I bring you both today. My eye candy is this handspun skein of misshawklet’s I bought to make a scarf for the Red Scarf Project. Isn’t it beautiful? I’m going to make a lengthwise scarf with the other handspun I have from her so it will be red with some blue. I will make it shorter and wider so either a girl or guy can wear it. A guy can have a teensy bit of nylon sparkle can’t he?

And Saturday sky at 7:45am on 9.30.06. Balloon Fiesta starts next weekend!

Taos Wool Festival is next weekend as well, which I’m going to miss again this year. I’m really bummed but there is no way I can do it. I’m organizing a neighborhood breakfast, both kids have soccer games and then I have one on Sunday. I can’t miss any of that. Maybe next year?

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

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PIMP -

However, as a verb
1.) to pimp something out is to *make* it look very ghettofab and all that nifty stuff in the above paragraph.
2.) to pimp is to advertise (generally, in an enthusiastic sense) or to call attention in order to bring acclaim to something; to promote.

Somebody buys some hideous plaid pants and then adds about five pounds of metal chains … well, that’s pimpin’.

A friend creates a collage of … Angelina Jolie’s various tattoos … you pimp the collage to others, so that they’ll see her work

**from urbandictionary.com**

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First up is Lisa’s new book Yarnplay. I can’t wait to get my hands on this. If you don’t recognize the name go and get your Stitch ‘n’ Bitch book. I’ll wait. Go ahead…….you back? Remember the Big Bad Baby Blanket? Yup. That be her! She’s done a ton of stuff in the knit world over the years but this is the most exciting thing to date. Go and buy her new book because it looks fantastic.

Next up is The Crafter’s Companion. Anna, aka twelve22, has just put this out and I have already pre-ordered it because I love books like this. Go check it out.

What about Spin to Knit? Shannon Okey of Knitgrrl is the author of this book. I want you to all buy it because my girl Pippi is in it! You all know that Pippi rocks the spinning world right? If not? Go buy her yarn dangit!

That’s a good start. I may come back and add some more stuff later. You can always leave suggestions for other pimped out goodness I might not know about or have forgotten.

And it’s Thursday. You know what that means. Survivor! Grey’s Anatomy! ER! That’s like three solid hours of knitting my friends. I think I can finish my sock tonight.

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Or at least where I spend the majority of my time these days. It’s nothing special really but I thought you might want to see where I do all of my work. My supplies keep multiplying therefore my space continues to grow. When I first started I had one container for the dyes in their jars and one laundry basket with the dyes in their containers. Now I have the dyes inside on a cart, a new storage unit outside and the yarns all in a closet in the office. I have about 50+ lbs of yarn that should be here any day and I have no clue where that is going to live. I need more space! I also took a picture of one of my most favorite pieces of art we have in the house. It’s a felted piece that symbolizes creativity. It hangs in our dining room which is also where I do most of my computer work.

As you can see. My dye room is my porch. Luckily It’s nice most days of the year to work back there. I love it. I get the sun all day and my yarns only take a few hours to dry. A lot of the time I bring my computer out there and listen to podcasts.

Not very exciting now is it? But hey. It works for me. Also, this way I don’t get dye on my pretty tiled floor. So that’s where I do all of my work! Click the picture to see the individual pictures.

In shop news I have a lot going on behind the scenes. In about an hour I’m meeting with Merchant Services so I can have my own credit cards on the website. This way you don’t need a Paypal account to buy yarn from me. It will also make a huge difference for the next round of the Indie Swag Club as it won’t oversell spots! I will still accept Paypal though so don’t worry if that’s what you like to use.

The other stuff…..I’ll tell you as soon as I can. I’m getting really excited about it though. I’m blaming Bruce as it’s his fault. Yesterday, Supergirl and I met him for lunch along with his beautiful daughter and as always, he got me thinking about what else I can do with my business…..wait and see!

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I knew you’d like this one. We were eating dinner on the porch and Supergirl yelled, “Look!”

This was taken from my back porch. I am truly fortunate to live here.

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I’ve gotten a headstart on my first pair of socks for the month. I plan on making another pair for supergirl in a colorway of her choice to be worn with her Crocs she loves so much. These are just a basic pair of stockinette in my own colorway. I started them back in June and only got a few inches so I could see how the striping worked. Read about it here if you want. I love how it’s turning out. It’s fun to finally knit with my OWN yarn! This is the 100% superwash merino and it’s super soft. And this is still, the only skein of yarn I have kept out of the hundreds of skeins I’ve dyed…

I did the eye of patridge heel as it’s one of my favorites. I hope to finish this up in a day or two and knock off the other one so I can wear them! It’s getting chilly here in the mornings.

I made a new deal with myself to leave my laptop on the dining room table and not bring it down to where I sit at night. This way I will actually get 2-3 hours of knitting done a night. I’m seriously determined to finish up most of my UFO’s. After the socks I’m tackling the shadow shawl dammit!

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Saturday:

1 scarf bound off

17 skeins of club yarn dyed

13 more skeins wound

3 custom ordered skeins wound

4 soccer goals for Supergirl (3 for us, one for the other team… DOH!)

10-2 final score Cheetah Grrls

1 soccer ball smashed into Superboy’s face

0 bloody noses

5-5 final score Golden Dragons

4 cheese enchiladas, 4 tamales, 1 taco and lots of beans & rice from Los Cuates eaten by all

1 Airborne to get rid of the sore throat

1 movie I actually stayed up and didn’t fall asleep watching

Sunday:

1 triple grande latte from Starbucks that barely woke me up

3 loads of laundry washed, folded AND put away including all sheets on the beds

1 newly organized and cleaned refrigerator (the pictures on the outside too)

1 competely cleaned and organized counter

1 completely cleaned and organized master bedroom FINALLY!

2 Dayquils for the cold my body is currently fighting off

1 birthday party for the boy who is riding the Tram as I type and then hiking up around the Sandias

1 napping Supergirl

1 cup of soup

1.5 hours of solid running for my soccer game

3-0 final score. Gooooo Nemesis! (we are currently 3-0 with our games too!)
= one very tired mama and it’s only 1:30pm 5:40pm.

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Also, I’m tagging everyone who sees this to give me 1-5 of your most favorite blogs. I’m always looking to meet new peeps! They don’t have to necessarily be knitting/craft blogs.

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It’s cloudy. So I combined my Saturday Sky picture

with the scarf some of you wanted to see better.

Click it to see the bigger version.

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I am totally stealing knittyotter’s new eye candy button. I love it!

I just finished my second FO of the week. Oh how do I love thee.

Some of you asked for the details. With the help of a few Village Wools girls I came up with this pattern. I feel kind of silly even writing it out since it’s pretty dang easy!

Scout’s Lengthwise Scarf

1 skein of bulky handspun yarn - I used some misshawklet’s
1 skein of MODA-DEA Laisy Daisy
1 skein of novelty yarn of your choice. I really liked this Ironstone - Bahamas because of the coiled nubs throughout.

1 - circular Addi Turbo US 11 - 40″

Cast on 200 stitches loosely with the bulky handspun. Knit in garter stitch and alternate the yarns every row. Each time you add in a new yarn make the tail as long as you want the fringe. Make it as wide as you want. I like mine skinny so I only knit about 11 rows and made sure to use the bulky handspun again to bind off. (to create the borders of the scarf) To make the bind off really super stretchy, use a US size 17 to do the bind off. Tighten up the fringe and trim to desired length.

Let me know if you make one.I’d love to see it.

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“May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.”

Scout, the ex-teacher, gives all of my friends and their kids a Rosh Hashanah activity! Haaa!!! And no, you don’t have to be Jewish to play. Click it for the proper size.

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Funky Scarf - Check! And to all my cynics…. I STILL KNIT! THPPPPPPPPPPPPTT!!!

I really had fun with this. Here is a close up of the funkiness.

I already started a second one last night for myself but using the other color of the MODA-DEA Lazy Daisy I bought. Can you guess what color?

Shocker! It’s purple. It looks really pretty with the misshawklet handspun.

And finally, I made a purchase yesterday and I’m blaming this all on Mona. She came to SnB the other night with her new Namaste bag. I even said, “The last thing I need is a new bag.” But then I made the mistake of looking at it online. And it was on sale. With free shipping. Damn! How can you pass that up? So this is now mine.  Go buy one! Aren’t they purty? And they’re 20% off!! /enabling

“Hi. My name is Scout. I’m addicted to cool bags.”  Yes, I have a problem. It’s the one thing I have a hard time not buying when I see one I like…..Go ahead Noelle. You can laugh. I’m weak.

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