I Feel Like I've Been Called Up to the Majors

I got the email from Ravelry. I'm in just before summer vacation ends. I was trolling around there trying to figure out where to start. I friended a few people from get Stitchy! and joined 13 groups so far. I've yet to load my stash or projects. Little by little I'll get all this done. But for now, I must focus on getting back to work. First day back to to school is Monday and the students come back Tuesday. Looks like I gotta budget my time now.

Any Day Now...

You signed up on June 14, 2007
You are #9115 on the list.
370 people are ahead of you in line.
16247 people are behind you in line.
34% of the list has been invited so far

It's All in How You Look at It

I sent my friend Ms. N an email linking to this post. I love her reply which I've copied and pasted here for all to read.

WHOA!
I think we could look at this two different ways.
1. There are people worse off...
2. While colorful and aesthetically pleasing, do we want to aspire to be this?

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I can only connect this to my addiction to school supplies. During a recent visit to Target, clutching 18 packs of crayons, 40 folders, 40 spiral-bound notebooks, and 10 double glue stick packs, I broke down to my mother that I believe I have a serious problem. Her enabled response was, "I know."

I pride myself on the acknowledgement of my addiction, and while I followed through with my purchase, I felt justified as it was less than $20. I said to myself (as many addicted individuals do), "I am not hurting anyone...AND I got a good deal."

How long until I too am just like the yarn lady?
Will I one day walk into my house and find book cases of crayola 24 pack double pocket, pronged folders, and spiral bound notebooks hanging from the ceiling?

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Maybe there will need to be interventions all around!

Ravelry Update

You signed up on June 14, 2007
You are #9115 on the list.
1457 people are ahead of you in line.
13542 people are behind you in line.
33% of the list has been invited so far

Well, I guess I'm in a better place than 13,542 other people. Wouldn't you agree?

The Lake County Fair



I took my ten items in to the fair on Saturday the 28th. These are the items, their categories, and ribbons won (if applicable):

1. Handicrafts I - Crochet - Holiday --->> angel ornament



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2. Handicrafts I - Door Piece not over 24" - Decoration --->> crocheted chenille stocking (1st place)



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3. Needlecrafts I - Crochet - Potholder (decorative) --->> skull and bones potholder (3rd place)



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4. Needlecrafts I - Crochet - Purse --->> felted button purse (3rd place)



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5. Needlecrafts I - Crochet - Shawl --->> multicolored stole



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6. Needlecrafts I - Crochet - Scarves --->> Hop on the Bus, Gus scarf (2nd place)



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7. Needlecrafts I - Crochet - not specified above --->> bouquet of flowers (I realized as I am blogging this that I goofed and submitted knit flowers here instead of crocheted)



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8. Needlecrafts I - Knit - Purse --->> Noro purse (1st place)



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9. Needlecrafts I - Knit - Scarves --->> lace leaves scarf



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10. Needlecrafts I - Knit - not specified above --->> trellis shawl

*****didn't take a picture of this yet, but it's this pattern*****

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I was looking at the ribbons I already won from past Lake County Fairs and realized that I started entering stuff eighteen (yipes!!) years ago. Including this year's ribbons, I have won seventeen ribbons since 1989. This year's win of five ribbons is my best showing in any year. I want to display the ribbons somehow in my craftroom/office. Don't know how yet, but I'll figure something out.

The Summer of Cris

Over at get Stitchy!, MsFish asked if I'd been counting my FOs thi summer. Until she asked, I hadn't. So I sat down and counted. Here's the tally so far. I believe most of these have been documented here.
1. Noro handbag
2. crocheted angel ornament
3. knit bouquet of flowers
4. hard drive sweater (sweater knit when hard drive crashed)
5. cross stitch stole
6. Christmas stocking
7. Lily Ruby’s sweater and booties
8. Ma’s purse
9. Missy’s purse
10. cherry bag
11. school bus scarf
12. lace leaves scarf
13. SNB Short ‘n Sweet
14. Missy’s dishcloth
15. Lyd’s dishcloth
16. Mary’s dishcloth
17. Lisa’s dishcloth
18. Rosie’s dishcloth
19. Jason’s rabbit
20. Ethan’s gloves
21. Irma’s dishcloth
22. The Co-worker scarf made from yarn from Sheilah

Whew! I'm enjoying my summer.

Here are a couple of items I hope to finish before I go back to school.
1. beading and blocking the self-fringing shawl which is completely off the needles
2. adding some length and a little width to Ma's Shrug This from the One Skein Wonders book
3. Casey's Brea Bag
4. Rusted Root in red for ME!
5. Rosie's birthday purse
6. Glor's birthday purse

I'm an ambitious chickie, aren't I?

And Ms. N (the teacher next door) thought I needed an intervention...



Check out the stash this woman has accumulated. I feel like such an underachiever!

Exchange Experiences

I was part of get Stitchy!'s stitch marker swap a few months ago (blogged here and here). It was a great way to get my feet wet. I had lots of fun with it and a new hobby (designing stitch markers) was born. I'd never done any exchanging of anything on the Internet. After that positive experience, I felt I was ready for a bigger exchange. Baby steps, you know. I didn't want to do the whole Secret Pal thing. It intimidated me quite honestly.

A couple of months ago, I read somewhere about a stat counter for your blogs. I thought it would be cool to see from where my blog traffic comes. I had just submitted a couple of patterns to Knitting Pattern Central and Crochet Pattern Central. Those, plus a couple of others, were accepted. Most of my traffic was from KPC and CPC. From there, my patterns started showing up on all kinds of pattern resources on the Internet (including some Swedish one, I think.). One of the links to a pattern of mine was on a blog called The Spring Felted Bag Exchange. I emailed the blog author and thanked her for listing my pattern on her blog. She invited me to join. So I did.

I'm glad I did. This exchange only required two packages to be exchanged. I could handle that. I already blogged about the packages Sheilah sent (here and here). Here's a picture of the bag I sent my spoilee, Shawnee. She's a Mary Engelbreit collector. I had lots of fun making this bag. I might make more with other designs and appliques. I'm thinking a bag with an apple for the teacher would be cute. Opinions?





Well, now that I've gotten two exchanges under my belt, I've moved on to a third. It's a one-skein exchange over at Knit Knack on MySpace. I don't know what I'm going to make my spoilee there. When I do, of course, I'll post something here. So far, I have it possibly narrowed down to one of these yarns (purchased at Loopy Yarns at 70% off!!). Tell me what you think.




For the record, most of these yarns have been earmarked for winter gifts for my sisters and cousin.

Argh!!!

You signed up on June 14, 2007
You are #9115 on the list.
2570 people are ahead of you in line.
11035 people are behind you in line.
31% of the list has been invited so far

This is worse than waiting in line for concert tickets.

I Joined the Bandwagon

...and dyed some yarn with Kool-aid. Well, that and a couple of colors from some generic powdered drink mix I found at Dollar General. I tried to get fancy and dye two colors. I have some white spots in there. I suppose it adds character, a "design feature" as Sinnomen1977 over at get Stitchy! wrote. It wasn't difficult at all. I had fun. Sandra will have to come over so we can dye some more. Woo! Hoo! I think the next time I'll do some solid colors and maybe some handpainted with squeeze bottles and plastic wrap. We'll see. This is not the last time I'm gonna dye yarn.

Here are my dye jobs. The one on the left is the generic drink mix in cherry and lemonade. The one on the right is grape and pink lemonade Kool-aid.



Of course, now I have to find something small to make with this. Both cakes of yarn are leftovers from one skein of Paton's Classic Merino. Suggestions, anyone? Anyone?

My Spoilee's Bag

My spoilee's name is Shawnee. She's a Mary Englelbreit collector so I decided to make her a tote bag inspired by Mary Engelbreit. I took the basic bag pattern for the skull tote minus the skull. I added a black and white alternating border over a thin yellow line at the top of the bag and crocheted the cherry elements. The cherries, stems, and leaf were all crocheted. All in all, I have to say that I really enjoyed making this bag. I'm thinking about making myself one with a big apple on it.

My Cardigan

Actually, I modified the Anthropologie-inspired capelet from Craftster.org. I added some more stitches to my cast on, knit until the arms fit, added length to the sweater, length to the sleeves, and chose to wear it knit-side out instead of purl-side out. i used just over 4 balls of Noro Kureyon in colorway 159. It's difficult to take pics of yourself so I did the best I could. Here's my sweater!


I just love self-striping yarn.

Spring Felted Bag Exchange - part deux

Sheilah, you wonderful woman, you! Thanks for the loot. Sheilah is my spoiler. She sent me the most wonderful package this week. What a way to cap off my first big exchange project. To begin with, I had to wait an extra day for the package. It arrived on Thursday, but I missed the postal carrier. I think she just doesn't bother to knock on my door for me assuming I'm at work since I'm not here to receive packages during the school year. Grrr!

On Friday, I went to the post office to pick up Sheilah's package plus a couple of books I'd ordered (and the postal carrier didn't bother knocking on my door for this one either), and to send off Shawnee's package. I was Shawnee's spoiler. Once she receives her felted bag, I'll post pics of what I made her.

Let me tell you. Sheilah is one fine fiber friend. Check it out! Here's the bag she made for me.




And here are some bonus goodies from Sheilah.



The yarn at the bottom of the picture is store-bought: Paton's Devine and Yarn Bee's Soft Delight. The bright pink/purple blend is some laceweight merino. The brown yarn just below the bright, bright pink is a brown mohair that Sheilah dyed with the remaining dye from my bag. The other three are random wool yarns.

I have to admit. This exchange was fun. I may have to do others.

Just Under the Wire

I finished the Cigar gloves for E for my second XY-along project. Here they are. I finished them on Monday, June 25.





They were easier to make than I thought they would be. I used the magic loop method instead of wrestling with two circs or stabbing myself with DPNs.

Hop on the Bus, Gus

Click on the title of this post to see this pattern. It is my latest FO and my crocheted scarf entry in the Lake County Fair. Wouldn't you agree that it's an apropo design for a school teacher? I'm thinking about embroidering the name of our school corporation on the side of the bus just like our real ones. I will probably raffle it off as a class fundraiser once school starts. We'll see.

Lace Leaves Scarf

I decided to make this as my entry in the knitted scarf division at the Lake County Fair. I finished blocking it this morning. I used the Yarn Harlot's suggestion. It saved me from spending an insane amount of money on steel blocking rods. The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in Watercolor. I loved how the yarn looked on the Yarn Grove's website so I bought it. They offer free shipping so what the heck! I really like how it turned out.

Well, It's about time the hostess got in on this!

I am hosting this month's -along at get Stitchy! I know I should have posted this a few weeks ago. Bad girl! Bad girl! It's been fun so far. We are creating items for those with the XY chromosomes. I've been slow to make something. I think I'll call E and ask if he'd like anything special this month. He is my godson, after all. In the meantime, I took this -along as a chance to make a rabbit for J, my four-year-old nephew. He has imaginary rabbits so Cleo asked if I'd make him a "real" one. Here's his "real" rabbit. I added eyes to it since I took the picture. Cleo gets weirded out by faceless creatures.

Spring Felted Bag Exchange

I got my first package from my pal in the Spring Felted Bag Exchange. It's almost like the girl knew me! Here's a picture. The yarn is her own handspun wool/silk blend. It's 110 yards. I don't know what I'm going to make with it, but whatever it is, it will be for ME!




Just look at this gorgeous yarn!!



In addition, she sent some goodies for D, too. Here they are, yarn and stitch markers. He'll be so happy when I send them along.



What I think is so funny about this package is the fact that I told Lisa that I wanted to Mex out my place. You know, give the decor a touch of my heritage. If you look closely at the lower left-hand corner, you'll see the ceramic jar that my pal used to hold the stitch markers she made me. It is so perfect for my decor plans. Check out the close-up.



Secondly, the notecards and notepad she sent (bottom row of items in the next pic) match perfectly with the notebook and pen that the PTA gave me for Teacher Appreciation Week.





Spring Felted Bag Exchange Pal,
THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! The gifts were wonderful. I can't wait to start using them. You know, a knitter can't have too many stitch markers (especially if she's working on the clapotis). I love all the goodies. I used one of the notecards to explain to D why I'm sending this extra yarn to him along with the yarn he forgot at school on the last day. He'll be as thrilled as I am. Thanks again.

I almost forgot

I did make myself a fat-bottomed bag with the leftover cotton from the stained glass flower potholder. Here it is.




Here's the lining I chose.



I even made a cell phone holder from the leftovers.

First Official Weekend of Summer Vacation and...

I've started stitching like the yarn ho that I am.

I crocheted a skull potholder. I took the idea of the skullholder from the Stitch 'N Bitch Happy Hooker book and used this graph from the bag I made Sandra for her birthday. Methinks this will be the potholder I enter in the Lake County Fair.


I started working on Short 'n Sweet from the Stitch 'N Bitch Happy Hooker book about a week and a half ago. I chose dusty pink yarn because that's what I had at home and, truth be told, I needed to get rid of some stash yarn. I hope the pictures are clear enough. Taking pictures of yourself is a pain. My arm only stretches so far from my torso. The sweater isn't blocked yet because I was so excited to try it on and because I'm not really sure how to block it. I don't make garments very often.


Left side...


Right side...


I also started working on a scarf for the knitted scarf section of the Lake County Fair. It's the Lace Leaves scarf from HeartStrings FiberArts. The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport in Watercolor. I've completed 3 of 12 repeats.