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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Glad to see...

I'm not the only one hating on Blogger this week and the new word verification craptcha thingy-majiggy. Bleh. :(

Sore subject..................moving on...............

Well, it was a busy week trying to catch up on things and get back to normal after being so hurl-a-licious last weekend but I managed to finish up two more WIP's while catching up on TiVo stuff at night.

 Death by Candy Corn by Scarlett House.

I had started this one last fall when the pattern was released but those 'over one' candy corns threw me off and I put it aside after doing just one. Bad me. (I didn't like the 'half' stitch the pattern had for them, at least not on this linen, so I changed it to a full stitch, thereby increasing the work for them.) I can never, ever decide what color order I like the candy stripes to be so I switched them back and forth here to keep me happy. The glass candy corns I do are the same. Sometimes I like orange in the middle better, sometimes the yellow...........I've been making them for 10 years now and I *STILL* can't decide on the color order! lol

 This one is by The Trilogy, yes?

I did this pattern a couple years ago as part of an exchange, let me see I'm sure I have a picture here on Blogger for it deeeeeeeeeep in the blog innards........

Oh yes, here it is. But I always wanted to do it again for myself so now I have. Just took me a loooooooooooooooong time to get to it. :)

So yayyyyy for working through the WIP-bag! Very happy about this. All I have left now, WIP-wise, are three pieces................but they are all really big and involved so I don't expect I will finish them whiz-bang-like. I might need to..........mmm...........start a little something to keep me interested in the meantime. Just something small. Teeny tiny. Just one. (I can feel the WIP bag growing again as we speak! *sigh*) And I obviously have a lot of 'finishing' to do with all these new pieces but that will have to wait for the moment. My sewing table (if it's big enough to call it that) is a shambles at the moment and I don't have the heart to tackle it just yet. *ahem*

You know what February is?

It's the start of the Cookie A Sock Club!

Yes I joined again. I am weak and I REALLY liked the club last year. All of the yarns (6) and patterns (12) were pretty fabulous so I figured just one more year with it wouldn't hurt. 

 The first shipment is this luscious CASHMERE yarn. OMG SOFT! The only bad thing about it is that my camera is REFUSING to photo it properly. (And you can forget about *me* having the skills to do it on my own. Oh no, not happening! Point and click is my nickname. lol) It's a medium cranberry/magenta tone - none of this tomato red business showing up on my computer. Grrr! But I can forgive it, of course, because it's CASHMERE. :)

Okay, I'm tired of waiting around this afternoon for it to stop raining in Florida so I can watch the Daytona 500 so I'm outta here. (I was only half interested in it to begin with and the window has now closed and I'm over it. Going for a walk instead!)

ORANGE you glad it's almost the weekend? (Small giveaway at the end.)

 It's been an orange kind of week, thanks to my finishing my BC Uber Jack and the newest sock club yarn from Cookie A. I know orange isn't for everyone but I think it's kind of dreamy when it's peachy/Creamsicle in tone. Or an autumny pumpkiny kind of orange. Ok, basically any orange except for traffic cone orange is cool with me. (What can I say? I like color.)

Thank you, Cookie, for your adventurous spirit and eye for color. I *love* this yarn!

Jack is none too shabby in the orange department either though. Did you catch how close I am to the edge of the linen in the first pic? Heheheh. I was determined to use this piece of scrap linen for some reason (me = stubborn idiot) and it was close. REAL close! I figured I could just leave out the vine if I needed a little more room at the end there. I'll definitely have to measure for a frame verrrrrrrrrrry carefully though if I go the framing route. :)

I don't see myself using this pattern again (I only redo smalls) so if someone wants it, leave me a comment and I'll pass it along to you for free. I'll pick someone randomly in a couple days if there is more than one of you who do. 

Note: please make sure your email is EASILY found though, either from your profile or by typing it out in your comment. Hunting for contact info on the internets makes me a grumpy bear and you can't make me do it. Nope. I'm a princess/brat that way. :)

Happy Weekend!

Another month gone. This year is just flying by, isn't it?

I think we're going to Hartford tomorrow for some 'bee' thing that he's dragging me to and I have to work some in the middle of that. I fully plan on bringing my knitting to Hartford so lots of knitting too, I guess. (The ride down takes a while so, at the very least, I can get a bunch done in the car.)

I finished another pair of socks this week, putting me back in line with my goal of one pair per month this year. It was a squeaker but I got 'er done before April was outta here!

The pattern is Haleakala by Cookie A. which, for me, brings to mind Pee Wee Herman and Mekaleka-hi, Meka-hiney-ho. (Seriously. I can't SHUT IT OFF in my brain. Damn you Pee Wee! *shakes fist*) She say Haleakala, I say Mekaleka. It's all just gibberish, right? lol

 Super clever pattern, as always. Cookie is SMRT like that and a superb pattern writer. They're basically just a standard old 2x2 ribbed sock with the addition of a lace/cable segment running just down the front, combined with a bit of clever 2x2 rib detailing on the ankle. 

I'd link to the pattern but it's a Cookie club exclusive and only available to sock club members this year. (It will be out to the public next year though.) Sorry to be a tease. :)

Stashing and stashing.

I should be and AM working on some new beads to post but it's going slower than molasses this week. So, in the meantime, let's post some stashing pics. :)

I got a few cross stitch patterns from this site here: Violarium. They specialize in French designs but are located in Finland. I *literally* got my package from them 4 mailing days after I placed my order so I can not recommend them enough. Four days! FROM FINLAND. 0_o 

I ordered a brass bead press from the same area that's still sitting in customs after three weeks, with no end in sight yet, so I was pretty jazzed about that. (I'm having bad luck with customs in general this year though. I think THS is going through things with a fine-toothed comb because of the Middle East stuff or something because it's been IMPOSSIBLE to deal with them lately. Grrr.)

How much do I love Tralala designs? I couldn't resist the lambs (with the tiny beehive!) and a snowman pattern. 

(Click for the bigger pic because this was too wide for my blog. lol)

It was HARD picking out just three. lol

More yarn. UGH. 

I KNOW, I KNOW!! !@!@#!@#

Ok but firstly, I did not pick out the green one - it was picked out for me as part of a sock club. I hemmed and hawed and dithered about joining another yarn club this year but the one by Cookie A ended up being too shiny and precious to ignore. She's my favorite designer and she's designing TWO patterns for each club package so...................yeah. Couldn't resist. :( 

The yarn is by String Theory and very pretty - I approve. 

(The patterns rock too but I don't think we are supposed to share them? I'm not clear if that means don't share them at ALL, even in passing on your blog, or means, like, don't pass the pattern onto someone else?)

The other two skeins are ONline Supersocke which is a 'budget' sock yarn that I'm planning to use for a pair of Obliviate mitts. I can't find a pattern link off Ravelry but they are done up like the ones Hermione wears in The Deathly Hallows movie.

The general consensus on the Ravelry HP board is that those are woven sideways, not knit at all actually, and then seamed up the side but, you know, we're not going for perfection here. Any slouchy, colorful type mitt that approximates it will do. :)

I couldn't tell which one of the color blends would work better so I, uhhh, ordered both. 

I like this one with orange in it better though so that is the one I'm going to use. :)

And finally, here is my sweater after working on it all week long:

I actually had a few more inches done than this, had even started the woven part for the chest area, but it kept seeming to be too short, though I didn't let that STOP ME FROM GOING ON... AND ON (!!!).........and then finally I realized OH HAI IT'S TOO SHORT. So I ripped it back a few inches to do some more plain stockinette. (Ripping it back was easy though - just had to thread a cable needle through the line of stitches right before I started the woven part, unwind the knitting and VOILA! It catches up to the new needle and you're off and running again. Probably took no more than 5 minutes. You don't get back the time you put into originally knitting it, of course, but that's better than ripping out cross stitch!) I worked back up to the woven part last night so I should be making my way through the arm hole shaping tonight. :)

It's SOCK CLUB MONTH.

The Loopy Ewe sock club that is. It's too dark out (so far) today to take pictures of my finished Haruni but I managed to snap a pic of this stuff for the internets yesterday.

This bi-monthly edition included: a super awesome yarn by Alchemy in lovely fall colors, a pair of scissors, a clip-on tape measure, and a little case with handy-dandy post-it notes and a small pen. The notions stuff are really great because knitters generally have (and I think I can speak for 95% of knitters here) more than one project going at a time and it is quite handy to have a pair of scissors, a tape measure, etc. stuffed away in each bag. You really can't have too many of these types of notions. So they will be well used.

Also came with two patterns, one for a pair of socks and one for a neck warmer thing but, uhhh, I didn't really care for those. I mean, they aren't awful, just not *my* knitting style. I'm very particular about sock patterns and I'm a big lover of scarves vs. a neck ring.

 But have I mentioned how much I love this yarn? I've never even heard of this company before and it's quite luscious in person. Nice twist, nice feel to it, etc. And god knows I LOVE ME some fall colors.