Its good to be home....

After a long week of travel its good to be home!

And what great contest entries!! Its fun to dream and to see what everyone else dreams of....
The winner of last week's mini-contest is: Selana!
E-mail me with your address and I will get your prize in the mail!
(Tianne, your prize went into the mail today!)

Now that boxes are being received, I am going to hold off on another contest. I know that my pal's box is going out tomorrow. So hopefully there will be lots of spoiling here soon!

And anyone who dressed up this year and would like to post your picture here (or your kids pictures), have at it!! I LOVE costumes!

Remember to keep talking to your pals and doing nice things for them!! And on an admin note - all final boxes are to be received by the 15th of November!!

Happy Halloween!!

Melinda is still the best

Holy cow, another huge package from my pal. It is so cool from floating skull candles to a handmade wash cloth. As you can see it is kind of overwhelming, but that Interlacements is just so great!! EE!! I needed a photo frame for my work desk, and now I can stamp everything with bunnies (so punk rock in my book!). And check out all the yarn, so much stuff, I feel like a princess.

THANK YOU!!!

This was a great swap :)

PS: My box is going out soon, it is packed and ready!

my must knit list

I have it in my head to knit a funnel neck top like the American Apparel funnel knit shift dress...only not a dress, knit, and with sleeves.

I design my own patterns [and sort of on the fly] and I tried to do it with this sweater but with no luck...mostly due to a lack of yarn but also a misscalculation as to how this neck was made. Now, after driving all the way to the store [over an hour away] I have disected this dress and I am totally going to try again for my next sweater project :)

[the current flub up was frogged back to the bodice and is now a pretty scoopneck in the making so no real harm done :)]

I wish..

I'm a VERY slow knitter. Everything just seems to take me forever to do. And, in recently starting the Secret of the Stole, I've been bitten by the lace bug. I'm already a big fan of socks, they do take me a little longer than the average bear, but it's fairly instant gratification. I've even done lace socks (see Hedera), and been very pleased. But these babies? Ooh yeah. If only I could increase my stitching speed, they might not take three years to finish. And of course, I'd have to make it out of cashmere. Do they make fingering/lace weight cashmere? I'm sure they do. See, I've never researched cashmere, that's how far out of my budget it is. Now I have to go buy some just on principle. Anyway, cashmere stockings. Super soft, nice and warm, and lacy. What's not to love?

And I'd add in a lace shawl for every outfit. Because, if I had infinite knitting skills, it wouldn't take me a year and a half to knit a lace shawl. It'd take me a week. So I would make several. :)

Someday Knit

What would I knit if I could? Without limitation?

Definitely the One Piece Wonder from the Knitting Lingerie Style book, it's on the cover. And I will. Some day.

And this. Even if I have to reverse engineer it. Or...unvent. (seriously. hit the link, it's worth it)

My wishlist for when Maverick puts me on my allowance

I have a couple of things I want to make when I can get time to do as I please. I call this when Maverick ( my mate) gets financial enough for me to stop work and have an allowance and get to knit to my hearts content.

I want to make Prince Williams Christening set and the shawl to go with it The Heirloom Shawl. One day I will get them done and try to win a prize in a show with them.

I'd love to knit...

... a birch shawl. But I hate the thought to cast on lots of stitches, so I'd prefer the pattern variation started at the bottom. I will give you a link to the pattern later, I'm not at home right now.
As for now, I don't have enough time to knit something big in a lace pattern, so it seems I have to wait a while longer before I own one of those...

NEW CONTEST

These are two of the many things I have on my list, for someday....they are Rowan designs by Kaffe Fassett...

IMG_5073

IMG_5073
Originally uploaded by sunneshine

I am a bit late with this - but this is my favorite knitting tool. It is a counter for rows, increases/decreases and times. It keeps me motivated through mounds of stockingette and measured decreases....

Sooo.... the winner of the mini-contest is Metal and Knit! Tianne e-mail me with your address and I will get your prize out between trips on Friday morning!

Thanks to everyone who entered. I think its so interesting the variation in knitting styles and things that we all do, with pretty much the same results!

Sooo, for this week's mini-contest, if you had all the time, patience, money and knitting skills necessary, what would you make? Please provide a photo or a link to the pattern and tell us what yarn and color you would use... I know there are several of these projects in my queue that take more time, concentration or money for amazing yarn then I can offer right now....

Happy Knitting!!

The New Home...

Here is my mommy's new blog - Girly With A Twist. See you there!

The Sock Tool

A friend taught me this but one of my favorite tools is a sock. Not a sock I knit, just a normal, ordinary, comes from the store sock. I put my ball of yarn in the sock while knitting and it prevents my cats from gaining access to it and attempting to rip it to shreds. (They have a particular love of Noro Big Kureyon...) It also makes good secure storage for the knitting project if it is small. (Although, I suppose it would look kind of silly carrying a bulging sock full of yarn around town...)

Ummmm. I could add a picture here but y'all know what a sock looks like. Heh!

My favorite Tool Box

My best item I use and carry nearly everywhere I legally can is my Tool Box as I call it. It is just a tool pouch from the Simply Knitting magazine and it has enough stuff to help me out of most muddles.

As you can see it holds plenty of essential tools and bits n bobs from sock needles to hand cream, buttons and needles even bandaids just in case of an emergency to help hold somehting together. It has helped fox shoes, items at work even on my car the odd thing was used.

I cant live without my tool box.

Favorite Tool

My favorite tool would be POST IT NOTES. I love my stack of post its. I use them on every pattern I work on. I make notes about mods I make, I make hash marks for number of rows or rounds complete OR I write out the number of rows to complete and mark them off as I finish them. I even use them to mark my place on charts. The sticky back comes in very handy there. Post It Notes. . . my favorite knitting tool.

Favorite Tool

This is rough. My big projects bag is full of cow-patterend items. A DPN case, a needle roll, a notions bag, even stitch markers! But, my favorite is my cow tape measure. Originally, my SP (from SP 8 I believe) bought it for me. It tickled me soooo much!! Even after much abuse from children, and being chewed on by my cat, I still used it. Finally, the tail fell off, I taped it back on. Then, my oldest pulled too hard...and it refused to retract the tape measure. It was time to give it up.

I was so sad that I went online and hunted down another tape measure. Exactly like the first one. My notions bag is usually in my purse (my on the go knitting bag), and I love having that little cow buddy with me to measure whatever I need!

(I'll add pics later, apparently I don't have any good ones right now)

Contest - my favorite tool

I finally managed to take a photo of my favorite tool I use with my crafts... Besides my knitting needles and crochet hooks, it is definately my old, worn wool winder. It makes great center-pull yarn cakes out of my skeins or left-over yarn and helps when I frogged something to create a ball again of the yarn.
And center pull balls are absolutely great, no more yarn that is rolling around in the room, you can knit everywhere without problems... Knitting got a lot easier for me when I got this great tool.

Goodies from Down Under

Today was a good mail day. I received these goodies all the way from Australia. The chocolates will be gone by the end of tomorrow. I love the yarn. It's really soft and its a great color. Thank you Leanne!!! The package was well worth the wait. My oldest (5 year old Nathan) liked the wraping paper.

Got my package!!!

Yahoo! My pal is awesome :)

I got my first package yesterday, all the way from the NETHERLANDS! That just totally rocked my socks off, lol.

What did I get? Well, first of all, everything was wrapped up so pretty and it was so fun guessing what things were by squishing them :P



Then, upon tearing madly into all the packages, this is what I got!



The book, "Knitting Lingere Style," which I have been wanting for awhile now. Totally awesome patterns inside *happy dance* A skein of Opal sock yarn, which is sooo soft :) Some mystery candies that I believe will be strawberry because they have strawberries on the label, lol and some orange and green stitch markers. Yay!

Thank you so much, my pal. You're awesome and I love my goodies :)

Kind-of a contest

The blog here is getting quiet - all but two packages have been posted... BUT that doesn't mean that you should ignore your pal, by all means, keep in touch, send an e-card, do something fun, post on their blog, send them an awesome book on CD, something......

To stave away the boredom during the lull between boxes, I think we should do some mini-contests. The prizes will be small, but there will be one given each week. I am not going to post them here, so whoever receives them, can post them - although I can guarantee there will be a set of stitch markers in each... All prizes will be chosen from the Shriners hat at random, for all who enter. (And if you have a fun topic, let me know!!) A new contest will be announced next Monday - provided there is participation....

This week - What is your favorite knitting tool/knitting aid? Please post of photo of said tool/aid... Who know maybe we can all learn a couple fun tricks!! This contest will end on Sunday night at midnight Denver time. A name will be drawn Monday night...

Thanks for playing!!

KrispyLove says-

Here's a pic of what my secret pal Shannan sent. The cookie container WAS full of homemade Pine Nut Biscotti and was stolen by my DD and DH. I'll stab em' with my new 0 DPN's when I get the chance. Rhinebeck is next weekend and I will be shopping for Megi again, fun fun fun.

Thanks Twisted Knitster!

Despite the mail strike, which is all still partially ongoing (supposed to be off but I was told today that there's no guaranteed deiveries) I had a wonderful surprise today when the postman knocked on my door about an hour ago.

There was some lovely yarn, a really great personally made for me project bag with pockets, chocolates (really lovely) and more than a dozen CD's to listen to. Oh, and a badge!

Thank you twisted knitster for a great package. Off to my own blog now!