Podcasts and Lazy Days

Today is a lazy day, with not as many chores as usual, and my mom has a half day at work which is nice. So I decided to start off the day by looking into some knitting podcasts and working on this week's dishcloth. The only thing I dislike about this morning is that The Husbando had another work meeting after closing last night, so he only got 3 hours of sleep and he closes again tonight. Poor guy.

I've been listening too Knitmore Girls Podcast and really enjoying it. They're quite long podcasts, but I like them even if I have to pause them every now and then to get up and do something. They make me laugh!

And I finished Leaning to the Left Dishcloth for my dad for Christmas! It turned out really well I think. It was a fun knit, I really liked working with Dishie. The yarn was so smooth and soft. My only problem with it was that it had two knots in it, but I don't know if that's common with the yarn or if it's just this one roll.

I didn't get to work much on the Honey Cowl today, and I wanted to work on Nell's Sea Silk Scarf but I got distracted finishing my dishcloth and a late start today. But there is always tomorrow, and now there's one WIP done so all in all that's good too.

Today did have its ups and downs, but overall it was a good day.

Ps sorry for the terrible night time picture I intended to post this earlier but so is life.

Fall is Coming!

Last night I got the garter borders done on the Honey Cowl and the Left Leaning Dishcloth.

So today I got to start the crux of their pattern! And my sister, the Husbando, and I sat on the porch while I knit the dishcloth. There were falling leaves and acorns and a nice breeze. It is so close to fall. It's wonderful. I can't wait for fall to be here.

And I got 14 rows done on the dishcloth today! It's coming along very nicely, the Dishie is a DREAM to knit with, I love knitting with is so much. It's soft and it is so easy to manipulate. I may never go back to anything else.

And I made quite a bit of progress on my honey cowl today. I even got to start on the second color, which is super fun to knit with. It's such a nice and easy knit I might even knit it while watching TV tonight. 

And today was a good day. My sister and I played with her makeup and had a silly time. It's just been a relaxed good nearly fall day overall.

I made this blanket square up. It's nice and squishy.

New Yarn Day!

Today I got new yarn!! Which makes today a GOOD DAY!!

After doing chores the post man dropped off a package from my friend AJ, or KniCroManiac! It had the yarn I wanted to try from Knit Picks called Dishie and CotinLin for the Dishcloth Knit a Long! I'm so excited and happy that she sent me these for free to try before buying them and she's so sweet for letting me have them! And she sent me a pretty stitch marker she made too!!!

I am seriously so in love with everything. AJ is the best. The knitting and yarn community has been so loving and sweet and open to me that I can't express my gratitude in words. I've made some of the best friends, the literal best friends through yarn. I don't know how I'll ever repay any of you all. I'm in awe.

And!! Even though we just ordered it yesterday, my order from KnitPicks came TODAY!!!! I GOT SO MUCH YARN!!!!!!!!!! SQUEEEEE!!!! I'M IN WOOL HEAVEN!

This Bulky Wool of the Andes in Wine is going to be a Mistake Rib Scarf for my sister for Christmas.

I was going to upload pictures of all the yarn but then this post would be quite long, you can check it out on Instagram, I'm GryffindorYarnie on there! 

I got three Bulky Wool of the Andes in wine for my sister's Mistake Rib Scarf, two Lost Lake Heather Swish for The Husbando's Easy Fingerless Mitts, a Cobblestone and Amethyst Swish I'm not sure what to do with but seemed appropriately Halloween-y, two balls each of wool of the Andes Pumpkin, Chesnut, Amber Heather, and Persimmon Heather I'm thinking might end up a Boneyard Shawl. And I got some cute tags for my hand knit gifts, and two sets of my most frequently used straight needles in their gorgeous Caspian wood! I use the 8s a lot for dishcloths and the 6s everyday for my mood blanket, so much so the aluminum ones have started to have the paint wear off them! 

I'm so happy and so thankful to my husband for buying me this present and for saying I'm brave and worthy of nice things like this, because of my past sometimes it's hard to see that myself. 

Today's blanket square is excited, because I am so excited my new yarn and all the creativity and the possibilities. It's all very exciting and fun!!! 

And the dishcloth I'm knitting with the new Dishie yarn is The Left Leaning Cloth and the blanket square today was made as a mini mistake rib!!!

IT'S DONE!!!!!!!!!!

THAT'S RIGHT THE DISHCLOTH SET FOR THE WOMAN AT THE ARTIST GUILD IS DONE!!!!!

I'm so proud of myself for sticking with it and getting it done 3 days before the deadline. Someone should send me yarn as a reward. I had to bribe myself towards the last 5 rows by saying I would give myself ice cream and a cigarette when I was done.

Now I can go back to my other knitting projects!!! Like using this YouTube tutorial to learn to m1 for the Beginner's Seemless Hat I am knitting for my dad as a hunting hat for Christmas. It's my first fairly successful in the round knitting attempt and it's going well so far!

And I'm on chapter 6 of Patterns in the Sand, the second Seaside Knitters Mystery Novel. 

Overall, today I'm feeling kind of bleh and little down. Probably crashing from being so up and manic and from finishing projects so zealously and this is the last square of a whole row on my mood blanket. I tried the Crest of the Wave Lace ThingAMaWhazit for the blanket square today and I don't like how it came out. It's not very square either, but I will make it work. Meh. Tomorrow is the start of a new week. I hope this week is a good one. 

Purl, Slip, Purl, Slip, Purl, Slip

It's possible I may lose my mind. I may never do the lovely Rank and File dishcloths again. I only have to make one more, I reason. I already have the seed stitch border done, I chortle. It'll knit up quickly now that it's been permanently embedded in my brain, I whimper.

I forget sometimes that I have a tiny knitting attention span, I like changing between several patterns. After this, I look forward to the sea of stockinette stitch on my dad'said Christmas hat.

I just need to finish one dishcloth for the woman at the artist guild. That's all. It's all I've knit for the last couple of days. Is this pattern.

At one point I changed the words to a Celtics Women song to involve the pattern. You know. "I'm purrrrrlllllling alllll the stitches, and then slipping them off the left, then doing a seed stitch boooorderrr, god I never want to do a seeeeed stitch border agaaaaaain" while waving my hands like I was swimming through the house.

The Husbando believed that taking my hands in his and saying "this is time you could be knitting, then you'd be closer to done" would be the best way of getting me closer to sanity. I said some not nice things about his fate and double pointed needles.


But in other news, out power was out for a few hours today. So I actually knit and finished reading The Yarn Harlot Secret Life of a Knitter. It was a really good book. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me want to knit. I highly recommend it, like you should go buy it and read it now. Now I'm reading the second seaside knitters mystery novel, since the library has the third one in for me and The Husbando said he would pick it up for me tomorrow.

For today's blanket square I'm still a bit manic. I tried the weird brioche rib Thing and it went bad.

I don't know what happened and my fingers hurt so I'm soothing my self by just doing stockinette for a square today.

Usually after mania there is a bit of a crash so let's hope that doesn't happen.

And now I go on my merry little way to knit more dishcloth. 

Dye Day!! (Tory Don't Read!!!)

Today is yarn dying day!!!! I woke up early, got the chores done and rushed out to the post office to mail some letters and stop by the farmers market to get Tory's yarn to dye. It's 100% alpaca and fingering weight.

The farmers market 

Yarn predye

And presoak!

I love the dying process. It's exciting and a little nerve-wracking. It's a creative process, so many things could go wrong. I'm a glutton so punishment. What can I say?

But I think things went off without a hitch this time. Since Tory loves Lord of The Rings I decided to dye Mount Doom colored yarn. Here is a progress picture:

Now I knew the colors wouldn't stay quite like that after the 30 minute simmer. They would darken and the red would take over some of the yellow, but I figured it would still look like lava and Mount Doom.  But the 30 minutes of weight was giving me stress ulcers for sure.

But I think it came out lovely, the colors darkened but to make a lovely slow gradient from orange to red with yellow in there, the perfect lava.

Outside drying, which will take forever in this overcast humidity. 

Isn't it so pretty??? I hope Tory loves it!! 

While it dries I plan to work more on the dishcloths for the woman at the artist guild. I also did the math with The Husbando last night and at the rate with with I knit now, my current planned Christmas projects should be done by April 2017. I only cried and laughed hysterically a little bit. I swear. I always bite off more than I can chew. But I work well when push comes to shove. So I'm not worried yet. Maybe a little manic, yeah. But not worried.

I also made triple chocolate cookies today.

Chocolate chips, chocolate batter, chocolate milk, nutmeg, and just a little sage. 

And I had all this done before noon today. So I am probably a bit manic.

But when the yarn was done drying I then rolled it into ready to knit balls, wrapped it up in pretty ribbon so Tory could tell where to beginning was, and attached pretty watercolor wash tags to it!!

I really hope she likes it, the package will be going out towards her tomorrow!!! 

I'm really pleased with how these dye colors turned out, they're a bit lighter in person and some of the blank alpaca shoes through which I kind of think lends to the whole "hot lava" thing. I wanted to make mount doom for her because it's the center of the books, the beginning and the end of them. Its the place Sam and Frodo go together.

And I finished one of the set of dishcloths for the woman at the artist guild today! It looks good in neon fleck. Mania is good for being overly productive. 

I decided to make a manic/wildfire blanket square today as I am a touch speedy, I did run around getting an awful lot done without stopping at all. But I will make sure to ground myself tonight and drink lots of water and relax and read more Yarn Harlow Secret Life of Knitter and work on the second of the pair of dishcloths. I chose to do this square in a Scallops Pattern because it looks a bit like a sunrise and I feel like that fit today overall! This also involved learning how to PSSO!

That's all for today!

Deadline Knitting for the Process Knitter

I made a good start on the dishcloths last night. I started one and got past the seed stitch border rows and the first 4 repeat row, so a pretty good start! And I knit all morning while reading Yarn Harlot Secret Life of a Knitter (which has been HILARIOUS! and oh so relatable!!!)

Also, this yarn is so soft. 

It's been rainy today so I also got some snail mail writing done. Rainy days are perfect for writing snail mail. I plan to plop them in the mail box on the way to the farmers market to get my blank alpaca yarn for dying tomorrow. Hopefully the rain let's up by then. Barn chores are miserable in this rain and drying yarn is miserable in this rain. Sigh. 

And I decided that since I'm so excited about dying yarn tomorrow and mailing Tory her package and knitting these dishcloths for the woman at the Artists Guild to knit the blanket square today in excited and the same same pattern as the dishcloths. The downside of this is that my eyes feel like they are bleeding with the pattern now. I will probably dream in the pattern. By the end of this I will never want to knit this pattern again. I asked the husbando if I was close to done with my blanket square at one point and he said I should probably do four more rows, I considered stabbing him with my sharp pointy sticks.

I kid, of course.

And now back to knitting the dishcloths. I'm learning that deadline knitting might not be my cup of tea since I may be more of a process knitter than a product knitter. I like switching in between patterns. Which is why I usually have so many WIPs going! But I will carry on, the dishcloths will prevail, pray for me and my eyeballs and sanity. Slipped stitches, awayyyy!!!!!! 

Artist Guild, My First Knitting Sale, Traveling Scarf, and Date Night In.

It's been a busy day. First thing first we went and bought a new fan, hallelujah! I should get some more peaceful sleep again at night. Then I got my glasses fixed. And then The Husbando and I went to the Artist Guild of Glasgow. We love it there everyone is so friendly and nice. I went there to get some of the locally made soap to send to Tory on Saturday with her care package and the spa clothes I knit her. I won't post her soap so it's a surprise in case she reads the blog, but I did buy myself a nice pumpkin spice one! I love fall and pumpkin! LOVE IT. OBSESSED WITH IT. Sane thing really.

It's been a good day!  Because then I talked to the mother of the woman working at Guild and she loved my washcloth I made for my sister and wanted several! So I offered to make her two or three. And she said she would pay me for them! How exciting is that??? I'm getting paid for something I knit!!!

And Tory and I are doing Traveling Scarves we decided today! Where I will start a scarf and send it to her and she will knit onto it and start hers and send then both back and I will knit onto both of them and on and on! With different yarns and stitchs. Isn't that awesome!?!?!?! I started mine in the car today:

It's knit in k1 p1 rib cause car knitting haha. The yarn is plant dyed Japanese Indigo and worsted weight. I got it from a local yarn seller who actually invited me to dye yarn with her!

And I downloaded more books to my kindle! Knitting, A Novel, the second Seaside Knitters Mystery, and a Yarn Harlot book. I'm pretty excited to read them. I have so many yarn related things going on in life right it's a bit out of hand!

I'm using a cheat day on my blanket because I need to work on the dishcloths! But it's also pizza night and movie night for the Husbando and I! Date night in! And we are going to eat twizzlers! I'm very excited. It's been a good day.