SHORT and SWEET, the LONG of it...

This photo makes my teeth hurt -it's so dang SWEET!

My new do. SHORT and sassy!

It won't be this straight again. At least not until someone else blow dries it that way. It will be wavy, but with cute little bangs.

Like my LONG cozy gloves made from Classic Elite's Bazic Wool?

I cannot get enough of these. Because of my gimpy hands and arms, I need to keep my upper extremities warm and toasty. Naturally I need many pairs to match each and every look that I sport on a day to day. Pattern: mine, adapted from Leigh Radford's Lace-Up fingerless gloves. The Bazic Wool is a superwash, 100% wool. It is dreamy to work with. I will definitely use it again.

Name That Hedgehog!

Kate makes these a-DOR-able hedgehogs (a fiber trends pattern). She even taught the class at Article Pract. On Sunday, one of my sadder days, she surprised me with this little cutie, a cheer up hedgehog. He doesn't have eyes or stuffing yet, but I love him. He even matches my living room. Here's the deal... I need a male name that begins with "H". He has to be a boy because I am replacing a boy in my life right now. i.e. Harold the Hedgehog, or Hank the Hedgehog... But not either one of those names. Something unique.

Yep.... Boring I know, more lace-up fingerless gloves. I taught that class at the shop this month. People just love those things. These goth-y ones are for my dear friend Irene. You know, the one that made me wear that red silk corset for her wedding! ; )hehe.

More hats... YAY! I do love hats. And I do love felting. So it makes perfect sense that I would love felting hats.
The grey/blue/red fedora style is a "just because' hat. Just because I liked the colors together a lot. The upper blue band is too thick. I was watching project runway while knitting and wasn't paying attention. I am thinking I might sew random buttons, or cut slits and thread a ribbon through to break it up a little. Or maybe nothing at all. I did discover that not only is a terra cotta pot the perfect size and shape for this style hat, BUT the terra cotta sucks moisture out of the hat, speeding up drying time. WOW, I know!
Kate models the pre-felt hat, while Niko models his own jaunty cap

Before FeltThe Elmer Fudd hat is a sample for my second job. Yes my second job is at another yarn shop. Jealous? I have been wanting to make one of these for so long now! The yarn is Rowan /Harris tweed aran... Ok, in my old age I am loosing things... When I find the label I will give you the exact yarn name & color number. After FeltThe pattern is for 3 adult and 3 children sizes. There are only three sets/sizes of numbers. You use worsted weight for the kids sizes, and bulky for the adult. I made the smallest size with doubled aran weight and it is insanely thick and heavy, and a little too big as well. Fortunately it is a shop sample and no one has to wear the two ton thing. I will make one for myself using single strand and making the medium or large size. The pattern is # AC-16, from Fiber Trends, called "Felt Winter Caps" by Bev Galeskas.

My Hats off to You...

Thanks a ton to all of you who have left comments and sent very supportive email. I truly appreciate all of you, and value your kind and supportive communication. Things have been ridiculously rough this past week. The boy still has quite a lot of his belongings in the house, and it is really tough to go to sleep every night with his clothes in my closet, but him not in my bed. (he is still working out how to get half of a house into one small apartment)
I think I am going to drop one of my classes. I am SOOO overwhelmed and horribly distracted, and I really want to keep my 4.0 gpa. There are just not enough hours in the day to work two jobs, go to school, do mountains of homework, and mourn the death of a monumental relationship. UGH.


Kate models my soon to be felted wonder! Isn't she glamorous? As you can see I have been super into felting hats. Now you all know that I have felted tons of purses, half a ton of slippers, and one or two cell phone cozies. BUT the orange hat that is on Kate's hand is the very first hat that I've felted. The pattern is "Belle" from pick up sticks. The yellow and grey hat a few shots down is representative of the pattern as it's written and shaped, a cloche style. Very cute. The orange hat is still same pattern but shaped more like a bucket style. I actually wear it flipped up on one side, kinda fedora-ish.

The frank-molly-bobby hat.... WAIT, what in the heck is she talking about... Soooooo, these are all malabrigo, which is hands down my all time fave wool. Frank ochre is my absolute fave color, i have around 8 skeins, just always on hand, ready to go. The Molly (pink) is so sweet, and I had a skein that I made a kitty hat for someone with. Now as the Molly lay snuggled along Frank, awaiting her hat destiny, I thought, DAMN, those two make a gorgeous couple. While making the Molly hat, I threw in some spruce blue lamb's pride. THEN I thought OH WOW, all three together, what a threesome they would make! But then I remembered another member of the malabrigo family... Bobby Blue, a color that we had in the shop long ago, it would be months, many months before we had him again. So I sat and waited.... and waited... and waited. The yarn comes from Uruguay and is dyed when you place your order... and I waited. This whole idea was developed over Xmas 05. I didn't even know what I wanted to make with the trio, I just knew that they had to be together.

It was about six months later before we got another shipment in from Malabrigo. But there was Bobby! I brought him home and placed him alongside his soul mates. I was totally correct! They made a harmonious set! But now the question came.... what do I do with them. Another month or so rolled by.... Then I discovered the "Belle" pattern. I decided to make a couple of tester models first( Mr orange, and Ms. yellow). Things developed, I started playing with pattern tweaks/mods, shaping etc. And this gorgeous little hat came to life. People stop me and try to buy it off of my head all the time, actually any of the three hats. I am working on developing my own unique pattern, very similar to the style of frank-molly-bobby. Once I get my own pattern down, I think that I will try and set up and etsy shop to sell em. Maybe even try to get them into some boutique shops around town. Am I crazy?

This was the first time I have felted malabrigo. I always felt guilty felting such a dreamy soft yarn. It felts up GORGEOUS, and retains it dreamy softness. I mean seriously! It is so ridiculously soft, just as soft as is in it's unfelted, natural state. Oh Malabrigo, how I love you! xoxox Note: the orange and yellow hats are made from Wool of the Andes, less soft. Much less soft.

The class: Design Process (for interior design)
The assignment: Water as a concept; choose one element of water & demonstrate that element without showing ANY images of water.
Can anyone guess which element I chose? There is one very specific word that I am looking for. No one but the instructor got it, most of my classmates had never even heard of the word.... though keep in mind that most of my classmates are fresh outta high school.

I SWEAR that I am now back from the dead....

I have had good reason to disappear from the blogging planet. Actually I have been out of touch from all planets. A couple of days into my summer vacation the boy and I split up. The past two months we have been living together while he finished up his summer session of school, and while I started my summer session of school. Rough doesn't even skim the surface of explanations for how it has been. Before anyone asks, or draws any conclusions, or starts to boy bash I want to clear a few things up.
There was no cheating, beating, or meanness (aside from a shattered heart or two). Merely a case of him being adult enough to recognize that things have been a bit "off" for a while now, and that it was high time for us to each take the time to take care of ourselves independently. I have a bad habit of becoming way too dependent on my partner, and he tends to "give" too much, enabling me to just "take". It was a dangerous combination. And both of us being in school... Yeah, not possible.
I have had an amazing support group of friends! I have been up and down as to how I was going to afford to stay in school, eat, live, feed my cats... I am still trying to figure out the school tuition part. But I think I have figured out my housing situation.
School is kicking my butt this quarter. On top of the extra life distraction (having my heart ripped into a zillion pieces) this is by far the heaviest course load so far. My head nearly explodes when I think of how much homework I have in a given week. Also- I have had to take a second job so that I can continue to eat.
Yup- things have been SHITTY!
Enough of my whining! I hope that things have been better for all of my knitting blogging friends out there. I have missed you all terribly!
I will post photos of knitting & school work soon.
xoxox

My summer vacation...

best viewed large- just click on the photo

I have a little over three weeks until school starts up again. I have been taking it pretty easy. I slaved over finals (actually got an art blister executing my final for sketching class), and it paid off. Straight "A's" in all classes again. WOO HOO! BTW- I didn't notice until i published this post that the colors of my final project are pretty much the colors of my blog. too funny. I wasn't thinking about that at all. Guess it's obvious where my taste in colors falls.
I have been knitting feverishly since school let out last week. The one item that I actually worked on while in school is the baby blanket fro Niko. The blankie is not yet finished, and I am ashamed to say that once school let out I have completed one other project, and started two others. One of the two new projects is for a birthday that is right around the bend. So there is slightly less guilt there.

The blanket in progress: I spent hours sketching out different schematics and color layouts for a blanket. Being me, one solid color was obviously not an option, and I didn't want to do stripes, that would have been far too easy. A postcard from one of the museum's that we are members to came in the mail. It was a picture of a Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass. And there was my inspiration. I love all things from the Arts and Crafts Movement. There will be a strip of orange running the entire length along the left side, and currently the plan is to pick up stitches and add a seed stitch border in the graphite color. I was working on the upper left section while in the hospital waiting for little man to be born. I was so nervous and distracted that when I went to change from blue to graphite I snipped the yarn to switch while facing the purl side. DUH! But, I loved the ridge and the added color contrast, so I went with it. Oh yes, I will use the three needle bind off to "stitch" the pieces together, it will compliment my oopsie color switch.

Another pair of felted slippers. These are a birthday gift for a friend of mine who lives out of state. I won't say where, just in case that person reads my blog. Although I seriously doubt it. This person loves camo colors and these colors are the closest to camo that I had in my stash, I think it looks pretty camo-ish. I am totally broke and having to limit myself to making projects from my stash. I started late Sunday night, finished one slipper early Monday evening, and am well into the second slipper today. Because of felting logistics I don't know if they will make it to the intended recipient on time. But I am ahead of the game for now at least.

I would love to introduce you to Frank, Bobby, and Molly. Better known as Frank Ochre, Bobby Blue, and Molly (it's like Madonna or Sting) from the Malabrigo family. I have loooong been in love with Frank, seriously in love. I have several skeins purchased long ago. Molly is a heartbreaker. I used her to make a gift for someone last winter, and had some of her leftover. Now it was when I first met Molly and brought her home that I noticed how spectacular her and Frank looked together. It was also at the same time that I thought about Bobby (he came to our shop a long time ago. I admired him them but did not act on my feelings and he was unavailable for many many months), and wished that I was able to bring him home.
Well recently Bobby came back into my life and I was able to introduce him to Frank and Molly. I have completed a project
with the trio, but you will have to wait to see it. It is to be felted and I want to show you the before and after at one time. I have never felted anyone form the Malabrigo family. They are way too soft. I have always thought of it as some kind of sacrilege. But the time came, and I am anxiously awaiting the results.

I have swatched for and about to start the Opera Gloves from "Mac & Me". If you aren't;t familiar with her patterns you should be. The money made from the patterns goes into a college fund for her daughter, Mac. Each pattern has a bio on the back telling us how old Mac was at the time that particular pattern was published, and what she wants to be when she grows up. It varies from waitress to diagnostician to firefighter and so on. There are so many great patterns from this designer. I will be using Koigu in a gorgeous blue grey brownish palette. Yes, it was in my stash. I will be doing these without the fingers. These may or may not wind up as a gift. Not sure yet.

This sack of stash will be transformed into the Rather Huge Carpet bag from Noni patterns. We recently started carrying her patterns at the shop. They are fabulous.

Two More Weeks...

I have finals in two weeks. In the meantime here are some photos of what's been going on. I will spare you photos of me hunched over the computer writing papers and studying.

BEFORE (one of my bestest friends was about to pop) this photo was taken three days before the stork arrived.


and AFTER (she popped) this photo was taken hours after the stork arrived. Niko is his name. 7 lbs, 5oz. super healthy, and dangerously cute!

That mmorning started at 4 a.m. and ended at 1:02 a.m. the next day. it was a long long day. but i got to see him minutes after he came screaming into this world! it's not often that you meet a person for the first time and are already madly in love with them. I creid a lot that day. A LOT!!


Months ago... (the wedding, the corset, etc.) this is not the greatest photo. i haven't yet received any of the professionally snapped ones

Barely Knitting, Always Busy, & Life

I have been super busy with just about everything... And still am super busy. School started. It's great and very time consuming. I will keep this brief. And btw, I miss everyone so much & have been very touched by all of the sweet comments and emails that I receive. I wish that I had more time to post, read all of your blogs, and return emails. I think of you all everyday. xoxox
Knocked out a kittyville hat in one day for a birthday gift. It was well received.
finally finished knitting the "stash bag" from Leigh Radfords' One Skein. Still have not felted it. :( So unlike me, the felting is the exciting part.
...Was a bridesmaid in my oldest friends wedding. I realized that we have known one another for HALF of our lives! jeesh, talk about feeling old.
I really liked my hair that day. I will have more photos of that day eventually. This was the corset wedding. So hot! ; )
Chris threw his back out at the gym. He finally made it onto the couch after four days of laying on the floor. The first four days he had to literally crawl on all floors up and down the stairs. It was heart breaking to see him in that much pain. He was cold, so I bundled him up & fed him almond M&M's.

Missing You....

I have truly missed y'all! I wanted to say THANK YOU to everyone who has left encouraging comments, and sent emails with generous offers to come by & help out. Your words have meant the world to me. I have been very well cared for. Get this, my man is a freakin god, and my friends totally ROCK!. On his way to pick up brownies from my fave bakery, he stopped by my shop with a get well card & had all of the gals sign it. And get this, they forced money at him to go and buy flowers for me. I am one lucky punkrawkgurl!
I am okay. My neck & back are still fairly tweaked, but I am knitting, working, going to school, and getting back into the swing o' things.
I haven't had a chance to catch up on everyone's blog yet. I will do my best. School started last week, and it's keeping me pretty busy. I have finished three projects since we last "met". I will have photos and details soon.
xoxo

The Good, The Bad, & The Pain

The good-
The sweet and lovely Reese was visiting the Bay Area. She swung by the shop so that we could meet, and she could ogle the yarn of course. You can take it from me, Frank & Reese are just adorable in person as they are on Flickr. Also... Make sure to check out her hand dyed yarn... Gorgeous! I forgot to bring my camera, but Reese didn't. So hopefully, a photo soon to come.

The bad-
Saturday night my friend Kate, her friend Fiona, & myself were heading to get some dinner, and possibly knit later in the evening. Kate was driving, Fiona was in the front seat, I sat behind Kate. We were stopped at a red light, we heard crazy loud screeching, and then "SMACK! SMACK!" Everyone had seat belts one. I didn't realize it first, I was so high on my adrenaline. I got out of the car to see if Kate needed any help. Per the nice police officer's request, I moved Kate's ca into a nearby parking lot. That is when my neck started hurting, then my back.

The Pain-
I was in a c-spine collar, on a board in the ambulance for about an hour before we even left for the hospital. It was a super crappy night. The accident was around six thirty, and I didn't leave the hospital til after ten o'clock. After a dozen uncomfortable x-rays the doctor released me, with a stack of pain killer prescriptions. My neck, and upper back hurt so bad!!!! The worst part of the whole evening was that I had to pee really bad on the way to dinner. Then I was strapped down to a rock hard board, straps weighing on my about to burst bladder. At one point the pain from having to pee far surpassed my neck & back pain. I was crying like a baby. Much to my horror, a nurse wheeled me into a private room to "help" me pee. As humiliating, and horrifying as that experience was, DAMN if I didn't feel so much better from the waist down.

There were no major injuries to anyone involved in the accident, thank heavens. Kate's car had a small smudge on the bumper. The other two vehicles were screwed up pretty badly. Being in the backseat, I sucked up most of the impact. I actually flew forward & whipped back.
Ahhhhh, good times. Now back to my game shows & vicodin.

I am knitting once again

• Yarn-Mmmmmalibrigo, in Dusty Olive
• Needles-US#7/4.5mm
• Pattern-modified lace-up fingerless gloves, from AlterKnits
• Finished-almost there

• Yarn-Manos #'s 36 & 68
• Needles-Us#8/5mm
• Pattern-Directly from AlterKnits
• Finished-Sept 05

I LOVE my fancy lace-up mitts, but the laces make them hard to wear under coats, at work, or anything that requires me to use my hands. I really wanted a pair to wear for everyday use. I guess that I have freakishly small wrists because any glove that try one, store bought or handmade just swims around my wrists, no warmth there. So I played around with the numbers, knit the entire thing in the round. And am super dooper very happy with the results. I may make a few more of these for myself. My hands are always cold, and with all of the injuries to my upper extremities, warmer is always better.
Of course I started a whole new project, rather than finishing up one of the five that I already had going!
And now for the gratuitous yarn shots...
Malibrigo in Lime Blue
No plans, just had to have it!
Blue Sky Cotton, Cumin #605, Graphite #625, Pumpkin #622, Azul #628
It's going to be a baby blankie
Joseph Galler-Peruvian Tweed, in #113
Any ideas? It's 100% superfine alpaca, 600 yards
Louisa Harding-Kimono Angora, #5
No plans yet, it was given to me.
Prism's Kid Slique in Woodlands
This will be a fancy scarf/cravat type thingy. I have deep lust for this yarn, the colors are beyond perfect. I knit the shop sample of this yarn last year.
Plymouth Baby Alpaca #2160
This is going to my secret pal, she has a thing for alpacas.