enough said

Noro is making sock yarn.

magna cum laude

Scarlett graduated from puppy school tonight. We are so proud of our baby!!!
This is Scarlett playing with her best girl Lucky.

I might be a winner

About a week ago a new knitting store in town, Looking Glass Yarns, had an open house. Matthew and I went to check it out (I know, he's wonderful) and had a really nice time meeting the owners and looking about. They were having a raffle, so of course I signed up, and guess what? I won!!!! I'm a winner. I won a ball of sock yarn and new addi DPNs!!! It was just thrilling.

new knit trick

I was knitting my first lace project, a cashmere scarf, when my beloved dog decided that cashmere tastes delicious (please note the expensive cashmere bought at a wool festival was sitting next to a $4 ball of cotton yarn I bought at my LYS). She chewed up the ball pretty bad. With lace knitting one cannot "weave in" loose ends, so this was a real problem. My fab husband called the woman who had spun the yarn and she said she could get me another skein, but I was impatient. I wanted to knit with the half destroyed yarn I had. Along comes the internet to my rescue. At this site I learned how to stitch yarn together and it has worked wonderfully. I am actually planning to try it with other projects because I so hate weaving in ends and stitching the ends together is easier, you do it as you knit so it isn't all saved for the end, and it looks better. Scarlett also got her hands on another ball of yarn (this appears to be a serious problem and we're trouble shooting presently) and I am hoping that the "stitch together" join may help salvage some of that mutilated fiber. I'll keep you posted.

For everything else....

Replacing chewed up boards in fence: $10
Shoe repair for one pair of perfect summer wedges: $20
Shoe repair for BCBG black heals: $15
Replacement of one two-ounce skein of handspun cashmere: $30
One trip to veterinarian for "injured" paw: $50

Unconditional Love: Priceless

'tis the season

For over a week now the commercials on my TV and my neighbors ghetto-style, flashing, blue icicle lights have announced the arrival of the holiday season, and by holiday season I clearly mean shopping season. It used to be that people cared about etiquette and did not put up their holiday decor until the day after Thanksgiving, but the world has gone tacky and consumer and now it's the day after Halloween. I hate this extension of the holiday season, I mean shopping season. However, as a knitter, who likes to knit at least a few of her holiday gifts, it is nice to get the advanced warning that time is at a premium to get those projects done. And with money tight this year and the price of airline tickets soaring (it looks like we're taking the train), it is nice to find some really great yarn in my stash that is perfect for some of my holiday projects. It's like I paid it forward back in the days before we were quite this poor. Now, I can only hope that the folks we get in my family's name exchange both want hand-knits made from purple yarn.
In other news, I attended my first knitting group here in Santa Fe and had a really nice time and got some of that holiday knitting started.

Harmony

This week I turned a heel on a pair of socks and took the extra DPN (double pointed needle) and set it somewhere nearby. A few hours later I thought to myself, "where is that fifth DPN? I'm going to need that. It turns out Scarlett had eaten her first knitting needle. Luckily this was a size 0 needle, which is about the same size as many of the twigs she snacks on in the yard. She left behind a tiny little piece, just so I would be sure that it was she that caused the disappearance of the DPN.
The loss of the sock needle prompted my purchase of the Harmony sock needle set. I have had my eye on them since Knitpicks introduced the Harmony line a month or so ago. Now I am ready to knit socks until I'm sick of it, which I can't imagine. They are so fun to knit with all of the shaping, the finished product is a million times more comfortable and better looking than store bought, and the yarns available for sock knitting are amazing. I'm not the kind of girl to make a sweater from variegated or self striping yarn, because my fashion sense won't allow it, but socks, now socks are where a girl can have some fun. So as I am about to finish my first pair (I know it has taken me forever, but I keep getting distracted), I am already planning a second and a third. I am planning to make myself the socks for veronik from this years Interweave Holiday Issue and these for Matthew from Knitty. Matthew also has his heart set on some fingerless gloves, which I think will be pretty fun.