Santa Set

I finished this Santa set up for our Cyber Monday stocking over at Serenity Tree. If it doesn't sell soon I may move it into my Etsy shop or my other congo - Made By Military Wives.

Kimono features black "belt" for outer ties and i-cord ties inside to reduce bulk. White garter stitch trim gives it a fuzzy Santa look. Chest circumference: 20", Sleeve: 7"

Longies also feature garter stitch trim, a gansey gusset, and short rows in the bum to accomodate cloth diapers. Rise and Hips: 15.5", Inseam: 9"

Santa hat also sports garter stitch trim and comes with your choice of pom pom or tassel on top. Circumference: 15"

Booties are 4" from heel to toe, include a black twisted cord drawstring tie around the ankle (not pictured), and are 6" high from heel to cuff.

The white trim is 85% wool and 15% mohair, the rest of the yarns are 100% wool, and as always the longies come lanolized and ready to wear.

Merry Christmas!

"Astro"

Meet my new friend, "Astro".

It's kind of bright and fun. Black, orange, blue, and bright (and I mean bright) green.

It's stocking today on Serenity Tree along with a matching long sleeved t-shirt. The shirt is 18mos Circo brand, my kids have a couple of these shirts and I like them.

I had a hard time photographing the colors, the green really didn't want to show up. I also had a hard time getting the colors to set like I wanted. It was pretty frustrating and my hands are tinted bluish-black. One of the skeins I think looks a little more washed out, but I've listed them as "seconds" so hopefully that can make up for my mishap. It's dyed on Sweet Grass Wool 3-ply, which is 4oz and 153yd per skein.

Veteran's Day shipping

In honor of Veteran's Day I am offerring free first class shipping to the lower 48 states tomorrow. All other shipping will be discounted. This is valid anywhere you can find me - my website, Etsy, Serenity Tree, or Made by Military Wives.

To those who have served, are serving, or will serve our country, and those that love them... thank you.

On A Roll!

I have one word for you...

Done. It's finished. Finally.

"Savannah" by Dolce Handknits in Dream in Color Classy "Cool Fire".

Completion was a matter of procrastination mainly, as there was a lot of seaming to do. I seamed up the front and back pieces a few weeks ago but the sleeves didn't seem like they were lining up as they should so I put off finishing the rest. I finally got the guts to do it this weekend (thanks Dad), and what we have is a completed sweater.

So... my analysis. I've posted my notes on Ravelry, but I'll give you the gist of it here. The pattern was well-written and overall I have no complaints with it, other than seaming. I just don't like it. You know, you finish knitting, have this sigh of relief that you've *finally* got something to show for all this time... and you still have to sew it together. I just prefer knitting things as one piece so when you're done you really are. Except for blocking.

Anyway, my only real frustration otherwise is the yarn. It's nice yarn, seems to make a nice fabric, but there are no dye lots. No friends, no dye lots. And one skein isn't even that close to the next! Of course I didn't realize this right off the bat, not until I got an inch into the second skein.

I ended up having to knit from 2 balls at once to try to get the colors to blend. Overall it has a unified look, but if you look closely and/or hold say a sleeve up to the back you can tell. The customer has implied that she'll be satisfied with the finished result, and I hope it's true.

It's a pretty sweater. I think the empire waist gathering with no closure is slightly awkward, but it's personal preference. I won't even show a modeled pic for you because it's clearly not my size. The sleeves are a good 1.5" - 2" too short. :)

Oh, Glorious Completion

Today I finished a longies / kimono set I've been working on for awhile. It seems to have taken ages to get it done, not because it was a huge project or because it was particularly difficult.

I got the longies done, no problem. Didn't take too long and were fun to knit because the yarn is *gorgeous*.

Adorabubble Britches, size 2T in Mosaic Moon BFL

Then I went to TX to visit my hubby (which I may not have told you about). We (my two children and I) drove from Minnesota to San Angelo, TX to visit my husband who is training there. Well, I didn't bring much knitting along. I figured I was going to have more than 2 full days in the car and 2-1/2 days to see him.

Probably wouldn't knit much. Then... a gracious friend of mine who just moved near Dallas offerred to let us stay with her for the week so we could see my husband again the next weekend. After 25 hours in the car, it seemed like it might be worth it to stay the extra week. The problem? (As far as knitting goes) I didn't bring the right size needles with me for this project. :( Yeah, I finished up another small one and worked on another large one, but I couldn't get started on this kimono!

Baby Sachiko Kimono Sweater in Spotz Golden Yellow with Mosaic Moon Trim

So I got home, got settled back in (a little) and got working on this. It took a little longer than I had hoped, but I got it done in less than a week. I modified the pattern slightly with some intarsia-like trim on it to incorporate more of the variegated colorway. All in all it's nearly perfect. The only thing I think I'd change is instead of doing the I-cords I would maybe do a twisted string like I usually do for the drawstring waist of longies. It would've been faster and perhaps tied the two (pun not intended, but funny none-the-less) together a little more. But either way I'm more than thrilled with the result.

I finished the last I-cord after 4:30 this afternoon, stuffed it in an envelope, and ran off to the post office just in time. Cristi, the recipient, has been incredibly patient while I've dealt with pregnancy and long trips to postpone her outcome. I hope she is pleased with it (and can use the little *extra* I included for her patience). She sent me some yarn she dyed up to knit for myself and I cant wait to decide on what to make with it. She has some great colorways, I'll be sure to show them when I get them photographed and/or knitted up. Thanks Cristi! I hope you enjoy!

October Activities

I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of exciting new projects to report. I've been working on a few small things, I did a custom dye for a customer on a merino/mohair blend

and am still finishing up seaming "Savannah". When that's done I can get a good picture of it, I think it'll be a beautiful sweater. I've finished up a pair of longies as well but the camera was missing.

All in all it has been a pretty busy month trying to finish up some odds and ends as well as preparing for a trip to the grand 'ol state of Texas. My husband is training in San Angelo and we drove down last weekend to visit him.

A gracious friend is letting us stay with her this week near Dallas and we'll head back over to visit him again next weekend before making the 1,200+ mile journey home.

On another note, I just started in October stocking at Made By Military Wives on HyenaCart. All vendors are obviously military wives. We stock on the 1st and 15th of the month, so be sure to check it out.

Child's Tunic Sweater

Here's one I've been working on for *ages*. I don't know why I didn't get my act together a month ago and just finish it, but here it is, at long last.

It's the Cottage Creations "Tunic Sweater for the Family". It was a pretty easy knit and I'm very happy with the way it turned out, except I'm not convinced it's *actually* a size 8... it just looks too small. But, I have small children and have never really held a child's 8 sweater in my hands and looked at it, so I'm sure I know nothing. I remeasured it all and it seems like it is right, so we'll see if it really fits the recipient or not.

The yarn on the other hand... gorgeous! I think it's Perfect Pear's Ardara in "Grotto". I wasn't wild about it on the skein but absolutely LOVE it knit up. It's soft, and really beautiful. I was hesitant to use a variegated yarn like this because sometimes the variegation is too drastic and takes away from the garment. This yarn is very colorful, several shades of green, blue, and purple, but the colors are subtle and while there are a few dark spots that stand out, overall it blends very nicely. The dark green adds a splash (just a splash, mind you) of interest, but not enough to take away from the overall continuity of the sweater. Plus it didn't pool. :) I despise pooling in almost every case. All in all, *beautiful* yarn selection. Too bad it's for someone else, huh? Did I mention I really hope the sweater fits?

Website Update and New Congo!

Sorry for another boring post, I have to take some pictures of the sweater I just finished and the longies I'm working on. BUT, I have exciting news... I updated my website! It's still being worked on, tweaked here and there, and I plan on adding sidebar navigation but I just have to figure it out first. I'm doing it myself and all the coding can get overwhelming. But it has pictures and is looking okay, if you ask me!

Also I have joined a new congo on HyenaCart, Made By Military Wives. We stock the 1st and 15th, so my first stocking is tomorrow! Come and check it out, there are lots of talented ladies on there!

Happy Birthday Serenity Tree!

October 6 is our anniversary stocking over at Serenity Tree. I can't believe it has been a year already, but it has. We have lots of things planned, there *may* be some FFS lotteries (not sure yet), and we're having a couple collaborations, a mama one and a baby one - most stores are pitching in. It should be fun! So stop over October 6!

A Noggin's "Habitat"

This is my latest finished object, a hat.

I saw an alchemy request on Etsy for a man who wanted a very soft knit hat that was clearly not commercially produced, but also was sophisticated enough he could walk down Wall Street in it and not remove his hat in shame. Jared Flood's "Habitat" fit that profile.

Initially it was to be knit in a navy blue cashmere, but after a quick e-mail to The Tweed himself, we concluded that cashmere might not have enough stitch definition to pull off the cables well. Instead the customer decided on a Blue Sky Alpacas merino/alpaca blend. The yarn is very plied and has good stitch definition as you can see. Plus, it's super soft.

Want a Herd?

Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm has an essay giveaway going on right now, it's incredible. If I didn't live in the city I'd be pleading with her to be the winner. Details can be found here. Basically, by September 16 send them an essay on why you'd like to win a small herd of angora goats and she will pick a winner. How cool is that?! Here's an excerpt from her blog:

"Here’s how it works: Anyone interested in entering this giveaway will need to send me an essay telling me why you’d like to have a small herd of Angora goats. Your essay can contain photos, video, whatever, but mostly I want to hear why you’d like to be a shepherd. Have you always wanted sheep or goats of your own? Do you yearn to set up your spinning wheel in the pasture amongst the goats? Tell me all about it."

I'm totally jealous and want them for myself but I can't have them. So, I'm passing the word on to those of you who might.

Congratulations, Jill!

My friend Jill is pregnant and due in about 4 weeks. I went to a baby shower for her last night, which was absolutely fabulous. I saw old friends I haven't talked to in years, and got to just "be" for awhile.

Jill has asked me to attend her son's birth, which has me tickled pink (providing I can get care for my own kiddos during that time). It'll actually be the first birth besides my own kids' that I've attended. I wanted to make her something kind of special and fun, and I was in a bit of a pinch as I didn't buy the yarn for it until last Friday. So here you go, Baby Yoda:

I knit this out of Sublime's Cashmere Merino Silk Aran, it took about 2.5 balls. The yarn is soft, but kind of splitty. I didn't think the pattern was fabulously written, but it *is* a free pattern. Instead of knitting the back, front, and sleeve panels separately and then seaming them together I knit it from the bottom up with the fronts and back together, split for the arms, grafted the shoulder seams, and then picked up sts for the sleeves and worked down. I'm *very* glad I did it that way, as seaming is not my friend.

I suppose I had better get used to the idea though, as I have an adult sweater on the needles for a customer and I decided I should probably knit it as written, though I'm questioning that decision. Either way, here's my Baby Yoda in Artichoke Green, just waiting for a baby to be put into it.

New Yarns

Here are two new yarns I dyed up for tomorrow's stocking:

Meet "Eve"

It is similar to the "Sunset" colorway, but without the blue. The base yarn is 70% Merino, 30% Mohair and is dyed with professional quality acid dyes. Colors are dark pink, orange, salmon, light pink, and white. It reskeined beautifully and I hope it finds a new home.

And the second, was a bit of a nemesis to me. Meet "Scrappy"

Like any child, scrappy was a bit of a nuisance, but worth the effort when all is said and done. I split this 4oz hank into 9 relatively equal sections and dyed them separately. "Scrappy Pants" are all the rage these days, but with them come lots and lots of ends to weave in. This skein takes the weaving out of scrappy pants.

I did repeat colorways, so if you split the ball in half you'd have two identical balls, the outside ends being the same. I figured this way you could knit both legs at once starting from each end of the ball and have them end up pretty close. So sections 1 and 9 are the same, 2 and 8, 3 and 7, 4 and 6, and then 5 is different. It was a lot of work to come up with colorways that would be different but flow a little, reusing colors here and there to create autonomy, and keeping it fairly gender neutral. It's kind of a bright, fun skein. I hope to see it knit up.

Still Around, and Still Knitting

I realize it's been awhile... again. We had a nice trip to KY to visit my husband, and an even better trip to MO to visit him while he's waiting for a physical. Here's a picture of us in KY walking to dinner:

And another one in MO at a splash pad we found a few miles from our hotel:

Both were good trips, but far too short.

In the knitting world, I have been knitting. I have a sweater for a friend's daughter (size 8) coming along, I'll have to post pictures of it. I also just *finally* finished this custom:

It has been done for ages, except the duplicate stitch on the butt. I love how they turned out, and I hope the mom loves them as much.

I got some yarn in the mail today for a couple of Etsy sweaters, I'll post those at they get rolling.

A Peek into Our Lives

It has been more than a month since I've posted, yet I don't have much business-wise to report. I really haven't been making things much. As I think I explained previously, my beloved husband joined the National Guard in February and has been gone since the end of April. He left with an unfinished house and I have been working on keeping my sanity togther, parenting two small children while pregnant our third, and slowly getting our house put together. Not to mention it's summer and we go to my parents' cabin on Big Sandy Lake most weekends.



We also had the big parade this year again. I rode with the kids in the rescue boat behind one of the rescue trucks. The kids have fun waving at people and we're toward the front of the parade so we get to go home first. We had 5 kids this year including mine, so it was a bigger turnout than usual.

Our big news is that my husband graduates from basic on Thursday and we're leaving tomorrow to go see him. It's a 12 hour drive with no stops, detours, potty breaks, or road construction, so we're leaving at 6am tomorrow. We're hoping to be south of Chicago by rush hour. I got a new dress for the occasion, my friend at Goff Couture made it for me. I'm very excited to wear it, my son said "It's like a princess!"
And maybe that's the best description, since it has princess seams. She added godets into the skirt so it's a little fuller and in case you're wondering: Yes, it twirls. Very well. She does beautiful craftmanship and I hope to do more work with her in the future. The picture isn't very good, I know, but there are no photographers in the house today so I propped the camera in the windowsill and used the timer feature. You get the idea.

We have had a busy week - we got a new water heater yesterday and the carpet was installed in the bedrooms as well. Today I moved the beds into the bedrooms, where the kids are currently napping. We did a bunch of shopping and bought some new things to play with in the car and at rest stops to get us through 24+ hours in a van with 7 people. Today I have to finish packing, pick up our Peace Fleece at my mom's office, drop the kids off so I can go get a hair cut, and then head to a meeting, come home and finish loading the van. All in all we have a lot of stuff going on, but it's all good stuff so I can't complain too much. I gave the little man a hair cut last night too. I had been letting it grow and get a little shaggy because my husband dislikes it. I wanted to get a good picture of it all curly and cute, but figured it had better get cut before we go down to see him. Here are before and after shots:



And lastly I leave you with the Ice Cream Face. This is my beautiful daughter. We were eating ice cream before bed last night and in between bites this was the face she'd give me.



Waiting for more.

Camping

We are having a camping theme this month over at Serenity Tree. Here are the two yarns I dyed up this week, both on 3.5oz Uruguayan 1-ply merino. It was a fun yarn to work with, being so soft. The dye seemed to take a little more richly on the merino vs the peruvian highland wool I've been using.

Here's "Sunset":

It's a beautiful blend of pink, salmon, orange, and blue.

I just think it's beautiful and hope I get to see it knit up.

The other is "Sticks -n- Stones", it has sold already but is wonderful to look at anyway.

I mailed it today to Canada, so it's really out of here. I'm really pleased with the colors though.

And lastly, my "Woodland Pixie" shorties with a leafy ruffle.

They're 6 mos size, and really cute. Overall I'm pretty proud of the stocking. I do need to get some more yarns and bath products featured in my Etsy shop, but Serenity Tree is taking July off, so that might be a good time to focus over that way. So far most of my Etsy store is just things that haven't sold in a month on Serenity Tree.

Well, stay tuned! I'm sure the dyeing bug will hit me again in a couple days. Plus I still need to post the pattern for that blanket, don't I?!

Custom Blanket Complete!

I just finished up this blanket for a custom order on Etsy.



I should really take another picture of the whole thing with it laid out more nicely. I went back and straightened out the edge and trimmed it so it should look better.

It's feather and fan pattern, very basic, with an added fringe. Knit on US13 needles with a Lion Brand Pound of Love, 100% acrylic. I think I'll post the pattern later, it's nothing special or fancy, but all in all it turned out pretty nice. It was to duplicate the customer's daughter's security blanket. She likes to stick her fingers in the holes and twirl them in the fringe. I hope this is all she was hoping for.

Twilight

I got a custom order on Etsy to handpaint some yarn inspired by "Twilight". It took awhile to get done since I am still not staying at home and my computer crashed to top it all off, but here is the result:

"Bella" - Bella is a brown-eyed brunette, and blue is the color Edward likes best on her.

"Cotton Candy" - the name has nothing to do with "Twilight", but the colors were suggested by the customer and it reminds me of cotton candy. Light pink, reddish pink, blue, and some grey

"Edward" - Edward's eyes change color depending on his cravings. This skein includes a few of them.

"Lust" - This colorway has shades of red and black, perfect for your inner vampire.

"Quileute" - Jacob Black is part of the Quileute tribe. Tribal colors are black and a dark orange.

"Vampire" - No explanation necessary.

And a final shot of them all together. I'm a little disappointed with how similar "Edward" and "Quileute" turned out, the latter should've been more orange and less yellow. However, maybe it's fitting since they're both fighting for Bella's heart.