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.

So Much To Do

Holy smokes, it has been so long. I apologize to my faithful follower. My justification is valid, I promise. My darling husband, the love of my life, left for basic training on April 29. Before that we spent a bunch of time cramming to get the house put together before he left. Since then I've been staying with my folks while the drywaller is in there making a mess. So, it's relatively justifiable, at least I think so. I have a ton of things in the works, a handful of Etsy custom items, so it has been kind of fun. I'll post some pics later, but for now I'll leave you with a skein of yarn I dyed about 3 weeks ago.