy and wears well. Good price on it. etc. So what's the problem? ABSOLUTELY NO RESPECT FOR THE CONCEPT OF DYE LOT. This is the second time I've used it for socks, using matching dye lots for the two skeins, and both pairs of socks ended up wildly different. One clearly has more vibrant colors than the other and they match only in that 'kinda sorta if you blink' way. Last year with a pair for my mother and now these - same thing. Not cool. Dye lots are there FOR A REASON and the coloring is off WAY too much for a commercial yarn to be anywhere NEAR acceptable. Grrr!

Anyhoo. I think next I might tackle one of the Cookie A patterns that just came in with my red sock club yarn. I'm kinda askeered of them though. *gulp*

They come with five charts to work through. For ONE pair of socks. 0_o

I blurred this a little so you can't really read them but you don't need to read them to see the page after page after page of charts for the design. Wish me luck! Heheheh.

Off to catch up on blog reading! Have a great weekend, y'all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winnah Winnah, Chicken Dinnah!

 Random pick for the Roly-Poly pattern was Dee. 

Happy Stitching him!! :)

Of course, letting one pattern go created a disturbance in the force *shifty eyes*.............

Which I filled with not one but FOUR new patterns. 

DAMN IT! I'm doing this wrong, aren't I? Grrrrrrr.

Hand-Dyed Floss Giveaway for Xmas!

No, not from me (though I would *LOVE* to get into dying my own threads....but that's a deep, dark rabbit hole I don't want to fall into).....but over HERE on the Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe blog. 

I have some of her hand-dyed threads in my stash (purchased from her shop) and they are divine. I'm always in awe of people who are so skilled at dying. It really is an art form to be able to combine colors so delicately and beautifully. One splosh too many in the wrong tone and you end up with mud. lol

Patch job success!

From these holey heels:

To two new life-saving patches:

Annnnnnnnnd my favorite pair of socks are back in action for a little while longer.

I even had some of the original yarn left in my cupboard to use for the darning! (Though, obviously, we've got some MAJOR fading going on here over the three years these socks have been in use.) 

You basically use a lot of duplicate stitching with a regular sewing needle to 'fill' the hole. The heel with the totally disintegrated stitches was a bear to do, not gonna lie. (Creating new knit stitches out of thin air is NOT fun). That one is clearly not as neat as the other but I'm fairly certain it will hold so I'm happy with it. I can always get back in there and widen it a bit if needed.

HUGE thanks to Jackie for pointing me in the direction of Knit Picks darning tutorials.They worked like a charm. :)

Something new, old and FREE! :)

Something new:

 Welllllll, someone asked for a pink owl, to go with the purple one.........and that just seems to have spawned a few, uhhhh, other colors as well. (Plus a Christmas one is not pictured here.)

 Some glorious new thread packs in pumpkin oranges and christmas colors from the Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe. (Seeing as I feel like I work mostly with Xmas or Halloween stuff......these will be much loved.)

Some glorious new sock yarn, courtesy of the Cookie A Sock Club for October. (Not pictured are the two new patterns that came with.)

Now for the old stuff. 

An old pattern, courtesy of my recent re-organization of the stash patterns. It came with the threads (though I seem to be missing a 1/3rd of them?) and I had even started it a teeny tiny bit. (There were a few lonely orange squares already put on the linen, from god knows when.The pattern is marked from 2002 so.........could be that long ago?) 

 I decided to 'rescue it' and put a little more effort into it than that. The whole thing is done over one though *cough* so don't look for me to be finishing it anytime soon. :)

This pattern was found, also when reorganizing. Not only did it come with the DMC threads - it also came with the FRAME. So there really was no reason at all for this to be languishing in my stash for near-10 years!!! I'm not sure where to put it just yet but I'm sure I'll find a nice place for it sooner vs. later and it feels good to have finally finished it. (Especially considering it only took a couple days to whip it up!)

Now for the free:

If anyone would like to stitch that last pattern, let me know in the comments and I'll send the pattern out for free to the first person who wants it. It uses just basic DMC threads so you won't miss the ones that came with it, plus it's ripe for picking your own colors to suit your own tastes.
Goes to Patty C. Enjoy!! :)

Now I REALLY AM done.

With framing stuff. At least for this year. 

Really. I am.

This last batch took me about 2 months to put together after the frames had come in because, quite frankly, I think I'm exhausted with all the framing going on this year. lol (Doesn't stop me from getting a thrill seeing htem done up though!!)

 What a treat to get this Drawn Thread one out of 'storage' - especially since I stitched in 1999!! I really love this piece and it looks fantastic up in my entryway. 

Another piece, long buried in storage. Shepherd's Bush. I always panic over which frame to pick - it's sooooooooooooo much pressure, you know? I wasn't sure this one was going to work out but I took a chance on it and I love it now. 

These are from this year so no pining away in storage for years and years for them!

If you see me getting twitchy to buy some more frames this year, please, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, zap me in the ass with a cattle prod or something. (Nicely place kick will work, as well.) It's rapidly approaching 'clearly insane' levels. 0_o

Someone asked for an owl WITHOUT a witch's hat so this wee one was born:

Cutie-patootie! I think I may do some others up in additional colors. :)

Have a nice weekend, y'all! I'll be counting down the time until the newest Downton hits Sunday evening. It's nice to see I'm not the only person out there obsessed with this show. (Who ships for Mary/Matthew? I'm reduced to 13 year old ooey-gooey status over this storyline. *sigh*)

(As always, the frames are from Franken Frames. Yes, you too can afford custom framing. That distressed white one with the bees? $6. How can you resist those prices? I think it's been proven that *I* can not. lol)

Everybody warm enough yet? :)

What's up with that, right? 

It's down to a positively 'chilly' 85 degrees here today. *snort* (I'll take that over the 100+ of yesterday!)

Thankfully, I have lots of 'indoor' hobbies to keep me busy (and in the blessedly cool a/c). I feel bad for everyone who has to work outside though - my husband included. :(

Anyhoozle doozle. Being indoors so much, I caught up on a couple projects this week. I think I mentioned my mad love for Franken Frames about a month or so ago? Carol posted that link for them and I was all over it like white on rice. Three custom made/cut frames for less than $30...........total? OH YES PLEASE I WILL. 

I dug waaaaaaaaaaaaay deep into my box of finished pieces and pulled out a few to see how the whole thingamabob thing would work. (I've never ordered custom frames online before and, well, to say I'm not good with the 'rithmetic' and fraction-figuring would be an understatement. I measured not twice, but thrice but I hit the order button, ya dig?) But it all worked out well and everything fit like a dream. (WHEW.) 

 This one, A Drawn Thread pattern I believe, was stitched in 1999 and it's much too nice to be languishing in a deep, dark Rubbermaid drawer forever and ever, don't you think?  I can't wait to hang it up!

This one is older still.........I think? And I have no idea of the designer. A quick Google search of that term came up with nothing and it was so long ago that I can't possibly remember who it is. I don't like this frame choice quite as much as the first one for some reason. I think maybe the color wasn't quite what I thought it would be? (But I don't think it looks BAD either.)

 

Ewe and Friends (I think?) from a few years ago, though the pattern itself goes back a looooooong time. (I have many, many things in my stash going back a long, long time. lol) Simple black frame, not much to say about it. I picked this one because it was small and will fit in very easily on my sampler wall.

Considering I was just 'experimenting' with older pieces, it went rather well. No money was wasted but now, of course, this has set a dangerous precedent. You can see that, right? Custom frames. Any time I want. For cheap. OH BOY HOWDY. Very very dangerous indeed!! :)

And now I have a date with a sock. Or a pair of socks to be more accurate. I just realized I only have a week left if I'm to keep up with my 'pair of socks a month' plan for this year. Eep. I've done so well so far with this plan I CAN'T GIVE IT UP NOW!!!!!!! Must_get_knitting!!

Finishes, finishes, I gots some finishes!! :)

I've been to worn down at night to do anything but watch tv like a mindless zombie but it's been good for getting some things done. My hands are always busy even if my BRAIN is shut down. 

(Not always recommended, mind you, because you do tend to find yourself in Frog/Tink country quite often this way. It is what it is.)

Blackbird Designs - December stockings

I did all of the stitching on two of these in February/March but I got the third one done real quick this week. Funny how that works out. I don't like to let these sit too long without finishing them so I whipped up the backs with a country red plaid and VOILA! I now have 8 months of these completed. :)

 

I've also had some frames waiting for a little attention so I got started on those too. This little goodie is the L*K Snowman '10 piece I did earlier this year. I special ordered the model frame for it from 123stitch (thanks so much, girls!) and it looks positively darling. I can't wait to hang this one up! I think it's going to go on The Wall but I have two more pieces to finish stretching and framing before I get there. I should get those done this weekend and then to The Wall they go. The pieces are getting so high now the hubby is going to have to drag out the BIG BIG ladder to hang these suckers up! Heh. Better him than me, I say. :)

Feh. Time Change.

It's like I'm moving through quicksand today. Oh time-forward-change, my nemesis. *shakes fist*

I should be feeling 'right' again by...................July or so. lol

LOOKEE LOOKEE LOOKEE. I actually finished ANOTHER small stitchy! Never underestimate my ability to ignore what I should be doing (*ahem* sweater *ahem*) in order to dazzle myself with a small pretty. Distracted by teh shiny. I haz it bad. 

(look at me breaking out those buttons again!!!! )

This is a freebie chart that was posted last week by Vinniey on Sometimes I Stitch. Super cute! I changed the colors to be more appropriate to the room I want to use it in but I think it looks great in any colors really. How about red birds and green for the lettering for a Xmas theme? Or all pink or all baby blue for a new baby theme?

I wanted to do a wire hanger for this, you know - just poke it through the corners, curly-q the ends, etc. But I couldn't find any black wire in my craft supplies. I KNOW IT'S IN THERE SOMEWHERE but it's probably easier to just buy some more at Michaels vs. tearing up a big huge closet full of crafty odds-n-ends. So for now it's just a small pillow but I WILL make it into a hanger at some point. (Thankfully, unlike the Joann's that is 45 minutes away, there is a Michaels in town that I can swing by next time I go to the supermarket or whatever.)

Is anybody else planning on watching the new Game of Thrones show on HBO next month?

I have to watch it because I pay dearly for my HBO subscription and figure I have to watch everything in order to get my money's worth. lolol (Thankfully I like most of their programming.)

I know nothing at all about the mythology behind this show though so I broke down and got the first book in the series to try it out. I read the first few chapters last night (hence why I didn't get to bed until 4am *sigh*) and it seems..............dense. (And much like something else I've read but can't quite put my finger on at the moment. Pillars of the Earth? The Mists of Avalon? I just started it though so I could be very very wrong.) So far I would say it's interesting but it's not 'wowing' me. I could just be a jaded SOB though. lolol  (As much as I love sci-fi TV, I'm pretty picky about sci-fi books.) And I do all this with the full knowledge that reading the book first might totally ruin the show for me, like it did with the Sookie Stackhouse series. (Love those books, am just 'meh' on the show. The trashy lowbrow fun of the books just translates into ridiculous and over-the-top to me on screen. Clearly I'm in the minority though because the show is a hit. /shrug)

Best. Weekend. EVAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

 Firstly, I won Sonda's LHN chart giveaway. Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet! 

Seriously excited over this!! I've never won a blog giveaway so excuse me while I do a happy dance. *dance* (Which isn't to say that I don't like HOSTING giveaways, because I honestly do get a kick out of that too.) Thanks so much Sonda! YOU ROCK. :)

Secondly, who is Edward James Olmos' new bestie? OH THAT WOULD BE ME, THX.

He added me to his Twitter feed *AND* sent me a private message that ended with SO SAY WE ALL. *sqeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee*

Frakity frak frakking frak, the Old Man added me back. Do I care if he possibly does that with all BSG-tweet friendly fans? NOPE. When ADMIRAL FRAKKING ADAMA gives you a direct SO SAY WE ALL, you die and go immediately to sci-fi fan girl heaven. The details are IRRELEVANT, ok? 

Now excuse while I go enjoy my BSG contact high and my chart win for awhile. :)

'Tis that time again for........

....a new Twist Collective! 

And, as always, it is loaded full of great projects and drool-worthy pictures. (Who knew hand knits could be so juicy? lol) Per usual, there are too many favs to post about but I like highlighting a few because I'm always in awe of the work these designers do. 

Samsara by Mary Joy Gumayagay.

Sideways knit cables? INTRIGUING. (The top photo on that page makes me laugh though. Does anyone else get the sense the model is burning holes into the photographer with her eyes for making her sit at such an awkward angle? lol)

Trembland by Amanda Scheuzger

MITTENS!

Leaving by Anne Hanson.

I'm a HUGE fan of Anne's work- I've done a few sock/scarf patterns of hers and they are some of the most organized, meticulously written patterns you'll ever come across.  This one is a real winner for me too. It has a lot of interesting twisted stitches and pattern work and yet still seems very light and wearable. (I'm not a huge fan of wearing heavy sweaters. They can look great but they make me miserable.)

Melek by Stephanie van der Linden

SOCKS. With twisty twistiness and cables. Sweeeeet.

And about a dozen others. Go poke around and find your own favorites. :)