Grab your knitting needles and come relax with me.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
I am getting WAY too good
No, I am not putting on airs. I mean, once again I slipped a ton of lace stitches off my needle and I have to perform more lace surgery. I just did minor surgery last night.
Well at least I have had practising fixing lace. I have my tools: a few size 0 dpns, a crichet hook and a bunch of pins.
Tonight I slipped more than a few, luckily it's not too deep. It should be an easy fix. In an effort to be interesting, I'll try adding pictures...
I also (finally) took pictures of my bracelets that I had made for the craft fair. I had hoped to get them online by Cyber Monday, but it's been so cold-I couldn't go outside to get the natural light for the pics. I need to retake some, but I think by the weekend I'l be able to offer those for sale in the shop.
Here's Lorelei's Lamp Hat. I decided to add eyelets to weave a ribbon through. I bought pink and lavender ribbon ust for this hat. It'll loo so cute once it's finished. I am putting it on the back burner till I finish the Adamas...but now that I am on the main bidy of the hat it should go fast.
I really can't wait till I finish my Christmas Knitting (the Adamas, the Swallowtail, and two pairs of toddler socks), because I have some patterns to write and some patterns to re-kit. I bought some yarn today from Knit Picks -- to appease the Knitting Bunnies and for Christmas knitting.
It's maddening--because always one more row ends up being hours of knitting time. (Kinda cuts down on the cleaning time, though) Constant struggle. Of course when you're working on a top down triangle shawl each row gets longer and longer.
I hate counting. It makes no sense since most of my hobbies depend on counting: counting cross-stitch and knitting. Today I cast on for a hat for Lorelei (her third year will be known as the Year Lorelei HAD to Wear Hats)--456 stitches!!! ACK it took me freaking hours to cast on. (No she isn't a giant but the hat has a ruffled brim). I counted so many times just to make sure I got it right. I used a circular needle to hold all the stitches and it still wasn't long enough, so counting was a ::insert favourite profanity here:: with all the stitches crammed in together. It's faster for me to cast on using long tail but naturally I need a very long tail. I had to cast on twice because the first time I hadn't used a long enough tail (next time I over estimated and have a ton of yarn left over as a tail). I had to count and count just to make sure I had enough--and argh--it drove me nuts.
I am still not totally sure about my math--I hope I don't end up with a hat fit for a NBA Star.
And I call my self a designer? Yeah, I know.
Michael's is in the midst of a yarn sale--so I bought some Paton's SWS 70% Wool, 30% Soy, to see if it woulf be a good yarn substitute for the Samara Scarf (not that you can't use any yarn--Rowan Tapestry is just PERFECT.) Jamey actually let me buy two color ways because I couldn't decide: Natural Violet and Natural Crimson. Both are fantastic colors.
Lorelei also picked out some yarn for a hat. A lovely beige, pink and teal Bernat Satin Sport.--it's called Meadow.
Yeah I need some pictures...I'll see about adding some tomorrow. We came home too late to take pictures.
Today Anne and Brenda kidnapped me and the kids for a day with Laurel at her mini ranch. The gals chatted and knitted and the kids played inside and with the outdoor animals.
I got to see some amazing progress on the various KAL my friends are addicted to: Mystic Waters and Secret of the Stole. I am still pluggin' along on the Adamas--it must be done soon!
Laurel also let us do some stash diving and I took home 5 or 6 cones of yarn, some lace weight some fingering. Jamey will be both dismayed and delighted. Dismayed because he doesn't think I need more yarn; delighted because at least it was free yarn. LOL. I am already planning on some hats for Lorelei. (Anne was calling Lori Cindi Lauper.)
Brenda and and haggling over Laurel's yarn.
Will it come to blows?
The kids didn't want to go home they were having so much fun with Laurel's kids and animals. Now that I think about it I should have atleast taken soe snap shots of the Guinea Hens or the cats or the turkey...bad bad blogger.
Amazing: the power of knitting!! With all the technical problems I had this morning--the onl thing that kept my head from bursting open was the calm repetition of knitting the Adamas. I couldn't get too tense because it's lace and lace doesn't not respond well to force.
Unfortunately, the knitting couldn't prevent the headache.
If you stoped by the Other Blog yesterday you know that Lorelei would NOT consent to a hair cut to fix the mess she made of her hair. So I am currently planning on knitting her up some hats to cover up her head. Thank GOD it's getting cool and hats are an appropriate accessory. I have a lace hat on the needles from a year ago (yes still) but I think I made it too big so it should fit her. Only problem is I got lost in the pattern and I hadn't had the will to try hard enough to find my place. NOW I have motivation. I have one other hat idea--but after that I am going to need help. If you know of any resources for cute girlie hats let me know in the comments.
I am toying with the idea of sewing dolly hair to the hats as well I am a total hair mom and this is Murphy's way of sticking it to me.
Second day of the site being open and pow it's slower than dog shit (sorry but I am frustrated) and the shop isn't even loading.
THEN I check out the blog and some how my about page--the entire page--is suck in the side panel. WTF! I check the template and some idiot (ME) had pasted the code for the about page into my side bar. SIGH.
Sorry.
I am told growing pains like this is normal...sigh...I need to stup publishing without reading back over my work. Thunk, thunk.
I doubt the blog snafu is causing the shop not to load, I can always hope right-in any case I'll bew having my in house techno wizard look at it when he gets home.
UPDATE: Okay blog fixed, shop fixed--not sure how--it may have been the blog problem--all I know is that the shop loads fine now. Whew.
It's offcial--my web site is open and finished and beautiful.
I got my Knitting Secret Santa assignment today. It is going to be so fun. I was so excited, but now I am like gee this in gonna be SO FREAKIN' HARD. But I am still excited.
I am planning on having some advertising on this blog--small stuff--some AD sense and maybe some Amazon ads too.
I found my camera today. It was misplaced so I didn't get many pictures of the craft fair. Funny enough it was right next to my bed. Which really isn't funny...because it's getting tiresome. (I am always losing it) Anyhoo--so this means more pictures. I got a temporary image editing software thingy--so I can edit my pics for the blog.
Since most knitting blogs have pictures--I got to get off my lazy butt and make sure I have pics.
But tomorrow--it is nearly midnight and WHY am I blogging?
Because I am knitting and the blog was sitting open right next to me--begging to be written in.
I have about 3 weeks to finish the Adamas Shawl and I think I have 5 repeats and an edging to complete. Because I am at the end--the stitch count is nuts and each row takes forever...it's hard to keep focused and interested.
So I launched the blog today--a bit premature since the whole website isn't ready yet. I still have two pages to finish coding AND we need to set up payment methods in the store. BUT the blog is finished and I wanted finally release it from draft.
I still have a few minor things to work out for the blog layout. (I aplogise for the blogger var--I started this blog as a blogspot and even though it's on my server I still have the bar. I think I still have it because my old blogspot points here...just in case...but I hate the fact that you could get p0rn if you select next blog buttin (I have so many times--some idiot thinksit's fun to use blogspot as a pointer)
Anyhoo--Knitting. I already have a blog--but I collect blogs and enjoy compartmentaling my bloggy self. I figured I needed to separate the knitting and see about driving up traffic. I am sure I'll be geting confused soon--but it'll be fun.
Oh yes KNITTING.
My craft show went well--I learned A LOT. I spent two solid weeks kitting bracelets...by the Thursday befpre the Saturday show, I had a knitting blister. My bracelets were very pretty and very unique. I thin too unique. So I learned that I needed to make traditional colors (I got carried away with the pretty yarn and bead colors) and my prosective buyer/user is young adult. I also learned that I ought to have knitted up more teddy bear sweaters. But I did sell two bracelets--enough to pay for the booth ad some yanr for me as a balm for my knitting blister.
Now that the craft show is done--I can knit with bigger needles. Of course, it's still thread--since I am finishing up some lace. Last post I did NOT want to talk about MS3. Well, folks, back burner till after holdays. In October I went to the Austin Knit oUT and as I was showing it off--I caught the stole in one of my rings an broke a thread. I performed some quick and dirty surgery and put it away till I have the time to permenantly fix the thread.
So I am back to knitting the Adamas Shawl. I have 5 more repeats and then the edging and I will be done with my first lace shawl. Then it's on to Swallowtail Shawl and THEN to work on my first lace shawl design.
So a lot of this new website has been out on hold because my computer died. Out of nowhere my hard drive just broke--literally broke--it rattles!
I lost a lot of data. Luckily the website is already on the server, but I got distracted by the lack of my normal resources. Alas patterns will have to be re-written. I also had in-laws visiting. So with all the cleaning (and new Anita Blake obsession) for our visitors, very little knitting got done and some what more knitting while the in laws were here.
I am hoping to be live in a week or so--I have a craft show on the 10th and I want to have this site up by then.
